The Undead in My Bed

by Katie MacAlister; Molly Harper; Jessica Sims

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, swiping at my eye one last time. “Tess Maitland.”

  “You new in town?” Jolene drawled.

  “Yeah, how can you tell?”

  “The accent. You don’t have one.”

  I chuckled. “I’m from Chicago. I’m just visiting the area for a while.”

  “And you’re not having a very good time?” Zeb asked, his big brown doe eyes sympathetic. “You said a pickle to the eye went with the rest of your week. That can’t be a good vacation.”

  “Come on over here, honey, and tell us all about it,” Jolene said, dragging me out of my booth. Geez, this girl was crazy strong for someone so slight. As she pushed me into the seat opposite Joe the pickle flinger, she yelled for someone named Maybelline to bring her a “tall blue.”

  I really hoped that was some sort of home-brewed moonshine, because I could have used a drink right about then.

  Imagine my surprise when a tall blue turned out to be a large blue glass bottle of homemade root beer, which Jolene swore would cheer me right up. It was tasty, with strong undertones of sassafras and ginger. The lack of carbonation was a little weird, but it settled my stomach almost instantly, and the lift in blood sugar helped my outlook considerably.

  Jolene took the kids behind the counter and handed them off to two equally pretty waitresses, who bore a strong resemblance to my new friend. The ladies bobbed the babies on their hips and fed them bits of smoked sausage, which could not possibly be good for them. Then again, those kids seemed to have a lot of teeth.

  Jolene snapped me out of my thoughts by sliding onto the bench seat next to me. “OK, now you have my full attention. Let’s hear it.” I lifted my eyebrows at her commanding tone. “Oh, come on, you look like your head’s about to pop off. You’re dyin’ to talk to someone. Now, spill.”

  I looked to Zeb, who smiled at his wife fondly. “It’s best to just do what she asks. She’ll get it out of you somehow.”

  I sighed. “It’s just, this house I’m renting, I have an ‘unexpected’ roommate. I would feel sorry for him, but he’s kind of rude and prickly. And I can’t get rid of him because I don’t have superstrength.”

  On and on, I rambled about the house, which I loved, and Lindy, whom I didn’t have any fond feelings for, about Sam and Phillip and talking arugula, until I finished with “My professional reputation is in shreds. I haven’t had sex in six months, and I’m starting to think that after a certain period of disuse, everything grows over down there. Plus, I don’t know if I have a job or health insurance to go back to, so how am I going to afford the reconstructive hooha surgery?”

  “Wow,” Jolene marveled. “That was an impressive rant.” She shot a look to her husband. “That was a Jane rant.”

  Zeb grinned and shrugged, as if answering some unspoken question from his wife. There was a nonverbal coziness to their communication that made my chest ache a bit. I’d never had that kind of intimacy with any of my boyfriends.

  “It’s all going to be just fine, Tess. You’ll see. You just relax now, while I get us a little lunch.”

  Jolene returned to the table with two trays piled high with all sorts of foods that I didn’t recognize—colorful casseroles and fried mystery items and ribs.

  “There’s no way the three of us could eat all this!” I cried, rising to help her heft the trays. “Please let me know what the check total is, so I can cover my share.”

  “Pay?” Zeb scoffed. “McClaines eat free at the Three Little Pigs. Otherwise, we wouldn’t get access to Aunt Lulu’s special seven-layer salad. She doesn’t give that to just anybody.”

  Without responding, I poked at the mayonnaise-covered bowl skeptically. “Why don’t I see any green vegetables in that salad?”

  “Surrounded by beautiful smartasses, that’s my lot in life.” Zeb sighed, lifting his eyes to the ceiling.

  “Everything you see here was made by my family, except for the pulled pork and the ribs,” Jolene said, unloading her culinary treasures with a practiced hand. “It’s on special, provided by the Volunteer Fire Department. They’re hosting a barbecue booth at Burley Days, and they needed the practice. My uncles don’t handle barbecue very well, which is why they don’t usually serve it here. Something about the smokers and fire—they get all wound up bein’ manly men and end up overcookin’ the meat.”

  “Outdoor cooking has been known to do that. So, seven-layer salad?” I said, lifting a brow and staring at some well-disguised romaine lettuce that seemed to be topped with mayonnaise and bacon.

  Jolene shook her head in a maternal fashion. “Hold on, sweetie, we have to start you out slow. We’ll work you up to seven-layer salad. You’re new to this whole Southern comfort food thing, and I don’t want you to get sick off your first try.”

  I scanned the table to try to find something I recognized. “How is it that I grew up just a few hundred miles from here and I’ve never heard of these dishes?”

  “We have a recipe-hoarding border patrol at the Illinois state line,” Jolene deadpanned.

  “We can’t possibly eat all of this.”

  “Just watch,” Zeb muttered. “Jolene will mow through this in no time flat.”

  I wondered at the crack on Jolene’s eating habits, particularly from Zeb, since she didn’t have a spare ounce on her and she’d recently given birth to his twins. But there was no malice in expression or tone. It was fond, as if he was just waiting for the word to run and get another tray full of food. The silly, love-struck look on his face made my heart ache a little.

  Jolene began systematically loading my plate with little scoops of every dish. I sampled a few familiar things—potato salad, corn casserole, three-bean salad. But when I got to the orangey-yellow substance that sort of resembled scrambled eggs with little red bits, I poked it with my fork. “I’m sorry. But what the hell is this?”

  “Homemade pimento cheese,” Jolene said. I took a little bite. “Velveeta, pimentos, and mayonnaise. Oh, and bacon. It’s Aunt Vonnie’s recipe.”

  I swallowed, then took a huge gulp of water to wash down the gelatinous mass of funk. “Is Aunt Vonnie here?” I asked. And when they shook their heads, I shuddered, wiping at my mouth with my napkin. “Why? Oh, my God, why would anyone do that to an innocent processed food product?”

  “I believe that pimento cheese was invented as a practical joke by two mean old church ladies, but they died before they could get their laugh in,” Zeb told me. “We are left with their legacy of mean-spirited hospitality.”

  “I’m going for the seven-layer salad,” I told Jolene, aiming my fork for the bowl of lettuce, peas, bacon, shredded cheese, and purple onions, covered in a dressing consisting of mayonnaise, parmesan cheese, and sugar.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she retorted as I forked a healthy sample into my mouth.

  Seven-layer salad was freaking amazing. Simple, fresh, and green, with a series of flavors tumbling against my tongue like dominoes. “This should not be as good as it is,” I told her, taking another huge bite.

  “It’s the great mystery of Southern cuisine,” Jolene intoned.

  “And what’s that?” I asked, stabbing through a cornflake crust to find a bubbling mixture of cheese and potatoes.

  “Hash-brown casserole—hash browns, cream of mushroom soup, cheddar cheese, and a couple of other things.”

  I put a scoop into my mouth. It was everything that was good about comfort food, warm and cheesy and gooey and savory. I tucked more into my mouth, moaning indecently.

  “Would you two like to be alone?” Zeb asked, eyeing the casserole.

  “I think so,” I said, sighing happily as I swallowed another bite.

  “Easy, girl.” Jolene chortled. “Pulling the full Meg Ryan is not a good way to introduce yourself to Half-Moon Hollow society.”

  “I’ll try to contain myself,” I promised.

  This was what food was supposed to be. This was satisfying, filling, comforting. Food was supposed to feed you, bo
dy and soul. It was so simple that I felt stupid for not seeing it sooner. Pink Himalayan sea salt? Was just freaking salt. Black truffles? Stinky mushrooms, and I really never liked the taste of them anyway. Smoked extra-virgin olive oil? Well, that was pretty awesome. I couldn’t really give that up.

  Food could be simple. Food could be anything you wanted, whether the ingredients came from a farmer’s market or a convenience store. Food could be fan-freaking-tastic.

  I shook my head, as if to clear it, and took another bite of cheesy potatoes. Maybe Jolene had slipped some sort of hallucinogen into my portion.

  I didn’t care all that much.

  Zeb unwrapped a steaming aluminum-foil packet the size of a basketball. “Now, this is pulled pork shoulder. We’re going to give it to you straight, no sauce, at first, because I figure you’d appreciate it by itself. But there are three levels of sauce here in these little cups. Mild, which is basically ketchup, the sort of thing we give to the kids. Hot, which is more of a Tabasco-sauce level of heat. And nuclear, which I do not recommend, even if you enjoy spicy food. There are some intestinal consequences that cannot be undone.”

  “Ew!” Jolene squealed. “Zeb!”

  “She ate pimento cheese in public. Her threshold for gross is pretty high,” he said, shrugging.

  “He has a point,” I conceded, placing a small bite of the pink-gray smoked meat on my tongue. I gripped the picnic table for support as a shudder of pleasure rippled up from my throat. Everything that was good about meat was currently in my mouth.

  I sincerely hoped I hadn’t just said that out loud.

  “How have I never had barbecue like this before?” I demanded, forking more meat onto my plate. I could taste garlic, white pepper, paprika, the smoky essence of cumin. My mind immediately began scanning my internal wine list to select which vintage would offset the tangy hickory flavor. “I thought barbecue was supposed to be all gloppy sauce and burned ends. But this is like a meat marshmallow, slightly caramelized on the outside, and bursting with soft, moist flavor inside. This is—” I paused to lick my fingers. “How do they do this? What temperature do they use? For how long? Are they just using hickory, or do I detect a note of applewood, too? The smoker, is it aluminum or cast-iron?”

  Because she had no answers for me, Jolene simply led me over to the booth where most of the Half-Moon Hollow Volunteer Fire Department was having lunch and introduced me to the cooks, Anna and Joe Bob. They were more than happy to discuss the ins and outs of the smokers, the hickory wood used to smoke and flavor the meat as it cooked, and the base for the sauces. Joe Bob promised to show me which cuts of pork shoulder worked best and how to keep the ribs from drying out before they cooked completely.

  “We’re firing up another batch at dawn if you wanna come by,” Anna offered cheerfully, her round, cherubic cheeks smudged with soot from the smoker. “You could see the whole shebang from start to finish.”

  “I would love to!” I exclaimed, clapping and hopping up and down like a cranked-up game-show contestant.

  “Are you going to keep doing that?” she asked, lifting her eyebrow.

  I bit my lip and stopped with the hopping. “No.”

  “We’ll get along just fine, then.”

  Now, That’s a Spicy Vampire!

  5

  It was a matter of timing. Sam never left the basement door unlocked while he was awake. So in the window of time between his warming up his “wake-up” blood and showering, I managed to slip into the basement to do my dirty work and ducked out the front door before he saw me.

  Jolene had invited me to join her book club for the evening, despite the fact that I hadn’t read The Night Circus. I’d expected a bunch of frustrated housewives slugging back wine in some well-appointed suburban living room. And while there was wine, the group was made up of open, friendly gals who met at a funky little bookshop called Specialty Books.

  The interior of the shop was a cheerful mix of paperback pop culture and antique tomes. The walls were painted a cheerful midnight blue, with a sprinkle of twinkling silver stars. There were comfy purple chairs and café tables arranged around the room in little conversation groups. The leaded-glass and maple cabinet that held the cash register displayed a collection of ritual knives and candles that I didn’t quite understand. I was OK with not understanding.

  The store had an impressive selection of cookbooks, everything from Introducing Variety to the Undead Diet to Food Gifts for Faerie Folk. I found a deeply discounted title on drinkable sauces for vampires, but Jane, the shopkeeper and book club organizer, warned me against it. It turned out the recently turned French chef–author had not bothered to test his recipes, and his use of eggs, flour, and purees had made several hapless vampire customers quite ill. Jane only kept the book on the shelves because it was something of a cookbook cautionary tale.

  Jane was a vampire, as were her manager, Andrea, and several members of the club. At first, I worried that it was a setup, that Sam had somehow managed to round up some of his undead friends to strong-arm me out of town. But then Jane referred to me as Jolene’s “pocket-sized new friend,” and I figured that was more humor than one usually found in a paid assailant.

  Jane and Andrea were funny, smart, and snarky as hell, having both been turned in the last five years and having a more human perspective than most vampires. Although they were obviously close, the ladies were polar opposites on the vampire fashion spectrum. Titian-haired Andrea was polished and perfect in a peach sweater set and pearls, while tousled brunette Jane was wearing jeans over her impossibly long legs and a T-shirt touting “Dick Cheney for President—2012.” When I asked her about it, she grumbled that she’d lost a bet with Andrea’s husband.

  After paying lip service to the book of the month, the women broke up into smaller “discussion groups,” and I learned all about Jane’s sordid history in the vampire community, including the fact that she’d been turned after a local drunk mistook her for a deer and shot her. A vampire, Gabriel, to whom Jane was now married, saved her by turning her, and they lived happily ever after. Sort of.

  “Isn’t that an unusual way to be turned?” I asked, sipping the surprisingly tasty latte Andrea had prepared for me. “I mean, you’d think you guys would make it into the news more often if ‘mistaken for a deer and shot’ was the average vampire experience.”

  “Yes, Jane is very unusual,” Andrea said, rolling her eyes. “But she was given a choice about whether she wanted to be turned, which is the norm nowadays. Despite the fact that it’s illegal to turn a human into a vampire against their will, some of us weren’t afforded that luxury. But we make the best of it.”

  I noticed the slightly pained expression on Jane’s face as she gave Andrea’s shoulder a little squeeze. I got the feeling there were details about Andrea’s transition that I was missing, but it would be rude to ask. Andrea shrugged and handed Jane what looked like a mochaccino.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought you guys couldn’t eat human food.”

  “We don’t. But Andrea and I have been experimenting for years with all those fancy coffees that folks can’t seem to live without, trying to find ways to make them more palatable for vampires.”

  “Interesting!” I exclaimed. “Would you mind if I asked you about your techniques?”

  “Tess is a chef,” Jolene said proudly. “In one of those big-city restaurants where the paparazzi lie in wait for celebrities.”

  “Jolene made friends with a chef, color me shocked,” Andrea said, smirking and shaking her head.

  Again with the cracks about Jolene’s eating? Had Jolene recently lost a bunch of weight? She’d eaten a pretty hefty lunch at the Three Little Pigs, so she wasn’t dieting. Either way, it was sort of shitty for her friend to poke fun at her.

  I was about to jump to her defense when Jane piped up in a desperate tone, “So, Tess, I’m always interested in how people ended up in their professions. Why did you start cooking?”

  “I’m good at it,” I
said, shrugging.

  Jane didn’t seem satisfied with this and leaned a bit closer, staring into my eyes as if there were secret messages written on my corneas. “But you didn’t know that until you started. And that’s what I was asking, how did you start cooking?”

  A bit rattled by Jane’s gaze and feeling very much like a lobster over a pot of boiling water, I blurted out, “Cooking made sense, even when I was a kid. You put eggs, milk, and cinnamon on bread, you got French toast. As long as I followed the rules, I knew what the outcome would be. It was one of the few areas of my life that was predictable. And most of the time, if my parents were eating something I made, their mouths were too full to bicker. It was quite the incentive.”

  My mouth snapped shut like a steel trap. I stirred my cappuccino, shocked that I’d said so much. I rarely talked about my parents, even with Chef. Hell, in those two sessions of therapy I’d attended, I hadn’t said more than, “My parents were well-intentioned but selfish people who would probably be making each other—and me by extension—miserable today if they hadn’t died.”

  “Do you mind if I ask why you’re so curious about vampires?” Jane asked, sensing somehow that I needed a change in topics. “Jolene said you would probably have some questions for us.”

  I cleared my throat, commanding my brain to produce more polite conversation. “Oh, I live with one. Not quite voluntarily.”

  “Anyone we know?” Andrea asked.

  “Sam Clemson,” I said.

  Andrea and Jane both tilted their heads and gave me the “aw” face. “Poor Sam.” Jane sighed.

  “Why ‘poor Sam’?” I asked. “I mean, other than he’s married to a ring-tailed bitch.”

  Silence. My comment was met with complete, stone-faced silence. I bit my lip, afraid that I’d offended my new acquaintances. But then Jane burst out laughing and exclaimed, “Thank you!” while Andrea rolled her eyes.