Nice Girls Don't Live Forever (14 page)

“Really?” I said, arching a brow. “It’s just that they’re all, you know, occult books. Mr. Wainwright said you were very devout, even as a child. He said you tried to baptize him with bottled water when you were nine.”

Emery flushed pink and cleared his throat. “Yes, well, spending time here was a taste of the forbidden fruit. I was fascinated by the books because they were so different from anything in my house. It drove my mother crazy.”

Mr. Wainwright appeared behind Emery and nodded. “He did spend a lot of time here. And it was his predilection for the woodcarvings of the nude rituals practiced by eastern European vampire clans that upset his mother. I had to hide all the books that bared what his mother called ‘lady bumps.’ It was horrifying.”

Dick excused himself so he could go out to the parking lot and laugh. I was stuck chewing on my lip and praying for a straight face. I flipped on the light switch, and Gilbert gave a loud gasp at the appearance of the shop. “It’s so different!”

“Yes, well, we’ve renovated extensively since you were here last.”

“You must have spent a fortune!” he exclaimed. “It’s certainly nicer than anything in the neighborhood … you might have outpaced yourself there.”

I shot a “What the hell?” look at Dick, who had just walked back in.

“And look, everything is so orderly! You could find anything you wanted now. Uncle Gilbert never did have a head for alphabetizing.” Emery smirked. “But I guess he had you for that, among other things. He wrote to me about you once. He was very fond of you, a young, pretty vampire girl who was willing to spend so much time with him. Obviously, he had to be fond of you, if he sank all his money into renovating the shop and leaving it to you. I’m glad he had someone to make his last months so pleasurable, someone who took care of him. Even if it was only an employee.”

Call me oversensitive, but had Emery just implied that I exchanged sexual favors for cash and redecorating?

“I don’t think I appreciate what he’s implying,” Mr. Wainwright said, staring at his nephew.

“Me, neither,” I muttered, to which Emery gave me a confused look. I cleared my throat. “Mr. Mueller, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about my relationship with Mr. Wainwright and how his will was written. I didn’t set out to take over the shop or get in good with your uncle. I was just lucky enough to be hired by one of the sweetest men on earth, and he became a close friend. I didn’t know he planned on leaving me the shop, and I wasn’t even sure I was going to keep it at first. In fact, I was thinking very seriously of selling—”

“Oh! I think that’s for the best, the right thing to do,” Emery said quickly. “I’ll do anything I can to help speed things along.”

I was caught off-guard by his sudden enthusiasm. Who was he to be so enthusiastic about tossing out his uncle’s legacy? Especially when that legacy technically belonged to me now?

“Give him what for, Jane,” Mr. Wainwright said, smirking at what he recognized was my temper building. Emery wasn’t smart enough to see it himself.

“As I was saying, I thought about selling. But I decided the best way to honor your uncle’s memory would be to keep this place going. So I sank my own money into renovations. It didn’t cost your uncle a penny. And the business seems to be taking off, so we’re not going to be closing anytime soon. Um, for now, anything you want to take, you’re welcome to, especially stuff from his personal effects or private collections. He didn’t spell that out in the will, but I wouldn’t feel right keeping everything.”

“That’s very kind of you.” Emery sighed, picking up his duffel. “For now, I’m going upstairs to bed. I’m sorry if I’m being rude. I’m just so tired. Jet lag, you know.”

“Oh,” I said, exchanging a look with Mr. Wainwright. “Actually, there’s no apartment there anymore. We turned it into storage and office space. I can recommend some hotels in town, though, depending on how long you’re planning on staying.”

Emery’s lips thinned in a way that showed that he was clearly insulted by this change. “I see. I didn’t anticipate that.”

“I’m very sorry,” I said. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have made hotel arrangements for you.”

“I don’t enjoy hotels,” Emery said sulkily. “You never know who’s stayed in the room before you or whether the facilities have been cleaned properly.”

“He is absolutely phobic about germs.” Mr. Wainwright chuckled. “But only American germs, for some reason. He thinks people in other countries are cleaner than we are. Don’t let him talk you into staying with you, Jane. The last time he was a guest in my house, I woke up at three A.M. to find him steam-cleaning the inside of my dishwasher.”

The thought of Emery staying with me hadn’t even occurred to me. Yes, I had room to put Emery at my house, but … no. I was not inviting a mouth-breathing stranger into my home. A vaguely rude mouth-breathing stranger at that. I wondered if Dick would invite him to stay at Andrea’s place. But given the way Emery was fastidiously wiping at his hands with hand sanitizer, as if we had some sort of germ that was more powerful than what they had in Guatemala, Dick didn’t seem inclined to bond with him.

“Come on, Emery,” Dick said, taking Emery’s duffel bag onto his shoulder and patting him on the back. “I know a good boardinghouse in town. Very clean. The owner owes me a favor. I’ll get you settled in.”

Dick escorted Emery to his car and came back into the shop under the guise of forgetting something. “That’s the fruit of my loins?”

“I think your genes lost their mojo somewhere along the way,” I teased.

Dick was indignant. “Those are not my genes. Margaret must have mated with a jellyfish or something.”

Mr. Wainwright shook his head. “You’re not too far off.”

“Look at Gilbert. He wasn’t exactly strapping when he was young, but he had guts! He had gumption! He wasn’t afraid of hotel sheets!”

“Thank you, Dick,” Mr. Wainwright said, smiling proudly.

“And you!” Dick cried. “What are you thinking, telling him he can have anything he wants from the stock? What if he runs off with something valuable?”

“Well, he’s probably got more rights to anything here than I do,” I said.

Mr. Wainwright winced. “Oh, please, don’t say that in front of him, dear. He’ll take everything that’s not nailed down and donate the proceeds to a questionable charity.”

“Are you softening up to the doughy young missionary?” Dick asked me.

“There’s nothing wrong with missionaries,” I said, grinning at him. “Besides, he is your great-great-grandson, your own flesh and blood. And we both know you could use a little churching up. It might be interesting for you to talk to him, to hear things from his point of view.”

Dick made a sour face. “His point of view is that we’re evil and should be struck through the heart with a stake wrapped in wild roses.”

“Wow, that seems harsh.”

Dick walked out, putting his “determined to be polite” face on. I busied myself with getting the coffee bar ready for that night’s crowd.

“How have you been, Jane, dear?” Mr. Wainwright asked. “Your aunt told me about your difficulties with Gabriel. She said you took it rather hard.”

“Well, after going through the female and male break-up recovery rituals, I can determine that, one, I’m going to be OK. And two, the male break-up ritual is more fun but harder to heal up from. I’m fine, really. I’m just keeping busy and trying not to think about it.”

“I can haunt Gabriel’s house for you, if you’d like,” Mr. Wainwright offered.

“Thank you, that’s very sweet, but I don’t think you can really scare someone after you’ve spent Christmas Eve with them. Unless you’re my grandma Ruthie.”

Mr. Wainwright chuckled. I rummaged through the drawers behind the bar and then got on my hands and knees, searching for the tiny canister of vampire mace. It had obviously been detached from my keyring at some point, and it didn’t show up in a thorough postfight search of my purse and house. And it wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted lying around the shop.

“Mr. Wainwright, have you seen a little metal tube, about the size of a Chapstick?” I asked, lifting a chaise longue with one hand to search under it. Mr. Wainwright, who was always entertained by my feats of vampire strength, shook his head. “Great. Either I’m going to have to wait for Fitz to pass it or pray I don’t step on it and mace myself.”

The front bell rang, and Zeb walked into the shop, pale and shaking. Wordlessly, he walked to the coffee bar and climbed onto a stool.

I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Zeb, are you OK? What’s wrong? Is it Jolene? Is the baby OK? Did one of Jolene’s relatives get trapped by the Department of Fish and Wildlife? Did the police find your dad’s still? What?”

“Two of them,” he said, his eyes oddly dilated.

“One of Jolene’s relatives was trapped by the Department of Fish and Wildlife
and
the police found your dad’s still? What are the odds of that?” I wondered.

He snapped out of his funk long enough to look annoyed with me. “No, two of them, on the ultrasound. There’s two babies.”

“Twins?” I laughed. “But that’s great! And considering the number of multiple births in Jolene’s family, not entirely unexpected.”

“Congratulations!” Mr. Wainwright cried, and then he caught sight of Zeb’s stricken expression. “I’ll be going now.”

Zeb scrubbed his hand over his face as Mr. Wainwright faded out of sight. “I was prepared for one baby. I don’t know if I can handle two.”

“It’s a little late for that. There’s a very strict no-return policy on babies.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jane.”

“Well, what do you want me to do? Take one off your hands? There’s not much I can do, except pay someone else to babysit. Are they boys or girls?” I asked.

“Don’t know yet; it’s too early to tell. To be honest, I didn’t catch much after ‘two heartbeats.’ One of them was doing a sort of Homer Simpson shimmy. I’m guessing that’s the one that takes after me.”

“Look at it this way: you’re lucky it’s not triplets or quadruplets.”

That seemed to cheer him.

“If you keep going, you can form your own basketball team,” I suggested. He furrowed his brow and frowned at me. “Too soon?” He nodded. “I’ll fix you some herbal tea. It’s soothing,” I said, patting his hand. “How’s Jolene? Is she craving pickles and ice cream yet?”

Zeb groaned. “If only. It’s more like Canadian bacon and ice cream. Peanut butter and turkey sandwiches. Tuna noodle pie. She actually made what she called ‘bacon chip cookies’ the other day—a chocolate-chip cookie recipe with bacon pieces instead of chocolate chips. She said it’s her body’s way of getting as much protein as possible for the babies, but I swear if I see her eat one more of those pies, I’m going to yark.”

“Well, the good news, is whenever I regret not being able to eat, I’ll call those images to mind. I’ll never want solid food again.” I shuddered, rubbing my stomach.

Zeb perked up as he said, “By the way, I got a call from the reunion committee today. They wanted some pictures of you for the memorial wall.”

“But I’m not dead!”

Zeb smirked. “Well, that’s not the way the committee sees it.”

“That’s it. I’m not going to this thing.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, accepting a cup of chamomile. “You’ve got to go to the reunion. It’ll be fun! You can scare the crap out of all our former classmates.”

“It will be fun for you. You’re married to a beautiful woman who adores you to the point that she’ll probably maul the first doofus who tries to give you a commemorative wedgie. And she’ll be pregnant, so everyone will know you’ve had sex with her. I, however, will most likely be going solo which will probably just cement all those lesbian rumors. Oh, wait, dead lesbian rumors.”

“So, you haven’t made up with Gabriel yet, huh?”

I shook my head. Cindy the Goth Good-Luck Charm walked through the door, acknowledged me with a nod, and headed for the graphic novels. “You know, I used to be alone, and I got along just fine. It’s simpler this way. Less messy, less complicated. Less time wondering what the hell is going on in my own life and whether it’s my fault. At least, this way, I know it’s my fault.”

Zeb grimaced. “Well, that’s cheerful.”

“I do what I can,” I said, shrugging as the front doorbell rang. “I met a really nice doctor the other night. And then he saw me beat a guy senseless, so I don’t think he’s going to want me to call.”

“You beat some guy senseless?” Zeb cried.

“Dick made an attempt to cheer me up. It was either a bar fight or cow tipping.”

Zeb’s nose wrinkled. “You and Dick have a complicated relationship.”

I shrugged. I put a mocha latte on the counter for Cindy and left it out for her, like cookies and milk for an Emo Santa Claus. “Besides, Adam Morrow’s going to be there, and I’m still feeling a little weird about him.”

I’d had a huge crush on Adam since elementary school. He was the blond, dimpled football hero to my tuba-toting band geek. I never really got over that teeny-bopper obsession with him, which was why it was so difficult for me to see that his efforts to get “reacquainted” a few months before had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Adam’s weirdo sexual fascination with vampires. It turned out that despite attending school with me for twelve years, he hadn’t remembered the name of that “egghead who used to annoy him in class” until someone reminded him at my almost-grandpa Bob’s funeral. I dropped Adam like a clove of garlic and mended damaged fences with Gabriel before it was too late.

Of course, I didn’t realize at the time that it was already too late and Gabriel had moved on to Jeanine. I’ve really got to work on rerouting my thought process so every subject doesn’t come back to Gabriel.

It seemed unfair that I felt some measure of break-up anxiety over Adam when we never technically went out. But to this day, I couldn’t even hear his name without a rush of guilt and embarrassment. I would have enough to deal with at the reunion—such as my placement on the memorial wall—without delving into those issues again.

“But crushing Adam’s hopes and dreams is going to make the reunion even better! You, the untouchable hottie that he can’t, well, touch. It’s going to be such a blow to his ego!” Zeb exclaimed. “I never told you this, because you had that thing for him in school, but I always wanted to just punch that guy in the face with his ‘Oh, I’m tall and blond and dreamy, and everybody loves me because I’m such a nice guy’ shtick. Maybe there were other guys in the class who were just as nice. Maybe there were some guys in the class who should have been Swing Choir president but didn’t get elected because Adam was ‘so dreamy.’ Maybe there were some guys who wanted to take Dawn Farber to Homecoming but ended up going stag because Dawn was holding out for Adam ‘just in case.’”