Chapter 12

 

Chorus ended.

Nate had to go to practice. He said goodbye to Aleda with a promise to bring his car this time so she wouldn’t have to walk. Aleda walked the few blocks back to her house. She had just over five hours until her date. She wrote some of an essay due in English class, and then read a chapter in her history textbook. If she didn’t think about it, maybe she wouldn’t be too nervous. It was just a date. She had been on dates before. Kind of. Lunch, and rendezvous in the park. A movie-date shouldn’t be much different.

So why was she so nervous? There was no reason for her to be so nervous. He called her hot and said he wasn’t going to let her go, surely that meant it would be next to impossible for her to screw it up. Was it because he was the first hunter-born she had dated? No—she had been a wreck before she knew.

She looked at the clock. Five twenty-seven. An hour and a half to get ready. That couldn’t possibly be enough time. She should not have spent so much time on homework! She had all weekend to do her homework, this was much more important.

She looked herself over in the mirror for a minute or two. She probably shouldn’t wear the same clothes that night as she had to school. Hair? She would deal with her hair later. She needed to pick out something to wear. Twenty minutes later she had half the contents of her closet spread out on her cramped floor. Last night she at least knew she had to wear white. This time she didn’t even have Val and Mara to tell her what to wear.

Well, actually…

She grabbed the phone from between the couch cushions.

“Mara!”

“What’s up?” Mara asked on the other end of the line. “Aren’t you supposed to be out with Nate?”

“Yes! Well, not right now. But soon. Can you come over?” Aleda begged. “I need help.”

Mara rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll be right over. Crazy chica. Give me five minutes.”

Aleda hung up and went back to staring at her closet. It didn’t help much. She went back downstairs and stared at the fridge. She might be eating something with Nate. On the other hand, she might not. Should she eat something now? What if they ended up having dinner? What if they didn’t? Finally she reached a compromise. She poured herself a glass of milk and chugged it, just in time for Mara to walk in the front door.

“Howdy Solanas! Did I hear somebody in this house was having a panic attack?”

“Mara! Just in time!”

Aleda grabbed her friend and hauled her upstairs to her room. Mara raised her eyebrows at the sight of her floor.

“I take it you’re having trouble deciding what to wear,” she said dryly.

“A little,” Aleda admitted. “Help?”

Mara took a breath and rubbed her hands together. “Right. Well, it’s cold out so you’ll want pants. Something other than jeans. As for a top…”

They finally decided on a suitable outfit for Aleda. She was somewhat doubtful, but Mara assured her that it looked great. Her hair was somewhat more difficult. To school, she wore it down or tied back in a ponytail. Mara flat-out forbid her from wearing a ponytail, and Aleda didn’t want to just wear it down. Not only did she wear her hair down almost every day, the weather was damp enough that day to turn her hair into a frizzy mess. Her hair eventually ended up in a complicated knot at the back with a couple of hair sticks and several ounces of mousse. Mara even persuaded her to put on a little makeup.

By the time they had finished it was almost time for Nate to arrive. Aleda hurried to the living room to wait, and Mara left with a few final tidbits about not being a nervous wreck. It didn’t help much.

The sound of the doorbell made her jump. Here went nothing. She fussed over her hair a little more before opening the door.

Nate looked great. He had foregone his usual T-shirt and jeans in favor of a collared shirt and khaki pants. He pulled a pretty bouquet of flowers from behind his back and presented them to her dramatically.

Aleda grinned at them. “Thank you! Hold on, let me go put these in some water.”

She hurried to the kitchen and looked frantically for something to put the flowers in. She didn’t see any free vases—Papá brought Mom flowers too, and the few vases they owned were already occupied. Finally she settled for a tall plastic cup. She would just have to beg for one of Mom’s vases when she got home. Nate opened the door for her when she got back.

“You look really hot, by the way.”

Aleda blushed yet again. “Thanks. S-so do you.”

Nate’s car was a blue sedan. It looked like it might have been his mother’s. She got in, noticing that there was quite a lot of debris on the floor. If it had ever been his mother’s car, it wasn’t any more. Aleda got in the passenger’s side and waited for Nate to get in.

“You know, I never asked,” she said to him after he turned on the car. “Where is the movie playing?”

“The mall in Newark. It’s a pretty nice theater, compared to the ones around here. You ever been?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh, it’s great. Just wait.”

Nate flipped on the radio to a random station. Aleda didn’t recognize the song, but it was decent enough. Some kind of rock song. She was doing her best to learn American popular music, but she still had a ways to go. Val, in particular, had been especially helpful. She had lent Aleda several albums to listen to, and had promised to make her a mix CD eventually.

For now, though, her American music library consisted of the albums Val had lent her and one or two she had picked up herself. She had copied the music to her computer after Papá had shown her how, so she was able to give the disks back to Val.

“So,” Nate said after a few minutes, “What kind of stuff are you into?”

Aleda frowned slightly at him. “What do you mean?”

“You know. Music, movies, sports, that sort of thing.”

“Oh. Well, um… I like music. Nothing you would have heard of; it’s all Spanish. I like classical music,” she offered. Nate winced slightly.

“What, you don’t like classical music?” Aleda asked.

He shrugged. “Not particularly. I never saw the point of having songs without lyrics.”

Aleda paused for a moment, not sure what to say after that. Mom used to play her violin to make her fall asleep at night. Aleda had been raised on classical music. As far as she was concerned, the whole point of it was that a person didn’t need words for it.

Finally she just decided to continue answering his original question.

“I like most movies. Mostly comedies, I guess. But I’ll watch just about anything. As for sports…” she shrugged. “I don’t really follow any, but I like watching football.”

“Football? Really?” Nate asked. “I’m surprised. Since it’s an American sport and all.”

“Football isn’t American.”

“What? Sure it is. What’s your favorite team?”

“Manchester’s pretty good. As I said, I don’t really follow it.”

“Manch- Wait. You mean soccer?”

Aleda hid her eyes behind her hand, embarrassed. “Right, sorry. Soccer. I keep forgetting.”

“Not a problem!” Nate said. “Not a problem at all! Soccer is awesome!”

“You might be a little biased,” she commented.

“Hm. Maybe a little.” Nate grinned widely at her. “You’re going to have to come to my games. We’re pretty good, you know.”

Aleda returned his grin. “I can definitely do that.”

“What else?”

Aleda was silent for a few moments. She couldn’t really think of anything else that was interesting enough to tell him. He would never have heard of the music she liked, and he would probably laugh his a*s off if she told him about the movies she actually enjoyed. Independent Spanish films weren’t exactly mainstream in the United States.

“I can’t think of anything right now,” she admitted.

“Aw, nothing?”

“Well, what about you? Aside from footb- soccer, what sports do you like?”

“Oh, geez. All of them? No, not quite. I like regular football, of course, and I’ll watch basketball if it’s on. Hockey is pretty awesome. Hell, I’ll watch just about every sport except golf.”

“I take it you like sports then,” Aleda joked. Nate laughed.

“Yeah, I’m pretty obsessed. I admit it. I kind of wish our football team wasn’t so damn good so I would have had a chance to make the team. But it gives me more time to do homework, I guess.”

Aleda gave him a funny grin. “I’ve never seen you doing homework,” she said teasingly.

“I do homework! …Occasionally. Okay,” Nate admitted, “I don’t do much of my homework. Mostly I just hang out with the guys.”

“Don’t you get in trouble for that?” she asked. He shrugged dismissively.

“Not really. My parents don’t give a crap. They just check every so often to make sure I’m passing everything and that’s it. It’s not like I’m going to college or anything.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Aleda said. “My parents are the same way. Val and Mara hate me because my parents never get mad at me for getting C’s and D’s on my report card.”

“Wow,” Nate said, “I’m impressed. You bother with C’s?”

“I even get a B on occasion,” Aleda said. “Only in the classes I like, though. I’m only barely passing precalc.”

“Yeah, I’m going to have to do some extra credit or something for Spanish. My parents will kill me if I get held back a year because of that.”

“Well, you know I speak Spanish,” Aleda said. “I could maybe, you know, help teach you if you wanted.”

Nate looked over at her, contemplating her offer. On one hand, he hated Spanish. On the other, this was Aleda offering extra study sessions…

“Yeah, that would be awesome! I’ll definitely take you up on that.”

Aleda smiled to herself, glad to have found another excuse to see him outside of school. This whole thing was turning out to be a lot easier than she had originally thought.

Not that she’d ever admit it to Mara. The crazy wench would never let her live it down.

They spent the rest of the drive chatting about nothing. The drive was a lot shorter than the drive to Philadelphia, but it was still a good distance. Aleda was glad for the radio to take over when the conversation lapsed into uncomfortable silence every so often. After a few last innocuous turns the Newark mall loomed in front of them.

Nate pulled into the parking garage and spent a few minutes trying to find a parking space. The lighting was better than it had been at the parking garage Talia had used in Philadelphia, but it was still pretty dim.

Unfortunately, they had come to the mall on a Friday night when there were several new movies out. The parking lot was absolutely packed.

Nate had to park just about as far away from the entrance as was possible. By the time they found a parking spot they saw almost nobody else in the garage—just cars. Rows and rows of cars and not a soul to be seen. There had been a few people in the lower levels, but here it was empty. Just cars and gloomy fluorescent lights. Nate grumbled unintelligibly at the mass of cars preventing him from parking as close as he would have liked.

“Sorry about this,” he said to Aleda. “I forgot how much mall parking can suck on a weekend.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s not that far.”

“Yeah, I guess. Still, sorry.”

When Nate had parked, he came around to meet Aleda on the other side of the car.

“I know it’s not that far,” he said, “But it’s pretty dark in here. I’m not letting you out of hand’s reach until we get inside.”

Aleda gratefully took the hand he offered. Whoever had designed the lights in that place must have taken great care to use the creepiest shade of yellow possible. She didn’t even know that yellow could be creepy until then.

Fortunately, they reached the mall entrance without incident, save that Aleda’s palm was starting to get a little sweaty from nerves and from holding onto Nate’s hand. She hoped she hadn’t been squeezing his hand too tightly. He hadn’t complained so far.

She looked around the mall with interest. It wasn’t quite what she was used to, but there was something very appealing about the mad rush of life spread out in front of her. If anything, it felt safe.

So many souls living, laughing, shopping. The building practically hummed with life. Even if there were some walking around of inhuman stock she had no way of seeing them. For that matter, with this many people in one place it was more than likely that there would be several hunters roaming the halls as well.

Nate guided her to the theater. They got in the line for tickets and looked up at the board displaying the showings for each film.

“So?” he asked, pointing to the board. “Which one do you want to see?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You pick.”

“Ahh, a test. Very well, ‘Punch Drunk Love’ it is. The next showing is at 8:10. That gives us a few minutes to get tickets and popcorn or something.”

Nate bought two tickets from the kiosk and moved Aleda off to the side. “Alright, we have forty minutes until the movie starts. It’s opening night, so we should probably get in there early. Do you want any popcorn?”

Aleda nodded. “Yeah, that would be great.” Some solid food was definitely in order. While she could last until breakfast if it was necessary, she did not count a glass of milk as dinner. “I’ll pay for it, if you want.”

“No, don’t be silly. I’m paying,” Nate said. He ordered a large popcorn and two sodas from the teenager working at the concession stand. “Alright, we’d better get in there. This is a pretty popular movie, and I don’t want to get stuck with crappy seats.”

“Okay,” Aleda said.

She grabbed the soda he had bought for her and followed him into the theater. Nate found them a pair of seats towards the back of the theater. The rows were already filling up.

Aleda looked around at the rest of the people. They were one row away from the very back of the theater, and the people sitting in that row looked like they were all couples. So did their row, actually.

Of course, this was the sort of movie that attracted couples, judging from the previews she had seen on television. She got the distinct impression that the people around them would be doing more than just holding hands once the lights went off. She kind of hoped Nate wouldn’t try anything. Not just yet. She had her standards, after all. Even though she had known Nate for a few months now, she still generally preferred a first kiss to come after the first date.

The lights went off soon enough. No movie yet, though. First came half a dozen previews for other movies. Some of them looked interesting. Some of them looked kind of stupid. By the fourth preview Aleda was getting a bit annoyed. She had come here to see a whole movie, not bits and pieces of movies. If they were going to have the movie start at 8:20, the ticket should say 8:20. Not ten minutes earlier. Oh well. The previews ended and she sat up in her seat a little when she saw the first of the opening credits.

Nate spent the majority of the film fiddling with Aleda’s hand. It was as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Nevertheless, he wasn’t eager to give it back. Aleda thought it was kind of cute. She wasn’t in a hurry to get it back either, so she just let him. It was a little distracting while she was trying to watch the movie, but then again the plot was simple enough that she didn’t have to pay a whole lot of attention to know what was going on. It was funny, it was cute, it was suitably romantic and in the end everything ended up in a nice neat little package. On the whole not a bad movie. Aleda was a bit glad, though, that Nate had paid for it.

They lingered in their seats for a few minutes after the movie ended. Nate seemed somewhat conflicted, as if he were trying to make up his mind about something, but after a few moments he got up. Aleda made sure to grab their empty drinks and popcorn bag, while Nate again grabbed her hand. She could kind of get used to that. She liked having somebody always right there so she wouldn’t find herself alone in the dark. It was comforting.

On the car ride back neither of them spoke. Both were too tired from sitting in a dark theater for two hours and from the long week of school. Nate pulled into her driveway. Despite how tired they were, it was still fairly early.

Mom and Papá were both awake; Aleda could see the light from the living room through the window. They were probably watching television before going to bed. They would have just come back from hunting. Friday nights were always the worst. The more people that were out at night, the more creatures that were out to feed on them.

He walked her up to the front door and for a moment she thought he might kiss her goodnight, but all he did was squeeze her hand one last time and promise to call her. Aleda smiled at him and wished him goodnight, then went inside to join her parents in front of the television.