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“An appointment secretary,” she said, nodding. “You would call people who have willingly and legally given us their contact information and book appointments for them to have their family portraits taken.”>“No one’s comfortable with knowing what’s going on inside your head.” I snorted. “I didn’t mean to invade your mental privacy. Really. I’m sorry. But why’d you lie to me, Zeb? I’m glad you’re going out with someone. Seriously. Is she nice? What’s her name? Where’s she from? What’s she like? Are you going to answer my questions, or do I have to whack you with a stick until delicious candy surprises fall out?”
Zeb sighed, rubbing his temples. “I don’t want this to be weird.”
“I can’t make any guarantees, but let’s give it a shot.”
“Janie, I’ve been going to meetings, and they’ve been really helpful.”
“All right, then.” That was out of left field. Beyond the occasional overindulgence in wine coolers, Zeb had never had what I would see as a drinking problem. And after seeing what running a backyard meth lab did to his cousins, he never touched drugs.
“Do you mean, like, therapy?”
“It’s more of a support group for people who are dealing with alternative lifestyles.”
“Oh.” I thought for about a second before it struck me. “Ohhhh.”
How could I have been so blind? I’d been friends with Zeb for twenty years. Why hadn’t I noticed the lifelong lack of a serious girlfriend? His conflicted feelings about his father? His strange obsession with Russell Crowe? He was the only person in the state of Kentucky who actually saw A Good Year.
I threw my arms around Zeb and hugged him tight. It was the first time I’d touched him since turning that he hadn’t stiffened his spine and gotten all awkward. “Oh, Zeb, why didn’t you tell me?”
Weird pause amid the hugging. “I just did.”
“You could have told me years ago. I would have accepted you, not matter what. It wouldn’t have changed anything. I love you.”
Weirder pause. “Accepted what?”
“You being, you know—” I said, trying to find the most sensitive way to handle this life change without hanging umpteen million crosses around my neck and stabbing him. I tried to learn from our mistakes. “But what about the redhead? Wait, is she a he? Because, if so, she’s pretty convincing.”
Zeb made a sound somewhere along the lines of “Wrok!” Then, “What? No.”
Well, now I was confused. “You mean, you’re not gay?”
“No! Why would you think that?” he cried.
“You said alternative lifestyles.”
“No, your alternative lifestyle, you tool,” he grunted, waving in the general direction of my head, which I guess meant my fangs. Or maybe my brain; sometimes it interfered with the way I was supposed to live my life. “Jane, I’ve joined a group called Friends and Family of the Undead. It’s a support group for people whose loved ones have been turned into vampires. We meet every week and talk about how to deal with our feelings about your new lives. You know, being unsure of our safety around you.
Making you feel welcome in our lives and our homes. Stuff like that.”
I stared at him. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
“I didn’t want you to feel like I was so upset about your change I had to seek psychological help, even though, well, I did,”
he said. “But it’s been great. There aren’t a lot of people who understand what going through this is like. It helps to talk about it. I think you should come with me sometime. It might help you talk to your parents.”
“Umm, I don’t know if I’m ready for something that public.”
“It’s anonymous,” he insisted. “It’s a lot like AA, without the drinking. One of the rules is that you can ’t talk about what’s said at the meetings or who’s there.”
“This is the Hollow, Zeb. Twelve steps of confidentiality mean nothing. Remember that time Flossie Beecher started a Sex Addicts Anonymous group and ended up having to change her phone number?”
“No one will know you’re there because you’re a vampire,” he said. “You could just be there because someone you know has been turned into a vampire.”
“If I come to one of these meetings, can I meet the mysterious redhead?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, that’s where I met the mysterious redhead,” he said, grinning. “She belongs to the group. Her name’s Jolene.”
There was a tone in his voice I hadn’t heard before—fondness, pride. Zeb was talking like a man in love. This did not bode well. Women do not usually respond favorably to their boyfriends having female best friends. Pretty soon, Zeb would break our movie nights to hang out with Jolene and their other “couple friends.” Our code of inside jokes would be broken by a woman who insisted on knowing what the hell we were talking about. I would slowly be phased out until I was that girl Zeb used to hang out with before he “grew up.”
