Dinner date

Maya gripped the handlebars, forcing her mind to only focus on the road, the traffic, the way home.
The clamour of cars and commuters making their way home helped drown out any other thoughts.
She knew if she started processing her conversation with the werewolf and the vampire, she would
become so absorbed she’d risk drifting into oncoming vehicles.

Eventually, she turned off the main road; the traffic sounds started wane and the pedestrians
dwindled. She swung her feet over and stepped off the bike, transitioning neatly into a fast walk as
she pushed her bike. Finally, she paid attention to the flurry of thoughts and emotions vying for her
attention.

It had been such a long time since Maya had had someone in her life who knew her. Knew what she
was and didn’t automatically hate her for it. Almost half a century. That yearning for a friend that
she had held back for so long started to push itself to the surface. But she couldn’t let it. She had
friends now – well, colleagues – who were nice enough. And why hope to be friends with a grumpy
vampire who clearly did not like her. Besides, can you imagine? Two vampires and a werewolf? The
chaos and drama would be far too much.

She cooked dinner, cleaned up, stuck the telly on, all on autopilot. As she stared vacantly at an
episode of ‘Pointless’, Maya pondered on the two characters. The werewolf had said the vampire –
Mitchell, wasn’t it? – was “clean”, but that didn’t ring true. Maya knew auras and knew vampires
and Mitchell had not been without blood for very long. He was going through the classic withdrawal
and struggling with it. Maybe that’s what the werewolf meant, that he needed help getting clean.
Well, that was something Maya knew she should stay well away from for her own sanity. The
werewolf had seemed…scared and angry…and then, eager for a friend.

……………..

The phone call came two days later. It was Mitchell. He would have sounded more willing if he’d had
a gun to his head. Maya imagined the two days must have been spent being badgered by the
werewolf until he had given in.

“Hi. It’s Mitchell, we…we met the other day…near the bike racks?”

“I remember.”

“I…I realised we didn’t catch your name.”

“Maya.”

Just like that. Her colleagues knew her as Beth; she had chosen the name Maya in the 50s and it
represented a part of herself that she did not want to lose so she had kept it, at least for herself, and
for those to whom she did not have to pretend. At the time it had been an exotic name, one that
allowed her some individuality while still fitting in. When she had moved on, changed identity, it had
broken her heart to lose who she had been then, and she had made a decision that this would be
her name, her real identity.
So that was the decision she had made; she would be herself.

“Right. Maya. Great. Well…Maya…I don’t know if you’re free on Saturday? We wondered if you’d
like to come to dinner?”

“Sure, I’m free, that would be nice.” Another snap decision; despite all the potential chaos and hurt,
the need for a personal connection overrode all caution.

“Great. Great.”

“Erm…Mitchell?”

“Yes?”

“Your friend, the werewolf, what’s his name?”

“Oh. George.”

“Cool. Thanks. Well, I’ll see you and George on Saturday.”

“Yeh, I’ll text you the address.”

“Cheers.”

How to change the course of your life in less than one minute.

……………………

Maya spent the rest of Thursday, the whole of Friday, and most of Saturday very focused on her
work. When she ran out of laptops to fix and systems to review, she read articles and researched
new developments, anything to avoid the part of her brain that had already played out multiple
versions of this dinner and none of them good.

……………………….

Meanwhile, in the house, it was the only topic of conversation. Mitchell was still not happy with
Annie and George for pushing him into it. George was coming up with more and more arguments for
why it was a good idea, although it wasn’t clear whether this was to convince Mitchell or himself.
Annie was just excited by the idea of having another female in the house whom she could talk to.

When the doorbell finally rang, the house looked pretty tidy; this was mainly because they had not
got around to replacing all the furniture George had destroyed during his time of the month. But an
effort had been made; there was a throw over the surviving sofa to hide the damage, all the mugs
had been emptied of tea and washed up, or at least collected into the sink, and George had even
found time to run a hoover around the place.

The door swung open and Maya was faced by two manic grins which failed to put her or their
owners at ease.

“Hi”

“Hi”
“Hi”

…A short staring contest with the grins.

“Oh yeh, come in, come in!”

“I realised on my way here that it’s been far too long since I went round to someone’s house and I
hadn’t asked what I should bring and I didn’t know whether you drunk alcohol and I thought what
does everyone like? And I thought of dessert and I was going to get ice cream but I didn’t know how
long it would take for me to find you and I didn’t want it to melt so I opted for cheesecake so I really
hope you like cheesecake.” Maya drew breath and realised she was babbling and stopped.

“Cheesecake sounds great.” This had come from behind the two men. Maya peered over and saw a
young woman, well the ghost of a young woman, step nervously out of the kitchen. “Hi, I’m Annie,
sorry they didn’t tell you about me.”

Maya smiled and held out the box she had been carrying, “Nice to meet you Annie, where do you
want the cheesecake?”

As George served up the spag bol – made with some help (and some hindrance) from Annie – Maya
wandered around the living area, cradling a glass of wine (both glass and bottle bought especially for
the occasion). She managed to stop herself asking what had happened to all the furniture when she
saw the deep gouges in the living room wall and George’s embarrassed look away.

They ate on their laps, plates perched on knees as they sat together on an eclectic collection of
chairs and cushions, Annie just grinning at the whole scene. They made tentative small talk, dancing
nimbly around any potentially sensitive topic. At least until Annie stopped grinning and started
talking.

“Maya, George says you’re a vampire that doesn’t drink blood as well. How long have you been
clean?”

Mitchell and George stared in horror at Annie. Mitchell apologised, “Please, you don’t have to
answer that, Annie, that is a very personal question!”

Maya considered them, embarrassed but also keen to hear the answer. It's true, she hadn’t
expected it to get personal quite so quickly; then again, she hadn’t expected an overly-curious ghost
to be joining them for dinner.

“It’s ok,” she glanced up at Mitchell, “in the addiction recovery community they teach that it is
important to acknowledge how long you’ve been clean; not so you can compare yourself to others,
but so you can recognise that, whatever the length of time, it is a journey: that every journey has the
same beginning, and everyone’s journey is still ongoing.” She stared into her bowl, twirling her fork
so that the remaining strands of spaghetti danced on her plate. “It’s hard to be precise, but I think
it’s about 480 years.”

Mitchell started choking on his beer. George and Annie looked speechlessly between Mitchell and
Maya. Maya hurriedly stuffed the last bit of dinner in her mouth, stood up, walked briskly into the
kitchen, and started washing up without looking at anyone. That was stupid. She shouldn’t have said
anything. She didn’t know how to navigate this. She had socialised with so few vampires – so few of
them wanted to stay dry, or ‘clean’ as the housemates put it.
She had washed and dried everything in the sink, including the mugs of tea, and had not heard
anything from the housemates. She rummaged around for some small plates, grabbed the
cheesecake and a knife, and stepped cautiously back into the living room. All three looked up in a
mixture of awe and fear.

“Cheesecake?”

That seemed to break the spell. As she dished it out, she looked at their questioning expressions.

“Look. We don’t know each other. I’m not going to go into my entire my life story. I will answer one
question each.”

They exchanged glances. You could almost hear the cogs whirring in each brain, trying to work out
how to get the information they wanted, as if Maya was a genie that needed tricking to give more
than three wishes.

Of course, Annie went first.

“Have you killed anyone?”

“Ok. Straight in, no prisoners. I should have been ready for that.” Maya took a bite of the
cheesecake. “One human. Soon after I was first killed. None since then.”

Annie opened her mouth to follow up but the look on Maya’s face stopped her.

George came next. Hesitant, sincere.

“Is it still hard? Your reaction to the blood in the hospital…” He tailed off.

Maya looked him in the eye, sensing Mitchell hanging on to the answer as well. “It’s always hard, but
you get better at coping. I’ve just come out of a hard few decades; that hospital visit was one of the
first big risky outings I’ve made since I started coming out of my vulnerable time – that’s why I had
that reaction to the blood. Give me another few years and I’ll have regained my self-control.”

When it was clear Maya was not going to elaborate further, George and Annie’s focus swung to
Mitchell, waiting to see what he would ask.

Mitchell looked pained, guilty. He looked down and fiddled with his fork, his hair falling in front of
his face. “How did you cope? At the beginning?”

Maya gazed at him and welled up with compassion and empathy only felt by one who has been
through the exact same experience. She sighed. “With help. The first time…it was messy,
uncontrolled; I barely knew what I was feeling, let alone how to restrain myself. But… I had a sister.
She saw everything. Her look of fear and horror at what she had witnessed would always come into
my mind whenever I was tempted. Over time, at different points, I made friends,” she nodded at
Annie and George, “friends who reminded me of my humanity, who I didn’t want to disappoint.”

Maya smiled sadly and Mitchell and Annie and George knew, in that moment, that they could never
understand the struggle that she and Mitchell shared.

“Oh, and gum. I’m absolutely addicted to gum, the mintier, the better – every time I think I smell
blood, I shove some of that in my mouth and focus on the chewing,” Maya flashed a smile, “it’s a
pretty poor substitute but it gives my mouth something to do.”
After that, the conversation fizzled somewhat. Mitchell became even broodier; George and Annie
kept shooting him worried glances while trying to go back to small talk with Maya. Soon they were
cleaning up and Maya was on her way out of the door after promising George that there would be
another meet up, she smiled gratefully at him, “Thank you. For asking the scary new vampire to
dinner. It’s been a long time since I’ve had people I can talk honestly about my past with.”

George nodded, “Thanks. We need all the friends we can get. I’ll text you.” George looked out at the
dark street, “Are you sure you’re ok walking home alone? The streets aren’t aways safe.”

Maya raised an eyebrow, “I can look after myself.”

But she didn’t need to. She encountered nothing remotely threatening as she meandered
absentmindedly back home, mulling over the house, memories springing up, unbidden, released by
the conversation and the questions, memories of the that first time…