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Across the room, Zeb was making a sour face. Jolene jostled his arm, attempting to tease the scowl from him, but he shook her off, stalking toward the kitchen and out of sight. She stared after him, her face twisted into confused, hurt lines. Dick saw this and asked some random question about his responsibilities as “the man of honor” and how it related to cummerbund color, teasing her into a smile.
I handed Gabriel a square package. “I was sorting through some old family photos with Aunt Jettie. We found this.”
Jettie and I spent hours looking through old boxes of River Oaks tintypes when I was a little girl. We would study the sepia-toned photos of Earlys from the 1870s and comment on the clothes, the hairstyles, who looked like toothless Uncle Vernon. (Somehow, we always voted for Grandma Ruthie.) Jettie would tell me stories about my ancestors, such as Great-great-great-grandma Lula, who set fire to the Hollow’s only cathouse after finding her husband, the Reverend James Early, “proselytizing” there. The fire took out the cathouse, a nearby saloon, and the general store, where the owner sold dirty French pictures from the back room. She did more good in forty-five minutes with an oil lamp than Reverend Early did in thirty-five years of preaching.
We’re a proud family.
On a recent trip down Disturbing Genealogical Memory Lane, Jettie and I found portraits from Clarissa and Stewart Early’s wedding in 1877. In one smaller photo, two young Early cousins, Leah and Mariah, were shown smiling up at two strapping fellows in silk coats. I had seen this photo a hundred times before I was turned. Until now, I hadn’t recognized the young men being adored by my simpering foremothers: Dick and Gabriel, grinning like mad at the camera. They were so young. And Dick actually had his arm around Gabriel’s shoulders, laughing as if he had just told some raunchy joke.
I’d taken the photos to a camera shop to have copies of the print made. I’d framed one for Gabriel and one for Dick. It was not a manipulative Parent Trap ploy; I honestly couldn’t think of anything else to get them.
“I remember this day,” Gabriel said, grinning. “This was right before Dick persuaded your cousins to go skinnydip—” He caught sight of my raised eyebrows. “Um, never mind.”
Dick came to peer over Gabriel’s shoulder. “Leah and Mariah, twins in every sense of the word.”
“Did you leave any of my cousins untouched?” I cried, remembering Dick’s “fondness” for my ancestor, cousin Cessie.
Dick guffawed. “Hey, Gabriel’s the one who—” Gabriel narrowed his eyes at Dick. “Never mind.”
“Horrifying revelations and the confirmation that some of my relatives are/were publicly nude. You know, suddenly, this has become like Christmas with my family. Thanks,” I said, patting them on the back.
Gabriel’s cell phone sounded. OK, so it wasn’t the most mature thing to do, but I snuck a look at the caller ID. It read “Jeanine.” I didn’t know any Jeanine. Gabriel had never mentioned a Jeanine. Who the hell was Jeanine?
I practically chewed through my tongue to keep from commenting. He took the call outside. And, I’m ashamed to say, I sort of lurked around the door to try to overhear. But he stepped off the porch, out of my range of hearing through the glass.
Defeated, I turned to the eating crowd. “Who’s ready for dinner?”
Jolene wasn’t the only one who could plan a tablescape. I had clear glass bowls of various sizes filled with vanilla candles and cranberries, Great-grandma Early’s wedding tablecloth, and the good china with the delicate silver ivy pattern. I was going for a Good Housekeeping look, which tends to be less angry than Martha Stewart Living. I used gloves to set out silver place settings for the humans.
“You spent six hours setting a table for food you can’t eat,” Zeb marveled. He took it upon himself to “escort” me to the table, since Gabriel was otherwise occupied.
“It’s my first vampire Christmas,” I said. “I still want to enjoy dinner.”
Gabriel appeared at my right, ready to seat me, and seemed a little put off when Zeb did not relinquish my hand or take the seat I’d assigned him across from Jolene. He seemed intent on sitting next to me, forcing Gabriel to sit next to a confused werewolf bride-to-be.
“I’m surprised you didn’t mix eggnog in your blood,” snorted Dick.
“Jane’s firmly antinog in all its forms,” Zeb told him, pulling out my chair.
Caught off-guard by Zeb’s clueless move, I made a quick comment along the lines of “Eggs, milk, and rum should not be mixed unless it’s in cake batter,” and asked Mr. Wainwright to pour the blood.
Gabriel’s contribution turned out to be pastry shells filled with a jiggly pink mousse. I might have suffered from dessert envy, but the filling smelled vaguely of cat food. Gabriel told Jolene he’d gotten them from a bakery downtown that she was familiar with. She was clearly delighted, eating three of them before Zeb could take a tentative bite.
Zeb made a gagging sound he hadn’t uttered since his dad made him try chitterlings, then spat the pastry in his napkin.
“What exactly is this?” he asked.
“Heart mousse tarts,” Jolene said, moaning the way I used to over cheesecake.
“Beef heart, to be exact,” Gabriel said cheerfully, watching Jolene devour her fourth.
“They’re a real delicacy,” Jolene told Zeb. “We only get these at Christmas.”
Zeb wiped his tongue with his napkin and smiled wanly at Jolene. “I’ll finish mine later.”
9
Werewolves are also territorial about holiday time. It would be unwise for a human to underestimate her werewolf mother-in-law’s desire to see her son on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
