My Vampire Plus-One

by Jenna Levine

And there was my most prized possession: a framed oil painting of Edward Cullen on the wall above the sink, sparkly and magnificent as he gazed moodily into the middle distance.

Gonna take you up on your offer to borrow more of your things if it’s all right with you. Not sure when. You’ll know I’ve been by when your clothes are gone.

FREDERICK: Just don’t wear Old Fuzzy, any of those things you pilfered from the Steppenwolf Theatre props department back in the 1980s, or anything from your feather boa collection. REGINALD: well now I am going to wear all that stuff EVEN HARDER

We made slight detour en route to tour cheese factory roadside billboard advertised as “Best Cheese Curds in Whole Gosh Darn World.” Stop. Have long been fascinated by cheese. Stop. How it’s made. Stop. How and why do cheese curds squeak? Stop. Want to know science behind it. Stop.

“I’ve wanted to make you laugh like this since the night we met. You were terrible at pretending to laugh when I asked you to, but in hindsight I see that was a good thing. Because if I’d seen what you are like when you truly let go, I would have fallen to my knees. Right then and there.”