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She smiled as she bent down and I went up on tiptoe, so we met in the middle for a kiss. I put my hand on her vest to steady myself and my coffee off to one side, held sort of suspended out of the way. Magda put one arm around me, playing her strong fingers up my back like she was exploring, trying to figure out exactly what I was or wasn’t wearing underneath my shirt. It made me press into the kiss, until if either of us had been wearing lipstick we’d have made a mess, but lucky for us we were au naturel today.
“The vampire has turned you into an abomination,” Grandma Blake said.
“Grandma Blake!”
“Grandma!”
“That is an awful thing to say to Anita and her girlfriend,” Andria said.
Magda and I drew back from the kiss. Pierette took the coffeecup from my hand as if I’d already spilled it or she was afraid I would spill it.
Grandma Blake stood up, clutching her napkin that had been in her lap. It was linen and matched the dishes that Nathaniel had picked out for the house. “I cannot sit here and watch my granddaughter with other women. It is unnatural; surely you agree that this is wrong, Fredrick.”
“I am not comfortable with it, but it is Anita’s life, Mother.”
“The Pope says that it is a sin and that she will go to hell because of it. Don’t you care about her immortal soul?”
“I’m already going to hell for marrying a vampire and raising the dead, might as well throw a little girl-on-girl love into the mix,” I said.
Pierette coughed hard, like she was choking on something, maybe a laugh. Magda said, “If I am going to stay here for family matters, I need to let the other guards know to fill in my section.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “Go back out and I’ll handle this.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
I nodded. “I’m sure, go. I’ve got this.”
“We’ve got it,” Pierette said.
Magda nodded at her, looked at me one more time, then turned around and left without the coffee she’d come for. Pierette offered me my coffee mug. I took it, though honestly even coffee didn’t sound as good as it usually did.
“Sit down, Mother, I need to speak with Anita.”
“I need to use the ladies’ room,” she said, “and I may stay there for a while so you may talk without me having to hear it.”
“We gave you a choice of staying back at the hotel, Grandma,” Andria said.
“The police said they tried to kidnap us once. I am afraid of being alone there now.”
“I’m sorry that any of you were in danger because of my enemies,” I said, and that I meant.
“Then let me go to the ladies’ room and give your father time to have his talk with you.” She threw the napkin on the table.
“I’ll take her to the bathroom,” Pierette said. “You talk to your dad.”
I expected Grandma Blake to protest, but she just nodded and followed Pierette out the door toward the downstairs bathroom.
“We’re so sorry, Anita,” Judith said.
“I am sorry that your grandmother has been so…She is set in her ways.”
“Dad, didn’t you have something you wanted to say to Anita?” Josh said.
My dad nodded. “Please, Anita, sit down. I see that we can’t stay here long with your grandmother like she is, so please sit.”
I sat down but not in the chair my grandmother had just vacated. For some reason I didn’t want to touch anything she’d touched. “Okay, I’m sitting, what now?”
“First, I will walk you down the aisle for your wedding.”
