Page 1 of Batty About You
Chapter One: Bogdan
Hey Boggie,
Okay, look. No excuses this time. I got two free tickets to the Halloween Ball through the honor society, and I’m dateless. Plus Zero. No acompañado. If I knew Romanian for “pathetic dateless girl,” I would use it on you.
You’re in Hoboken. I’m in Pine Ridge. I looked it up, and yes, it’s a four-drive if you take I-80 to I-81, but I will pay for all the gas. Do you see me doubling down on the patheticness?
Please come. We can wear costumes or formals, or formal costumes, I don’t give a shit. (My mother would say an entire rosary over me right now for that. She is so concerned about me going to college in New York, even though this is the complete opposite of the “big city”.)
How are things going with your internship at the conservatory? Is it nice to be off-campus for your senior year, or do you hate that you have to commute back for your pre-med classes? Mr. Overachiever.
Things are going great. Tina, Maria, and Lourdes all raided my apartment for homecoming weekend. I think Dad was glad to have just the boys at home for once. Mom was beside herself and texted every hour on the hour. But, at least my sisters were able to verify that I’m living like a good little studious nun—i.e., pathetic to the third power, boring, and now that my roommate has moved out, I don’t even have her or her trash-talking parrot to liven things up—God rest Pedro the Parrot’s soul. Did I tell you what happened to him?
First off, he was like seventy, which is old even for people, but I think it’s really old for parrots. He was living the high life in an antique cage with fancy silver curlicues and watching TV Land all day. He loved all the old comedies. He died laughing. No, I’m not kidding. He went out in a blaze of glory, imitating Sofia fromThe Golden Girlsduring a Thank You For Being A Friend marathon.
How is the Lupescu crew? All the little sibs glad that you’re at home for one semester? Give them my love.
And pleeeeeeease come to the ball with me. You already have a costume with your lab coat! If you’re afraid I won’t like your face, you can wear some crazy monster mask with it if you want.
But you know I will. I already like your voice. And your words. And the way you play the oboe.
Please come, Boggie.
Love, Kelly
This is it! This is my chance. Dreams are coming true,andit’s happening on a night my mother told me would be my undoing one day.
That's right, I, Bogdan Lupescu, a seventh son of a seventh son, child of immigrants, beleaguered by superstitious parents and grandparents, and driven nuts by eight siblings, am going to prove to them that a nice, Transylvanian boy can have a happily ever after with a beautiful American girl.
IfI can convince her that someone so hideous is worth loving.
Confused?
Let me back up. Kelly is a violinist. I play the oboe. When we were both in high school, our school orchestras participated in a pen pal program. We had to write to someone who played a different instrument; it was supposed tobroaden our horizons, or something like that. Anyway, someone matched us up, and there I was, this nerdy guy who played the oboe who couldn't go out at night, who everybody teased for his thick accent and even thicker eyebrows, suddenly pen pals with the cutest, sweetest girl from Thistleport, Maine. The pen pal project was only supposed to last for one year, but Kelly and I didn’t just write the required monthly letter about instruments and orchestras. Soon, we were writing every week or two. We had so much in common, way more than just being in an orchestra. We wrote about what it was like to be the “big family” in our schools, to have overbearing, overprotective parents, and how it felt being the weird "foreigners" who didn’t fit in with the rest of the kids.
Seriously. It was the perfect match. Neither of us could believe how it just...clicked.
I tell you, I was just a sophomore and she was just a freshman, but by that summer, I was sure she was my soulmate. Like a happy idiot who suddenly envisions life with the woman of his dreams and only two people sharing a bathroom (instead of twelve people sharing two), I told my parents and grandmother.
Who said... Listen, kid. You are a cursed hybrid, the seventh son of a seventh son, with werewolf blood and vampire blood—from the Carpathian region, yet. You are never going to find a human soulmate. You are going to live a lonely life until you return home to the land of your forefathers to get yourself a nice Romany girl who will be cool with your cursed bloodlines... Or you can marry a nice lycan girl if you can find one who is willing to overlook your impure blood. Don’t even think about dating a vampire with your “particular problem,” because you’rea disgrace to their ethereal beauty. And don’t waste your time dating anyone in America, because everyone knows the only monsters that live in America are demons and vampires who live in big cities, and they’re all evil. No decent, God-fearing monsters like the ones back home.
Then why did you move here? I wanted to yell, but yelling at my parents would mean my mother bursting into hysterical tears and my father bursting into hysterical screaming, so... nope.
But that was a brilliant thing to tell a fifteen-year-old guy who plays the oboe, right? Not only are you a nerd, you are acursednerd, and you’ll never have a normal life. Or a date on this continent.
One time, I asked my grandma why my parents didn’t just stop at six kids if the seventh one would be a cursed disgrace.
Guess what? Not only am I the “cursed one,” I’m also the “accidental one.” Yep. Two bottles of red wine, a fifty percent off anything in the lingerie department coupon, and here I am.
And since I took all the cursing out of the bloodline, my parents decided to keep going, so I didn’t even get to be the baby. I got to be seven out of nine.
Nine.
Phew. That was... a lot. My older brother says I should go to therapy.
I never told him that I have a therapist, a friend who always listens, always gets me, and never minds when I pour out all my stupid angst.
Kelly.
