Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,47

got my invite. We’re just getting started.”

“Aren’t you … adorable.” She’s about five foot seven, just shy of being taller than me. Her eye color looks a little unreal, a marbled blue and hazel. My whole body tenses when she gets five inches from me. I have the immediate instinct to take several steps back. But you know what? I’ve gone to Catholic school and private school my whole life. I have seen meaner, richer, bitchier girls, and I stay put.

I spin in my black baby-doll dress. It’s a little over-the-top, and tighter than the cheap online picture promised. But I was going for more of a Wednesday Addams look. “Thanks. I like the look. Very retro.”

For the first time, I notice another group of women standing around us. How did they get in so quietly? Three brunettes and three redheads with skin so white it looks like it could glow in the dark, like the fake teeth on the bar. One of the girls picks up a pair and jams it into her mouth. She nearly doubles over with laughter.

“I’m curious,” Imogen says, tapping her finger on her chin. “How did you and Brit meet?”

It’s hard to explain to some people that I met one of best friends on the internet. My mom doesn’t understand why I spend so much time on my phone. Why I can’t just have friends in the neighborhood or at school, other than Miriam. There’s always been something that doesn’t click for me. It’s like looking at photos of myself might help me figure out who I really am. I know some things: I’m the daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants. I’m an A student. I’m going to take the world by storm someday, somehow. And when I love people, I will ride or die. That’s why I have such few friends.

Brittany was a happy accident. Sometimes she’ll say the things I’m feeling without me having to explain myself. Sometimes she lets me vent about Genie Gustavson writing nasty names on my gym locker (and then threatens to have her taken care of). That’s what this whole party is about. Thanking Brittany, because she won’t even take the time to pamper herself. She’s in college and all she does is take pictures on days when it’s dark and rainy. #Vampstagram is our inside joke, and this Imogen and her friends might laugh it up, but I think this party is the best idea I’ve ever had.

So when she asks how Brittany and I met, I shrug. “Around. She’s so secretive, though. You’re literally the only person who’s ever tagged her in a photo.”

“Yeah, she’s camera shy.” She sashays over to the bar and winks at me. “Come have a drink.”

My mom is the best hostess I know. She spends all day making food—rice, pernil, hayacas, potato salad, just the works—then showers and puts on a pretty dress. Alcohol never passes her lips, but she’s all smiles. I am not my mother, and we drink the bloody mimosas I came up with.

As the music thrums, making the walls and ceiling vibrate, more people pour in. More women who’ve powdered their skin to the shade of death. One woman is in a lime-green dress and platform shoes. She leads an older woman by a leash and takes up a cushion seat.

Okay, that’s new. Maybe she thought it was one of those kink bars, or whatever they’re called.

She brushes the woman’s hair back and exposes her neck. They look like the time Ricky Ramirez and I had to pretend-kiss when we were Maria and Tony in our school’s rendition of West Side Story.

A white girl who must be younger than me shoves a cigarette in her mouth. She looks like an extra from a blink-182 music video. “Ugh, I remember when this city was alive.”

Oooooookay?

I dive deeper into the club, where people seem to have multiplied. A couple of women are making out on one of the love seats. Red wine is spilled on some of the napkins. Should I have gotten black napkins?

I change my trajectory and go to the front of the bar, where three young guys who look like they took a wrong turn from Williamsburg are clustered.

“Is this BYOB?” one of them asks, bringing out a flask from the pocket of his flannel shirt.

What does he mean, “bring your own booze”? There’s literally a full open bar!

They catch sight of me standing near them and one smiles. He’s the youngest of the three, with dark