Masterful, Bossy, Essentially Powerless

******

"It is the face time!"

And Lestat, excitable bastard he is, kicks up his feet in the carriage. A month ago, I couldn't get him outta that rathole cottage. Now we in the Walmart at barely seven pm. Any decent vamp would still be in coffin. Not this guy.

I can't help but snap at him. "Just FaceTime, you dramatic piece a—"

"Yes, yes, time for Louis' Face," he waves me off with a few wild flicks of wrist. People look at us. Whatever, people were already looking at us. Have been since he poured himself into the cart and started wheeling it along with the mind gift. I'm walking by the push bar so the humans don't start yapping on about how the Walmart got ghosts. This city don't need more trouble.

His sharp fingernails scrabble to slide the bar and pick up for Louis. The theatrics about roll my eyes for me. "You crack that screen again, I'm not buyin' you another."

I'm lying, okay? But Lestat don't need to know it. Probably does anyway because I went out and got him another the nine times he broke the iPad. Every screen protector had to be stronger than the last. Look — it's just that he bawls worse without something to plonk his hands to, and it's not like the money is mine. He hooked me up to whatever flush accounts he keeps with the frogs awhile back. It's an unspoken thing, that he don't really care how I spend the cash. It's an unspoken thing, too, making my way back to NOLA a time or two a month to check up on him. Bring a bag of the only shit he'll fucking eat, replace a rat-gnawed charger, make a phone call or two. Nailing a buncha Star Wars Christmas decorations to the roof one real screwy February night. Don't know why. I was too busy trying not to fall through the shingles to listen much, and no words of mine would convince him that Baby Yoda ain't no gremlin.

"Louis!" Lestat shouts his greeting, and the guy himself fills his phone screen. Real handsome, that Louis. I'd be floored or something if I were into men. As it is, kinda hard to look away from his eyes.

"Where are you, Les?" Louis frowns. More a trying to place shit frown than a pissed off frown, I think. "It's a bit louder than Jackson Square."

"Louis!" If I didn't know better, I'd guess it's the only word Lestat remembers. Does nothing for that frown, which notches another level south when he catches sight of me. It don't stop Lestat, of course. He continues at something closer to a reasonable volume. "Hello, Louis. I have found something extraordinary I was hoping to share with you. It is called Walmart."

"Yeah, all right." This, understandably, doesn't clear much up for Louis. "Why is Felix pushin' you around in that cart?"

With the heat I'm catching from the narrowing green of that stare, pretty sure his real question is why is Felix here?

"I ain't pushin' him," I say, because he ain't my baby. More like my haunted peepaw, adopted on accident.

"Did I ask you, boy?" Louis says. I shut my trap.

"Louis," Lestat says, clearly impatient to tell his long lost lover who might be some kinda vamp billionaire prince outta the Emirates about how he personally discovered the Walmart. "Never mind Felix. Roget is managing my….various mundanities. Until he provides my identification and secret score, I cannot make use of the plastic card that you wield so well. And so the millennial must suffice."

So glad to suffice. Wish I could be sufficing back in my coffin.

"Secret score?" Louis takes a break from the whole poetically furrowed brow thing to ask.

"Credit score," I translate. That seems to irk Louis right off again. Yeah okay, fuck me for helping. I punt it back to Lestat, it's his fault anyway. "What makes it secret?"

Lestat scoffs like I'm the geezer here. "Siri has no access. I searched the libraries of Google, located several reporting sources, and yet! I am not meant to view the secret myself." His face can't seem to decide if he loves this or thinks it's stupid as hell. "A paradox — how requesting to see the score lowers the score. A bride intent to chide me for not waiting until the wedding day when she was equally enthusiastic."

To be honest I can't blame Lestat much for not getting the whole credit score thing. He might get it more than I do, and I'm under fifty. I can still blame him for knocking some decorative pillows outta the aisle with his chatty hands though. Gonna give Louis a dizzy spell with all that flailing about.

Except Louis' smiling. A shy thing almost, like he's fighting the pull on his face. But real enough for Lestat to look like he's standing out in the sunshine and it don't hurt at all.

"You pulled those credit reports, didn't you?" Louis says, going for critical while he works at swallowing a laugh. He don't really succeed on either measure.

Lestat smiles, too. Not the big manic billboard grin I'm used to walking away from as fast as I can or risk winding up with more weird shit to fix to the roof. A curl of lip that's slow. A bit lopped to his scarred side. Maybe even sweet, to a beholder who's into that. "All three, Louis."

"You know you can ask me, yeah?" Louis says, after making me stand in the aisle way too long picking up pillows while they make dramatic eyes at each other about finance 101. "When searching the libraries of Google don't cut it."

Lestat's smile dries to plaster right there on his face, the fake of it just about as paper thin as Louis' censure. But calling bullshit would see my shoelaces set on fire by one or the other. "It was not Thursday, Louis. Louis calls on Thursdays," Lestat recites. Like he needed another fucked up mantra. He got about as many of those as broken iPads. In the month since Louis, I heard this one a few times. Mostly when he thinks I'm not listening or forgets I'm there.

Still, better than it used to be. I shove pillows back onto the shelves and catch Louis sighing at him. "You can text me on a day other than Thursday to ask questions like that."

"Oh?" Lestat tilts his head, spilling a bit of frizzy blond out the hood of my sweatshirt. Gotta get him some clothes that were made sometime this decade. "And how am I to determine which questions are like that?"

"How about you tell me what kinda questions you'd text Felix?" Yeah, I don't think it escapes Louis, whose sweatshirt Lestat's got on.

"Not a part of this," I say. But the pair of them might as well be deaf. I can't tell if that spells a better or worse future for my shoelaces.

Lestat huffs. The familiar pose loses some pomp without the frayed luxury of his fancy robe. "I would not send Felix such a message at all. There is no need for the inconvenient magic box."

"Magic box my ass. You know good and well that's an iPhone," I say. And yeah, the selective deafness continues.

"So now it's inconvenient —" Louis starts, then seems to pivot with a thought that pulls him away from the close-up shot we were getting. "…You didn't make him?"

Lestat laughs. At least Louis and I can agree on being offended about it. "Oh, no. Dear Felix is — comment on dit — friends with benefits."

"We sure as shit are not," I put my hands up, and the fucking ghost cart wheels on ahead without me. "My benefit ain't gone anywhere near yours, old man."

"But we are friends, yes? I benefit from your assistance with the current era, and it is beneficial to you, hiding in my vampiric footprint from…" he rolls his hand vaguely. One of the decorative pillows I had put back flies into his waiting palm, and he drops it onto his legs with minimal ceremony. "Whatever difficulties du jours dog your steps."

Difficulties du jours. Great. I'm so glad my problems are taken seriously here in this Walmart.

"Fine," Louis says, measured in his relatable irritation. Not like I'm happy to be here either. "It's fine that you're busy with your friend and all those benefits. Maybe we can catch up next Thursday."

That pops Lestat from his bullshit. Good. No way he listen to all that music and don't know what friends with benefits means. "I am not busy, Louis," Lestat insists. "I wished to speak here because I wanted to show you."

"Show me what, the Walmart?"

"Yes!"

"Why?" Louis says, up close and scrunched at the nose.

"Everything here!" Lestat sweeps his arm around, like it should be obvious. "These — the inventions, garments, furniture, decor. Each imagined, manufactured, delivered in answer to a specific human desire. In every possible color, Louis! All in one place, so they flock to it with their every want and find more wants to collect. The store itself, a gargantuan monstrosity built in mere months!"

The gargantuan monstrosity bit gets us a shitty look from the employee stocking headphones. I grab a pair for Lestat so I only have to listen to one side of this next time. Lime green will be harder for him to lose, right?

Louis calms in his close up. Maybe even enough to save the laces on these shoes. "…I guess it would be new to you."

"Then you have been here?"

"Not to that specific — well," Louis stops thoughtfully. "You know what, I never actually been to any of the stores."

"Would you like to see this one?" Lestat asks, gentler than I've ever heard him speak. "If Walmart is, as they say in these times, nothingburger, we can partake in our more customary route."

And leave me here in the Walmart at the crack of sunset and short of a hoodie. Sounds about right.

Louis shakes his head. Then on the screen, I see him sit his chin in his hand. "Show me," he says. "If you can swear never to say nothingburger in my face again."

Lestat brightens up, a wilted thing with a bit of rain. "Of course not, Louis! Of course — Oh!" He hops out the carriage and all but twirls into the kitchen appliances aisle like we at the sweatsuit ballet. "Here is where I noticed the sous vide machine you mentioned last week, when we spoke of more inventive methodologies to prepare the blood." He presses his phone right up to the cardboard, surely blurring its lettering. "A very clever thing you've discovered."

"My chef curated the method for our needs," Louis defers, managing to sound a bit pleased at the same time. "But I did work with her to refine the flavor."

"Magnifique! Do you require any spare machines? They are here in surplus."

Louis chuckles, and I gotta wonder if maybe I might be into men. Like a hall pass amount. "No, Lestat. I don't need any spare sous vide machines from the Walmart."

"Very well," Lestat says easily, sliding the thing back on the shelf and processing to the next shiny. "How about this one? The Soda Stream! You can…" he drags his finger on the box, just under the marketing tagline. "'Enjoy personalized sparkling drinks at home.' Have you added a sparkle to your blood, Louis?"

A nosy old lady pauses at the end of the aisle, her mug getting more sour by every minute spent dropping eaves on them.

"Big fans of Halloween, those two," I say. She whirls around at me with a caught out start, and then I remember it's August. "…Gotta start the menu real early or the cocktails won't be convincin'."

The lady stares all suspicious, saying not a goddamn word. I'm about to ask if she wants a fucking picture when she moves on with her cart of on-sale Tollhouse and miniature footballs. Before I can get too jealous of whatever night she got planned, I hear the laugh lingering in Louis' voice. "Really not sure how well carbonating blood would go. Might make it too acidic."

"You could try it," Lestat says. "Lemons are acidic, the revolutionary album you recommended to me is titled Lemonade."

"Or you could try it," Louis suggests. That heel turn of subject stops my feet quick, and I pretend to be real interested in a Keurig model I don't fucking need. Louis' taking another swing at the giant rat in the Walmart, and I'm rooting for him, honest. "Use a few of those blood bags I sent you. Courier says they startin' to pile up."

"Oh, that will not be an issue. You see, there are miniature refrigerators specifically for drinks in aisle fifteen. I only need to choose a color. Would you help me select one, Louis? I am between the eggshell blue and —"

"—Les."

I hear Lestat drum his nails against the Soda Stream box. "Perhaps…we can try it at the same time. I can purchase two appliances. Mail one of them to…" Carefuling that diction slows but doesn't stop him, "To a location of your choosing."

"…We can do that," Louis says, careful too. Also conceding? Definitely relieved, like putting down something heavy and feeling all sore armed. I'm relieved, too. Not like I wanna shove more rats in a bag or see that old man drink them down. "Yeah. But you know you don't gotta mail it. I can buy one online."

"I would like very much to send it by mail," Lestat says. I sneak a look, and he's holding real tight to that box. It's kinda mangled. We'll keep that one for him. "If that is amenable to you."

They're both quiet for a minute with each other, deaf to the loudspeaker announcing a clean up in aisle three. I stay facing the Keurig, reading on the blends of Green Mountain coffee I never even wanted to drink when I was alive.

"All right," Louis says. "I got an office box. I'll text the address, but you better send it express if we're gonna do this next Thursday."

And just like that I know I'm about to spend way too much of my night in the stationary section enduring at least 99 opinions about ribbon. But it's hard to really care about that, peeking over my shoulder to watch Lestat bound ahead, haunted cart with the Soda Streams squeaking its wheels behind him as he asks Louis about his redecoration project.

Because I can see it now, kinda. The outline of who he used to be. This ghost who passed all his time with them other ghosts filling himself in just that little bit more. For Louis, I guess. The real guy, not the ghost he always calling out for. One of them ghosts, anyway. Not sure the one he calls Claudia can leave.

But that Louis really is alive. Or not dead dead? Present enough to be talking to him. The only thing I know about any of it — I ain't about to lose more than shoelaces interfering with the shit those two got between them. Best to keep back.

Keep back and, well. Maybe see to it that some extra stuff lands in that cart. Haunted peepaw is paying.

*****