“Jane, I don’t know how you’re doing that, but stop it. It’s morbid,” Grandma scolded, her face paling.
“I’m not doing it,” I said. “I’m telepathic, not telekinetic. Aunt Jettie, maybe you shouldn’t …”
Aunt Jettie winked at me. “Honey, she’s had this coming for years.”
“Jane, stop that right now!” Grandma yelled as Jettie called her a “natural brunette,” underlining
“natural” three times.
“It’s not me, it’s Jettie,” I said. “She’s been haunting the house ever since she died. I wasn’t able to see her until I was turned.”
“Of all the sick jokes,” Grandma Ruthie spat. “How dare you use my sister’s memory this way!”
“Oh, come on, you can believe in vampires but not in ghosts?”
Grandma Ruthie sneered at me.
I sighed. “What if I told you something that only Jettie would know?” I asked as Jettie leaned in to whisper in my ear.
Grandma’s mouth flapped open like a beached guppy’s. “I’m not going to—”
“Aunt Jettie says that if you don’t cut me some slack, she’s going to visit your mother and tell her all about what you were doing in Edgar Oliver’s backseat when you were supposed to be at Bible study.”
Ruthie blanched. “How could you—my mother’s dead.”
“Yes, but Jettie can go over to the Half-Moon Hollow Women’s Clubhouse anytime she wants and visit Grandma Bebe. That’s the way ghosts work. They can haunt wherever they choose, move from place to place. They even visit each other.”
OK, that last part was a total bluff. Grandma Bebe was a sweet old lady who had no unfinished needlework, much less unfinished business, when she died. She moved into the light a long time ago. But Ruthie didn’t know that. And I told her that so I could tell her this: “Jettie’s even visited Grandpa Fred a few times. He’s haunting the golf course.”
Jettie cackled with glee as Ruthie’s cheeks drained of color. “You tell her to stay away from my Fred.”
“Tell her yourself, Grandma. She can hear you. Much better, in fact, than she could in life.
Besides, you’re engaged. Why should you care? And I don’t think he’s your Fred anymore.
Remember till death do us part? He’s dead. You’ve parted. Grandpa Fred’s on the market again.”
Ruthie turned a sickly white under her artfully applied Elizabeth Arden powder. “You lifeless Jezebel! You stay away from my Fred!”
At this point, it seemed a moot point to note that Aunt Jettie had actually broken up with Grandpa Fred earlier this year to take up with Mr. Wainwright. Aunt Jettie, obviously enjoying Grandma’s discomfort, seemed to think so, too.
“They can’t … all be yours. Though you … certainly had more … than your share,” Jettie scribbled out in surprisingly legible script.
“Dried-up old maid!” Ruthie yelled.
“Black widow!” the refrigerator spat back.
“Unclean spirit!” Ruthie gasped.
“Varicose-veined ho!” Jettie scrawled, prompting an indignant gasp from Grandma.
“I will not stand here in my daughter’s home and be insulted!” Ruthie shrieked. “Jane, you tell your great-aunt that I will not set foot in River Oaks until she can keep a civil tongue in her skull—which, by the way, never had the bone structure I have. And she was always jealous!”
“She can—” The door slammed in dramatic fashion.
“Hear you.” I finished.
Jettie slumped to the floor, clearly exhausted by her telekinetic efforts.
“That was awesome,” I marveled. “Telling Grandma everything you’ve ever thought about her doesn’t mean you have closure and you’re moving on, does it? I was just getting used to having you around.”
Aunt Jettie reached up to stroke her transparent hand along my cheek. “No, I could have insulted Ruthie while I was living. I’m sticking with you, kiddo.”
“Lucky me.” I chuckled. “My relationship with Grandma isn’t ever going to change, is it?”
Aunt Jettie led me over to the swinging door, where my friends were crowded, listening. “No, baby, it’s not. You and Ruthie have exactly the kind of relationship you want with each other. It was the same with us. Ruthie and I chose not to like each other. I’m not saying that’s right, but it’s the way things are. There’s no law that says families have to be best friends. You can choose your own family, which you have. Of course, you can also choose to want a better relationship with people you were born to. It’s up to you. Until then, sit at the fountain of my experience and learn Ruthie’s weak points.”
“‘Vericose-veined ho’ was one I hadn’t heard before,” I admitted as we pushed through the door, gently popping an eavesdropping Dick in the side of the head.
Dick cursed. Aunt Jettie shrugged. “You leave the TV on during the day. I’ve watched a lot of Maury Povich.”
When you’ve taken all you can, walk away. Be the bigger person. Or at least find a bigger person, and use your vampire strength on them. It’s the sporting thing to do.
—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less Destructive Relationships
Given my history with my sister, it was inevitable, really, that we would end up wrestling in the mud, beating each other senseless with pieces of foam rubber.
The Half-Moon Hollow High parking lot was carefully organized into a carnival grid: flaccid, half-inflated bouncy houses in the south quadrant, food booths in the east, and no fun to be had in either.
At a normal Hollow charity carnival, the signs were hand-painted posterboard affairs. The games consisted of tossing pool rings over two-liter bottles or softballs into bushel baskets. You paid too much for a corn dog and a stuffed bear, you felt as if you contributed to your community, you went home.
This Halloween hell hole involved professionally screen-printed signs and catered low-carb treats. I’d suggested a cotton-candy machine, and Head Courtney gave me a look that would have vaporized lesser women. And forget any preconceived notions of streamers or balloons. This was strictly a Martha affair, pumpkins as far as the eye could see, artfully arranged with corn and various raffia accoutrements.
God help us all.
The spookiest thing about this extravaganza was all of the women in matching pink sweatshirts manically scrambling to make the parking lot into a Halloween casbah, each terrified that Head Courtney would find her efforts wanting and put her on cleanup duty. Given Head Courtney’s less-than-enthusiastic response to the prize boxes I was unloading from Big Bertha and the fact that the rest of the Courtneys had shunned me following my “outing,” I already knew who was going to be manning that stupid push broom all night.
Gabriel had wanted to accompany me to the carnival, but I asked him not to come, just in case I ended up stuck in the dunking booth. I didn’t want him to witness my humiliation. Fortunately, this carnival didn’t have dunking booths. Or clowns, which, for me, was another bright side.
Andrea was covering the shop for me while I served my carnival sentence. She and Dick would have the place to themselves for the evening. Emery had announced his intentions to attend a Christian-themed haunted house called “Hell House” weeks before. Emery had been spending less and less time at the shop lately. Andrea hoped that meant he’d found a girl to go to prayer meetings with.
We didn’t have time to overanalyze that possibility—or to consider warning the girl—because we were expecting a big Halloween-night crowd. Adults seeking a safely scary atmosphere.
Teenagers looking for supplies to summon the Blair Witch. Having Emery standing in the aisles, trying to hand the customers religious tracts, would probably spoil the ambience.
Andrea was dressed up like Glinda the Good Witch, covered in pink sparkles from head to toe.