ON THE ROAD AGAIN
12
Dick was waiting for me at the end of Ophelia’s driveway, leaning against the side of his car and giving me a sympathetic look.
“How did you know?” I groaned. “Are you psychic, too?”
Dick chuckled. “Nope. But I’ve spent enough time around Ophelia to know how these situations are going to turn out. Can I give you a ride home?”
I nodded, smiling gratefully as he opened the door. “Would you mind if we made a quick stop first?”
“Will you tell me what happened in there?” he asked.
“I’ll think about it,” I grumbled.
Dick didn’t blame me for being pissed about the teddy bear, but he thought that selling counterfeit Snuggies out of his El Camino was a valid business model, so I’m not sure that was support that I needed. He seemed to understand that I needed some cheering up, so he shared Jane’s latest exploits, which included dropping a case of coffee beans on Andrea and wrenching her own front door off its hinges while she was arguing with Dick over stocking “adult paranormal titles.” I was going to have to spend more time with Jane. She may have been the only person on earth who could really understand me.
“Can you keep the engine running?” I asked as I unbuckled my seatbelt. “I’ll be right back.”
Dick frowned, clearly thinking that this was my home. He was probably wondering why I was planning to leave so quickly. “Sure.”
“And can I borrow your cell phone?”
Even more confused, Dick nodded and handed me a late-model smartphone. I played with the features on the walk to the house, until I found the camera function. I pulled the pawn receipt from my pocket as I climbed the steps. I took a deep breath, centering myself before I knocked on the door and dealt with Jason. He answered the door, coiffed and pressed as always, but the confused look on his face was priceless.
He glanced over his shoulder nervously but put his best smile on as he exclaimed, “Hi, sweetheart, you’re—”
I cranked my fist back like a piston and swung at his nose with all of my might, landing a blow that sent Jason tumbling back across the foyer floor. He yelped, landing with a thud, clutching at his spurting nostrils.
I smiled, acidic and sweet. “Enjoy Lisa and her ticklish knees.”
“Bat the hell, Miradah?” he exclaimed, slurring his words through his recently rearranged nasal cavity. “I tink you broke by dose!”
I tossed my pawn receipt at him. “Learn to use your screen lock, you spineless, manipulative mama’s boy!”
And while he was sprawled on the foyer floor, with blood dripping down his nose and my pawn ticket perfectly centered on his dark T-shirt, I whipped out Dick’s cell phone and snapped several pictures. Because this was a moment I wanted to remember.
I scampered down the steps and slid into the passenger side. Dick stared at me, wide-eyed, but had a huge grin plastered on his handsome face. “Did I just help you commit a felony?”
“I don’t know, are there important distinctions between misdemeanor and felony assault?” I asked, flexing my sore fingers as we sped away from the apartment complex.
“It seems like there should be,” he mused as I forwarded the cell-phone pictures to my e-mail address.
“Probably better that you don’t know, then.”
Dick was nice enough to drive me to my parents’ house, after assuring him that I wouldn’t be “bitch-slapping” anybody living there. Before I climbed out of the car, I promised that I would come by his place on Silver Ridge Road soon so I could spend some time with Andrea. Dick seemed very keen on persuading her to take a cross-country trip with me, as it could only end in what he called “world-class acts of destruction and stupidity.” He seemed to consider me some sort of vampire extreme-tourism attraction.
The house was quiet as I slipped inside. My parents’ part-time housekeeper, Faye, had left dinner warming in the oven, but I was too tired to consider eating. I flopped onto my bed and pressed my face into the freshly laundered quilt. My childhood bedroom was always ready for me. The furniture was always dusted. It hadn’t changed since I was a senior in high school. The walls were the same shade of Violently Violet.
I needed to take a shower. But I couldn’t seem to find the will to get up. I couldn’t move. I was exhausted, physically, emotionally, financially. I rubbed my face into the quilt and sighed. All that trouble for a stupid toy.
What could I do next? What was the step down from vampire chauffeur? Werewolf walker? Pedicurist for Bigfoot? I would have to Google that in the morning, I told myself. For now, I needed to sleep on a bed that wouldn’t collapse, get sprinkled in broken glass, or attract prickish vampires. I closed my eyes and let exhaustion drag me under.
Someone was touching my face. I was curled into the fetal position on my mattress, and cool fingers stroked down my forehead, along my brows. I leaned into them, mumbling, “Morning, Collin.”
“Who’s Collin?” a warm feminine voice asked.
“Mom?” I lifted my head from the bed and blinked up, my eyes gummy and tired. The scent of my mom’s gardenia perfume washed over me in an oversweet, familiar cloud. I ignored the recoil Mom gave when she took in the smeared makeup and Medusa hair.
She chuckled fondly and kissed my forehead. “Darlin’, what in the world are you wearing?”
My eyes adjusted to the dark room, and I could make out the glint of Mom’s ash-blond bob tucked behind her ears. The streetlamp outside my window reflected off the raw silk of her favorite slate-blue suit. It was one of those classic suits, the kind a woman buys in her thirties and will only give up when it’s ripped from her cold dead hands … or she gains twenty pounds. My mother hadn’t gained an ounce in thirty years. The suit would be perfectly crisp, even after a work day. And although I couldn’t see it clearly, I knew that her face was carefully made up to look professional and mature, as always.
“Hi, baby,” she said, stroking my cheek. “I’m so glad you’re home, where you belong. I was so worried about you being out there alone with some vampire.”
“He wasn’t just some vampire, Mom,” I groaned, rubbing my hand over my eyes. “He was a pretty nice guy.”
She sniffed and folded a pair of my discarded socks while I switched on the bedside lamp. I had this strange feeling of déjà vu, as if Mom had come home from work to have one of our come-to-Jesus midnight chats about why I should focus on passing trigonometry instead of auditioning for the school play.
Again with the sniffing. “Well, I’m just glad you won’t be doing that again.”
I swung my feet to the ground, wincing as my stiff legs cramped in protest. I stripped out of my borrowed dress and slid into my bathrobe. Mom straightened the picture frame I’d bumped on my way in the night before and realigned the participation certificate I’d received from a middle-school soccer team.
“Mom, I never said I wouldn’t be doing it again,” I reminded her. Never mind the fact that I probably wouldn’t be doing it again. I still hadn’t said it. “And you’d be surprised how nice some of them can be, some of the time.”
She patted my head. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. Have you talked to Jason since you got back into town?”
I avoided direct eye contact. “You could say that.”
Mom took my chin in her hands, then glanced down at my bruised knuckles. “So I take it the wedding is off, permanently?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “I know you’re disappointed, but really, you should be used to it by now.”
“Oh, don’t be that way, Miranda. I understand why you don’t want to marry Jason, really, I do. It would be too difficult, knowing that he was in love with another woman. Don’t get defensive with me.”
“You’re right.” I sighed. “I’m not being fair to you. I owe it to you to tell you this without my usual sarcasm.” I sat on the bed and looked her straight in the eye as I said, “Mom, I appreciate that you’ve tried to help me find my way over the past year, but I’m not going to work for you anymore.”
I reached into my shoulder bag and pulled out a bank envelope. I pressed it into her hand. “Five thousand dollars. With the interest, I still owe you eight. I’ll have it soon.” Mom spluttered that I didn’t have to pay so much at one time and I should hold on to part of it to invest in my new “dating wardrobe.”
“Mom, no.”
“Miranda, I’m glad you enjoyed this little road trip, but that’s no reason to throw away the progress you’ve made. This was supposed to be an opportunity for you to make up your mind about your relationship with Jason, not to find another field you won’t succeed in.”
“Hey, that’s not fair! I did exactly what I set out to do. I got my client from point A to point B, without … permanent damage. I’m making a rather substantial payment on the loan. That is the very definition of not failing,” I said. “You didn’t even ask me how I did, you just assumed, and I think that’s what hurts me the most.”
“Honey, you know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No, Mom, you did,” I protested. “And I honestly don’t think you realize you’re doing it. You put me in the role of the family screw-up, because that way we don’t have to talk about Glenn’s tendency to spend Saturday afternoons at the Booby Hatch. As long as I keep screwing up, nothing else about the family need be called into question. You can pretend we’re all still kids and you’re still in control. You can keep us from getting into too much trouble, from getting hurt. Well, that’s just not the case anymore. I have a plan. I’m making progress. And that does not include working with you and Daddy at the law firm. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, I really am. We both know that me working with you is not a long-term solution. I’m bored out of my skull. If I stay there, I’m going to spend every minute either planning my escape or resenting the hell out of you.
“You’re going to have to accept that I’m going to make my own choices, even if they’re not the choices you’d make for me, even if they could get me into trouble. I’ve got to figure these things out for myself. The last couple of days were really hard. Working with this vampire—I messed up more times than I can count, but I didn’t fail. You always said that success was a learned behavior. Well, I’m learning, and I’m not willing to give it up just yet.”
“Really?”
“I really like the transport job, Mom.”
“But you liked the pastry shop, and the magic act, and the studio.”
“Yes, when I was still in the honeymoon phase, and everything was new and shiny and exciting,” I agreed. “But as soon as things got difficult … or caught fire, I gave up and came home to plan my next adventure. But this time, even when things completely disintegrated and it seemed as if I’d never get home, I was having the time of my life. I think I’ve finally found the thing that I’m good at, and it combines all of the things I learned while doing the things I wasn’t so good at.”
“What?”
I chuckled. “It turns out that to be a good vampire chauffeur, you need the skills of a failed photographer, an understudy yacht mechanic, a well-trained waitress, a taxi driver, and a magician’s assistant.”
“Oh, Miranda.” She sighed, her lip trembling. “I didn’t ever want to make you feel that you’ve failed. And I know I’m hard on you sometimes. It’s just, well, I could always count on you when you were younger; your antics used to keep everything so lively. I was always proud of Glenn, but you were the one who kept your daddy and me talking.”
I snorted. “I’ll bet.”
“No, when we were worrying about you, we hardly noticed that we worked too many hours and hadn’t had any real time together since our honeymoon. And when you grew up and started all of these wild adventures, I suppose I grasped onto that as something we could fuss over together. And when we got you to come home, and you were working for us …”
“You worried about me full-time?” I suggested dryly.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel like a failure. Really. I was just so used to keeping my eye on you that it became a habit.”
“That is extremely unhealthy, Mom. And close supervision doesn’t mean I won’t do anything stupid.”
“I’m starting to see that, considering Glenn’s Booby Hatch issue.” She sniffed, swiping at her eyes. “So when do you go back to work?”
“I don’t know, but I may have just quit.”
“Well, that’s a first for you.”
I gnawed on my lips. “I know. But I’m going to keep at it. Even if I don’t work for Iris again, I’m going to stay in this field. I really like working with vampires.”
“Tell me what he was like.”
“Who?”
She smirked, pushing my hair back from my face. “The man who has you standing still for more than five minutes altogether.”
“I’ve been asleep for the last sixteen hours, Mom.”
“Don’t be obtuse, sweetheart,” she griped. “You have intentionally avoided talking about your client every time I’ve asked about him. And I don’t believe it’s because of some silly confidentiality agreement you signed for Iris. Now, tell me about Mr. Sutherland.”
“He was … contrary. He wanted things done exactly his way, or he became all stern and cranky. He gave me sixteen pages of rules and requirements before we even left his driveway.”
“And you always do so well with rules and requirements.”
“I drove him nuts from the moment the engine started. But eventually, I think he liked it. And Lord, I liked doing it, just because it made him break out of his stuffy persona and smile.”
“A good smile?” Mom asked, teasing.
I nodded.
“So why are you here instead of out there with him?”
“He—I just—it …” I sighed. “It wouldn’t have worked out. Like you said, he wasn’t my type.”
“That’s a silly reason. Your type usually looks like some of the clients coming through our offices. In fact, some of your boyfriends have been clients at our offices.”
“Easy,” I told her in a warning tone. “Don’t backtrack on this touching moment.”
She tilted her head, and once again, I was grateful that I’d never been on the receiving end of Mom’s questions on the witness stand. “If you saw him again, what would you do?”
I grumbled into my pillow but eventually admitted, “Jump him.”
Mom sighed, clapping a hand over her eyes. “I wish you wouldn’t share these things with me.”
“I know. That’s part of the reason I do it.”
I stayed up for most of the night, telling my mom about my adventures on the road with Collin. She couldn’t believe what I’d put up with, what I’d put myself through, just to keep a job. But I think it served to convince her of how badly I wanted to avoid coming back to Jason. She agreed that Collin sounded like just the sort of frustrating, fascinating man I deserved, and she spent the rest of the night trying to persuade me to contact him before he left town.
After unburdening my soul, I slept for at least ten hours. I plugged my iPod into the alarm clock and put my “Sleepy/Spa” playlist on repeat. I woke up with a slick of drool dried to my cheek and my hair in wild disarray. I stumbled out of my room, whacking my shoulder on the doorjamb on my way to the bathroom.
A full moon shone down on my parents’ yard. I went into the bathroom and splashed some cool water on my face. I peeled my hair back from my face with a headband and stumbled down the stairs.
“Mom, can we arrange an intravenous coffee system?” I mumbled, plodding down the steps.
I heard my mother’s tinkling laughter from downstairs. I hadn’t heard her laugh like that since Glenn’s wedding. It took all I had not to turn on my heel and clomp right back up the stairs. I would not be caught in one of my mother’s meetings, whether it was with members of the church bazaar committee or a potential date or employer for me. The last one resulted in our not speaking for days because I dumped a glass of iced tea over Leonard “Wandering Hands” Burton’s head.
“Miranda, is that you?” Mom called. “We have a guest, honey. Come on down.”
I was wearing a sleeveless flannel nightgown my brother had given me last Christmas. It was lavender, with pink kittens on it. Circa 1989 LA Gear slouchy socks completed the look. “Um, I’m not exactly dressed for company right now, Mom.”
“Oh, I think this visitor will be happy to see you, no matter how you’re dressed.”
Was my mom being held hostage? Was that why she sounded so sunny—and somewhat desperate? I grabbed a heavy walking stick from the umbrella stand and stuck my head into the parlor entryway.
“Collin?”
I dropped the walking stick with a clatter.
He was standing in my mother’s parlor, impeccably dressed in a slate-blue pinstriped suit, leaning against the mantel as if he’d been taking tea in the family parlor for decades. My mom was perched on the edge of her seat, entranced by the smooth vampire.
Collin smiled winsomely at me. “Miranda.” He eyed the stick on the floor and suppressed a grin. “Thank you for disarming.”
“I haven’t made up my mind about that,” I warned him.
“Oh, Miranda, hush. Don’t be rude to the man when he dropped by to give you flowers.”
“Flowers?” I glanced down at the elaborate arrangement of cream roses, lush orange calla lilies, and hypericum berries all bound together with a crisp orange taffeta ribbon. He placed the bouquet in my hands, fingers brushing against mine as he gazed down at me. “It’s a little unusual to tip your driver with flowers, don’t you think?”
“Well, my driver was rather unusual,” he said. “And I brought you this.”
He handed me my photo journal, which I’d apparently left at Ophelia’s when I huffed off. I grinned at him, opening the book. It seemed slightly heavier. New photos were taped onto pages toward the back. Pictures I recognized as shots I’d taken on our trip. The abandoned drive-in with its crumbling screen in the middle of nowhere. Collin at the diner booth, his eyes closed as if he was praying for strength. The Batmobile’s boobs. Me sleeping in the slanted bed at the Country Inn. My hair was tumbling around my face. My features were relaxed and untroubled. Despite the surroundings, I looked almost angelic.
“I was not aware that you took this,” I said, lifting my eyebrows and showing him the picture in question.
“I may have played with your camera a little bit while you were sleeping,” he admitted.
“My camera that was burning at the bottom of the ravine?”
“I also may have taken the memory card out of your camera while you were sleeping, so I could find a way to make copies of your photos,” he said, palming the memory card with a flourish, extending that hand to me, then snatching it away at the last minute. “You’re not the only one who’s good with sleight-of-hand.”
“Thanks for giving this back,” I said, closing the book and clutching it to my chest. “I would have been very upset if I’d lost it.”
“I wanted to make my own mark on it before I gave it back to you,” he said.
“Sophie’s just a friend?” I said, eyeing him carefully. “There’s no history there?”
“I have no interest in Sophie,” he said. “She’s too predictable, too polished. I want a woman who picks fights in parking lots with unknown assailants and loves to eat questionable food from even more questionable establishments and makes beautiful pictures of ordinary things.”
“Hmph,” I grumbled.
“And for the record, Ophelia’s sister was turned when she was a child. Ophelia does everything she can to make life more interesting for Georgie, including collecting very rare, very expensive toys. That teddy bear we were transporting was worth more than five hundred thousand dollars at auction. It’s one of a kind. And I only managed to track it down by threatening several of my sources with …” He spared my mother a glance. “A very harsh scolding.”
“A half-million-dollar teddy bear?”
“A very, very rare half-million-dollar teddy bear.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face. “I hate you guys. I really, really do.”
“Oh, Miranda,” Mom scolded.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I never meant to make you feel foolish. And I know I have been churlish and arrogant and—”
“Pigheaded,” I suggested.
“That seems fair,” he conceded as I stepped toward him.
“Demanding,” I added.
He slipped his hand through my hair, cradling my cheek against his palm. “I’ll accept that.”
“Dickish,” I said.
“I’m not sure that’s a word,” he protested.
“Which would be a problem if we were playing a board game, but since this is supposed to be an apology to me, I’ll say whatever I want. Mmm-kay?”
His lips twitched, even with my mom’s horrified gasp in the background. She never cared much for my way with words. “I can’t say I love you yet, but I know that I want enough time to figure it out. I’ve been alone for so long. And I was unhappy, but I couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t know what I was missing. And then you came stumbling into my life and I saw that it was you. I can live without you, but I don’t want to.” I stood motionless, gaping at him. He grimaced. “Too far?”
I shook my head. “No, that was just about perfect.”
“I do find myself curious—have you finally broken ties with the ‘butt-dialer’?”
“Yes. Decidedly. What exactly are you asking from me?”
“I was thinking that after spending much more time together, we could determine whether you want to spend the rest of your life with me. Whether you feel the way I do. I think I could make you happy … barring natural disasters, mechanical failure, inadvertent public nudity, and pestilence pouring forth from the sky.”
“Not funny, but I accept,” I murmured against his lips as he moved in to kiss me. I could hear my mother sniffling in the background. She was clearly eating this up with a spoon, and who could blame her? This was every suave-ass Cary Grant moment ever filmed, wrapped up in a much hotter package.
“Iris doesn’t accept your resignation, by the way,” he told me. “She said that anyone who can deliver a client safely, on time, with all of the mishaps we suffered and the, er, difficult nature of said client, is definitely someone she wants on the payroll.”
“Even with the damage to the car?”
He shrugged. “She said to think of it as a prototype. Clearly, a built-in GPS system is the first feature she will be ordering in the next model. She would like you to take a few days off to recover, then return to work on Friday, with a pay raise.”
“A raise?” Mom exclaimed.
“Ophelia found my description of our adventures to be highly entertaining. I think Iris is afraid that Ophelia will try to poach you to be her personal driver. Either way, Iris has another assignment for you.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” I said.
“It’s a bit closer to home this time, from the Hollow to New Orleans and back. Jane has a vampire author coming into the shop for a book signing, and she prefers to see a bit of the country when she travels.”
“I don’t know if I can face another motel for a while,” I told him.
“She specifically mentioned the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. Luxurious accommodations and a minibar you can ransack to your heart’s content.”
“Memphis?” I squealed. “I’ve never taken pictures of Mud Island. Oh, I can get kicked out of Graceland!”
Mom sighed. “Oh, Miranda, not again.”
“That security guard had no sense of humor, Mom.”
“Well, you wouldn’t be alone,” Collin said. “I’ve requested that you drive me back to Washington … at some point … which I haven’t determined yet.”
“Let me guess.” I snorted. “Return date wasn’t mentioned in that sixteen-page contract rider.”
“No. I expected to return immediately. But I’ve found that Half-Moon Hollow has certain … attractions I did not anticipate.”
“I thought you were the master of anticipation.”
He slipped his arms around my waist. “Well, some things are even better than anything my paltry gift could conjure up.”
“You are too much,” I told him.
“And by the way, Iris has a new policy. All client-requirement riders are to be a maximum of three pages. Her exact words were, ‘You will never have to put up with anything like that again.’”
“Will wonders never cease?” I said, smirking at him. “So we have a few days before I have to report back to work. We can get into a lot of trouble in a few days. If only we had vampire-safe transportation.”
“And I just happen to have vampire-safe transportation available,” he said, pulling the curtain aside to reveal a dark SUV.
“How did you rent a car without ID?” I asked.
“Did you know that the Council can issue valid vampire identification without a waiting period? And negotiate money transfers with Swiss banks? And replace vampire-safe vehicles destroyed in the course of Council business?”
“I did not know that.”
“And they managed to wrangle a replacement for the credit card that motel clerk cut up.”
I asked, “Do I want to know how they knew my account numbers?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Because the housekeeper had finished the laundry, my traveling clothes were already clean and neatly folded. I stuffed them into my battered bag and slipped into jeans and one of Collin’s shirts. He would get it back … eventually.
I tromped down the stairs and could hear Mom tittering about the romance of a spontaneous weekend trip and how she and Daddy used to do that all the time together. I’m not sure which marriage she’s remembering, but I certainly didn’t recall Daddy whisking Mom anywhere that didn’t involve a deposition.
Collin was shooting a pleading look at the stairs just as Mom said, “I’m so sorry Lyle wasn’t home tonight to meet you. He’d planned to be here, but he got held up at work, which is typical. But I suppose Miranda won’t have to worry about that with you, will she? She mentioned that you work from home. How fortunate for her …”
Was I mistaken, or was my mother sort of flirting with my vampire almost-boyfriend?
“Ready?” I asked, snickering.
“Yes, please.”
“Be careful, sweetheart. Do let Collin drive every once in a while.”
“Actually, Mrs. Puckett, we tend to fare better when Miranda is driving.”
“Really?” Mom lifted her brows. She rubbed her sternum, just over her heart. “I think I just stopped worrying, just the tiniest bit. What a refreshing change of pace.”
“She’s hallucinating,” I told Collin. “Run for it.”
I trotted out to the rented SUV, which looked like the Batmobile’s clone. I patted the boobless hood fondly. “I dub thee the Batmobile Two. I would crack champagne over your grille, but I think we all know how that would turn out.”
“A busted headlight?” Collin guessed. I nodded. “Well, she’s been christened in spirit, if not in spirits.”
“If that’s the quality of humor I can anticipate on this trip, it’s going to be a long drive,” I told him, climbing into the driver’s seat.
“Can we discuss your damaged knuckles?” he asked as I handed him the atlas. He bent his head over my hand to inspect the bruises. “Does this new injury have anything to do with your fiancé’s poor taste in jewelry?”
“I think it’s best to leave you wondering.”
“I would expect nothing less of my girl.”
I chuckled. “Memphis is only going to take a couple of hours. Did you want to swing around on our way back and visit somewhere else? I’m thinking Branson. It’s the Las Vegas of the Midwest.”
He frowned. “I was thinking something closer for our first stop. Someplace like your bedroom.”
“I haven’t had time to get an apartment. I was staying with my parents. I just woke up. Did you think I normally looked like that in the evening?”
He ignored that verbal land mine and chirped, “Branson it is, then.”
“It was just a suggestion. We don’t even have to go to Memphis if you don’t want to. We can just drive until we find a nice little bed-and-breakfast … or the closest available flat surface …”
“I like that last option.”
I angled my chin toward the atlas. “So which way do we go?”
He tossed the map into the backseat, where it landed in a heap. He leaned over the console, catching my mouth in a hot, sweet kiss. “You decide.”