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“Well, you can’t really blame him.”
“Oh, no, I’m sort of relieved to have an excuse to go to a hospital,” she admitted. “I’ve always hated attendin’ the births on the farm. I mean, I know I don’t exactly have modesty issues, but the idea of being laid out like that and, you know, all that stuff coming out while my aunts and cousins come runnin’ in and out of the room, takin’ pictures and smokin’ and describin’ their own horrible births. No, thank you. Mama’s a little disappointed, and I think it hurts the aunts’ feelin’s. But to be honest, I think everybody else is sort of interested in what it’s gonna be like to wait around in the hospital for a baby. It will be a McClaine family first.”
“But what about prenatal care? Ultrasounds? Won’t a doctor notice that you gave birth to a full-term baby four months early?”
“There’s a midwife in town who’s been takin’ care of the family for years. She helps with the births and prenatal care. She helps us fake the medical records and the birth certificates so they appear normal. The humans will just assume I was pregnant before the wedding, which I can live with,” she said, toying with her glass. “But I have a favor to ask you.”
“If this involves the words ‘birthing coach,’ my answer is ‘I’m touched, but no thank you,’” I told her.
“No.” She laughed. “I was hopin’ you would come be there at the hospital, as sort of a referee/bouncer. Keep my family from invadin’ the labor room and Zeb’s family from killin’ each other.”
“And I don’t have to see anything or hear anything or, again, see anything?”
“Nope.”
“Then I’m your girl.”
I should have suspected something was wrong with the Half-Moon Hollow Chamber of Commerce as soon as I saw the chamber seal was pink.
It had been a while since I’d attended a chamber meeting—ten years, to be exact, since I was awarded a $1,500 Chamber of Commerce good citizen’s scholarship for writing an essay on “Patriotism: What Living in Half-Moon Hollow Means to Me.” It was May 1995. I was a senior. I was $1,000 short on tuition and faced living at home and attending the local community college. I would have written it in limerick form if they’d asked.
That dinner was unremarkable, the main difference being that the chamber seal was still navy blue and gold. I was served bland chicken while the chamber president gave a speech on the perils of youth and supporting good, decent young people where they could find them. I was handed a check and dismissed so the chamber could discuss the possibility of attracting a rubber-band manufacturer to the Hollow.
The present-day chamber office had moved to a swankier part of downtown, to a restored Victorian townhouse with a dizzying amount of gingerbread. With the pink and white seal proudly presented on the lawn, the place looked more like a sorority house than the place where our community’s collective business interests met.
To be honest, joining the chamber was sort of a test. Reopening the shop and trying to attract a larger clientele meant I was going to have face the living public with much more regularity. I’d managed to operate on the fringes of polite society for the past year or so. And frankly, I had no confidence that I wasn’t going to get staked by a random customer in a disagreement over a senior discount. I wanted to see if I could move among humans again. Plus, it was important for Specialty Books to shed its obscurity and enter the mainstream business community. Too many Hollow residents had no idea what or where we were. Andrea and I wanted to be the sort of establishment that welcomed all beings, dead or undead, and their money. Joining the chamber was the first step in becoming legitimate.
I was greeted at the door by a wall of high-pitched chatter. All around me, slender blond women in knockoff designer suits sipped wine spritzers and swished their hair back and forth in slow motion. A few of the braver, thinner souls were wearing suit jackets paired with capris, which to me has always seemed like the professional equivalent to wearing hot pants to the office. But on these girls, it looked fashion-forward.
They were all so … shiny. The last time I was around this much pink, it belonged to Missy Houston, the vampire real-estate agent who tried to frame me for murder, steal my house, and kill me. I shook through my color phobia and built up whatever psychic defenses I could muster against the waves of rampant thoughts. It was like having a really insecure mosquito buzzing around the surface of my brain. Given the “just flew in from the tanning bed” glow most of the girls were sporting, I was absolutely sure I was the only vampire in the building. And somehow, I didn’t think it would be a good time to bring it up.
The floor was highly polished and very old. I felt my own sensible flats slip across the polished surface and wondered how these women negotiated it in those stilettos. I plucked at the conservative navy pantsuit I’d chosen in the hopes that it made me appear to be a serious businesswoman. Even with vampire hotness on my side, I felt a little dowdy. I checked to make sure that at the very least, I’d worn matching shoes.
I decided to give it three minutes before I bolted from the building as if my eyebrows were on fire. There was a sign-up table offering “Hello, My Name Is” tags and pastel gel pens. But none of the other ladies was wearing one, because, of course, they already knew one another. I snagged a copy of the meeting agenda from the refreshment table. It was printed on pink paper with brown polka dots, the kind you might buy from an extremely perky stationery store.
That’s when I realized. There were no men. Anywhere. Not a single whiff of testosterone in the place. Had I accidentally stumbled into a man-eating coven? Was I going to be sacrificed as the ugly brunette?
I decided that my three-minute limit was up and made a dash toward the door, bumping into a willowy blonde as she poured another chardonnay. She dropped the bottle, which I quickly snagged before it hit the carpet.
“Fast hands,” she said, tinkling out a laugh. “I’m lucky you caught that, or Courtney Ahern would have torn out my eyes for ruining the Persian rug. I’m Courtney Barrow. I own the Unique Boutique, the sterling-silver shop over on Dogwood.”
Courtney Barrow was just as cute as a button. She was tiny, curvy, and had an intricately braided silver necklace looped around her neck. Though my proximity to a substance I was highly allergic to made me somewhat nervous, Courtney Barrow was the only genuinely friendly face I’d seen that night, so I was sticking close to her.
“Jane Jameson, Specialty Books.”
Her slick, coral lips quirked. “Isn’t that an adult store?”
“No, no, there used to be an adult store next door. But we bought them out and expanded into their space. We pretty much gutted the store and started all over. You couldn’t have used that space for anything else, anyway. There was a lot of steam-cleaning involved. I don’t know when to stop talking sometimes.”
Courtney was unfazed by my babbling. “A bookstore. That’s so interesting. What made you go into the book business, Jane?
“I was too tall to be a ballerina?” I offered.
Courtney giggled. “You’re a hoot! Oh, you just have to meet Courtney Harris. She’d love you.”
“All right, then,” I said as she wound her arm through mine. “Wait, she’s named Courtney, too? How many Courtneys are there here?”
“Twelve.” Courtney sighed as she led me deeper into the crowd of shimmering Courtneys. I was introduced to Courtney Gordon, who had started an event-planning company for children’s birthday parties, and Courtney Stephenson, who ran a specialty shop for baby bed linens. None of them seemed even remotely interested in my bookshop, and, to be honest, I couldn’t figure out how I would cross-promote occult items with luxury crib sheets. I was starting to think I’d made a huge mistake joining the chamber. I wondered if Courtney Barrow would release me voluntarily or if I would have to gnaw off my arm like a coyote stuck in a trap.
