Zeb slapped me on the butt and wandered away. My jaw dropped. Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, but from the look on his face, I don’t think he was able to process whether Zeb had just besmirched my honor or butt-slapping was something we did when I was still human. Trust me, it was not. But I wasn’t about to goad my drunk vampire boyfriend in this tense atmosphere.
“What was that about?” asked Dick, who was watching Zeb with a mix of irritation and concern. “Zeb’s not usually such a—”
“Ash-hole?” Gabriel slurred, and swayed slightly.
Eager to change the direction of the conversation, I stared into Gabriel’s dilated pupils. “How did you get drunk so quickly? I thought our vampire constitutions kept us from being cheap drunks.”
“I’m not drunk!” Gabriel cried, indignant. “All I’ve had to drink was this punch Jolene’s cousins gave me. It’s delicious. It tastes like pineapple.”
“You were completely sober when I left you a few minutes ago.” I sniffed the cup and turned to watch as the bartenders poured two gallon jugs of grain alcohol into a galvanized metal tub with Kool-Aid, sliced apples, pineapple, and pears.
Like many a college freshman before him, Gabriel had fallen into the hooch trap.
Hooch is liquid evil. It’s about forty-proof, but the Kool-Aid and fruit cover the taste of the alcohol. So before you know you’re drunk, you’ve had about four Solo cups’ worth.
“Well, it’s a good thing you can’t eat the fruit,” I muttered.
“I think I’m going to enjoy this.” Dick chuckled, watching as Gabriel squinted at the neon bar lights. “Gabriel couldn’t hold his liquor when we were kids, either. He ruined the last good carpet at my house sicking up my daddy’s best bourbon. You should have seen how green his face got—”
Gabriel slapped a clumsy hand over Dick’s mouth. “Shh. Jane shouldn’t have to hear that story. It’s not a nice story, you can tell by looking at her face. I love Jane’s face. She makes the sweetest little face when I take her—hey!” He pouted when I slid his hooch out of reach.
“I think I’d like to hear this,” Dick said, his expression serious.
“You, go outside and sober up,” I told Gabriel, shoving him toward the door. I turned on a smirking Dick. “You, stop thinking about my sex faces.”
Dick grinned. “I’ll just follow Gabriel outside to see if he throws up.”
“Worst. Party. Ever,” I grumbled as I searched for the bride-to-be.
Jolene was drowning her sorrows in beer weenies. I would tell her that she was going to eat her way out of a size 4, but she had that hypermetabolism going for her. Plus, you just don’t want to interrupt someone with superstrength when they’re stress-eating. So I sort of nudged a plate of chicken wings at her without making eye contact. I saw a biologist do it once on a tiger special, something about submissive gestures and keeping all of your digits intact.
Jolene tore into the wings with a sort of glum sniffle, but I could tell her heart wasn’t in her munching.
“I’m sorry Zeb said that,” I told her.
“Oh, he didn’t mean it.” She sniffed. “I know he’s just under a lot of stress right now, with the wedding and my family and everything. I mean, the poor thing’s been getting those headaches, and they make him cranky. It would help if his mama would ease up a little bit and stop being so …” Jolene paused, tears shimmering at the corners of her eyes. “Why doesn’t she like me?”
“Oh, honey,” I said, wrapping an arm around her. “She doesn’t like anybody. She doesn’t even really like me. She just likes to feel she has some control over the situation. She’s planned for me to marry Zeb for years, and she accepts change about as well as my mama. You just have to give her a few months. She’ll come around. Maybe a few years. Give her a few years.”
Jolene stuffed a nacho into her mouth and didn’t respond.
“Zeb loves you,” I offered.
She sniffed but was not cheered.
“Mama Ginger just caught me in a compromising position with Gabriel out back, half-topless and fully commando. That’s got to add a few points back in your column.”
Jolene brightened, stuffing three meatballs in her cheek. “Thanks. That helps.”
“What are friends for?”
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.”
