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All of the regulars I’d come to know were there, including DeeDee, the de facto leader of the group. DeeDee’s banker husband was voluntarily turned in the midst of a midlife crisis. Instead of buying a sports car or having an affair, he decided he wanted to stop the aging process altogether. She’d felt pressured to be turned herself, aging a little every day while her husband remained forever forty-seven. In the end, she had elected to remain human, and her husband left her. She was now dating a very nice accountant who fainted at the sight of blood. But she stuck around to help other people through the transition and welcomed new members to the group. And the newest addition to the group was my mother.
Stupid grocery-store community board.
I turned my back for two seconds, and there was Mama, carrying a plate of brownies and wearing a black T-shirt with the vampire rights logo on it. And a name tag that she’d brought from home that said, “Hello, my name is: Jane’s Mama!”
Was it too late to change my name?
I turned on my heel, hoping to escape the room, possibly get as far as Borneo, before I heard, “Janie! Baby! It’s Mama!”
Cringing, I turned back to where Mama had DeeDee in an arm-lock and was dragging her over to me.
“Now, DeeDee, this is my daughter, Jane. She was turned last year! This is her shop, isn’t it wonderful? I’m just so proud!” Mama cooed. “Jane, this is DeeDee.”
“I know, Mama, I’ve known her for a while,” I whispered. “Miss DeeDee, would you please excuse us for a second?”
DeeDee winked at me and made her way to the bar to get a free latte.
“I love your little shop, honey!” Mama cooed, walking me around the lounge area like a show dog and mouthing a breathless hello to every person we bumped into. “I just love what you’ve done with it. The colors and the chairs and all the pretty little knickknacks. Did Andrea pick all this out?”
“Nope, that would be me. I did this,” I informed her.
“Well, it’s lovely, but I probably would have gone a little lighter on the wall color. You know, Jenny says if you paint a room too dark, it’s like losing ten percent of your square footage. You might have called her and asked her advice.”
“Well, since my lawyer has advised me against speaking to her without a transcriptionist present, that might have been difficult,” I said, smiling sweetly.
“Oh, now you’re just being silly.” She sighed and then saw Jolene and Zeb come through the front door. Zeb saw Mama and turned on his heel, trying to usher Jolene out for a quick escape. But there was no escape. This was the Thunderdome of parental intrusion. “Zeb! Oh, honey, come see what Jane’s done with the shop!”
“Mama, he’s seen it,” I told her. “He’s been here before. In fact, he helped me paint. I appreciate that you’re being so supportive, but could you be a little less, I don’t know, forceful about it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Mama sniffed and then launched herself at an unsuspecting Jolene for non-consensual belly rubbing.
Andrea smirked at me. I glared at her. “Am I naked? Normally, when I have this dream, I look down and I’m naked.”
“I know, it’s terrible. I’m sorry,” Andrea said, barely able to control the twitching corners of her mouth.
“You don’t look sorry.”
“I’m terribly, terribly sorry,” Andrea promised, a snicker escaping when she turned her back to fetch a bottle of hazelnut syrup.
“You’re just humoring me because I sign the checks, aren’t you? I would say I don’t need your pity, but obviously, that’s not true.”
Zeb joined me at the bar, having abandoned his wife to Mama’s pregnancy interrogation, the coward. Zeb gave me a sympathetic shoulder squeeze. “I meant to tell you. DeeDee put ads on bulletin boards in the supermarkets, Walmart, the events calendar in the newspaper …”
I groaned. “I knew this community-involvement thing was going to come back and bite me on the ass. You know what we could do instead? An awareness crusade for vampires who use sunless tanner. Nothing’s as obvious as an orange vampire.”
“It’s good for business,” Andrea told me. She shot a fierce look at Zeb as she hefted a king-size tray of fruit, veggies, and cheese cubes. “I’m going to go rescue your wife with a plate of nutritious, baby-building snacks, you weenie. Jane’s mama doesn’t scare me.” She cleared her throat. “Much.”>Somehow the construction site looked even more depressing than the last time I’d been there. The place was haunted by the ghost of “supposed to be.” Chalk outlines showing where the interior framework was supposed to be situated had long since faded into pale scribbles. Sitting in what was supposed to be the living room, a roll of insulation looked as if it was molding from exposure to the rain. Frayed plastic sheeting that was supposed to be protecting the framework flapped shroudlike in the breeze.
It looked as if Buster unpacked his tools every day and did just enough to make it look as if he was working, without making any actual progress. I stared at the sleeping Buster, my lip curled back. I let my fangs fully extend. This man had kept my friends dangling for months. He’d made Jolene cry. This was not going to be a happy meeting for him.
With one lithe, soundless spring, I hopped into the back of the truck and sat on the lip of the bed. I cleared my throat and hollered, “Buster!” startling him into consciousness.
“Wha!” he shouted, sitting up. “Whassat?”
“Wake up, Buster, we need to talk.”
“Debbie?” He yawned, scratching his head and blinking in the low purpling light of the setting sun. “Honey, I told you, I’m sorry I said that about your sister—”
Buster’s eyes slowly came into focus, and he realized that I was not his angry live-in girlfriend.
