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“Johnny Cash had all of the same talents and problems as Elvis—a poor upbringing in the rural South, exposure to gospel music throughout his childhood, a penchant for drug abuse,” I heard myself saying against the background of chatter and clinking glasses. “They had the same sort of influencing experiences, but Johnny Cash’s problematic relationship was with his father, not his mother. If he’d had the mommy issues that Elvis had instead of a compelling need to prove himself to his father, he wouldn ’t have been the badass man in black, the guy in Folsom Prison watching the train roll by. Elvis was a lot of things, but even with the karate and the gunplay, he was more unstable than badass. ”
“But you’re forgetting one thing,” Gabriel had said, motioning for the bartender to bring me another cup of coffee.
I’d sipped the coffee and added far too much cream and sugar. “What’s that?”
“Johnny Cash had June Carter. ”
I had smiled. “Good point. ”
“The love of a good woman can save a man,” I remembered Gabriel saying. “Or it can drive him to fits of unspeakable madness. ”
I had stared at him a long moment before bursting out laughing. “Well, now I know how to inscribe my next Valentine’s Day card. ”
Gabriel didn’t seem accustomed to a woman laughing at him. It had taken him a few seconds, but then he was laughing, too.
Gabriel was a rare find. He was nothing like the men my age who lived in the Hollow. For one thing, he seemed to realize that wearing a baseball cap was not a substitute for combing one ’s hair. He seemed to enjoy the contents of my brain, instead of looking at it as something that had to be canceled out by the contents of my bra. And I don’t think he’d even heard of NASCAR.
“How did we even get on this subject?” I’d asked, squinting at him.
“I honestly don’t know,” he had said, sipping his drink. “I asked you about your family’s church background, you went on a tangent about having to sit through the annual All-Gospel Sing and ‘Karen Newton’s atonal warbling. ’ Gospel led to Elvis, Elvis led to Johnny Cash. I don’t think I’ve ever absorbed so much random trivia in one sitting. I do enjoy watching your mind work, though.
I can practically see all the little cogs and wheels clicking into place. Tell me more. My knowledge of contemporary music is somewhat limited. ”
“Contemporary?” I’d laughed. “We’re talking about rockabilly music from the 1950s. ”
Gabriel had raised his hands defensively. “Well, I haven’t bought an album in a while. ”
Looking back, I really should have picked up on that as a clue that I was dealing with a vampire. But I ’d been too pleased with ebb and flow of the conversation to pay attention, one subject leading to another and another in lazy concentric circles like smoke rings over our heads.
The memory was like reliving a pleasant dream, one that leaves you disappointed when you wake up and realize it wasn ’t real. Only Gabriel was real, and it seemed I could pick this dream up again if I wanted. Now I touched Gabriel’s shoulder and tried to speak as carefully as possible. “Look, I’m really grateful that you saved my life. I know what would have happened if you hadn’t intervened. It’s just I’ve had so much to absorb. And I didn’t adjust to change gracefully while I was living. ”
He was quiet again, studying me intently, looking for rhyme or reason in a brain where I was sure he ’d find little of either. I looked away, brushing at the bloodstains at the corners of my mouth with a tissue.
“So, you’re inexperienced,” Gabriel said, more of a statement than a question.
“Yes, I thought we just covered this. ”
Gabriel would not be swayed from his line of questioning. “How?”
I blushed, a rush of Gabriel’s blood coming to my cheeks. “That’s none of your business. ”
“I only ask because vampires with even the slightest hint of innocence are rare these days. For that matter, humans with the slightest hint of innocence are rare these days. It’s rather refreshing. ”
“Why don’t you just put a big red stamp on my forehead?” I grumbled.
“Given your literary proclivities, why not a red letter sewn on your clothing?” he asked, his lips quirked.
I frowned at him. “I think it’s time for you to go. ”
“I think I should stay and look after you, ” he said. “Your first few days can be a difficult transition. Your senses, your feedings—”
“It’s already been a difficult transition. ” Besides, I wondered, where was Gabriel going to stay? Where would he sleep?
Where would I sleep? Where would I get blood? Who would pry Zeb off my couch? “I just need some time to myself. I promise to send up the bat signal if I need you. ”
“After spending more time with your kind, you will realize that remark was in very poor taste,” he said, rising. “I’ll take your friend home. ”
I used some super-speed of my own to block Gabriel’s path to the couch. “Wait, you can’t just take him. I mean, how do I know you’re not going to snack on him on the way home?”
“I give you my word,” he said, looking wounded again. He was awfully sensitive for someone who’d lived off the blood of the innocent for more than a century.
“But what, specifically, will you do?” I demanded. “You’re not going to leave him in a ditch or anything, are you? You don’t even know where he lives. ”
“I’ve lived through two world wars and the disco era. I think I can manage. ” I must have appeared unimpressed. He sighed.
“I will look at his driver’s license and take him home. I will use his keys to take him into his house. He will remember that you are a vampire, but he will have no memory of your attacking him. ”
“You can just wipe his memory?” I asked. “Can I do that? Because I’d kind of like to get my uncle Dave to stop telling the story about me flashing my panties at his wedding reception. ”
Gabriel stared at me.
“I was three,” I explained. “Pink panties were a big deal. ”
He snorted, an intriguing and undignified noise. “Yes, you might develop the talent. And you may be able to replace those memories with new ones of your own design. It ’s a handy trick when one needs humans to forget how they sustained neck punctures. Every vampire has different abilities, talents. Just as every human cannot carry a tune …” He trailed off as he read my horrified expression. He rolled his eyes, exasperated. “I’ll give him a good memory, with sports victories and beer drinking. ”
“Thank you,” I said, wondering how my Zeb, my sweet, Doctor Who-watching Zeb, would react to memories of touchdowns and Budweiser.
“I will see you soon,” Gabriel said, taking a step closer to me. I stepped back. He let a frisson of disappointment pass over his features and hefted Zeb off the couch.
“Wait, I thought you had to be invited before you could go into someone’s house,” I said as Gabriel moved effortlessly to the door.
He shifted, jiggling Zeb. “It’s a common misconception. And under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t. It’s just rude. ”
I closed the front door behind Gabriel and locked it. Then I unlocked it. What the hell could an intruder do to me, really?
Then again, I didn’t want some Buffy wannabe sneaking into my house and staking me. So I turned the lock again. Irritated with myself, I sank to the floor and scrubbed my hand over my face. “Three days ago, I was a law-abiding librarian. I had a dental plan and baking soda in my fridge. Now I’m unemployed, undead, and apparently kind of skanky. ”
“Rough day, pumpkin?”
“Yeah,” I said, pressing the heels of my hands over my eyes to ward off a gathering headache.
My great-aunt Jettie appeared at my left and pushed my hair back from my face. “Don’t worry, honey, things will work out.
They always do. ”
“Yeah. ” I said, willing myself not to cry
. Vampires, surely, didn’t blubber like little girls.
Aunt Jettie patted my head fondly. “There’s my girl. ” I smiled up at her through watery eyes.
Wait. My great-aunt was dead. The permanent kind of dead.
“Aunt Jettie?” I yelped, sitting up and whacking my head against the wall behind me.
Note to self: Try to stop reacting to surprises like a cartoon character.
“Hey, baby doll,” my recently deceased great-aunt murmured, patting me on the leg—or, at least, through my leg. My first skin-to-ectoplasm contact with the noncorporeal dead was an uncomfortable, cold-water sensation that jolted my nerves. Blargh. I shuddered as subtly as possible so as not to offend my favorite deceased relative.
Aunt Jettie looked great, vaguely transparent but great. Her luxuriant salt -and-pepper hair was twisted into its usual long braid over one shoulder. She was wearing her favorite UK T -shirt that read, “I Bleed Blue. ” The sentiment was horribly appropriate, all things considered. It also happened to be the shirt she died in, struck by a massive coronary while fixing a flat on her ten-speed. She looked nothing like the last time I saw her, all primped up in one of my grandmother’s castoff suits and a rhinestone brooch the size of a Buick.
Jettie Belle Early died at age eighty-one, still mowing her own lawn, making her own apple wine, and able to rattle off the stats for every starting Wildcats basketball player since 1975. She took me under her wing around age six, when her sister, my grandma Ruthie, took me to my first Junior League Tiny Tea and then washed her hands of me. There was a regrettable incident with sugar-cube tongs. Grandma Ruthie and I came to an understanding on the drive home from that tea —the understanding that we would never understand each other.
Grandma Ruthie and her sister Jettie hadn’t spoken a civil word in about fifteen years. Their last exchange was Ruthie ’s leaning over Jettie’s coffin and whispering, “If you’d married and had children, there would be more people at your funeral. ” Of course, at the reading of Aunt Jettie’s will, Grandma Ruthie was handed an envelope containing a carefully folded high -resolution picture of a baboon’s butt. That pretty much summed up their relationship.