The Balance Thing (12 page)

I
wasn't the only one who'd had an eventful twenty-four hours. Vida had news.

“You slept with the vicar?”

She had sprung this on me as soon as we'd taken our seats for the flight home. “Maybe I shouldn't have said anything yet, with you being so upset about…But I've been dying to tell you all day and this is the first time we've been away from Max—and I don't want him to know yet because I'm not finished making him feel like shit about Phillip.” She gave me a bright smile.

“You slept with the vicar?”

“He isn't really a vicar. He was just a sham, like everything else about the wedding. He's a friend of Ian's cousin or something and got one of those Church of the Internet ordinations so he could perform the ceremony. Didn't you think he was cute?”

“You slept with the vicar?”

“Becks, are you all right?” A little worry line appeared on Vida's brow.

I stared at her. “I thought you were heartbroken about Phillip.”

She grinned. “I got over it. But don't tell Max.” She settled back in her seat and told me all about it. About wandering away from Shayla after I'd pounced on Sir Biggest Bastard on the Face of the Planet. About running into the vicar and pouring her heart out to him about Phillip (who remained nameless in her story, to protect his career—Vida was still a fan, after all). About a quiet stroll through the conservatory where the vicar came up with delightfully creative ways to comfort her. About his confession that he wasn't bound by any actual religious oaths to be a good boy, and about their subsequent steamy interlude.

“Right under a palm tree,” she concluded. “We might as well have been on a desert island.”

“Vee!” I couldn't believe she didn't realize what had happened. “He took advantage of you!”

“Yeah,” she agreed happily. “I know. And it was just what I needed.”

 

WHEN I GOT BACK HOME,
the following three messages were not on my answering machine:

At least that last one sounded like my old irrational fantasy life instead of the new, and disturbingly romantic, irrational fantasy life.

I did have three messages on my answering machine when I got back. They were just a very different three messages.

Good old Josh. I didn't call. I didn't even unpack. I just found my oldest, comfiest set of jammies and crawled into bed. And didn't get out for three days.

 

“I'M NOT DEPRESSED,”
I insisted. The fact that I insisted it while back in bed after a solitary dash to the corner market for five pints of Häagen-Dazs and a bottle of tequila might have undercut my defense, but since Vida didn't know about that, she couldn't reproach me.

“Tell me the truth, Becks.” She was calling from her cell phone on her way back into the city from her peninsula office. “Are you sitting in your PJs eating ice cream right now?”

“Of course not! That's such a cliché!” But it was hard to be properly indignant with a mouthful of mocha almond fudge.

“This has gone on long enough,” she said. “I'm coming over and I'm going to drag you out of your house if I have to. If I can get over the fact that my soccer star plays for Max's team, you can get over one lousy English bastard.”

She hung up, and I admitted she was right. It wasn't as though Sir I Hate Your Guts Shipley had actually broken my heart. I mean, when it came down to it, I barely knew the man. We probably spent more time together naked that one night than we'd spent in the entirety of the two weeks before that. So it wasn't that. It wasn't him. It was me.

 

“I DON'T EVEN KNOW
myself anymore,” I told Vida. “I mean, how can I be the same person I was before this damn trip when faced with the fact that I started caring about whether my makeup had crossed the line from appropriately ‘dewy' to inappropriately ‘shiny'? I mean, what kind of person gives a damn, and when did I become one?”

I speared my salad angrily. Vida had gotten me out of bed and out of my house with a promise to take me to the nearest bar, but instead we were in a healthy-fresh-veggies and whole-wheat-crepes place on Valencia that didn't even have a liquor license. I couldn't trust anybody these days.

“Yeah, well,” Vida said. “I got pretty swept up in things too. I mean, I started out just wanting to get laid on my vacation, and I ended up fixated on the most unattainable man in Britain.” She shrugged.

“At least you made a comeback.” I shook my head. “I've never behaved like that in my life,” I told her. “It was like I was in high school or something.”

“Maybe you
should
have behaved like that in high school. Maybe there's been this giddy teenaged girl inside you all the time, lurking beneath the business suit, just waiting for the glasses to come off—”

“I don't wear glasses.”

“You know what I mean,” Vida sipped her iced chai dismissively.

“I do know that with all the wedding paraphernalia, I've never been exposed to so much girly stuff in my life,” I admitted.

“Maybe it was too much for you,” Vida suggested.
“Maybe we both OD'd on it. All that silk and lace and everything.”

“Yeah, well.” I sighed. “What I Did on My Summer Vacation: I dreamed, I danced, I loved, I cried. I got made over and got rejected. I wore a tiara and set sail in a swan. I got in touch with my feminine side.”

“Is setting sail in a swan a euphemism for something kinky Sir Lying Scumbag does in bed?”

“Sadly, no.”

 

“BECKS, YOU'RE NOT
a traitor to the entire women's movement just because you had a crush on a cute rich guy,” Max insisted. It was two days later and he was buying me Tiffany Blue martinis at his favorite new hangout.

“I know.”

“Besides, I think you're spending too much time kicking yourself over the whole thing when it would be so much more entertaining if you just placed all the blame on the bastard knight and his British ho.”

“Are you rapping these days?”

He grinned. “No, I'm just feeling particularly alliterative.”

“In any case, I can't in all fairness blame Sir Screw Anything That Walks when I'm the one who stuck my tongue down his throat first.”

“I'm told it was a beautiful sight,” Max assured me. He brightened. “Can we blame Trinny?”

I raised my glass. “It's open season on Trinny.” I drained the blue martini. “Trinny Hastings,” I told him, “is a demon sent from hell.”

“I thought you didn't like to talk about demons,” Max said. “What with the Defender of the Night and all.”

“I'll take Vladima Cross over Trinny Hastings any day. In fact, I'd like to sic Vladima on her bony British ass.”

Max looked thoughtful. “I wonder if Josh could arrange that.”

“As satisfying as it might be, it wouldn't make me feel any better. I mean, what really bothers me is what an obsessive freak all the gushy romantic stuff turned me into.”

“Ah, well, I won't say you haven't always been an obsessive freak…”

“Hey!”

“But,” he added, “you've always been an obsessive freak about your career, not your love life.”

There was a certain truth to that.

“Which leads me to my theory.” He paused.

I sighed. “All right, but if it's about Cinderella, I've already gone there.”

Max shook his head. “Becks,” he said sorrowfully, “a statistical analysis of ideal male qualities? A tracking spreadsheet for romantic progress? A five-day phased plan for nailing the guy?”

“You have a problem with an organized approach?”

“I have a problem with the fact that you took more interest in the planning than in the actual guy.”

“Ouch.”

“Which brings me to my theory…”

“All right, tell me your damned theory,” I snapped.

He took a breath. “This whole unfortunate series of events was not about you needing a man to fill some void in your life. It was about you needing a project to fill some void in your life.”

I blinked. Several times. “You're saying this was all about wanting a job?”

“Didn't you realize, about the time you started plotting your romantic future on a gantt chart, that you might be sublimating an urge to sink your teeth into a project?”

I shook my head, dazed. “No.”

Max put his arm around me. “Don't worry,” he said philosophically, “you're not the only one who's still reeling from that trip. I met what may have been the love of my life, and I left him there.”

I looked over at him. “You don't think you and Phillip have a future?”

He gave me a look that spoke volumes. “I know myself. I could be in a long-distance relationship, and I could be in a discreet relationship, and I could maybe even be in a relationship with someone who isn't out.” He finished his drink. “But I can't see myself in a discreet long-distance relationship with a closeted sports star.”

We looked at our empty glasses. “What should we do?” I asked.

“There's only one thing to do.” Max stood and held out his hand to me. “We need to go to the piano bar at Martuni's and request Cole Porter songs. I suggest we start with ‘Just One of Those Things,' followed by ‘So Near and Yet So Far.'” He led me toward the door. “And, please, ‘Let's Not Talk About Love.'”

“Can I ask for Elton John?” On the street, I twined my arm through his as we began looking for a cab. “Maybe ‘Love Lies Bleeding'?”

“How about ‘Madman Across the Water'?” Max suggested. “We could dedicate it to Sir Charles.”

“Absolutely. But no Elton after 1975. And if anyone suggests ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight,' we're leaving.”

“Agreed.”

“Max,” I stopped, and I realized I felt better than I had in days. “I think I really need to hear ‘The Bitch Is Back.'”

Max grinned. “Thank heaven for that.”

A
ll right. Fine. If I was so starved for employment that I'd turned the courtship of a philandering Englishman into a project, there was no reason I couldn't turn the promotional needs of a bloodsucking heroine into one. I was going to make Vladima a star.

 

“YOU'RE LATE,”
Josh greeted me. “And you look different.”

I'd just joined him in his office, the minions working feverishly in the cubicles on the other side of the glass walls, the latest cut of
Daemons of the Night
playing silently on the wall-mounted plasma screen over Josh's desk.

“It's my new image,” I told him. “And sorry I'm late.” I pointed at my animated counterpart. “How's she doing?”

“She'll come out all right in the end.” He was still looking at me curiously. “You changed your hair.”

Was that an observation or a compliment? Whatever. “I got highlights for Connie's wedding. Honey and caramel.” He was still looking at me. “What?”

“Honey and caramel.” His gaze shifted from my hair to my eyes. “Tasty.”

There was a flicker of…something across his face. Sometimes I don't know when Josh is mocking me. It's very irritating.

Especially when I'm about to make him an offer he can't refuse.

 

“YOU WANT TO BE IN CHARGE
of Vladima's marketing?”

“It makes perfect sense,” I told him. “Look how much I was able to help you out on the advertising spots before I went to London. How much has your audience increased since you've been running them?”

He looked vaguely embarrassed. “I don't know.”

“That's my point, Josh. You don't have any idea how successful you are, or whether you're successful at all. You need someone who can monitor your fan base and channel their feedback into your work. You need someone who can find out what the competition is and how we can beat it. You need someone who can help you take Vladima to the next level.”

In the silence that followed I thought I heard muffled sounds from the mystery office upstairs, but I couldn't be sure.

Josh was regarding me with an expression I couldn't read. I hate it when he does that. He finally asked the obvious question. “What's the next level?”

I spread my hands. “Whatever you want it to be. A cable TV show, merchandising, maybe a movie.”

He leaned back and ran his hands through his unruly dark hair.

“But,” I cautioned him, “we can't get any of that until we find out where we are now. I mean, do you even pay attention to how many page hits you get in a day?”

He crossed his arms and shrugged. Dressed in his typical black, he looked a little like a hip gunslinger who was reluctant to go out onto Main Street and draw.

“I didn't really get into this to make money. I mean”—he looked out into the office behind me—“it just sort of snowballed.”

“Think about how much bigger it could get if someone was taking care of the business end,” I used my most persuasive voice.

He looked me straight in the eye. “You really want to get that involved with Vladima?”

I really wanted to get that involved with
something
, and Vladima seemed to be the only game in town.

“Yes.”

“And you'll still record her voice? You know the new script is ready.”

I nodded. “I'll still record her voice.” Small price to pay.

“I suppose you'll need a raise.”

I was stunned to realize that hadn't even occurred to me. I blinked. “Thirty percent.”

He held my eyes with his. Then slowly he grinned. “Deal.”

“Deal.” For better or for worse, I was Vladima's new best friend.

 

I BEGAN BY LOOKING
over everything Josh had ever written about Vladima. I took home a filing box full of back
issues of the original printed comic books he had begun with and half a dozen CDs of her later incarnation on the Web site, first as a Web-based comic and then as an animated cartoon.

It was very enlightening.

I was already familiar with some of Vladima's lore. I knew Josh had originally based Vladima on his ex-girlfriend. She had broken off their engagement two weeks before the wedding—right after Josh's Internet startup lost approximately 75 percent of its value overnight in the dot-com crash.

So it's safe to say the theme of betrayal had played a large part in the birth of a certain vampire. The first issue of
Vladima Cross
, produced crudely in black and white, was titled “Scar Around His Finger.” The plotline revolved around this nice guy and the spawn of hell who was planning to marry him for his money. When he lost the money she decided to settle for drinking his blood and laughing as she walked away from his dry corpse. The titular scar, on the victim's ring finger, was featured in close-up on the last panel.

Bitter? Yes. Dark? Yes. Subtle? Um, no. But apparently it had made him feel better, so he kept drawing. It gave him something to do while he tried to figure out how to put his life back together.

So Vladima drank her way through more innocent victims. Josh put out a new issue about once a month, at first just photocopying them for his friends.

After the sixth issue, Vladima got her first minion. Donovan was a laid-off graphic artist who knocked on Josh's door one day. He was a friend of a friend who'd seen the comic. The next day he started inking the upcoming issue. He added color, and that's when I found out Josh's ex had been a redhead.

Donovan lightened Vladima's mood a little. She still tore her way through an unsuspecting world of blameless bachelors, but Donovan's pen added a touch of camp humor to Josh's dark pencil. Eventually, as Josh got tired of his own bitterness, the scripts began to change as well. Vladima began going after the blood of crooked politicians and gang leaders rather than hapless geeks.

The move from printed book to Web site had been a pragmatic one. Josh had simply gotten tired of photocopying, and as more and more people asked for copies and the costs added up, he decided a Web site would just be easier. Enter the second minion, Alex, who became Vladima's Web master.

But at that point it was still just an online comic book. The big change didn't come until Jeremy joined up. He was a disgruntled tech support guru with a passion for computer animation.

Jeremy used animation software called AniSplash to bring Vladima alive. Suddenly, instead of simple panels showing still images, she moved. She hit, she kicked, she dug her fangs in, and the blood of the evildoers poured out. It was hideous. Josh's growing collection of fans loved it.

Under Jeremy's influence, Vladima also sprouted enormous breasts and started wearing stiletto-heeled boots. I think it's safe to say the animator didn't have a girlfriend.

It was at about this point that I first heard about Vladima. Because it was at about this point that I first met Josh.

I had been the product marketing associate for a company called Megaware at the time, and I was manning their booth at some trade show in the Moscone Center. Megaware
was the proud purveyor of AniSplash, and I was there to give demonstrations of the product on a small stage in front of the booth every forty-five minutes.

I wouldn't have noticed Josh hovering at the edge of the crowd if it hadn't been for the booth girls discussing who the dishy guy in black might be.

“He looks like a rock star,” one of them said.

“No, I think he's an artist,” the other one sighed. “Or maybe an independent filmmaker.”

What drivel. I glared at them in hopes they'd remember why they were collecting their paychecks, then glanced up to see what all the fuss was about.

The first impression I had of Josh was stillness. The show floor was crazy—computers blaring from every station, multimedia demonstrations on every screen, stressed-out vendors calling from every booth to stressed-out conventioneers storming the aisles in a frenzy of freebie-collecting—but Josh just let it all swirl around him. He was the only fixed point in the entire flashing, throbbing, pulsing hall.

He met my gaze and moved toward me. When he reached the booth, he handed me his card, and when he spoke, it wasn't in the show-floor yell that everyone else used. He simply said, “I'm Josh Fielding and I love your voice.”

Now, almost two years later, sitting on my living room floor and watching the last of the pre-sound Vladima movies play on my laptop, I remembered the day.

“I'm Josh Fielding, and I love your voice.”

The only reason he'd heard my voice is that some stupid actress we'd hired to record the spoken copy about what cool things you could do with AniSplash hadn't shown up on the
day she was supposed to. So in order to hit our deadline I'd recorded the damn stuff myself.

And, apparently, a star had been born.

I'd turned Josh down flat when, a few days later, he asked me to voice Vladima. But six months later it had been a different story. Josh was persistent, and I'd been laid off yet again. I didn't understand how he could afford to pay me what he was offering, but I was in no position to turn it down.

Vladima's appearance had changed again over the course of the animations I'd worked on. The breasts still defied any semblance of gravity, but the sneer of the still images was replaced by a mocking smile when she began to speak, and the hair completed its transformation from red to something just short of raven.

I'd been so busy being embarrassed about my connection with Vladima over the past eighteen months that I'd never really paid much attention to her. Now that I'd just read her life story, I had to admit there was something endearing about the old girl. She'd been through a lot in her three-hundred-year life, and her lipstick was still perfect. You had to give it to her for that, if for nothing else.

And as the monitor of Josh's psyche over the past few years, she showed he'd come a long way, baby, himself. As far as I knew he hadn't had a serious relationship since the fiancée from hell had broken his heart, but I'd heard that he did go out on the occasional date, so that was something. He was perfectly acceptable company these days. Good company, in fact.

And, unlike all my other bosses, he hadn't fired me yet.