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My forehead wrinkled. “So, what do you plan on doing with this information?”
“Nothing,” she said, smiling pleasantly and sipping her coffee.
“I’m confused,” I told Andrea, who shrugged.
“It’s just, you’re so much nicer than any of those so-called normal girls,” she said, patting my hand. “I figure, if you’re up front with me, you can’t be all bad. And personally, I want to see how long it takes the other girls to figure it out and how many different ways they manage to put their collective foot in their mouth.”
“You’ve got a bit of a dark streak in you,” Andrea told her. “My boyfriend’s going to love you. On second thought, maybe I should keep you two separate.”
Courtney giggled. “Besides, I experimented a little with vampires in college. Every girl does.”
I arched my brows at her. “You know I’m a completely straight vampire, right?”
Courtney threw her head back and laughed. She turned to Andrea. “Don’t you just love hanging out with her? You never know what she’s going to say!”
“Every day’s an adventure,” Andrea said dryly.
5
Remember to fight fair. No name-calling, no use of words like always and never , no bringing up old issues to avoid the topic at hand—and no dismembering.
— Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less
Destructive Relationships
“Are you sure the whole pewter-figurine thing isn’t too kitschy?”
I repositioned the graceful fairy statues near our selection of amethyst geodes, which I’d moved because I wanted to make room for a display of The Guide for the Newly Undead next to the register. Now I was moving them around like my own personal nude pixie army. I bit my lip and bounced up and down on my heels as I considered their current formation.
“It’s too kitschy.”
“If you rearrange the fanciful bric-a-brac one more time, I’m going to stake you,” Andrea promised. “I thought we agreed that you would get a full day’s sleep before the opening.”
To say I was a nervous wreck on reopening day was a massive understatement. I must have changed my outfit ten times, which is almost painful for someone who doesn’t care that much about clothes. First, I put on an embroidered blue top and some jeans and decided it looked too casual. So, I changed into a red T-shirt and an Indian skirt—too hippie-dippy. The khaki slacks and polo shirt made me look as if I worked at Best Buy. Finally, I embraced the cliché: black slacks, black beaded top, tear-shaped carnelian earrings that looked like little drops of blood, and the black boots Andrea had practically forced me to buy at gunpoint. And then I got to the shop and immediately wanted to run home and change when I saw Andrea’s crisp white blouse and beautifully cut gray slacks.
Mr. Wainwright had come by and given his wholehearted support, then promptly disappeared, saying that he didn’t want to make me nervous on my first day. He promised to bring Aunt Jettie back at the close of business to celebrate my “entrepreneurial triumph.”
It was oddly lonely to have the shop open without my former employer’s spectral presence. But Dick and Andrea were there for me, running last-minute errands, cleaning up last-minute messes, holding a paper bag to my face when I did some last-minute hyperventilating—the irony of the latter compounded by the fact that I didn’t technically breathe.
“I tried to sleep, and then, despite my very specific and effective internal clock, I was lying there at noon today with a racing brain. I kept thinking I really jumped into this without thinking it through,” I said, putting the Spring Blooms fairy behind the Autumn Mystery fairy and then switching them back again. “I mean, I figured, I’ve already got a location, stock, and more capital than I needed. What else would I need for a successful business? What if I picked the wrong types of books? What if there were no bookstores specifically catering to vampires because most vampires are out living their unlives instead of reading? What if the coffee bar was a stupid idea?”
“Well, it was certainly a stupid idea to give you what amounted to three double espressos last night.” Andrea sighed, arranging pastries from Half-Moon Hollow Sweets onto a fancy doily.
“I knew it!” I hissed at her. “I knew you were slipping me extra caffeine.”
“I thought it would be much funnier than this.”
“I’m so sorry my wacky antics—which you caused—no longer amuse you,” I said flatly.
“Call it a misguided experiment,” she muttered, tossing the pink bakery box aside and wiping down the counter. An array of muffins, cookies, and lemon bars winked out at me from the glass case, mocking my inability to digest solids.
It may have seemed like a bad idea to give people sticky pastries and staining liquids, then invite them to peruse our books. But I wanted the shop to be the sort of place where you could sit for hours at a time and feel welcome—and therefore guilty enough to buy several expensive books. As an added precaution, we’d put the rarer volumes in a glassed-in special collections case, to which I carried the only key.
“We open in ten minutes, and nobody’s here yet,” I said, switching the fairies back to their original position. Andrea reached over and smacked my hand.
“Ow! No hitting!”
I shot a significant look at her boyfriend, who was conscientiously stacking midnight-blue shopping bags embossed with the new Specialty Books logo near the register. I considered it a supreme gesture of trust to allow Dick to stand that close to an unlocked cash drawer. At my indignant glare, he shrugged and slung an arm around his glaring girlfriend. “I’ve seen you fight. My money’s on her.”
