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Mollified for a moment, Jolene measured out several lengths of ribbon, rolled it back on the spool, measured it again, rolled it back. Grunting, she yanked the entire length of ribbon off the spool in a heap of blue sateen. When she picked up the scissors, I gently took the ribbon out of her hand. “Jolene, I may be going out on a limb here, but is something else bothering you?”
“Have you noticed anything odd about Zeb?” she asked. “I know this wedding stuff has him all stressed out, but he’s just been so distant, like he doesn’t even want to talk to me. And he’s been kind of mean. Some of the things he’s been saying are just hurtful.”
When I gave her an intentionally blank look, she said, “Like that joke about me not being very smart. And I don’t think he realizes how much he talks about you. We’ll be out to eat, and he’ll talk about what sort of food you used to like. We’ll watch a movie, and he’ll say, ‘I’ve already seen this with Jane.’ It’s just hard, you know? It’s like you’re an ex-girlfriend, but you never really broke up with him.”
“I never really dated him, either,” I told her.
“I know that,” she said, nudging me with her arm. “It’s just hard to live up to you, Jane.”
“No, it’s not. You’ve already got me beat hands down on looks.”
“I know,” she said, grinning.
“Agree with me a little slower, please,” I said, smacking her arm. “And you can go out during the day, have kids, eat, tan, grow old with him. And Zeb loves you. He’s just going through a weird phase. Just watch him at the wedding. He’ll be the happiest groom ever.”
Jolene didn’t look quite convinced but mumbled, “OK.”
The conversations became even more awkward as my night wore on.
“This is just beyond the pale,” Gabriel grumbled as I opened my door for him.
I’d been halfheartedly Googling Wilbur’s name, hoping I could find some relatives I could warn about Grandma Ruthie’s marital record before it was too late. Unused to Google failure, I was thrilled to have a distraction, even if that distraction was my agitated sire waving what looked like a ransom note at me.
“I found this in my mailbox tonight,” he said, holding a slip of bright yellow paper with letters cut out of magazines and newspapers—the standard font for crazies.
“ ‘Your bustin’ up a happy home. Brake it off with Jane or else,’ “ I read aloud as he stormed inside. “Mama Ginger’s spelling is atrocious.”
“If you’re to write harassing letters in upsetting type, you should at least have the courtesy to proofread,” he muttered, stretching across my couch.
“Some people,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“She did, however, ruin her anonymity by enclosing this,” he said, handing me a check for $352.67 from the account of Ginger and Floyd Lavelle. “I think she’s trying to pay me to stay away from you.”
“What gave it away?” I asked, holding up the check with a finger on the memo section, where Mama Ginger had scribbled, “To stay away from Jane.”
“Well, that is a lot of money,” I said. “It was good while it lasted.”
Gabriel barked out a laugh. “I’m glad to see you,” he said before leaning across the cushions and kissing me.
I gave him a bemused smile and blithely ignored the fact that it had been almost a week since he’d called or visited. Or that I’d been going crazy wondering where he was and what he was doing, but I didn’t want to be “that girlfriend” and call his cell phone constantly. Instead, I said, “I’m always right here.”
Gabriel opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Maybe we shouldn’t answer it,” I said. “It could be Mama Ginger. She might try to throw remaindered sausage products into the deal.”
“I’m not going to hide from a middle-aged woman who cannot spell,” Gabriel insisted darkly, advancing on the front door. I held him back with a hand against his chest.
“Well, let me answer the door, at least. She’s much less likely to douse me in battery acid.”
It was not a pleasant surprise to find Ophelia Lambert, the scary forever-adolescent head of the local panel for the World Council for Equal Treatment of the Undead, at my front door wearing a man’s shirt and tie with a skirt that might have been originally marketed as a headband.
Ophelia oversaw my failed prosecution for several random killings and fires the previous year and ultimately decided that I was justified in dusting Missy the Realtor with one of her own yard signs. Despite her being reasonably civil to me and electing not to set me on fire, I still found 300 years’ worth of predatory grace wrapped up in a fifteen-year-old’s body to be extremely offputting. On her part, I think she found my convulsive antics charming, but she was afraid to admit it.
“I didn’t do it,” I blurted out after opening the door.
“Do what?” she asked, her brow arched.
“Whatever,” I said. “Whatever big suspicious badness brought you to my door.”
