Undead and Unreturnable (16 page)

"This is a scary side of you, Laura, and I thought I'd seen the really frightening stuff."

"
Goooooooo
," she replied, tickling Baby Jon under his pointy chin. Jon glared at her and then the odor of his discontent filled the air. "
Oooooh
, someone needs a diaper change." She looked at me.

"Daughter of the devil," I said.

"Vampire queen."

"Okay, okay, I'll do it.
Gimme
him."

Jon chuckled when I took him back, which, given his age, I knew was impossible. He wasn't really laughing, just like he wasn't really glaring. Still, it was cute.

I pretended he really liked me, though at this age he couldn't pick me out of a lineup. I cuddled him close all the way up the stairs, when Laura couldn't see.

The truth was, nights like this were the highlight of my life right now. I jumped whenever the Ant called. Bottom line? Baby Jon was the closest I was ever going to get to having a baby of my own. No tears, no sweat, no periods… no babies.

Ever.

Sinclair and I could do a lot—would do a lot, if he ever got over our little problem of the month. But we couldn't make our own babies.

Jess told me over and over not to be silly, there were only a zillion babies in the world who needed good homes, and Marc backed her up with horror stories of abuse from the E.R. She was right—they were both right—and I tried not to feel bad.

But at thirty, I hadn't thought I was forever turning my back on having my own babies. It was funny… I'd never seriously thought about having a baby. I just always assumed I would. And then I died. Isn't that the way it goes sometimes?

"It's dumb," I told Baby Jon, stripping him of the nasty diaper and setting it aside (I would later place it beneath the Ant's bed, where she'd go crazy trying to find it). "Dead people can't do lots of things. Walk, talk, have sex. Get married. Bitch. I'm lucky I can do anything, instead of just hanging out in a coffin and slowly turning into fertilizer. So what do I focus on? The good stuff? The cool powers? No, I piss and moan because Sinclair can't knock me up. Does that make sense? Does that sound like a person who's counting her blessings?"

"
Fleh
," Jon replied.

"Tell me." I sprinkled him like salt on a roast, rubbed in the powder, and then put a new diaper on him. He sighed and waved his little arms, and I caught a tiny hand and kissed it. He promptly scratched me with his wolverine-like nails, but I didn't mind.

"I can't thank you enough for coming out," the Ant said. Again. To Laura.

"It was our pleasure, Mrs. Taylor. Your son is adorable."

The Ant looked doubtfully at the monitor, which occasionally vibrated with Baby Jon's snores. "It's… it's nice of you to say so. I hope he wasn't any trouble."

"He's
dar
ling!" Laura exclaimed, brushing spit-up off her shoulder.

"Yeah, a laugh a minute," I grumped. "And I'm busy tomorrow, so don't even think about it."

"I'm free," Laura piped up.

"That's all right, girls. My fund-raiser was postponed, anyway. And Freddy can come over then, anyway."

"Freddy?" I asked sharply. "Hooked-on-her-migraine-medication Freddy?"

"She's not hooked," the Ant, no stranger to substance abuse, insisted. "She just has a lot of migraines."

"I don't care if she has a lot of brain tumors! She's not watching Baby Jon!"

"It's not up to you," the Ant snapped. Then, "Who?"

"When is your meeting?" Laura interjected quickly. "I'm sure we can work something out."

The Ant puffed a strand of hair out of her face, which didn't move. "Laura, I appreciate that
you
are trying to do
your
best, but there's nothing to work out. I'll be the one to decide what's best for the baby."

I got ready to pull her head off her shoulders and kick it up the stairs, a grisly surprise for my dad if he ever got back, when Laura asked, "Like you decided before?"

Whoa.

"What?" the Ant asked.

"What?" I warned, frozen in the act of reaching for the Ant's tiny head.

"The baby. From before. You decided what was best for her… that you couldn't take care of her."

"Now?" I asked my sister, who had apparently gone insane when I wasn't looking. "You're picking now to do this?" Rotten timing: a genetic legacy poor Laura couldn't escape.

"I don't—I don't—"

I dropped my arms to my sides. The Ant had a whole lot more to worry about right now than beheading by stepdaughter.

"It was a good choice," Laura added, "if it was the one that was best for you. Still, do you ever wonder what happened to her? Do you ever think about her?"

"No," the Ant said, looking right into Laura's incredible blue eyes. "I never think of her. Just like when you aren't here, I never think of you. That was a long time ago, and I never think about how when you wear your hair pulled up, you look like my mother. The way she looked when she liked us more than the bottle. I never think about that, and I never think about her, and I never, ever, ever think about you."

"Oh," Laura gulped, as I fought not to fall into the hall plant. She knew! She knew! And she never said anything! "I see."

"You're a real nice girl, Laura. I was happy to meet you. I'm always happy when you can come by. But it's late, and it's time for you to get out of here."

"Of—of course."

"A heart-stopping pleasure," I said, following Laura out the door. "Just like always. You jackass."

The Ant didn't say anything. Just stood in the doorway for a long time. Making sure the Driveway Killer didn't get us. Or making sure we really left.

We walked to my car. We got in. I started it up. We sat for a minute, waiting for the heater to kick in. (We weren't too worried about the Driveway Killer.) We pulled out. We watched the Ant shut her front door. (She must have frozen her
treadmilled
ass right off, watching us leave.)

I couldn't stand it half a second longer and blurted, "I can't believe she knew. I can't believe she knew! She probably knew the minute she laid eyes on you, since you apparently look like her dead alcoholic mother. And she just… just let us come over and baby-sit! All those times! And you were at the baby shower! You brought her a fucking present from Tiffany's!"

"She is… a strong woman," Laura said faintly.

"She is a
YAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGG-GGHHHHHHHH
!"

"What? What?" Laura was twisting around in her seat, her hand on an invisible sword hilt. There was a sword there, but it only came out when Laura wanted it. And only she could touch it.

I looked at Laura, looked back up at my rearview mirror at the sallow blonde who was sitting in my backseat, and looked back at Laura. "
Yuh
—uh—I saw a squirrel."

Laura was looking straight into the backseat, on the floor, around the car. "For goodness's sake, where? Behind your brake?"

The blonde stared at me, and I tried to pull my attention back to

"Sorry," the blonde said.

"Well, don't scare me like that!" Laura snapped. "It's been a stressful enough evening."

"Tell me about it," the blonde in the back said.

My heart was galloping along from the adrenaline rush (okay, adrenaline tickle, and "galloping" meant about ten beats a minute), which was stressful enough without having to watch Laura, the ghost in the back, and the road.

"Were you—did you—" I finally spit it out. "Were you planning this? Scratch that: how long have you been planning it?"

"I didn't really plan it," she confessed. "I
carpe'd
the
diem
."

"Well, Laura, I hope you—hope you know that for the—for your mother, that was pretty good. I mean, she was almost nice. Which for her, was
really
nice."

"Yes, I know."

"Just give her time. She'll, uh…"
Grow a soul
? "And Laura… don't take this the wrong way or anything, but if you were planning on saying anything to our father…"

"Christ," the woman in the back said. "This is better than
Days of Our Lives
."

"Shut up!"

"That's good advice," Laura said.

"No, uh… I mean, I wouldn't recommend… maybe not right now, anyway…"

"Don't worry," Laura said, tight-lipped. "I wasn't."

"That's a load off my mind," the dead woman in the back said.

"Well , it's been"—
Upsetting. Tense. If I was alive, I'd have shit myself at least twice in the last hour
—"really something."

"You're not going in?" Laura asked, pausing outside the front door. None of us used any of the side doors. I didn't know why. Yes I did. Nobody wanted to get mistaken for a servant. Even the servants (the housekeepers, the plant lady, the gardener) used the front door.

"No, no. I'm going to stay out here"—in the freezing, subzero temperature and bitter wind—"and get some fresh air." Even though I didn't breathe.

Laura's perfect forehead wrinkled. "Are you sure?"

"What," the ghost protested, "you're not going to let me in?"

"No, it's a real nice night. And I want to… look at the garden in the moonlight."

"You've got to be shitting me," the ghost protested. "I've been stuck outside for more than a week, and you're not letting me come in?"

"On second thought," I said, "I will come in."

"Let's hope you're a better hostess than driver," the dead woman bitched.

"You shut up. You're getting your way aren't you?"

"All I said was 'are you sure,' " Laura protested.

"Sorry, sorry. I'm pissed at the Ant on your behalf, and it's coming out at totally inappropriate times."

"That cow," the ghost said. "She let her little yappy dog poop in my yard every damn week. She thought I wasn't looking."

"Enough," I said.