by Molly Harper
While I contemplated this disturbing postapocalyptic image, Jed jogged around the corner of the house toward my side of the yard, shrugging back into his shirt. When he realized I was watching him, he stopped in his tracks.
“I have so many questions,” I said, shaking my head.
“So, yeah.” Jed grimaced as he finished buttoning his shirt. “I’m a shapeshifter.”
“That’s a thing?” I exclaimed.
“’Fraid so,” Jed said. “I have this little genetic quirk that lets me take on the appearance of just about any livin’ thing, real or fictional. It’s like being a werewolf but having more options. For the longest time, my family thought we were cursed, but it turns out we just happen to have a couple of extra genes thrown in. Jane and Nola thought Danny would get a kick out of it. I’m sorry for not checkin’ it out with you before. I didn’t mean to make ya uncomfortable.”
“So . . . when Danny thought he saw Bigfoot out of his window the other night . . .”
He grimaced. “That was me. But to be fair, I wasn’t in Bigfoot form. I’ve been playing around with an ape-werewolf hybrid creature. You know, trying to keep things interesting. Nola’s helped me figure out that I’m more in control of my shifts when I’m not bored.”
“Could you maybe not do that where Danny can see you?” I suggested. “Or if you do, pick a non-scary, non-emotionally-traumatizing form? Like a giant bunny or something?” I asked.
“You don’t think he would find an unnaturally large bunny lurking outside of his house to be traumatizin’?” he asked, and when I gave him my mom look, he added, “I’m just sayin’!”
“I’m sending him to your front door when he has nightmares,” I told Jed.
Jed pursed his lips and nodded. “Fair enough. I’m gonna go get a beer. Shiftin’ takes it out of me.”
“Wait, Jed, what did you mean by werewolves?” I called after him. “Are werewolves a thing, too?”
He just smiled his adorable redneck smile and ducked inside the house.
“Jed?” I yelled. “That’s not an answer!”
“Man, when you throw a party, you throw a party,” Wade said, carrying a beer across the lawn. “Where do you even find a Sasquatch impersonator? And what kind of person makes a livin’ pretending to be a Bigfoot? That musta been an interestin’ Craigslist ad.”
“You’d be surprised what you can find online.” I chuckled awkwardly. “Look, I really appreciate you being so open-minded, bringing Harley here in the first place and then sticking around when you realized most of the guest list was, uh, pulse-challenged.”
“Hell, I told ya, I don’t care about that,” he scoffed. “You’re clearly crazy about your kid, and your friends seem nice enough. My family are all humans, and they can be a bunch of assholes.”
“I’m just glad you added more words after you said ‘crazy.’ ”
“We did kind of get off on the wrong foot, huh?” Wade blushed—honest to God, blushed—and even in the silver light of the moon, I could see the rich pink hue spread across his cheeks. The spread of blood through his tiny capillaries did strange things to me. I wanted to follow that blush’s path across his cheekbones with my tongue. I wanted to see how far it spread. Did he blush all the way down?
And he was still talking while I was ogling his circulatory system. I decided to tune in before I embarrassed myself.
“I’m sorry I was such a jackass when we met. School registration is always sort of hard for me. It’s like a punch in the face, seeing all those big, happy families. Signing all that stuff as Harley’s only parent-slash-guardian, it was like being reminded over and over that I’m doing this all alone. I got pissed off, and I took it out on you, and that’s not fair.”
“I can understand that,” I told him. “And that night at Walmart?”
“Well, you did compare my son’s name to chlamydia,” he noted.
“Touché.”
“It would be better, I think, if the two of us could find a way to get along, for the boys’ sake,” he said. “If nothin’ else, we could stop cussing at each other every time we make eye contact.”
“I would like that.” I stuck my hand out to shake. “Truce?”
“Truce,” he said, extending his hand with the rings. Then, remembering the silver issue, he switched and offered me the safer hand. His closed his fingers around mine and pumped my hand gently. His callused, warm skin felt heavenly against my own, like sliding into a bath with just enough heat to sting a little. He didn’t seem to mind how cool my skin was, turning my hand over in his.
“Huh,” he said, studying our joined hands.
I withdrew my hand from his, rubbing it against my denim-covered leg. “So do you have family around here?”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, but I try to steer clear of them. My family are a bunch of screw-ups. Mostly on my mom’s side. My dad was a pretty great guy. He’s the one who was into motorcycles, showed me everything he knew in the garage. But he died when I was eight, and Mom ended up moving to Garden Vista. She brought home a bunch of ‘uncles’ who got more and more messed-up with every year. I got a couple of half brothers and sisters running around the Hollow. I try to keep them away from Harley, so they don’t try to borrow money off him. Hell, if they thought he had a twenty in his piggy bank, they’d take a hammer to it. And then call him a ‘selfish little jerk’ if he got upset over it.
“Growing up the way I did, I didn’t want Harley seeing that shit. I wanted him to have somethin’ normal and soft. I wanted him to know that when he came home from school, I would be there. I would be sober. And he wouldn’t have to be afraid when I walked through the door.”
I stared at him. If only he knew exactly how much I identified with that statement. When I was pregnant, I told myself it would be different from how I’d grown up. My baby would know how much I loved him. He’d have homemade birthday cakes and Christmas stockings that weren’t a knotted-up grocery bag. I would read him bedtime stories and take care of him when he was sick.
It wasn’t that my mom hadn’t cared. She’d worked night shifts at the Twelfth Street Launderette to pay for our lavish accommodations in the Garden Vista trailer park. I couldn’t say there was much animosity between us. We just weren’t particularly close. I knew she liked to paint. I knew her favorite color was purple. I knew she liked to listen to Stevie Nicks on the rare occasion that she cooked. But there were no long talks or maternal advice. The mothering gene was just missing in her, I guessed.
Mom seemed to be resigned to me, like some part of life that she had to accept—aching feet or the late-stage breast cancer she was diagnosed with at age thirty-seven. And even then, her dying process was very matter-of-fact. She just told me that her life insurance wouldn’t amount to much and not to let a preacher speak over her at any sort of funeral. After a couple of door-to-door evangelists had informed her that she and her bastard baby were headed for hell unless she joined their church that very Sunday, she’d never had much use for organized religion. And that was it. She might as well have been breaking a lease.
I had a much closer bond with kindly old Mrs. Patterson, who babysat me from the time Mom went back to work after her three unpaid weeks of maternity leave. Mrs. Patterson taught me to read by age four. She taught me how to make basic meals without the stove after Mom decided she couldn’t afford having Mrs. Patterson watch me every night and ten was old enough to take care of myself. She was the one who had to explain the birds and the bees to me when I started my period and ran to her trailer crying. Her trailer, which was apparently right down the row from Wade’s. And I’d never even met him.
“I grew up in Garden Vista,” I told him.
Wade burst out laughing. “Bullshit.”
I raised my right hand in a swearing gesture. “I did. We lived in the little blue-and-rust number at the end of the sixth row.”
Wade snickered. “I haven’t seen you at any of the alumni dinners.”
“Well, I took myself off the news
letter list. I married a nice boy, cleaned up the accent a little. I worked hard in community college and bought myself a word-of-the-day calendar to help beef up my vocabulary. My mother-in-law says you can hardly tell I grew up in a trailer now, which she thinks is a compliment. She doesn’t really mean anything by it, but she doesn’t have a real strong filter when it comes to condescension.”
He laughed. He was standing so close I could feel every warm breath whispering along my skin. I could make out every hair on his head, the golden sheen taking on a blue cast in the moonlight. The most insane urge took hold of my hand, to reach out, stroke my fingertips along his face, run my thumb along his full bottom lip. I wanted to kiss him, to bury my face in his iron-and-citrus-scented hair. I wanted to feel those rough hands stroking down my back. I wanted to trace the path of his jugular with my tongue, feel the warm spill of his blood into my mou—
Uh-oh.
I could feel my fangs lengthening in response to my sexy, bloody thoughts. My fangs were out. And I was alone, with a human, whose child was playing inside my house because I’d promised his father that they were safe with me and my vampire friends. Damn it. Damn it. I pressed my lips together, as if that could hide my unfortunate dental boner, and tried to think of something unappetizing. Something that would kill my libido.
The night before my wedding, Marge visited my apartment, gave me a pink lace nightie that looked just like the one she’d worn on her wedding night to Les, and tried to give me the “wifely duty” talk.
Aaaaaand away went the fangs.
Now that any trace of desire for anything had been thoroughly murdered, I was able to take a step back from Wade. I held my breath to keep that delicious scent of man and blood and leather from invading my senses again.
“I can’t believe I don’t remember you,” he said.
“I pretty much kept to myself when I was a kid,” I said. “It’s sort of a pattern with me.”
Wade glanced back at the crowded, noisy house. Just inside the window, I could see the vampires watching Danny and Harley play. “Until now.”
Just then, Jane stuck her head out of the back door and called, “Hey, Libby!”
When she saw the two of us standing so close, she did a quick double take and stepped back into the kitchen. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK, Jane. What’s going on?”
“Well, the boys are threatening some sort of cookie coup if you don’t get in here. Gabriel wants to try to negotiate, but I think Dick is secretly slipping them contraband candy to support their cause.” Jane ducked out of sight, calling, “Their blood sugar levels have given them the strength of ten men.”
“We’d better get in there,” I murmured. “I know they’re nice kids, but they can’t be trusted to make rational decisions right now.”
Wade nodded, stepping back. “Yeah, we’re not allowed back at Chuck E. Cheese after the cotton-candy incident at Emma Perry’s birthday party.”
“Harley is the kid who took out Chuck E.?” I gasped.
“Kids will do regrettable things for tokens.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I tried to turn it into an object lesson about violence and greed. But I just ended up bannin’ him from playin’ any of those Grand Theft Auto games, ever.”
“Seems reasonable.”
7
As a living parent, you may feel pressure to make sure your child “measures up” in terms of intelligence, athleticism, or popularity. As a vampire parent—let’s just say that it’s not appropriate for children to compete in terms of vampire virtues.
—My Mommy Has Fangs: A Guide to Post-Vampiric Parenting
Why had I said yes?
I’d told myself that I didn’t have time to volunteer for the PTA this year, that I needed to focus on my complicated home life and adjusting to my liquids-only diet. I could have declined when Chelsea Harbaker, PTA president and all-around terrifying personality, called to confirm my nomination to serve on the Pumpkin Patch Party’s prize committee. But for some reason, I’d said yes. Some perverse urge had me agreeing so I could prove to these snotty wenches that I was still the same committed, involved parent I was before, that being a vampire didn’t make me less of a mother. Also, I thought it wouldn’t hurt for people to see me working diligently on school projects while my in-laws tried to convince the community that I was a dangerous slacker mom.
So now I was sitting in the cafeteria of the elementary school, with a little paper placard in front of my seat that read “Libby Sutton—Prize Committee.” That’s right. They spelled my name wrong. And I was without Kerrianne to amuse me with smartass asides, because she had an excuse not to come to the meeting. She had to work. Of course, she had to work for me so she could keep my child as I attended this meeting. It was a “damned if you do, relieved because you get out of attending a boring meeting if you don’t” situation.
I was barely listening to Chelsea drone on about the importance of the Pumpkin Patch Party to the community, the long-standing tradition and the fund-raising capacity for the PTA. I couldn’t focus on the lists of tasks to be done when I felt like a weird little rock in a stream, with conversation flowing around me and people passing me by. But I didn’t feel quite so alone as I had when I was human.
The wonderful thing about Jane’s friends was that when they said “Call me,” they meant it. And if you didn’t call them, they called you. I had a coffee date scheduled with Andrea that week. Nola had offered to take Danny to Children’s Day at the local Civil War history museum the coming weekend. Gabriel asked me to come by the Nightengale house for dinner, ostensibly so I could look over the payroll for a string of frozen-yogurt shops he owned and determine whether one of the regional managers was being dishonest with reported overtime. But I think he and Jane just wanted to see me without the Council mantle on her shoulders.
The Half-Moon Hollow vampires friended me on Facebook. They added me to their group texts. I got the impression that I had somehow been marked as part of their pack.
It was a little overwhelming, having this many people reaching out to me when I was so used to a small social circle. But they didn’t breach my boundaries. They listened when I said no.
Which was more than I could say for Chelsea Harbaker.
While Chelsea was preaching, I took my little paper placard and slashed through “Sutton” in bright, blood-red Sharpie. Under my corrected last name, I drew a little smiley face . . . and then little red triangles under the smiley’s mouth. And a little drop of blood.
“Libby?”
Oh, hell.
I looked up and found Chelsea looming over me. Her blond hair was artfully sculpted around a round face with Kewpie-doll lips and big baby-doll blue eyes. When she spoke, you could practically hear cartoon chipmunks and birds scampering away in terror. It was like Snow White and Satan had an evil, chirpy blond baby.
Believe it or not, I’d been comforted by my interactions with Chelsea, because, so far, she’d treated me with just as much condescension as she had before I was turned. She was consistent, and for that, I was grateful.
“Do you have the list of local businesses you need to solicit for raffle prizes and donations?”
I wished she would stop using the word “solicit.” It was unseemly.
I cleared my throat, shuffling through the papers in front of me. “Yes. I have the list. And the sublists. And the list of sublists.”
“Are you and Caroline—”
“Kerrianne,” I supplied.
She sniffed. “Yes, Kerrianne. Are you two able to handle it, or do I need to assign a few more people to your committee?”
Behind her, I saw several eyes go wide and my fellow parents shaking their heads. I schooled my lips from the smirk that wanted to form. “No, thanks. We’ll do just fine.”
“I expect a report from the committee at next week’s meeting,” she singsonged.
Next week? I would have to do this again next week?
I sighed, glancing around the room again, as if Wade had so
mehow materialized in the last five minutes. I hadn’t realized how much I’d hoped he would attend this meeting until I saw that he wasn’t there. We’d actually managed to build a shaky rapport after the birthday party. It would have been nice to see a friendly face, but it would appear that even he had his limits in terms of parental volunteering. I did, too, but was forced to ignore them for the sake of pending litigation. That was something reasonable parents did, right?
Chelsea eventually ran out of things to drill the various committee heads about, and we were dismissed. Some people shot out of their seats and ran for the door. Others milled around in the room to chat. I tried to hold on to a bit of my dignity and split the difference.
A few of the moms were friendly. Jenny Marcum and her cousin, Penny Bidcombe, stopped me to ask how Danny was faring after the incident with Mrs. McGee. In my now weekly calls to the school, I’d found out that Mrs. McGee hadn’t gone near Danny since Mr. Walsh informed her that I was aware of her opinion and “displeased” that Danny had overheard her. So I couldn’t report much beyond “I indirectly threatened a septuagenarian.” But it was nice that they’d asked. Penny and Jenny, whose mothers were sisters with an odd sense of humor, had daughters in Danny’s grade. I’d have liked to think they would have allowed the girls to attend a birthday party at my house, but because of Danny’s girl-cootie-phobia, I supposed we wouldn’t know for a while.
“Soooo, Libby, how are you?” I turned to find Marnie Whitehead standing behind me, smirking. Marnie’s son, Brian, had been on the invite list for Danny’s party. I desperately wanted to ask where the hell she and her son were on Friday night, considering that my son had continued to sit next to “Buggy Brian” at lunch even after his well-known and unfortunate head-lice outbreak the year before. But I bit my tongue.
Also, as an aside, I was really tired of people asking how I was, with their heads tilted to the side. It was becoming annoying.
