ROUND TWO

Dante: (sipping ginormous frozen pink umbrella drink due to losing bet at end of Round One)  Hey, I’m starting to feel happy.  How ‘bout you?

Ciara: (takes long sip of her chocolate martini) I was born happy, baby.

Dante:  Get out!  You too??  Do we jump up and down and squeal together now? (Takes another long sip)

Ciara:  Ooh.  Sorry.  I know you’ve had a rough life, to say the least.  We can change the subject.  Away from happiness, I mean.

Dante: (Rolls eyes) Ain’t got nothing against happy.

Ciara:  So what makes you happy?  I mean, deep down inside happy.  Or just surface happy.  No, tell me one of each of both.  Am I making sense?

Dante: (takes a long sip of his drink, almost poking eye with plastic fruit sword) Oui, you’re making sense!  I’m totally into happy, p’tite!  I don’t remember most of my past, so it ain’t really an issue to me.  At the moment anyway. 

D’accord, here we go – what makes me deep down inside happy:  As fucking corny as it sounds, playing my guitar.  Just all caught up in the music spilling out from beneath my fingers, the song I’m creating.  That’s when everything feels right and true to me, like whatever happens, I can work it through – when I’m playing my guitar.

Now surface happy – A good joke, a thick book, drinking with friends (lifts his glass in salute and slops a little over the rim) Oops.  Need to drink that down a bit. (eyes plastic fruit sword warily).

Ciara: (gazing at him with chin on fist)  Better not play the guitar for me.  I’m a sucker for a man with a large phallic symbol in his hands.  Did I say that out loud?  What I meant to say is that Shane feels the same way.  Not  about phallic symbols, about playing the guitar. 

(gets serious)  He hasn’t expressed exactly the way you said.  He’s a man of few words, after all.  But I can see it in the way he goes all far away and blissed out when he plays.  Music is his therapy.  Maybe even his salvation.

Dante:  Salvation.  I like that.  (Sets his lethal eye-poking drink on the counter, then cups her face between his hands and kisses her forehead with daiquiri chilled lips.  With a tilted smile, he releases her and grabs up his drink again.)  I like that a lot.  So tell me, p’tite, with this book, what has been your biggest surprise so far?

Ciara: (shaking herself out of sincerity) People friending me on MySpace and Twitter!  They send messages to say how much they love me--actually, most of them say how much they love Shane--and try to trick me into giving them hints about the next book.

Dante:  I feel your pain. 

Ciara: No, it’s great.  I love chatting with readers.  I love the whole being-in-a-book adventure.  The only weird part is not being blonde enough on the book covers.  What’s up with that?  And I would never in a bajillion years have a tattoo.  Hello?  Fear of needles and commitment? 

Dante: (laughs, nearly squirting daiquiri out one nostril).

Ciara:  (hands him a napkin) But I understand better than anyone that to sell stuff, sometimes you gotta tweak the truth.  When I was a con artist, I did a lot more than tweak, so in comparison, marketing is pretty tame.

Dante: (grumbles) I hate that. I know you’re telling it straight about tweaking the truth, doesn’t mean I hafta like it.  Oops.  Continue, s’il te plaît.

Ciara:  No, no.  Your turn.  So what’s your weirdest post-publication moment?  Do people stop you on the street and ask you to talk Cajun at them, or beg you to turn them into a vampire?

Dante: All of the above.  Heather’s a little steamed about the book covers for the same reasons as you, actually.  Her hair’s red, hello, and the tattoos – she said she’s never found a compelling reason to get one.  She also said she wouldn’t wear the latex outfit on the first cover, but I’d love to see her in it!

(He chugs the rest of the frozen daiquiri, then rubs his forehead from the brain freeze.)

Ciara: I will say that other than the hair and tattoos, the cover artists pretty much pegged my fashion style. But I hope one day I get to be in a mini-skirt, since that is my most common accoutrement.  (nudges his shoulder) See? I speak-a the French.

Dante:  (Chokes on the absinthe he was sampling from the bottle, offers his back for pounding.)

Ciara: (Rolls eyes, but obliges.)

Dante:  Now you in a mini would be smokin’, p’tite.  Maybe you should send the artist a photo of you in your fav mini.  Inspire him.  Have Shane take the pic.

Ciara: I would’ve worn one tonight, but decided to play it safe in case I needed to run—I mean, in case the air conditioning in here was cranked up. (fidgets with sleeve)  I didn’t want to be cold in a skirt. (mumbles)  Especially not permanently.

Dante: (Snorts)

Dante: (back to drinking absinthe and Absolut Vanilla)  Have you given any thought to moving the radio station and the DJs to a safer location?  Or do you think that ain’t necessary?  If so, go on, tell us why.  (eyes the level of her martini) How long you planning on nursing that thing? Decades?

Ciara:  Easy, boy—my liver’s only human, and so’s my blood-brain barrier. 

Um, your question.  Oh yeah, moving the station.  No, not feasible.  It’s specially designed to keep the vampires safe.  Going on the run is really dangerous for a vampire.  That’s why most of them find permanent homes with some sort of like-minded blood-drinkers, like the radio station gang or the folks out at Gideon’s Lair.

Dante: Oui, d’accord, that all makes sense, yeah. We have nightkind households here too.  Going on the run can be tricky, for true, even when you don’t hafta worry about bursting into flames. Do the nightkind in your world actually do that?  Burst into flames?

Ciara: I’ve actually never seen one burn up in sunlight—the ones I know are too careful.  But I’ve seen one catch on fire. (sighs) It’s awful. They’re just gone, like flash paper.

Dante:  Fuck, p’tite, that sucks.  My sympathies!

Ciara: And then of course there’s nothing to bury, which I guess from one perspective is convenient, but it makes for a very complicated mourning process.

Dante:  So name a musician, living or dead, that you’d love to work with, sleep with, whatever.

Ciara: This’ll sound so weird, but I’d love to have coffee with Liz Phair.  Maybe a drink or two.  I wish we suddenly found out that we were sisters.  We look a lot alike.  It could happen.  God knows my dad and mom might’ve forgotten to mention I have siblings scattered all over the country.  They forgot to tell me other important details about their lives.  (grumbles and drains the rest of chocolatini)

Dante: (Salutes her empty glass) Ça fini. Good job!  Whattaya want next?  Ain’t sure if you should have any more booze given the wishing to be Liz Phair’s sister comment.  But I totally dig what you mean about sitting down with a musician you admire and just talking and having coffee with them.

I’m sorry about your folks being such assholes and lying to you about almost everything, p’tite.  Or neglecting to tell you shit.  Ain’t right.  I’d be pissed-off too.

Ciara: I mean, I’m cool with reality not always being what it seems—I’m not a little kid who needs everything to be simple.  I enjoy puzzling out life’s mysteries.  But everybody should have one person they can trust.

(slaps table)  Jerry Lee Lewis!

Dante: You can trust Jerry Lee Lewis?  Is he that comedian?

Ciara:  No, no—I can trust Shane.  Jerry Lee is the musician I’d sleep with.  Not now—he’s like eighty or something, though he looks good for his age.  If I could go back in time to 1958, I’d sell my soul for a night with the Killer.  That man was diabolically hot.

What about you?  Which musician would you jam with…(nudges him suggestively with her elbow)…et cetera?

Dante:  I’d love to work with Trent Reznor.  He’s a brilliant musician, and his work is full of both razor-edged darkness and heartbreaking light.  Plus a lot of his riffs are sexy and fun to dance to vertically or horizontally. (Nudges her back with his elbow).

So what’s your earliest memory?

Ciara: Singing.  Not me—my parents, leading a choir, weaving their spell on the congregations.  People would be all skeptical, even after the “miracles,” until the music got a hold of them.  Then they’d start swaying and clapping, and it was like they weren’t individuals anymore, they were part of something bigger.  A giant pulsing mindless organism, ready to believe anything and beg for the chance to be taken for every cent.  But they sounded happy.  Music has that kind of power.  Good and evil simultaneously. 

Don’t you agree?  And notice me not asking you about your early memories, cuz I’m learning to be sensitive and shit.

Dante: [coughs] I can tell, chere. Do you think it’s taking?  The learning to be sensitive and shit, I mean.  But I totally agree with you. When I’m onstage with Inferno, the crowd becomes this single, fierce, pounding heart.  I get what you’re saying, for true.

Ciara: Speaking of memory, here’s a fun one: If you could tell Heather one secret with the option of having her forget it after only one night, what would it be?  Meaning, what do you want her to know but are afraid of how she might react?

Dante: (tosses back his drink) Hmm. That’s a dangerous question. It sounds like a cheat, though – to tell a secret, then have it wiped away if the reaction is bad.  Kinda like my whole life, yeah?  Nah, ain’t biting on that one.  (Lifts the bottle of absinthe to pour another drink, then shrugs, takes a swallow from the bottle, keeping his fingers wrapped around its neck.)

What about you, p’tite?  How would you answer that question given that Shane might read this?  (looks at her from under his lashes, a tilted smile on his lips). I’m beaucoup curious.

Ciara: I asked you first.  Let me rephrase: which secret would you tell her if you trusted her completely—meaning, trusted her not to judge or freak out or abandon you? 

(smiles coyly)  I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.  Promise.

Dante:  (leans in and kisses her lips)  Nope.  Ain’t going there.  If it’s a secret I’d share with her, that’s who should hear or see it first, p’tite.  Not you, yeah?  Do you still wanna show me yours since I ain’t showing you mine?

Ciara: (unfazed by the kiss, at least on the outside) You are officially, certifiably no fun at all.  We’ll come back to that later.  For now, ask me another question, since yours are so much safer.

Dante:  Any phobias?

Ciara: Astynomiaphobia. 

Dante: What the hell is that?

Ciara: Fear of the cops.

Dante: (snorts) You made that up! 

Ciara: (smacks his shoulder, eliciting a grin from him)  No, I didn’t!  Look it up.

Dante:  (Holds up hand, palm out) D’accord.  So why are you scared of cops?  I mean, aside from the fact they can lock you up.  Or is that why?  Most of the cops I’ve dealt with have been assholes . . . wait, maybe it was me who was the asshole . . . (laughs) Yeah, that sounds right.

Dante: (sits up straight)  Kelly Clarkson!

Ciara: (looks around)  Where?

Dante: Texas, maybe.  Dunno.  But she’s a singer I’d like to play with under the sheets.  Have you listened to “Addicted?” Her voice breaks my heart AND gets me hard.

Ciara:  (blinks) Okkkaaay.  Well, I think it’s safe to say you have a better chance with Kelly than I do with Jerry Lee.  Hey, I bet you twenty bucks you can’t follow along and do everything I do after me.  You’re too drunk to pay close attention.

Dante: (snorts)  Ain’t drunk. But I don’t wanna do what everything you do.  Can I do the opposite?

Ciara: Oh, come on, you’ll like it. It’s silly and it involves hard liquor. How can you lose? 

Dante: (shrugs)  Yeah, what the fuck.  Let’s play, p’tite.

(She fills four shot glasses with whiskey and slaps a twenty dollar bill onto the bar.  Dante scrounges a twenty from his pocket.)

Ciara: Ready?  (She beats out a simple rhythm on the brass bar railing.  Dante copies her no problem, amused at her musical ineptitude.  She downs her first shot in one gulp.  He follows suit.)  Woo!  (wipes her mouth)  That stuff has a kick, huh? 

Dante: Woo!  (wipes his mouth in imitation and mocks her voice)  That stuff has a kick, huh? 

(Ciara turns to the bar, her face set in concentration, then slaps out a more complicated rhythm and reaches for the third glass.  She downs the whiskey.  Cocky now, Dante repeats her action beat for beat and swallows his own shot.)

(Ciara spits the whiskey back in her glass and takes Dante’s money.)

Dante: (blinks.  Looks at his empty shotglass.  Looks at her full one.  Groans, folds his arms on the bar and puts his head down.  His shoulders shake and Ciara realizes he’s laughing.  Hard.)

Ciara (stuffing twenty down her blouse): That’s called “The Swallow.”  You can thank me later for—

(She’s interrupted by a loud knocking at the tavern door. They turn to face it, then back to each other, sharing a look of bewilderment.)

Dante: Uh-oh.

STAY TUNED FOR ROUND THREE!!!