Table Manners by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee [LEE, TANITH]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“People are into weird things.” He pointed toward Donna. “Go.”

Donna was a little older than me-maybe in her twenties-and had obviously bleached-blond hair and too much eye shadow. As she worked, it was clear she was afraid of me. Conversation eventually dropped, except for when Nathan made the occasional remark on our progress.

“What color do you want?” she asked at one point.

“Color what?”

“Contacts. Your eyes.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was something I’d never even thought about, changing my eye color. My eyes were silver, just like every other vampire’s. For a moment, I considered Nathan’s beautiful green, but that didn’t seem right.

Those were his eyes.

“How about blue?” said Donna impatiently. “You seem like you could do blue.”

“Blue,” I repeated weakly.

She retrieved a pack of contacts and spent the next half-hour trying to help me get them into my eyes. I couldn’t use a mirror, and I liked neither my own fingers nor hers poking me. Once the contacts were in, she applied a bit more makeup and finished just as Pete returned. He took my picture with a digital camera and then disappeared with Donna into the back to finish the badge.

Nathan walked over and checked me out. “Not bad. You make a cute human.

Just don’t smile and show your fangs.”

“I don’t look like Donna, do I? Her makeup’s horrible.” I realized how that sounded. “Oh, sorry. She’s not a friend of yours, is she?”

“Your makeup’s fine. And no, I’ve never met her. Pete’s always got a different girlfriend.”

“Is he your friend?”

“Kind of. We used to work together at a restaurant when I was in high school.

Then he got some money and opened up this place.”

“Are you in college now?”

“I should be.” I immediately regretted asking him because that easy humor he’d shown since we’d come in disappeared. Bitterness replaced it. “No money.

Besides, I spent so much time working in high school that my grades sucked.

I’m not good enough to get an academic scholarship and not connected enough to get a vamp endorsement.”

I was about to say that I could talk to my father, that he could probably get Nathan an endorsement. It was something vampires did if they wanted favored humans to be trained or educated for a certain position. These humans breezed through the college admissions process and had all their expenses paid for.

I swallowed off the comment, suddenly remembering everything that had happened. I could hardly talk to my father about that. In fact, it was unlikely I’d ever talk to him again. Instead, I told Nathan, “I’m sorry.”

“Unbelievable. I’ve never heard a vampire apologize in my life. And now I’ve heard you do it twice since we’ve been-“

The words dropped off as his eyes focused on something behind me. Confused, I turned around …

… and looked into my own face on the TV. Seeing my image was always a little surreal. Since vampires cast no reflections, we’d had no way of seeing our own appearances for eons. With the advent of technology like video and photographs, we’d finally gotten a way to see what we looked like.

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