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6
Jolene was not impressed with my vampire-provoking shenanigans.
“Have I not explained how dangerous it can be to spend time with vampires when they’re in a good mood?” She sighed, frowning at me in that way that only mothers could master.
Jolene’s powers of emotional concentration would have been more impressive had she not been staring me down while turning her van into a dry cleaner’s parking lot. I was trying to treat the still-tingling nerves of my lips and tongue with a strawberry milkshake from the Dairy Freeze. I was starting to suspect that it was more than just physiological, because nothing was working. It wasn’t even unpleasant anymore, just a lasting, warm tingle over my skin. This couldn’t be normal. “I thought you were goin’ home to prevent your pranks from ‘goin’ off’ on Sam.”
“I tried to stop it,” I said lamely, clutching the door frame for all it was worth, so I wouldn’t smack my face into the window. “And then he took apart my pans and said mean things to me, and I sort of stopped myself from stopping it.”
“So he slipped down the basement steps?” she said, cringing as she pulled to a screeching stop.
“I forgot about that,” I said. “It would explain the loud thump I heard before bed.”
Jolene gave me a withering look.
“What?” I grumped, crossing my arms.
“Have you thought about the fact that under the fangs and the bluster, there’s a person with feelings?”
“I don’t really care how he feels, Jolene,” I protested. “I’m sorry for what he’s going through. But he’s not the only one out there in pain. I—what is it we’re doing here, again? I thought we were going to Jane’s shop.”
“I need to make a quick stop first. I work part-time for a vampire concierge service here in town. My boss, Iris, asked me to pick up some of her clients’ dry cleaning. Vampires are hell on clothes, let me tell you. I’ll just be a minute. Do you want to come in?”
I glanced around the busy corner of Main Street, right off the memorial square of downtown Half-Moon Hollow. There was a classic white gazebo in the center, flanked by golden ginkgo trees and statues of Civil War soldiers. There was a huge plastic banner stretched across the street, advertising “Burley Days! Food, Frolic, and Family Fun!” starting in two weeks.
“No, I’ll just wander around, if that’s OK. I’ll meet you back here in a bit.”
She glanced down the street at the small-town oasis drawing me in and grinned broadly. I was stunned for just a moment by the sheer brilliant expanse of that smile. There was a fierce quality to Jolene, something not quite human rippling under that beauty. I started to wonder whether the reason she was so comfortable with the supernatural was that she was something supernatural.
Not that I’d let something like that get between us. Other than Chef and George, Jolene was the only real friend I’d made in years. I was determined not to care about it. If she felt like it, she would tell me in her own time.
“You do that,” she said. “I’ll catch up to you.”
As Jolene ducked into AAA Cleaners, I perused the posters for Burley Days hung in various shop windows. “Family Fun” apparently included rides, game, a parade, street performers, and something called the “First-Ever Faux Type O Bloody Bake-Off!” which sounded absolutely disgusting. I would be skipping Burley Days.
I wandered down the street, staring at the old 1930s architecture. In Chicago, these buildings wouldn’t be anything special. The Second City prided itself on preserving anything that had survived the Great Fire, the Depression, and both Richard Daleys. But it was clear that these old banks and general stores were the pride of the Hollow, lovingly restored and newly painted—all except this white and pink two-story building wedged between what were now an antiques shop and a florist. The windows were blocked over with soap, but I could still make out the faded paint reading, “HOWLIN’ HANK’S BBQ, Est. 1968.”
The white paint flaked off the brick front like falling snow. The door handle was damaged, as if someone had tried to kick it in. Someone had replaced the old faded Realtor sign with a new one: “A Honey of a Deal! Call Sherry Jameson, Hometown Realtors!” with Sherry’s contact information spelled out in bold red print. Another poster for the Bloody Bake-Off had been tacked over a broken pane in the front door but was now hanging loose at the upper right corner, giving me a glimpse inside.
Someone had loved this place once but gave up a long time ago. The maroon pleather booths were cracked and peeling. The napkin dispensers consisted of paper-towel racks mounted against the oak paneling. The tables flanked a stout oak bar/counter. Old neon beer signs still hung on the walls, the tubing broken in places; one particularly ornate Budweiser sign was home to a rather large bird’s nest. I could barely see the kitchen through the dining room, but I could make out a huge brick pit in the middle of the space.
I could see that the dusty tables had been intricately carved with messages. “Marcy Loves Joe Lee, 1976,” or “Petey and Maybelline, First Date, 06/23/81,” or a heart carved around the initials “MH + DW, 1992.” It was sort of sweet, all of these couples marking their lives together on the tables where they’d shared meals. And I was sad that those people, who most likely still lived in the Hollow, couldn’t come back there to visit their little milestone markers.
I rattled the doorknob, wondering if it counted as breaking and entering if the building was already “broken.” The knob twisted in my hands, and—
“Kind of sad, isn’t it?”
Jolene’s voice sounded just behind me, making me jump and smack my head against the decorative rack of ribs hanging low over the doorway. “Ow!”
Jolene continued as if I hadn’t just beaned myself with plaster-of-Paris pork. “This place was a Half-Moon Hollow institution until about ten years ago. Hank Fowler died, and his kids just didn’t have the business sense or the flair for the kitchen that their daddy did. They limped along until a couple of years ago. They just couldn’t keep the doors open anymore. I don’t know why they’ve never sold the place.”
“Too many prospective buyers injured themselves on the low-hanging decorative pig?” I said, rubbing my head. I nodded toward the poster. “OK, explain this Burley Days thing to me.”
“It’s the highlight of the Hollow social calendar,” Jolene said, feigning distress at my ignorance. “It goes back to when burley tobacco was the big crop around here. Local farmers would bring their harvests to the brokers and get paid on one particular weekend each fall. They’d have money to spend, so vendors and carnies showed up every year to take it. It became a big party. Farmers around here have moved on to soybeans and such, but we’ve kept the tradition alive with funnel cake and ring toss. It’s a hoot.”
“How does a Bloody Bake-Off figure into this?” I asked, cringing.
Jolene wrinkled her nose. “Jane says that Faux Type O is sponsoring some sort of cook-off, asking people to come up with recipes using synthetic blood.”
