Page 24 of Just for a Taste

T he virgin paper felt rough against my fingertips, but I pushed further into the weft to find an abnormality in the pattern. As I’d suspected, using my sketchbook as a journal in the heat of the moment had backfired, and my heavy-handed writing had transferred between pages. I sighed. What a waste of good watercolor paper. I traced my finger along to find the extent of the damage and landed upon distinguishable letters.

E.N.Z.O .

I traced over them again in a different order.

Z.E.N.O .

Don’t tell Zeno, Noor’s voice echoed in my mind. He may find all of this a bit too . . . familiar.

“What are you doing?”

As if on cue, Zeno’s voice rang out beside me.

I hadn’t noticed him take his normal place beside me in the aviary, and for once he was on time rather than five minutes late. On instinct, I jumped and slammed my sketchbook shut, nearly dropping it. Zeno raised a brow at me, curious but not concerned, as was his usual reaction to my jumpiness.

“I was just checking the paper in my sketchbook. The page has some indentations from writing on top of it, so I can’t use it for watercolor.” I neglected to say what exactly that writing was—that the indentations were notes from his family tree and scrawling his name.

From the way he leaned closer to me and glowered, I knew Zeno saw the string of thought I was biting behind my teeth, and that he wanted to reach into my mouth and yank it out.

“You’ve been acting peculiar for over a week,” he finally stated. “More than usual, that is.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled with a shrug.

Zeno scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I’d prefer an explanation over an apology.”

I sighed and hung my head. “I can’t get anything past you, can I?”

He smirked crookedly, revealing a single fang. “I’d take that as a compliment if you weren’t so easy to read.”

I wrung my hands, and this time, Zeno was patient enough. I must have been scrunching my face together the way I often did when I was trying to compose a sentence. I soon gave up on trying to find a subtle way to say it. Probably because there was none.

“I want to know about your past,” I finally said. “What you said about how you would be in a cassock in another life.”

Suddenly, Zeno stood and walked to the door.

“W-wait!” I cried out. “I didn’t mean to upset you! Please come back!”

He tossed his head over his shoulder at me and gently shooed away a finch I hadn’t noticed before. It fluttered away with an annoyed chirp. “I’m not upset. I’ll be right back.”

He left me alone for several painful moments with only the finches. It seemed like they were glaring at me for scaring off their beloved keeper. Just as I was about to accept Zeno wasn’t coming back, the door opened halfway, and Zeno stuck his head through.

“Come on. Hurry.”

At his appearance, several Gouldian finches jumped from perch to perch, aligning themselves on a visible trajectory to his shoulders.

“Where are we—”

“ Hurry . They’re fond of you now, so they may try to follow you out.”

I gathered my belongings hastily and rushed out, looking behind me all the while. An arm stretched over my head, and I felt like a rabbit who had seen an eagle flying overhead. I instinctively spun on my heels and stepped back against the door, which was now shut.

Zeno leaned over me, gripping the frame of the door above my head, staring down at me with a casual expression. As if standing over me, only inches from my face, was a daily occurrence.

Too close! every cell of me screamed. “What are you doing?” I snapped.

One of his brows arched. “Closing the door? It’s not my fault you stood there for so long.”

I tried to avert my eyes from the towering man, but they fell onto his left hand. Zeno’s arm was slack, his fingers curled loosely around the neck of a bottle. The light of a sconce glinted across the shiny glass surface.

“Burgundy pinot noir, 1963,” Zeno read, holding the bottle up. He spun on his heels and headed down the hall. “Follow me.”

I followed him to the little library, where a small dining table and duo of chairs were waiting for us. He placed the bottle between two glasses and took his seat at the far end of the table. I mirrored his actions and looked at the unusual setting. The table was new to the room. Its tablecloth was as crimson as the wine in the bottle, with the crystal glasses probably never used. In contrast, a thin film of dust covered the room, which consisted almost entirely of grays and browns—all except the books on the shelves, which had been opened and wiped clean of dust by yours truly. I hoped Zeno didn’t notice.

The cork let off a satisfying pop as it dislodged and flew onto the table. Zeno poured the wine in a smooth arc, and it pooled at the bottom of my glass, revealing a deep red color with purplish undertones. The fragrance wafted up toward me, delicately floral yet earthy. Nothing like the cheapo wine Emily used to drink.

“Should you really be drinking?” I asked, trying to ignore my watering mouth.

Alcohol was a known blood thinner, and Zeno was nearly due for his next donation, meaning he was probably borderline on clotting factors as it was.

Zeno scoffed and filled his glass. “Pah. If I had to go without wine, I’d rather not live.”

“Did Noor say it was okay?”

“She would rather have a living patient—” he sat across from me and gave his glass a swirl “—so she acquiesced. I get my cheese and wine once a week.”

I took the chance to study Zeno as he took a slow, even sip with closed eyes. What a lovely painting that would make. He opened them, and I quickly reached for my glass, spilling a few drops of wine on the tablecloth. If the vampire cared, he didn’t show it. Instead, Zeno sat forward with his elbow on the table and his jaw resting on the back of his fist. In his other hand, he continued to swirl his glass.

“Try some,” Zeno implored, gesturing toward my drink.

I took a sip, and a complex array of flavors washed over my tongue.

“Good, isn’t it?”

“It’s delicious.” I returned the glass to its original spot and tried to ignore the fresh stains on the table.

“And?”

I folded my arms tightly. “I don’t know. What else am I supposed to say?”

“You could have pointed out its raspberry notes, or comment on its smoothness.”

“I’m not a wine connoisseur,” I grumbled. “I avoid drinking when I can.”

Zeno took another sip, tilted his head to the side. “Because of what happened to your mother?”

The query was as cool and dry as the wine we were drinking, as though he were simply asking me what I did for a living, or if I had any siblings. I gave him a strange look. “I thought we were talking about you, not me.”

Zeno shrugged so broadly that I thought his wine would tip over, but it didn’t. “Tit for tat,” he crooned. “That’s what you say in English, right?”

I took a gulp of wine, disappointed not to feel it burn as it went down. I grimaced at the dryness filling my throat, the tannins tasting like cotton balls. Bitter, just like my answer was about to be.

“Yes, because of what happened with my mother. She drank herself to death. It started out with wine, but after Papa passed, wine didn’t cut it anymore. That’s when she turned to his moonshine.”

Guilt marred his features ever so slightly. “I’m sorry, Cora.”

“It’s all right. I wasn’t there for it, anyway.” I forced a small smile. “I ran away, I guess.”

Zeno ran his fingers through his hair, his usual nervous gesture betraying his attempt to look impartial. “What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

I fidgeted with my skirt, glancing back and forth between my hands and Zeno, who was growing more anxious by the second. The only person I had spoken about this with was Emily, back when I first moved to London. Sweet Emily, who had held my hand and whispered, It’s going to be okay as I cried into her chest. Who only spoke of it again in the heat of an argument: I should have known you’d run away from me. You always do. Time hadn’t dulled the sting of those words.

I met Zeno’s eyes and noticed how his eyelashes fluttered as he quickly blinked (another nervous habit). It was only last night that I had seen them so close, had run my hands through his hair. He had told me so much about him, and I owed him the same. Tit for tat.

I drank another sip, took a deep breath, and tried to speak without letting my voice shake.

“My family always told me I’d be the one to go to college first. First in the family, first in Red Creek—that’s in Appalachia, by the way. Ma wanted me to become a lawyer, or a doctor, or something that would get all of us out of using food stamps, but Pa—Pa told me to do whatever I wanted. He was a great man. He never really hugged me, but he loved all of us so much, I swear it warmed the house in the winter.

“He used to buy me history books for my birthday or Christmas, or even when he got a raise. He taught me how complicated the past was, and how beautiful its secrets are. Pa always wanted to be a history professor, but he had to take a job at the local factory. I used to make him give me lectures, though, and the only time he shined brighter than when he talked about ancient Rome was when he looked at Ma. He, uh, died when I was ten. He was killed, actually, by Ma’s ex-husband.”

That part, I hadn’t told even Emily. As far as she knew, it was a misfire from a friend. I took another deep sip and pointed at my glass. He refilled it.

“Anyway, that was when Ma slipped into it. She had experienced depressive episodes before, of course, but nothing like this. She just went back and forth between sleeping and drinking. That’s when Peachy stepped up to do all the housework and even did our taxes, and all there was in this world was me and her. She never applied for college, since she had to take care of Ma.

“I graduated at the top of my class with a ton of credits, and I got all these applications for all these schools. Prelaw schools, premed schools. But when I was filling them out, I saw a picture of Pa, and I remembered what he told me. I threw away all the applications but one, to a nearby liberal arts college. Ma was mad, and once her liver started acting up and medical bills started piling up—”

A new flavor overshadowed the aftertaste of wine. It was strong and salty. I touched a finger to my lower lip and found my fingertips were stained red, but not from wine.

“Shit,” I hissed. Even that small amount of blood was jarring against the white of my sleeve. A handkerchief appeared before me. I pressed it against my mouth with one hand and found my glass empty with the other. “More wine,” I said through the cloth.

“I don’t think—”

“More wine, please .”

“Cora, I’m not going to give you more.”

I shut my eyes, swallowed back tears, and grabbed the bottle myself. Once my lip clotted, I chased down the ferric taste with a mouthful of wine.

“Cora, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine,” I cut in. “Tit for tat, right?”

“Right.” His uneasy tone betrayed the certainty of the word. Carefully, as though I wouldn’t notice if he were slow enough, Zeno moved my glass away. It was a strange decision, I thought, for him to be swaying. Or was that me?

“As I was saying, Ma was mad. She was downright furious , an’ I couldn’t handle it, so I went to London. I got a call from a doctor a few months later sayin’ Ma had died. Peachy called an’ called an’ called me—she still does sometimes—but I ain’t ever answered. Maybe I could’a gone there in person, but—”

All at once, the amount of alcohol in my system overwhelmed me. I felt my brain floating in my head, my head floating on my body, my body floating around the room. I heard my native tongue emerging uninvited. Sitting up straight with my ankles crossed and hands in my lap like Ma had taught me had become a challenge.

I looked across the table at Zeno, sitting with perfect posture, looking horrified.

“Oh,” I whispered. “I gotta go.”