Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

by Charlaine Harris

  “You think I look like a Holland?” I asked him, and Jason gave me one of his blankest stares.

  “Naw, you look like a Sookie,” he said. “Listen, Sook, I’m gonna do it.”

  “Gonna do what?”

  He looked at me impatiently. I could tell this wasn’t how he’d expected the conversation to go. “I’m gonna ask Michele to marry me.”

  “Oh, that’s great!” I said, with genuine enthusiasm. “Really, Jason, I’m happy for you. I sure hope she says yes.”

  “This time I’m going to do everything right,” he said, almost to himself.

  His first marriage had been a mistake from the start, and it had ended even worse than it had begun.

  “Michele’s got a good head on her shoulders,” I said.

  “She’s no kid,” he agreed. “In fact, she’s a little older than me, but she don’t like me to bring that up.”

  “You won’t, then, right? No jokes,” I warned him.

  He grinned at me. “No jokes. And she’s not pregnant, and she’s got her own job and her own money.” None of these facts had been true of his first wife.

  “Go for it, Brother.” I gave him a quick hug.

  He flashed the grin at me, the one that had hooked scores of women. “I’m asking her today when she gets off work. I was gonna eat lunch here, but I’m too nervous.”

  “Let me know what she says, Jason. I’ll be praying for you.” I beamed at his back as he left the bar. He was as happy and nervous as I’d ever seen him.

  Merlotte’s began to fill up after that, and I was too busy to think much. I love being at work, because I get to be around people and I know what’s going on in Bon Temps. On the other hand, most of the time I know too much. It’s a feathery balance between listening to people with my ears and not listening to them in my head, and it’s not too surprising that I have a big rep for being eccentric. At least most people are too nice to call me Crazy Sookie anymore. I like to think I’ve proved myself to the community.

  Tara came in with her assistant, McKenna, to order an early lunch. Tara looked even bigger with her pregnancy than she had at Hooligans the night before.

  Since she’d brought McKenna along, I couldn’t ask Tara what I really wanted to know. What had happened when she talked to JB about his second job at Hooligans? Even if he hadn’t seen Tara in the crowd, he’d have to know we were going to tell her.

  But Tara was thinking about the shop with great determination, and when she wasn’t planning to restock the lingerie counter, she was concentrating on the Merlotte’s menu—the very limited menu that she knew back and forth—trying to figure out what she could digest, and how many more calories she could ingest, without actually exploding. McKenna’s brain wasn’t any help; though McKenna loved to know every little snippet of information about Bon Temps happenings, she didn’t know about JB’s moonlighting. She would have been vastly interested if I’d told her. McKenna would have loved to be a telepath, for about twenty-four hours.

  But after she’d heard stuff like I can’t take it anymore, I’m going to wait till he’s asleep and slash him or I’d like to take her and bend her over the bar and drive my … Well, after a day or two of that, she wouldn’t love it so much.

  Tara didn’t even go to the ladies’ room by herself. She towed McKenna along. I looked questioningly at Tara. She glared at me. Not ready to talk, not yet.

  When the lunch rush was over, only two tables remained in use, and they were in India’s section. I went back to Sam’s office to work on the endless paperwork. Trees had died to make these forms, and that seemed a great pity to me. I tried to fill out anything I could online, though I was very slow at it. Sam came back to his office to retrieve a screwdriver from his desk, so I asked him a question about an employee tax form. He was leaning over me to look at it when Jannalynn walked in.

  “Hey, Jannalynn,” I said. I didn’t even look at her because I’d identified her mental signature before she’d entered, and I was trying real hard to complete the form while Sam’s instructions were still fresh in my mind.

  “Oh, hey, Jan,” Sam said. I could feel his smile in his voice.

  Instead of a response, there was an ominous silence.

  “What?” I said, filling in one more figure.

  I finally looked up to see that Jannalynn was in high offensive mode, her eyes round and wide, her nostrils dilated, her whole slim body tense with aggression.

  “What?” I asked again, alarmed. “Are we being attacked?”

  Sam remained silent. I swung around in the swivel chair to look up at him, and he was in a posture that was tense, too. But his face was one big warning.

  “You two want to be alone?” I scrambled to get up and out from between them.

  “I would have thought so before I walked in,” Jannalynn said, her fists like little hammers.

  “What … wait! You thinking Sam and I are fooling around in the office?” Despite Mustapha’s warning, I was genuinely astonished. “Honey, we are filling out tax forms. If you think there’s anything sexy about that, you should get a job with the IRS!”

  There was a long moment when I wondered if I was going to get my ass kicked, but gradually the suspense ratcheted down. I did notice that Sam didn’t say anything, not a word, until Jannalynn’s stance had completely relaxed. I took a deep breath.

  “Excuse us for a minute, Sookie,” Sam said, and I could tell he was really angry.

  “Certainly.” I was out of that room as fast as a greased pig. I would rather have cleaned the men’s room after a Saturday night than have stayed in Sam’s office.

  India was helping D’Eriq clear off a table. She glanced at me and half smiled. “What lit your tail on fire?” she asked. “Sam’s scary girlfriend?”

  I nodded. “I’m just going to find something to do out here,” I said. This was a very good opportunity to dust the bottles and shelves behind the bar, and I moved them all carefully, cleaning a bit of shelf and moving on to another one.

  Though I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in Sam’s office, I reminded myself repeatedly that it wasn’t my business. I had the bar as clean as a whistle by the time Jannalynn and Sam emerged.

  “Sorry,” she said to me, with no particular sincerity.

  I nodded in acknowledgment.

  Jannalynn thought, She’ll get Sam if she can.

  Oh, please! I thought, She’d be real happy if I died.

  And then she left the bar, Sam following her to say good-bye. Or to make sure she actually got in her car. Or both.

  By the time he returned, I was so desperate for something to do I was about to start counting the toothpicks in the clear plastic dispenser. “We can get back on that paperwork tomorrow,” Sam said in passing, and continued walking. He avoided my eyes. He was surely embarrassed. It’s always good to give people time to recover from that, especially guys, so I cut Sam some slack.

  A work crew from Norcross came in, their shift over and some celebration in progress. India and I began putting tables together to accommodate all of them. While I worked, I thought about young shifter women. I’d encountered more than one who was very aggressive, but there were very few female packleaders in the United States, especially in the South. An outstanding few of the female Weres I’d met were extremely vicious. I wondered if this exaggerated aggression was due to the established male power structure in the packs.

  Jannalynn wasn’t psychotic, as the Pelt sisters and Marnie Stonebrook had been; but she was uber-conscious of her own toughness and ability.

  I had to abandon theoretical thinking to get the drink orders right for the Norcross men and women. Sam emerged to work behind the bar, India and I began moving at a faster pace, and gradually everything settled back to normal.

  Just as I was about to get off work, Michele and Jason came in together. They were holding hands. From Jason’s smile, it was easy to see what her answer had been.

  “Seems like we’re going to be sisters,” Michele said in her hu
sky voice, and I gave her a heartfelt hug. I gave Jason an even happier one. I could feel his delight pouring out of his head, and his thoughts weren’t so much coherent as a jumble of pleasure.

  “Have you two had time to think about when it’ll be?”

  “Nothing stopping us from having it soon,” Jason said. “We’ve both been married already, and we don’t go to church much, so there’s no reason to have a church wedding.”

  I thought that was a pity, but I kept my mouth shut. There was nothing to gain and everything to lose by adding my two cents. They were grown-ups.

  “I might need to prepare Cork a little bit,” Michele said, smiling. “I don’t think he’ll kick up a fuss over me remarrying, but I do want to break it to him gentle.” Michele still worked for her former father-in-law, who seemed to have more regard for Michele than he had for his lazy son.

  “So it’ll be soon. I hope that it’s okay if I come?”

  “Oh, sure, Sook,” Jason said, and hugged me. “We ain’t eloping or anything. We just don’t want a big church thing. We’ll have a party out at the house afterward. Right, honey?” He deferred to Michele.

  “Sure,” she said. “We’ll fire up our grill, maybe Hoyt can bring his over, too, and we’ll cook whatever anybody brings. And other guests can bring drinks or whatever, vegetables and desserts. That way no one will worry and we’ll all have a good time.”

  A potluck wedding. That was very practical and low-key. I asked them to let me know what I could bring that would be most helpful. After lots of mutual goodwill had been exchanged, they left, still holding hands and smiling.

  India said, “Another one bites the dust. How you feeling about this, Sookie?”

  “I like Michele real well. I’m so happy!”

  Sam called, “They engaged?”

  “Yeah,” I called back, a few happy tears in my eyes. Sam was making an effort to sound upbeat, though he was still a little worried about his own romantic situation. Any irritation I’d felt about the Jannalynn episode simply melted away. Sam had been my friend for years, while significant others came and went. I went up to the bar and leaned against it. “Second time around for both of ’em. They’re real good together.”

  He nodded, accepting my tacit reassurance that I wasn’t going to bring up Jannalynn’s little outburst of jealousy. “Crystal was all wrong for your brother; Michele is all right.”

  “In a nutshell,” I agreed.

  Since Holly called in to say her car wouldn’t start but Hoyt was working on it, I was still at Merlotte’s when JB came in about ten minutes later. My friend, the secret stripper, was looking handsome and hearty as always. There’s something about JB, something warm and simple that’s really appealing, especially when added to his nonthreatening good looks. He’s like a great loaf of homemade bread.

  “Hey, friend,” I said. “What can I get for you?”

  “Sookie, I saw you last night.” He waited for my big reaction.

  “I saw you, too.” Just about every inch of him.

  “Tara was there,” JB told me, as though that would be news. “I saw her as she was leaving.”

  “Uh-huh,” I agreed. “She was.”

  “Was she mad?”

  “She was real surprised,” I said cautiously. “Are you seriously telling me you-all have not talked about last night?”

  “I got in pretty late,” he said. “I slept out on the couch. When I got up this morning, she’d already gone to the store.”

  “Oh, JB.” I shook my head. “Honey, you got to talk to her.”

  “What can I say? I know I should have told her.” He made a hopeless gesture with his hands. “I just couldn’t think of any other way to earn some extra money. Her shop’s not doing so great right now, and I don’t make a lot. We don’t have good insurance. Twins! That’s gonna be a big hospital bill. What if one of ’em’s sick?”

  It was so tempting to tell him not to worry about it—but there was every reason for him to be concerned, and it would be patronizing to tell him he didn’t need to be. JB had made a clever move, for JB; he had found a way to use his assets to make extra money. His downfall had been in not informing his wife he was taking off his clothes in front of many other women on a weekly basis.

  We talked off and on while JB nursed a beer at the bar. Tactfully, Sam pretended to be so busy that he was deaf to our intermittent conversation. I urged JB to cook something special for Tara that night or to stop off at Wal-Mart and buy her a little bouquet. Maybe he could give her a foot rub and a back massage, anything to make her feel loved and special. “And don’t tell her how big she is!” I said, poking a finger into his chest. “Don’t you dare! You tell her she’s more beautiful than ever now that she’s carrying your children!”

  JB looked exactly as though he were going to say, “But that’s not true.” He was sure thinking it. He met my eyes and clamped his lips shut.

  “Doesn’t make any difference what the truth is, you say she looks great!” I told him. “I know you love her.”

  JB looked sideways for a minute, testing that statement for its truth value, and then he nodded. “I do love her,” he said. Then he smiled. “She completes me,” he said proudly. JB loved movies.

  “Well, you just complete her right back,” I said. “She needs to feel pretty and adored, because she feels big and clumsy and uncomfortable. It’s not easy being pregnant, I hear.”

  “I’ll try, Sookie. Can I call you if she doesn’t soften up?”

  “Yeah, but I know you can work this out, JB. Just be loving and sincere, and she’ll come around.”

  “I like stripping,” he said suddenly, as I was turning away.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said.

  “I knew you would understand.” He took a last sip of beer, left Sam a tip, and went to work at the gym in Clarice.

  “This must be couples day,” India said. “Sam and Jannalynn, Jason and Michele, JB and Tara.” The thought didn’t seem to make her particularly happy.

  “You still dating Lola?” Though I knew the answer, it was always better to ask.

  “Naw. It didn’t work out.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Maybe some day soon the right woman will just walk in the door of the bar, and you’ll be all fixed up.”

  “I hope so.” India looked depressed. “I’m not a fan of the wedding industry, but I sure would like a steady someone. Dating makes me all confused.”

  “I never was any good at dating.”

  “That why you go with the vamp? To scare off everyone else?”

  “I love him,” I said steadily. “That’s why I go with him.” I didn’t point out that human guys were simply impossible for me. You can imagine reading your date’s mind every minute. No, it really wouldn’t be any fun, would it?

  “No need to get all defensive,” India said.

  I thought I’d been matter-of-fact. “He’s fun,” I said mildly, “and he treats me nice.”

  “They’re … I don’t know how to ask this, but they’re cold, right?”

  India wasn’t the first person who’d tried to find a delicate way to ask me that. There wasn’t any delicate way.

  “Not room temperature,” I said. I left it at that, because any more was none of anyone else’s business.

  “Damn,” she said, after a moment. After a longer moment, she said, “Ew.”

  I shrugged. She opened her mouth, looked as though she wanted to ask me something else, and then she closed it.

  Fortunately for both of us, her table gestured that they wanted their bill, and one of Jane Bodehouse’s buddies came in drunk off her ass, so we both had things to do. Holly finally arrived to relieve me, complaining about her no-good car. India was working a double shift, so she kept her apron on. I waved a casual good-bye to Sam, glad to be walking out the door.

  I just made it to the library before it closed, and then I stopped by the post office to buy some stamps from the machine in the lobby. Halleigh Bellefleur was there on the same errand, and
we greeted each other with real pleasure. You know how sometimes you just like someone, though you don’t hang around with them? Halleigh and I don’t have much of anything in common, from our background to our educational level to our interests, but we like each other, anyway. Halleigh’s baby bump was pronounced, and she looked as rosy as Tara looked wrecked.

  “How’s Andy doing?” I asked.

  “He’s not sleeping well, he’s so excited about this baby,” she said. “He calls me from work to ask how I am and to find out how many times the baby kicked.”

  “Sticking with ‘Caroline’?”

  “Yeah, he was real pleased when I suggested that. His grandma brought him up, and she was a fine woman, if a little on the scary side.” Halleigh smiled.

  Caroline Bellefleur had been more than a little on the scary side. She’d been the last great lady of Bon Temps. She had also been my friend Bill Compton’s great-granddaughter. Halleigh’s baby would be three more greats away.

  I told Halleigh about Jason’s engagement, and she said all the right things. She was as polite as Andy’s grandmother—and a hell of a lot warmer.

  Though it was good to see Halleigh, when I got back into the car with my stamps I was feeling a little blue. I turned the key in the ignition, but I didn’t put the car in reverse.

  I knew I was a lucky woman in many respects. But there was life being created all around me, and I wasn’t …

  I shut down that line of thought with a sharp command to myself. I would not start down the self-pity path. Just because I wasn’t pregnant and wasn’t married to someone who could make me that way, that was no reason to feel like an island in the stream. I shook myself briskly and set off to complete the rest of my errands. When I caught a glimpse of Faye de Leon coming out of Grabbit Kwik, my attitude adjusted. Faye had been pregnant six times, and she was around my age. She’d told Maxine Fortenberry that she hadn’t wanted the last three. But her husband loved to see her pregnant, and he loved kids, and Faye allowed herself to be used “like a puppy mill,” as Maxine put it.