Oliver's smile faded. "I came when Amelie called. As I always do."
"Until you don't, right? Sooner or later, she's going to ring the little bell and faithful servant Ollie isn't going to show up to save her ass. That's the plan. Death by slacking, and you don't even get your hands dirty."
"And how is that any business of yours, in any case?" Oliver's eyes were dark, very dark, and full of secrets that Claire wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"It's not. I just don't like you." Eve tapped her talons again. "Mocha?"
He glanced at Claire's blistered face and said, without too much sympathy, "That's quite disfiguring."
"I know."
"A week should see it right." Which was, weirdly, kind of comforting in its dismissal of her problems. "Very well, mocha." But he didn't leave. Eve widened her eyes and looked irritated.
"What?"
"It's customary to pay for things you buy."
"Oh, come on. . . ."
"Four fifty."
Claire dug a five-dollar bill from the pocket of her jeans and handed it over. Oliver left.
"Why are you doing that?" she asked Eve, a little anxiously. Because hey, it was cool and everything, to get in Oliver's face, but it was also not exactly safe.
"Because they cast him as Mitch, which means I have 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."