Suck It Up (11 page)

15

Odd Bedfellows

After Morning and Portia returned to the apartment through the back garden, Penny told him to never wander off again and sent him to his room. Not to punish him. She wanted him to get plenty of sleep. They had to be at the
Wake Up America
studio before dawn.

When Portia learned about their appearance on the most popular morning show in the country, she was angry at her mother for not telling her sooner, but even more POed at Morning. They'd just spent an hour hanging out, getting to know each other, and he'd
never
mentioned he was about to be on
Wake Up America
. But she didn't bang on his door and let him have it. His little oversight only confirmed her fears as they had walked off the bridge. Con guy was quick to tell charming stories that painted him as the poor little orphan, but not so quick to share the facts that could make or break her video essay. And the horrifying fact was, if Ally Alfamen played Barbara Walters to Morning she would totally steal Portia's
Portrait of the Con Artist as a Young Man
idea.

Portia took a calming breath, and asked herself what she often asked when teetering on the brink of panic.
What would Christiane do?

(1) She wouldn't panic. (2) She'd tell herself there was no point in trying to compete with Ally Alfamen and
Wake Up America
.

(3) She would ask,
What do I have on this story that nobody else does?

The answer came in a flash. Access! Intimate access to the two main players in a trumped-up story that was about to unravel on national television.

Portia fired up her camera, hit record, and threw open the door to her mother's office. “Mom, we need to talk.”

“C'mon in,” her mother said calmly. “Have a seat.”

Portia got over the shock of not being kicked out, and, still shooting, slid into the chair facing the desk. “You know, I've been trying to zero in on a subject for my college video essay.”

Penny went back to tapping on her laptop. “Something tells me you've found it.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Great. What's the logline?”

“A behind-the-scenes, uncensored look at a PR agent and her client.”

Penny glanced up with an encouraging smile. “Sounds terrific.”

Portia wondered if her mother had taken a ditz pill. “Mom, it's about you and Morning.”

Penny went back to her computer. “I'd be disappointed if it wasn't.”

“It's not going to be a valentine to you, or to PR.”

“Whatever gets you into film school, dear. Preferably with a scholarship.”

Portia plunged on before the drugs her mother had to be on wore off. “To do it right I need to go with you to
Wake Up America.
”

“I was counting on it.”

Portia waggled her head in disbelief. “You were?”

Her mother shut down her laptop. “You can go on one condition.”

Portia tensed, but was relieved that her mother was beginning to sound like her mother again. “What's that?”

“You sleep in my bed tonight.”

“Sleep in your bed?”

“Yes. In case Morning gets any ideas, we'll both be safer.”

The staggering implication that Morning might be so twisted as to have sexual feelings for her mother turned Portia's stomach. “Mom, he may be a pathological liar, but he's not a psychopath. He doesn't scare me.”

Penny raised an eyebrow. “He should. He's a vampire.”

Portia was speechless, except for an inner voice telling her to turn off the camera. Did she really want to go through life with a video showing the precise moment her mother went stark raving mad? But it was too late. There she was, in the middle of frame, looking as normal as a cult victim.

She lowered the camera, turned it off, and, for the first time in her life, looked at her mother like she was the child. “Okay, Mom. I'll sleep with you.”

         

As Portia brushed her teeth, she studied her reflection. She had always wished she had more of her mother's perky good looks and less of her father's long, aquiline features. But tonight, things had changed. If her mother's DNA included the whackjob gene, maybe she was lucky she had more of her dad's package. Then there was the best-case scenario. Her mother was just going along with the vampire thing because of some PR ethics code. Unlikely, Portia reminded herself; “PR ethics” was an oxymoron.

She spit in the sink, looked in the mirror again, and asked some tough questions.
At what point does the inside look at a PR agent become too inside? At what point does a filmmaker become a cannibal gnawing on the hand that feeds her?

A fang of toothpaste froth slid down her chin. It yanked her out of her guilt. She scooped water from the faucet, splashed her chin, then took another mouthful, swished, spit.

Returning to the mirror, she found her dark eyes hardened with resolve. Daughterly guilt wouldn't stop Christiane Amanpour, and it wouldn't stop Portia Dredful. Sure, blood was thicker than water, but truth was thicker than both.

16

A Tree Grows in Manhattan

As sunrise reddened the Big Apple,
Wake Up America
had already been saturating TV screens with color for an hour.

In the cavernous studio, Portia stood near one of the big cameras, shooting with her Handycam as Ally Alfamen began her interview with Morning and Penny.

Even though she was the most popular host on the number one morning show, Ally had the same problem so many overly attractive and articulate women had in TV journalism. No one believed she could be one of the ball-busting guys. It was the main reason she'd agreed to Penny's request to come on the show. It was her chance to show the world her newswoman chops.

The floor manager counted down. Ally set her bright red lips in a friendly smile. The camera answered with a red light.

“Welcome back to
Wake Up America,
” she announced cheerfully. “Which is exactly what we're going to do with our surprise guest: give you a wake-up call on the story everybody's talking about.” She turned to Morning and Penny seated on a couch. “Here's the young man behind the story, Morning McCobb, and his publicist from Diamond Sky PR, Ms. Penny Dredful. Welcome to the show.”

“Thank you,” Penny said.

Morning nodded nervously.

“Ms. Dredful—”

“Penny, please.”

“Of course, Penny,” Ally continued. “I'd be happy to make that
small change.
”

Penny answered her little jab with a catty smile. “My name often has that effect on people.”

“What's that?”

“Inspiring the lowest form of humor.”

The crew responded with an “oooh” as Ally's face stiffened. “Touché,” she said gamely, then turned back to camera and got down to business. “As you probably know, yesterday, Morning performed a stunt that has the country guessing his real identity. Is he a magician trying to break into the big time? Is he an actor playing orphan of the month for the Archdiocese of New York? Or is he what he claims to be? A vampire.” She turned to Morning. “Which brings me to something that's been bothering me about your interview yesterday.”

“What's that?” Penny asked.

“Everyone knows a vampire's greatest enemy is sunlight. Yet you decided to come out of the casket in bright sunshine. If you're a vampire, how can that be?”

Off camera, Portia zoomed tighter on Morning.

He cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. “The only vampires who can't handle sunlight—who suffer from solar phobia—are the very few who still drink human blood.”

“So that makes you a vampire who
doesn't
drink human blood?”

“Right.” He was glad to set the record straight. “Never had a drop in my life.”

Ally's face pinched in feigned confusion. “Let's see if I've got this right. You're a vampire who doesn't avoid sunlight, doesn't drink human blood, but
does
turn into a cloud of mist?”

He nodded. “Yep.”

She turned to camera and addressed her audience. “Which is exactly what we're hoping Morning will do now, and blow away all those naysayers who believe”—she turned back to Morning—“that you are, for lack of a better word, a fraud.”

Penny leaned forward, but Morning beat her to the punch. “Actually, Ms. Alfamen, I'd rather not do the Drifter, I mean, the mist thing. It scared some people yesterday, and the last thing I want to do is scare anyone.”

Ally reached out and patted him on the knee. “Oh, Morning, I'm sure you're perfectly harmless. Please, humor us.”

Ignoring her patronizing tone, Morning dropped his chin to his chest to concentrate.

There was a long pause.

Too long for live television.

Ally turned to Penny. “What's he doing? Is he going to cry?”

Penny opened her hands. “I have no idea.”

Ally had seen enough. “Well, folks, there you have it. Sometimes it's not pretty, but on
Wake Up America
we wake you up with the truth. Whoever, or whatever Mr. McCobb is, he's certainly no—”

A sharp, crackling sound snapped her attention to Morning. He seemed to disappear in a puff of white light. In his place was a small apple tree, no more than a sapling, in full white bloom. Its roots gripped the couch. His button-down white shirt ringed the base of the tree. Two of the longer roots wore his jeans.

Penny gaped wildly at the tree. His second transformation was as mind-blowing as the first.

Ally's eyes blinked incessantly as she tried to make sense of what had happened.

At first, Portia thought some circuit had fried in her flip-out viewfinder, until she looked past the camera and saw the white-blossomed tree where Morning had been. Her filmmaker instincts were overwhelmed. Her camera now shot a close-up of a cable snaking along the floor.

The studio was so quiet you could hear an apple blossom drop. One did.

Ally slowly stood and took a shaky step forward. She still didn't believe the guest she had planned to take to the woodshed had turned into wood. To be certain she had to touch it.

Morning couldn't see, but he had the senses of a tree, as well as a glimmer of shadow-consciousness. He knew he'd taken the First Form, the Hider. Then his dim awareness perceived something reaching for him. It felt threatening.

Ally's hand trembled as she reached for a blossom-covered branch. The branch mirrored her fear with its own quiver. The blossoms suddenly dropped like dislodged snow. The tree creaked as its girth and height expanded.

It was too much for Ally. She screamed and ran off the set. Her wake-up call had turned into a nightmare.

Penny white-knuckled the other side of the couch.

Portia still shot the floor. Her mental ship was more than capsized, it had disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle.

Then it all ended in one swift motion. The tree bent over like it was trying to touch its roots. When it snapped back up, Morning was back in his human skin and his Epidex. His pants were still on, but his shirt encircled his waist like a life ring.

         

In the pandemonium that followed, several things occurred.

The show's many producers reverted to what they did best. They focused on job one: the mental health and well-being of Ally Alfamen.

The crew didn't know if Morning was the next Houdini, a quick-change artist from another dimension, or precisely what he claimed to be: a vampire. But they did know the difference between a major and minor autograph opportunity. They swarmed around him.

Still slightly dazed and drained from his CD, Morning couldn't escape. He submitted to the barrage of pens and markers. As he scrawled his signature on scripts, hats, and coffee mugs, he couldn't shake the unsettling feeling that his CD had been far from perfect. He felt like a gymnast who performs a difficult move, almost loses control, but gets away with it.

Portia remained in drop-jawed shock-lock. Her arms hung limply at her side. Her camera dangled uselessly from one hand.

Unable to hold back a Cheshire-cat grin, Penny stepped next to her. Torn between the exaltation of knowing Diamond Sky PR was about to soar to a new galaxy, and motherly concern, she touched her daughter's arm. “Are you okay?”

Portia snapped out of her catatonic stupor. “Mom!” she blurted with a wild gesture, almost clocking herself in the head with her Handycam. “Is he for real?”

“It seems so.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I tried.”

“I mean
really
tell me!”

Penny graced Portia with a knowing look. “Sweetheart, you're sixteen. There's going to be a lot of things I
really
tell you that you won't believe.” She glanced at the excited crowd engulfing Morning. “Now, if I were you, I'd get some footage of his first fan swarm.”

“Ohmigosh!” Portia raised her camera and got a shot as the meaning of Morning's legitimacy sank in. The potential for her video essay had just catapulted past a Michael Moore exposé, past the greatest documentary Christiane Amanpour could ever imagine. But only if she cut a major deal. “Mom, here's the thing,” she declared, still shooting. “From here on, wherever you're taking Morning, I'm going too. The documentary I can make will pay for college
and
my first feature.”

“So it takes a vampire to get you interested in Take Your Daughter to Work Day?”

Portia ignored the dig. “Or week, or month, or whatev, I'm going with.”

Her mother nodded. “Okay, as long as you go as a filmmaker
and
my assistant.”

“Deal.”

As the throng of autograph hounds broke up, and a producer tried to get the show back on the air with the male host, Penny had gained an assistant but lost a client.

Morning had disappeared.