A few weeks passed with me working and seeing Hunter a few times, and I pushed Viviane out of my head until she was on the other end of my phone.
She'd left without much fanfare the night before I found out some strange vampire visited Hunter. Pam had retrieved her from my house, and she had thanked me for the Lip Smackers, disappearing from my life. Or so I had thought.
"Hello Sookie. I am enjoying the lip gloss. How is your Tahoe?"
"Hi Viviane. Good. It's a great ride."
"Did you receive my gift?"
I had, but I didn't understand it. "Viviane, why a year of Vogue? I'm not exactly a fashion plate."
"So? What woman doesn't want to look at shoes? It was easier than purchasing the next issue and mailing it to you. How goes your life?"
"Why the next issue? And the usual – work, life. You know."
"Oh, I'm on it. You didn't mention Eric."
On it? Maybe her show was written up.
"Well, he's been busy with sheriff duties and tax filings or something. I haven't seen him too much. He calls." He hadn't been here since the night I told him about Hunter and the strange vampire, but he had called – he didn't have any news. I'd seen Pam a couple times.
"And that's why I'd never be a sheriff – too much paperwork. Tedium, really."
Why is she calling me? I wanted to know, so I asked.
"Do you want me not to call you? I wanted to be friendly. We are both Eric's. I thought we got on well." She sighed. "I would like to know you better, Sookie."
That reminded me Eric and I hadn't really had that talk yet. He kept deflecting me. And somehow I let him. Stupid vampire sheriff work. Stupid Eric kisses. Stupid Viking sex. Not really a good excuse, but it was mine.
"Oh" was all I could manage. A vampire wants to be my friend? What's the catch? "So you want to be friends? Like the gossip-on-the-phone kind of friends?"
"Sure. Do you have gossip to share?"
I couldn't think of anything really. And I told her as much.
Life had returned to its pre-Viviane quietness. For once, my life wasn't in an uproar, save the worry I'd had since my day with Hunter. Maybe I could try to be friends with this vampire who I was positive was Eric's ex-girlfriend. For Eric. He makes an effort with Sam and Bill. Sometimes. They'd never be friends, but he doesn't kill them either. And Eric is Bill's superior, so he probably could find a way.
"Sookie, I can hear you breathing. I'm not the mind reader. You will need to use your words."
"Yeah, I was just gathering wool. And I can't read people over the phone anyway." I sighed. "I just don't really understand what you are to Eric. Pam – I understand where she fits. But you are something else."
"Tell me about it, sweetness." She giggled. Vampires are not supposed to giggle. "We are old friends; I told you this. Why not just go with it? See where I take you. You might like it." I was speechless. In the background, a deep and somewhat familiar voiced told her it was time for rehearsal. "Look, Sookie, it's time for me to kick up my heels. I will call you, yes?"
I nodded for a second before I remembered she couldn't see me. "Sure, Viviane. Have a great rehearsal."
"Let me know what you think of the article." She rattled off a number I barely scratched onto Gran's notepad. "Good night, Sookie." Click.
There's another thing I could credit Viviane with, a big credit in my book and surely Gran's, too, and that was her manners. So far, she'd never hung up on me, used proper greetings and was the best house guest I'd ever had save cleaning freak Amelia, but she wasn't actually a guest.
The call plagued my thoughts until I opened my mailbox on my way in for a lunch shift at Merlotte's a few days later.
There Viviane was, simmering up from the cover of Vogue with headline "The Lady Is A Vamp."
She was perfectly coiffed and painted. I'm sure the emerald green dress she wore cost more than I made in three years, but it sure was gorgeous.
The look in her eyes was pure sex appeal, so much like the way Eric looked at me. Maybe it was a trick one learned from the other. It was uncanny how similar the look in her gray eyes was to Eric's.
The cover said the article was on page 257, so I flipped past all the perfume cards and ads with too-skinny models wearing items I'd never be able afford until I landed on it.
The inside article's headline read "Queen of Vegas" and underneath it said "Viviane's got centuries of stage credits on today's stars, and her show can always go on."
I giggled. It was true. She'd probably been on every stage in Europe for all I knew.
Annie Liebowitz took the photographs. I knew she was a big deal – I'd flipped through her latest coffee table book when I was at the mall in Monroe. I'd liked her work, but some of the photographs in that volume were a little too bare for my living room.
Page after page had quotes from Viviane scrawled in the space around her wearing beautiful clothes. She was petite and curvy, but Viviane could wear designer outfits better than those skinny models.
Her eyes were always a focal point; it was like she glamoured the camera. One shot was just a close up with her eyes closed, thick lashes spread across her cheekbones, with a solitary blood tear running down her face in black and white. It seemed out of character for someone so upbeat. The quote on that picture made sense with the tear though.
"I've seen many men fall for causes less than worthy. I've seen evil men prosper on the deaths of those men. It never stops, never ends, and yet I go on."
The backgrounds were in Las Vegas. Some were obvious – the Strip lit up out a big window with her in a glittery silver mini-dress and blue pumps. Other might have been her stage – she posed in a siren red dress and an old-school microphone in one; in another, she clung 50 feet up a row of stage ropes in a fluffy white boa and black jumpsuit barefoot.
Surprisingly, there wasn't a fang in sight. The only sign she was vampire was that one dark tear.
I couldn't wait to call Eric and get his take. Of course, Pam would be spitting jealous. Vogue is her kind of magazine.
I stuffed the magazine into my purse and drove to work.
Sam was in his office when I stepped in to drop my purse off, so I showed him the cover.
"Sookie, this is big. That's the first time a supe – an open one – has been on Vogue. I saw Nan Flanagan talking about it on CNN. Can I read it when you're done?" Sam was looking at the cover the entire time he spoke.
"You could read it first. Unless I can read it on the floor." I smiled at him. It amused me to see my boss reading a high fashion magazine. "Then I could start reading it on my break later."
I snagged an apron and hit the floor to start working. It was slow, and Terry was at the bar so Sam could work in his office this afternoon. Not that he was actually doing that at the moment.
Work was extremely slow. The high school baseball team had a game against a rival a town or two over, so I'd place money that everyone was there. I had one table of three.
I was beyond bored – it was nice to not have to block anyone, but geez Louise – when Sam came out about an hour later, magazine in tow, and called me to the bar.
"It's really slow, and I don't have any other work for you to do. You can read this out here," he faked handing it to me, "but keep it flat and under bar."
"And customers first. Thanks, Sam. I don't think I could clean another salt shaker." I snatched the magazine and joined Terry behind the bar.
"This is mostly because I want to know what you think about it sooner." He ran a hand through his hair. "She is very interesting. The king and Victor are quoted. But she doesn't name check anyone living save Bubba."
I spread the magazine out on the worktop and kept an eye on my table.
"Whatcha got there, Sookie?" Terry sidled over and peeked.
"Oh, it's a magazine. Viviane is this vampire who I kind of know. And Vogue wrote an article. You just let me know if I get in your way."
"Will do, Sookie." He went back to wiping glasses and whatever it was that he was doing.
I drove into the text. Wow, she'd worked for Shakespeare, which I knew was unusual because men played most parts then. It didn't say which parts, so I wondered if she'd played Juliet. She could have actually stabbed herself and survived. Now that would be a sight.
One moment she was discussing opera houses. In the next breath, she basically called earlier generation of humans stinky.
I laughed out loud when the reporter asked her who she'd love to work with.
"Oh, Elvis. So dreamy, right? Now that'd be some beautiful music."
If the world only knew. But I did. And I was glad of it. The night at Fangtasia could never match a record.
Felipe gushed about how she would take Vegas by storm. Victor's part was small – the reporter had been with her in New Orleans. His quote was a throwaway line about how talented she was and how lucky the world-at-large was to be able to enjoy her openly.
It did bother me how this writer described Viviane's interactions with Victor and the observation about her personality.
Viviane allows Victor to take her out onto his French Quarter club's dance floor, and we mortals are treated to sleek samba from these dark-haired vampires. The speed and grace that the pair uses puts Fred and Ginger to shame. Victor holds her like he believes she might just float away, as though she were a prize to be won. She dances assuredly, as though she knows she is the centerpiece of this room like all the others she enters.
For such a sexy dance and two such attractive creatures, the chemistry is decidedly neutral despite light giggles that can be heard when Victor twirls the singer past the tables.
Viviane seems warm yet distant in every encounter. The warmth overtakes the distance so much that no one seems to notice her aloofness. No one has time between a winning smile and a carefully placed giggle. It's no different with Victor than it is with the front desk clerk or the taxi driver.
Aloof? Maybe Viviane had shown me something different. And distant was not how I'd describe any of her behavior.
That's what this vampire does – giggles and charms. What is this vampire diva giggling about as she dances? What is she ever giggling about?
"Oh this or that usually. I'm a happy being me. What's not to like? I've got my show; I live in a brilliant city; I have a never-ending supply of designer shoes and attractive dance partners. I'm treated like the queen I am. I would never take more if it were brought to me in a golden goblet." As if to prove her point, she giggles once more as she sips bottled blood from a straw at a diner later that night.
I think what disturbed me so much was that she said "the queen I am." Felipe was king, but was she ready to take the crown from him? And where does Eric factor into this?
The rest of the piece promoted her revue and talked about her stage career. I mostly enjoyed the half-hour I spent going over it and looking at all the pictures. My only interruption was Andy Bellfleur, who had come in for his usual burger and soda.
"Sam," I called, slipping into his office to put it back in my purse when the evening waitress showed up.
"Cher, you done?" I nodded as I sat down.
"What do you make of her comment, 'the queen I am?'"
He scrubbed his face. "I think we should be wary. She's either full of herself or fool enough to pull a takeover."
"She told me a few days ago she wouldn't ever want to be sheriff. It makes me think she is happy where she is. Eric is happy with being sheriff and running his bar; maybe this show she's got and whatever else it is that she does is enough for her."
"Maybe that's bullshit."
"And if it's not? Eric does not want to be king. We both know he could take a throne if he wanted to. So maybe she's just all ego."
"And what makes you so sure he won't? He tells you he doesn't want that, but if he changes his mind, Sookie? What then?"