“Are you ok?” I asked, pointing to it as we began to walk. It was a 25 minute walk to the audition studio.
“Sure,” she shrugged, pulling her sleeve over her hand and putting her thumb through one of the fashion-placed holes in the cuff. “A little infection a couple days ago. Nothing that an IV wouldn’t take care of.”
“I know that story. You’re still on AZT, right? Nothing yet?”
“I am,” she looked to me. “It’s nice to have someone who actually understands the medical jargon.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, giving her a grin. “It is.”
Porsche took a deep breath, looking me up and down before continuing.
“It doesn’t really matter anyway. I’ll live my life and then when it comes to its natural end, Liam turns me.”
I knew that. In the back of my mind, I had known that about her. He had told me. But hearing her say it out loud was still shocking.
“But why would you go through all of it?” I asked. “Once the disease descends into full blown AIDS, it’s going to be brutal, and we all know that.”
“Because I will have all of eternity to be immortal,” she replied. “And a very short time to remember what being mortal is.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that, how to continue this conversation. It was surreal to be talking completely seriously about vampires.
“He’s a good person, Amy…” she started, and that’s when I caught her off.
“I really don’t want to talk about it, Porsche,” I snapped, shaking my head. “It happened, and it’s over. And it’s a lot more complicated than him simply being…what he is.”
“I get that,” her voice was still gentle, despite my tone.
“Well, you don’t, because you get to be immortal when it’s done,” I replied. She glanced at me, sharply.
“And you want that?”
“No!” The thought had never even crossed my mind. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure,” she looked away and despite our agreement, we lapsed into silence until we hit the audition studio. It was small, smaller than I had been expecting, and there were very few people in the waiting room when we walked in.
“Professional auditions are smaller,” Porsche told me, as she signed us in. “You usually have to have a resume a mile long and be personally known by the director.”
“Lucky me,” I said, as I took a seat. The other two people in the waiting room were beautiful male actors, probably not much older than me. I was grateful for the fact that we didn’t have to sit there with someone competing directly with us, and so I settled in comfortably, watching them warm up. “Are you guys dancers?” I asked when I had caught their gaze one too many times.
“Yes,” One of them, the more beautiful of the two, I felt, nodded. He had dark hair and light blue eyes that contrasted beautifully with his dark skin. “Are you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “She is, though,” I said, indicating Porsche, who uncrossed her legs and smiled, although it was tight lipped.