I shot her a look that could have dropped a more observant woman. So, it was her family. As far as she was concerned, I wasn’t part of it anymore. Frankly, she was welcome to it. “I’m going.”
“Now, Jenny, be a good sister,” Mama told Jenny. “We have to have the whole family together for Christmas. The good Christian thing to do would be to—”
“She’s dead!” Jenny cried. “The good Christian thing to do would be to give her a decent burial.”
“Now, Jenny, you know you don’t mean that,” Mama said through clenched teeth.
“Burial talk is my cue to go,” I said, grabbing my jacket. “I think I’ll be leaving the country for New Year’s, so please don’t call.”
I stuck my head into the den to give Daddy a quick good-bye, which he couldn’t hear over the screeching and beeping of the boys’ new radio controlled-monster trucks.
From the kitchen, I heard Mama whine, “Tell Jane it just won’t be Christmas without her.”
“You have me, Kent, the boys here, why—” I closed the front door on Jenny’s wounded response.
I looked back through the window. Wilbur looked absolutely miserable. I was sympathetic, but when it came to the Jameson family Christmas, it was every man, woman, and vampire for themselves.
10
Adult werewolf children are expected to stay within the confines of pack territory. Those who move more than a five-minute run from pack headquarters are either disowned or hosts to frequent weekend guests.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
From the dawn of time, women have formed friendships for one purpose only: to make sure they’ll have someone to provide unpaid serf labor for their weddings. And we all just go along with it, spurred by fear that if we don’t submit to the bridal demands, there will be no one to slave over our own weddings.
That’s why, six months before the actual wedding, I was spending an evening measuring and cutting exactly fourteen inches of cornflower-blue ribbon over and over and over and … over. These ribbons would be sent to a printing company to be stamped with “HMS Titanic” on one side and “Zeb and Jolene—Struck by Love” on the other. They would then be tied around old-fashioned hurricane lamps as part of Jolene’s carefully planned tablescape. Each table was going to be named for famous (read: deceased) Titanic passengers, such as John Jacob Astor and Molly Brown, then decorated with hurricane lamps and fake ice. Of course, no one would pay attention to a seating plan, which is another Southern wedding tradition.
Jolene had the gall to call this gathering a “work party,” in the style of Amish people who get together to make a quilt or build a barn. I didn’t think Amish women typically had a Camel hanging from the corner of their lips while they worked, like Jolene’s aunt Lulu. Also, the Amish employed more lenient leaders than Jolene, who had the tendency to become a little bossy when it came to her nuptials.
“It has to be at least fourteen inches to make sure each bow has about three inches of hanging ribbon on each side,” Jolene told us. I would have questioned whether Jolene was serious, but she didn’t respond well when I laughed at her “All bridesmaids must cut their hair to exactly three inches below the shoulder by March” edict.
Pointing out that the printing company would have cut these ribbons for an additional $250 would have resulted in huffy eye rolls from Jolene’s battalion of cranky cousins. Besides, Aunt Vonnie, who had somehow heard my full opinion of the bridesmaids’ dresses, was already giving me the dagger eyes.
The McClaine clan alpha couple—known to Jolene as Mom and Dad—lived in the main house on the compound, a quaint little yellow farmhouse, with white shutters and a porch swing, surrounded by a series of increasingly dilapidated trailers. Inside, the walls were decorated with Thomas Kinkade prints and silk floral arrangements saved from funeral services. Everything was neat and clean and protected by doilies. And everybody was naked. Which explained the doilies.
Jolene and her cousins whipped their clothes off the moment they got in the door, the way most people kick off their shoes.
“Does this bother you?” she’d asked the first time I stumbled into her mother’s house.
“I just don’t know where to look,” I said, settling for a strange orange silk-flower arrangement mounted on the wall. The truth was, as the only clothed person there, I felt weird. I felt more naked than Jolene.
The only cousin who was remotely friendly was Charlene, who had asked for my home and e-mail addresses twice in the four hours since meeting me. She wanted to be my best friend. Seriously. My best friend. You cannot be nice to people like Charlene. It’s like feeding a stray cat. The cat just keeps coming back until you have to move. So I was being overtly rude to her, which wasn’t really helping my standing with the rest of the family.
Fortunately, among werewolf women, the word “bitch” is not offensive. I was having a lot of fun with that.
“Hey there, bitches!” I called as I came through the door. “What are my favorite bitches up to today?”
The only response was a chorus of unenthusiastic, drawled “Hi’s” and “Heys.”
“I know what you’re doin’,” Jolene muttered as she hugged me. “And it’s not funny.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” I said, tucking wavy crimson hair behind her ears. She scowled at me. “I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.”
Jolene was clearly the Golden Child in her clan. Her mother, Mimi, and all of the aunts fawned over her, telling and retelling cute stories from when she was a cub. Any accomplishment or news from the other cousins was matched with something about Jolene. Jolene was the only one of her cousins to attend community college. Jolene could skin a rabbit in two bites. Jolene was Miss Half-Moon Hollow 1998. Jolene and Zeb would be the first couple in her family to plan an actual honeymoon—to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which was where you went when you couldn’t afford to go to Florida but wanted to be far enough away that your parents couldn’t “drop in” on the wedding night.
“Jolene works at Uncle Clay’s sandwich shop,” Aunt Lola said, beaming beatifically at Jolene. “He says all the customers just love her. She’s so helpful, so sweet. She just makes everybody she meets so happy.”
Raylene, Angelene, Lurlene, and Company let loose a collective sigh and synchronized eye roll. Sensing that the mob might be turning ugly, Jolene asked, “How’s the new job, Raylene?”