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 foldeddirtyclothes 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 break-in. 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 ofThe Guide for the Newly Undead.
The walls were painted a cheerful midnight blue with a sprinkle of twinkling silver starsAndrea’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-tooearly 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 underthe-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 T-shirts andDukes of Hazzardmemorabilia 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.