The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women

With a deft hand she switched the oven knob to "warm", and turned on the element under the pot on the stove-top that would steam the summer squash. The salad and dessert had been prepared in advance, the table set, all was well. She headed back to the living-room for the end of the movie, only to find a commercial on the TV for feminine hygiene products, as they liked to call them in North America. It had taken her most of the six months she had been in San Diego to make sense of this new language, but finally she was beginning to feel as if she had mastered at least the basics. Now she could shop and take the bus without incident, mostly, and the Richviews seemed more comfortable around her. At least as comfortable as they could be.

Just as the commercial finished and the movie resumed, she heard a car pull into the driveway. Well, that was that. She switched off the television and returned to the kitchen. She would never know how the movie ended, but of course the vampire would be staked. He always was, or at least most of the time. She preferred movies where the vampire was destroyed. The ones where he escaped caused her nightmares.

It was a peculiar thing, that she watched these movies so fervently. Even back in San Francisco de Quito where she was born vampire movies were her favourite films, even though they terrified her. She hated the vampire, always taking advantage of those weaker than himself for his own advantage, yet she could not stop watching. Her mother — may the saints intercede with the Holy Father on behalf of her eternal soul! — preferred the soaps, and in Ecuador there were many. "Why do you want to watch those awful movies? Why frighten yourself? Turn them off!" her mother had said so often when she was alive. "My soap operas are much better, like real life."

"Yes," Remedios answered, "always the same. A family as poor as us, with as many problems as we have, worrying. About money, about health, the arguments because one does not get along with the other It is like every day! And they always come to the same conclusion: you must accept your lot in life."

"This is not a bad way to be," her mother said. "Life is full of trouble. When you have family, you are better off than those who do not. And when you accept what God decrees as your life, you are better off. Remedios, you were always the strange one. I knew this from the moment you were born, at midnight. That is why I named you God's remedy."

And now Remedios thought that yes, her mother had been wise. Life is much simpler when one accepts what is one's role. And her own destiny had not been such a bad one. Coming from the poverty of de Quito to the opulence of California to work as a domestic — not many were able to do that. The Richviews were decent people, they gave her four days off each month, did not make exceptional demands most of the time, and she had been able to send money home to support her sisters and brothers. She knew she had no right to complain. Many of the domestics mostly girls from Mexico she had met at the shops — told of terrible conditions, where they were forced to work long hours at low wages, and sometimes they could not get paid. It was difficult to do anything about the conditions because they were all in the United States on a working visa, and the minute they ceased to be employed they were deported.

Remedios told herself often that she was lucky. Her conditions were good, and far better than in her homeland. There, everyone lived in poverty except government officials and landowners. From the President down to the policia municipal , extortion was the rule. Even out of the money she sent home, almost half went to the corrupt local government, and another quarter went to her Uncle Antonio, her mother's brother-in-law, who had arranged with the Richviews for Remedios to work for them. Mr Richview told her if she saved the money in an American bank account where it would gather compound interest, rather than send it home and have most of it eaten away before it even reached her family, she could be almost a millionaire in twenty years. But she could not do that: her sisters and brothers had to eat, and she was now the head of the family.

The front door opened and Mrs Richview rushed in. Remedios heard the children, Jessica and Robert; Mrs Richview drove them to and from school. Jess ran into the kitchen, all flying yellow hair and sky-blue eyes. Immediately she hugged Remedios. "Guess what we did at school today? We made buttermilk! The teacher put milk into a churn and we all took turns pushing this big thing down into the milk and then we had buttermilk and we all drank some!"