“I’m fine. Mama Ginger, did you quit smoking?” I asked, sniffing her again.
“Yes, I did!” she cried. “How did you know?”
“Um …” Don’t say smell. Don’t say smell. I spotted a pack of nicotine gum in her purse and nodded to it.
Mama Ginger giggled. “You’ll never believe this, but I went to that Madame Zelda over on Gaines Street.”
“The ‘mesmerist/tarot reader’ who offers palm readings for five dollars from her den?”
“That’s the one. She does a special course of ‘Smoke-Free Sessions.’ It’s five hypnosis sessions for two hundred and fifty dollars. Pricey, but it’s done the trick.”
Mama Ginger had left at least two packs of Revlon-stained cigarette butts in her wake every day since I’d known her. In fact, she once lit up in the middle of her annual physical, right after her doctor told her that she was at risk for seven kinds of cancer. People take bad news in different ways.
I could only guess that the faint cigarette smell still lingering on Mama Ginger was nicotine that had seeped into her DNA.
“I’m chewing this silly gum.” She sighed, rolling up her sleeve to show me a nicotine patch on her arm. “And I only smoke after meals, but really, I’m feeling much better. I can walk all the way to the mailbox without a break.”
I would be concerned, but honestly, the combination of occasional smoking, chewing, and, uh, patching probably equaled the amount of nicotine in Mama Ginger’s system when she was smoking full-time.
“I never thought I’d quit, never wanted to,” Mama Ginger said, ignoring common sense in her usual selective fashion. “But Mamaw Lavelle’s doctor put her on an oxygen tank, and she screams that I’m trying to kill her if I light up anywhere near her. Hell, if I was going to kill the woman, I would have switched her heart pills for baby aspirin ten years ago.”
I goggled at her. She blushed and gave a tinkling laugh. “Zeb says you have a new job. How do you like it?”
“Fine … Not that I’m not glad to see you, Mama Ginger, but I thought you were mad at me …” I looked in the direction of Hannah Jo, her favorite client and preferred daughter-in-law candidate, who was sulking in the corner with a plate of deviled eggs.
“Oh, Janie!” She smiled indulgently at me, fluffing my hair. “You know I could never stay mad at you, even though you did hurt my feelings. You’re my little angel muffin.”
I’d forgotten about the nicknames. How could I have forgotten the nicknames?
“Besides, I don’t spend much time with Hannah Jo anymore, because … I didn’t know”—Mama Ginger lowered her voice—”that she has a shoplifting problem. Every time we went to the flea market, she walked out with packages of socks under her jacket. Besides, do you know she has cut off her mama? Doesn’t even talk to her anymore. Doesn’t see her at Christmas or Mother’s Day or send her birthday cards. Can you imagine, someone having such a hard heart that they cut off their mama?”
“Wow.” I cringed as realization dawned. “So I guess that means you don’t want her to marry Zeb anymore.”
Mama Ginger sighed. “No, I only wanted Hannah Jo to get to know Zeb because she’s so lonely, and I thought since Zeb’s such a good friend to you, he could be a good friend to her, too. My boy is so generous and sweet and kind. He’d have to be to take up with that one.” Mama Ginger shot a glare in Jolene’s direction.
“Jolene’s a very nice girl,” I said. “She’s very good to Zeb. He loves her very much. I just said ‘very’ three times, didn’t I?”
“You’re sweet to say nice things about someone who’s taken what’s rightfully yours.” Mama Ginger pinched my cheeks again. “But it don’t matter how perky their ass is, no one’s gonna take your place in Zeb’s heart. You’re always going to be his first.”
Ignoring the ass comment, I asked, “His first?”
“Love, silly, you’re his first love. No one forgets his first love.”
I had a vague vertigo sensation as Mama Ginger’s maternal crosshairs focused on me again.
“I’ll see you later, Mama Ginger. I need to get back to … I gotta go.”
“We’ll talk soon, baby doll,” she called as I pivoted on my heel, made a grab for an empty iced-tea pitcher, and focused on the main stage, the front pew.
Grandma was resplendent in her traditional Casual Corner Petites black dress suit, but she had stepped up her game with a black picture hat and full veil. Long ago, she had figured out a secret combination of waterproof mascara and eyeliner that gave her a full Elizabeth Taylor lash that never ran. A black lace handkerchief was clutched to her lips as she stifled a sob.
Where do you even buy a black lace handkerchief? Widows R Us?
If she was this duded up for the visitation, I deeply regretted that I wouldn’t get to see her burial ensemble.
As amusing as this was, the whole funeral process had put me in a bit of a philosophical funk. Despite Jenny’s “offer” to give me a proper burial, there was very little chance that I would ever have a funeral. If by some chance (involving sunlight, stakes, or silver) I did die, the only remains left would be a little pile of dust. Unless someone was quick with the whisk broom, there would be nothing to put in a casket or urn. There would be no buffet, no packed chapel, and, unless Reverend Neel was feeling very charitable, no one praying over me. It was far more likely that I would watch all of my friends and family die. I would watch Zeb grow old and die. I would watch his children grow old and die. Nothing would change. Nothing would surprise me.
These dark, admittedly self-indulgent and depressing thoughts were not really putting me in the best frame of mind to deal with my grandma, who at the moment was sniffling into the black hankie and looking on old friends with baleful, glittering eyes.
“I’ll be fine,” she whimpered. “As long as I have friends and family around me, I’ll be fine.” She looked up and saw me standing nearby. “Jane, those coffee cups need washing.”
Those were the first words she’d spoken to me since she found out that I’d been turned. And they were completely consistent with our BD (before death) relationship.
I thought back to the chapter in Sense and Sensibility when Mr. Dashwood has just died. Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood are overcome by grief. They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in the future. This leaves Elinor to deal with their grasping relatives. Elinor isn’t given the chance to grieve because she’s able to handle all of the grunt work.
I was definitely an Elinor, minus the quiet dignity … or the sense. But I was dependable, overly analytical, and unable to shirk excessive responsibilities. So I gathered the coffee cups and bit my tongue.
“I’ll just take them into the kitchen,” I muttered. “And join the other scullery maids.”
I hefted the tray with one hand and nearly ran smack into my high-school crush, Adam Morrow, a blond, dimpled, and ridiculously clean-cut veterinarian.
“A-Adam!” I stuttered. “Hi!”
At least one thing had remained constant since my living days: I still couldn’t find anything to say to Adam Morrow. While contemplating the back of his neck in sophomore English, I had daydreams where Adam suddenly realized how luminously beautiful I was, inside and out. He would finally realize that I was more than the brainy gal jocks wanted to be paired with on group projects. He’d ask me where I’d been all his life. There was also an imagined prom-night scenario that I won’t go into. And now, all I could do was gawk at him and keep a death grip on a tray of dirty coffee cups.
“Hi, Jane,” he said, smiling broadly. “It’s nice to see you again. It’s been a while.”
“What are you doing here?” I blurted. Woo-hoo, a full, unstuttered sentence!
Adam was carrying a carefully Tupperwared seven-layer salad, though how anything involving hard-boiled eggs, bacon, mayonnaise, and sugar could be considered salad, I have no idea. “Mama sent me over with this. She had dental surgery this afternoon, and she’s still laid up on the pain pills. She’s sorry she couldn’t make it.”
“That was very thoughtful,” I said, accepting the bowl with my free hand. “And heavy. How much bacon is in this thing?”
“Just enough.” He laughed, bottomless cerulean eyes twinkling. “What about you? Are you doing something different with your hair?” he asked, staring at me closely. “Because you look different. Great but different.”
He was staring at me again, as if I were a puzzle he was trying to solve. Apparently, word hadn’t gotten around to Adam about my undead status. So, for reasons I didn’t quite fathom yet, I lied through my pointy teeth.
“I’ve been working out,” I told him, smiling brightly. His interest seemed to perk up even further at the display of teeth. “What have you been up to? How’s the clinic?”
He shrugged those wide shoulders. “Oh, you know, patients who bite me and pee on themselves. It’s a living. How about you?”
I grimaced. “Well, I’m sure you heard that I’m no longer working at the library.”
His cheerfully blank face gave me the impression that he was too polite to acknowledge that I was being gossiped about behind my back. I continued, “I’m actually working at a bookstore over on Braxton Avenue now. I really like my new boss. I’ve never really done retail before, but I get to work around books again, so it’s great. I’ve sort of moved on to another phase of my life. A phase that does not include Story Time and sock puppets.”
Adam chuckled, winking his dimples at me. “You should keep your options open. You never know what might come up.”
Like a bullet wound and an old guy willing to gnaw on my neck to save my life. That was a surprise. At the thought of Gabriel, I felt a little twinge of guilt. It felt very wrong to do anything even remotely resembling flirting. And even worse when Adam blurted, “It’s been—I—I’d like to—would you like to meet up for coffee sometime?”
Well, there went a bigger twinge.
I did a bit of a double-take, sure I’d heard him wrong. “I’m sorry, could you repeat what you just said?”
“Coffee.” He laughed. “Would you like to have a cup of coffee sometime? Catch up, talk about old times, share embarrassing memories, that sort of thing.”
“You mean like when I used to follow you around at middle-school dances, trying to work up the nerve to ask you to slow dance to ‘End of the Road’? Oh, crap. That was out loud. I have to stop doing that.”
“Don’t worry.” Adam laughed. “It’s kind of flattering.”
I laughed, too, but more as a defense mechanism than out of actual amusement.
“So, coffee?” Adam asked pointedly. “Yes?”
There it was, everything I’d wanted as a human laid out on a platter before me. If you’d asked me when I was a teenager, “What would fulfill every romantic hope and dream in your obsessive adolescent heart?” Adam Morrow asking me out would do it. As much as I’d tried to embrace my vampire lifestyle, it was difficult to let that go. It actually pained me when I had to say, “I appreciate the offer, but I’m seeing someone.”
Adam clearly wasn’t used to being turned down. It took him just as long to process the fact that I’d said no as it did for me to realize that him asking me out wasn’t an auditory hallucination.
He finally said, “Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying. I’ll see you around, Jane.”
After watching a deflated Adam making his way through the funeral crowd, I busied myself gathering dirty plates and forks. I’d made it halfway to the kitchen when a sharp poke to my side made me squeal and fling cutlery. Panic and my vampire reflexes had me plucking the falling pieces out of the air.