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G iven my history with my sister, it was inevitable, really, that we would end up wrestling in the mud, beating each other senseless with pieces of foam rubber.
The Half-Moon Hollow High parking lot was carefully organized into a carnival grid: flaccid, half-inflated bouncy houses in the south quadrant, food booths in the east, and no fun to be had in either.
At a normal Hollow charity carnival, the signs were hand-painted posterboard affairs. The games consisted of tossing pool rings over two-liter bottles or softballs into bushel baskets. You paid too much for a corn dog and a stuffed bear, you felt as if you contributed to your community, you went home.
This Halloween hell hole involved professionally screen-printed signs and catered low-carb treats. I’d suggested a cotton-candy machine, and Head Courtney gave me a look that would have vaporized lesser women. And forget any preconceived notions of streamers or balloons. This was strictly a Martha affair, pumpkins as far as the eye could see, artfully arranged with corn and various raffia accoutrements.>So, it made sense that my grandma Ruthie chose this moment to come storming through the door.
“Jane Enid Jameson!” she thundered, slamming the door behind her. Grandma was in a fine froth, her snowy white hair frazzled and her cheeks flushed. She was dressed in a pink and orange plaid pantsuit, the kind of thing that would send Aunt Jettie into a giggle fit when she was living. Apparently, it worked its wonders after death, too, because my ghostly aunt was laughing her invisible ass off. And she wasn’t alone.
“Enid?” Dick snickered.
I ignored Dick’s low laughter as Grandma screeched, “How could you embarrass your sister that way? She told me what you did at the Chamber of Commerce meeting. How could you? You know how important her public image is with this new business she’s starting. How dare you attempt to sabotage her by telling prominent members of our community that she’s—”
“Related to me?” I tried to keep my voice calm as I said, “Grandma Ruthie, as you can see, I have guests. Maybe we can have this discussion at another time.“
“Don’t you tell me when and where I can talk to you, young lady!” she yelled. “This is your mother’s house. I’ll come and go as I please.”
“Mama, what is all this fuss about?” my mother asked as she came out of the kitchen. “Just calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down, Sherry,” Grandma Ruthie snapped. “It’s bad enough that you’ve continued to let Jane into your home, but now you’re letting her drag her undesirables into your living room? Hosting parties for them? This foolishness has gone on long enough.”
“Don’t talk like that in front of my friends,” I told my grandmother.
“Oh, don’t mind us,” Jolene said, transfixed by the family feud unfolding in front of her. I’m sure it was a novelty for her, considering that most McClaine family disputes ended in both parties phasing and proving their werewolf fighting skills. Usually naked.
“ These are your friends?” Grandma Ruthie sneered, observing my motley group, my chosen family. “ These are the type of people you spend time with under your great-great-grandfather’s roof?”
“Watch it, Grandma,” I warned her, seeing the expression of insult on Andrea’s face. Dick, on the other hand, was used to that sort of comment and remained unperturbed.
“Now, let’s all just calm down,” Mama said in a different tone from the one she normally used during these confrontations. She wasn’t trying to placate Grandma. She was just trying to keep us from coming to blows in her parlor. That was weird.
Grandma drew herself up to her full height and used her matriarch voice. “I will speak my mind, Jane.”
“Well, then, you’ll speak it in the kitchen.” I put my hand under Grandma’s elbow and not-quite-gently led her through the kitchen’s swinging door.
Mama warned, “Now, Jane, be careful.”
“Mama, I’m not going to hurt her.” I sighed.
“No, no, I know that,” Mama assured me. “It’s just that all of my nice dishes are sitting out on the counter. Try not to break anything.”
I barked out a laugh. “Mama!”
“Oh, she’s had it coming for years,” Daddy told me. “Your mama’s just not ready to do it herself yet.”
“I’m working on it,” Mama promised. “She can’t keep talking to you that way. I’ve let it go on for far too long. Maybe if I’d stood up to her years ago, we’d have a better relationship. You and I might have had a better relationship. I’m trying to set some boundaries with her, honey, but she’s so old. And I’m so—”
“Scared of her?” I suggested.
Mama nodded. “Give her hell, baby.”
That said, I squared my shoulders and marched into the kitchen to face off with my tiny septuagenarian foe.
“Be as rude to me as you’d like,” I told her. “But don’t ever insult the people in that room in my presence, do you understand me?”
“Don’t you talk to me that way,” Grandma snapped. “You were raised to have respect for your elders, Jane.”
“I was raised to have respect for people who show respect to me. That’s something you have never done. Now, why don’t you go home to your half-dead fiancé and let me and Jenny figure out our issues for ourselves?”
