by Molly Harper
I swear, my panties spontaneously combusted right there.
“Excuse me!” someone shouted. “This is a public place! There are children present!”
The spell was broken.
My eyes went saucer-sized, and Wade reluctantly let go of my leg. We turned to see an incensed man loading his towheaded children into a blue pickup truck. He looked vaguely familiar, in that “I think we’ve met before, but I can’t guarantee we liked each other” kind of way. I couldn’t put a name with the face, but given the way he was glaring at me, he seemed to know me. Great. My already tarnished reputation needed an addition like “parking-lot hussy.”
“Seems to me the problem is you’ve got your kids out past ten on a school night, Roy!” Wade shouted back, stepping between me and the angry dad.
Roy. I sighed, thunking my head between Wade’s shoulder blades. Roy Pannabaker. He was a high school classmate of Rob’s, come to think of it. And he had come to the funeral, overflowing with condolences and within five minutes asking what I was planning to do with Rob’s fishing tackle and tools.
“Go home, Wade!” Roy shouted.
“You get your kids home, Roy!” Wade hollered. “And you can forget about me fixing your carburetor at cost next time!”
Roy muttered something under his breath that super-sensitive ears only picked up as “mash-hole” and squealed out of the parking lot. Both of my hands were on my face now, and I was giggling, actually giggling. When I thought about it, that made sense, because I had just made out in a parking lot like some high school hussy. Wade seemed to find it pretty damned funny, too, because he was leaning his forehead against my neck, shoulders shaking with laughter.
“I can’t believe I just did that,” I said, gasping.
“Well, ya didn’t do it alone.”
If Rob had been confronted with such a public scene, especially in front of someone he knew, it would have been recriminations and griping all the way home. But Wade just shrugged it off.
I so wanted to date Wade Tucker.
“Now.” Wade reached to my driver’s-side door and opened it for me. “Next weekend?”
“Yes,” I told him, letting him hand me into the van like something out of a Regency novel. He shut the door as I started the engine. “I would love to . . . And next time, remove Roy’s carburetor altogether.”
It wasn’t until I got home that night (and had helped Danny complete a spectacular poster, if I did say so myself) that I had a sort of hormonal epiphany. I’d kissed two men in the course of two days. I’d never kissed two men in the course of two years. I hadn’t even dated since Rob died, much less kissed anybody. And now I was stringing along two perfectly nice men—OK, at least one perfectly nice man, because I wasn’t sure about Finn. At the very least, I was engaged in a more than platonic relationship with both of them, which was way more than I was used to.
I had no clue how to feel about this, so I took what I was sure was an emotionally healthy route: I didn’t think about it at all. I had other things to worry about, including maintaining the appearance of a responsible, engaged parent and trying to be an actual responsible, engaged parent. I just pushed it to the back of my mind. That would work, surely. Because Finn was supposed to keep his distance, and if he kept his distance, I could ignore the whole thing.
When I was human, I processed my stress through baking. It came in handy whenever the school had a fund-raiser. And with running my home business, raising an active child with last-minute art projects, managing my bloodlust, and meeting with the Council’s (cordial but still scary) appointed custody lawyers, I had plenty of stress to work through. I woke up just before sunset, equivalent to a predawn wake-up call, to whip up a special batch of my famous triple chocolate chip from-scratch cookies, which had been the biggest seller at the Back-to-School Night bake sale the year before. I could blame those cookies for my sudden “indispensability” when the PTA needed someone to run the cakewalk at the Christmas Carnival.
Back-to-School Night was held about halfway through the first quarter of the school year, which gave the teachers a chance to get to know the kids enough to determine whether they were in for a year of “Your child is a joy to have in class, but . . .” notes home. It was also the setting for the PTA’s first volley in the yearlong attempt to raise enough funds to provide all of the little things the school needed but couldn’t fund through the district’s provided budget—field trips, playground equipment, matching T-shirts for the robotics team, that sort of thing.
So there I stood, cooking for the first time in our duplex’s kitchen, trying to prove my worth to people who didn’t really like me all that much. And it didn’t feel right to make Kerrianne do my penance just because she happened to be human, especially since Kerrianne’s mother was keeping the kids so we could both meet with our kids’ teachers. Frankly, she was doing me a favor, because if Danny were present during baking, he would be sneaking raw dough from the bowl when my back was turned. We did not have the time to visit the ER for his inevitable salmonella.
Yawning as twilight seeped into my kitchen, I dropped softened butter into my KitchenAid, watching as the paddle beat it together with the sugar until it was a fluffy yellow dream. Just watching it go round and round in the bowl made my mouth water. Damn, I missed cookies. And cake. And doughnuts. Basically, all of the baked things.
Hmm, maybe it was better that I was turned. Even if I hadn’t gotten sick, my terrible sweet tooth would surely have led to health complications later in life. I sniffed at the mixture. It didn’t smell quite right—rancid, maybe? I checked the date on the butter carton. I still had weeks before the expiration date. Maybe my vampire senses were a little oversensitive?
Cracking the shells with one deft hand, I dropped eggs, one at a time, into the creamed butter and sugar, and each one was like a stink bomb exploding in the mixing bowl.
“Augh!” I could taste the awfulness in my mouth, like I’d inhaled garbage. “Oh, my God, no!”
Vanilla. The sweet scent of vanilla would make this better. I opened the bottle and poured it into the batter without even measuring. It turned the bowl into a dark brown, mushy mess, spinning at top speed into baking oblivion.
“Worse, this is worse.” I wheezed, shaking my head as I dumped the over-vanilla’d cookie vomit into the sink and turned on the garbage disposal. And that’s when I realized I didn’t have a garbage disposal.
I slid along the cabinet until I collapsed to the floor and promptly burst into tears. That’s how Jane found me. She came into the kitchen and saw me weeping and wiping at my bloodied cheeks with a dishtowel. She slid down next to me on the floor, handing me a paper towel to mop up my tears. “Whatcha doin’?”
“I can’t bake!” I whimpered.
“Well, you know most vampire powers are more, you know, ‘super’ in nature. You’re not going to suddenly be able to bake just because you’re undead.”
“I could bake before!” I exclaimed.
“Oh,” Jane said, frowning. “Well, then, this situation is officially beyond my frame of reference . . . Is it OK to ask why you’re so upset over not being able to bake?”
“Because this is the most basic thing a mother can do for her son, and suddenly I can’t do it anymore!”
“First of all, baking is not simple. I’ve watched Tess do it, and it’s complex and terrifying. Second, you do a lot of things for your son. Birthday parties, volunteering for his school, and I don’t know, changing your entire physical form so you can raise him. If you go to the grocery store and buy a couple dozen cookies, I don’t think he’ll notice.”
“I can’t take store-bought cookies to the bake sale. I’ll be even more of a pariah among the other mothers than I already am!”
“Am I going to have to get out the spray bottle?”
“No!” I told her.
“I never get to have any fun,” she muttered. “Fine, you’re going to wash your face, because there’s bloody tears running down your cheeks, and that�
�s super-disturbing. And then we’re going to get Dick to bring by some of those gas masks they use on Breaking Bad, because I’m sure he has them, and we’re going to make some fricking cookies. We’re going to make so many cookies that those PTA wenches can’t refuse them without looking like jerks.”
“Thanks, Jane.” I sighed. “Did you have this many meltdowns when you were a new vampire?”
“More,” she told me. “Of course, someone was generally trying to kill me at the time, but I’d say your legal battle with your in-laws is comparable.”
“Thanks. My baking angst almost let me forget about my legal battle.”
“Well, I might have good news on that front.”
She handed me a legal-sized envelope marked with the seal of Marcus K. Holyfield of the local family court system. I ripped open the envelope, skimming the very official-looking letter at vampire speed. Judge Holyfield was issuing an order stating that there was to be no interference with my custody of Danny while it was under review, since I’d always shown myself to be a responsible parent. That meant that unless I’d given them written permission—which clearly I had not—Les and Marge were not to contact Danny’s school or doctor, and they were not to demand visitation or show up at the house uninvited, or there would be unspecified, but potentially scary, consequences.
“How?” I asked Jane, eyes wide. “How is this happening so quickly . . . and in my favor?”
Jane pursed her lips. “Apparently, Judge Holyfield was not impressed with some of the statements Les made about your ‘wanton and unholy state’ in his petition. I believe they got their notice two days ago. It took a while for your letter to wind its way through the Council office mail maze. Other than that, you probably don’t need to know which strings are being pulled and how. I’m just happy to be using those strings for good instead of the Council’s usual death, mayhem, and general evil tomfoolery. Now, feel better?”
“Much,” I said. Before I rose to wash my face at the sink, I sniffed and confessed. “I have something to tell you. My sire, Finn Palmeroy, was here the other night when I came home.”
“I know, but I appreciate your telling me,” Jane said. “He came by the shop to inform me that he’d made contact, despite my orders that he stay away. And I asked him again to keep his distance because of the custody case. Trust me when I say that if Les and Marge find out you’ve been spending time with Finn, it will not do you any favors.”
“Why do you hate my sire so much?”
“I don’t hate him. I just don’t trust him. I don’t trust anyone who will turn somebody for money. Frankly, he reminds me a little of Dick, back when I first met him, without Dick’s personal integrity. And you need to understand that I am trying really, really hard not to make Finn more attractive by forbidding you to see him and giving him the Romeo factor. So I’m trusting your judgment to stay away from him.”
“But you did forbid me to see him,” I pointed out, resisting the urge to tell her that Finn had not, after all, taken the money from my account in exchange for turning me.
“No, I forbade him to see you. I’m asking you nicely to take my advice into account. Totally different.”
“Fine, but I don’t see how you could make Finn more attractive,” I murmured.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Jane and I obtained the gas masks from Dick’s questionable contacts and made several batches of brookies, a recipe Jane found on the Internet labeled “moron-proof.” It basically involved spooning brownie batter (from a mix) into a cupcake pan and dropping bits of premade cookie dough into the batter. The dough sank into the batter while it baked, and when it was done, you had perfect golden-brown bits of cookie baked into brownie cups. While they looked beautiful, the scent made my vampire senses revolt. We bagged the cooled brookies into packages of three and packed six dozen of them into my car just in time for me to skid into the school parking lot by eight.
I hauled the bags of baked goods through the front entrance of the school, past Happy the Howler Pup, and deposited them on the elaborately decorated bake-sale table. Blue and white and black streamers were twisted into bunting against a bright blue plastic tablecloth, bracketing a sign that read “SUPPORT THE HMHES PTA!” The table was chock-full of Bundt cakes and bags of brownies and cookies. A few mothers had been brave enough to try decorated cupcakes with spiky frosting creatures that could be either Howlers or . . . Scottie dogs?
Casey Sparks and Chelsea Harbaker were manning the table, wearing their bright blue “HMH Howler Mom” T-shirts and matching hair bows. They were all bright smiles and welcoming faces until they turned around and saw me standing there.
“Oh, Libby, hiiiiii,” Casey drawled, barely able to refrain from flinching. She looked to Chelsea, who had a better poker face.
“Hi. I brought some brookies for the sale, bagged and priced,” I said, putting my bags on the table. “I’ve got to duck into Miss Steele’s class for my conference.”
Casey shook her head, biting her lip. She glanced around, though I wasn’t sure whether it was to look for moral support from the other mothers or some handy pair of decorative pinking shears she could improvise into a weapon. “Well, I—”
“I’m sure they’ll be just fine,” Chelsea said, taking the bagged brookies and moving them to the worktable behind her. “Thanks, Libby.”
“Anything to help the kids,” I said, smiling sweetly. It wasn’t my fault that my fangs slipped out just the tiniest bit when I did it.
OK, maybe it was. But Casey’s skittishness was pissing me off.
Miss Steele was waiting for me in her classroom, of course. And she checked her watch as I walked in, even though I was precisely on time for our 6:55 appointment. That was Miss Steele’s way. She wanted to make sure you knew you were being monitored and measured, so you worked your butt off to avoid a failing grade. She was one of the few teachers who attended every monthly PTA meeting and special session, as if she didn’t trust us to behave properly during the meetings and get the necessary tasks accomplished without supervision. If Chelsea Harbaker had strayed from the agenda the least little bit, I had no doubt that Miss Steele would have whacked her on the knuckles with a ruler. (Kentucky’s laws against corporal punishment didn’t hold much sway with Miss Steele.)
“Mrs. Stratton.” She sniffed. “It’s good to see you up and about. I’ve never believed in long-term convalescing. Too much lying about leaves the body weak and soft.”
“I will try to remember that the next time I’m diagnosed with a terminal illness,” I told her.
She didn’t bother with even a courtesy smile, gesturing to the child-sized chair in front of her little grading table, because sitting in that wouldn’t be humiliating at all. She’d used the same antique sewing desk as a grading table since I was a kid. It had ornate wrought-iron legs with flourishes of shells and feathers. It had surface area for only so many stacks of paper, so Miss Steele graded tests quickly to make room. There was no hope for a delay in grading if you thought you’d done poorly.
“Thank you for seeing me, Miss Steele. How is Danny doing?”
“As well as one could expect, in this world of video games and tablets and instant gratification. His reading and math skills are above-average, though every child is considered above-average these days. If you stopped to consider the math involved there, you would scream.”
It was more difficult than I expected to keep a straight face in light of this little diatribe. This was a far cry from the Back-to-School Night of the previous year. Danny’s teacher, Mrs. Dodge, had practically given a PowerPoint presentation overflowing with praise about Danny’s progress over the past month, including penmanship, coloring accuracy, and number of days without a bathroom accident.
“I’m sure he told you that he and his friend, young Mr. Tucker, had to be separated.”
I pinched my lips together. “No, he did not.”
“Well, their frequent chats in class proved to be a distraction,
for the two of them and their classmates. Mr. Tucker now sits in the front row nearest the door. Your son sits farthest from the door.”
I cleared my throat, hoping that I was not, in fact, smiling in response to this news. I didn’t think Miss Steele would appreciate that. “I’ll talk to him about it.”
Miss Steele waved a dismissive hand. “To be frank, I’m more concerned about a conversation he had with young Mr. Ramos last week. Mr. Ramos told Danny that his dad could beat up Danny’s dad if Danny’s dad wasn’t already dead. Before I could point out the inappropriateness of such a statement, Danny responded that you could sneak into Mr. Ramos’s house while they were sleeping and bite his whole family.”
My mouth dropped open. Oh, Danny.
“I never—I don’t even know where he got such an idea,” I spluttered. “Why didn’t you call me? Or at least send a note home? I think a death threat to another kid’s family merits a note.”
“Well, considering the ‘dead dad’ remark, I do think Mr. Ramos got as good as he gave. And he hasn’t made any bullying statements to his classmates since, so I think we should sit back and see how it plays out. Being so small for his age, I believe Danny needs to learn how to handle these situations on his own.”
“You will call me if he bites someone, though, right?”
“I don’t think it will go that far. Besides, I believe I can channel his energy into more creative pursuits. As you can see, your son is very fond of drawing. “
She slid a large piece of paper across the desk. A crude crayon sketch showed me and Danny standing in front of our new house, with a large brown apelike figure looming in the background. And instead of a big yellow sun in the corner of his drawing, Danny had drawn a white moon, surrounded by black. He’d drawn his family at night. With Bigfoot.
Of course.
“If he does his work quietly and correctly, I allow him to draw when the rest of the class are practicing their recorders. His talents do not, unfortunately, extend to music.”
