“I wondered if you’d show up,” Grace said, sipping from her drink as she sat at a table in the noisy bar where music was playing loudly and a band was setting up in the corner.  “Join us.”        

Trudie’s face tightened.  She made fleeting eye contact with Kristi, clearly not as thrilled to welcome her as Grace, but Marnie tossed her hair from her shoulder and said, “Yeah, have a seat.”

Kristi ignored Trudie as she settled into an empty chair, eying their drinks.  “So what’re you having?”

“Blood red martini.”  Grace lifted her glass and twirled the long stem in her fingers, the scarlet contents threatened to slosh over the rim.

“What’s in it?”

“Blood, of course.” She licked her lips, then took a long swallow.  “Mmm.”

“Yeah, right, like blood from a pomegranate or cranberry, --or--”

“It’s human.” Grace laughed at her joke, but Trudie’s mood turned even darker.  She shot her friend a “shut-the-hell-up” look, which Kristi guessed, from the glint in Grace’s eyes, she was ignoring.  Grace was enjoying this.

As was Marnie.  “That’s right, we’re all into it.  The whole vampire thing, you know.”

Kristi decided to play along.  “I’m in Grotto’s class, too.  Is he, like, the greatest teacher or what?”  Before waiting for an answer, she added, “I guess I’d better have one.”

She looked around just as a waitress dropped off a pitcher of beer and four frosted mugs at a nearby table.  Once finished, the girl, a slight brunette with a streak of fuchsia in her hair, turned around and Kristi thought she looked familiar, as if she’d seen her on campus.  “You’re in some my classes. . ?” she asked her.

“Yep.  Bethany,” she said.  “What can I get you?”

Kristi pointed at Trudie’s drink. “I’ll have one of those.”

“Good choice.”  She nodded her approval.  “My personal favorite.”

“Really?”

“Blood red martini.”

“Made with?”

“Gin, Vermouth, cranberry juice and just a hint of grape juice.”

“No real blood?” Kristi asked.

“Sorry,” Bethany said, one side of her mouth lifting.  “The board of health frowns on it.”

“I imagine.”    

She glanced at Trudie and Grace.  “Refills?”

Trudie shook her head.  “I’ve got to get to the theater before Father Mathias has a heart-attack.”

“You’re in the production, right?” Kristi said.

“Trudie’s character is Death,” Grace said and Marnie nearly choked on a sip of her drink.

“Fitting, isn’t it?” she joked.

“Whatever.”  Trudie finished her drink in one swallow and grabbed her purse.

Bethany was still waiting and Grace said, “Why not?  And make mine a double.”       

“Are you crazy?” Trudie said, horrified.  “You have to go to the play!” 

“I know, but I already saw it.”  Both Grace and Marnie seemed amused by Trudie’s concern, as if they had already swilled down several drinks.  “I know the whole gloomy plot.”

“I’ll be right back with those,” Bethany said before heading to the bar.

“Why go to the play again?” Kristi asked.

“Required.”  Marnie picked up a few peanuts from the dish at the center of the table and tossed them into her mouth.

“It’s required to see the same play twice?”

Trudie glared at Grace, willing her to shut up.  “Not if you’re drunk, it isn’t.”

“Oh, get over yourself, ‘Death’,” Grace said and she and Marnie laughed uproariously.

Trudie, flushed, muttered, “Screw you, bitches,” then swept through the surrounding tables in outrage, nearly running into a busboy with a tub of dirty dishes.

“She’s pissed,” Marnie said and they laughed again.

“You know,” Kristi said, as someone changed the music from hip-hop to country and a Keith Urban ballad could barely be heard over the conversation.  “I almost believed you.  About the drinks.”

Marnie exchanged glances with her friend, then, whispered barely loud enough to be heard, “Grace wasn’t lying.  We doctor ours.”  To prove a point, she actually pulled a small dark bottle from her purse, Then, surreptitiously unscrewed the lid and added a few drops of dark liquid to her glass.  “It’s kind of salty.”

“Like a margarita,” Grace chimed in.

“Yeah, right.”

Grace shrugged, as if she didn’t care what Kristi thought and took a sip.  Either the two friends were certifiable, or they’d decided to have a little fun at Kristi’s expense.  She didn’t comment, waited for her drink as the music changed again and there was a loud eruption of noise at the pool table, when one of the players missed a shot.

A few seconds later, Bethany returned, left fresh drinks and swept up the empty glasses.

Marnie reached into her purse again and lifted her eyebrows, offering a bit of the “blood” to Kristi.  Though she wanted to appear to be part of their group, Kristi wasn’t about to drink down some concoction of unknown origins.  She shook her head.  Besides both Marnie and Grace were already acting so giddy and drunk, Kristi wondered if whatever they were putting into their drinks might be a street or prescription drug that enhanced the effects of alcohol. 

“Come on Kristi.  You’ve been asking all the questions,” Grace said.  “Don’t you want Marnie to add a little bit of real blood?”

“Nah.  Got too much to do tonight.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Marnie said and shook several drops into her drink, then some into Grace’s as well.  Lifting her glass she said, “To vampires,” her eyes gleaming with mischief.

“To vampires,” Grace agreed, clinking her glass to her friend’s.

Kristi hoisted her stemmed glass, “To vampires,” she intoned and they all took a sip. 

The drink was strong, tasting of cranberry and gin, warming its way down Kristi’s throat.  Marnie and Grace giggled all the more and licked their lips.  They acted like they really believed in the vampire stuff, or at least found it incredibly hilarious.  Kristi watched them as she sipped her drink, then put in casually to Marnie, “I thought I saw you go into Wagner House the other day.”

Her own words ‘other day’ seemed to reverberate a bit and Kristi looked around toward the band, wondering about the sound.  And was that right?  Was it the other day?  Or, had it been at night?  She couldn’t seem to rightly remember.  “It was after hours,” she added, for clarification.

“Really?” Marnie’s smile wobbled a bit . . . looked like a snake crawling across her lips.  A blood red snake.  No, it was just her lipstick running . . . or . . .?

“We all go there,” Grace said over the loud music, and she seemed to be having trouble staying on her chair.

“Yeah, we meet there.”

“We’re meeting at Wagner House tonight.”  Grace again.  “Maybe you’d like to come.”

Grace’s words sounded funny, as if coming through water.  And her image kind of wavered.  Feeling uncomfortably warm and off-balance, Kristi licked her lips and tried to respond but the words felt stuck in her throat.

“Oh, God, it looks like the drink really hit you hard.”  Marnie seemed concerned.  “Let’s get her out of here.”

“I’ll pay,” Grace said and flagged over the waitress . . . what the hell was her name?  Bethany . . . the girl in Grotto’s class . . . She came over in a hurry and they began talking together.  They grabbed Kristi under her arms and helped her toward the door.  Lord, she was drunk, her legs hardly working.  She heard phrases like, “Can’t hold her liquor . . . we’ll get her home . . .”

But that wasn’t right.

She’d been drugged.  She knew it.

Somehow, someway, they’d slipped something into her drink and she’d been foolish enough to have trusted the waitress.  Damn it all . . . 

No one in the bar seemed to notice as she was hustled out a side door and into the dark, cold night.  She tried to yell, but no words came and when she managed to fling one arm out, nearly swiping Grace’s chin, the other girl laughed it off.

She looked like just another wasted college girl.

Now what? she thought, but even as the words crossed her mind they escaped again, her mental acuity, at least for the moment, disappearing.  Blackness pulled at the corners of her consciousness and she thought she might pass out.

Don’t! Stay awake!  You have to keep your wits about you!

“Here ya go,” Bethany said, opening a door as the two other girls guided her outside, keeping her moving while her own legs became less and less steady.

Outside the air was crisp, in stark contrast to the thick, noisy, warm atmosphere in the bar.  “We’ll take it from here,” Marnie said.

“I’ve got to get back inside . . .”

“If anyone asks . . .” Grace’s voice, as if from a distance.

“I know what to say.  Just get her out of here now, before anyone comes.”

Bethany had been the one to put something in Kristi’s drink.      Fool!  You knew she was in Grotto’s class as well!

She tried to yell, to call for help, but only the smallest sound escaped her lips.

JAMBALAYA, CATFISH FRITTERS OR CRAWFISH ETOUFFEE

Kristi scanned the specials.  “This is it?” she asked, noting that some of the more popular items, shrimp crepes, crab cakes and crawfish etouffee had been erased from the chalk board, the faint outline of their Shakespearean names still visible.  

“I said, it was busy and the ovens on the fritz, so we’re down to a lot of the stuff that was made earlier or can be sauteed.  Push the jambalaya and catfish fritters.”

“Okay.”

“Can I get a clean table?” the harried hostess asked of the kitchen staff.  She was standing a few steps from the front desk and door where patrons were clustered, waiting.  “What about thirteen?  Or eleven?  I’ve got people who’ve been waiting out front for a half hour!”

“I’m on it.”  Miguel, one of the busboys hurried past and was picking  up dirty plates, glasses and flatware before Kristi had even stepped onto the floor. 

Francesca looked up, spied Kristi and immediately went into complaint mode.  “It’s about time you showed up,” she chastised, all too willing to give up the section and break up her tete-a-tete with Finn.  “It’s been a nightmare this morning, let me tell you,” she said, as Finn with a quick look over his shoulder, turned back to the tables in his section of the restaurant.

Francesca’s cheeks were flushed as she untied her apron, further showing the spot in her blouse where the fabric gapped and offered a peek at her lacy bra and cleavage.  “People with kids, and I mean young kids, babies, and the tips have been miserable.  Just awful.  I should have stayed home and called in sick.”  She stuffed her dirty apron in the laundry basket and reached for her jacket.

Waa, waa, waa, Kristi thought, wondering if the lousy tips had anything to do with the girl’s obvious lack of interest in her job.    

Unfortunately Ezma and Francesca’s evaluation of the situation was spot on.  With one oven disabled and a cook out of commission as he tried to fix it, the finished orders were slow to reach the window where the waiters were to pick them up.

Worse yet, in Kristi’s section, she saw familiar faces.  Dr. Croft, the head of the English Department had just been seated along with Dr. Emmerson, her Shakespeare 202 instructor with the biker dude persona.  Today, though, he’d shaved, his usual T shirt give up in favor of a gray sweater, his hair still a carefully planned mess.  The third member of the group was Dr. Hollister, Jay’s boss, head of the fledgling criminal justice department.

A toxic trio, Kristi thought as she greeted them, handed out menus and smiling, rattled off the specials that still remained.  “ . . . and it you’re interested in jambalaya, I hear it’s wonderful today.”

“Is it hot?” Dr. Emmerson asked, his eyebrows lifting, almost flirting.  Oh, Lord what was that about?  “Spicy?”

“No more than usual, but yes, I think it’s got a little kick to it.” 

“Just the way I like it.”

“Down boy,” Natalie Croft said, her lips twitching a bit.

Creepy.  That’s what it was, but at least it drove out all thoughts that she was way behind in his class and she had several assignments that she hadn’t yet read.

“Can I get you anything to drink?”   

“Mmm.  I’ll have sweet tea,” Dr. Croft said.  She was a tall woman with porcelain skin, dark hair with just the beginnings of crows feet to show in the corner of her eyes.  Her nose was patrician, her demeanor a little stand offish.    

“Coffee for me,” Dr. Hollister said, she was slipping a pair of rimless reading glasses onto her nose and as she started to study the menu, tucked a wayward strand of black hair behind her ear.

“Yeah, me too, the coffee.  Black.”  Dr. Emmerson looked up at her and a spark of recognition touched his face.  “You’re a student of mine, aren’t you?”

Kristi’s heart sank.

That was the trouble with this damned job, located as it was, so close to campus.

He snapped his fingers.  “Shakespeare, right?  202?”

“Yes.”  Kristi didn’t want to get into a discussion here in the middle of rush hour at restaurant, but she didn’t have to worry.  She managed to avoid the discussion and spent the next few hours working her tail off.

Finally, the crowd finally began to finally thin.

She was about to close out of her section when she spied him.  Big as life Jay strolled into the restaurant, spoke with the hostess and landed one of the small two person tables in her part of the restaurant.  “You’re kidding, right?” she asked.

“Did get much to eat at your place,” he said with a wink.

“Neither did I.”  She’d been so busy she hadn’t noticed how hungry she was, but now that things had slowed down, her stomach rumbled.

“So what do you suggest?”

“That you wait for me outside and take me somewhere else for lunch.”

“Better yet, we’ll order from the to go menu and take it back to your place.  There’s something I want to show you.”

“Give me fifteen minutes to close out the section.”  She said as he scraped back his chair and caught the evil eye from the hostess who had seated him specifically where he’d requested.

Kristi finished up in no time, untied her apron, tossed it into the laundry hamper and waved good-bye to Ezma who was pulling a double shift.  A few minutes later, getting soaked by the rain, she’d steered her bike to Jay’s pickup, tossed it into the back and pushed, his old hound dog, Bruno out of the way as she climbed inside.  The cab was already filled with the spicy scent of tomatoes, garlic and seafood.  “Don’t tell me, the hostess suggested the jambalaya.”

“Sounded good.”  Jay backed out of his parking space while Bruno shifted on her lap and they headed to her apartment.

Just like an old married couple, she thought idly while the windshield wipers battled the rain, the husband comes and picks up his wife after her shift. 

“I was late for my shift today,” she said as the radio played some country song.  “Because I stopped by Wagner House.”  She gave him a quick, abbreviated version of what had happened and Jay didn’t say a word, just listened as he drove the short distance to Kristi’s place.  When she’d finished, ending with Father Mathias’s warning, his expression had turned dark.  “Maybe it’s time we went to the police.”

Kristi didn’t like the sounds of that and changed the conversation. “So what are your plans for the rest of the day?”

“I have to work this afternoon.  Grade some papers.”

She groaned, knowing hers would be one of them.  “Give ma an A plus, would ya. I could use one.”

“Sure, but it’ll cost you.”

“You’re propositioning me?”

“I wouldn’t put it in those terms.  I thought I was being sexy and cool and--”

“Oh save me.  Sexy?  Cool?  Yeah, that’s you, McKnight,” she teased feeling the weight of the last few hours lift from her shoulders.  “Propositioning a student.  Just how low would you go?”

“Stick around, maybe you’ll get lucky and find out.”

“Have you been watching bad movies from the seventies or something?” she said, but laughed despite herself.  “I’m not falling for it, but you might want to call Mai Kwan.  She was all about you this morning.  I think she’s got a crush.”

“A ‘crush’.  Have you been watching bad movies from the fifties?”

“Very funny.  Seriously, I bet she thinks you’re ‘hot’.”

“Too bad I’m taken.”

“Are you?” she said as the pickup’s tires hummed over the wet pavement.

“You tell me.”  He shot her a look.

“Play your cards right and maybe.”

“No ‘maybe’ about it.  Face it, Kristi, you’ve got a major ‘crush’ on me.”

“You should be so lucky,” she quipped, but she was lying to herself.  All too fast she knew she was falling in love with Jay, something she’d sworn to herself a dozen times over she would never do.  And damn it, he knew it.  She saw it in the smug smile that settled over his sexy, in-serious-need-of-a-shave jaw.  Damn him to hell and back.