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“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.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
I didn’t invite Gabriel to Christmas with my family. Because I don’t do that to people I like.
Grandma Ruthie spent every Christmas Eve neck-deep in nog, feeling at liberty to tell me exactly what she thought was wrong with my life and which of my poor choices had led me there. One particularly memorable holiday, in 2004, she offered to pay for plastic surgery, a total tune-up, including boobs, nose, teeth, and a little reconstruction to “soften my mannish features.” While generous, this offer kept me from coming to Christmas 2005.
And just as on Christmas 2005, Mama had not responded well to my skipping out on this year’s family festivities. Thanksgiving was spent with Mama’s extended family. I was allowed to skip it this year because the family preferred to eat lunch together, and an afternoon of watching other people eat just wasn’t worth the risk of spontaneous combustion. Mama made some lame excuse to the uncles about my needing to get the bookstore ready for the Black Friday shopping rush, which seemed to satisfy everybody.
Christmas, however, belonged to Mama. There was the prolonged Christmas Eve gathering in which Mama, Daddy, myself, Jenny, and her spawn, plus Grandma and that year’s grandpa exchanged presents. We then enjoyed the traditional Jameson meal of turkey, stuffing, and a piping-hot side dish of guilt-stuffed manipulation. Unmarried and childless (read: pathetic, with no place to go), I usually slept at my parents’ house and spent Christmas morning with them. I was one step away from wearing footie pajamas.
Jenny and her boys, loaded up with sugar and obnoxiously noisy toys, usually arrived at around 6 P.M., and we were stuck together in family harmony until Mama decided to warm up leftovers for dinner and parole us until next year.
I had already violated the sanctity of Christmas Eve by spending it with people who actually liked me, so avoiding my family on Christmas night this year was not an option. I showed up at sundown and gave myself a forty-five-minute window to duck out before anyone arrived for the warmed-over feast. Mama got her usual bottle of Windsong, which she asked for every year. I gave Daddy a book on the haunted battlefields of Kentucky, which Mr. Wainwright recommended. I got slipper socks and a copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
The house seemed even more quiet than usual, the gaps in conversation echoing just how much my estrangement from Jenny was putting a strain on my parents’ holiday. Mama did, however, manage to mention how much everybody missed me on Christmas Eve and that it would be so much easier if I just stayed for dinner. About twenty times.
By easier, I’m pretty sure Mama meant easier for her. It was easier for her not to have to address my issues with my sister, such as the fact that Jenny had helped Missy the psychotic real estate agent by (albeit unwittingly) feeding her information about my schedule, River Oaks, and all manner of things that helped her harass me and frame me for murder. Oh, and the lawsuit she filed against me.
That sort of discussion can put a real damper on Baby Jesus’ birthday.
While Mama started preparations for re-dinner, I think I lost track of time talking to my dad about the possibility of tracing Mr. Wainwright’s family. Normally, I can sense my grandma’s approaching presence, like Bambi’s mom sensing when Man has entered the forest. I was caught off-guard in both senses, when Grandma Ruthie arrived with her newest catch, the aforementioned Wilbur.
They say the mourning period for a relationship is at least one-half of the time that was spent in the relationship. Grandma had reduced it to her shortest time ever, one-twenty-seventh of the relationship.
I smelled Wilbur long before I saw him. This went well beyond your typical old-man aroma. This was rot, decay, mold, black stinky gingivitis, and bad cheese. On top of that, he looked like a cheap Halloween mask come to life, all papery wrinkles and saggy, yellowed eyelids.
Sadly, he was still better-looking than former grandpa Tom.
“Oh, Jane, I didn’t know you were going to be here.” Grandma Ruthie sniffed as Mama took her coat, the unspoken but clear sentiment being that she wouldn’t have come if she’d known I was going to be there.
Mama hustled their coats out of the room. Daddy, obviously determined not to get caught up in whatever was about to transpire, kept his eyes glued to the television and relentlessly changed the channel. Wilbur looked from me to Grandma to me again. I crossed my arms and grinned at Grandma, happy not to be the rude, socially backward one for once.
Finally, Grandma sighed and said, “Jane, this is my fiancé, Wilbur. Wilbur, this is my, this is Jane.”
“So nice to meet you,” he said. “Your grandma has told me so much about you.”
“I doubt that very much,” I said, smiling sweetly. I didn’t flash my fangs. I’d leave it to Grandma to send senior men into mysterious cardiac-arrest episodes.
