by Молли Харпер
“Nice.”
7 When you’re having relationship problems, channel your energy into productive projects. Join a charitable group, or volunteer with an animal shelter or a soup kitchen. (It’s best to avoid the temptation of blood drives.)
—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less Destructive Relationships Once I decided not to let moping take over my life, it was a lot easier to get up and going in the evenings.
I cleaned the house from top to bottom, something I’d neglected during the busy months before the shop opened. I did a total inventory of the valuables to make sure Jenny and Grandma Ruthie hadn’t managed to sneak into the house while I was out of town. I reorganized my library, and found about fifteen paperback copies of Pride and Prejudice.I also found a few titles that Mr.
Wainwright had sent home with me from the shop to help me “acclimate to my new culture”:Love Customs of the Were,a few volumes on exotic were species, and The Spectrum of Vampirism. Mr. Wainwright loaned it to me the year before to help me find my way through the subtle levels of vampirism. Honestly, it’s like Scientology. I boxed them up and set them in Big Bertha’s trunk, so I’d remember to return them to the stock.
And finally, I packed up everything associated with Gabriel: the ticket stubs from our first movie date, the little platinum unicorn necklace he’d given me for Christmas, the travel guides I’d pored over before we left on our trip. I put them in a cardboard box and took them down to the root cellar. Maybe one day, I’d be strong enough to take them out again or even throw them away, but for the moment, I just wanted them out of sight.
In the wake of our repetitive bonding experiences, Andrea, Dick, and I developed a new schedule at the shop. Andrea and I would open, brew coffee, go through mail, and prepare orders for shipping for about an hour before customers started showing up. Andrea generally needed a nap around midnight, so Dick would show up and give me a hand until closing. In the interest of keeping Andrea from being completely nocturnal, she got Wednesdays off, and Dick helped me open. The routine was relaxed but organized enough to suit my compulsive librarian’s soul.
So, imagine our surprise when we arrived on a Wednesday night to find a man in wrinkled khakis sleeping against the front door of the shop. Sadly, it wasn’t all that odd to find a drunk sleeping it off in our doorway, so Dick rousted him with a few shoves to the shoulder, while I gathered the delivery parcel Rip Van Winkle was using as a pillow.
“You’re going to have to find some other place to rest your head.” Dick sighed, pulling at the man’s shirt. “Come on, buddy.”
Rip snorted and yawned. “Jane Jameson?”
“I told you not to put it on the door!” Dick exclaimed, pointing at the little sign that read, “Jane Jameson, Proprietor. You have enough problems without giving the crazies your name.”
“I’m looking for Jane Jameson,” the man said, yawning and scratching at two days’ worth of beard growth. “I’m Emery Mueller, Gilbert Wainwright’s nephew.”
As advertised, Mr. Wainwright’s nephew, Emery, was both milquetoast and mealy-mouthed.
Emery was the son of Mr. Wainwright’s only sister, Margaret, who had moved to California in the 1960s and married a radio evangelist. Mr. Wainwright had only seen Emery on rare visits to the Hollow before Emery moved to Guatemala to teach English at a mountain seminary. He’d described Emery as an odd little boy who’d grown into an odd little man. And considering the level of oddity in Mr. Wainwright, that was saying something.
The cherry on this sundae of genetic improbability was that Emery and Mr. Wainwright also happened to be Dick’s descendants. Dick had watched over the Wainwright family, the illegitimate product of a prevampirism dalliance with a servant girl, for generations. He considered Mr. Wainwright to be the “pick of the litter,” stepping in to pay for his college tuition and proudly watching as Mr. Wainwright became one of the first Hollow boys to volunteer for duty in World War II. Dick was afraid that his less-than-upstanding connections might put the family at risk, so he’d only confessed to the relation the previous year, after Mr. Wainwright died. Watching those two bond, a vampire who appeared to be in his thirties giving fatherly advice to a ghost in his seventies, was as mind-boggling as it was touching.
Dick was obviously not as impressed with the latest branch of the Wainwright family tree. I thought living in South America was supposed to make you all tan and scruffy-sexy, like Harrison Ford. Emery just seemed pale and clammy, like gone-over cheese. He wore hornrimmed glasses and a permanently constipated expression. His skin was pitted with old acne scars, which might have remained unnoticed if not for his tendency to flush and blush at the slightest provocation. His hair and his eyes were the same color, which I can only describe as “dust.”
Ever since Emery had responded to Mr. Wainwright’s death with a telegram telling us to proceed with the funeral without him, Dick and I had a running bet about when Emery would show up. I guessed four months, Dick guessed six months, and Mr. Wainwright guessed a year. We still had no idea how we would collect a wager from a ghost.
“Four months!” I cried triumphantly to Dick, who slapped a twenty-dollar bill into my hand.
“Hi, Emery, I’m Jane,” I said to a clearly confused Emery. “This is my friend Dick.”
“You sent the e-mail.” Emery yawned. “To let me know about Uncle Gilbert.”
“Yes, several months ago,” I said, smiling in that overly sweet way only Dick knew was insincere. “Why don’t you come inside?”
“Oh, thank you. I drove that rental car all the way from Louisville without air conditioning. It was terrible,” he said, heaving himself off the ground.
My lips quirked involuntarily at his pronunciation of Louisville. Not because he had an accent or anything. One’s Kentucky street cred can be determined based on how one pronounces Louisville. Luh-vul, you’re from west Kentucky. Louie-ville, east Kentucky. Louis-ville, you’re from Illinois.
“I know it seems odd to show up unannounced at this time of night. And it’s so nice to meet you,” Emery simpered as we led him into the shop. “While I dearly love doing the Lord’s work, I’m so glad to be back here. I spent many hours as a child in the store, poring over the books.”
“Really?” I said, arching a brow. “It’s just that they’re all, you know, occult books. Mr.
Wainwright said you were very devout, even as a child. He said you tried to baptize him with bottled water when you were nine.”
Emery flushed pink and cleared his throat. “Yes, well, spending time here was a taste of the forbidden fruit. I was fascinated by the books because they were so different from anything in my house. It drove my mother crazy.”
Mr. Wainwright appeared behind Emery and nodded. “He did spend a lot of time here. And it was his predilection for the woodcarvings of the nude rituals practiced by eastern European vampire clans that upset his mother. I had to hide all the books that bared what his mother called
‘lady bumps.’ It was horrifying.”
Dick excused himself so he could go out to the parking lot and laugh. I was stuck chewing on my lip and praying for a straight face. I flipped on the light switch, and Gilbert gave a loud gasp at the appearance of the shop. “It’s so different!”
“Yes, well, we’ve renovated extensively since you were here last.”
“You must have spent a fortune!” he exclaimed. “It’s certainly nicer than anything in the neighborhood … you might have outpaced yourself there.”
I shot a “What the hell?” look at Dick, who had just walked back in.
“And look, everything is so orderly! You could find anything you wanted now. Uncle Gilbert never did have a head for alphabetizing.” Emery smirked. “But I guess he had you for that, among other things. He wrote to me about you once. He was very fond of you, a young, pretty vampire girl who was willing to spend so much time with him. Obviously, he had to be fond of you, if he sank all his money into renovating the shop and leaving it to you. I’m glad he had someon
e to make his last months so pleasurable, someone who took care of him. Even if it was only an employee.”
Call me oversensitive, but had Emery just implied that I exchanged sexual favors for cash and redecorating?
“I don’t think I appreciate what he’s implying,” Mr. Wainwright said, staring at his nephew.
“Me, neither,” I muttered, to which Emery gave me a confused look. I cleared my throat. “Mr.
Mueller, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about my relationship with Mr. Wainwright and how his will was written. I didn’t set out to take over the shop or get in good with your uncle. I was just lucky enough to be hired by one of the sweetest men on earth, and he became a close friend. I didn’t know he planned on leaving me the shop, and I wasn’t even sure I was going to keep it at first. In fact, I was thinking very seriously of selling—”
“Oh! I think that’s for the best, the right thing to do,” Emery said quickly. “I’ll do anything I can to help speed things along.”
I was caught off-guard by his sudden enthusiasm. Who was he to be so enthusiastic about tossing out his uncle’s legacy? Especially when that legacy technically belonged to me now?
“Give him what for, Jane,” Mr. Wainwright said, smirking at what he recognized was my temper building. Emery wasn’t smart enough to see it himself.
“As I was saying, I thought about selling. But I decided the best way to honor your uncle’s memory would be to keep this place going. So I sank my own money into renovations. It didn’t cost your uncle a penny. And the business seems to be taking off, so we’re not going to be closing anytime soon. Um, for now, anything you want to take, you’re welcome to, especially stuff from his personal effects or private collections. He didn’t spell that out in the will, but I wouldn’t feel right keeping everything.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Emery sighed, picking up his duffel. “For now, I’m going upstairs to bed. I’m sorry if I’m being rude. I’m just so tired. Jet lag, you know.”
“Oh,” I said, exchanging a look with Mr. Wainwright. “Actually, there’s no apartment there anymore. We turned it into storage and office space. I can recommend some hotels in town, though, depending on how long you’re planning on staying.”
Emery’s lips thinned in a way that showed that he was clearly insulted by this change. “I see. I didn’t anticipate that.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have made hotel arrangements for you.”
“I don’t enjoy hotels,” Emery said sulkily. “You never know who’s stayed in the room before you or whether the facilities have been cleaned properly.”
“He is absolutely phobic about germs.” Mr. Wainwright chuckled. “But only American germs, for some reason. He thinks people in other countries are cleaner than we are. Don’t let him talk you into staying with you, Jane. The last time he was a guest in my house, I woke up at three A.M. to find him steam-cleaning the inside of my dishwasher.”
The thought of Emery staying with me hadn’t even occurred to me. Yes, I had room to put Emery at my house, but … no. I was not inviting a mouth-breathing stranger into my home. A vaguely rude mouth-breathing stranger at that. I wondered if Dick would invite him to stay at Andrea’s place. But given the way Emery was fastidiously wiping at his hands with hand sanitizer, as if we had some sort of germ that was more powerful than what they had in Guatemala, Dick didn’t seem inclined to bond with him.
“Come on, Emery,” Dick said, taking Emery’s duffel bag onto his shoulder and patting him on the back. “I know a good boardinghouse in town. Very clean. The owner owes me a favor. I’ll get you settled in.”
Dick escorted Emery to his car and came back into the shop under the guise of forgetting something. “That’s the fruit of my loins?”
“I think your genes lost their mojo somewhere along the way,” I teased.
Dick was indignant. “Those are not my genes. Margaret must have mated with a jellyfish or something.”
Mr. Wainwright shook his head. “You’re not too far off.”
“Look at Gilbert. He wasn’t exactly strapping when he was young, but he had guts! He had gumption! He wasn’t afraid of hotel sheets!”
“Thank you, Dick,” Mr. Wainwright said, smiling proudly.
“And you!” Dick cried. “What are you thinking, telling him he can have anything he wants from the stock? What if he runs off with something valuable?”
“Well, he’s probably got more rights to anything here than I do,” I said.
Mr. Wainwright winced. “Oh, please, don’t say that in front of him, dear. He’ll take everything that’s not nailed down and donate the proceeds to a questionable charity.”
“Are you softening up to the doughy young missionary?” Dick asked me.
“There’s nothing wrong with missionaries,” I said, grinning at him. “Besides, he is your greatgreat-grandson, your own flesh and blood. And we both know you could use a little churching up.
It might be interesting for you to talk to him, to hear things from his point of view.”
Dick made a sour face. “His point of view is that we’re evil and should be struck through the heart with a stake wrapped in wild roses.”
“Wow, that seems harsh.”
Dick walked out, putting his “determined to be polite” face on. I busied myself with getting the coffee bar ready for that night’s crowd.
“How have you been, Jane, dear?” Mr. Wainwright asked. “Your aunt told me about your difficulties with Gabriel. She said you took it rather hard.”
“Well, after going through the female and male break-up recovery rituals, I can determine that, one, I’m going to be OK. And two, the male break-up ritual is more fun but harder to heal up from. I’m fine, really. I’m just keeping busy and trying not to think about it.”
“I can haunt Gabriel’s house for you, if you’d like,” Mr. Wainwright offered.
“Thank you, that’s very sweet, but I don’t think you can really scare someone after you’ve spent Christmas Eve with them. Unless you’re my grandma Ruthie.”
Mr. Wainwright chuckled. I rummaged through the drawers behind the bar and then got on my hands and knees, searching for the tiny canister of vampire mace. It had obviously been detached from my keyring at some point, and it didn’t show up in a thorough postfight search of my purse and house. And it wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted lying around the shop.
“Mr. Wainwright, have you seen a little metal tube, about the size of a Chapstick?” I asked, lifting a chaise longue with one hand to search under it. Mr. Wainwright, who was always entertained by my feats of vampire strength, shook his head. “Great. Either I’m going to have to wait for Fitz to pass it or pray I don’t step on it and mace myself.”
The front bell rang, and Zeb walked into the shop, pale and shaking. Wordlessly, he walked to the coffee bar and climbed onto a stool.
I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Zeb, are you OK? What’s wrong? Is it Jolene? Is the baby OK? Did one of Jolene’s relatives get trapped by the Department of Fish and Wildlife? Did the police find your dad’s still? What?”
“Two of them,” he said, his eyes oddly dilated.
“One of Jolene’s relatives was trapped by the Department of Fish and Wild life and the police found your dad’s still? What are the odds of that?” I wondered.
He snapped out of his funk long enough to look annoyed with me. “No, two of them, on the ultrasound. There’s two babies.”
“Twins?” I laughed. “But that’s great! And considering the number of multiple births in Jolene’s family, not entirely unexpected.”
“Congratulations!” Mr. Wainwright cried, and then he caught sight of Zeb’s stricken expression.
“I’ll be going now.”
Zeb scrubbed his hand over his face as Mr. Wainwright faded out of sight. “I was prepared for one baby. I don’t know if I can handle two.”
“It’s a little late for that. There’s a very strict no
-return policy on babies.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jane.”
“Well, what do you want me to do? Take one off your hands? There’s not much I can do, except pay someone else to babysit. Are they boys or girls?” I asked.
“Don’t know yet; it’s too early to tell. To be honest, I didn’t catch much after ‘two heartbeats.’ One of them was doing a sort of Homer Simpson shimmy. I’m guessing that’s the one that takes after me.”
“Look at it this way: you’re lucky it’s not triplets or quadruplets.”
That seemed to cheer him.
“If you keep going, you can form your own basketball team,” I suggested. He furrowed his brow and frowned at me. “Too soon?” He nodded. “I’ll fix you some herbal tea. It’s soothing,” I said, patting his hand. “How’s Jolene? Is she craving pickles and ice cream yet?”
Zeb groaned. “If only. It’s more like Canadian bacon and ice cream. Peanut butter and turkey sandwiches. Tuna noodle pie. She actually made what she called ‘bacon chip cookies’ the other day—a chocolate-chip cookie recipe with bacon pieces instead of chocolate chips. She said it’s her body’s way of getting as much protein as possible for the babies, but I swear if I see her eat one more of those pies, I’m going to yark.”
“Well, the good news, is whenever I regret not being able to eat, I’ll call those images to mind.
I’ll never want solid food again.” I shuddered, rubbing my stomach.
Zeb perked up as he said, “By the way, I got a call from the reunion committee today. They wanted some pictures of you for the memorial wall.”
“But I’m not dead!”
Zeb smirked. “Well, that’s not the way the committee sees it.”
“That’s it. I’m not going to this thing.”
“Oh, come on,” he said, accepting a cup of chamomile. “You’ve got to go to the reunion. It’ll be fun! You can scare the crap out of all our former classmates.”
“It will be fun for you. You’re married to a beautiful woman who adores you to the point that she’ll probably maul the first doofus who tries to give you a commemorative wedgie. And she’ll be pregnant, so everyone will know you’ve had sex with her. I, however, will most likely be going solo which will probably just cement all those lesbian rumors. Oh, wait, dead lesbian rumors.”
