An Ever Fixéd Mark (29 page)

*****

“You don’t have to tell me,” Ben said as he
came into the kitchen with her dinner.

Lizzie took the plastic bag with the Chinese
food. She pulled a plate out of the cupboard and started taking the
food from the cartons. She looked at him, knowing perfectly well to
what he was referring. She didn’t know if she wanted to answer him.
“What would happen if you ate this?” she stared at a stack of
plates piled in the open cupboard.

“My digestive system no longer works.”

“Yeah… but I don’t really need to eat this
Chinese food to survive. I eat it anyway.”

“You use some of it,” Ben closed cupboard
door. She could tell this wasn’t the conversation he wanted to
have. “If you go running in the morning, you’ll use more of
it.”

“Thanks, Coach,” Lizzie muttered.

“Elizabeth, I didn’t mean anything by
that.”

“No,” Lizzie shook her head. “But… what
happens if I put this in your mouth? Does it just sit in your body?
Have you really NOT eaten for two and a half centuries? Don’t you
miss… chewing? Do your teeth even work?”

“The ones that matter do,” Ben said
blankly.

Lizzie pulled the beef teriyaki off the
skewer. “I would miss food,” she looked at her plate full of greasy
vegetables, meats, and noodles. “What do you do for comfort food?
Is there a type of blood that is bad for you but just tastes so
good?”

“When I ate food, Elizabeth, I ate what the
earth provided. I knew many winters with a few salty meats and
moldy bread,” he looked at her. “I never had affection for pizza or
ice cream… I never knew.”

“Wow,” Lizzie felt sad and suddenly
disinterested in her low mein and appetizer sampler.

“But the smell of bread baking is still… I
sometimes get a phantom rumble in my stomach.”

“Food is such an important part of my
family,” Lizzie pushed her plate aside. “How do you… do you miss
having family?”

“I have you.”

“Yes, but… there will be… at some point if
this is really… you will have to meet all the crazy aunts, uncles,
and cousins. Oh God,” Lizzie really started to feel her stomach
swim and moved away from the kitchen.

“Your parents?”

“My parents,” Lizzie muttered and brought
herself to the brown leather chair in the living room. She watched
Ben follow her and settle on the couch.

“You aren’t eating?”

“Do you ever wish you had a family,
Ben?”

“Do you?”

She met his eyes. “Sometimes,” she cast her
eyes down, away from his gaze. “Will had a baby.”

“Oh,” he let out a heavy breath.

“When I had that stupid crush… I used to
imagine having a child with him, a little girl with brown curls and
green eyes.”

“And now?”

“I don’t want… his child,” Lizzie left the
chair, wanting to go back to her Chinese food. “But I don’t know
that I don’t want any child… ever.”

“This is an important conversation,” Ben
reached his hand in her direction.

“This is surreal,” Lizzie shook her head. “I
mean… I’m not going to have this conversation. You don’t need to
have children. You are forever young. You don’t need someone to …
take care of you when you’re old.”

“But there is more to having children
than…”

“What do they say when they start to age
passed thirty and it’s evident that you will exist on this planet
longer than them?” Lizzie said abruptly, realizing he probably had
this debate with himself before… with Maria.

“Do you want children?”

“I want… I want my disgusting dinner,”
Lizzie moved towards the doorway.

“Elizabeth,” he followed her.

“Maybe, I don’t know,” she paused. “It
doesn’t matter, if in the end, I choose you, does it?”

“It matters if you choose me and decide to
give up something that is important to you.”

“Haven’t I already… Ben I chose you,” she
sighed, thinking of Lily. She managed to push those thoughts aside
for nearly three weeks. She hadn’t forgotten them, but was able to
hide them in a neglected corner of her mind. Seeing Will knocked a
lot of things out of neglected corners.

*****

Lizzie was lost in the
ninth chapter of
Tom Jones
when Ben startled her from her concentration.
“All done?” she watched him turn on the computer.

“Pretty much,” he sat at his desk. “I should
get some storage boxes for the things I cleared out of that
closet.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“There are clothes that have been in there
for decades.”

“Are you going to keep them?” Lizzie was
surprised he had any packrat tendencies.

“Maybe not,” he laughed at her reaction. She
recognized the hunger behind his amused response. He saw her
apprehension and looked at his computer screen.

Lizzie glanced back at her book. She went
for a healthy run along the river that morning. She was tired but
still felt the invigoration of oxygen coursing through her body.
Did it tempt him? It had been ten weeks. They hadn’t spoken of it
since the night in her bedroom. She knew he was worried after she
cut her hand… but the stitches had long since fallen out. She
thought of her Chinese food and all the lipids working through her
bloodstream. Maybe the run didn’t matter so much when her blood
wasn’t as clean.

She resumed concentration on the book as he
read his messages and typed a few things. After she finished the
next chapter, she looked up and saw his eyes on her. She saw the
burn that excited her hide behind the smile he quickly offered. “I
have to run a few errands.” Lizzie knew one of those errands. It
was Saturday afternoon. “Do you want anything? I can stop at
Starbucks on the way back.”

“No, I went running this morning,” she knew
it was wicked to tease him like that. “I don’t need caffeine.”

“Okay,” he got up from the desk and stopped
to kiss the top of her head on his way out. “I’ll be back in a few
hours.”

“See you,” she pretended to read, but
couldn’t concentrate as the prick of disappointment overcame her.
She heard him get his keys and walk through the door. She sat
still, staring at page 116 for nearly twenty minutes, wrestling
with the logic in her mind. The logic that told her to stop asking
Ben every weekend since he held her so tightly above her elbows.
She knew it was for her health and safety. She knew exactly what
Ben would say if she did ask him.

Lizzie left the book on the couch and went
to the computer. The screen saver danced from side to side, never
bouncing into a corner. She moved the mouse and returned to his
desktop. She opened the internet browser and habitually went into
her email. She went up to the address bar to look for her Facebook
link and saw a bookmark for cambridgeblood.org. Lizzie took a
breath and decided to go to the page. The login screen she found in
a Google search months before loaded. Ben’s name was automatically
filled in, as well as his encoded password. Lizzie clicked to try
it. The screen paused for a few seconds and redirected her to the
site.

The home page had several photos of healthy
looking individuals representing both genders and a number of
ethnicities. She honestly couldn’t tell if they were supposed to be
the donor or the vampire. She skimmed quickly over the welcome
message. “Since 1948, the Cambridge Blood Clinic has been offering
vampire humans a safe alternative for blood acquisition. All of our
sources are screened to ensure healthy, relaxing, and satisfactory
nourishment. Vampires are carefully matched to sources based on
health requirements, preference, and history. To begin your match
process, please click here.

“If you are a source, please click here.

Lizzie clicked on the source link and was
redirected to a menu. She selected frequently asked questions:

What is the screening process? – The health
and safety of vampires is our mission. All sources are required to
come in for regular checkups between contributions. You will be
tested for drug use, diseases, and cell count. For tips on keeping
your blood healthy, please click here. To review the compensation
policy, please click here.

Does it hurt? - Most vampire/source
transfusions are no different than giving blood to a donor bank.
You will feel the prick of a needle and a little swelling after,
but no pain. Like donating blood at a hospital, you may feel
light-headed. The clinic provides beverages and snacks before you
leave.

Will I get bit? – Most sources and vampires
exchange through a needle. We have some vampire clients who prefer
a traditional method of feeding. You can make the choice on your
match questionnaire as to which method you wish to give.

How long does the blood exchange take? –
Expect to spend 90 minutes at the clinic for each appointment. This
includes a screening, cleaning, transfer, and recovery time. All
sources are welcome to stay in the lounge during recovery.

Is this anonymous? – Discretion is important
to everyone at the clinic. We guarantee your anonymity. If you wish
to use an alias, please click here to have one assigned to you.

Can I become a vampire? – The clinic is
strictly a feeding service. We do not condone the transfiguration
to vampire.

The last sentence made Lizzie’s heart beat
in panic. In spite of a curiosity to go back and click on all those
links, she logged off of the site and switched the screen over to
Facebook. She knew Ben was gone – and would likely still be gone
for another hour or two. She didn’t know why that last question
more than any other rattled her. She never thought to ask him that
question. She never wanted to ask that question. The fact it was
something a source would ask disturbed her greatly.

The Facebook homepage showed a series of
trivia about which she didn’t care and didn’t want to see. She
scrolled all the way down to the end, about to log off when she
caught the status update from Oliver – Oliver Cottingham is on
sabbatical.

There were close to thirty comments beneath
the status. Most of them were students bemoaning the fact that
Professor Ol wasn’t teaching for the fall semester. There were one
or two colleagues wishing him luck on his research project and
travel. Lizzie swallowed hard. Travel? She scanned back up the
screen and noticed that Oliver had posted a note with the same
title, “Oliver Cottingham is On Sabbatical.”

To My Devoted Students:

It is with great regret that another
semester begins at North California College and I shall not be
teaching. As many of you know, I have been busy researching the
environmental impact of tourism. In cooperation with the Museum of
Science and many enthusiastic students, we have been visiting
campgrounds and parking lots and amusement parks to measure… well,
trash and a lot of, lot of smog. I intend to spend this semester
finishing my research in California, as well as comparing results
with colleagues in other regions of the country. In the spring, I
hope to put all this random information into some form of writing.
But, as you can probably tell from this rambling paragraph, that is
not my strong suit. I will be back next fall teaching Environ
Science 100 – 500 again. Have a great year. And seniors, I’ll see
you in May at graduation.

Professor Ol

Lizzie felt really stupid. Really stupid for
thinking poorly of Oliver. He had changed. And not just because she
knew the story of Lily and his unrequited love for her. She let
herself smile fondly as she thought about his care for the planet.
That was an impressive and noble pursuit for someone who saw two
centuries of Earth’s decline. Almost as impressive as creating a
blood clinic.

She clicked out of Facebook and decided to
leave his office. Her mind wouldn’t settle back on Fielding. She
wanted to look back on the clinic website. She couldn’t… do that to
herself. She made herself a turkey sandwich and sat in front of the
television, but found that as compelling as the novel. She finished
a half of her sandwich and fidgeted about the room. She took
another perusal of his movie and music collection. Nothing settled
her mind enough to keep her thoughts from the temptation to go back
to Ben’s computer.

Her eyes caught the white roses under the
mirror. They were always fresh roses – except the two weeks he went
to Chicago and Lizzie let them die. Were they Maria’s favorite? She
couldn’t imagine any other reason he would have white roses on a
Victorian table. She never saw him buy or replace them. It was some
sort of ritual. Lizzie resisted the urge to go back to the
computer, but not to return to the buffet. She opened the drawer
with the silk napkins and found the photograph.

Lizzie forgot how sad she looked. She knew
about Oliver and Eloise. Did she know about Lily? Would someone as
Catholic as Ben said Maria was believe in something like Lily
coming back to find Oliver? Lizzie paused as that floated in her
head, feeling as though Maria’s gloomy eyes were staring back and
judging her. For being with the man she didn’t have the courage to
leave… and yet she left him in the most wretched way anyone could
leave. She killed herself when he couldn’t die. Ben said he took
her blood only once and that she hated it. Why? Lizzie was Catholic
once… she knew the hatred for bodily pleasure that dogma
encouraged. And yet… nothing thrilled her more than the thought of
her blood making Ben’s heart beat rapidly.

There was no clinic when Maria was alive.
Where did Ben go? Was she jealous of the sources? Did she think
there was some other exchange beyond blood? How did she feel when
Ben came home and put his warm body beside her, with the blood of
another woman coursing through his veins? Was Maria really the only
woman in two hundred years?

Lizzie put the photograph back in its place.
She remembered him telling her he kept his books because they meant
something to someone he liked to remember. Was that Maria? If she
was so timid and superstitious would she read Keats and Byron and
Henry Fielding? Lizzie went back to the office and pulled each
volume off the shelf one by one. She flipped through the pages and
looked at each title page searching for a clue. Any clue. Something
to show to whom the books belonged before he decided to preserve
them.