Here Comes the Vampire (13 page)

I sat in the backseat of a stretch black limo, all by my lonesome since my mother had loaded me in under the pretense of giving me the royal, solo treatment, and then climbed into her own car with Louise and Allison. Undoubtedly, they planned on ditching me after the makeover.

Let ‘em try.

I’d made up my mind and I wasn’t going down without a fight, or at least a new pair of Constanzo sandals to make the slow slide into misery a little more bearable.

I also wasn’t going back to work until I managed to get Riley off my back, and so I called Evie as soon as I had the chance to tell her to stay away from Dead End Dating.

Not because there was a killer stalking me and I worried for her safety, but because we had big gonzo rats and I needed to have the place fumigated.

“You can’t go into work,” I told her before she could tell me why it had taken her so long to pick up the phone. “It’s too dangerous.”

“You’re telling me. The doctor says I have the flu—H1N1—and everyone I come into contact with is at risk.”

“Fuckin’ A,” I murmured, sending up a silent thank you that something had finally gone my way.

“What did you just say?”

“I said no fuckin’
way
. The flu? Really?”

“I’ll be out at least a week,” she murmured. “You should get checked out and get some Tamiflu before the symptoms start. I’m sure you were exposed.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.”
Not
. “Listen, you take care of yourself and don’t worry about anything at the office. I’m on it.”

“But who’s going to answer phones while you work?” She punctuated the question with a loud, crackling cough.

“Actually, I closed up shop for a few days and I’m working long-distance. My mom’s on this reception kick and I’m trying to do everything I can do dissuade her. I figured I would be more effective right here in Connecticut njus"4n th.”

“Why don’t you just talk to Remy and tell him how you feel? Maybe he’ll give you an annulment.”

And maybe my mother would win the Nobel Peace Prize.

“I’ll work it out.”

“I wish I could help.”

“You just get better and steer clear of the office.”

“Yes, boss.”

I hit the OFF button just as the car pulled to a stop. Fighting down a wave of nerves, I gathered my courage, morphed into Vampzilla and climbed out.

#

I’d meant the makeover as a chance to show my mother just how overbearing and obnoxious I could be, but she’d turned the tables on me with one phone call to her Huntress buddies for back-up.

That’s the real reason I’d been flying solo in the limo.

She’d stopped to pick up three extra women while the rest had rushed to the salon in a show of female vamp solidarity (and to get the inside scoop on my sudden commitment to Remy straight from the horse’s mouth). That, and my mother had also promised them unlimited refreshments, free salon services and goody bags filled with everything from makeup to hair products.

What? No vamp in her right mind would pass up freebies.

I shoved one hand inside the shiny white gift bag and unearthed a tube of Chanel’s Succulent Red lip shine. While my mom sucked in the touchy/feely mommy department, she did have immaculate taste in cosmetics. A tingle of excitement went through me and temporarily distracted me from the endless chatter surrounding me.

“...and so I told him, Roget, this is the twenty-first century. You can’t leave a dead body sitting in the marble fountain out front. It’s too conspicuous. You have to get rid of the evidence. Just chop them up and stash them in the cellar like my dear
grandpere
used to do.”

A collective murmur of agreement went through the group of tastefully dressed BVs that filled
Chantal’s
, Fairfield’s most elite full-service salon and spa.

My mother had handed over her credit card for a full evening of beauty to the salon’s owner, a fellow Huntress member and Remy’s second cousin. Chantal had happily called in every tech on staff, along with three dozen Tremaines to meet the new edition to the family. Each chair was full. Every nail file buzzed, every footbath bubbled. The place reeked of paraffin wax, nail polish remover, foamy lavender footbath, eucalyptus massage oil and imported blood.

A French maid named Lulu floated through the room, handing out glasses and topping everyone off.

“...we’ve got bones in our cellar, too.”

“We used to have bones until Alexander went on this cleaning frenzy and cleared out all the remains so that he could make room for a few torture devices. He likes to play with his food before he eats it.”

“My Mel does that, but we don’t use the cellar. We use our pool cabana. That way there’s no stench in the house.”

“What about Remy?” All eyes swiveled towards me. “Does he like to play with his food?”

“I don’t think so,” I heard myself say. While Remy wasn’t my favorite vampire at the moment, he wasn’t a sadistic bastard like most others, either. I knew for a fact that he stuck to the bottled stuff and acted, for the most part, like an all-around decent guy.

The proof? I’d texted him the time and place to meet the event planner, along with a frantic
Be on time or I’ll cut off every major body part
, and instead of telling me what a demanding bee-yotch I was, he’d texted back a
See ya then
and a smiley face.

Seriously.

Guilt niggled at me and I took a swig of the filthy expensive AB-. A few more generous gulps and I fou slpsth=nd myself thinking that maybe, just maybe being committed to him wasn’t all
that
bad. I could do worse than a good looking, filthy rich, uber patient chief of police who actually respected my feelings enough to use an emoticon—

Ugh. I
so
needed to get more sleep. My brain was going soft. I forced my fingers to let loose of the glass and reminded myself what a horrible, awful, tragic situation I was stuck in.

And what a horrible, awful, tragic situation this makeover was supposed to be for my mother who seemed to be enjoying herself.

She beamed at the load of compliments floating around about her ultra good taste and how her patience with her ungrateful daughter (yours truly) had finally paid off in a major way and how this reception was going to be
the
social event of the year.

I stiffened. Time to stop the madness.

“Are you kidding me?” I cried, holding up my nails as if I’d never seen anything so appalling. The room went completely silent. “It’s all wrong.
Wrong
. I wanted an American manicure, not French.” I stood up and stomped my foot. No, really. “It has to be American, with round tips, not square. I
hate
square.”

“I’ll fix it,” offered the startled technician as she tried to coax me back into my seat. “I’m so sorry, miss. I could have sworn you asked for our ultra deluxe French package.”

Okay, so I might have said something that sounded like
French
and
package
. But that was before I’d come up with the super fantabulous idea of making a scene. I gave the tech a wink and an apologetic smile before shrieking, “I need American!” to everyone else. “And forget a red pedi. I need yellow polish for my toes. Buttercup, to be more specific. Or maybe sunshine.”

“Sunshine?” My mother’s brow wrinkled. “Vampires don’t do sunshine, dear.”

“Or lemon. I haven’t decided. I just know that yellow will go perfect with the daisies and baby’s breath that I ordered for the reception.”

“You mean blood red roses.” My mother nailed me with a gaze. “That’s what
I
ordered. To go with the black color scheme.”

I made a face. “Black just seems so drab. And red is just too...
yuck
.” What? Being a pompous, demanding, spoiled vampire wasn’t enough because, hey, we were all pompous, demanding and spoiled. No, I had to be a pompous, demanding, spoiled,
rebellious
vampire if I really wanted to stir things up. “That’s why I called the florist and changed the flowers.”

“You did
what
...” For the first time, she actually looked at a loss for words. “But I...” She stiffened. “But we...” She fought to gather her composure while a roomful of nosey vamps gave her their complete and undivided attention. “But black is my favorite color,” she finally managed. “And red... We
have
to have red. It’s the color of our very essence. It’s bold. It’s powerful. It’s--”

“—morbid,” I finished for her.

Her eyes widened. “Exactly.”

Agreement floated through the group, followed by a wave of nodding heads.

“Morbid is a must-have for any vampire wedding.”

“I had morbid.”

“So did I.”

“Me, too.”

My mother’s gaze clashed with mine. “What’s wrong with morbid?”

“Nothing, if you’re like a zillion years old, which you are.” I glanced around. “You all are. But I’m only five hundred,”
and holding
, “and I want something that says young. Vivacious.
Fun
. That’s why I’m going with yellow. Either buttercup. Or sunshine. Or the lemon.”

My mother looked ready to choke, but then Louise smirked and handed her a glass of blood. “Drink up, dear. At sup,/p> least she didn’t say pink.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Now that’s good stuff.” I motioned to the half-empty champagne flute sitting in front of me.

It was stop two on the Vampzilla tour and I was sitting with my mother and Remy at Renoit’s Fine Beverage Emporium, aka the house of blood.

I’d arranged the tasting via cell at Chantal’s while my mother had hidden her embarrassment over the color scheme change behind a cucumber facial.

She looked anything but rejuvenated as she sipped glass after glass of imported beverages, despite the fact that she’d already ordered and paid for a zillion bottles of her favorite.

“I still think we should go with the
French Peasant
.”

“It’s nice, but I like this one.” I did a mental eeny-meeny-miny-moe and grabbed one of the half-full glasses. “What about you, Remy?” He’d shown up as instructed just as my mother had finished her facial to accompany us to the tasting. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s fine.”

“But do you like it?”

“I guess so.” He shrugged and cast an impatient stare at his cell phone as if waiting for something important. “It’s all right.”

“I don’t want
all right
. I want great.”

“It’s great, Lil. It works. Just order it already.” He eyed me as if he couldn’t quite believe I was going off the deep end, but then the surprise seemed to pass and he was back to staring at his cell.

Smart man.

The wedding bug could bite even the most serious, level-headed individual. I’d seen it firsthand when one of my best friends, Nina Two of the infamous Ninas, had married Wilson just last year. Always sane and levelheaded, she’d morphed into a raving lunatic weeks before the commitment ceremony. She’d gone on a binge to find the perfect blue napkins. That would be cerulean, not indigo or cornflower or any other shade out there. Personally, I would have gone with silver and called it a day. But not Nina. She’d been determined. Excited. Obsessed.

Ditto for Mandy when she’d married my brother Jack. She’d been nutso over everything from dresses to those tiny bottles of bubbles. Bottles that had looked more ivory when she’d specifically requested
white
.

“But what about this one?” I grabbed another glass and took a sip. “This one is great, too.”

“Yeah, yeah. They’re all great.” He texted a quick message before glancing back up. “Any one of them would work.”

“But which one is your favorite?”

“I don’t have a favorite. I like them all.”

“You’re not helping. We have to pick one.”

“Okay, fine.” He grabbed a glass. “Order this one.”

“That’s the one you like?”

“Sure.”

“But I don’t want you to just like it. I want you to love it.”

“I love it.”

“Really?” I made a face. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s good. I just don’t know that it’s the right one for the reception.” I grabbed another. “What about this one? Do you like this one?”

“Yeah, yeah. I like it.”

“But do you love it?”

Rinse and repeat for ten more bottles and my mother looked ready to stab herself while Remy looked as if he wanted to stab me.

“I think we’ll take them all,” I told the owner of Renoit’s. Twenty cases of each.”

“Twenty?” Remy quickly forgot his cell phone as his cheap BV roots kicked in. “We don’t need twenty cases of each. thi v/p> tcell phon

“You’re right, dear.” I turned to Wilhelm Renoit, the owner, and smiled. “Order thirty cases of each. Wow,” I glanced at my watch while Remy’s face went from vampire white to blood red, “would you look at the time? We’ve got to go if we want to make our next appointment.”

“The country club,” my mother quipped.

“Actually, I postponed that until tomorrow.” I beamed. “We’re going dress shopping.”

My mother looked puzzled for a split-second before realizing her good fortune. “Finally she makes some sense. I’ll call the boutique—“

“Not the boutique.” My smile widened. “I really want this entire event to be special. Personal. So I made us an appointment at the Wedding Wonderland.”

“The
what
?”

“It’s a one-stop shop for happily ever afters.”

Jacqueline frowned. “Why does that sound oddly familiar?”

“Because it’s where Mandy found her dress.”

“You don’t mean that horrible, awful place in Queens?”

“That would be the one. Let’s go. The Ninas are meeting us there. And Mandy, too.”

“Queens,” my mother said as if she couldn’t quite get past the Mapquest coordinates. “
Queens
?”

Meanwhile Remy’s phone beeped and he stood up. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard all evening. You ladies have fun and I’ll see you later.”

“Oh, you’re coming, too.” He stopped dead in his tracks and I beamed. “For moral support.”

#

They say confession is good for the soul. Being a denizen of the dark (and because I’d put that poor lady in traction at the last Nordstrom’s sale), I need all the help I can get. So here goes...