Page 3 of My Blind Date is a Vampire

When the phone screen lit up again, I jumped off my seat and excused myself, rushing out of the kitchen where the entire family was gathered so that I could take the call without anyone breathing down my neck and trying to listen in. Privacy was an outdated concept in my childhood home. Having grown up with three older brothers and parents who took the phrase “sharing is caring” to new heights, it was a miracle that I’d grown up to be as sane as I was—although the question of my sanity was oftentimes debatable. I could feel the weight of their gazes on my back as I walked out of the living room to take the call and knew that I would be facing the biggest inquisition since the Spaniards decided to fight against “heresy” back in the 1400s.

“Hello, Julia Bryant speaking,” I answered, keeping my voice low. I was still trying to build up the courage to tell my family I was thinking of moving away to the small town just one hour away from the city. I walked into the first room I came to, which, ironically enough, considering I was about to poop myself with anxiety, was the downstairs bathroom. Closing the door behind me, I sat on the closed toilet seat and steeled myself to hear what the principal had to say.

“Miss Bryant, it’s Catherine Hawthorne speaking, principal of MC High. How are you doing, dear?” The principal’s voice was so sweet and chipper, it made my teeth ache. I’d already met the woman during my interview and found her to be a force of nature who never stopped moving. A well of positive energy and wide smiles that would make any dentist weep from how perfect her gleaming white teeth were. By the time I walked out of Hawthorne’s office after the interview, my head was spinning and I had a hard time differentiating up from down. Her overwhelming presence had been slightly intoxicating.

The knots in my stomach wound themselves so tight, I felt like I needed to see a doctor. Even though the principal’s voice sounded pleasant and not at all like she was about to reject me, my mind was conjuring up all these worst-case scenarios that ended up with me still unemployed by the end of the phone call. My subconscious was already convinced that I’d lost out on the job opportunity and refused to entertain any other outcome.

“Wonderful, Principal Hawthorne. And you?” I lied, my voice shaky and unnaturally high pitched, like a bad Mickey Mouse impression. The principal sighed dramatically on the other side. I could almost picture her rolling her eyes and tossing her thick mane of jet-black curls over her shoulder. The principal of Mystic Cove High was nothing like the other principals I’d worked with before. She had a flair for the dramatic and a sense of style that would make her fit in seamlessly with actors on a Broadway stage rather than handing out detention slips in a high school hallway.

“I am well, my dear. However, I cannot say that I am looking forward to the start of a new semester. I was rather enjoying my summer, devoid of all those sweet hellions I call my students. I hope you are well prepared to deal with them in the next two weeks, and I would advise you to invest in quality hair dye and a brilliant hairstylist because after one week in the halls of MC High, you’ll be spotting a few grey hairs.” Principal Hawthorne chortled.

There was an expectant silence on the other end of the call while my brain slowly processed everything I’d just heard. My breath caught in my throat. Had she just said— I did not hear wrong, did I? My ears were prone to hearing whatever they thought I wanted to hear and not what was being said. But, no. Principal Hawthorne had just alluded that I got the job!

I tried to reply, but it took a few tries. My vocal cords had momentarily forgotten how to work, and my throat felt like it had a lump the size of a cantaloupe lodged in there. “H-hang on, d-does that mean…I got the job?” I whispered, my toes digging into the plush bathroom mat at the base of the toilet.

“Yes, you did. Allow me to welcome you to our teaching staff. I’d like to schedule a day for you to come down to the school in the next few days so that we can get the paperwork out of the way and for you to meet your department head. Of course, you’ll get to meet the rest of the staff at the inter-departmental staff meeting a few days before school starts.”

I could feel an excited squeal bubbling up past my throat and immediately swallowed it back down before I burst the principal’s eardrums. Principal Hawthorne was still talking, but I was too lost in my giddiness to pay attention to what was being said. This was the best news ever! My days as a substitute history teacher jumping from one school to another were over! Hoo-freakin-ray for a stable paycheck and freedom! I’d finally get to have my own class and actually build a rapport with my students and other teachers instead of being the faceless teacher no one cared about. I would finally put my degrees in history and education to good use instead of feeling like I’d wasted years of my life studying my butt off to become a glorified freelancer.

I was practically floating on air when I waltzed back into the kitchen. If I strained my ears, I’d probably hear the melodious voices of an angel choir singing hallelujah. My cheeks ached because of the wide smile stretched across my face. If I smiled any wider, I’d make a very convincing Joker. I tried to play it cool and adopt a blank mask when I took my seat at the breakfast table, but my facial muscles would not cooperate.

In the end, I had to resort to biting down hard on my lip to stop myself from blurting out the news. This was not the right time to tell my family that I would be moving away in a couple of weeks. My lips trembled and my heart drummed out a happy little jig as I pictured having my own quaint house in a picturesque town miles away from my well-meaning but overbearing family. Peace at last!

“You smoke pot in the bathroom or something? You look like Chucky’s long-lost, deranged twin,” my second oldest brother, Bennett, snickered into his cup of coffee. I stuck my tongue out at him—very mature—and his wife, Sara, smacked him on the back and apologized for him while my Mom scolded me for being rude.

“Who’s Chucky?” my nephew Jayden asked innocently, making all three of my brothers laugh at the old joke.

“No one you need to know right now, sweetie,” Sarah answered, ruffling her son’s hair and giving me an apologetic smile. She and Bennett were childhood sweethearts, so she knew all about the nicknames my brothers coined for me. It used to bother me, but after twenty-nine years of hearing the same old jokes, I was immune to all of the teasing—for the most part.

My mother and I were the only redheads in the family before Brandon came along. It shouldn’t have been something that bothered me growing up, except that while my mother’s hair flowed down in elegant waves of auburn-colored strands that framed a classically beautiful face, I was a true carrot top. My hair was a riotous mass of ginger curls that appeared to have more than one shade of red mixed into springy coils and took hours to straighten only to spring back into their original shape the second I stepped out the door.

As a kid, I’d been called everything from Raggedy Ann to Chucky and a whole host of other names that drew attention to my flaming head of hair, my alabaster complexion, or the smattering of freckles that dotted down the bridge of my nose, chest, and shoulders. When the movie Brave came out just as I started college, one of the guys in my class started calling me Merida in a juvenile attempt at flirting and the name had stuck for all four years of my college life. But it was at least a step up from Chucky.

If I thought no one would notice the sudden lightness to my mood or that they’d keep their questions to themselves, I was woefully wrong. There was no such thing as privacy in my family.

“So, what’s got you in such a fine mood? Are you finally getting laid later tonight or something?” Bas pressed on, and I knew he would keep hounding me until I gave them a straight answer. Dad choked on his tea, no doubt loathing the image Bas had just put in everyone’s minds. I kicked him under the table as Sarah threw her napkin on the table, glaring at us even though the brother she wasn’t married to was the one who was being crude. “Kids, why don’t we watch some cartoons while Auntie Julia and the family have a chat?” She ushered the boys to the living room and everyone immediately looked at me.

“Jeez, can nobody mind their own business in this house? Instead of pushing me into doing something or telling you something, why not wait until I’m ready to let you all know?” I groaned, pushing my bowl of half-eaten oatmeal away.

“Why are you getting so defensive? If you don’t want to tell us, then don’t. What crawled up your butt and died? How much longer are we going to have to walk on eggshells around you? It’s been almost a year since you broke things off with that scumbag and yet here you are, moping and walking around Mom and Dad’s house with a storm cloud over your head!” Bas exploded, taking everyone by surprise.

Silence fell across the breakfast table, everyone’s gaze swinging from me to Bas.

“Pumpkin—” Dad began, speaking up for the first time that morning, but I cut him off before he had the chance to say anything.

“Is that what you all think? That you need to walk on eggshells around me just because I had a bad breakup? Since when did you three start catering to my ‘delicate feelings’?” I scoffed.

“What are you talking about? When have we ever not cared about your feelings or anything you’re going through. You’re our baby sister. It’s only natural that we care when some low-life loser hurts you. It’s natural that we’re protective of you and want to see you get back out there instead of hiding away from the world.” Charlie glowered at me.

I felt like pulling my hair out by the roots. “I didn’t say that you don’t care about me, just that you’ve never felt the need to treat me with kid gloves. Not when even when I was bed-ridden for days on end because of my asthma attacks.” I took a deep breath and gave all three of my brothers a pointed look. “I seem to recall in my junior year, you all made fun of me and my panda eyes when I came home with mascara running down my face after getting dumped. I know for a fact that Bas still has pictures. You send them to me every year on my birthday. So why you feel like I should be coddled now is beyond me.”

“Did you not see yourself after you discovered what Toby and Jess did? You barely spoke to any of us and went on that crazy health kick. I was half afraid you’d kill yourself from overexerting yourself so much,” Bennett chipped in.

“It’s true, Pumpkin. You kind of just fell apart. You went into this dark place that none of us could reach, and right when we started seeing glimpses of the old you again, we got word of that dang wedding. I guess we’re all afraid that you are going to retreat back into your shell again,” Dad chimed in with a pleading voice. Unlike Mom, he was the peacemaker. He usually left all the talking to our mother, so whenever he stepped in, that’s when you knew that the time for fun and games was over.

A lead weight settled in my gut as I flashed back to the shell of a person I became post-breakup. All my adult life, I’d happily declared that I would not let myself—my emotional wellbeing—be dictated by a man. Never allow any decisions I made to be influenced by a man unless it was something I truly wanted. In fact, I’d often mocked women around me who allowed the actions and whims of their lovers to sway their feelings and those who fell apart from one cruel word, wondering where their pride and self-esteem had vanished to. I’d proudly declared I’d never be that kind of woman, willfully ignorant of the fact that my entire world currently revolved around Toby and the future I’d envisioned for us.

I’d crumbled like a house of cards after the engagement was called off. Looking back, I could see why my family worried for me. I was determined to be better than Toby’s ideal woman just so that I could rub it in his and Jess’s face. Going to the gym twice a day, starving myself to lose weight, spending an exorbitant amount of money on a new wardrobe when being a substitute teacher didn’t pay much. But I was sure I’d find a permanent teaching position in no time, and for a short while, I felt good about myself until the teaching job I’d been all but assured for one of the inner-city high schools was passed to someone else. The fragile confidence and bravado I’d wrapped myself in so as not to confront my feelings disintegrated like ash around me and I spiraled.

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