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“Well, good job, Aunt Jettie.” I rolled my eyes. “I lost my car keys three times last week, and I got turned into a vampire.”
“I know, as a guardian angel I leave much to be desired,” she said. “But if it makes you feel any better, the car keys were my doing.”
“You hid my car keys?”
“Had to amuse myself somehow,” Jettie said, her eyes twinkling with ghostly mischief. “I may be dead, but I’m still me.”
“Remind me to have that stitched on a sampler,” I muttered. “Though this certainly explains the vaguely obscene limericks composed with my refrigerator poetry magnets.”
Jettie shrugged but seemed pleased to have been noticed. I looked out the window and saw the pink streaks of dawn curling into the clouds. I felt my strength leeching from my bones. I was so tired even yawning seemed like a heroic effort. I couldn ’t think about how I was going to explain my three-day disappearance to my parents or that I may have started a badly fated relationship with a guy who regularly bites people. I couldn ’t think about the fact that I couldn’t die or get a tan anymore. All I wanted was sleep.
I climbed the stairs, drew the shades tight, and then threw a thick quilt over the curtain rod. I dropped into bed and felt Jettie’s clammy hands brush my face as she pulled the quilts up to my chin. In a few minutes, I was, to use a bad pun, dead to the world.
4
Loved ones may be upset by your unexplained three-day absence. If you’re not comfortable talking about your newly risen condition, try plausible explanations like a severe stomach flu, emergency dental surgery, or temporary amnesia.
—From The Guide for the Newly Undead
When the phone started ringing at around seven A.M., I realized the wisdom of sleeping in a soundproof coffin.
“It’s jealousy, sweetheart, nothing but pure jealousy,” Mama was saying when I pressed the receiver to my ear. Mama had dispensed with phone greetings years ago, when I started giving her reasons I couldn’t stay on the phone as soon as she said hello.
“Mavis Stubblefield has had it in for me ever since I beat her in the Miss Half -Moon Hollow Pageant in 1967. She’s been waiting for years to get back at me, and now she’s gone and fired you. Jealousy.”
“Yeah, Mama, I’m sure that’s what it’s all about,” I said, straining to see the clock.
Wait, why wasn’t Mama screaming at me for disappearing? Why wasn’t she reliving the twenty-six hours of labor she suffered only to birth a child who didn’t call her every day? Why wasn’t she reminding me that it was seven A.M. and I was still unmarried? In my head, I cobbled together an explanation, which was impressive considering the whopping two hours of sleep.
“Mama, did you get a phone call this morning?” I asked, burrowing under the quilts. “A really early phone call?”
“Oh, yes, honey, from your Gabriel,” she chirped, as if she and the sexiest man not -quite-alive were exchanging recipes before dawn. And when did he become “my” Gabriel?
“He explained…well, I can’t remember what he said exactly, but I understood that you needed some time to yourself after you were so unfairly let go. I’m just happy that you found someone so charming to spend your time with.”
“Mmm-kay,” I murmured, deeply sorry that I’d cast aspersions on the ethics of mind wiping. I owed Gabriel a fruit basket and a membership in the Blood Type of the Month Club.
“Since you’re free today, why don’t you meet Jenny and me for lunch?” Mama asked.
“I don’t think I’ll be getting out much today, Mama.”
Mama gasped. “Why, honey, are you sick? Broke? Hurt?”
“Mama!” I shouted over the din of loving maternal intrusion. “Just come over, after dinner, and we’ll talk.”>Aunt Jettie, who never saw the point in getting married, was all too happy to have me for entire summers at River Oaks.
We’d spend all day fishing in the stagnant little pasture pond if we felt like it, or I’d read as she puttered around her garden. (It was better if I didn’t help. I have what’s known as a black thumb.) We ate s’mores for dinner if we wanted them. Or we’d spend evenings going through the attic, searching for treasures among the camphor-scented trunks of clothes and broken furniture.
Don’t get the wrong idea. My family isn’t rich, just able to hold on to real estate for an incredibly long time.
While Daddy took care of my classical education, Jettie introduced me to Matilda, Nancy Drew, and Little Men. ( Little Women irritated me. I just wanted to punch Amy in the face.) Jettie took me to museums, UK basketball games, overnight camping trips. Jettie was included in every major event in my life. Jettie was the one who undid some of the damage from my mother’s “birds and bees” talk, entitled “Nice Girls Don’t Do That. Ever.” She helped me move into my first apartment. Anyone can show up for stuff like graduations and birthdays. Only the people who truly love you will help you move.
Despite her age and affection for fried food, I was knocked flat by Jettie ’s death. It was months before I could move her hairbrush and Oil of Olay from the bathroom. Months before I could admit that as the owner of River Oaks, I should probably move out of my little bedroom with the peppermint-striped wallpaper and into the master suite. So, seeing her, crouching next to me, with that “Tell me your troubles” expression was enough to push me over the mental-health borderline.
“Oh, good, it’s psychotic-delusion time,” I moaned.
Jettie chuckled. “I’m not delusion, Jane, I’m a ghost.”
I squinted as she became less translucent. “I would say that’s impossible. But given my evening, why don’t you explain it to me in very small words?”
