PICKED TWICE

Paula Bennett had spent most of her life believing in the sort of love stories that sensible women in sensible towns eventually learned to stop believing, the ones where somebody arrived unexpectedly, noticed something nobody else had noticed, stayed when leaving would have been easier, and eventually made all the disappointments before him seem like necessary chapters rather than warnings. She had believed them at twenty-two. She had believed them at twenty-seven. At thirty-one she had still believed them enough to accept dinner invitations from men who told her she was different from every woman they had ever met, and at thirty-five she had finally understood that apparently she was different in exactly the same way for all of them. There had been Bill, who promised weekends in San Francisco and disappeared three days after finally spending the night with her. There had been Peter, who talked about marriage so casually that Paula had once caught herself looking at wedding dresses online, only to learn six months later that he had married somebody else. There had been Michael, who insisted his separation was practically finished, except that apparently his wife had never been informed that it had begun. And because Paula lived in a town where secrets traveled faster than ambulances, she eventually began hearing her own history repeated back to her by women who had never once asked whether any of it had hurt. "Did you know she slept with Bill Jackson?" "He married that woman from Henderson." "And Peter before him." "Wasn't there somebody else?" "God, she must have been desperate." Eventually Paula stopped going anywhere that wasn't necessary. She went to work, bought groceries late in the evening, occasionally picked up Chinese food from the restaurant where nobody knew her well enough to ask personal questions, and spent her nights on the sofa watching romantic movies and terrible soap operas while pretending that she watched them because they were ridiculous rather than because somewhere beneath all that cynicism there remained one stubborn little part of her that still wanted somebody to knock on the door. Nobody ever did. Instead, VamFem.com appeared. The advertisement followed her everywhere. VAMFEM.COM She rolled her eyes the first time. "Oh, for God's sake." She had read enough vampire novels to understand the joke, although lately the joke had become considerably less fictional, because vampires were no longer something people whispered about only after midnight, and everybody seemed to know somebody who knew somebody who had met one. The stories were outrageous. Vampires living quietly among humans. Vampires feeding primarily from men. Vampires who had developed a particular affection for human women. Paula had heard one woman at work describe it with considerably less elegance. "They eat men and keep us for dessert." The entire break room had erupted in laughter. Paula had laughed too, although nobody had noticed. Then the advertisements for VamFem.com started appearing. Curious? Create your profile. If one of us chooses you, you'll know. Paula snorted every time. "Nobody chooses me." Yet she clicked the advertisement one Thursday night after another soap-opera heroine discovered that her husband had secretly fathered twins with her sister. "This is still less ridiculous than you," Paula informed the television. She opened VamFem.com . The website was surprisingly tasteful. No coffins. No dripping blood. No ridiculous women with plastic fangs leaning over terrified victims. Just black, burgundy and silver, elegant photographs of candlelit rooms, city rooftops, dark flowers, wine glasses, silhouettes of women seen only from behind, and one discreet registration box in the center of the page. There were no profiles to browse, no parade of women to compare herself against, no way to see who else had joined. Paula stared at it for nearly ten minutes. Then she began the application. Even that word bothered her. Application. "Wonderful," she muttered. "Now I can actually be rejected by a vampire." The questions themselves weren't particularly frightening. Her first name. Her age. A little about herself. What she enjoyed. What she hoped for if she were selected. Nothing asked her to pretend she was adventurous, sophisticated or particularly interesting, and nowhere did it ask what sort of vampire she wanted, because that wasn't how VamFem.com worked. She wasn't choosing anyone. She was asking to be considered. The photograph was the problem. Paula stood against the living-room wall, held up her phone and attempted a smile. The result looked terrible. "Oh, absolutely not." Delete. She tried beside the window. Too dark. Delete. She changed her blouse. Tried again. Delete. She put on lipstick. Delete. She removed the lipstick. Delete. She smiled broadly and immediately hated it. Delete. She tried not smiling at all and looked, in her opinion, like a woman being photographed immediately before sentencing. Delete. Eventually she found one she could tolerate. "Fine." She uploaded it. Her completed application appeared on the screen. It looked strangely lonely there because there were no other women to browse, no photographs to compare herself with, no rankings, no matches and no reassuring little number telling her how many vampires had looked at her. There was only Paula. Her photograph. Her answers. And the knowledge that somewhere on the other side of VamFem.com , women she would never be allowed to browse could decide whether she interested them. She submitted it. Then, less than three minutes later, she reopened it and changed the photograph. Then she changed it back. Then cropped it. Then replaced it. Then returned to the first photograph. By midnight she had changed the photograph on her application twenty-one times. What Paula didn't know was that human applicants saw only their own application. Vampires saw considerably more. Every login. Every revision. Every photograph uploaded and then deleted. Every abandoned answer. Every time an applicant returned to her page, changed nothing, stared at it for several minutes and quietly logged out again. And somewhere on the other side of VamFem.com , a vampire watched Paula Bennett try twenty-one times to create a photograph in which she believed herself worth choosing. She watched every attempt. She watched Paula force a smile, lose it, try again, change her blouse, change her hair, add lipstick, remove it, and finally settle for a photograph she clearly didn't particularly like. The vampire lingered longest over the first one. The one Paula had hated. The one in which she had been trying so very hard to smile. Celeste didn't choose her that night. Paula went to bed convinced nobody ever would. By Friday morning she had almost forgotten about it. Work helped. Work always helped until people started talking. The office had become obsessed with VamFem.com . During the morning break, three women gathered around Melissa's phone while she proudly displayed her profile. "That's the one she picked me from." "Which vampire?" "Sabine." "No!" "Twice." The squealing was unbearable. Another woman had been selected the previous weekend, while somebody else claimed she had already spent nights with three different vampires. Human users couldn't browse anybody else's account, which meant everybody compared screenshots instead, giggling over profile photographs and messages while Paula sat at the edge of the break room pretending to read something on her phone. Nobody asked to see hers. Then she heard Melissa whisper. "Can you imagine Paula signing up?" Someone laughed. "Please. They have standards." Paula kept looking at her phone. She had become extraordinarily good at pretending not to hear things. Later that afternoon, Mark from accounting caught her alone beside the copier. "So James really dumped you?" Paula kept sorting the pages in her hands. "Good afternoon to you too, Mark." "I'm serious." "That's unfortunate." He laughed and moved closer. "Everybody knows, Paula." Her hands stopped. "Knows what?" "You and James. You and Peter before him. That married guy too. Michael?" Paula slowly looked at him. "Move." Instead, Mark leaned one shoulder against the copier. "I'm just saying, you don't have to sit home alone pretending you're looking for Prince Charming." "Move, Mark." "Come over tonight." "No." "Why not?" "Because I don't want to." He grinned. "You wanted all the others." That hurt far more than Paula wanted him to know. "Get out of my way." "Jesus, Paula, I'm offering you a good time, not a wedding ring. Maybe that's your problem. You keep expecting every guy who sleeps with you to marry you afterward." She stared at him. Mark apparently mistook her silence for permission to continue. "At least with me you'd know what you're getting. No promises, no bullshit. Come over, have some wine, stay the night, go home tomorrow. Nobody gets hurt." "Nobody?" "You know what I mean." "Yes," Paula said quietly. "I think I finally do." He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Besides, it's not like anybody around here is going to think less of you." That did it. Paula looked past him and saw two women at the end of the corridor suddenly become very interested in a filing cabinet. They had heard him. Of course they had. And neither of them had said a word. "Move." Mark rolled his eyes. "Fine. Your loss." He stepped aside, then added with a little laugh as she passed him: "Offer won't last forever, Paula." She stopped. For one second she wanted to turn around and scream at him, wanted to ask what exactly had happened in this town that allowed men to lie to her, use her, leave her, marry somebody else, and somehow leave her carrying the shame for it. Instead she kept walking. She made it to the restroom before her hands started shaking. Paula finished work. She drove home. And that evening she decided to delete VamFem.com . She cried in the shower first. She hated herself for crying because Mark wasn't worth a single tear, but it wasn't Mark alone, it was all of them, every promise and every joke and every whisper, and when she finally climbed out, wrapped herself in a robe and stood staring at the exhausted woman in the bathroom mirror, she whispered something she had never quite allowed herself to say aloud. "I just wanted somebody to love me." A sound came from the bedroom. A soft electronic chime. Paula froze. She knew that sound. She had heard women at work imitate it often enough, usually followed by squealing, frantic makeup checks, and half the break room demanding to see the photograph. "No." She hurried into the bedroom. Her phone screen was glowing. VamFem.com — You Have Been Chosen. Beneath it was a photograph. Paula stopped breathing. The woman looking back at her had long black hair, dark eyes, and the kind of composed, effortless beauty that made Paula suddenly aware that she was barefoot, damp-haired, and standing in an old robe she had owned for six years. Beneath the photograph was one name. CELESTE Then came the invitation. Dinner — 8:00 PM. Private car provided. Overnight bag optional. Beneath it were two buttons. ACCEPT DECLINE Paula stared at them. "No." She refreshed the screen. Celeste was still there. Paula enlarged the photograph, stared at it for several seconds, reduced it again, then looked at the two buttons as though one of them might explain what had gone wrong. "You've made a mistake." Another line appeared beneath the invitation. We haven't. Paula covered her mouth. Then she laughed. Not because it was funny, exactly, but because after everything that day, after Mark, after the shower, after standing in front of the mirror wondering why she had ever expected anyone to want her, an impossibly beautiful woman named Celeste had somehow looked at Paula's application and chosen her. Her thumb hovered over ACCEPT . "This is insane." She pressed it. The screen changed immediately. Accepted. Your car will arrive at 8:00 PM. Paula sat down hard on the edge of the bed. "Oh my God." And for the first time in years, she laughed again. Celeste was waiting at the restaurant. Paula recognized immediately that she was beautiful, but it took considerably longer to understand what was different about her, because Celeste wasn't beautiful in the nervous, temporary way Paula had learned to associate with youth; she was composed, elegant, dark-haired, perfectly dressed, and when she rose from the table she looked at Paula as though the restaurant contained nobody else. "Paula." "Celeste?" "Unless they've sent another vampire to my table." Paula laughed nervously. "I'm sorry." "For what?" "I don't know." "Then don't apologize yet. I'm sure you'll find something worthwhile eventually." That made Paula laugh again. Dinner should have been terrifying. Instead, it was easy. Celeste asked questions and actually waited for answers. She didn't interrupt. She didn't turn every story into one about herself. She didn't touch Paula casually and then pretend it had been accidental. By dessert, Paula was smitten enough to frighten herself. Then Celeste asked one seemingly harmless question. "Why did you join?" Paula looked down. "I don't know." Celeste waited. Paula tried again. "I suppose I wanted somebody to pick me." That was all it took. The story came out. Daniel. Peter. Michael. James. The whispers. The office. Mark beside the copier. The nights alone. The twenty-one photographs. By the time Paula realized how much she had said, tears were rolling down her cheeks. "Oh God." Celeste quietly pushed a napkin toward her. "I'm sorry," Paula whispered. "I'm so sorry. This isn't what you selected. You wanted someone fun and I just dumped my entire miserable life onto you, and now we're supposed to go to your house and I'm crying in a restaurant." "Paula." "I understand if you want the car to take me home." "Paula." She finally looked at her. Celeste's expression was extraordinarily gentle. "I saw the photographs." Paula went still. "What photographs?" "All of them." Her face turned crimson. "You saw—" "Twenty-one." "Oh my God." "I saw the first one too." "That one was horrible." "It was my favorite." Paula stared at her. "Why?" "Because you were trying to smile." That nearly broke her again. Celeste's townhouse was beautiful, quiet and old, with high ceilings, dark wood and tall windows overlooking a garden silvered by moonlight. Paula expected something to happen immediately. Nothing did. Celeste showed her upstairs. "This is the guest room." Paula blinked. "The guest room?" "You're exhausted." "But I thought—" "I know what you thought." Celeste turned down the bed. "You've spent an entire evening telling me about men who wanted something from you before they bothered discovering what you needed, and I'm not going to become another name on that list simply because my teeth are sharper." Paula laughed through another threatening wave of tears. Celeste kissed her forehead. "Sleep." And left. Paula lay beneath unfamiliar sheets staring at the ceiling. The house was silent. Celeste was somewhere beyond the wall. The most beautiful woman Paula had ever met had brought her home, listened to everything, asked nothing from her and gone to another room. Paula lasted twenty-seven minutes. She climbed out of bed. Walked down the hall. Stopped outside Celeste's door. Raised her hand. Lowered it. Raised it again. The door opened. Celeste stood there in a long nightgown. "I heard you breathing outside my door." Paula nearly died of embarrassment. "I couldn't sleep." "I gathered." "Can I..." Paula swallowed. "Can I sleep in here?" Celeste stepped aside. "Yes." Nothing happened at first. Celeste simply held her. Paula rested against her, listening to a heartbeat slower than her own, feeling fingers gently moving through her hair, and for perhaps the first time in her adult life she was lying beside someone without wondering what she owed for being allowed to stay. Then Paula lifted her head. Celeste looked at her. Paula kissed her. She pulled away immediately. "I'm sorry." Celeste smiled. "That one you're allowed to apologize for." Paula's face fell. "Because now I have to decide whether to accept your apology." Then Celeste kissed her back. The bedside clock read 3:04 a.m. After that, Paula stopped watching it. Morning arrived much too brightly. Paula woke aching pleasantly in muscles she had apparently forgotten existed, buried beneath expensive sheets, wearing very little and smiling before she was fully awake. Then she remembered. "Oh." Celeste's side of the bed was empty. For one terrible second Paula's old instincts returned. Of course. Finished. Done. Then she smelled coffee. Celeste appeared in the doorway carrying a cup. "Before you invent a tragedy, I'm downstairs making breakfast." Paula stared at her. "How did you know?" "Your face." Celeste handed her the coffee. Paula took a sip. "Oh my God." "Coffee shouldn't inspire that reaction." "Nothing in my life has been this good since approximately three o'clock this morning." Celeste laughed. Breakfast became eggs, toast, fruit, more coffee and Paula sitting barefoot at the kitchen table in Celeste's robe while wondering how reality had suddenly become better than every romance novel she had ever read. Then she saw the clock. "OH MY GOD." Celeste nearly dropped the coffeepot. "What?" "I'm late!" "For what?" "Work!" Celeste stared at her. "Paula." "I was supposed to be there twenty minutes ago!" "Paula." "I'm going to get fired." "It's Saturday." Paula stopped. Celeste raised one eyebrow. Paula slowly sat down again. "It's Saturday." "All day." "Oh." She took another sip of coffee. "Good." Celeste laughed so hard she had to put the coffeepot down. The goodbye hurt more than Paula expected. She knew what VamFem.com was. A selection. A night. An experience. Nobody had promised anything else. Celeste kissed her softly beside the waiting black limousine. "Thank you," Paula whispered. "For what?" "Picking me." Celeste looked at her strangely. Then she touched Paula's cheek. "Goodbye, Paula." The limousine carried her home. Paula spent the entire weekend remembering. Monday destroyed most of the magic. The office was still the office. The whispers were still whispers. Melissa talked endlessly about Sabine. Mark grinned at Paula as though Friday's conversation remained unfinished. Paula checked VamFem.com at lunch. Nothing. Monday evening. Nothing. Tuesday. Nothing. Wednesday. Nothing. By Friday she hated herself for checking. Of course Celeste hadn't selected her again. Why would she? She had received her night. That was more than Paula had expected. So she lived inside the memory instead, replaying dinner, Celeste's hand in her hair, the quiet bedroom, the ridiculous Saturday-morning panic, and increasingly becoming furious with herself for wasting so much of that precious night crying. Saturday morning Paula stood beneath the shower. One week. Exactly one week. She closed her eyes. "I should've kissed her at dinner." A familiar sound came from the bedroom. Paula's eyes opened. No. She turned off the water. The sound came again. Paula grabbed a towel and ran dripping into the bedroom. Her phone was glowing. VamFem.com Selection Confirmed. Her heart stopped. CELESTE Paula covered her mouth. The message beneath it was different this time. Your car arrives in one hour. Then another line appeared. Pack for the weekend. And another. Cancel your plans if you have any. Paula laughed aloud. "I don't." The screen changed one final time. I know. Paula stared at those two words for perhaps three seconds before throwing open the closet. This time, when she caught sight of herself in the mirror, she didn't practice a smile. She didn't need to. It was already there.