Undead and Unreturnable (15 page)

"… and then you jumped off the roof of the mortuary and got run over by a garbage truck."

"Jon, there's no need to read it back to me; I know the story."

He laughed. "It's an incredible story! I'm reading it back to be sure I'm not fucking up anything. As it is, no one's going to think this is real."

"Well, good." We were in the entryway, and I was shrugging into my coat. Laura was here, coming up the walk, and she and I were baby-sitting Baby Jon tonight. "Because the whole point is, you're
pretending
it's a real bio about a vampire."

"I know, I know, you only told me a million times. Let's see…"

"Jon, I
gotta
go. Can we pick this up tomorrow?"

"Yeah, let me just be sure I've got everything so far… you tried to drown yourself in the Mississippi River, you tried to electrocute yourself, tried to poison yourself with a bottle of bleach, and then stole a butcher knife and tried to stab yourself to death? Is that all?"

"Uh…" I wasn't about to go into the rapists I'd accidentally killed. "Pretty much."

Laura walked in—I'd told her weeks ago to stop with the knocking already—and said cheerfully, as she always did, "Good evening, darling sister. Ready to go?"

"Yeah." So, so ready. I wasn't up for another round of
This Is Your Life
. "Laura, have you met Jon? Jon, this is my sister, Laura."

She was having her usual effect on men, I could see: Jon had dropped his Sidekick. And hadn't noticed. Dust was probably cramming its delicate little circuits, and Jon hadn't noticed.

Instead, he was staring at my sister, and I couldn't blame him: she made Michelle Pfeiffer look like a hag. Tonight she was wearing moon boots (they were in, then out, and now in again, and I didn't care how often they came back in, I hated them, I wasn't a damn astronaut), black jeans, and a huge dark blue
poofy
parka that should have made her look like a blonde Michelin Man but, because God was cruel, did not.

"You never told me you had a sister," he said, looking deep into Laura's blue, blue eyes.

"You never told me you had a Jon." She giggled, obviously liking what she saw as well.

"I never told you I have a bleeding ulcer, either. Barf out, you guys. Come on, Laura, we'll be late."

"It was nice meeting you," she said, holding out a
mittened
hand.

"
Meetcha
, too," he mumbled, still gaping. He had goose bumps as big as cherries, but he didn't seem to notice he was standing shirtless in subzero cold.

"I hope to see you again soon."

"
Blurble
," he replied. At least that's what I think he said.

"Well, 'bye!" I said loudly—no mistaking
that
, I hoped. I practically pushed Laura out the front door and slammed it behind us.

"Oh, he was cute!" she was already gushing as we walked to the car. I trudged; she skipped. "Where do you know him from? Does he have a girlfriend? Of course he has a girlfriend."

"Laura, take a pill."

"Only if you stop being one," she
snarked
back. A
mittened
hand flew to her perfect, bow-shaped mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry! It's just… I'm a little nervous about tonight."

"Baby Jon won't bite. He doesn't have any teeth. He might puke on you, though."

"I've baby-sat before," she said happily. "It won't be the first time."

"Heck, I've been on dates that weren't so pleasant."

The Ant greeted us with, "Get inside quick! There's a killer on the loose!" She grabbed me by the jacket collar—the first time she'd touched me in years—and hauled me into the foyer. Laura hurried in behind me just in time to avoid the door being slammed in her face.

"Those aren't killers," I explained, unbuttoning my coat. "They're Cub Scouts. They just want to sell you some wreaths and wrapping paper."

"Very funny, Betsy." The Ant was quite the wreath herself in a dress of poison green, which she had trimmed with a glittery red belt two inches wide, long fake red fingernails, and large red hoop earrings. Her lipstick matched her accessories, and her eyelids were as blue as the
Caribbean. Her fake eyelashes were so long I at first thought a couple centipedes had crawled up there and died.

"No, it's the Driveway Killer," she was insisting, helping Laura (Laura had that effect on people) off with her big puffy coat. "He struck again! Took one of my neighbors right out of her driveway. At first we thought she'd, you know, just left—her husband—" The Ant made the universal "
drinky
drinky
" motion with her thumb and forefinger. "But then her body turned up in the parking lot of the

"
Er
," was all Laura managed. The Ant could tax even her formidable powers of niceness.

"I'm sorry about your neighbor," I said, and I meant it, though the sentiment was probably wasted on the Ant, who apparently thought where your body turned up was far more important than how you lived your life.

"She was just minding her own business, coming in the house—or going, we're not sure which—and he
grabbed her
. I've been scared out of my wits ever since!"

"That's hard to imagine," I said sweetly.

"So you have to be very careful around here, girls."

I assumed she was talking to Laura.

"If something happened to you, I don't know what I'd do."

I was, against all my better instincts, touched. "Aw, Antonia. I don't know what to say."

"We'll be careful," Laura promised.

The baby monitor was on the little table for the car keys, and we could hear a thin wailing coming out from it. "Please, please be careful! Nobody else will sit with Baby Jon while he's like this."

"Jesus, Antonia. He's got colic, not rabies."

"And I'm late."

"We got here right on time, so I don't want to hear anything out of you. When did he eat last?"

"The baby nurse left all that on a note on the fridge." The Ant was putting on her black wool coat. Her hair didn't move, which was a good trick considering it was shoulder length. "The party is supposed to be over around one."

"Where is Mr. Taylor?" Laura asked.

"Oh, he's…" The Ant made a vague gesture. "Don't worry, if I have too much to drink I'll get a cab."

"Thank goodness," I said. "If you get too blitzed, just take a nap in the driveway and wait around for company."

She glared. "I suppose you think you're being funny again."

I glared. "A little funny."

Laura walked in the direction of the kitchen.

The Ant left.

I went upstairs, scooped up my squalling brother, and snuggled him to my shoulder while he gasped and decided to knock off with the crying. My finely tuned vampire senses informed me he didn't need a diaper change.

We went back downstairs and caught up with Laura, who was standing at the main counter reading a careful, detailed note signed Jennifer Clapp, R.N.

"She has a baby nurse, and she needs us?" She clucked her tongue at Jon, who grunted in return.

"The nurse only works business hours. And my dad put his foot down about a night nurse when the Ant's home all day."

"Mr. Taylor said no to her?"

"It happens occasionally." Propping Jon's well-cushioned bottom on my forearm and his head on my shoulder, I opened the fridge and grimaced. It was full of skim milk, iceberg lettuce, soy sauce, Egg Beaters, and bottles of formula. If I was alive, that'd be a real problem. Poor Laura!

And "Mr. Taylor"? Laura's biological father. Nobody knew that little factoid but me, her, and the devil.

It was really complicated and would have even been silly if it wasn't so frightening. See, the devil possessed my stepmother for a while. And I think it's telling to report the Ant was (is!) such a miserable human being that
no one
noticed. I mean, how
friggin
' unbelievable is that?

"Oh, you're evil and insane and running over pedestrians with your bicycle and granting evil wishes and encouraging people to jump off tall buildings… same old, same old, eh, Antonia?"

Anyway. So my dad's second wife was possessed by the devil for a while, yes, that's right,
the
devil, and had a baby, my sister Laura. And then went back to Hell.

The Ant, "coming to" with a
drooly
baby to take care of, promptly
dumped
Laura in the waiting room of a hospital and went back to her old life without looking back.

So—here's where it gets weird—the Ant and my dad are Laura's biological parents. And the devil is her mother.
And
Laura was adopted by the
Goodmans
(come on! The
Goodmans
?), and raised in the suburbs of
Minneapolis.

Have I mentioned her unholy hell-powers, like the bow made of hellfire and the way she can eat whatever she wants and never get a pimple?

So. It was a little weird when she referred to our—
her
—father as "Mr. Taylor." It was always "Mr. Taylor" or "Betsy's father." I had no idea how to handle it, so I just let it go. Just another thing hanging over my head like a wobbly guillotine.

"There isn't shit to eat," I announced, shutting the door, "as usual."

"We can have a pizza delivered." She held out her arms, and I handed the baby to her.

"
I
don't care; I can't eat it anyway. It's you I'm worried about. I get desperate enough, I can always drink the bottle of soy sauce.
Mmmm
… salty. Anyway, did you eat supper before you came over?"

"No," she admitted.

"God, how pathetic are we? Don't start," I warned the baby, who had stiffened in Laura's arms and looked ready to start with the yowling again. "I'm thirty and I'm baby-sitting and scrounging in the fridge for a meal. Next I'll be calling my boyfriend to tell him to come over so we can make out."

"At least you have a boyfriend," Laura pointed out.

I smiled sourly and said nothing.

"He's
sooooo
cute," Laura cooed. Tonight Baby Jon was wearing a T-shirt, Pampers, and thick green socks. He'd put on a little weight, but he still looked more like a hairless, angry rat than the plump Gerber babies I saw on TV. "Isn't he just the
darlingest
thing you've ever seen?"