21
One who objects at a werewolf wedding risks serious injuries.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
After talking a half-dozen very angry werewolf males out of hunting down my best friend like a rabid raccoon, I drove to the Lavelles’ house and sat out in the driveway. I had to talk to Mama Ginger. Emboldened by her meddling success, she would be impossible to deal with. I would be lucky if I didn’t end up shot with a tranquilizer dart and carted off to a Vegas wedding chapel.
I found her sitting on her sun porch, on an old musty couch, chewing her nails. Mama Ginger never chewed her nails. She said the hands were the front window of a girl’s “shop,” and you couldn’t attract a man with a messy front window. “Mama Ginger?”
She turned, and I saw actual tear tracks on her cheek. She seemed so small and deflated, with her clean, bare face and her hair tucked into a ponytail. “Oh, Janie, are you here to see Zeb?”
“No, actually, Mama Ginger, I’m here to see you.”
“Well, whatever for? Honey, my boy already said everything he needed to say.” She sniffed and gave me a weary smile. “You two need to talk all this over, get your heads together. We have a wedding to plan.”
“No, Mama Ginger, we need to talk about why Zeb said those things in the first place. Things that sounded an awful lot like the things you’ve been saying. I don’t know what you did to Zeb to make him do that, but you need to tell me. Because whatever you did ruined Zeb’s and Jolene’s lives.”
“That’s not true!” Mama Ginger cried, her voice cracking. I grabbed her chin and forced her to meet my gaze. I didn’t want to have to use the persuasion voice on her, but I would. Finally, tears welled at the corners of her eyes, and she whispered, “Zeb’s curled up in bed, practically in a damn coma. He refuses to say a word.”
“His brain’s probably gone into shock, Mama Ginger. You can’t mess around with someone’s subconscious, make them do something that is fundamentally opposed to their heart’s desire, and not expect there to be side effects.”
She wailed, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to be so—a mother knows when her child is hurting, Jane. And he’s just so miserable. And I did that.”
In the years I’d known her, Mama Ginger had never expressed remorse. A change in heart this dramatic must have been killing her. I found small comfort in that.
“I never meant any harm,” she whimpered. “I was just trying to make sure Zeb was happy.”
“But he was happy, with Jolene. She made him very happy. And you can fix this. You just have to tell me what you did to make Zeb say all those things.”
“But he wants you, Jane. You heard him. He wants to be with you.”
“No, he doesn’t. I know that you want him to want me. We both know what he really wants.”
“But I’ve spent so much time—”
“You’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to fulfill the vision you had of our future. But the future you want, marriage and babies, it’s not possible. I can’t have babies, Mama Ginger. I’m a vampire.”
Blanching a lovely shade of ecru, Mama Ginger gasped and clapped a hand over her throat. “But you’re so, so—”
“Normal? Yes, but I’m also a bloodsucking creature of the night.”
“I can’t believe this. You’re just saying this to keep me from wanting you to marry Zeb!” she cried, stumbling back and tripping over a lawn chair.
“Well, you’re not wrong, but it’s still true.” I reached for her hand to help her up. “I’m a vampire. I have been for almost a year now. And you didn’t notice, because you tend not to pay attention when people evolve or change. Zeb and I are no longer the six-year-olds who played house. I’m not dangerous. Not to Zeb and not to you. But the bright side is that while I can never, ever bear you grandchildren, Jolene can have all the kids she and Zeb want. In fact, there’s every chance that they’re going to have a huge family.”
“Grandbabies?” She sighed.
“Yeah, grandbabies—beautiful, strong, most likely very athletic grandbabies. But first we have to fix Zeb so he can apologize to Jolene, profusely, and they can get married.”
Mama Ginger sighed, twisting a Kleenex into complex tornado shapes. “I took Zeb to Madame Zelda and told him it was for his headaches. It was stress relief, I told him. Madame Zelda could use hypnosis and suggestive imagery to put him in a better state of mind. Every time he told Jolene he was coming over here to do chores, I was taking him to Zelda. She’s spent weeks planting thoughts in his head. Bad stuff about Jolene. Good stuff about you. I made her tell him that you were the only girl he could possibly marry, that you were the only one who could make him happy. That he should be more aggressive with you and let you know how he feels. Zelda fixed it so every time Zeb heard you say the word ‘wedding,’ he would do something to hurt Jolene’s feelings or make a pass at you. And he wouldn’t remember doing it later.”
In my head, I ran over the conversations that had preceded Zeb’s bizarre behavior. In all of them, we’d been talking about the wedding in some capacity. Considering that we’d been planning Zeb’s wedding, that was natural, inevitable. Mama Ginger had set out a minefield for us. “What makes you think you have the right to do this stuff, Mama Ginger? Do you have any idea how crazy this is?”
“I just wanted everyone to be happy!” she yelled. “We weren’t even sure it was working because Zeb was being so resistant. But he kept coming back. Zelda fixed it so he wouldn’t remember anything except the thoughts she put in the back of his brain. We just couldn’t get him to dump her.”
“Because in his heart and his head, he loves Jolene,” I told her. “He was rude to her a few times, said some really hurtful things. He slapped me on the butt in front of my vampire boyfriend, which put him in serious peril—oh, yeah, Gabriel and Dick are vampires, too. But Jolene loves him so much, she forgave him for all of that. So you had to do something bigger.”
Mama Ginger blushed and wiped the mascara streaks from her cheeks. “Zelda fixed it so as soon he heard someone say ‘peas in a pod,’ he would tell Jolene he didn’t want to marry her. He’d repeat all the things that we’d been planting in his head.”
“Well, if there’s a trigger keyword, there has to be a release keyword, right? What is it?”
Mama Ginger flushed. “She didn’t tell me. I only paid half up front. She wouldn’t give me the release word until I paid the rest.” I stared at her. She shrugged. “I wanted to make sure it worked.”
“Well, pay her the rest!”
“I tried. Earlier tonight, I called her and told her I wanted to call it off, that my son was miserable and she had to take everything back. I may have used some words she didn’t like.”
“Such as?”
Mama Ginger sniffled. “Crackpot … crazy old coot … buck-toothed hag.”
“Did you stop to think maybe it wasn’t a great idea to use your special brand of phone manners on the person who has access to your son’s subconscious?”
Mama Ginger was sobbing in earnest now, which meant she would be no further help.
“So I need to track down a psychic who specializes in hypnosis and mind-control techniques to try to wrestle information out of her?”
Mama Ginger nodded pitifully.
“Great.”
After persuading Mama Ginger not to move Zeb or further scramble his brain, I followed her soggy directions to Madame Zelda’s “parlor front” shop on Gaines Street. Madame Zelda lived in a one-story “shotgun”-style house with peeling green paint and a giant plywood hand advertising five-dollar palm readings.
I rang the doorbell, and after some audible shuffling inside, I was greeted by a little old wrinkled lady wearing a fringed purple shawl, a long Indian-print skirt, and a smoky topaz ring the size of a door knocker. Her eyes were heavily kohled. And suddenly, my weird encounter with Esther Barnes made sense.
“Hi, Ms. Barnes,” I said, smiling sweetly.
“I am Madame Zelda,” Esther said in a deep, obviously fake Transylvanian accent while she waved me into the parlor. Her house smelled of yesterday’s fried chicken and overbrewed coffee. Her “office” looked exactly how you would expect a five-dollar psychic to decorate: beaded curtains, stinky candles, busy fabrics, and creepy angel figurines. “I do not know this Ms. Barnes of whom you speak.”
She gestured for me to sit at a tiny tea table covered in a sari, with a laughably large crystal ball in the middle. “That’s funny. You look so much like a lady who came into the bookshop where I work. I must be mistaken.”
“Indeed,” she intoned. “How may I be of service?”
“Well, you’ve been helping a friend of mine with some ‘headaches.’”
“I help many people,” she said, her lips tightening so that I could see the carmine-colored lipstick feathering even further into the tiny lines around her mouth.
“Well, this is a special case. See, he came in, thinking he was going to get your two-hundred-dollar six-session stress treatment and tarot reading. And instead, he ended up brainwashed into thinking he was in love with someone other than his bride-to-be.”
“You!” she growled, the venom in her voice killing off the fake accent, turning her voice thin and brassy once more. “You’re that ‘Jane’ she just won’t shut up about. If I had to hear one more time how wonderful you are, how many beautiful grandbabies you were going to make, I was going to throw up. Wait, wait!” Suddenly, she burst out laughing. Carefully wiping her lined eyes, she hooted, “Ginger doesn’t know you’re a vampire, does she?”
“Not until recently.”
“Oh, that’s priceless!” she cried. “All this time, she was plottin’ to get her boy away from a perfectly nice girl and hand him over to a vampire! Oh, you’ve made my day.”
“Well, I do what I can,” I said flatly as she lit a long brown cigarillo. “The thing is, Zeb’s wedding was ruined because of that crap you put in his head. Having some experience in the psychic arena, I recognize that you’ve got some serious chops. I mean, whatever you did to me at the shop was impressive. My ears were ringing for hours.” A faint flush of pride spread across her furrowed cheeks. “Now, look, Mama Ginger still owes you a hundred dollars. I’m willing to pay you five hundred so we can settle this whole thing without any hard feelings. All you have to do is hold up your end of the deal and give me the release keyword.”
She pursed her lips. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I wouldn’t do it for any amount of money.” She sniffed. “Ginger Lavelle insulted me personally and professionally. And she’s a giant pain in the ass. I don’t want to have anything to do with her. She deserves whatever she gets.” She settled her gaze on me, and in a voice that reverberated inside my skull, she said, “Now, go away.”
Fortunately, I was prepared for the psychic smacking, so while her efforts stung a little, they didn’t do a lot of damage. I shook my head. She seemed stunned by my lack of reaction. “That was rude. I came to you in good faith. And Mama Ginger isn’t suffering, her son is. Look, I know she’s a pain in the ass. It’s part of her charm. And if some insulted part of you feels the need to track her down and hypnotize her into thinking she’s a chicken or a nudist or something, I will be more than willing to look the other way. Hell, I might pay you extra to do it. I’ll consider it a wedding present for a deeply hurt daughter-in-law.”
I backed her against the parlor wall and let my fangs fully extend. “I don’t want to hurt you. But for my friend, I will do anything it takes to get that keyword. You might reconsider—ow!”
She had reached into a side table and pulled out a silver cross large enough to make me break out in hives. “Silly little vampire, I’ve seen inside you. You don’t have the stomach for killing. You can’t even feed on humans without torturing yourself over it. You wouldn’t hurt a little old lady like me.”
Wheezing and scratching the blisters forming on my arms, I spat, “Look, lady, I’ve got twenty-four hours to dewhammy my best friend and get him to the altar. Otherwise, he may never leave his parents’ guest room again. I wouldn’t overestimate the depth of my kindness. And I brought something you didn’t count on.”
“What’s that?”
“Gloves.” I slipped the black Isotoners out of my pocket and slapped the cross out of her hands. “And my big mean sire. Gabriel!”
Gabriel swept into the room, followed by a slightly less sweepy Dick.
“What’s the plan?” Dick asked, rubbing his hands together and checking the room for valuables. “Carnage? Bedlam? Fisticuffs?”
Gabriel smiled solicitously and waved a hand toward Esther. Dick rolled his eyes. “Dang it.”
“What?” I asked as Dick sidled up to the trembling old woman.
Gabriel snickered as he looked over the fading blisters on my arms. “Haven’t you ever wondered about the nature of Dick’s vampiric gift?”
“I figured it was dodging collection agents or slipping out of handcuffs.”
Gabriel grinned as Dick soothingly stroked a resistant Esther’s papery hands and led her to a sofa. He fetched a glass of water and cooed over her as she recovered from the “shock” of having three strange vampires in her home. “Dick can reach the heart of any woman. Through a combination of pheromones, subliminal persuasion, and old-fashioned charm, he can get anything he wants from them—money, favors, certain keywords that will help unlock your best friend’s brain …”
“His special vampire power is flirty manipulation? Wait, he’s not doing that to Andrea, is he? Because that’s … icky.”
“No, he rarely uses it. He hates lowering himself to it, really. So, his doing this shows you how much he likes Zeb. Using his gift doesn’t seem sporting to him. And if anything, Dick adores the chase.”
“I don’t know if I can watch this,” I said, shaking my head in disgust as Dick clasped Esther’s hands against his manly chest. She was already making cow eyes at him. “Keep Dick away from my grandma.”
“Now, Esther—I can call you, Esther, can’t I?” Dick chuckled, giving her a saucy, intimate grin. “It seems like such a shame for you to go by any name but that of one of the most famous queens in history.”
As Esther giggled coquettishly, I felt a little ill. “This is not right.”
“But extremely effective,” Gabriel conceded. “And you don’t have the guilt of assaulting a senior citizen hanging over your conscience.”
Dick stroked Esther’s hands as he pleaded his case, his flashing green eyes drawing her closer across the love seat. “Esther, honey, I don’t blame you for being mad at that awful Ginger Lavelle. She’s a horrible woman, and I personally can’t stand the sight of her, but her son is such a nice boy. He doesn’t deserve this kind of hurt. Now, you’ve got a good heart, Esther. Anyone can see that. You don’t want to break up true love, do you? Why don’t you go ahead and give me the keywords?”
“I just said the exact same thing,” I complained. “That’s never going to—oh, come on.” Gabriel smirked as Esther whispered the words “like peas and carrots” into Dick’s ear.
I snorted. “What is your obsession with peas?”
She ignored me as Dick kissed both her palms and her cheeks.
“We’re square, right?” I asked the nonresponsive geriatric psychic. “You’re not going to come back in a year and use some secret word to make him divorce Jolene and join the Krishnas or something. Hello?”
“Aw, Esther wouldn’t do that, now, would you?” Dick cooed.
“Dick, eventually, your thrall will wear out,” I reminded him quietly.
“I looked over her brain. There are no other words. Esther doesn’t much like to put in extra work, do you, sweetheart?” Dick kissed the top of her scarved head.
“No.” Esther giggled. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, Jane. Will I see you again, Dick?”
“Maybe you will, maybe not.” Dick smirked.
“Oh, please come by,” she wheedled. “Come back and see me.”
Dick merely grinned and ushered us out the door.
“Well, I learned more about you, which is always disturbing.” I wrapped a purely platonic arm around him. “You are a very bad man, and I hope you’re always on my side.”
Zeb was not the depressive type, so it was disconcerting to see him in full Howard Hughes mode, ensconced in his mother’s guest room, also known as her Precious Moments display area. The walls were lined with shelves where carefully arranged figurines stayed perfectly preserved in their plastic viewing boxes. As far as the eye could see, there were towheaded, large-pupiled children forever frozen while cavorting in adorable pastel rain slickers. Huddled under a pink chenille comforter, Zeb stared blankly at the wall.
“I don’t like this place,” Dick whispered after Floyd had let us into the house and flopped back into his easy chair without comment. Mama Ginger had taken to her bed. “It’s like all the little eyes follow you around the room. This is a bad place.”
“Well, it wasn’t upsetting before, but it is now.” Gabriel grimaced as he recoiled from the plush Precious Moments angel that recited the Lord’s Prayer when squeezed.
“Zeb,” I whispered, shaking his shoulder. “Zeb, we’re here.”
“Who’s going to do the honors?” Dick asked. “I think unscrambling the groom’s brain is a man-of-honor duty.”
“But I think I should do it,” Gabriel insisted. “I have the most experience sifting through human brains.”
“It sounds gross when you say it like that,” I told him. “And none of us is going to do this. I made a call on the way over.”
We heard Floyd open the front door and grunt. Jolene stepped through the bedroom door. Ignoring the sinister surroundings, her eyes welled up at the sight of her stone-silent fiancé. She curled up against his back and stroked his shoulders, nuzzling the curve of his neck with her nose. “Zeb, honey, it’s me.”
Zeb’s arms trembled, but his gaze stayed fixed on the wall.
“Our friends told me what happened, that what you did wasn’t your fault. I love you, Zeb. And I forgive you. And I want you to snap out of it so we can have our wedding. We’re like peas and carrots, Zeb. We’re different, but we belong together. Did you hear me? Like peas and carrots.”
Like a fairy-tale prince released from a spell, Zeb gingerly flexed his fingers and closed them around Jolene’s hand. He took a deep breath and said, “I’m so sorry.”
Gabriel’s arm slipped around me as the pair of them sat up in bed and threw their arms around each other.
“Jolene, I’m sorry,” Zeb said, his lips trembling. “It was horrible. I felt like a puppet. My lips were moving, but someone else was talking and I couldn’t stop those things from coming out of my mouth. I didn’t mean any of it. And afterward, I just didn’t want to live without you—”
“Shhh.” She chuckled, kissing his neck. “You can spend the rest of our lives making it up to me. Starting with brushing your teeth.”
“Your family,” he groaned. “They’re going to kill me this time, aren’t they?”
Jolene shook her head. “Mama and Daddy calmed them down for the most part. Vance still wants to kick your ass, but I don’t think that will ever change. They are, however, pretty ticked off at your mama, so she should probably expect a cold shoulder tomorrow night at the reception.”
“You still want to marry me?”
“I’d marry you right now in this bed surrounded by these creepy little dolls, if you asked me to,” she said.
“Please don’t ask her to,” Dick begged. “I’d like to get out of here.”
Zeb smiled up at us as Jolene cuddled his neck. “Thanks, guys.”
I grinned. “What are the man of honor and the best maid for?”
Mama Ginger appeared in the doorway, her eyes puffy and red. Tired, timid, and contrite, she was wearing her old blue housecoat, a bundle of wet Kleenex pouched in the pocket.
Jolene got to her feet and crossed to her with deliberate steps. “It’s goin’ to take a long, long … really long time for me to totally forgive you for this. We’re not goin’ to have the kind of relationship the two of us would have wanted. You’ll have to earn your way into being welcome at our house. But I love your son, and I’m goin’ to spend the rest of my life trying to make him happy. If that means the two of us being civil to each other, that’s what we’re goin’ to do. Got it?”
Mama Ginger nodded meekly and stepped out of Jolene’s way.
Jolene blew Zeb a kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, honey. I’ll be the one up front wearin’ the white dress.”
“Can I still come to the wedding?” Mama Ginger asked in a sad, humble little voice.
Zeb stood and, for the first time in his life, talked sternly to his mother. “You can come, Mama, but you’re going to be nice. You’re going to be sweet as pie to Jolene and her family.”
“But Zeb—”
“Sweet as pie,” Zeb repeated.
“But I—”
“Ginger, just shut up!” Beer in hand, Floyd stomped into the room and wagged his finger in Mama Ginger’s face. “You’ve talked enough for the both of us over the years. And I’m going to be speaking up a little more often. You’re going to be on your best behavior tomorrow. You’ll tell that girl how nice her dress looks. You’ll say nice things about the food, the decorations, and anything else that catches your eye. You will offer to help in any way you can, even if it means sweeping out the chicken coop. You will apologize to Jolene’s family for how you’ve acted so far, and you will do your damnedest to make up for it over the next couple of years.”
Zeb and I gaped at his father in shock. It was the most words either of us had heard him string together since he dropped a carburetor on his foot in 1989.
“Floyd Lavelle, you’ve never spoken to me like this in your whole life.” Mama Ginger sniffled, her lip trembling. Apparently, her guilt only went so deep.
“Then it’s time that I started,” Floyd said. He strode out of the room after slapping Mama Ginger on the butt. “Now, everybody keep quiet. I’m trying to watch the damn game!”
Zeb grinned. “I’m going to take a shower. I’m getting married tomorrow!”
“I don’t know how to take all this,” Mama Ginger said, wringing a Kleenex around her fingers.
“Well, I would plan on swallowing a big slice of humble pie, Mama Ginger.” I patted her arm and led Dick and Gabriel out of the room. “Maybe two.”