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“Hear you.” I finished.
Jettie slumped to the floor, clearly exhausted by her telekinetic efforts.
“That was awesome,” I marveled. “Telling Grandma everything you’ve ever thought about her doesn’t mean you have closure and you’re moving on, does it? I was just getting used to having you around.”
Aunt Jettie reached up to stroke her transparent hand along my cheek. “No, I could have insulted Ruthie while I was living. I’m sticking with you, kiddo.”
“Lucky me.” I chuckled. “My relationship with Grandma isn’t ever going to change, is it?”
Aunt Jettie led me over to the swinging door, where my friends were crowded, listening. “No, baby, it’s not. You and Ruthie have exactly the kind of relationship you want with each other. It was the same with us. Ruthie and I chose not to like each other. I’m not saying that’s right, but it’s the way things are. There’s no law that says families have to be best friends. You can choose your own family, which you have. Of course, you can also choose to want a better relationship with people you were born to. It’s up to you. Until then, sit at the fountain of my experience and learn Ruthie’s weak points.”
“‘Vericose-veined ho’ was one I hadn’t heard before,” I admitted as we pushed through the door, gently popping an eavesdropping Dick in the side of the head.
Dick cursed. Aunt Jettie shrugged. “You leave the TV on during the day. I’ve watched a lot of Maury Povich .”
14
When you’ve taken all you can, walk away. Be the bigger person. Or at least find a bigger person, and use your vampire strength on them. It’s the sporting thing to do.
—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less
Destructive Relationships
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.
God help us all.
The spookiest thing about this extravaganza was all of the women in matching pink sweatshirts manically scrambling to make the parking lot into a Halloween casbah, each terrified that Head Courtney would find her efforts wanting and put her on cleanup duty. Given Head Courtney’s less-than-enthusiastic response to the prize boxes I was unloading from Big Bertha and the fact that the rest of the Courtneys had shunned me following my “outing,” I already knew who was going to be manning that stupid push broom all night.
Gabriel had wanted to accompany me to the carnival, but I asked him not to come, just in case I ended up stuck in the dunking booth. I didn’t want him to witness my humiliation. Fortunately, this carnival didn’t have dunking booths. Or clowns, which, for me, was another bright side.
Andrea was covering the shop for me while I served my carnival sentence. She and Dick would have the place to themselves for the evening. Emery had announced his intentions to attend a Christian-themed haunted house called “Hell House” weeks before. Emery had been spending less and less time at the shop lately. Andrea hoped that meant he’d found a girl to go to prayer meetings with.
We didn’t have time to overanalyze that possibility—or to consider warning the girl—because we were expecting a big Halloween-night crowd. Adults seeking a safely scary atmosphere. Teenagers looking for supplies to summon the Blair Witch. Having Emery standing in the aisles, trying to hand the customers religious tracts, would probably spoil the ambience.
Andrea was dressed up like Glinda the Good Witch, covered in pink sparkles from head to toe. The voluminous tulle skirt of her rented costume barely fit behind the coffee bar. Somehow she’d managed to talk Dick into wearing a Scarecrow costume. He looked like an extremely embarrassed Raggedy Andy doll and planned to stay in the stockroom for most of the night.
“Quit trying to put off going to the carnival,” Andrea had told me, filling a bowl with those rock-hard peanut taffy candies wrapped in orange wax paper. “We’ll be fine here.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” I muttered, sliding into my Pepto Bismol pink Chamber of Commerce sweatshirt.
“And I hope that you realize that as a witch, I am claiming double overtime for you making me work on a religious holiday,” she said, gesturing to her girlie ensemble.
“Watch it, or I’ll drop a house on you.” I sneered as I walked out the door.
Since Jenny had yet to show up, Nice Courtney was helping me unload and distribute the prizes to the various game booths. Zeb was pitching in, too, but I think he was just there to get first crack at the funnel cakes. Imagine how sad he was when he found out that this wasn’t that kind of carnival. The closest thing he could get to junk food was a sugar-free caramel apple. Nonetheless, he’d promised to come running, yelling that Jolene was in labor and we had to leave right away, if things got bad with the Courtneys.
“Well, it’s still pretty much a high school parking lot,” I said, hefting a box of free tote bags out of the trunk. “But I’m sure after everything is inflated, it will be a magical autumn wonderland.”
“Just keep telling yourself that.” Nice Courtney snickered. “Where do you want the popcorn balls?”
“Wherever Head Courtney won’t see them,” I muttered, throwing a blanket over the individually wrapped offerings from the A&P. “Don’t you know this is a no-carb charity carnival?”
