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“Who the hell do you think you are?” I cried.
“Oh, don’t pretend you care about being a part of this family.” She sneered, snagging a foam-rubber “combat hammer” from the jousting game Head Courtney had banned from the midway. She jabbed it into my chest, backing me into the inflatable bouncy house. The giant clown head that hovered over the entrance leered down at me, and my latent coulrophobia forced me to change directions toward a muddy patch behind the staging area. But not before I was able to grab a foam weapon of my own.
Jenny poked me again with the hammer. “You’ve been waiting to get away from us for years. We’re not smart enough for you, not sophisticated enough. Do you think we don’t notice when you make your little jokes under your breath? You’ve wanted to get out of the Hollow for years. Why don’t you just go? We certainly don’t want to keep you.”
“How would you know that I want to leave?” I demanded, smacking her arm with the foam. “How the hell do you think you come close to knowing how I feel about anything?” Jab to her chest. “From our long heart-to-hearts? All those nights you came over to watch Sex and the City ?” Smack to her other arm. “Do you realize that the last time you and I had a conversation that ranged beyond the weather and whatever misinformation Mama’s fed you was at Aunt Jettie’s funeral luncheon? And I think you’d had too many toddies to remember.”
“Oh, you’re just all about the open, sisterly communication, aren’t you?” She landed a respectable blow to my face, knocking me on my butt into the mud.
Considering my vampire strength and speed, that was just embarrassing.
“When have you ever made an effort to spend time with me? To get to know me?” She hit my head to punctuate each point. “Oh, no, you’re just so freaking above it all, you couldn’t bring yourself to stop sniping for five minutes and just be my sister. Boring old Jenny with her husband and kids. Lame Jenny who likes to play Pictionary with her friends on Friday nights. Silly little Jenny and her silly little hobbies.”
“You’re mad because I won’t scrapbook with you?” I asked, dumbfounded, though I’m sure it was more from the ringing blow to my skull after she managed to rip the foam off the plastic bar that supported it. I shook it off and jumped to my feet.
“Even when we were kids, you thought you were so much better than me!” Jenny yelled, panting as we circled the mud pit. A crowd had gathered, cheering us on. “I never had to worry about you copying me like a normal little sister. No, you wouldn’t lower yourself to my level. I didn’t like the right books. I didn’t like the right music. I wasn’t sarcastic enough for you. Not good enough for Jane. And then you get turned into a freaking vampire! I have to hear from Mama about your fabulous undead makeover, about your undead rights group and your hundred-and-fifty-year-old boyfriend. How can I compete with that?” Each sentence was punctuated with an impressive smack upside my head.
“You’re mad because I’m cooler than you?” I guessed again, but Jenny was too worked up to notice I’d said anything. With a cry that would have made Xena proud, she swept my leg. My feet went flying out from under me, and I landed with a wet thwap on my back.
She growled. “You’re always saying that I’m the favorite, that you get treated like a child. You’re always bitching about Mama bringing food over to your house and folding your laundry. Do you know how many times she’s brought dinner over to my house? Twice. After each of the boys was born. I had to go through twenty-three hours of labor without drugs just to get a damn pot pie! You think Daddy ever just drops by my house for a chat and some pizza? You think Mama calls me before I leave for work or checks on me at night when I’m home alone? No, because ‘Jenny can take care of herself. She never needs any help,’” she cried, throwing her head back and screaming at the sky. I used her distraction to knock her back on her butt and pummel her repeatedly. Jenny, on the other hand, had resorted to flinging mud at me. Literally.
“Because you’re perfect!” I yelled, throwing a glob of muck into her face. “Do you think it was easy growing up with the Jenny Early as your older sister?”
Jenny spluttered as she spit the mud out and landed an impressive clump in my hair, considering that she couldn’t see. “Do you think I ever walked into a classroom where the teacher didn’t say, ‘Oh, you’re Jenny Early’s sister, we know what to expect from you?’ I have to live up to the example of a woman who color-codes her underwear drawer. ‘Jenny’s so responsible. Jenny’s house is always immaculate. Jenny cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner and still had time to make place cards out of acorns and rice paper!’ Don’t blame me because you’ve had to live up to your own hype.”
I pushed up onto my feet, scraping several layers of mud from my face. “And frankly, I’m tired of hearing ‘Oh, that’s just the way Jenny is’ and ‘She didn’t do it to hurt your feelings, she just likes things a certain way.’ ”
“When have I ever hurt your feelings?” She gasped, trying and failing to stand. She slumped to the ground and looked up at me, squinting through the blood and sweat dripping in her eye.
“Let’s see, holidays, birthdays, graduations, family dinners, baby showers, church functions, school plays. You put me at another family’s table at your wedding reception, Jenny.”
“Because I didn’t want Grandma Ruthie to drive you crazy with questions about when you were going to get married,” Jenny protested.
“And because I embarrass you,” I said, wiping a clod of dirt from my cheeks.
“You don’t embarrass me! You annoy me. You irritate me. You drive me up the damn wall. But OK, wait, the vampire thing, that did embarrass me a little bit. But still, I don’t hate you.”
Awkward silence. I looked into the future and saw the two of us, fighting and sniping at each other like Grandma Ruthie and Aunt Jettie. Though, obviously, I was immortal, ageless, and way hotter than septuagenarian Jenny. I didn’t want that. I chose not to have that kind of relationship with her. But I didn’t know how to fix it.
Fortunately, Jenny did.
“So, I hurt your feelings?” she asked, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly.
“Well, you don’t have to look so dang pleased about it,” I muttered.
“I’m not, I just, I didn’t know I could have that effect on you,” she admitted. “You seem … unflappable sometimes.”
“It’s all a clever ruse,” I said, blowing my bangs out of my face. “I’m extremely flapped most of the time.”
Jenny wiped at her eyes, but I think that had more to do with her impromptu facial than emotion. “You’re going to outlive my boys, Jane. And their children, and their children. Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? When my grandchildren are lying in the nursing home, you’re going to be the one packing up everything they own and deciding who gets what. You’re the sole survivor, no matter what any of us does. You’re going to outlast us all. I think that’s why I went so crazy about all those family heirlooms. I figured, it’s going to come to you in the end anyway, so why don’t you let us just borrow it for a little while? And when you said no, I don’t know what came over me …”
“To be honest, the stuff doesn’t matter that much to me, Jenny. I just like to screw with you, and this seems like the only way to get you. I’m sorry I’ve been a little petty about the heirlooms. I just wish you would have told me things like this before, you know, I died,” I offered.
More awkward silence.
“What do we do now?” I asked, hesitantly sitting next to her.
“I don’t know,” she said, sinking back into the mud, clearly exhausted by her emotional unburdening.
