Tad, however, seemed to think the car was cool, and that in it, he was, too. And I'm sure that in Poland, or somewhere, it is considered cool to drive a Porsche and wear necklaces and black silk, but at least back in Brooklyn if you did those things you were either a drug dealer or from New Jersey.

But Tad apparently didn't know that. He put the car in gear and an instant later, we were on the Drive, taking the hairpin curves along the coast as easily as if we were on a magic carpet. As he drove, Tad asked if I wanted to go somewhere, maybe get a cup of coffee. I guess now that we shared the common bond of poison oak, he wanted to hang.

I said sure, even though I hate coffee, and he let me use his cell phone to call my mother and tell her I'd be late. My mom was so thrilled to hear I was going somewhere with a boy, she didn't even do the usual things mothers do when their daughters are out with a boy they don't know, like demand his mother's name and home phone number.

I hung up, and we went to the Coffee Clutch, a particularly favorite haunt of kids from the Mission Academy. Cee Cee and Adam, it turned out, were there, but when they saw me come in with a boy, they tactfully pretended not to know me. At least, Cee Cee did. Adam kept looking over and making rude faces whenever Tad's back was turned. I don't know if the faces were due to the fact that Tad's rash was plainly evident even in the Coffee Clutch's dim lighting, or if Adam was just expressing his personal feelings over Tad Beaumont in general.

In any case, after two cappuccinos - for him - and two hot ciders for me, we left, and Tad drove me home. He wasn't, I'd discovered, a particularly bright guy. He talked an awful lot about basketball. When he wasn't talking about basketball, he was talking about sailing, and when he wasn't talking about sailing, he was talking about jet-skiing.

And suffice it to say, I know nothing about basketball, sailing, or jet-skiing.

But he seemed like a decent enough guy. And unlike his father, he was clearly not nuts, always a positive. And he was, of course, devastatingly good looking, so all in all, I would have rated the evening around a seven or eight, on a one to ten scale, one being lousy, ten being sublime.

And then, as I was undoing my seatbelt after having said good night, Tad suddenly leaned over, took my chin in his hand, turned my face toward him, and kissed me.

My first kiss. Ever.

I know it's hard to believe. I'm so vibrant and bubbly and all, you would think boys had been flocking to me like bees to honey all my life.

Let's just say that's not exactly what happened. I like to blame the fact that I am a biological freak - being able to communicate with the dead, and all - for the fact that I have never once been on a date, but I know that's not really it. I'm just not the kind of girl guys think about asking out. Well, maybe they think about it, but they always seem to manage to talk themselves out of it. I don't know if it's because they think I might ram a fist down their throat if they try anything, or if it's just because they are intimidated by my superior intelligence and good looks (ha ha). In the end, they just aren't interested.

Until Tad, that is. Tad was interested. Tad was very interested.

Tad was expressing his interest by deepening our kiss from just a little good-night one to a full fledged French - which I was enjoying immensely, by the way, in spite of the necklace and the silk shirt - when I happened to notice - yeah, okay. I'll admit it. My eyes were open. Hey, it was my first kiss, I wasn't going to miss anything, okay? - that there was somebody sitting in the Porsche's tiny little backseat.

I pulled my head away and let out a little scream.

Tad blinked at me in confusion.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Oh, please," said the person in the backseat, pleasantly. "Don't stop on my account."

I looked at Tad. "I gotta go," I said. "Sorry."

And I practically flew out of that car.

I was barreling up the driveway to my house, my cheeks on fire with embarrassment, when Jesse caught up to me. He wasn't even walking fast. He was just strolling along.

And he actually had the nerve to say, "It's your own fault."

"How is it my fault?" I demanded, as Tad, after hesitating a moment, started backing out of our driveway.

"You shouldn't," Jesse said, calmly, "have let him get so forward."

"Forward? What are you talking about? Forward? What does that even mean?"

"You hardly know him," Jesse said. "And you were letting him - "

I whirled around to face him. Fortunately, by that time, Tad was gone. Otherwise, he would have seen me, in the glow of his headlights, twirling around in my driveway, yelling at the moon, which had finally broken through the clouds.

"Oh, no," I said, loudly. "Don't even go there, Jesse."

"Well," Jesse said. In the moonlight, I could see that his expression was one of stubborn determination. The stubbornness was no mystery - Jesse was just about the stubbornest person I had ever met - but what he was so determined about, except maybe ruining my life, I couldn't figure out. "You were."

"We were just saying good night," I hissed at him.

"I may have been dead for the past hundred and fifty years, Susannah," Jesse said, "but that doesn't mean I don't know how people say good night. And generally, when people say good night, they keep their tongues to themselves."

"Oh, my God," I said. I turned away from him, and started heading back toward the house. "Oh, my God. He did not just say that."

"Yes, I did just say that." Jesse followed me. "I know what I saw, Susannah."

"You know what you sound like?" I asked him, turning around at the bottom of the steps to the front porch to face him. "You sound like a jealous boyfriend."

"Nombre de Dios. I am not," Jesse said with a laugh, "jealous of that - "

"Oh, yeah? Then where's all this hostility coming from? Tad never did anything to you."

"Tad," Jesse said, "is a …"

And then he said a word I couldn't understand, because it was in Spanish.

I stared at him. "A what?"

He said the word again.

"Look," I said. "Speak English."

"There is no English translation," Jesse said, setting his jaw, "for that word."

"Well," I said. "Keep it to yourself, then."

"He's no good for you," Jesse said, as if that settled the matter.

"You don't even know him."

"I know enough. I know you didn't listen to me or to your father when you went off tonight by yourself to that man's house."

"Right," I said. "And I'll admit, it was very, very creepy. But Tad brought me home. Tad's not the problem there. His dad's the one who is a freak, not Tad."

"The problem here," Jesse said, shaking his head, "is you, Susannah. You think you don't need anyone, that you can handle everything on your own."

"I hate to break it to you, Jesse," I said, "but I can handle everything on my own." Then I remembered Heather, the ghost of the girl who'd almost killed me the week before. "Well, most everything," I corrected myself.

"Ah," Jesse said. "See? You admit it. Susannah, this one - you need to ask the priest for help."

"Fine," I said. "I will."

"Fine," he said. "You had better."

We were so mad at each other, and had been standing there yelling so hard, our faces ended up only a few inches apart. For a split second, I stared up at Jesse, and even though I was totally mad at him, I wasn't thinking about what a self-righteous jerk he is.

Instead, I was thinking about this movie I saw once where the hero caught the heroine kissing another man, and so he grabbed her and looked down at her all passionately and said, "If kisses were what you were looking for, little fool, why didn't you come to me?"

And then he laughed this evil laugh and started kissing her.

Maybe, I couldn't help thinking, Jesse would do that, only he'd call me querida, like he does sometimes when he's not all mad at me for Frenching guys in cars.

And so I sort of closed my eyes, and let my mouth get all relaxed, you know, in case he decided to stick his tongue in there.

But all that happened was that the screen door slammed, and when I opened my eyes, Jesse was gone.

Instead, Doc was there standing on the front porch looking down at me, eating an ice-cream sandwich.

"Hey," Doc said, between licks. "What are you doing out here? And who were you yelling at? I could hear you all the way inside. I'm trying to watch Nova, you know."

Furious - but at myself more than anybody - I said, "Nobody," and stalked up the stairs and into the house.

Which was why the next day, I'd come to Father Dom's office first thing, and spilled my guts. No way was Jesse getting away with accusing me of thinking I don't need anyone. I need a lot of people.

And a boyfriend would be number one on that list, thank you very much.

"Sensitive to light," Father Dominic said, coming out of his thoughtful reverie. "His nickname is Red, but he doesn't have red hair. He was looking at your neck." Father Dom opened the top drawer of his desk and took out his crumpled, unopened pack of cigarettes. "Don't you see, Susannah?" he asked me.

"Sure," I said. "He's a whacko."

"I don't think so," Father Dom said. "I think he's a vampire."

CHAPTER 10

I gaped at him.

"Uh, Father D?" I said after a while. "No offense, but have you taken too many of your pain pills, or something? Because I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there's no such thing as vampires."