Finish The Urban Fantasy Parody

Cafe Society
1

Though students streamed out the front doors of Oakdale High School, sophomore Emma Van Brandt paused on the wide stone steps to pull her glittery pink phone from her bag. When three students walked into her, she deigned to step to the railing. Her eyes sparkled with excitement when she realized that she had a text from Charles Wessex.

Her joy turned to puzzlement as she read the words that he’d texted her.

Hey Emma
i think u should no i’m not like other guys.
i don’t drink human blood, and i don’t burst into
flames outside, but i’m a vampire. If that means
ur not interested NEmore i understand, but u had
to no.
kthxbye.

Emma leaned heavily against the cool stone of the railing and watched the other kids rush past like a school of salmon on their way to their mating grounds. Dammit, she thought, trying not to cry. If Charlie wasn’t interested, why couldn’t he have just blown her off like a normal guy? “I think of you as a sister” was cutting, but at least it was less insulting than pretending to be an escaped mental patient. Which, she decided, he might very well be. She knew so little about his life before he showed up in her history class three weeks ago.

“You okay, Emma?” A voice said, making Emma jump a foot. She looked up to see her friend Reilly staring at her with concern.

“I’m fine. I’m just indulging in a little self-pity. How come it seems like I’ll never find a great guy like Grace has?” When their parents died last year in a terrible car accident, Emma’s older sister took on responsibility for her. The twenty-three year old nursing student didn’t let her obligations ruin her social life, so her boyfriend was a semi-permanent fixture in the Von Brandt house.

Reilly looked confused. “I thought you didn’t like Harold. You said he’s really hairy.”

“Well, he is a little hairy. But I think he’s just Italian.”

“That’s kind of racist, Emma.”

“Whatever.”

“You also said he howls in his sleep when he spends the night.” Reilly pointed out.

“Yeah, about that… When I said ‘sleep’ I didn’t mean he and Grace were literally sleeping.” Emma replied.

“Eww.”

“But other than that he’s a nice enough guy.” Emma added.

“Wait, who are we really talking about?” Reilly wanted to know. “We must be talking about a not-nice guy if you’re looking for someone to measure up to hairy Harold. Which guy are we mad at?”

Emma stared off in the distance and refused to name Charles as the culprit.

2

Lew could tell that Emma was upset about something. She had that broody look again. With all his heart he envied Reilly, who could just go up and talk to her. Trying to watch her, without staring and being obvious about it, he was at the foot of the steps and wishing he was older, taller,* something*.

But Emma was a junior and Llewellyn J. Smythe was just a small, weedy, nerd of a freshman. The name his parents had hung on him didn’t help and he’d learned early to tell teachers “just call me Lew!” before they called his name for the roll on first days of class. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. When the latter happened the jocks would ride him unmercifully. Lew had found out he didn’t quite fit into his locker, the time Tom Stroud, the football captain, had tried to shove him in.

For all his social awkwardness Lew was very intelligent. School was so easy, especially math, that it was almost boring. And he could make a computer sit up and beg, or roll over and play dead. He’d done some hacking, just to prove he could, but had never tried to actually misuse any data. Sometimes he didn’t even need the computer, as he never seemed to forget anything. Lew was a wizard at Trivial Pursuits and similar games.

Just then he started, as Emma seemed to come out of her mood and came walking the rest of the way down the steps, right past him, with Reilly tagging along. Emma wore almost no makeup, she didn’t need it, but Lew could smell the delicate fragrance of some perfume or cologne as she passed. He wondered what it was, because maybe he could somehow get some himself and the scent would remind him of the girl.

He turned away abruptly, hoping he hadn’t been caught staring, and so didn’t see that she’d noticed him, giving him an odd look as she passed by.

3

Although Lew’s worshipful gaze escaped Emma’s notice, it did catch the attention of someone else. Across the street Charles watched him and burned, even though he was wearing a special SPF 70 sunscreen, a white hoodie, and a pair of ray ban sunglasses. He was also mildly annoyed that Emma was paying attention to her androgynous friend Reilly and within smelling distance of the president of the Trivial Pursuit club. Even the way she brushed past Lew made him jealous, because that was another one second interaction that would delay her response to his texts. Yet in a way he was also grateful to the two unremarkable teenagers that were keeping Emma from responding, because he didn’t know if he wanted her to believe him about being a vampire or not.

Even after three decades of being seventeen, Charles was still unable to manage his emotions any better than boys who breathed and had a non-liquid diet. His maker had apologized for that not long ago, explaining that vampires were changeless, and that meant that the under twenty-five vampire set forever lacked a fully functional frontal lobe. Charles had blown him off because his maker was always spouting facts that he picked up from Readers Digests swiped from 24-hour laundry mats. He could be really annoying to live with.

A now distant voice floated on the breeze. “Bye Reilly!”

Charles swore softly to himself when he realized that his pointless train of thought had made him miss an opportunity to watch Emma walk down the street. His keen sight normally allowed him to admire the callipygian aspect of her figure for a greater distance than mortal eyes. This thought too filled him with internal turmoil because he wasn’t sure if it was okay to gaze after her with such a proprietary air.

Ethics and Emma warred most of the time she was in sight. It was so hard to decide how to proceed where Emma was concerned. His maker told him that she was his soul mate, but Charles was unsure if that made draining her of every drop of blood the right thing to do.

For a moment he contemplating beating the crap out of Lew both to distract himself and to fit in better at his new school, but he sighed and decided against it. Instead he wandered into the CD store to check if they had anything new by Panic at the Disco! or Simple Plan.