7
Humans may mistake the wooing techniques of werewolves, particularly males, as predatory. Studies show that 10 percent of human-werewolf relationships begin with the male being maced.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
After the shipwreck that was the engagement party—gah, even I’m doing the Titanic thing now—I had to establish some special phone rules for Jolene.
For example, calling me several times during my midday sleepy time because someone is bleeding, unconscious, or on fire is acceptable. Calling me several times during my midday sleepy time because Mama Ginger tried to persuade the county clerk that Jolene and Zeb were actually first cousins and ineligible for a marriage license? Not so much.
Mama Ginger was well on her way to the Mother of the Groom Hall of Shame. Convinced that the Invitation Debacle hadn’t sent a clear enough message, she started making demands. She wanted her friend, Eula, who had never baked more than a bundt, to handle the blue-and-white nautical-themed wedding cake for 200. She wanted Jolene to announce at the reception that the wedding coincided with Uncle Ace’s fifty-fourth birthday and to arrange for the DJ to play “Friends in Low Places” in his honor.
Mama Ginger also had very firm ideas about what she did not want for the wedding. For instance, Jolene’s aunt Lola runs a florist shop and had generously offered to make the floral arrangements. Mama Ginger claimed that she was allergic to pollen and insisted on silk flowers. She even went to the local floral outlet and bought out their supplies of silk daisies in magenta and yellow, nowhere near the delicate white lily arrangements Jolene wanted.
Mama Ginger had also eschewed the tradition of hosting the rehearsal dinner after Jolene’s mother declined another evening at Eddie Mac’s. Instead, Mimi offered to hold the dinner at the farm, since that’s where the rehearsal would be and it was rather remote. Mama Ginger said, “Hell, just plan the whole thing,” and decided to take no part in it.
When Mama Ginger tried to change the theme of the wedding from Titanic to “North and South,” I had to turn my phone off.
I had never seen Mama Ginger this fired up. Well, there was that time Zeb got cut from the Academic Team in high school and she slipped ipecac into the team advisor’s coffee. Poor Mrs. Russell was throwing up for three days and missed the state Governor’s Cup meet. The scary thing, then and now, was that Mama Ginger honestly thought she was doing what was best for Zeb. Much like that cheerleader’s mom in Texas.
Zeb had problems of his own with Jolene’s far-too-affectionate cousin. Like most predators, Vance sensed a weakness. For all their grudged acceptance of Zeb, the pack did not appreciate Mama Ginger’s lack of affection for Jolene or her clear favoritism toward me. Vance was exploiting that, grumbling here and there among the relations that Zeb’s family didn’t appreciate the jewel they were getting. Oh, and that I was not to be trusted, because “no man can just be ‘friends’ with a woman, especially a vampire woman.”
If I’d had my phone on, I might have gotten a warning that Mama Ginger was planning to show up at my house early one evening “for a chat.” Translation: to pick apart my relationship and zero in on my soft emotional underbelly. The woman was like Hannibal Lecter in polyester pants.
Wearing my flannel reindeer pajamas and sipping my morning cup of Chock Full o’ Platelets, I was not prepared for company or the toxic apple cobbler she was carting into my house. I could only pray that Aunt Jettie didn’t decide to pop in at home. The first (and only) time Mama Ginger had visited River Oaks was for Jenny’s first baby shower. She lit up in the parlor and put the cigarette butt in a decorative urn that was on the mantel … which contained my beloved Great-Grandma Early’s ashes. Jettie, who was corporeal at the time, tossed Mama Ginger out on her ear and threw her straw handbag after her, telling her never to darken the door again. In retaliation, Mama Ginger started a rumor that Aunt Jettie was secretly a vegetarian. It wasn’t nearly as damaging as she’d anticipated.
Faced with a noxious dessert and no available escape routes, I took Mama Ginger into the kitchen and shooed Fitz out the back door. While lovable, Fitz, a pound-adopted product of indiscriminate breeding among several species, was neither handsome nor smart. Also, his proclivity for rolling around in dead things left him vulnerable to accidentally consuming Mama Ginger’s cobbler. I scooped up two pungent helpings and offered Mama Ginger some coffee, which I needed myself if I were going to socialize at the vampire equivalent of five A.M.
“Well, isn’t this nice?” Mama Ginger sighed as we pulled stools up to my island countertop. She tucked her fork into the gooey concoction. “We didn’t really get a chance to talk at the engagement party. And I miss our talks, Jane. So, tell me all about this Gabriel. Tell me all about the man who stole you away from my Zeb.”
I spluttered my coffee a little while I tried to come up with a palatable explanation of my relationship with Gabriel. “I met him last year, right after I left the library. He’s a very … interesting man. He’s good to me, very protective. He’s helped me make a lot of big changes in my life …”
I have to learn to speak with fewer ellipses.
“But what’s he like?” Mama Ginger pressed.
“He’s lived around here his whole life. He likes Zeb a lot, and he’s comfortable with my having a male best friend. We’re a great fit for each other. We practically finish each other’s sentences.”
Because I’m usually interrupting him.
“Well, if he’s lived here all of his life, why haven’t I ever met him?” Mama Ginger demanded. “Who are his people? What does he do for a living? How serious is he about the two of you?”
“Wow, that’s a lot of questions,” I said.
“I’m just worried about you, Jane.” Mama Ginger tsked, patting my hands. “I don’t want you to settle for some no-good loser with a good line because you’re desperate.”
“I’m not desperate!” I exclaimed.
“You’re thirty—”
“Twenty-eight!” I corrected.
“And at this point, you’ll grab on to anything.” Mama Ginger shrugged.
I grumbled, “That is not completely accurate.”
Mama Ginger demanded, “Then where is Gabriel right now? Why isn’t he here with you?”
This was a pertinent question, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Mama Ginger. The truth was, I hadn’t seen Gabriel since the engagement party. He was in Lisbon this week, discussing the sale of some residential buildings he owned there. At least, I thought that was what he said in the voice mail he left me the day after the party. He hadn’t picked up his cell phone when I’d called, oh, twenty or so times over the last few days to try to get a better explanation. I even went so far as to call the hotel where he was supposed to be staying, but they didn’t have a Gabriel Nightengale registered. I was clinging to the hope that he’d either changed his plans or registered under some assumed name, such as Mr. I. M. Deceased.
“Gabriel spends a lot of time traveling for work,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “He owns a lot of different businesses, and he has to look in on them from time to time—”
Mama Ginger sighed, rolling her heavily shaded eyes at my naiveté. “Oh, honey, my cousin Pam said the same thing about her husband, Claude, and his plumbing-supply business, and then she found out that he had another family over in Butler County. He even gave their sons the same names so he wouldn’t mess up and call the wrong kids to supper.”
“I don’t think that’s something I need to worry about. And we don’t have the kind of relationship where we have to see each other every day.”
“Well, why not? Why doesn’t he want to see you every day?” she demanded. “Aren’t you worth that kind of commitment? Where is he going with this? Have you two even talked about marriage?”
“No!” I laughed. “We haven’t talked about getting married.”
Because state law prohibits it.
“Well, why not? Tick-tock, tick-tock, Jane. I can hear your biological clock ticking. You don’t have time to waste on some silly little fling that’s not going to go anywhere. If you want to have babies, you have to speed things along.”
Dang it.
The finality of vampirism had kept me from thinking about motherhood, or my inability thereof, for a while. Realizing that little Andy and Bradley were to be her only grandchildren, Mama had stopped inquiring after my stalled uterus and devoted her energy to her “grand-dog,” Fitz. And since I’d been avoiding the church ladies who normally inquired after my reproductive plans, I was no longer thinking defensively. My usual list of responses to “When are you having kids?”—including “When they come with a return policy”—had long since vacated the tip of my tongue.
So, faced with the age-old kids question for the first time in months, all I could do was stutter, “Wh-Who said anything about having kids?”
“I always just assumed you wanted them. You were so good with the kids down at the library. They loved you. And Zeb always talked about how much his students liked it when you came in for Fairy Tale Time. I’ve always thought you were built to be a mom. You know, you have those good roomy breeding hips anyway. Might as well put them to good use.”
The cracking of my unhinged jaw echoed in the empty kitchen as Mama Ginger resumed munching her dessert. She shrugged and chewed. “I mean, if you don’t have children, what’s the point of being a woman?”
I think I deserve some sort of karmic reward for not using my vampire strength to pull Mama Ginger’s lip over her head. Obviously, kids weren’t an option. That door closed the moment I swallowed vampire blood. In general, vampires do not make great parents. Our night hours are incompatible with healthy human sleep patterns. It’s hard to discipline a child when they can just run out into the daylight to escape you. And then there’s the whole “never aging and outliving your children by hundreds of years” thing.
Parents who have been turned while their children are still minors have to fight fang and nail to retain custody, even when there’s a living parent in the home. And the last legislator who brought an undead adoption-rights bill before Congress was literally laughed out of office.
Gripping the countertop in a way that left moon-shaped dents in the surface, I counted to ten and said, “That’s just—”
Mama Ginger dropped her fork dramatically and cut me off, “Honey, I just can’t stand it. I have to tell you. A mother’s heart can’t bear to see her son in such pain.”
“Zeb’s in pain?”
“Well, sweetie, isn’t it obvious? He only went after Jolene when you hooked up with this Gabriel character. He said he doesn’t see you nearly as often since you met Gabriel, and I know it’s just breaking his heart. Jolene’s just his rebound girl. He’s not in love with her. He’s trying to get back at you.”
“For what?”
“For not loving him back!” Mama Ginger cried.
“Zeb doesn’t love me. He loves Jolene,” I said in a slow, deliberate tone one might use with someone who was very dim or slightly drunk. Or both.
“But you’re the perfect match, you always have been. You have such a long history together. You can’t just throw that away. Hot pants and hormones do not make a marriage. Believe me, honey, I should know. I married for lust, and look what happened to me: a husband who doesn’t talk and in-laws who talk too damn much. What you have, friendship and companionship, that’s what makes a solid, lasting marriage. That’s what is going to make my boy happy.”
“Please, God, let that be the last time you ever say ‘hot pants’ in front of me.”
“It’s always been you and Zeb, in my head.” Mama Ginger paused to press her fingers to her temples, as if she were about to peer into a future where I was somehow living and bearing her lots and lots of little Lavelles. “Whenever I pictured Zeb’s wedding, it was always you walking down that aisle.”
“You’re just not making sense right now,” I told her. “If you’d just get to know Jolene, you’d see why Zeb loves her so much.”
“She’s not you! When you and Zeb are married, we’ll be the perfect, big happy family. You and Zeb can come over for dinner every other night. We’ll go to flea markets on the weekends. And I’m sure Mamaw or Daddy Lavelle would be dead by the time you and Zeb started having babies, so you could move right into one of the trailers behind the house.”
I think I might have sprained something trying to keep a straight face in response to that. “But if you really want a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship like that, Jolene would be more than willing to do all of those things with you. She wants to be close to you.”
“But it won’t be the same. That’s not the way I pictured it.”
“But it would be the way Zeb pictures it. I don’t want Zeb. And he doesn’t want me. He wants Jolene. Isn’t it important to let him have some say in choosing his wife?”
“Oh, he’s a man, he doesn’t know what he wants.” She snorted. “If I didn’t help him figure out what’s best for him, what kind of mother would I be?”
The kind of mother whose son doesn’t dodge her calls?
“You’re going to see things my way soon enough,” Mama Ginger insisted.
“What does that mean?”
“I just want to help you and Zeb figure some things out, honey,” Mama Ginger said, standing up and hitching her bag over her shoulder. “Well, this was fun, but I’ll just let myself out. I have to go meet with Jolene’s mama over at the Bridal Barn to talk about dresses for the wedding, like I need fashion advice from that dowdy thing. Vonnie’s making some big deal about keeping the shop open late.”
I stared after her as she toddled toward the back door. She smiled beatifically at me. “If you ever want to talk, give me a call.”
I sat at the counter, staring at the untouched oozy layers of pastry on my plate, my head spinning. Aunt Jettie appeared next to the sink, her lips quirked into a sneer.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the remains of Mama Ginger’s cobbler. “It’s like an autopsy with fruit.”
“Mama Ginger came calling, to set the alarm on my biological clock. Oh, and to remind me that there’s no point to me being a woman if I never have children.”
“Well, if that’s true, I wasted a hell of a lot of money on panty hose and lipstick.” Jettie snorted.
“I don’t know where this is coming from. Why would she say something like that? And why am I letting it bother me? It’s not like I can just decide to turn my lady parts back on.”
“Oh, honey, don’t you think I heard the same thing my whole life?” she said, stroking her cold, insubstantial fingers down my back. Her voice pitched up two octaves. “ ‘Don’t you know you’re wasting your life? You’re going to end up alone with no one to take care of you when you get old. What makes you think you’re too good to get married and have babies like you’re supposed to?’ Most of that was just your grandma Ruthie. You have to ignore them.”
“But don’t you ever regret it?” I asked. “Not having children of your own?”
“I didn’t need to have children of my own.” She grinned. “I had you. I cared for you, taught you, learned from you. I may not have carried you in my womb, but I always carried you in my heart.”
“If I wasn’t thinking about your womb right now, that would have been such a sweet sentiment,” I said, leaning my forehead against her ghostly noggin.
“Do you feel better now?” she asked.
“Eh.” I waffled my hand. “I’d feel better if I could eat about a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s without vomiting.”
When Gabriel finally called three days later to let me know he was back in town, I decided it was time for me to take some initiative. With my ever-present fear of being a needy childe, I usually waited around for him to call. But I figured a little manufactured romance was just the thing to get me out of my Mama Ginger-induced funk. I slipped into a silky red T-shirt and jeans and marched out the door to see him. Or at least I would have, had I not opened the door to find Adam Morrow standing on my porch. And because I had a bit of momentum going, I ran smack into him and, in my panic, lifted him by the armpits to move him out of my way.
“Adam!” I shrieked.
He made a gurgling sound as I dropped a limp pile of veterinarian onto my porch.
“Adam, I’m so sorry,” I said, picking him up and settling him back on his feet.
“It’s OK,” he said, clutching a squashed box, which I could now smell was flowers. “It was kind of cool.”
“What are you doing all the way out here?”
“I wanted to see you,” he said, uncrumpling the box and straightening the shiny red bow attached. “And I see now that surprising a vampire is not a good idea.”
I stared at him, my mouth open, gaping like a suffocating goldfish.
“Yeah, I figured out the vampire thing,” he said, a sheepish blush coloring his cheeks. Oh, man, even in the dark, that just made him cuter. “At the visitation that night, I didn’t see you eat anything. And, well, no one sees you during the day anymore. You don’t have to worry. I won’t tell anyone. I just wanted to—I just wanted to see you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. And I’ve never known a real vampire before.”
I laughed. “I’m so glad I could be the first.”
“These are for you,” he said, offering me the mangled box. “It’s jasmine. I thought you might like it. It’s night-blooming.”
“That was thoughtful,” I told him.
Adam Morrow brought me flowers. On the checklist of “Teenage Daydreams That Will Probably Never Happen to Me,” that was number one. Now, all I had to do was make out with one of the straight members of ‘N Sync and star in a movie with Hugh Grant.
Unsure what to do with the box, I opened the door. A boulder of fur flew at us, giving me a full-on tongue bath. After deeming me sufficiently licked, Fitz turned his attentions to Adam, a strange man in dark clothes standing on our porch. Fitz is adorable in his own hideous way, but as a security system, he’s pretty much useless.
“Hey, boy.” Adam grinned, rubbing Fitz’s muzzle as I led them into the living room. “You’re just a whole bunch of breeds, aren’t you?”
Adam was not my vet, because the idea of spazzing out in front of him every time Fitz needed a checkup was not a happy one. Fitz proved to be a fascinating Mendelian model for him. I guess Adam had never seen a dog with eyes and ears that were each a different color. Fitz leaned into the scratching and let his tongue loll out to full length, useless and prideless.
“So, you’re not weirded out at all by this?” I asked, drawing my lips back from my fangs.
“No,” he insisted. “Like I said, it’s really interesting. You’ve changed a lot since high school.”
I snorted. “That’s an understatement.”
Aunt Jettie appeared behind Adam and gave me a big thumbs-up. With Adam concentrating on Fitz, I mouthed, “I know!” and shooed her away. Jettie grinned and vanished.
“What’s it like? What’s it like to be a vampire?” he asked.
“Weird,” I said, looking at him. “Powerful, exciting, and occasionally humiliating, confusing, and painful. It’s sort of like going through puberty all over again. Nothing about my life is the same. But there are some good things. Awesome night vision, for one. I’m still trying to balance things out. I mean, when we were taking those aptitude tests on Career Day, vampirism was not something that came up. I never could have predicted my life turning out this way, but I’ll have the best story at our class reunion.”
Adam looked up and blurted, “I was wondering if you might want to go to dinner sometime?”
“I don’t really eat,” I said.
“Oh, right,” he said, slapping his forehead. “Well, what about coffee? Or we can stay in and watch a movie if you’re more comfortable with that. I’m up for anything. Just—I would like to spend time with you. What are you doing tonight?”
“I was actually heading out to see my friend. The friend I mentioned at the funeral. The … man friend.”
Adam’s face fell a little bit. “You’re not making this easy for me, are you, Jane?”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to make it easy for you,” I said. “In fact, when I was a teenager, my mother gave me several lectures on why I shouldn’t make this easy for you.”
He laughed. “Well, you can’t blame me for trying. Anytime you want to hang out, even if it’s just as friends. I mean, I don’t want to be just friends with you, but I’ll take what I can—I’m not saying this right.” He backed away from me, negotiating the steps without even looking down. “Just call me sometime, please.”
Giddy little butterflies danced around my belly. I brushed my cheeks with my fingertips and found a big silly grin stretched across my face.
“Adam Morrow wants to date me,” I told Aunt Jettie, who stood next to me as I watched him drive away. “That’s weird.”
“That’s one very sweet boy.” Jettie nodded. “Respectful, thoughtful, and kind. His mama raised him right.”
“I know.” I sighed, taking the flowers into the kitchen and putting them into one of Jettie’s favorite pressed-glass vases.
Jettie nodded. “Nice ass, too.”
“Gross.” I shuddered.
She smirked. “I’m dead, not blind, honey.”
“And still, I say, ew.” I grabbed my purse and slipped into my coat. On a whim, I grabbed Jettie’s old wicker picnic hamper out of the front closet. “I don’t have time for this. I need to go be confused by the man I’m actually dating.”
As it turned out, Gabriel was the one confused.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he opened his front door before I could even knock.
It was more than the weary tone that had little alarm bells going off in my head. Gabriel’s face was drawn and pinched. His eyes were a dull slate color and lacked the spark I’d come to expect. He looked almost ill. This was more than just traveler’s stress. Something was wrong. But I could tell by his guarded expression that asking would leave me without answers and alone on a perfectly good date night.
“Nothing,” I said, smiling to hide my worries. “Absolutely nothing.”
“You never come to see me unless you’re angry or something has gone wrong.”
I gasped, feigning hurt. “That’s not true.”
“The first time you were here, you came storming up my front steps because I’d sent Andrea over to your house. The last time you were here, it was because Zeb and Jolene were on the verge of collapse. We never spend time here. I’m always at your place.”
“You know, you’re right. I’m so sorry. I’m terrible at the relationship thing.”
He shrugged. “You just like to be comfortable.” He sniffed slightly, then ran the tip of his nose down my hairline. I took this as a sweet, intimate gesture, until he asked, “Why do you smell like a German shepherd?”
I stared at him, thinking maybe this was some sort of bizarre riddle, when I realized Adam’s eau de canine had probably rubbed on me when I’d plowed into him. I blew out a startled laugh. “Oh, I ran into an old friend from high school, Adam Morrow. He’s a vet, and he must have had some leftover dog residue on him.”
“You ran into him on the drive over here?” Gabriel asked.
“No, he dropped by the house to say hi, just as I was walking out the door,” I said, the suspicion in his voice setting off my “babble” response. “It’s no big deal. It’s really kind of funny. It’s this boy I used to have this huge crush on when were kids, but he never looked twice at me. I was this gawky band geek, and he was the most popular boy in our class. But now that I’ve been turned, and grown out of my braces, I guess he’s interested in me. I told him I was seeing someone. And it’s too little, too late, obviously. I mean, I’m a grown woman, and it was just a silly schoolgirl fantasy crush thing. I’m over him. Completely. Totally. Completely and totally over him.”
Gabriel grimaced, his features radiating doubt and discomfort. Maybe that second “completely and totally” was overselling it.
“So, take me on the tour,” I suggested, changing the subject far too enthusiastically. “I’ve only seen two rooms of your house. The parlor and your bedroom.”
“That wasn’t my bedroom,” he said. “That was a guest room.”
“You left your fledgling vampire childe to rise in your guest room?”
His lips twitched, and I could see him slowly coming out of his bad humor. “Where would you put a fledgling vampire childe to rise?”
I paused to think about it. “I don’t know. So, show me your bedroom. And I mean that in a perfectly respectable home-tour kind of way.”
Gabriel’s bedroom was surprising. I’d expected something lavish and baroque. Sort of Henry VIII meets Rudolph Valentino. But the walls were bare, a pale blue edging toward purple, the color of the sky just after dawn. The bed was wide and soft but plain, something you’d order from Ikea and then immediately regret. A thick navy tapestry curtain was pulled back, revealing a broad cushioned window seat, the only seating in the room. And his bathroom featured a shower big enough for six. He specifically mentioned that, which, frankly, worried me.
I ducked my head into his closet. Black as far as the eye could see. Black T-shirts, black sweaters, black button-down shirts, black slacks, broken up only by occasional splashes of slate gray.
“You ever thought about wearing a print?” I asked. “Maybe even a jewel tone? One of the less intense colors. Blue. Green. How about red? We know you like that one. Wait, are you color-blind?”
“I don’t wear jewel tones,” Gabriel muttered, leading me back out into the bedroom. “Or prints.”
There were no pictures, no mirrors, nothing on the walls save for a print of Edvard Munch’s Vampire, an ambiguous portrait of a seminude redheaded woman with her arms around and head bent over a dark-haired man. I stood, studying the image with a tilted head. Is he the vampire? Is she? Is he simply a lover seeking comfort at his redhead’s breast? Or are they two humans cowered in the shadow of the dark form looming behind them?
“What do you think of it?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful and sad and vague,” I said.
“You know, the original title of the painting was Love and Pain,” he said. “An art critic picked up on the underlying vampiric theme, and the name stuck. Munch experts were and are horrified, but you can’t deny the subconscious imagery.”
“You know, his ears are sort of shaped like yours,” I commented, looking from the slightly pointed painted ovals to Gabriel’s own lobes.
Gabriel grinned. “The artist found the back of my head to be quite compelling.”
“So, this is an altar to your vanity?” I asked, teasing.
“I enjoy the irony. A man interpreting me as a vampire but being told it’s impossible. What brought you rushing to my front door if it wasn’t bad news?” he asked as I pulled him back down the stairs toward the surprise I’d brought for him. He offered more than a little resistance as I pulled him farther and farther from the bedroom.
“I thought we might actually leave the house for a date. I figured we’ve covered the couch date. You are master of the corner lean and the casual backrub that might lead to something. I thought you might like to up the degree of difficulty. It’s time to leave the comfort of the make-out couch, Gabriel. Let’s go out to see a movie.”
He arched his eyebrows at me as I pulled him to the foyer.
“Moving images projected onto a screen in front of a darkened room full of people.” He shot me a withering look. “And since I don’t think even your broad horizons are quite ready for the Hollow Cineplex, I thought we would visit the dollar theater.”
“The dollar theater?”
“The old two-screen place downtown. They show old movies for a dollar a ticket. It’s sort of a gamble. Sometimes you see the ending, sometimes the film melts. But the seats are cushy, and there’s a lot of ambience.”
“You mean the Palladium?”
I chewed my lip. “I think that’s what the sputtering neon sign says.”
“The Palladium used to be the premier moving-picture palace in this end of the state. I saw my first film there, Casablanca.”
“You waited until the 1940s to see your first movie?”
He shrugged. “I had things to do.”
“Well, now the Palladium is the place where you can buy a bucket of beer with some very stale popcorn.”
“But … all those humans.”
“We’re vampires. If someone talks during the movie, we tear their throats out. Come on, I wore my cute date shoes and everything.”
He peered down at the strappy black pumps peeking out from my jeans. “You know I can’t resist you when your toes are exposed,” he grumped.
“Good, that means wearing open-toed shoes in winter is well worth it. And since we can’t exactly swing by for a pizza on our way into town, I brought you this.” I pulled a very nice bottle of donated Type B-positive, which I knew Gabriel favored, from the picnic basket.
“Very nice,” he commented, appraising the label. “Your palate is improving.”
“Thank you. Now let’s go.”
“What about drinking this?”
“I have a whole thing planned. Just relax that ramrod spine of yours and come with me.”
I took Gabriel to Memorial Park, a tiny patch of grass in the middle of downtown. It was home to a gazebo flanked by blackened cement statues of famous Civil War veterans from the Hollow, including Waco Marchand, who now served on the local commission for the Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead. High-school kids posed for pictures in their prom-night finery at the gazebo each spring. But tonight it was abandoned, empty save for the fairy lights strung from the carefully preserved gingerbread eaves. I winked at Gabriel and began unpacking the picnic basket on one of the gazebo’s little wrought-iron benches.
“It’s December,” Gabriel said, staring at me and tucking his coat tighter around his body.
“We stay at room temperature,” I reminded him, patting the bench. “Besides, we have twinkly Christmas lights, only available at this time of year. We have a lovely bottle of oaky B-positive. We have grapes and cheese, which, I’ll admit, I bought on the way over to your house strictly because I’ve seen people pack them for fancy wine picnics in movies. We have romance and atmosphere out the ying-yang.”
He gave me a smile that assured me that he was working hard to humor my girlie romanticism.
“I’m wearing the date shoes,” I reminded him.
“Curse your sassy toes,” he huffed. “Let me open that. You don’t want to cork it.”
“Are you implying that a little old thing like me can’t operate something as complicated as a corkscrew?” He grinned at my indignant tone. “OK, you’re right. But that’s not because I’m a woman. It’s because most of the stuff I drank when I was alive involved screw tops.”
“I’ve always enjoyed your little quirks.” He grunted at the faint pop of the cork coming loose. He carefully poured into the plastic wine glasses that came with the picnic set. “What do we drink to?”
“World peace?” I suggested. He grimaced. “To doing things that normal couples do?”
He cleared his throat and raised his glass. “To Mrs. Mavis Stubblefield, without whom we would not be here together tonight.”
I laughed. “That’s kind of twisted.”
He nodded while he sipped. “But true.”
“To Mavis Stubblefield, without whom I wouldn’t have been fired, publicly drunk, mistaken for a deer, shot, and turned into a vampire by you,” I conceded, and took a deep drink. Despite my pacifist leanings, I enjoyed the sizzle of human red cells as they zipped through my system. “Maybe I should send her a thank-you note.”
“We both know that’s not going to happen.”
“Also true,” I admitted, snuggling my head into the crook of his neck.
“What are you doing?”
“Enjoying the moment.” I sighed.
“You are, without a doubt, the most interesting girl I’ve ever shared a gazebo with,” he murmured, kissing my forehead.
“Interesting. There’s your favorite word again.”
“I think we’ve established how interested I am in you.” He chuckled, kissing me. He sighed when he released me. “I feel as if we haven’t been able to spend much time together lately. I’m sorry business has taken so much of my time.”
My lips parted, and I could feel the rush of questions gathering. Why wasn’t he answering his phone? Why was he being so uncharacteristically vague about his travels? Where had he been, really? But the evening was so perfect, so relaxed. Again, passages from Sense and Sensibility popped into my head. Elinor almost loses her Edward because she doesn’t speak up and tell him how she feels. She might have ended up alone, but Lucy Steele lets Edward off the hook by eloping with his brother. Would Edward stay in love with Elinor if she pitched a tantrum when he left her at Norland without confirming his feelings? Would making demands and ultimatums confirm that Edward made the right choice in Lucy?
I was an Elinor, not a Marianne. I didn’t want to waste precious, uninterrupted time together with outbursts or questions that might provoke an argument. So I feinted for a safer topic.
“It has helped that I’ve been all about wedding, wedding, and more wedding lately.” I sighed. “Tell me how it’s possible that this shindig has taken complete control of my life and I’m not even the one getting married? I’m just a lowly bridesmaid, and yet I’m the one doing cocktail-napkin comparisons and in-law interventions.”
He mulled that over for a moment. “Oh, I saw this in one of those ladies’ magazines you leave scattered around at your house. I think the term is ‘Bridezilla’?”
“I don’t know if I would use the word ‘Bridezilla.’ It’s not that Jolene’s being all that demanding or … yeah, were-bride just about covers it,” I admitted. “I don’t know what to do. I just keep getting pulled in. Dress fittings, engagement parties from hell, favor-making parties. It’s not that I don’t have the time, I’m just getting worn out, you know? But I don’t think any of her cousins will do any of this stuff with her.”
“And her fiancé has made vague yet disturbing advances toward you and is treating her badly, so you feel incredibly guilty.”
“No!” I insisted. I looked down into my glass and grumbled, “Yes.”
“You’re a very good friend.”
I waited for the sage advice he normally dished out in these situations. And got nothing. “And?”
“That’s all the platitudes I have,” he said. “Generally, people don’t invite vampires to their weddings, much less make them their undead bridal handmaidens. This is a situation I have never had to deal with.”
“In more than a century?” He gave me an apologetic look. “Well, that’s disappointing,” I said, looking down at my watch. “We’d better get going, or we’re going to miss the previews.”
“I thought the theater only showed movies that are at least twenty years old. That means the previews are for movies that are twenty years old.”
I drained the last of my blood. “There’s a principle at stake here, Gabriel.”
Since we were sticking to strict dating principles, Gabriel insisted on paying the two-dollar admission. He was a little put off when he saw our options listed on the old-fashioned marquee: Pillow Talk or the 1932 version of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi.
“Isn’t that sort of obvious?” he asked.
“Oh, we’ll go see Pillow Talk if you really want to. We’re talking singing, Tony Randall, lots of pastels …”
Gabriel shuddered. “Dracula it is.”
It was oddly fitting that our first “real date” involved Dracula, considering that our first couch date featured Francis Ford Coppola’s version, which Gabriel still insisted is a comedic spoof on the tale. We took two slightly sprung seats near the rear of the theater and settled in. Seeing the dilapidated state of the theater obviously bothered Gabriel. The gold leaf had worn away from the plaster angels guarding the screen long ago. The red velvet curtain was motheaten and dirty. The balcony railing was studded with generations of grayed chewing gum.
I narrowed my eyes at him as he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “You’re going to buy this place, aren’t you?”
“I’m thinking about it,” he confessed, wiping at a mysterious sticky substance that had transferred itself from the armrest to his hand. “This is criminal.”
“Well, if it would keep you in town for a while, I’m all for it. How many of us are in here?” I asked as he scanned the crowd. “Can you tell?”
“A few,” he admitted. “This version of Dracula is one of the few movie adaptations that vampires find generally palatable. The main character is powerful yet somewhat sympathetic.”
Gabriel looked nervous as he continued to scan the crowd.
“You OK?” I asked.
“Fine.” He smiled. “So, what is the procedure for a movie date?”
“Well, we sit here, not touching until the lights go out. Eventually, we’ll bump knees or fight for elbow-rest dominance. If we ate popcorn, we might pay an incredibly exorbitant amount of money for a bucket to keep between us so our hands could occasionally brush against each other as we reached for bites. If you were a total pervert, you’d cut a hole in the bottom of the bucket … never mind.” He shot me a questioning glance. “There’s also the yawn maneuver, which we’ve covered in previous sessions.”
“Excuse me for a minute.”
Gabriel walked out of the theater, leaving me to look over the crowd. Most of them were older couples, people who might have seen the original theater run when they were children. There were a few teenagers in goth regalia, some of whom I recognized as skateboarders I’d had to chase away from the shop. If there were vampires here, I couldn’t spot them. Gabriel came back carrying an obscenely large tub of popcorn.
“Did you know that butter comes in a liquid chemical form?” he asked, grinning over the oil-slicked kernels.
“But we can’t eat it.” I giggled as he set the tub between us.
“You said this is what people do on dates. I wanted to do this right.”
I grabbed his face between my palms and kissed him good. This was the Gabriel I’d fallen for. I could put up with the uncertainty, the brain-wracking questions, for just a little taste of this kind of happiness.
“Are we skipping the popcorn hand-brushing thing?” he asked, between nips on my lips.
“Hey! Go get a room!” bellowed a loud male voice behind us. Gabriel glared over my head at the elderly hall monitor. I giggled as he stood up and headed in the guy’s direction.
“Sit down,” I told him.
Gabriel glared at the loudmouth. “But that was very rude.”
“It’s all part of the experience.”
Gabriel mastered the yawn move and the knee squeeze and was well on his way to the around-the-shoulder chest grab by the time the credits rolled. As we left the theater, he talked animatedly about seeing Bela Lugosi play Dracula in the original Broadway play.
“But I must admit that his screen performance was even more compelling. It’s fascinating that they managed to film his eyes as ours appear, as if lit from within.”
“He had help. The cinematographer shone little pinpoint spotlights into his eyes during filming. It was the cheapest, most effective way to get the effect. Did you know that there was a Spanish-language version of the movie shot at night on the same set with different actors?”
“No, but it makes sense that you do.”
“So, what did you think of dating outside our homes?”
“It reminded me of my youth. Being close to a beautiful woman I wanted desperately to touch and not being able to,” he said, winding his arms around me as he led me to his car.
I chewed my lip and made a pouty face. “Was there a good-looking woman sitting next to us?”
“Are you ever going to just take a compliment and not turn it into a joke?”
I considered for a moment and shook my head. “Not likely, no.”
We had a few blocks to walk before reaching the car. It was a beautiful night, and I was enjoying strolling down a downtown sidewalk arm in arm with a handsome man. The downtown area was an odd mix of beautifully refurbished buildings and abandoned storefronts. One of those lovingly restored buldings contained the Coffee Spot, a Hollow institution known for bad java and unbelievable pecan pie. My father and I used to make up errands on Saturday mornings, then hide out at the Coffee Spot and eat cheese fries. From across the street, I peered through the window, smiling at the memory of Mama demanding to know how Daddy had gotten melted Velveeta on his shirt during a trip to the hardware store. I was about to seize an opportunity to share a nondisturbing experience from my human years with Gabriel, when I recognized two faces in a front booth. It was Mama Ginger and my synapse-slapping senior friend, Esther Barnes.
“What the?”
I couldn’t step closer to the window for fear of Mama Ginger’s internal Jane-tracking device going off. Instead, I ducked behind a nearby car and squinted at them. Really hard.
“Jane?” Gabriel grinned, staring down at me. “What are you—”
“Shhh!” I hissed, pulling at his coat and making him crouch next to me.
“This seems unnecessary,” Gabriel grumbled, frowning as I shushed him again. “We will discuss the shushing later.”
Framed by the coffee shop’s logo in the window, Mama Ginger and Esther seemed to be arguing. Knowing Mama Ginger, this was not unexpected. She’d once started a fistfight at a Relay for Life meeting over whether her card club’s booth should be luau- or casino-themed.
I couldn’t hear through the glass, but both Esther and Mama Ginger talked with their hands. Esther was pointing one of her long, bony fingers at Mama Ginger and then made a gesture that meant “More money” or “I need moisturizer.” Mama Ginger was shaking her head and seemed to be saying, “I need it sooner.”
I tried to zero in on Mama Ginger’s thoughts but heard only white noise. I looked up to Gabriel, who was sticking a finger in his ear and seemed to be trying to pop some pressure loose.
“You, too?” I asked, narrowing my gaze at the septuagenarian psychic. Maybe Esther’s psychic presence acted like some sort of scrambler, keeping both of us from reading the people around her. I clutched a fist and shook it at her. “Esther Barnes.”
I watched their conversation for a few more minutes, culminating in Esther’s threatening to get up and leave. Mama Ginger made placating gestures and finally broke out her wallet. She slid some cash across the table, which Esther counted. Twice.
I waited for either of them to get up and leave. Maybe if I could get Mama Ginger alone, I could ask her a few questions about Esther. But they wouldn’t budge. They both seemed determined to win some sort of impromptu pie-eating contest.
Sighing in exasperation at my own suspicious nature, I stood up, turned my back on the scene, and brushed off my coat. More than likely, all I was witnessing was some sort of illegal transaction involving unlicensed Precious Moments figurines.
“Can we stop skulking now?” Gabriel asked.
I nodded and quickly led him away before Mama Ginger could spot us.
“Is everything OK?” he asked.
“I don’t know. That woman that Mama Ginger’s talking to, she walked into the shop the other night and … well, she smacked my brain around in a psychic sense. I don’t like that she and Mama Ginger are talking. The two of them joining forces cannot possibly be good for Zeb … or mankind, in general.”
Gabriel nodded solemnly. “Agreed.”
I put my arm through Gabriel’s and tried to resuscitate our date night as we walked away. “Did I ever tell you that my dad and I used to go to that coffee shop every weekend?”