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“It’s just rumors that Jean-Claude is in the running forPeople’s Sexiest Man.”
“I’d vote for him,” she said, and I turned in time to see her smile. I smiled back because she was really trying. I guess one of them had to.
“Honestly, I kind of hope he doesn’t get it. The publicity around the wedding is getting out of hand now. If he gets that high-profile I don’t know how bad it will get.”
“No such thing as bad publicity,” she said.
“I’m useless for undercover work now, because of all the wedding stuff online.”
“I hadn’t thought about it affecting your job, Anita. I’m sorry,” she said.
I shrugged and realized she’d never see it around the car seat. “I didn’t do much undercover, but now there’s no way.”
“The engagement video was like a fairy tale,” she said.
“Yeah, I didn’t even know there were such things as proposal consultants complete with videographers.”
“Kirk took Andria to the Bahamas and there was a video, but nothing like yours. I half expected you to refuse to get in the horse-drawn carriage. It was everything you thought was stupid and romantic when you were a teenager.”
“Yeah, I was pretty disdainful of all that romance stuff.” Truthfully, I still was, and if my family had really been my family to the point where I could trust them to keep a secret, I could have told them that thebigproposal had been the public one. The real one had been weeks earlier in the shower after sex. Jean-Claude had spontaneously proposed, and I had said yes. I think we’d both been shocked with that yes. I just wasn’t really the marrying kind. Can we say commitment issues?
“Isn’t your young man here upset that you’re marrying someone else?”
“No, old man, the young man isn’t upset about her marrying someone else,” Nicky said.
“There was a time that saying ‘young man’ wasn’t an insult.”
“His name is Nicky, Dad.”
“Fine, Nick, aren’t you upset that Anita will be with just her husband if this wedding goes ahead?”
“Nicky, not Nick.”
“Nicky, I meant no offense.”
“Sure, and no, Anita isn’t planning on being monogamous after the wedding, so I’ll still be one of her lovers. It’s a win-win for me.”
“Anita, you will be taking vows, real marriage vows if this happens, correct?”
“Yep, if we avoid the religious extremes there are plenty of clergy happy to marry us, but we’re not exchanging traditional vows. No language about honoring each other above all others or being exclusive or obeying anyone.”
“It’s not about the vows, Anita, it’s holy matrimony. I may not likethat you have so many…people in your life, but once you marry it will be adultery.”
“Are you serious?” I asked, turning in my seat to see his face.
“About the Ten Commandments and your immortal soul, yes, very.”
I moved so I could see Judith. She gave me wide eyes and a littleI’m sorryshrug. Jesus, when did Judith become so much less religious? Then I had to think about that for a second. Had she ever been as much a zealot as Dad, or had she gone along with him because she was a good Catholic and a good wife? I suddenly started reviewing my childhood again and realized that when Dad and Grandma Blake got extremely religious about dogma, Judith just stopped talking. I tried to think of a single time in my childhood where she’d talked about sin, or shit like that. I thought and thought and couldn’t come up with anything. Damn it, I did not want to like my wicked stepmother better than my own father.
“So you’re okay with Anita breaking some of the commandments, just not the adultery one?” Nicky asked.
“I take all the commandments very seriously.”
“You’re okay with her killing.”
“Vampires do not count against the Fifth Commandment.”
“Because the Pope said so,” I said.
