Fade Out Page 0,20

to pretend to actually like the dude. Ugh."

"Oh, the play. Right. I, uh, looked it up. Looks interesting." Claire said that kind of halfheartedly, because it didn't, at least to her. It sounded like a lot of middle-aged people having melodrama.

"It is interesting," Eve said, and brightened up immediately. "Blanche is sort of really the symbol of the way women oppress themselves; she just can't live without a man. Come to think of it, based on that, I guess Oliver's casting was genius."

"So . . . you're playing a woman who can't live without a man?"

"It's a stretch, but the director wanted to do this post-modern kind of take on it, so he went with Goth girls for Blanche and Stella."

"Goth girls, plural," Claire repeated. "I kind of thought you were the only one in town."

"Not quite."

"Eve? You 911ed me?"

"Oh - uh, yeah, I did. I wanted you to meet - oh, there she is! Kim!"

Claire looked around. A girl had just come in the door of the coffee shop, not quite as Goth as Eve, but quite a bit farther down the curve than anybody else in the room. She had long black hair, dyed jet-black, with bubble-gum pink stripes. Her makeup was mostly eyeliner. She wore less-outrageous stuff, but what she did wear seemed kind of grim - black cargo pants, plain black shirt,black leather wristband, which had (of course) a vampire symbol on it.

Kim had signed up with a vampire named Valerie, apparently. Claire didn't know much about her, but she supposed that was a good thing. If nobody was talking about her, Valerie was probably playing by the rules. Mostly.

"Hey, Eve," Kim said, and slid into the third chair at the small table. "Who's the burn victim?"

Claire felt herself stiffen, she just couldn't stop herself. "I'm Claire," she said, and forced a smile. "Hi."

"Hey," Kim said, and dropped Claire like a bad boyfriend to focus on Eve. "Oh my God, did you hear they cast Stanley?"

"No! Who?" Eve leaned forward, wide-eyed. "God, tell me it's not that kid from high school."

"No. Guess again."

"Um . . . no clue."

"Radovic."

"Get out!" Eve jiggled in her chair, grabbed Kim's hands, and then they both let out a wild, high-pitched scream of excitement.

Claire blinked as a mocha was thumped down in front of her. She looked up at Oliver, who was studying her with cool, distant eyes. He raised his eyebrows, didn't speak, and went back to his job.

"Who's Radovic?" Claire asked, since he seemed to be the most exciting thing since indoor plumbing. She couldn't remember which character Stanley was, but she thought he was the wife-beating rapist - not somebody she felt inclined to squeal over.

"He runs the motorcycle shop," Eve said. "Big biker dude, shaved head, muscles TDF."

"TDF?" Claire cocked her head. "Oh. To die for." She lowered her voice. "So, is he . . . you know?" She mimed fangs. Both of the Goth girls laughed.

"Hell no," Kim said. "Rad? He's just cool, that's all. In that dangerous kind of way. I think he's way more scary than any of them I ever met." By which she meant vampires.

"I guess we don't meet the same ones," Claire said.

"Because mine? Plenty scary." And . . . she knew that all of a sudden, she was trying to one-up Kim, and she didn't like that about herself. She also didn't like Eve and Kim being besties all of a sudden while she was sitting like a poor, pathetic lump on the sidelines with her disfigured face, with Oliver bringing her sympathy mocha.

That was just sad.

Kim barely glanced at her. "Yeah?" She sounded totally uninterested. "Hey, E, can I catch a ride to rehearsal tonight? Would you mind?"

"Nope. Hey, can I come in and see what you're working on?" Eve threw Claire a quick smile. "Kim's kind of an avant-garde artist. She's really cool; I love her stuff." There was a real glow in Eve's eyes, an excitement that made Claire feel cold and a little pissed off. I'm your friend, she wanted to say. I'm cool, too, right? So she wasn't some weird artist type who made art out of used toilet paper rolls and chicken bones - so what? What made that cool, anyway?

Eve didn't hear all the mental arguments. Kim said something about the script, and they both got out their copies and flipped pages, talking about theme and motif and things Claire honestly couldn't care less about, because she was now officially in a miserable