Nice Girls Don't Live Forever (4 page)

Thanks in no small part to my former supervisor, Mrs. Stubblefield, the news of my vampirism had officially made the beauty-parlor and kitchen circuit. Mama said people had stopped talking whenever she walked into the pre-church coffees on Sunday mornings, which meant the congregation of Half-Moon Hollow Baptist Church was aware as well. She took to her bed for a few days. But ever since a well-known member of the cast of
All My Children
came out as the parent of a vampire and Oprah did a show featuring Friends and Family of the Undead, Mama figures my being a vampire makes her “current.” She now introduces me as her “vampire daughter,” even to people I’ve known since I was a kid. She’s got a little bumper sticker with two inverted white triangles on a black background, the international symbol of support for vampire rights. She’s even insisted on attending a meeting of the Friends and Family of the Undead, which, fortunately, had suspended activities after the foreclosure of the Traveler’s Bowl, the hippie restaurant that hosted our meetings.

Of course, Mama still stocked my freezer with homemade pot pies to tempt me off my liquid diet. She showed up while I was sleeping and opened windows, hoping that I would slowly build up a tolerance to sunlight. As much as she loved me and being
en vogue,
Mama was determined to have a normal daughter. Even if it killed me.

I sifted through the alarming pile of mail while Mama bustled about my room, gathering dirty clothes. I’d been approved for an obscenely high-limit credit card that I hadn’t applied for. I’d been accepted as the newest member of the Half-Moon Hollow Chamber of Commerce, which I had applied for. My letter to the editor for the American Library Association newsletter regarding the nationwide need for more vamp-friendly resources and hours was rejected. The fancy linen envelope stuck out like a sore thumb among the cheap, glossy promotions. My hands shook a little as I turned it over in my hands. Had Gabriel’s mysterious pen pal finally decided to contact me? Imagine my horror when I saw the neat printed label addressed to “Miss Jame Janeson” from the Half-Moon Hollow High Alumni Committee instead. “Miss” was underlined. Twice.

“Oh, no.”

“What is it, hon?” Mama asked, folding my jeans with sharp creases.

I opened the overtly elegant invitation decorated with a palm tree. “My tenth high school reunion is this year. Ugh. And SueAnn Caldwell is our class president. I would rather face a den full of zombies than go to this thing.”

“Well, why on earth would you say that?” Mama cried. “You had such a good time in high school.”

“No, that was Jenny, the cheerleader. I was the one with the braces and the tuba.”

Mama winced at the venom in my voice when I said Jenny’s name. My older, perfect sister was not speaking to me for various reasons, including the dismissal of her lawsuit against me. The judge had this wacky idea that property that was willed to me in a legal and binding last testament should remain mine, even though I was no longer technically living. This, combined with her overall disgust with how I handled the outing of our potential step-grandfather as a ghoul, had prompted her to tell Mama that I was officially dead to her. Even Mama saw the lack of logic in that statement, but she declined to comment on it.

Crafty, blond, and born with a naturally disdainful curl to her lip, Jenny was the twin-setted, Martha-worshipping yin to my never-even-considered-baking-from-scratch yang. She was the undisputed “good daughter” between the two of us. She rarely disagreed with Mama. She enjoyed most of the things Mama loved: quilting, reading inspirational romance novels about Amish girls, actually ironing clothes instead of just throwing them in the dryer for a few minutes. And she’d done her duty to the family by bearing two obnoxious spawn, Andrew and Whatshisface.

Life was oddly quiet and stale without Jenny’s needling and disapproval. I’d always thought I would be so much better off as an only child, but now, I sort of missed her. Of course, I would never admit this, even under pain of death and/or a threatened
Baywatch
marathon.

Mama rolled her eyes in a gesture that was somehow both dismissive and loving. “Oh, you have to go. Jenny went to her tenth reunion, and she had a wonderful time.”

I scanned the invitation. “Jenny organized her high school reunion. I’m sure she had a great time. Oh, come on. Our reunion theme is ‘Enchanted Paradise,’ which was our senior prom theme. They haven’t had an original idea since then!”

“I just think it would be good for you to go back and see that some of the people you went to school with weren’t as scary as you made them out to be. You gave them a lot of power over you. Maybe it would do you some good.”

“Hmph.”

“When I went to my tenth reunion, everybody had gotten bald and fat. The Prom Queen was married to the Septic Tank King.”

“That makes it slightly more tempting,” I admitted.

“I’m going downstairs to get your laundry started up. You get your rest.”

“That’s not necessary, Mama, really.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. I’m sure you didn’t have time to find a laundromat when you were gallivanting around God knows where.”

“Actually, the hotels had very nice laundry services. I didn’t even know hotels did that.”

“You let a stranger wash your clothes, but you don’t want me to?” Mama gasped.

“If it will make you happy and let me get back to sleep, wash away,” I told her.

“No problem, honey.” Mama grabbed the freshly folded
dirty
clothes and walked out. She popped her head back into the bedroom doorway. “You were just teasing about the zombies, right? They’re not real?”

I pulled a sleep mask over my eyes and did not answer.

My mother ironed my jeans. With starch.

And because I am obviously incapable of washing my own clothes properly, Mama gathered all of my clean clothes out of my closet and washed those while I slept. So, without other pants options, I was basically moseying into the shop, John Wayne-style.

On the drive to Specialty Books, I worked on a self-improvement plan, a personal to-do list, if you will. I had taken way too much time adjusting to my new vampire lifestyle, using it as an excuse for just floating along, reacting to problems as they came up. It wasn’t surprising, really, when you considered that if there was a “Most Likely to Be Paralyzed by Fear of Change” award, a picture of me cringing would have been prominently featured in my high school yearbook. I had to get proactive. I had to demand things from the universe. I had to start kicking some ass … though not in the physical sense, because I’d basically lost or nearly lost every fight I’d gotten into since being turned.

Moving on.

My plan to become a Brave New Jane went a little something like this:

(1) Develop a healthy, normal romantic relationship, preferably with Gabriel.

(2) Create a fulfilling career for myself.

(3) Demand that my family love me without judgment. Even if it means I have to rent a new family over the Internet.

(4) Find a solution for world peace.

I can live without that last one, though I know it’s far more likely than the other three.

Considering that I was estranged from a sibling and a boyfriend, so far I’d failed miserably at the list—with the exception of the shop. It was barely recognizable, and not just because we’d torn down a wall and expanded into the porn store next door. Other than the plywood Dick had nailed over the broken window, there were no signs of a breakin. Books that might have been damaged by the hands of thieves were laid out carefully on the bar. The rest were piled haphazardly under heavy plastic drop cloths.

The space had been realigned, expanded. The front counter, still the same antique leaded glass and maple affair Mr. Wainwright had left behind, had been moved closer to the door. New beige carpet had been installed and was prepared for the bolts needed for the new shelving system, a shelving system that would actually allow customers to find what they want and navigate their way back out of the store, neither of which was encouraged by the previous system. While I planned on offering general-interest books and classic literature, the inventory would focus on vampire needs: cookbooks, history, finance, investment advice. I had already ordered two hundred copies of
The Guide for the Newly Undead.

The walls were painted a cheerful midnight blue with a sprinkle of twinkling silver stars—Andrea’s suggestion, to keep the place from being “too serious.” I could have gone with the stereotypical blood-red walls and black-lacquered surfaces, but I didn’t think that would be very restful for the customers. If not for the blood warmer next to the espresso machine and the chalkboard advertising a “Half-Caf Fat-Free Type A Mocha Latte” (Dick’s attempt at bonding with our yuppier customers), the store would look like any intentionally whimsical small-town bookstore. It was remarkable progress, considering that the first time I’d come into the store, I narrowly missed having a shelf collapse on top of me.

Despite my wandering into the shop one night and rearranging stacks without permission, the former owner, Mr. Wainwright, had hired me on the spot for my organizational skills and rabid love of books. He became a surrogate grandparent, a mentor, and a close friend. Even though he’d died the previous year, he was the happiest he’d ever been, quite content to haunt the Hollow and pursue a logic-boggling relationship with my aunt Jettie. When he left me the shop in his will, I’d considered closing it. But, aside from the library, Specialty Books was the only place where I’d felt at home. I loved the smell of the books, the odd and nonsensical variety of titles. I loved the memories I had of Mr. Wainwright, his quirks, his stories of a lifetime searching the globe for paranormal creatures. I could just imagine him, standing at the end of the counter, giving me that fond, slightly befuddled smile.

It was at that moment that I realized I was not imagining Mr. Wainwright. He was standing at the end of the counter, giving me that fond, slightly befuddled smile.

“Mr. Wainwright.” I sighed at the apparition and, forgetting that he was noncorporeal, tried to throw my arms around him. I ended up falling through him, a clammy got-in-the-shower-too-early sensation that set even my teeth on edge.

“Where have you been?” I asked. “I haven’t seen you since I got back. I’ve missed you.”

“To be honest, I’ve been rather ashamed to face you,” he said, twisting his hands. “I spent less and less time at the shop while you were gone. I have been ever since …”

“You started enjoying my great-aunt’s company.”

“Yes, thank you.” He cleared his throat. “And as it turned out, the shop being in such upheaval, well, it upset me more than I anticipated, and I haven’t wanted to spend as much time here.”

“Oh, no.” I was stricken. When Mr. Wainwright had given me his blessing to burn the shop for insurance money if necessary, I charged ahead with the renovations, thinking that if he was onboard for arson for hire, surely a little remodeling wouldn’t bother him. I was an ass. A complete and utter ass.

“I just didn’t realize how much change you would deem necessary. I don’t take it as a personal insult, dear. I didn’t expect so much to happen so fast.”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Wainwright—”

He waved away my apologies. “The point is that I told you I’d keep an eye on the shop while you were gone, and it was my fault that someone broke in. I wasn’t here.”

“Hey, do not play the self-blame game with the world champion, OK? It’s not as if they did a lot of damage, Mr. Wainwright. It’s not a big deal. Besides, you’re not tethered to the place. You’re allowed to have a life … or not, as the case may.” I cringed. It took Mr. Wainwright a beat to grasp the insensitivity of what I had just said, but then he hooted. I laughed, and then it turned into an all-out ghostly giggle fest, which was a fabulous emotional icebreaker.

I wiped at my eyes, trying to compose myself. “Any idea who might have broken into the shop? Have there been suspicious characters hanging around? More suspicious than the characters we normally get?”

“No. If there had been, I would have given them what your aunt Jettie calls the usual.”

Cold chills, goose bumps, a vague feeling of unease as if they’ve left the iron on?” I asked. Mr. Wainwright nodded. “Why don’t you go visit Aunt Jettie?” I suggested. “I’ll be here for a while.”

“Well, we did get rather used to having the house to ourselves while you were gone—”

“No details, please,” I said, holding my hands up. “Just go and enjoy yourselves, in a way that I never have to think about.”

“Thank you,” he said, fading slightly. “And Jane?” I looked up, and he smiled at me. “I missed you, too, dear.”

Mr. Wainwright winked at me and dissolved into thin air.

Outside the shop, I heard the motor of Dick’s El Camino roaring to a stop. I laughed and ran to the door. Richard Cheney, who, for reasons I didn’t understand, insists on being called Dick, had enjoyed annoying the hell out of Gabriel since they were children in the pre-Civil War Hollow. In their last human years, Dick had developed a bit of a gambling problem and lost his family plantation house to Gabriel in a card game. Gabriel’s guilt over winning against an incredibly drunk Dick and Dick’s pride-fueled refusal to take the house back led to a rift that lasted long after they were both turned into vampires. Immortality had just given Dick a lot more time to think up insulting nicknames and juvenile practical jokes.

A mystifying mix of fierce loyalty and moral flexibility, Dick was the local go-to guy for under-the-table commerce. And he had fallen hard for Andrea, the first woman to turn him down in about a century. Andrea didn’t put up with much in the way of bullshit from Dick, which, apparently, was what he was looking for all along. She was the only woman he was willing (intentionally) to make a fool of himself over.

They were now shacking up in a big way. He slowly but surely had moved his vaguely obscene Tshirts and
Dukes of Hazzard
memorabilia into her swanky condo. Before she realized it, they were cohabitating. It’s by far the sneakiest thing I’ve ever seen him do, and that’s saying something.