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“Of course I do. Who else would it be? It sure the hell isn’t me. What do you think made Zeb … just what the heck happened?”
“Zeb hasn’t been right in months. It’s little things. But I never thought—I never thought he would do somethin’ like this.”
“You know all that stuff Zeb was saying, that was just crazy talk, right? Zeb doesn’t really love me. It was as if he had some sort of dissociative episode or started channeling Mama Ginger or something. Maybe he just got cold feet.”
“The Zeb I love would not have cold feet. He was excited about getting married. How could someone just change like that? Maybe I should have married my cousin Vance, like Uncle Luke said.” Jolene paled. “I’ve got to call everythin’ off. I’m goin’ to have to call two hundred of my relatives and tell them the weddin’s off. And all that food! And the little mints. And the iceberg! What am I goin’ to do with a thirty-foot Styrofoam iceberg?”
“What were you going to do with it after the wedding?” I asked. She glared at me through her tears. “Look, let’s just hold off on canceling anything. All of the food, the drinks, everything will keep for two days, right? You just sit tight for the rest of the weekend. Don’t make any decisions or announcements. Give me two days. If by Sunday I do not have a willing and groveling groom kneeling at your feet, then I will help you sink that dang Styrofoam iceberg.”
Jolene chewed her lip.
“He loves you, Jolene. He’s never loved anybody in his whole life the way he loves you.”
“Two days,” she agreed. “Now I just have to keep my family from killin’ him.”
“That would help, yes.”
21
One who objects at a werewolf wedding risks serious injuries.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
After talking a half-dozen very angry werewolf males out of hunting down my best friend like a rabid raccoon, I drove to the Lavelles’ house and sat out in the driveway. I had to talk to Mama Ginger. Emboldened by her meddling success, she would be impossible to deal with. I would be lucky if I didn’t end up shot with a tranquilizer dart and carted off to a Vegas wedding chapel.
I found her sitting on her sun porch, on an old musty couch, chewing her nails. Mama Ginger never chewed her nails. She said the hands were the front window of a girl’s “shop,” and you couldn’t attract a man with a messy front window. “Mama Ginger?”
She turned, and I saw actual tear tracks on her cheek. She seemed so small and deflated, with her clean, bare face and her hair tucked into a ponytail. “Oh, Janie, are you here to see Zeb?”
“No, actually, Mama Ginger, I’m here to see you.”
“Well, whatever for? Honey, my boy already said everything he needed to say.” She sniffed and gave me a weary smile. “You two need to talk all this over, get your heads together. We have a wedding to plan.”
“No, Mama Ginger, we need to talk about why Zeb said those things in the first place. Things that sounded an awful lot like the things you’ve been saying. I don’t know what you did to Zeb to make him do that, but you need to tell me. Because whatever you did ruined Zeb’s and Jolene’s lives.”
“That’s not true!” Mama Ginger cried, her voice cracking. I grabbed her chin and forced her to meet my gaze. I didn’t want to have to use the persuasion voice on her, but I would. Finally, tears welled at the corners of her eyes, and she whispered, “Zeb’s curled up in bed, practically in a damn coma. He refuses to say a word.”
“His brain’s probably gone into shock, Mama Ginger. You can’t mess around with someone’s subconscious, make them do something that is fundamentally opposed to their heart’s desire, and not expect there to be side effects.”
She wailed, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to be so—a mother knows when her child is hurting, Jane. And he’s just so miserable. And I did that.”
In the years I’d known her, Mama Ginger had never expressed remorse. A change in heart this dramatic must have been killing her. I found small comfort in that.
“I never meant any harm,” she whimpered. “I was just trying to make sure Zeb was happy.”
“But he was happy, with Jolene. She made him very happy. And you can fix this. You just have to tell me what you did to make Zeb say all those things.”
“But he wants you, Jane. You heard him. He wants to be with you.”
“No, he doesn’t. I know that you want him to want me. We both know what he really wants.”
“But I’ve spent so much time—”
“You’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to fulfill the vision you had of our future. But the future you want, marriage and babies, it’s not possible. I can’t have babies, Mama Ginger. I’m a vampire.”
Blanching a lovely shade of ecru, Mama Ginger gasped and clapped a hand over her throat. “But you’re so, so—”
“Normal? Yes, but I’m also a bloodsucking creature of the night.”
