Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men

by Молли Харпер

  He’s trying to get back at you.”

  “For what?”

  “For not loving him back!” Mama Ginger cried.

  “Zeb doesn’t love me. He loves Jolene,” I said in a slow, deliberate tone one might use with someone who was very dim or slightly drunk. Or both.

  “But you’re the perfect match, you always have been. You have such a long history together. You can’t just throw that away. Hot pants and hormones do not make a marriage. Believe me, honey, I should know. I married for lust, and look what happened to me: a husband who doesn’t talk and in-laws who talk too damn much. What you have, friendship and companionship, that’s what makes a solid, lasting marriage. That’s what is going to make my boy happy.”

  “Please, God, let that be the last time you ever say ‘hot pants’ in front of me.”

  “It’s always been you and Zeb, in my head.” Mama Ginger paused to press her fingers to her temples, as if she were about to peer into a future where I was somehow living and bearing her lots and lots of little Lavelles. “Whenever I pictured Zeb’s wedding, it was always you walking down that aisle.”

  “You’re just not making sense right now,” I told her. “If you’d just get to know Jolene, you’d see why Zeb loves her so much.”

  “She’s not you! When you and Zeb are married, we’ll be the perfect, big happy family.

  You and Zeb can come over for dinner every other night. We’ll go to flea markets on the weekends. And I’m sure Mamaw or Daddy Lavelle would be dead by the time you and Zeb started having babies, so you could move right into one of the trailers behind the house.”

  I think I might have sprained something trying to keep a straight face in response to that.

  “But if you really want a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship like that, Jolene would be more than willing to do all of those things with you. She wants to be close to you.”

  “But it won’t be the same. That’s not the way I pictured it.”

  “But it would be the way Zeb pictures it. I don’t want Zeb. And he doesn’t want me. He wants Jolene. Isn’t it important to let him have some say in choosing his wife?”

  “Oh, he’s a man, he doesn’t know what he wants.” She snorted. “If I didn’t help him figure out what’s best for him, what kind of mother would I be?”

  The kind of mother whose son doesn’t dodge her calls?

  “You’re going to see things my way soon enough,” Mama Ginger insisted.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I just want to help you and Zeb figure some things out, honey,” Mama Ginger said, standing up and hitching her bag over her shoulder. “Well, this was fun, but I’ll just let myself out. I have to go meet with Jolene’s mama over at the Bridal Barn to talk about dresses for the wedding, like I need fashion advice from that dowdy thing. Vonnie’s making some big deal about keeping the shop open late.”

  I stared after her as she toddled toward the back door. She smiled beatifically at me. “If you ever want to talk, give me a call.”

  I sat at the counter, staring at the untouched oozy layers of pastry on my plate, my head spinning. Aunt Jettie appeared next to the sink, her lips quirked into a sneer.

  “What is that?” she asked, pointing at the remains of Mama Ginger’s cobbler. “It’s like an autopsy with fruit.”

  “Mama Ginger came calling, to set the alarm on my biological clock. Oh, and to remind me that there’s no point to me being a woman if I never have children.”

  “Well, if that’s true, I wasted a hell of a lot of money on panty hose and lipstick.” Jettie snorted.

  “I don’t know where this is coming from. Why would she say something like that? And why am I letting it bother me? It’s not like I can just decide to turn my lady parts back on.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t you think I heard the same thing my whole life?” she said, stroking her cold, insubstantial fingers down my back. Her voice pitched up two octaves. “ ‘Don’t you know you’re wasting your life? You’re going to end up alone with no one to take care of you when you get old. What makes you think you’re too good to get married and have babies like you’re supposed to?’ Most of that was just your grandma Ruthie. You have to ignore them.”

  “But don’t you ever regret it?” I asked. “Not having children of your own?”

  “I didn’t need to have children of my own.” She grinned. “I had you. I cared for you, taught you, learned from you. I may not have carried you in my womb, but I always carried you in my heart.”

  “If I wasn’t thinking about your womb right now, that would have been such a sweet sentiment,” I said, leaning my forehead against her ghostly noggin.

  “Do you feel better now?” she asked.

  “Eh.” I waffled my hand. “I’d feel better if I could eat about a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s without vomiting.”

  When Gabriel finally called three days later to let me know he was back in town, I decided it was time for me to take some initiative. With my ever-present fear of being a needy childe, I usually waited around for him to call. But I figured a little manufactured romance was just the thing to get me out of my Mama Ginger-induced funk. I slipped into a silky red T-shirt and jeans and marched out the door to see him. Or at least I would have, had I not opened the door to find Adam Morrow standing on my porch. And because I had a bit of momentum going, I ran smack into him and, in my panic, lifted him by the armpits to move him out of my way.

  “Adam!” I shrieked.

  He made a gurgling sound as I dropped a limp pile of veterinarian onto my porch.

  “Adam, I’m so sorry,” I said, picking him up and settling him back on his feet.

  “It’s OK,” he said, clutching a squashed box, which I could now smell was flowers. “It was kind of cool.”

  “What are you doing all the way out here?”

  “I wanted to see you,” he said, uncrumpling the box and straightening the shiny red bow attached. “And I see now that surprising a vampire is not a good idea.”

  I stared at him, my mouth open, gaping like a suffocating goldfish.

  “Yeah, I figured out the vampire thing,” he said, a sheepish blush coloring his cheeks. Oh, man, even in the dark, that just made him cuter. “At the visitation that night, I didn’t see you eat anything. And, well, no one sees you during the day anymore. You don’t have to worry. I won’t tell anyone. I just wanted to—I just wanted to see you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. And I’ve never known a real vampire before.”

  I laughed. “I’m so glad I could be the first.”

  “These are for you,” he said, offering me the mangled box. “It’s jasmine. I thought you might like it. It’s night-blooming.”

  “That was thoughtful,” I told him.

  Adam Morrow brought me flowers. On the checklist of “Teenage Daydreams That Will Probably Never Happen to Me,” that was number one. Now, all I had to do was make out with one of the straight members of ‘N Sync and star in a movie with Hugh Grant.

  Unsure what to do with the box, I opened the door. A boulder of fur flew at us, giving me a full-on tongue bath. After deeming me sufficiently licked, Fitz turned his attentions to Adam, a strange man in dark clothes standing on our porch. Fitz is adorable in his own hideous way, but as a security system, he’s pretty much useless.

  “Hey, boy.” Adam grinned, rubbing Fitz’s muzzle as I led them into the living room.

  “You’re just a whole bunch of breeds, aren’t you?”

  Adam was not my vet, because the idea of spazzing out in front of him every time Fitz needed a checkup was not a happy one. Fitz proved to be a fascinating Mendelian model for him. I guess Adam had never seen a dog with eyes and ears that were each a different color. Fitz leaned into the scratching and let his tongue loll out to full length, useless and prideless.

  “So, you’re not weirded out at all by this?” I asked, drawing my lips back from my fangs.

  “No,” he insisted. “Like I said, it’s really interesting. Yo
u’ve changed a lot since high school.”

  I snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

  Aunt Jettie appeared behind Adam and gave me a big thumbs-up. With Adam concentrating on Fitz, I mouthed, “I know!” and shooed her away. Jettie grinned and vanished.

  “What’s it like? What’s it like to be a vampire?” he asked.

  “Weird,” I said, looking at him. “Powerful, exciting, and occasionally humiliating, confusing, and painful. It’s sort of like going through puberty all over again. Nothing about my life is the same. But there are some good things. Awesome night vision, for one.

  I’m still trying to balance things out. I mean, when we were taking those aptitude tests on Career Day, vampirism was not something that came up. I never could have predicted my life turning out this way, but I’ll have the best story at our class reunion.”

  Adam looked up and blurted, “I was wondering if you might want to go to dinner sometime?”

  “I don’t really eat,” I said.

  “Oh, right,” he said, slapping his forehead. “Well, what about coffee? Or we can stay in and watch a movie if you’re more comfortable with that. I’m up for anything. Just—I would like to spend time with you. What are you doing tonight?”

  “I was actually heading out to see my friend. The friend I mentioned at the funeral. The … man friend.”

  Adam’s face fell a little bit. “You’re not making this easy for me, are you, Jane?”

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to make it easy for you,” I said. “In fact, when I was a teenager, my mother gave me several lectures on why I shouldn’t make this easy for you.”

  He laughed. “Well, you can’t blame me for trying. Anytime you want to hang out, even if it’s just as friends. I mean, I don’t want to be just friends with you, but I’ll take what I can—I’m not saying this right.” He backed away from me, negotiating the steps without even looking down. “Just call me sometime, please.”

  Giddy little butterflies danced around my belly. I brushed my cheeks with my fingertips and found a big silly grin stretched across my face.

  “Adam Morrow wants to date me,” I told Aunt Jettie, who stood next to me as I watched him drive away. “That’s weird.”

  “That’s one very sweet boy.” Jettie nodded. “Respectful, thoughtful, and kind. His mama raised him right.”

  “I know.” I sighed, taking the flowers into the kitchen and putting them into one of Jettie’s favorite pressed-glass vases. Jettie nodded. “Nice ass, too.”

  “Gross.” I shuddered.

  She smirked. “I’m dead, not blind, honey.”

  “And still, I say, ew.” I grabbed my purse and slipped into my coat. On a whim, I grabbed Jettie’s old wicker picnic hamper out of the front closet. “I don’t have time for this. I need to go be confused by the man I’m actually dating.”

  As it turned out, Gabriel was the one confused.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as he opened his front door before I could even knock.

  It was more than the weary tone that had little alarm bells going off in my head. Gabriel’s face was drawn and pinched. His eyes were a dull slate color and lacked the spark I’d come to expect. He looked almost ill. This was more than just traveler’s stress. Something was wrong. But I could tell by his guarded expression that asking would leave me without answers and alone on a perfectly good date night.

  “Nothing,” I said, smiling to hide my worries. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “You never come to see me unless you’re angry or something has gone wrong.”

  I gasped, feigning hurt. “That’s not true.”

  “The first time you were here, you came storming up my front steps because I’d sent Andrea over to your house. The last time you were here, it was because Zeb and Jolene were on the verge of collapse. We never spend time here. I’m always at your place.”

  “You know, you’re right. I’m so sorry. I’m terrible at the relationship thing.”

  He shrugged. “You just like to be comfortable.” He sniffed slightly, then ran the tip of his nose down my hairline. I took this as a sweet, intimate gesture, until he asked, “Why do you smell like a German shepherd?”

  I stared at him, thinking maybe this was some sort of bizarre riddle, when I realized Adam’s eau de canine had probably rubbed on me when I’d plowed into him. I blew out a startled laugh. “Oh, I ran into an old friend from high school, Adam Morrow. He’s a vet, and he must have had some leftover dog residue on him.”

  “You ran into him on the drive over here?” Gabriel asked.

  “No, he dropped by the house to say hi, just as I was walking out the door,” I said, the suspicion in his voice setting off my “babble” response. “It’s no big deal. It’s really kind of funny. It’s this boy I used to have this huge crush on when were kids, but he never looked twice at me. I was this gawky band geek, and he was the most popular boy in our class.

  But now that I’ve been turned, and grown out of my braces, I guess he’s interested in me.

  I told him I was seeing someone. And it’s too little, too late, obviously. I mean, I’m a grown woman, and it was just a silly schoolgirl fantasy crush thing. I’m over him.

  Completely. Totally. Completely and totally over him.”

  Gabriel grimaced, his features radiating doubt and discomfort. Maybe that second

  “completely and totally” was overselling it.

  “So, take me on the tour,” I suggested, changing the subject far too enthusiastically. “I’ve only seen two rooms of your house. The parlor and your bedroom.”

  “That wasn’t my bedroom,” he said. “That was a guest room.”

  “You left your fledgling vampire childe to rise in your guest room?”

  His lips twitched, and I could see him slowly coming out of his bad humor. “Where would you put a fledgling vampire childe to rise?”

  I paused to think about it. “I don’t know. So, show me your bedroom. And I mean that in a perfectly respectable home-tour kind of way.”

  Gabriel’s bedroom was surprising. I’d expected something lavish and baroque. Sort of Henry VIII meets Rudolph Valentino. But the walls were bare, a pale blue edging toward purple, the color of the sky just after dawn. The bed was wide and soft but plain, something you’d order from Ikea and then immediately regret. A thick navy tapestry curtain was pulled back, revealing a broad cushioned window seat, the only seating in the room. And his bathroom featured a shower big enough for six. He specifically mentioned that, which, frankly, worried me.

  I ducked my head into his closet. Black as far as the eye could see. Black T-shirts, black sweaters, black button-down shirts, black slacks, broken up only by occasional splashes of slate gray.

  “You ever thought about wearing a print?” I asked. “Maybe even a jewel tone? One of the less intense colors. Blue. Green. How about red? We know you like that one. Wait, are you color-blind?”

  “I don’t wear jewel tones,” Gabriel muttered, leading me back out into the bedroom. “Or prints.”

  There were no pictures, no mirrors, nothing on the walls save for a print of Edvard Munch’s Vampire, an ambiguous portrait of a seminude redheaded woman with her arms around and head bent over a dark-haired man. I stood, studying the image with a tilted head. Is he the vampire? Is she? Is he simply a lover seeking comfort at his redhead’s breast? Or are they two humans cowered in the shadow of the dark form looming behind them?

  “What do you think of it?” he asked.

  “It’s beautiful and sad and vague,” I said.

  “You know, the original title of the painting was Love and Pain,” he said. “An art critic picked up on the underlying vampiric theme, and the name stuck. Munch experts were and are horrified, but you can’t deny the subconscious imagery.”

  “You know, his ears are sort of shaped like yours,” I commented, looking from the slightly pointed painted ovals to Gabriel’s own lobes.

  Gabriel grinned. “The artist found the back of my head to
be quite compelling.”

  “So, this is an altar to your vanity?” I asked, teasing.

  “I enjoy the irony. A man interpreting me as a vampire but being told it’s impossible. What brought you rushing to my front door if it wasn’t bad news?” he asked as I pulled him back down the stairs toward the surprise I’d brought for him. He offered more than a little resistance as I pulled him farther and farther from the bedroom.

  “I thought we might actually leave the house for a date. I figured we’ve covered the couch date. You are master of the corner lean and the casual backrub that might lead to something. I thought you might like to up the degree of difficulty. It’s time to leave the comfort of the make-out couch, Gabriel. Let’s go out to see a movie.”

  He arched his eyebrows at me as I pulled him to the foyer.

  “Moving images projected onto a screen in front of a darkened room full of people.” He shot me a withering look. “And since I don’t think even your broad horizons are quite ready for the Hollow Cineplex, I thought we would visit the dollar theater.”

  “The dollar theater?”

  “The old two-screen place downtown. They show old movies for a dollar a ticket. It’s sort of a gamble. Sometimes you see the ending, sometimes the film melts. But the seats are cushy, and there’s a lot of ambience.”

  “You mean the Palladium?”

  I chewed my lip. “I think that’s what the sputtering neon sign says.”

  “The Palladium used to be the premier moving-picture palace in this end of the state. I saw my first film there, Casablanca.”

  “You waited until the 1940s to see your first movie?”

  He shrugged. “I had things to do.”

  “Well, now the Palladium is the place where you can buy a bucket of beer with some very stale popcorn.”

  “But … all those humans.”

  “We’re vampires. If someone talks during the movie, we tear their throats out. Come on, I wore my cute date shoes and everything.”