14
When you’ve taken all you can, walk away. Be the bigger person. Or at least find a bigger person, and use your vampire strength on them. It’s the sporting thing to do.
—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less
Destructive Relationships
G iven my history with my sister, it was inevitable, really, that we would end up wrestling in the mud, beating each other senseless with pieces of foam rubber.
The Half-Moon Hollow High parking lot was carefully organized into a carnival grid: flaccid, half-inflated bouncy houses in the south quadrant, food booths in the east, and no fun to be had in either.
At a normal Hollow charity carnival, the signs were hand-painted posterboard affairs. The games consisted of tossing pool rings over two-liter bottles or softballs into bushel baskets. You paid too much for a corn dog and a stuffed bear, you felt as if you contributed to your community, you went home.
This Halloween hell hole involved professionally screen-printed signs and catered low-carb treats. I’d suggested a cotton-candy machine, and Head Courtney gave me a look that would have vaporized lesser women. And forget any preconceived notions of streamers or balloons. This was strictly a Martha affair, pumpkins as far as the eye could see, artfully arranged with corn and various raffia accoutrements.
God help us all.
The spookiest thing about this extravaganza was all of the women in matching pink sweatshirts manically scrambling to make the parking lot into a Halloween casbah, each terrified that Head Courtney would find her efforts wanting and put her on cleanup duty. Given Head Courtney’s less-than-enthusiastic response to the prize boxes I was unloading from Big Bertha and the fact that the rest of the Courtneys had shunned me following my “outing,” I already knew who was going to be manning that stupid push broom all night.
Gabriel had wanted to accompany me to the carnival, but I asked him not to come, just in case I ended up stuck in the dunking booth. I didn’t want him to witness my humiliation. Fortunately, this carnival didn’t have dunking booths. Or clowns, which, for me, was another bright side.
Andrea was covering the shop for me while I served my carnival sentence. She and Dick would have the place to themselves for the evening. Emery had announced his intentions to attend a Christian-themed haunted house called “Hell House” weeks before. Emery had been spending less and less time at the shop lately. Andrea hoped that meant he’d found a girl to go to prayer meetings with.
We didn’t have time to overanalyze that possibility—or to consider warning the girl—because we were expecting a big Halloween-night crowd. Adults seeking a safely scary atmosphere. Teenagers looking for supplies to summon the Blair Witch. Having Emery standing in the aisles, trying to hand the customers religious tracts, would probably spoil the ambience.
Andrea was dressed up like Glinda the Good Witch, covered in pink sparkles from head to toe. The voluminous tulle skirt of her rented costume barely fit behind the coffee bar. Somehow she’d managed to talk Dick into wearing a Scarecrow costume. He looked like an extremely embarrassed Raggedy Andy doll and planned to stay in the stockroom for most of the night.
“Quit trying to put off going to the carnival,” Andrea had told me, filling a bowl with those rock-hard peanut taffy candies wrapped in orange wax paper. “We’ll be fine here.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” I muttered, sliding into my Pepto Bismol pink Chamber of Commerce sweatshirt.
“And I hope that you realize that as a witch, I am claiming double overtime for you making me work on a religious holiday,” she said, gesturing to her girlie ensemble.
“Watch it, or I’ll drop a house on you.” I sneered as I walked out the door.
Since Jenny had yet to show up, Nice Courtney was helping me unload and distribute the prizes to the various game booths. Zeb was pitching in, too, but I think he was just there to get first crack at the funnel cakes. Imagine how sad he was when he found out that this wasn’t that kind of carnival. The closest thing he could get to junk food was a sugar-free caramel apple. Nonetheless, he’d promised to come running, yelling that Jolene was in labor and we had to leave right away, if things got bad with the Courtneys.
“Well, it’s still pretty much a high school parking lot,” I said, hefting a box of free tote bags out of the trunk. “But I’m sure after everything is inflated, it will be a magical autumn wonderland.”
“Just keep telling yourself that.” Nice Courtney snickered. “Where do you want the popcorn balls?”
“Wherever Head Courtney won’t see them,” I muttered, throwing a blanket over the individually wrapped offerings from the A&P. “Don’t you know this is a no-carb charity carnival?”
Nice Courtney giggled. “I’ll smuggle them to the kids under the guise of giving them their complimentary hand sanitizer.”
“I’ve had a bad influence on you,” I said, gasping in mock surprise. When I made my escape from the chamber, I hoped that Nice Courtney and I could keep in touch. If nothing else, she’d proven to me that just because people are shiny and preppy, that didn’t make them automatically evil. It was entirely a matter of choice. She’d single-handedly undone a lot of damage that had been inflicted in high school.
“Jane!” Judging from the look on Jenny’s face as she barreled across the parking lot, I guess she’d heard about my visit with Grandma Ruthie. And being Grandma’s favorite and confidante, it was up to her to set me straight.
Speaking of shiny and evil personal choices.
“Oh, what now?” I muttered.
“Who do you think you are? Are you out of your mind, scaring Grandma like that?” she yelled, her face only inches from mine. “How could you do that to your own grandmother?”
“Let me get this straight. You’re yelling at me for my behavior during a conversation with Grandma Ruthie, in which Grandma Ruthie yelled at me for how I behaved during a conversation with you?” I sighed. “Do you two organize a ‘be a pain in Jane’s ass’ schedule?”
“She could have had a heart attack!” Jenny insisted.
“Oh, please, Ruthie’s an unstoppable force of nature, like the Black Plague or Richard Simmons.”
“That’s it,” Jenny growled through her clenched teeth. “Stay away from my family. Mama, Daddy, Grandma, the kids, everybody. You obviously don’t care about us or what we think. So, just stay away from us.”
“I know you’ve been lobbying for this since the day I was brought home from the hospital, but you can’t kick me out of our family, Jen,” I told her.
“It’s not ‘our family,’” she spat. “It’s mine.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I cried.
“Oh, don’t pretend you care about being a part of this family.” She sneered, snagging a foam-rubber “combat hammer” from the jousting game Head Courtney had banned from the midway. She jabbed it into my chest, backing me into the inflatable bouncy house. The giant clown head that hovered over the entrance leered down at me, and my latent coulrophobia forced me to change directions toward a muddy patch behind the staging area. But not before I was able to grab a foam weapon of my own.
Jenny poked me again with the hammer. “You’ve been waiting to get away from us for years. We’re not smart enough for you, not sophisticated enough. Do you think we don’t notice when you make your little jokes under your breath? You’ve wanted to get out of the Hollow for years. Why don’t you just go? We certainly don’t want to keep you.”
“How would you know that I want to leave?” I demanded, smacking her arm with the foam. “How the hell do you think you come close to knowing how I feel about anything?” Jab to her chest. “From our long heart-to-hearts? All those nights you came over to watch Sex and the City ?” Smack to her other arm. “Do you realize that the last time you and I had a conversation that ranged beyond the weather and whatever misinformation Mama’s fed you was at Aunt Jettie’s funeral luncheon? And I think you’d had too many toddies to remember.”
“Oh, you’re just all about the open, sisterly communication, aren’t you?” She landed a respectable blow to my face, knocking me on my butt into the mud.
Considering my vampire strength and speed, that was just embarrassing.
“When have you ever made an effort to spend time with me? To get to know me?” She hit my head to punctuate each point. “Oh, no, you’re just so freaking above it all, you couldn’t bring yourself to stop sniping for five minutes and just be my sister. Boring old Jenny with her husband and kids. Lame Jenny who likes to play Pictionary with her friends on Friday nights. Silly little Jenny and her silly little hobbies.”
“You’re mad because I won’t scrapbook with you?” I asked, dumbfounded, though I’m sure it was more from the ringing blow to my skull after she managed to rip the foam off the plastic bar that supported it. I shook it off and jumped to my feet.
“Even when we were kids, you thought you were so much better than me!” Jenny yelled, panting as we circled the mud pit. A crowd had gathered, cheering us on. “I never had to worry about you copying me like a normal little sister. No, you wouldn’t lower yourself to my level. I didn’t like the right books. I didn’t like the right music. I wasn’t sarcastic enough for you. Not good enough for Jane. And then you get turned into a freaking vampire! I have to hear from Mama about your fabulous undead makeover, about your undead rights group and your hundred-and-fifty-year-old boyfriend. How can I compete with that?” Each sentence was punctuated with an impressive smack upside my head.
“You’re mad because I’m cooler than you?” I guessed again, but Jenny was too worked up to notice I’d said anything. With a cry that would have made Xena proud, she swept my leg. My feet went flying out from under me, and I landed with a wet thwap on my back.
She growled. “You’re always saying that I’m the favorite, that you get treated like a child. You’re always bitching about Mama bringing food over to your house and folding your laundry. Do you know how many times she’s brought dinner over to my house? Twice. After each of the boys was born. I had to go through twenty-three hours of labor without drugs just to get a damn pot pie! You think Daddy ever just drops by my house for a chat and some pizza? You think Mama calls me before I leave for work or checks on me at night when I’m home alone? No, because ‘Jenny can take care of herself. She never needs any help,’” she cried, throwing her head back and screaming at the sky. I used her distraction to knock her back on her butt and pummel her repeatedly. Jenny, on the other hand, had resorted to flinging mud at me. Literally.
“Because you’re perfect!” I yelled, throwing a glob of muck into her face. “Do you think it was easy growing up with the Jenny Early as your older sister?”
Jenny spluttered as she spit the mud out and landed an impressive clump in my hair, considering that she couldn’t see. “Do you think I ever walked into a classroom where the teacher didn’t say, ‘Oh, you’re Jenny Early’s sister, we know what to expect from you?’ I have to live up to the example of a woman who color-codes her underwear drawer. ‘Jenny’s so responsible. Jenny’s house is always immaculate. Jenny cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner and still had time to make place cards out of acorns and rice paper!’ Don’t blame me because you’ve had to live up to your own hype.”
I pushed up onto my feet, scraping several layers of mud from my face. “And frankly, I’m tired of hearing ‘Oh, that’s just the way Jenny is’ and ‘She didn’t do it to hurt your feelings, she just likes things a certain way.’ ”
“When have I ever hurt your feelings?” She gasped, trying and failing to stand. She slumped to the ground and looked up at me, squinting through the blood and sweat dripping in her eye.
“Let’s see, holidays, birthdays, graduations, family dinners, baby showers, church functions, school plays. You put me at another family’s table at your wedding reception, Jenny.”
“Because I didn’t want Grandma Ruthie to drive you crazy with questions about when you were going to get married,” Jenny protested.
“And because I embarrass you,” I said, wiping a clod of dirt from my cheeks.
“You don’t embarrass me! You annoy me. You irritate me. You drive me up the damn wall. But OK, wait, the vampire thing, that did embarrass me a little bit. But still, I don’t hate you.”
Awkward silence. I looked into the future and saw the two of us, fighting and sniping at each other like Grandma Ruthie and Aunt Jettie. Though, obviously, I was immortal, ageless, and way hotter than septuagenarian Jenny. I didn’t want that. I chose not to have that kind of relationship with her. But I didn’t know how to fix it.
Fortunately, Jenny did.
“So, I hurt your feelings?” she asked, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly.
“Well, you don’t have to look so dang pleased about it,” I muttered.
“I’m not, I just, I didn’t know I could have that effect on you,” she admitted. “You seem … unflappable sometimes.”
“It’s all a clever ruse,” I said, blowing my bangs out of my face. “I’m extremely flapped most of the time.”
Jenny wiped at her eyes, but I think that had more to do with her impromptu facial than emotion. “You’re going to outlive my boys, Jane. And their children, and their children. Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? When my grandchildren are lying in the nursing home, you’re going to be the one packing up everything they own and deciding who gets what. You’re the sole survivor, no matter what any of us does. You’re going to outlast us all. I think that’s why I went so crazy about all those family heirlooms. I figured, it’s going to come to you in the end anyway, so why don’t you let us just borrow it for a little while? And when you said no, I don’t know what came over me …”
“To be honest, the stuff doesn’t matter that much to me, Jenny. I just like to screw with you, and this seems like the only way to get you. I’m sorry I’ve been a little petty about the heirlooms. I just wish you would have told me things like this before, you know, I died,” I offered.
More awkward silence.
“What do we do now?” I asked, hesitantly sitting next to her.
“I don’t know,” she said, sinking back into the mud, clearly exhausted by her emotional unburdening.
“You could stop being such a hag at every single family gathering,” I suggested.
She lifted her head to glare at me.
“Too soon?” I asked. She nodded.
“Well, we could stop sniping at each other and focus our anger where it belongs,” I said.
“Mama?” Jenny asked. I nodded.
“It won’t be like this forever,” Jenny promised, placing a tentative hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah.” I sniffled. “Someday Grandma Ruthie will be locked safely away in a home for the elderly/criminally insane.”
“Jane!”
I brightened. “Can I pick the home?”
“Jane!”
“That wasn’t a no.”
“This has been good,” Jenny said, laughing. “I feel … lighter somehow.”
“It’s amazing what a little foam battering can do,” I said, nodding.
“Well, it’s a good thing we stopped where we did, ’cause I was this close to kicking your ass.”
I nodded to the mutilated grass behind us. “We can always jump back into the mud pit and settle things once and for all.”
“This is one of those things where I’m just going to assume you’re joking.”
I sniffed, wincing at the sting in my lip as it healed. “Probably for the best.”
Jenny watched as my skin closed and the bruising faded away. “That is really cool.”
“Just one of the perks,” I said, grinning as I pulled her to her feet.
Head Courtney came running over to the foam and mud wreckage. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Just settling some family issues.” Jenny chuckled, wiping a spot of blood from her nose.
“I cannot believe you two! This is a children’s carnival! You’re ruining everything. Do you realize what you’re going to have to do to work off this many demerits? Never in the history of the Chamber of Commerce—”
Zeb came running up, frantic. “Jane! Jane! We’ve got to go! Jolene’s mom just called. She’s in labor!”
Head Courtney seemed supremely annoyed at the interruption, but her laser-beam gaze did not falter from its target. My head.
“Zeb, it’s not a big deal. You don’t really have to fake Jolene being in labor.”
“I’m not faking!” he screamed, his voice reaching an alarming soprano octave.
Turning my back on Courtney, I forced Zeb to bend over and take some deep breaths. “Zeb, calm down. Do you have the bag?”
“Yes, it’s in the car. Jolene packed in June. She wouldn’t let me help.”
I reached to pat his shoulder, but when I saw how muddy my hands were, I pulled away. “I think we can all agree that was a wise choice. How about I drive to the hospital?”
“No, no, I can handle it,” he said, showing me what he thought was a set of keys.
“Zeb, that’s a pair of pliers.”
“Maybe you should drive,” he conceded.
“Jane, where do you think you’re going?” Head Courtney thundered. “I’m not done with you yet.”
“My friend is in labor. I’m going to the hospital.”
“I did not excuse you!” Head Courtney shrieked. “You still have duties here at the carnival. There are balloons to be blown up. Garlands to be hung. Lights to be strung.”
“My. Friend. Is. In. Labor,” I repeated very slowly. “I’m going to be with her.”
Courtney put a restraining hand on my shoulder. “You’re not leaving. Abandoning an assignment at a special event will result in an automatic suspension, Jane.”
“And then what? Detention? Expulsion? Firing squad? I don’t have time for this. I’m leaving,” I told her.
Head Courtney turned an apoplectic purple. “If you walk out now, I’ll assign you to scoop horse poop after every Founders’ Day parade for the next twenty years!”
“You know what, Courtney? I don’t think I’m chamber material after all. So, you can take your precious Fall Festival and shove it up your—”
“Jane, we’ve got to go!” Zeb yelled from the car.
“Dang it, I was really looking forward to that one. Courtney, I quit.”
“This is what I get for letting some filthy bloodsucker into the Chamber of Commerce!” Courtney howled. “We’re going to destroy your bony, pasty ass, do you understand me, you undead bitch? When we get done with you, you won’t be able to sell so much as a—”
I had stepped forward, ready to belt Head Courtney in the manner she deserved. But I was cut off by Jenny, who had cocked her fist back and knocked Courtney onto her ass, into a crate full of stuffed Spongebobs.
“Jenny!” I laughed, staring at her in surprise.
“Nobody talks to my sister that way,” Jenny said, rubbing her knuckles gingerly.
“You talk to me that way,” I pointed out.
“But that’s different. I’m your sister. I’m allowed, but no one else is.”
Tears sprang into my eyes, and I threw my arms around her. “Thanks, sis.”
Jenny stiffened, then relaxed and squeezed me back. “Oh, well, anytime.”
Zeb cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt this beautiful family moment, but my wife is having babies . Jane, get in the car!”
We arrived at the hospital to find Mama Ginger attempting to wrestle her way past a formidable-looking nurse into the maternity ward. Unfortunately for Mama Ginger, the nurse was obviously a John Cena fan and maneuvered Mama Ginger into some sort of pretzel arm-lock position in which she was powerless.
At the sight of his mother, Zeb stopped in his tracks and muttered several of the seven words you’re not supposed to say in polite company.
“How did she know Jolene was here?” I demanded. “I thought you said you weren’t going to call her until a few days after the babies are home from the hospital.”
“I don’t know,” Zeb said, at this point on the cusp of tears. “She must have staked out our house! I thought I saw her car driving up and down our road yesterday, but I told myself even Mama wasn’t that crazy.”
“Obviously, you haven’t paid attention for the last thirty or so years.”
“I’ve got to get to Jolene,” Zeb said, his eyes scanning the hall wildly. “If Mama sees me, I’ll never get past her in time.”
“Calm down. This is why Jolene appointed me waiting-room bouncer,” I told him. “Because I’m willing to do things like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” I shoved Zeb behind the admissions desk, out of Mama Ginger’s sightline.
“Mama Ginger, what are you doing?” I called, waving excitedly.
Mama Ginger whirled at the sound of my voice, no longer struggling with the hospital’s linebacker. With Mama Ginger distracted, Zeb slunk around the admissions desk, behind her back, and into the maternity ward. She didn’t look pleased to see me, but I did provide the excuse to complain about her treatment in a really loud voice.
“This silly woman says they don’t have a patient named Jolene Lavelle listed here, but I know she’s here! I saw her mother’s car out in the parking lot!” she cried, her voice reaching hysterical levels. Several nurses poked their heads into the hallway, but seeing who it was, they ducked back into the patients’ rooms.
“Jolene must be listed as a private patient, Mama Ginger,” I said, keeping my voice soothing. She shied away when I tried to loop my arm through hers, so I took her elbow and led her into the waiting room. “That means the nurse can’t tell you if she’s here. It’s against the law.”
When we walked into the waiting room, Jolene’s entire pack was waiting there. It was fortunate that very few women in town seemed destined to have Halloween babies, because there would have been nowhere for their expectant families to sit. Jolene’s aunts, uncles, and cousins were lounging on every available surface. Jolene’s male relatives had that healthy, hearty, but blank look about them. Yes, they were nice to look at, but all hotness aside, I’d like to spend my time with someone who doesn’t live his life according to tenets set forth on Walker, Texas Ranger . The aunts were convened in a corner, eyes darting from one side of the room to the other, absorbing it all. They all seemed to be enjoying the novelty of the experience, with the exception of Aunt Vonnie, whose mouth was puckered and unhappy.
Mimi and Lonnie McClaine, the only McClaines who liked me, were pacing the room, their stances defensive and agitated. Lonnie McClaine was picking a giant bouquet of carnations to shreds. But fortunately, there were backups. It looked as if the babies were about to be coronated. The room was absolutely packed with flowers and stuffed animals. Half of the flowers were pink, the other half were blue. They had teddy bears wearing tutus and bears wearing baseball uniforms. And a ham, which I guessed was gender-neutral.
Nothing like covering all of your bases.
Now that Jolene’s presence in the labor room was confirmed, Mama Ginger started screeching, “I have a right to see my grandchildren born!”
The entire pack flinched at once. I threw myself on top of Mama Ginger, both to keep her from launching herself toward Jolene’s delivery room and to serve as a shield—just in case Jolene’s relatives still held grudges about Mama Ginger’s wedding-related sabotage. From the floor, I looked up to find a circle of emotionally high-strung werewolves glaring down at us.
“Mimi?” I called. “Could you keep your family from, you know, committing public homicide?”
“Come on, y’all, calm down,” Mimi chided, rolling her eyes. “My baby’s having babies, I can’t take time to bail your asses out of jail.”
The pack let out a collective huff and backed down. Because Mimi was the alpha female and they pretty much had to.
“They’re my grandbabies,” Mama Ginger whined. “I belong in that delivery room! I’ve been waiting Zeb’s whole life for this. I have the right to be in there with him!”
Mama Ginger tried to push up off the floor, and I forced her back down. Please, Lord, don’t let someone I know see me wallowing all over the hospital floor on top of Mama Ginger. Or the cops, who would probably assume I was trying forcibly to drain her. “No, you don’t, Mama Ginger. Whosoever’s hoo-ha is on display, that’s the person who decides who gets to be in the room. And Jolene didn’t even ask her own mother to be in the room, so that should tell you something. Zeb will come and get us when they’re good and ready to see us. Now, just sit down and read a damn magazine.”
Mama Ginger flopped onto a couch and petulantly flipped through a year-old copy of Redbook . In the choice between sitting with Jolene’s extended family, most of whom didn’t like me much better than Mama Ginger, or with Mama Ginger herself, I chose to lean against the wall. This proved to be a good call, as I had to launch myself after Mama Ginger from time to time whenever she made a break for the delivery rooms.
I could only fly-tackle a fifty-year-old woman so many times before I started losing my sense of humor, so I was grateful when my sensitive vampire ears picked up the sound of two strong cries down the hall.