Teeth: Vampire Tales

I played with you for a long time that first day, finding out what you could do, until Mommy came and bitched me out for being “missing.” How big was Grammy’s house? Not very, Mommy was just mad that she had to be there at all, even once a year was too much. Mommy and Grammy never really got along. Speak English, Mommy used to yell at her. This is Ohio!

So when she yelled at me I wasn’t surprised: What are you doing up here? with the door open and the afternoon light behind her, like a witch peering into a playhouse; I was surprised at how dark it was in there, I could see your face perfectly fine. I knew to hide you, Baby, even though I didn’t know why, I stuck you in the folds of one of the evening skirts and I’m just playing dress- up, I said, but Mommy got mad at that, too: Stay out of that stuff, all her Nazi dance-hall stuff, it’s all moth-eaten and disgusting. And anyway come on, we’re leaving now.

Can I take these? I said, pointing to the board games, I threw the games away when I got you home. You slept with me that first night, didn’t you? You got under the blanket, and fastened on. It was the first time I really had it, that feeling, like when you spin yourself around to get dizzy, or when you’re just about to be drunk, but a hundred times sweeter, like riding an invisible wave. I could see into things when you did that, see into the sky, into myself, watch my own heartbeat. It was so choice.

It’s funny, too, because I never liked baby dolls, or dolls of any kind. Grammy bought me, like, a million Barbies, but I don’t think I ever played with any of them, or the Madame Maurice dolls that anyway aren’t meant to be played with, Mommy ended up selling those on eBay. But you were different. It wasn’t like we were playing, I wasn’t the mommy and you weren’t the baby, I didn’t have to dress you up, or make you walk and talk. You were pretty much real on your own. If I’d been a little older, I might have wondered more about that; I mean, even then I knew you weren’t actually a toy. Or a “real” baby, either. You never cried, for one thing. And what you ate never made you grow.

But I knew you loved me since I got you out of that clothes box, and so you did things for me, things that I wanted you to do. Like when Alisha Parrish wrecked my Lovely Locket, and wouldn’t say sorry, and you puked — or whatever that was — all over her sleeping bag! That was choice. Or when I threw Mommy’s car keys down the wishing well in the park, and she told me I couldn’t come home until I found them. She was surprised, wasn’t she, Baby?

I let you do things, too, that you wanted, like when we found that dead raccoon out by the storage shed, remember? Or the time I was so sick with the flu that the fever made me see things, and I let you fly all around the room; you were smiling, Baby, and swimming through the air. I wondered, later, how much the fever had to do with it, and for a long time after I kept watching, to see if you would smile again, or fly. It was kind of like having a pet, a pet who was also a friend.

And a secret, because I knew without even thinking about it that I could never show you to anyone, not sleepover friends or school friends or anyone, that you were only meant for me. You knew it, too. And you were happy, you didn’t need anyone but me anyway.

For sure Mommy’s never seen you — Mommy doesn’t even go into my room — but Roger knew about you, or knew something; remember Roger? With the bald head and mustache? He used to look at me weird, like he was sad or something, and once or twice he asked me if I was okay: You doing all right, Jani? You feeling all right?

I’m fine.

Anything you want to talk about? If you’re not — feeling good, or anything, you can always talk to your mom about it. Roger didn’t know Mommy very well. And he didn’t last very long.

Definitely Flaco knew about you, I don’t know how but he did. He finally caught us in the hallway, in the Pensacola house, when Mommy was at the gym, he popped out of the bathroom like he’d been standing there waiting and So there’s your Santeria toy, he said. Come on, Jani, let’s see it.

He smelled like aftershave, and skunky weed; he was smiling. In the dusty hallway light, you looked yellower than normal; I could feel the heat coming off you, like it does when you’re hungry. I tried to hide you under my arm.

It’s just a doll, I said.

Ah, that ain’t no dolly, girl, come on. That’s a bat boy! A familiar. My uncle Felix had one, he called it Little Felix. We used to say it was the devil’s little brother. Flaco was still smiling; the skunk-weed smell was burning my throat. He bites when you tell him to, don’t he? Does anything you tell him to.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how he knew. “Familiar”? With what? The devil’s little brother. Family. You were squirming under my arm, I couldn’t tell if you were angry or afraid.

They can do some crazy shit, familiars. Come on, I won’t tell your mama. Let me see — And he tried to make a grab for you, he put his hand on you and Stop it! I said.

Let me see, girl!

You stop it, or I’ll tell Mommy you tried to touch me, I’ll say you tried to touch me under my shirt.

I wouldn’t never — That’s a sick kind of lie, Jani! But we both knew that Mommy would believe me, Flaco was pretty much a straight-up man-whore from day one. He let us go then, didn’t he, Baby? And he never said anything about you again, to me or to Mommy, even though I let you do things to him, once or twice — okay, more than that, but whatever, he was passed-out high when you did it, and anyway he deserved it, right? And even though he knew — he had to know — how it happened, those bites, he never said a word.

Flaco moved out that Christmas Eve and took all the presents with him, his and ours: A real class act, Mommy said, and then she threw a big Christmas party to celebrate, and get more presents. Mommy said she was tired of Flaco’s drama anyway, and really tired of Pensacola, and so was I.

So I hid you in my backpack and we moved back to Ohio, Bay Ridge, Ohio, and I hated it, hated middle school, hated the girls who made fun of my jeans and called me a trash burger and a slut; I was like eleven years old, how much of a slut could I have been? Even in Bay Ridge? In Ohio you wrinkled up like a raisin, and you barely moved at all — I think it was too cold for you there, I don’t think you can, like, process the cold. In Pensacola you always smelled a little bit funky, like an old sneaker left in a closet, or a dog’s chew toy, but at least you could get around. Once or twice, in Bay Ridge, you were so stiff and so still in my backpack that I thought you were, you know, dead, and I cried, Baby. I really, really cried.

When we moved again, down to Clearwater, things got better; you liked it better here, too, at least at first, right? It was warm again, for one thing. And I started high school, which is a lot more fun than middle school, and our house is a lot nicer, too: There are two bathrooms, and the solarium with the hot tub, even if it leaks, and the home office where Mommy works, she’s an online “consultant” now —

What kind of a consultant?

I’m a relationship counselor.

What kind of relationships?

— but the more I asked the madder she got, all pinched up around the mouth until she looked like Grammy; and really I don’t care, right? At least we have money now, at least there are no more boyfriends wandering all over the house in their tighty whities. Not hers, anyway. The first time I did it, with a boy, you knew somehow, didn’t you, Baby? When I got back from the Freshman Spring Fling, you smelled all over my hands and face, and then you went all stiff at the side of the bed, and you didn’t want to fasten on, you wouldn’t until I made you.

And when I woke up the next morning you weren’t there, even though I looked all over, and Mommy yelled at me for being late to school, I’m not going to call in for you again, Jani, I mean it! All day I thought, Oh, God, what if Mommy finds Baby? I couldn’t imagine what she would do to you, or to me. Kick me out, or — who knows what Mommy would do.

I was pretty scared, and pretty mad, when I got home. Mommy was sleeping, so I tore the house apart again, and when finally I found you, curled up behind the washer — where Mommy could have seen you in a second, if she ever bothered to look, if she ever bothered to do a load of clothes — Where were you? I said. I think I shook you a little, or a lot. Where the hell were you?

You just rolled your glass eyes at me and didn’t make a sound. All sad and cold and stiff, like — like beef