12
Bachelorette parties are less about celebrating the bride’s acquisition of a husband and more about making the female relatives feel vindication after the wedding planning process.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
When we were kids, Zeb and I used to spend post-sleepover mornings eating Cap’n Crunch and watching the Smurfs. Somehow, I didn’t think Gabriel would appreciate the same routine.
I padded into the kitchen, still clad in flannel cows, and warmed up a healthy breakfast of donated Type A. Gabriel let Fitz out to snag the evening edition of the Half-Moon Herald from the end of the driveway. Unfortunately, Gabriel overestimated Fitz’s capabilities and had to get the paper himself. We climbed onto the porch swing to sip blood and read the happenings in the Herald while Fitz gamboled around the yard chasing his own tail.
It was strangely domestic, with the exception of finding another package on my doorstep. We were both relieved that it was just the genealogical information Daddy had found on Mr. Wainwright’s family. Despite my library background, my strength tends toward database research, whereas Daddy excels with the dusty-old-book route. After Mr. Wainwright lamented his lack of family history, I’d asked Daddy to use his mojo.
Gabriel left for some council meeting, and I ripped into the research without bothering to change out of my pajamas. Daddy had done an impressive job. He found copies of Mr. Wainwright’s old school pictures from Half-Moon Hollow Public School archives and an old newspaper clipping announcing Gilbert Wainwright’s engagement to Brigid Brannagan, a girl he met while traveling in County Cork. Daddy found Mr. Wainwright’s parents’ marriage certificate and both of their obituaries. Searching through old records kept in the courthouse basement—records Daddy accessed through a school chum named Deeter who worked there as a night janitor—Daddy found the origins of the Wainwright family. Gilbert Wainwright’s father, Gordon Wainwright, was the son of Albert Wainwright, son of Eugenia Wainwright, a laundry woman who had worked on the Cheney family farm. She had Albert in 1879 but drowned a short time later during the town’s inaugural Fourth of July picnic down at the riverfront.
Eugenia was unmarried, and there was no father listed on the birth certificate for young Albert. Albert was sent to an orphanage and raised there until he ran away at age ten. According to a book Daddy found in the library’s special collections, called The Hollow Frontier, Albert worked at the railway station and eventually took a job on a barge traveling the Ohio River, before returning home to the Hollow in the 1920s. He was known for opening one of the first successful saloons in the Hollow, the one my great-grandmother burned. While water-stained and crumbling, the book contained a copy of a tintype of Albert.
“Oh, man,” I breathed, startled by Albert’s face. I flipped to Daddy’s research on Eugenia, whom one of the groundskeepers at the Cheney farm described as a “big buxom piece of woman.”
I flipped back to the picture of Albert, who bore a striking resemblance to Dick. The same light, laughing eyes, the same devilish smile, the same long, patrician nose. But Albert looked to be at least fifteen years older than Dick had been when he was turned. I checked the date on the photo and did some quick math in my head, then groaned. “Dang it.”
I sat at Specialty Books’ counter, drumming my fingers compulsively against the glass. Mr. Wainwright was puttering in the back, tossing his way through the reference section I’d just spent the better part of two days cataloguing. Knowing that my nephew Andrew had a birthday coming up, he insisted that a tome entitled A Pop-Up Dictionary of Demons would be a perfect gift. I was inclined to agree with him, because it might make Jenny swallow her tongue.
In a rare show of discretion, I didn’t mention my discovery to Mr. Wainwright. I wanted to surprise him somehow, and I didn’t think blurting it out as soon as I opened the door would fit the occasion.
The front doorbell tinkled, and I turned to find Mr. Wainwright’s long-lost great-granddaddy standing at the counter with a scowl on his face.
“Well, Jane, you crook your little finger, and I come running,” Dick said, clearly in a very grumpy mood. “Seems I’m always running after women who aren’t interested.”
“Andrea turned you down again, huh?”
He made a sour face. The more I stared at him, the more I saw a resemblance to Albert—and, for that matter, to Mr. Wainwright. My employer had a smaller build and more delicate features but the same tilting smile, the same green, twinkling eyes. I was a little ashamed that I had missed it.
“Well, we could reminisce about the girl who didn’t get away,” I offered. “Dick, do you remember a woman named Eugenia? She used to work at your house?”
“Yes,” he said. His lips quirked at a memory I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, then locked into a completely un-Dick-like grimace.
“Did you know that she left your employ because she got pregnant out of wedlock? And that she drowned about six months after giving birth to the—” He refused to meet my gaze, looking to the left.
“You already know, don’t you?” I said. “You know about the baby, about Albert. You know.”
“What are you—who told you—how—” he spluttered.
“Which question do you want me to answer first?” I asked, cringing.
“Jane, you need to stay out of this,” he whispered darkly. “Just forget you ever found any of this. Don’t say a word to Gilbert.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why not just tell him? I think he would be thrilled to know he had a family. I love him, but I’m not related to him. He loves talking to you. I saw you together at the Christmas party.”
“Stop,” Dick said, grabbing my shoulders and covering my mouth with his hand as he cast panicked glances at the rear of the shop. “You’re meddling in something you have no part in. Whatever good deed you think you’re doing here, just stop. This is none of your business.”
“But—”
“Just butt out, Jane.” The bell clattered to the floor as he slammed the door behind him. Mr. Wainwright, disturbing pop-up book in hand, hobbled up to the counter. “Was Dick here? I thought I heard his voice.”
I shook my head. “Just some guy who insisted that we were, in fact, the adult video store next door. He was very upset by our limited selection.”
Mr. Wainwright laughed, handing me the book. “Maybe we should think about getting a new sign.”
Generally, it’s considered a faux pas for the bride’s family to host a prewedding party for her. Fortunately, on the Great Invisible Scroll of Southern Wedding Etiquette, there’s a loophole stating that if most of the guests are in the bride’s family, it’s acceptable. And werewolf women are very into prenuptial events. Jolene’s festivities alone included two showers, a pounding, a mate-fasting, and something called a bloodening. The pounding is far less violent than it sounds, a party where family and friends give the happy couple a pound of some staple—sugar, flour—and items to set up their household. A bloodening, on the other hand … well, we’ll talk about that later.
Tonight’s agenda included kidnapping the bride to get her sloppy drunk and treating her to a parade of half-naked man flesh, which was some sort of McClaine female tradition. But since Jolene’s cousins hadn’t quite taken the initiative in planning, Jolene had to take matters into her own hands. She suggested we break into her trailer with a provided key to “surprise” her. It just happened to be on the night Jolene had reserved a table for eight at the Meat Market, the only all-male, nearly nude revue in the tristate area. Because nothing says “celebration of connubial bliss” like men who spend a suspicious amount of time at the gym thrusting their spandex-covered man parts at desperate dollar-waving soccer moms.
And because I was the best maid, I got the “honor” of writing Raylene a check for the genitalia-shaped cake that would be gracing our table. I was also expected to foot the bar tab and serve as designated driver. I ended up driving Mimi’s twelve-passenger van, which was necessary to haul the half-lit bridesmaids and gift bags containing penis-shaped note pads, refrigerator magnets, coasters, and ice-cube trays.
When the hell am I going to want penis-shaped ice cubes?
Our party was seated in the dark, humid, but surprisingly clean club, as Marcus the Matador completed his last twirl about the stage. Jolene was sporting a veil with little foam penises sewn on the hem and a T-shirt covered in Lifesavers that offered a “Suck for a Buck,” both of which were provided by her cousins, along with the penile party favors. Though the cousins’ attention was currently focused on the butt-cheek bacchanalia, Jolene just seemed happy they showed up.
She looked so content, sitting there in her obscene veil, oblivious to the improbably dressed fireman shaking it to “Hot Stuff.” Her expression was dreamy, extremely out of place considering the setting. It was just like the night she and Zeb announced their engagement, happiness bordering on a coma—the announcement that I responded to by questioning their brain functions for getting married after such a short time. Zeb had to cart me outside before I further hurt Jolene’s feelings. And when he told me she was a werewolf, I freaked out even more and accused Zeb of losing his mind.
Dang it. Dick had a point. I was a meddler.
“Do you think I’m intrusive?” I shouted over a remix of “It’s Raining Men.”
She started and turned her lazy gaze at me. “Hmm?”
“Am I intrusive?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “But in a good way.”
“How can you possibly be a good kind of intrusive?”
She set her drink down, barely noticing when the verdant liquid splashed onto the already sticky table. “Well, you can be bossy and suspicious and quick to judge. Sometimes your mouth writes a check your butt can’t cash.”
“We’ve discussed that you could agree with me less emphatically, yes?”
She giggled. “But you do it ‘cause you need to protect the people you love. And that’s not such a bad thing.”
“I know that I can be sort of—” I paused and then settled for “overbearing, when it comes to Zeb, his happiness and safety and hygiene. But I would like to say that I’m really glad that he’s marrying you.”
She sniffed and threw her arms around me. There’s nothing quite like an armful of drunk werewolf to help you find some perspective.
“I love you, Jane,” Jolene slurred. “I love Zeb. I really love Zeb. He’s the first man to ever see me as more than a pretty face and hot body.”
“It’s nice that you’re so modest.”
“He treats me special, not because of who my parents are or because I’m pretty but because, just because that’s his way,” she rambled. “He’s gentle and sweet and he loves me. And I love him.”
“I know.”
“And you love Zeb.” She giggled, the alcohol in her having clearly convinced her that this was a revelation.
“Yep.”
“But not in a love-love way,” she said suspiciously.
“Nope. I have a boyfriend. A boyfriend who engages in mind-blowing sex with me and then doesn’t return my calls for two days, but a boyfriend all the same.”
“Good. ‘Cause otherwise”—she heaved a drunken sigh and then giggled—”I’d have to kick your ass.”
“I’m aware.”
The cousins turned around to see us hugging and collectively rolled their eyes. We straightened up and focused on the show.
“Speaking of your groom-to-be, where has he been lately?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him in almost a week. Please don’t take this as a gripe against him being in a grown-up relationship, but normally he comes by the house every once in a while.”
Jolene rolled her eyes and sipped her drink. “Mama Ginger’s been runnin’ him ragged doin’ chores around their place. She said she’s afraid that after he’s married, I’m goin’ to run him ragged, and he’s not goin’ to have time to take care of ‘his poor agin’ parents’ anymore.”
“But Zeb has never done chores at his parents’ place. They don’t do chores at their place. Instead of raking their leaves, they just set fire to their whole yard every fall.”
“I think he’s just doin’ it to keep her off my back, poor thing,” Jolene said. “The more he does, the less she complains about him ‘abandonin’ his family.’ Of course, she still complains about me, but that’s different …”
A shadow seemed to pass over Jolene’s face. Her lip trembled, and I was afraid the drinks had caught up with her. I reached for her hand, but she straightened and took a deep breath. She stretched a too-wide smile over her face and turned her attention back to the stage.
“I wonder how much he spends on body waxin’?” she mused.
I smirked. “It’s probably a tax deduction. It’s a necessary item. I mean, it takes a little hair and a lot of confidence to dance around in that get-up.”
We tapped glasses. Jolene snorted. “Confidence and a couple of gym socks.”
After pouring several drunken lady werewolves into bed, I drove the McClaine van to River Oaks, taking a shortcut through a sketchier part of town. It was two streets over from where the shop is located. As I passed the Silver Bullet, a bar known for less-than-savory vampire traffic, I saw my grandma Ruthie’s new beau walking out of the place, carrying a case of canned drinks. I managed to stop the van, no small feat for someone unaccustomed to piloting a land yacht, and pulled into a dark corner of the adjacent parking lot.
Without enhanced night vision, I wouldn’t have been able to make out the labels on the cans, which read, “Silver Sun Senior Health Shakes.” It was the same kind of can Grandma Ruthie was toting around for Wilbur in her purse.
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence that he’s walking out of a vampire bar at four A.M. carrying mysterious beverages,” I murmured to myself as Wilbur hefted the case into his car. He looked around to make sure that no one was looking and popped the top of one can. He drained it in a few gulps, tossed it into a nearby Dumpster, and drove off.
“Well, at least he doesn’t litter,” I muttered.
Unfortunately, I found that Wilbur hadn’t tossed the can into an easy-to-find spot in the Dumpster when I inevitably climbed in to retrieve it.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” I grunted, sifting through endless beer bottles and newspapers drenched in a substance I dared not consider. “This is not normal, rational behavior, sifting through three days’ worth of extremely pungent bar garbage to find your future step-grandpa’s recyclables. There’s probably a perfectly reasonable, rational explanation for Wilbur being here. This is probably just some black-market health shake with ingredients that aren’t approved by the FD—oh, dear gah!” I squealed as something squirmed beneath my feet. I grabbed the can, leaped out of the Dumpster, and did the freaked-out girl dance for a few beats.
There was no list of ingredients on the side of the can. I held my “prize” to my supersensitive nose and sniffed. I sensed herbs, vitamins, some supplements for joint health (OK, that part was touted on the label), and beneath the slightly chalky bouquet, there was blood. Cold, dead pig’s blood.
“OK, maybe there’s not a reasonable explanation.”
I drove myself crazy over the next few days making complicated but ultimately useless “Explanations for Wilbur’s Drinking Pig’s Blood” line charts on legal pads.
This near-Oliver-Stone-level conspiracy theorizing kept me absorbed right up until the process server arrived on my doorstep. Jenny’s lawyers were demanding that a forensic accountant look through all of my financial records to determine whether I’d sold precious Early family heirlooms to pad my personal bank accounts during the course of her lawsuit. Against my better judgment, I had told Mama about the settlement, to assure her that I was financially secure for eternity and would never, ever need to move in with her, so please stop asking. And despite my dire warnings against doing so, Mama had mentioned my windfall to Jenny. And because Jenny does not believe I’m capable of improving my own situation without screwing her over, she concluded that I was up to no good in the Hollow’s vast antique black market. Basically, my sister was having me audited. Lovely.
Grumpy and frustrated beyond belief, I took advantage of my night off, turned off the phone, and, despite the siren’s call of Sense and Sensibility, I read a few more chapters of Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were. I finally found what a bloodening was. The women of the clan get naked under the new moon and track down a deer, killing it as a pack and bringing it home for a shared meal. It was supposed to be held during the week of the wedding to assure the bride symbolically that she was still part of the clan and that she would always be welcome to share its food but also reminding her that she was responsible to continue the clan’s traditions. It was a warm, though blood-soaked, sentiment. It was a special privilege for an outsider to be invited to witness a bloodening, much less run with the pack—which, as you might have guessed, as best maid, I was expected to do. I was going to need some sturdy running shoes and a really good sports bra.
I do not run naked.
My lolling about on the porch swing in the cold, making no effort to leave the house, seemed to disturb Aunt Jettie. “Is this sudden lean toward shiftlessness linked to all the time you’ve been spending with Dick?” Aunt Jettie said, in a tone that sounded eerily like Grandma Ruthie.
“Actually, Dick hasn’t wanted to spend much time with me lately, Aunt Jettie. We had an argument and he’s pretty irritated with me.”
“Is that why he’s coming up the drive?” She pointed to the driveway, where a battered El Camino was cutting through the dust. Dick climbed out of the car without making eye contact. He slinked up the porch steps and took a seat beside me. I closed my book and waited.
“Am I supposed to talk first?”
“Give me a minute.” He cut me off with a slicing gesture.
We sat in silence, with me staring into the distance, wondering what to do with my hands. Finally, he said, “I’ve been scared to say anything to Gilbert because I didn’t want him to be afraid of me or to turn away from me. It’s one thing to read about vampires and ghosts, it’s another to find out that you’re related to one.”
He studied the creases on his jeans. Unsure of my place in this exchange, I sat and waited.
“I knew Eugenia had the baby. My parents paid to keep her away while she was pregnant. When she had him, most of the town whispered about him being mine, but I didn’t do anything about it. I knew my parents were sending her money every month, and I figured that was all she needed from me. Don’t make that face at me, Jane. I was young and mortal … and stupid. I was sent away to handle some contrived piece of family business, and by the time I came back, my parents had sent the baby to an orphanage over in Murphy. They wouldn’t hear of bringing him to our home. The scandal, they said, the shame—even though I know for a fact my Daddy had several scandals of his own growing up around town. And then my parents died, and I lost the house to the jackass—”
“Gabriel,” I corrected.
“Right,” he said. “I told myself Albert was better off living at the orphanage, in a safe place, instead of bouncing around with me, living off card games, sleeping in a fine hotel one night and a ditch the next. That was just an excuse, of course. I didn’t know anything about kids. I wouldn’t have known what to do with him if I’d had him. I was a terrible father but a fun uncle. I’d visit Albert, give him penny candy and whatever money I could scrape together. But as soon as it came to real problems, the kid getting sick, getting into trouble at school, I was out of there.”
He grimaced. “When I got turned, I realized I shouldn’t be around him. It would be too confusing for him, a mysterious uncle who never aged and only visited at night. I was a piss-poor role model, anyway. And the people I did business with, they wouldn’t have minded roughing up a little boy to make a point. I stopped showing up for visits, and he ran away a couple of months later.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Part of me was almost relieved,” he admitted. “I didn’t have to worry. I didn’t have to bother. And then he came back, full-grown and the spitting image of me, especially in some of his less legal habits. And it was … nice. It was nice to be able to watch him, to see him running his business, being a man. I couldn’t always agree with some of his decisions, but at that point, I was supposed to be about sixty years old and still looked thirty something. I couldn’t exactly come back to give him a spanking and fatherly advice. He married, had a son. His son married, had a son. And I watched over them, all of them, watched them live their lives, enjoy their successes, make their mistakes. And most of their mistakes were a lot like mine. It’s sort of the Cheney family curse.”
“Good with women, bad with money?” I suggested.
He shrugged and smiled. “I never made contact,” he said. “I was still hanging around with the same type of people, and the less likely they were to connect me to the family, the better. I couldn’t stand it if any of them got hurt because of me. I thought I’d gotten rid of the paper trail when I set the fire in the courthouse.”
“Why do you tell me these things?” I huffed. “You know I have a Girl Scout complex.”
“I never made contact with them,” he said, ignoring me. “Not until Gilbert.”
“Why Gilbert?”
“He was the first in our family who looked like he might amount to something. He was such a good boy, and in a sincere way. He honestly cared about his mother, his little sister, his classmates at school, his country. He was one of the first boys in the Hollow to sign up for the Army after Pearl Harbor. He was the first man in our family to start college, much less finish it.” Dick smiled proudly. “And his sister was a sweet girl, just a little, well, stupid. But she was the first girl born to the family in about five generations, so she was special, too.
“When their father died and his mother was having trouble making ends meet, I came forward. Just knocked on the door one night. I didn’t tell her who I was exactly, just a distant cousin who was interested in making sure the family was well taken care of. I think she knew there was something not quite right about me, especially when I told her I didn’t want to meet the kids or tell them I was helping them. But she was too happy to accept my money to say anything.”
“I always got the impression that you were lucky to take care of yourself. How’d you support a family?” I asked.
“I have ways of making extra money when I need it,” he said, slightly offended. “When Gilbert needed money for graduate school, I sold a kidney on the black market for tuition.”
“We can grow those back?” I asked.
“It wasn’t my kidney.”
“And now we’re back to the disturbing territory I’m comfortable with.” I snorted. “So, you’re a family man, a loving patriarch. In essence, you’re a total fraud.”
He looked chastened. “Don’t tell anybody.”
“Are you going to tell him? I think it would mean a lot to Mr. Wainwright to know he has some family left.”
“What am I supposed to do? Come barreling into the store and shout, ‘Hey, pal, wanna go outside and play catch with Grandpa?’ “
I shrugged. “Well, you might want to work your way up to catch. He does have that bad hip. You should at least think about telling him. What have you got to lose?”
Dick tucked his canines over his bottom lip. All pretense, all of the smug self-assurance, fell away as he said, “What if he’s ashamed of me?”
“You’re a vampire. You’re the coolest grandpa on the block. He’ll be thrilled.”
“I’ll think about it,” Dick said. Suddenly, he raised his voice and poked me in the shoulder. “Let me work through this. Don’t try to nudge the situation along. Don’t drop hints or make conversational segues or—”
“I got it, I got it,” I told him, raising my hands in self-defense. “I wasn’t even thinking about it.”
Dick looked down his nose at me and arched his eyebrow.
“OK, I was thinking about it a little bit.”