AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So he’s jackass pie?” I asked, making my “ew” face.
“There’s no reason to be crass,” Andrea mewed primly.
“You know, you’re starting to talk like me. I find this more than a little troubling. Maybe we should spend less time together.”
“I could come up with jackass pie on my own,” she insisted, then mulled that statement over. “No. No, I couldn’t.”
“By the way, what are your plans for Christmas?” I asked.
“Pretending my parents haven’t disowned me, watching It’s a Wonderful Life, and drinking a few bottles of merlot. How about you?”
I chewed my lip. “I’m thinking of throwing together a little party for us disenfranchised monsters.”
“You’re using us as an excuse not to spend time with your family?”
“No, I’m choosing to spend time with my dearest friends,” I retorted. “Fine, it’s eighty percent spending time with you guys and twenty percent avoiding my family.”
Andrea shot me her best doubtful glare.
“Seventy/thirty,” I said as the doorbell tinkled. I was confronted with the sight of a weeping werewolf, clutching a bear trap in one hand and a wedding planner in the other.
There’s something you don’t see every day.
A curious Mr. Wainwright poked his head out of the office, illogically thrilled at the sight of a tearful werewolf in his shop. “This is the most traffic the shop has had in years,” he said, smiling brightly. “Jane, would your friends like a cup of tea?”
“Why don’t you put the kettle on?” I suggested in a voice as calm and soothing as I could muster. “Andrea Byrne, Jolene McClaine,” I said, eyeing Jolene and the bear trap warily. “Jolene, honey, what’s wrong?”
“Zeb!” she wailed plaintively.
“What about Zeb? Is he OK?” I demanded, sniffing the trap but finding no scent of blood.
“He’s fine.” Her deeply backwoods accent stretched the word out into “faaaaaaahhhnnnn” before she wailed, “He’s called off the wedding!”
Visions of an unworn, unreturnable peach sateen bridesmaid’s dress lurking in the back of my closet flashed before my eyes. I shuddered. “I thought we agreed that you guys weren’t going to come to me anymore with your problems.”
“But this time is different!” Jolene wailed. “This time I need help!”
“OK, OK.” I took the trap out of her hands and wrapped my arms around her. She sniffled into my shirt, leaving a spreading wet stain on my shoulder. “Are you sure about that he called off the wedding, Jolene? Sometimes Zeb misspells stuff in e-mails, and it comes across badly.”
“Of course I’m sure!” Jolene howled, drawing a sharp wince from Andrea, who was more accustomed to the slightly more sedate antics of vampires. “I’m not stupid!”
“OK,” I said, scratching behind her ears. It may sound condescending, but sometimes that calmed her down.
“Do you have anythin’ to eat?” Jolene asked, sniffing the air. “I can’t talk like this on an empty stomach.”
Jolene couldn’t do anything on an empty stomach.
Mr. Wainwright helped me scavenge leftover pizza, canned stew, and some Chef Boyardee from his apartment and then made himself scarce. Even his fascination with were-creatures wasn’t enough to keep him around a hysterical female. Note to self: Bring pot pies and bagged salad to the shop for Mr. Wainwright. This kind of diet could not be good for him.
“What happened?” I asked as she gorged herself on cold pepperoni. It was always oddly compelling to watch Jolene eat, with the stark contrast between the beautiful, trim girl and the huge amounts of food she shoveled into her face. If you didn’t know about her werewolf metabolism, you’d wonder where she put it all.
I tried to reach out to her mind, but the jumble of images—confused, pained, and frenetic—made me dizzy.
“My cousins played a little joke on Zeb, and he got so upset,” she said, gnawing on reheated crust. “I told him he was overreactin’ and he should be glad that my cousins were tryin’ to make him part of the pack. And then he said something about ‘not wantin’ to live on the farm with the Jerry Springer family’ and how we were going to lose our house thanks to them. I asked what the hell he meant by that. He said he was sure I knew all about it. I told him he sounded like a paranoid jerk. He said that if I really felt that way, then he wasn’t gonna to be able to marry me.” Her eyes welled up again. “How could he do that? How could he just break it off without even looking upset about it? How could he just leave me?”
I waited for the yowl of “meeee” to end. “What kind of joke did your cousins play on Zeb?”
“They put a bear trap between his usual parkin’ spot by the front door to Mama and Daddy’s place. It was just a joke,” Jolene insisted. “We do it to each other all the time.”
