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You know those French movies, where a weary lover climbs into a taxi wearing an oversized shawl and Jackie O sunglasses as Paris slowly fades away? And as she’s driven to the airport, they might show a single glistening tear sliding down her cheek? Yes, the image is dramatic and glamorous, but living it just plain sucks.
If one is undead and hell-bent on travel, I must suggest Virgin Airlines’ Vamp Air. Trust Richard Branson to find a niche market involving carefully shaded windows and a selection of blood constantly warmed to exactly 98.6 degrees. Plus, few parents are willing to bring crying babies onto a plane full of vampires, so it’s blissfully quiet. I dragged my sunscreened, jet-lagged carcass through the Nashville International baggage claim at four A.M. to find Zeb waiting for me, holding a sign that said, “Undead Tourism Bureau.”
I propped my sunglasses on top of my head and smirked. “What were you going to do if someone else fit the bill?”
“What’d you bring me? What’d you bring me?” he asked, hopping up and down.
“Tiny liquor bottles from the minibar,” I said, holding up my suitcase proudly and thumping it into his chest.
“Sadly, that’s the same thing my uncle Ron gave me for Christmas.” He snorted, taking my little carry-on bag onto his shoulder.
“I wrapped them in hotel towels from four different countries,” I added.
He grinned. “Excellent.”
I actually had gotten him and Jolene fancy 500-thread-count sheets and some very expensive snacks from Harrods. The hotel towels were for me.
We reached Zeb’s car, threw my luggage into the backseat, and took our places up front. Zeb started the car and paid the exorbitant parking fee. “So, tell me everything. Where did you go? What did you see?”
“Went to some parties, met strange and snotty people. Saw some great museums and restaurants, but being in France and not being able to eat chocolate is downright masochistic. Oh, we saw Carmen performed in Vienna. Did you know the whole first song is about cigarette smoke?”
“I didn’t know that,” Zeb admitted. “But I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”
“Oh, ha-ha. So, where’s your lovely wife?” I asked as we pulled onto the interstate. “What’s she doing letting you take off for Nashville after midnight? Doesn’t she know you get lost?”
Zeb grimaced. Things between Jolene and Zeb had been tense lately. They were still trying to build a home on the land I’d given them as a wedding present. The house was slow to finish because Jolene’s family was pressuring them to move back onto the McClaine family compound. Werewolves are notoriously territorial, and Jolene was the first McClaine to live “off-site” since they’d settled in the Hollow two hundred years before. The family owns multiple businesses in the Hollow, including several construction firms. And what they don’t own they could influence with scary male werewolf dominance. So, to say that it was difficult for Zeb and Jolene to get contractors to show up—risking pissing off Jolene’s kin—much less finish their work, was an understatement.
To top it off, the brand-newish trailer they’d been offered as an incentive to live on McClaine land had mysteriously evaporated when Zeb and Jolene announced they were building their own home, leaving the newly-weds with the camper recently vacated by Jolene’s stoner cousin, Larry. And one could live in the close quarters of a cannabis-saturated camper for only so long before one’s marriage began feeling like the last half of The Shining .
I would say that Zeb was a saint to put up with such interference from his in-laws, but his family’s no prize herd, either. Let’s just say that one of the Lavelle family’s favorite Christmas activities is to gather around the TV and watch their highlight reel from the “Rowdy Rural Towns” episode of COPS .
Zeb’s mother, Ginger Lavelle, had a number of reasons to shun me lately, the least of which was that I refused to let her ruin Zeb’s honeymoon. To bastardize Harry Potter, I was Zeb’s “Secret Keeper” for his honeymoon destination. Zeb told his family that he and Jolene were going to the mountain retreats of Gatlinburg, when he, in fact, took his blushing bride to Biloxi, for a week of Gulf shrimp, putt-putt, and blessed silence. Their hotel information was sealed in an envelope and given to me with the instructions that it was to be opened only if someone was dead or incapacitated … well, more incapacitated than usual.
While contrite over her wacky antiwedding antics, Mama Ginger could remain chastised for only so long. Incensed that she could not locate her son after calling every hotel in Gatlinburg, Mama Ginger called me to demand that I give her the location and phone number right now, because she was having chest pains and was being taken to the hospital. Used to this ploy, I refused. She switched tactics and said that she needed the number because Zeb’s father, Floyd, had dropped an automatic cigarette lighter into his lap while driving and was being treated for several third-degree burns in sensitive areas.
While that scenario was far more plausible, I still withheld the number, which prompted Mama Ginger to announce that she would never speak to me again. I was not properly devastated by this announcement, which just made Mama Ginger angrier. Mama Ginger had long held out hope that Zeb and I would one day wed, but now that she knew about my “unfortunate condition,” she was slightly ashamed to have wanted a vampire as an in-law. She was still less than civil to Jolene. But she now preferred her daughter-in-law to me, because at least Jolene wasn’t a vampire. Of course, Zeb hadn’t yet broken the news about his new bride being a werewolf, but that was neither here nor there.
I’d promised myself that I was going to back off and stop interfering in Jolene and Zeb’s relationship, but it was so much healthier than talking about my own relationship. So, I think I earned a pass just this once. “Tell me you haven’t been watching The Howling again,” I groaned. “You know it’s just a movie.”
Zeb gave me a distinctly not-amused look, then sighed. “Marriage is a little harder than I thought it would be. Just normal stuff, you know. Things that get on each other’s nerves.” He began ticking off Jolene’s numerous faults on his fingers. “She chews her fingernails and her toenails. She cannot stop herself from answering the questions from Jeopardy out loud, even when she knows she’s wrong. She sheds. She puts ketchup on her egg rolls.”
“Blasphemy.” I shuddered. “And as much as it would be in my own personal interest to interfere with your marriage and reclaim your full attention, you do realize that you are married to arguably one of the most beautiful women on the planet. And you are a male kindergarten teacher who collects dolls.”
“Action figures,” he corrected.
“And she stuck with you, despite the fact that your mother tried to make wedding-party casting changes during the rehearsal and had you hypnotized by a five-dollar psychic so you’d dump Jolene at the altar.”
“Her family put out a bear trap for me!” he huffed.
“Well, that just means that your families cancel each other out.”
He snickered, his expression softening. “She’s pregnant.”
My jaw actually hit the middle of my chest. “Well, that explains the egg rolls and ketchup.”
My throat tightened at the thought of Zeb having a baby. This was so huge, the last step toward Zeb really growing up. I’ll admit I was a little jealous. I was being left behind again. Zeb was doing something I would never do. But, as I’d discovered last year when Zeb’s mom dumped an infant on my doorstep in an attempt to jump-start my biological clock, I am not cut out to nurture. And because I no longer have a pulse, I can’t have children—which works out nicely.
