A Bad End to a Good Evening

Hi, this is Summer with an update on Greens and Roses news. This was a fun evening for our family... well, until the end.

For the past few months, Maia has been dating another teacher who works at the same school where she teaches. Her name is Gia, and she's originally from Italy. We've talked to her when she's met up with Maia at the house, and she seems really nice. Normally the two of them go out a couple of times a week, but things are getting more serious, so Maia invited her over to spend some time with us tonight.

We had a really good time. Gia is really funny, and she's a good cook - she showed Maia how to cook pasta alla carbonara, and the two of them made it for the family. It was really good! I had never had it before, but I really liked it. Gia said she'd come over and show us how to make other Italian dishes in the future, which I'm looking forward to.

After supper, we played games for awhile: Scrabble, Monopoly, and Apples to Apples. Our vampires girls came home for that part; they weren't around during supper because we didn't want to have to make up a story for Gia about why they weren't eating the food. The four of them went pigeon hunting while the rest of us had supper, and we just told her (which wasn't a lie) that they were eating somewhere else tonight.

At some point, if Gia and Maia get married or Gia moves in, we're going to have to tell her about the vampires. For now, we thought it was better to just... not have the subject come up. Cécile, Marie-Grace, Clare, and Tabitha got to join us for the games, which was a good compromise, and we all had fun.

Eventually, it had to end. Gia said she had to go prepare some lesson plans for her classes tomorrow, so she thanked us for having her over, and we thanked her for the carbonara. Then we said our goodnights, and we figured we wouldn't see her again until tomorrow.

Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang... and rang, and rang, and rang, like someone was leaning against it. Inna and I went to the door, and when we opened it, we found Gia on the porch again. She was pale as a sheet, and her sleeve was ripped to the shoulder. Blood was dripping from a huge bite on her upper arm. She was obviously going into shock, and looked like she could barely stand upright.

Inna immediately went and got her car keys; it was clear we were going to have to drive her to Emergency. Maia and I helped her to the car, and the rest of the girls went next door to stay with the Greens while we were gone. We didn't waste any time driving there - fortunately the hospital is only a few blocks away - but while we were on the way, Maia asked quietly, "What happened?"

I was afraid she was going to say it was a vampire. Or maybe 'some crazy bloodsucking biter person,' since she presumably doesn't know vampires are real. I wasn't quite sure what we were going to do if we were in a small car with a freshly-turned vampire who didn't know she was a vampire. Could that even happen? Could you be a vampire and not know you were one?

We all breathed a sigh of relief, though, when Gia didn't say it was a vampire. She said, "I was attacked by a big dog."

I couldn't help thinking that was the cover story we had used when Kiwi had vampire wounds. Was Gia just not telling us what had happened? There were some dark-coloured animal hairs on her blouse, though, and Inna told me later it didn't look the kind of injury that would be caused by a vampire. I guess it really was a dog.

We weren't at the hospital for very long. There wasn't much of a wait. The doctor cleaned the injury, put in a couple of stitches, and then bandaged it all up. Gia didn't have to stay overnight, so we drove her to her apartment building, made sure she had everything she needed, and then left her to get some rest.

It's unfortunate that our fun evening ended at Emergency. Hopefully next time we have someone over for the evening, it won't finish with a scary random dog bite!

Love,
Summer