17
When an undesirable suitor is unwilling to accept a werewolf female’s refusal, her family is likely to step in to help communicate her feelings more clearly. It can take said suitor six to eight weeks to heal up from the clan’s communication skills.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
We all adjusted to our grief in different ways.
On this particular Tuesday, Jolene and Zeb were doing a family thing with the McClaines. I think it involved wrestling Jolene’s father. Andrea had a standing appointment with a client who was not afraid of Dick. Gabriel was in London. I didn’t bother asking why. This left me with Dick.
No pun intended.
Dick seemed lonely, spending nights at the shop, talking to the ever-more-sprightly ghost of Mr. Wainwright, and helping me sort through boxes. We had a running bet about when Emery would show up. I had two weeks; Dick had six weeks and four days. Mr. Wainwright, who lovingly referred to his nephew as “a bit mealy-mouthed and milquetoast,” had twenty dollars on an even month, though how we were going to collect it from him, we had no idea.
I’d dropped my investigation into Wilbur’s background for the time being. I told myself that it would help me to step away, get a fresh perspective, but the truth was, I was getting nowhere. Instead, I worked from sunset to the wee hours of the morning cleaning areas that Mr. Wainwright had never let me touch: a rear storeroom, the area behind the counter, his office. For his part, Mr. Wainwright entertained himself by moving various objects around, walking through walls, and making videos float at the adult store next door, scaring several locals off porn forever.
Despite my recently developed fear of Realtors, I’d had one come by and appraise the shop. He suggested burning it to the ground and going for the insurance money. While my destructive urge was just as healthy as the next girl’s, I didn’t consider that a viable option. I was going to have to close.
It felt like packing up Aunt Jettie’s room after she died. Something important had ended, and I was left to pick up the pieces. Fortunately, Dick and Andrea seemed to pick up on this and somehow ended up at the shop every night to help me. On this particular evening, Dick was boarding over windows and putting a “For Sale by Owner” sign in the window. With Andrea quietly boxing up books, I went upstairs to Mr. Wainwright’s apartment, something I hadn’t been able to do since the funeral.
The air was dry and smelled of cinnamon and Lipton tea. As one would expect, the place was a wreck. Good antiques were covered in Mad Hatter–style stacks of books. Almost every surface not occupied by books held picture frames. There were photos of Mr. Wainwright’s mother, his sister, his nephew, Emery. There was a framed photo of a beautiful redhaired woman, who I assumed was Mr. Wainwright’s lost love, Brigid. There was a picture of a very young Mr. Wainwright in his Army uniform, one of him in a pith helmet exploring what looked to be an Egyptian tomb, and pictures of him bundled up against Canadian cold during his endless search for Sasquatch.
The latest addition seemed to be a picture of our Christmas party. Zeb had set up the camera timer to take a shot of the whole group. My eyes were closed, of course, but everyone looked so happy. Jolene had turned that million watt smile on Zeb. Gabriel had his arm around me. There were two little white orbs where Aunt Jettie and Grandpa Fred had stood. Andrea was wedged between Mr. Wainwright and Dick, who had his arm flung around both of them. Mr. Wainwright had placed it on the nightstand next to his low-slung single bed. It was the only photo from the last ten years in the apartment.
I felt him materialize behind me.
“It was the best time I could remember in a long time,” I heard him say as I put the frame back in its place. “You were a family to me, one I sincerely wish I’d had more time with.”
I smiled at him, even when he asked, “How’s the packing going? I saw that Dick has put up the ‘For Sale’ sign.”
I felt tears bubbling up, threatening to spill. I wiped at my nose as I focused on staring at the Christmas photo.
“Oh, no, dear. Don’t cry.”
“I can’t help but feel that I’m failing you,” I told him. “You didn’t leave me the shop to close it down. But I don’t know anything about running a business. I’m sorry. I got fired from the only real job I’ve ever had. I don’t know how to do taxes or handle staff issues. I’m just afraid I would screw it up.”
“You’re not failing, Jane,” he said, his clammy hands stroking down my arms. “Having the shop, having a purpose, gave me a reason to get up every morning. I knew the shop wasn’t making much money, just enough to keep me afloat. You’re just making decisions I couldn’t bring myself to make.” Mr. Wainwright squeezed my shoulder, sending shivers down my sensitive spine. “Everything has to come to an end, Jane. Except for you, of course.” With that, he winked at me and faded away, leaving me to my thoughts.
I went to the stairs and stared down into the store, chewing my lip and sulking. The shop could have been something. With renovation, new stock, a new business plan, I could turn it around. If anything, the slow migration of library patrons showed that people would come to the shop if they really needed to.
Besides investment capital, the main problem was organization. Even people who knew what they were looking for couldn’t find it. Hell, I worked there, and I could rarely find what I needed. If I overhauled the selections, emphasized self-help and family dynamics, aimed for people who were newly turned or whose families were newly turned, tried to help them find the resources to deal with the changes, it might work. I could even offer the Friends and Family of the Undead a place to meet, since their usual spot, a health food restaurant called the Nomad’s Bowl, was on the verge of closing—again. I could put a comfy meeting area in the back, especially if I bought out the adult-video store next door and expanded through the wall.
If I added a fancy coffee bar and got a license to carry blood, people would come to the store and actually stay. And then they would buy.
It would mean selling off some of Missy’s properties. And hiring a cleaning crew. A very committed cleaning crew.
Maybe I could actually hire some staff. Would I hire living people or vampires? Maybe Andrea needed a night job.
Newly resolved, I marched downstairs and told Dick and Andrea to stop boxing up.
“I’m not closing,” I told them. “I’m going to keep the store open.”
Dick grinned broadly and whipped the sign out of the window. “I’ll just take this out to the trash.”
“Dick’s been weird all night,” Andrea said as we heard the sign clang into the Dumpster in the alley. “He’s barely propositioned me or anything. Is this what happens when you agree to date him? He loses interest before you even go out?”
“I still can’t believe you agreed to a date,” I said. “I thought you were getting some sort of sick, retaliatory pleasure from repeatedly rejecting him. I was getting sick, retaliatory pleasure out of your repeatedly rejecting him. Can’t we keep playing?”
“I don’t know,” Andrea said, laughing. “He just kind of grows on you, like …”
“Like fungus,” I suggested.
“Oh, hush. You like him, you know you do. And I do, too. I guess I was just looking for an excuse to like him.” She smiled to herself. “Beneath all his bull and his charm, Dick’s a good guy.”
We turned to the door as the bell jingled. It was Adam, still wearing his soft blue scrubs from the Half-Moon Hollow Veterinary Clinic. I smiled up at him, and he responded with a dazzling grin.
“Wow, so this is where you work?” he marveled, taking in the disheveled surroundings. “This is great, Jane. Really, really great.”
“Well, actually, it’s my shop now. My boss just passed away, and he left it to me,” I said, crossing to him and leaving a confused Andrea standing at the counter.
“That’s great,” he said.
I’d never noticed before how much Adam used the word “great.” Instead of offering him a thesaurus, I said, “This is my friend Andrea.”
Adam didn’t even acknowledge her presence. He was totally focused on me, looking at me the way I’m sure I looked at him all those times in math class. As if he were trying to memorize every word and gesture, so he could replay it in his head later. Now that it was turned around on me, I had to say it was unnerving.
“What brings you down here, Adam?” I asked.
He shrugged and stepped closer to me. “I just wanted to see you again.”
Giving me a confused look, Andrea made quietly for the office door. Whether it was emotional fatigue from Mr. Wainwright’s death or his being in the store where my friends could see him, it seemed wrong for Adam to be there. I couldn’t really be angry with Gabriel for sneaking around and not being honest with me when I hadn’t been exactly upfront about Adam. I could lie to myself and say I didn’t know what Adam was hoping for. But even I could recognize the signals he’d been sending out. And I’d done nothing to discourage him. Out in the open like this, the fairy-tale, adolescent-fantasy haze seemed to be stripped away, and I saw exactly how wrong I’d been. Some instinct had me backing away with every step he took closer to me.
“Have you recovered from your babysitting adventure?” he asked, that warm, familiar smile dimpling his cheeks.
“Yeah. Nevie may never be the same, but every kid needs something to talk about in therapy. So I feel I’ve served some purpose.” I tried to keep my tone even and friendly, even as I was cornered against the counter.
He laughed, but his expression turned serious as he asked, “Have you given any more thought to us spending more time together?”
My heart sank a little. I’d really hoped to avoid this. “I’m still seeing Gabriel.”
Adam huffed, “But I thought we talked about that!”
I chose my words deliberately, in that even voice that seemed to soothe Fitz when he was riled. I ended up sounding like a mother talking her toddler down from a tantrum. “You said if my situation ever changed, I should come talk to you. My situation hasn’t changed. I’m still with Gabriel.”
“But I thought you were going to change that. I thought you were going to leave him so we … I thought we were building on something, Jane, this tension between the two of us. We’re good for each other. I can make you happy. Like that kiss the other night, that meant something.”
“It was a kiss on the cheek, Adam,” I said, alarmed by how quickly he’d gone from a normal tone of voice to this angry whine.
“But it meant something to me, Jane,” he insisted, wrapping his fingers around mine.
“I’m sorry if you got the wrong impression. I’m not the kind of person who dumps one man to be with another.”
Adam’s blue eyes flashed. “But that’s exactly why you should leave him. He’s never around. I’m here. I’m right here. If he cared, he’d never leave you alone.”
Adam’s words stung. And the fact that they were probably true didn’t make me any happier with him for saying them. This was all wrong. It was nothing like what I’d pictured. In my efforts to get away, somehow Adam had maneuvered so that I was backed up against the counter, trapped. With a feverish glint in his eyes, he plunged his hands into my hair and pulled my mouth against his. All of my emotional channels opened wide, sending a flood of images into my head. Adam kissing me in my kitchen. Adam standing in the florist, wondering what sort of flowers I would like. Adam sitting by the phone, dialing my number, and then hanging up before it rang. Adam and me talking at the funeral. But even in these fragile, human memories, I could tell that Adam didn’t really see me, just an exaggerated version of me. My smiles were sharper. My eyes shone with a vicious glint. My boobs were much bigger.
Tentatively, I flexed the invisible muscles in my mind, reaching into Adam’s memory. Images raced through my head, so quickly I couldn’t grab onto any of them. Like a spinner on a child’s game, the muddled pictures slowed to a stop. On Adam, walking into Whitlow’s Funeral Home with his mother’s layered salad. He was wondering how much time he had to spend at Bob’s visitation to satisfy his family’s obligation to the deceased and whether he would be able to catch the final quarter of the ball game when he got home. He stopped in his tracks when he saw me standing across the room with dishes in my hands. I looked vaguely familiar and definitely hot. There was something intriguing about my smile, something sharp and slightly intimidating. He knew he’d seen me around town before, but he couldn’t remember my name. In the corner of my mind where I was able to feel my own emotions, this hurt. He hadn’t had any clue who I was.
In Adam’s memory, he spotted some church friend of his mother’s at the visitation and snagged her arm politely.
“Hi, Mrs. Morse,” he said, displaying his most winning smile. Adam offered a few platitudes about the sadness of the occasion and inquired after Mrs. Morse’s health, even listening and making the appropriate sympathetic noises over her sciatica, before he finally looked in my direction and asked, “That girl over there, holding the coffee cups? Who is that?”
Mrs. Morse, who was a bridge friend of my grandmother’s and therefore had heard a detailed account of every stupid thing I had ever done, made a sour face. “That’s Jane Jameson, Sherry’s girl. I can’t believe she had the nerve to show her face here. And that Ruthie is letting her mix with decent people.” Mrs. Morse sniffed. “Some women just have no sense when it comes to their grandchildren.”
“Why do you say that?” Adam asked.
“She’s a …” Mrs. Morse looked around to see who might be listening and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Vampire. Let herself get turned a few months ago.”
Adam’s eyes zipped back across the room to my face. Jameson—that name sounded familiar to him. He thought maybe he’d gone to school with a Jenny Jameson, a pretty blond cheerleader who was a few years ahead of him. She’d had a sister named Jane. Come to think of it, he thought, I looked a little like that klutzy egghead girl who used to stare at him in math class. God, that girl used to annoy him, always had her hand up, sometimes before the teacher asked a question. But I sure looked good now, and I was a vampire, which was even better. He’d always wondered how far he could get with a vampire, without being bitten. And if I did bite, all the better.
He crossed the room while I had my back turned and deliberately bumped into me. In his mind, I saw my embarrassed smile flash, white and gleaming. “A-Adam, hi!” I stuttered.
Inside his head, he cringed at the sound of my voice. That much he remembered. I was definitely the know-it-all band geek. And I remembered him, as most of his former classmates did, even if he couldn’t recall half of their names. That could definitely work to his advantage—
I broke away from him before I could hear any more. What was worse than the direct memories were the subconscious desires I felt filtering through his brain. Adam wanted to be my pet. Well, not my pet, necessarily, but any vampire’s pet. He wanted the blood play, the dangerous, possibly injurious sex, the whole dominant female package. He could live his normal life every day but explore his darker compulsions at night. He wanted what I could give him.
I felt vaguely nauseated, glaring up at Adam as he grinned expectantly. I’d focused so much energy on this man. I’d thought of him almost constantly for years, never really getting over my infatuation with him, even as an adult. And he couldn’t even remember my name.
This was one of those defining life moments where you feel as if you’re standing on the edge of a slippery cliff with barbells tied around your neck. I could do this. I could be a Marianne. I could be impetuous and adventurous, live in the moment. I had wanted Adam for years. And I could have him, even for a short while. I could throw myself headlong into a fling without thinking of the future or how it would affect the people around me. I could think about me for once. And it wouldn’t be completely superficial. A part of me still hoped for something as human and seminormal as a relationship with Adam. Maybe we could make it work …
And then the Elinor part of my brain kicked in. I would lose Gabriel. I would lose his friendship, his compassion, our conversations, everything I loved about spending time with him. Everything I’d built with him in the last few months would be gone. I would be trading someone who had saved a total stranger for someone who didn’t care enough to remember the name of a girl he’d known since kindergarten. Adam was only interested in me now that I was dangerous. And he was kind of a tool.
Besides, Marianne ended up with Colonel Brandon, the handsome older guy with the mysterious background. And I already had one of those waiting for me. If I lost him, it would be because Gabriel left me, not because I ruined it all for my own personal Willoughby.
“You faked it,” I said, laughing bitterly. “You pretended to remember me at the funeral. All you knew was that I looked like that ‘annoying band geek’ who used to sit behind you in math. You had no idea who I was. You didn’t care enough to remember my name.”
“Yeah, but then I got to know you again,” Adam protested. “And I’m so glad I did, because otherwise, I might have missed out on us.”
“There is no us,” I said, peeling his fingers from my arm with just a tiny bit more force than necessary. “There’s me, and there’s you. And you are about to leave.”
“Jane?”
Dick’s voice sounded to my left, from the back of the shop. He was glaring darkly at Adam, who hadn’t even noticed that someone else had entered the room.
“It’s fine,” I said quietly. Dick stepped back into the office, to be near Andrea. But he was watching over us. I didn’t have to be psychic to see the protective anger he felt toward Adam.
“Is this some sort of punishment?” Adam demanded, flexing his bruised fingers. “Because I didn’t notice you when we were kids? Well, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t see you. But things are different now. You’re different now, special. I see you. I don’t see anything but you. It’s crazy. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I was something special back then, Adam,” I told him sternly, shoving him back.
“Look, Jane, I’m sorry. We can make this work.”
Adam advanced on me, his intent to kiss me again burning in his eyes. In the best persuasion voice I had ever used, I growled as he scrambled back toward me. “Adam, stop!”
Dutifully, he froze in his tracks. And I had no idea what to tell him. It seemed to go against all of my instincts to send him away, but I didn’t want him anywhere near me anymore. I couldn’t be terribly angry with him. He didn’t want me. As much as that hurt, it wasn’t the crime of the century. Adam didn’t want me. He didn’t know who I was. He wanted some image of me, some imagined persona that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Adam wanting to buck against the hometown-boy role in which he’d been cast. Well, his self-image issues were not my problem.
I led him, biddable as a sacrificial lamb, to the door. I took his shoulders in my hands and forced him to meet my gaze. “I want you to forget about me. Forget about me being a vampire. Forget about you being fascinated with vampires and the whole dark-side-of-the-tracks thing. You should find someone more like you. I want you to find a nice, normal girl, a girl you really like. Not just because she’s sexy but because you genuinely enjoy her company. Get married, have lots of babies, and be happy.”
Denial flickered across Adam’s features. His eyes clenched closed, then sprang open. He shook his head slightly. In a distracted, addled tone, he said, “I have to go.”
“I know.” I nodded and opened the door for him. With my wounded pride, I couldn’t help but feel that it was better than he deserved, telling him to find someone he was compatible with. Part of me regretted not commanding him to stand on the corner of Main Street, naked, singing “I’m a Little Teapot.”
“I have to go,” he repeated. He hesitated as he walked toward the door.
“Yeah,” I said, patting his shoulder, and he stumbled out.
I watched Adam stagger down the sidewalk to his SUV, struggle to pull his keys out of his pocket, and drive away. And I bid good-bye to my last mortal wish.