As she spooned up the deliciousness, Eve couldn't put down her cell. She was scrolling through her to-do list, shaking her head. "You would not believe how much there is," she told Claire. "I mean, I've been doing this for weeks, and this list never gets smaller! It's insane. And I've only got a couple of days left. Oh! I need to get my appointment to get a waxing done."
"I really did not need to know that," Claire sighed. Eve threw her a wink and slurped up dessert. "Uh - I have something I need to tell you."
Eve's eyes widened, and she put both spoon and cell down. "It's Shane, isn't it? It's always Shane getting himself into some kind of crazy trouble. What vampire did he - "
"No, it's not Shane." Although Claire honestly couldn't blame her for jumping to that conclusion; Shane was trouble-prone, no doubt about that. "It's about Michael."
Eve smiled, but it looked manic and wrong. She was wearing an absolutely incredible shade of magenta lipstick, and her eye shadow matched. In the tired mid-last-century Formica and rusty chrome of the diner, she looked like a deadly, exotic flower, something imported from a place that had never seen day. Beautiful, but intimidating. And strange. "Well, at least I know Michael's not in jail. On the other hand, Shane just loves the gray bar hotel. Maybe it's the food or something." But there was a flash of desperation in her eyes. She didn't want to talk about Michael. Not at all.
Claire felt like something was pressing on her chest, driving all the breath out of her. "I'm not kidding," she said. "You need to hear this, Eve. About Michael." It hurt, saying this, physically hurt, and she felt tears tingle in her eyes. She blinked them away, fast. "I think he's seeing another girl."
Eve had picked up her spoon, and now she sat there, perfectly still, staring. She cocked her glossy black-haired head slowly over to the side, as if trying to puzzle out what Claire had just said. "Another girl," she said. "What do you mean, another girl?"
"A vampire," Claire said. "Naomi. She came to the house. I saw her. I talked to her. She asked for Michael."
Eve flinched, as if Claire had reached across the table and slapped her, and then said, "But . . . I'm sure she's just . . ."
"Just a friend?" Claire said when Eve couldn't finish. She felt like her heart was breaking. She could see the panic and horror in Eve's face, and the awkward way Eve put the spoon down. She clenched her hands together and started twisting her engagement ring.... "Maybe. I guess that's possible, but you should talk to him, Eve. You should ask. I don't think he wanted you to know about it. He hasn't told you, has he?"
Eve shook her head and looked down at her ice-cream soda, which was slowly melting. "He must have forgotten to mention it," she said, but there wasn't any conviction in her voice. "She came to the house?"
"A couple of days ago - remember when I went with Shane to give blood? She showed up after you went upstairs. I answered the door."
This time, it was definitely a flinch, and Eve glanced up. Her eyes were wide, and stricken. "He - he came upstairs later. We made up. He was - " She twisted the ring again, restlessly. "He was so sorry about upsetting me."
"Oh," Claire said softly. "And he didn't mention her."
"No. Not at all," Eve admitted. She suddenly flung her hand out across the table, and Claire grabbed it and held on, as if she were pulling Eve back from a cliff. "Oh God. I know Gloriana got inside his head, but I thought - I thought with her gone . . ."
"I know. But, Eve, I know he loves you. I just don't know - "
"If he loves me enough?" Eve laughed, shakily, and picked up a napkin to dab carefully at her eyes, making black blots of wet mascara on the paper. "Yeah, join the club. Well, what do you think?"
"It's not really what I think - it's what you do."
Eve sniffled and wiped at her nose. "This is ruining my makeup; you know that."
"You can blame me if you want."
"No. No, I don't." Eve sighed and looked up, trying for a smile but failing pretty badly. "I've known he wasn't totally - comfortable with this, you know? That he kept worrying, and thinking, and worrying . . . and I was just hoping that he'd stop, that it was cold feet, which is pretty stupid because he's a vampire and, you know, cold in general, but - I thought he'd get over it. It's just gotten worse."
"And he's not telling you about this girl."
"Apparently. Yeah." This time, Eve burst out in tears, and covered her face with the napkin. She had to use both hands, and Claire sat helplessly, wishing she could do something, while Eve bawled like a little girl. She finally got up and slid over to Eve's side of the booth and put her arms around her.
If the makeup had been extreme before, it was ultra-Goth now, with the dripping lines of mascara and smears. Eve started wiping it off, going through more and more napkins.
Marjo stopped by, took a look at the two of them, shook her head, and grabbed the desserts. She took them away and brought back a stack of napkins and a glass of water. "Wash that off," she said. "You look like a sad clown. Bad for my business."
For Marjo, that was all kinds of concerned and sensitive. Plus, she brought fresh cups of ice cream, for nothing.
Eve scrubbed most of her makeup off, leaving herself looking tender and raw and very young, and sucked down a deep breath and said, "I'm okay now. Here, eat your ice cream. There'll never be a better time, trust me."
The two of them ate, but Claire wondered if Eve really tasted hers at all. She kept hiccuping back sobs. "What are you going to do?" she asked Eve, finally, and her best friend shrugged without meeting her eyes.
"Well, pretending everything's just peachy hasn't really been the greatest idea," she said. "I could go full-on drama queen and scream and cry and throw things at him, I guess. I would have, a year ago. But now . . . now I think I'll just go . . . talk to him. I mean, I don't want to do that. It's going to hurt. But maybe it's the best thing for us both if we get it out in the open and . . ."
She kept talking, and Claire was listening, really, but the door to the diner opened behind Eve, and a man walked in, and an unnatural, weird feeling came over Claire, as if a wave of mist had washed over her. She blinked and focused on him, trying to figure out why she'd had that reaction - was it cold outside? Raining? No, it was same as it had been, winter-warm and sunny and dry.
Weird.
The newcomer wasn't so much to really notice . . . medium height, medium build, light blond hair. He was turned partly away from her, and from this angle there was nothing at all to distinguish him from a million other guys.
Then he turned to look their way, and for a second Claire saw . . . something. A flicker, an image, a vision. It was too short for her to really even process it, and she could easily have just imagined it, because there wasn't anything abnormal about this guy at all. He had even, regular features and eyes that at this distance looked kind of blue.
He stuck his hands in his coat pockets and walked past them to the counter, and then, without a word, went back outside, where he walked around the corner and vanished.
Claire turned to watch him go.
"Hey," Eve said. "Are you with me? Because I'm kind of in the middle of a crisis, here." She sounded annoyed, and Claire didn't blame her. She had no idea why she'd been so distracted. There wasn't any reason, none at all.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I just - thought I knew him, I guess." That wasn't it, but he'd felt somehow wrong. As if he didn't belong here.
"Who?" Eve twisted around. "I didn't see anybody."
Claire looked out into the parking lot. Nothing stood out there - no out-of-state plates on the cars, for certain. "Nobody, I guess. Maybe he's just passing through," she said.
"Wish I was," Eve sighed. "Anywhere else is better right now, including lava pits. Are you ready to go?"
"I - Yeah, I guess so." Claire dug cash from her pocket and paid for both of them, over Eve's half hearted protests; Claire got a paycheck (allowance?) from the Founder's Office for her work with Myrnin, and her bank account had grown to impressive four-digit numbers recently. She didn't quite know what to do with all the money, but spending it on a heartsick best friend seemed like a good option. "Home?"
"Is there a second choice?"