Undead and Unsure (6 page)

“Right.” I shrugged. “Either way, nothing we need to worry about right this minute.”

There was a long silence, broken by BabyJon’s crowed, “Yaarrgg mehn ma!”

“All right,” I told him. “We’re going already.” I tried to take a mental inventory of the nursery. Plenty of diapers, yep. Wipes, uh-huh. Jars of creamed crap, check. Huh. Even though I wasn’t supposed to get him back until tomorrow, I could actually take him today. It was almost like I was a real mom and everything.

“Betsy—Eric—” My mom cut herself off and for a few seconds her mouth opened and closed to no avail. BabyJon, sensing her mood, put his arms out to her so quickly he nearly toppled out of my grip. She took him at once and he chuckled at her and grabbed a fistful of white curls. “I think you—I think there’s something wrong.”

“No, it’s okay. There’s plenty of diapers at the mansion.” For the moment, BabyJon had forgotten all about me, engrossed as he was in trying to ease my mom’s weird distress.

I wouldn’t lie to myself: it hurt to see BabyJon so happy with her. But I’d eat my own tongue before saying anything. For one thing, I should be glad my li’l bro had someone in his life who loved him and cared for him. For another, the whole thing was my fault, anyway. If I wasn’t always dumping him on Mom, he’d love me, too. This was my only real chance to be a mom . . . and I was blowing off the work.

To be fair, there was often a disaster du jour that demanded I drop everything and dart off into the night; vampire queens weren’t built for maternal crises. And it had started as asking my mom for baby-sitting favors I knew she was reluctant to take on. BabyJon was a living symbol of the shipwreck that was her marriage. But she’d known there was nothing to be done about it unless we wanted to have a chat with Social Services. The mere thought would have given me night terrors if I still dreamed.
“Excuse me, but according to this paperwork you’re dead. The State of Minnesota frowns on dead people for guardians. Also, your status as a corpse brings up a few other questions, so why don’t you have a seat?”

So it had started as an annoying chore, but BabyJon’s pretty irresistible, and after a while she was offering to take him for a day here or an overnight there before I asked. Since I altered the timeline, she liked having BabyJon over for his own sweet self, not to do any favors. I wondered if she felt the way I did—that maybe this was her only chance to be a grandmother, however strange the circumstances, so she went from grudging to resigned to loving.

For the first time in a long time, I thought about my late father and wondered what he’d think about his son by his new wife being essentially raised by his ex.

His new wife. Brrrr. Now was not the time to think about the Ant, she of the pineapple hair (color
and
texture) and utter lack of class. And when someone like me is commenting on someone else’s lack of class, that’s how you know it’s really, really bad.

I gave myself a brisk internal shake. “Listen, we’ll get out of your hair. We’ve got to—”

“You know what?” My mom cut me off. “Could I keep him one more night, as planned? Then I’ll drop him off tomorrow. I’d like to see Jessica for myse—I’d like to visit for a while. If that’s convenient.”

Not only that, but courageous.

I glanced at Sinclair; his thought had come through loud and clear. Once upon a time, I couldn’t read minds. Then I could read Sinclair’s, but only during sex. Then I could read him at other times. Then he could read mine. We chalked it up to being an undead monarch thing. We could nearly always hear each other if one or both of us was thinking really hard. But I’d caught that stray thought with no trouble; it was like a bubble had popped up out of nowhere. You’re surprised it’s there, but you know why it’s there, so it’s okay.

Considering that the last time she visited she was faced with Zombie Marc and Ancient Me, yeah, courageous is the word.

Aloud: “Sure, Mom; like I said, we didn’t mean to mess with your plans or anything. And Jess would love to see you. And we could talk—” I looked at Cliiiiiive. “We can catch up.”

So we agreed and said our good-byes and BabyJon was thrilled to be staying and hardly fussed when we left, and all the time my mom had this strange, distracted smile on her face, a smile that never climbed behind her eyes.

Well. Dating Cliiiiiive would probably distract me, too. The important thing was, I was there for her. And stood ready to beat him to death the minute he, I dunno, did something I didn’t like.

Prob’ly wouldn’t be long.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

“Listen,” my mom said again. “Something is very wrong
here. None of you seem to know when Jess got pregnant—”

“Gross,” I commented. “Didn’t ever want or need the details.”

“None of their damned business!” Jess agreed, lightly spraying my mother with toast crumbs.

“—or when she’s due—”

“Next summer, isn’t it?” Marc asked vaguely. He was seated at one of the islands, flipping through the January 2007 ish of
Martha Stewart Living.
He frequently reread the “How to Keep a Sharp Mind” article. Was it ironic that he needed to
re
read an article about staying sharp? “Around the Fourth? Hmm, says here anagrams are a way to go.”

“Is that like a word jumble?”

“No, it’s like when you rearrange all the letters of a word to form new words. Like . . .” He glanced at my mom’s coffee cup and his eyes went milky as he thought. “. . . caribou for cuba rio. Or . . . uh . . . permission. For . . . impression? Yeah, impression.”

“Sounds hard.” I had no gift for puzzles of any kind. No gift, and no love for doing them. If someone whipped out their new crossword puzzle app, I gave serious thought to faking a heart attack.

“Yeah.” He smiled and circled the relevant paragraph. “It does. And—what were we talking about?”

“We were saying Jess is due at the end of the month.”

“No, no,” the lady herself said. “First day of spring. Or something.”

“No, that doesn’t sound right.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Sinclair said, filching a piece of toast from Jessica’s plate and sneaking it to Fur and Burr. “Autumn.”

“Or a New Year’s baby.” I drained the remnants of my smoothie. “It’s . . . you know. Whenever.”

“But it’s sure nice of you to take an interest, Dr. Taylor,” Not-Nick piped up. He’d slipped his toast to Jessica’s plate, probably saving Sinclair’s life in the process. “We registered at Cracker Barrel if you want to know what to get for the baby.”

I gasped at his Freudian slip. “
Crate
and Barrel,” I corrected. “Cracker Barrel’s the restaurant.” Did Crate and Barrel even have baby stuff? I thought it was all yuppie furniture and kitchen accessories. Translation: I’d never set foot in the place and never would. Shit, maybe she really did register at the restaurant.

We were gathered in the mansion’s kitchen, our unofficial conference room. Come to think of it, maybe it was official. We sure had enough meetings there. Mom had brought BabyJon over as she’d threatened, and I’d told the others she wanted to come by and say hello and catch up on all our doings. (“Marc’s a zombie but Ancient Me won’t ever be back, Jessica’s still pregnant, and No-Longer-Nick still doesn’t hate me. We don’t have a cat but Sinclair has two dumb dogs, and the Antichrist hasn’t been around much. We’re out of milk.”)

My mom, embracer of all things bizarre (especially since her only child walked out of an embalming room after dying the first time), was so kind to Marc I almost couldn’t watch. He’d been hanging back a bit, knowing he was different, knowing my mom knew he was different, but not knowing how my mom would react to the changes. I could have told him, but why spoil the surprise? Her reaction was the same as it was to my return from the grave: thank God, thank God, thank God.

“Now we won’t worry about you so much,” she told him, holding both of his hands in hers like he was a child instead of a grown man who towered over her. “Now you can take care of yourself and Betsy even better than before.”

“I didn’t do such a good job with either,” he said with a rueful grin, but his face was lit with relief to be so easily accepted, and he paid close attention to everything my mom said. When she excused herself to use the bathroom, he started to follow her before he caught himself. I failed to hold back my snicker.

He tried to wither me with a faux glare, but even actual glares don’t always work. Then he dropped the act and leaned down to whisper (which was dumb, since almost everyone in the house had superhearing), “She didn’t even mind that I feel different! Like this.” He held out his hands, cool and pale. “And . . .” He gestured to his long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. He couldn’t bear to wear scrubs anymore.

I grabbed his with my own clammy paws. “So you’re permanently chilly now, and you dress better. Welcome to our horrible, horrible club. Four words, Marc, four words that will change your unlife: knee-high fuzzy socks. And also those little hand-warmer dealies the deer hunters use, the ones you keep in your pockets.”

He nodded and actually wrote it down; he kept a cell phone on him nearly always and a small notebook and pen in one of his back pockets. One of the many ways he kept himself engaged.

“Write down ‘the fuzzier the better—my manliness is not as important as being warm so bring on the pink.’ And then write down ‘nothing I buy is too good for Betsy.’”

He snorted but didn’t look up from his scribbling. “I’m sticking with ‘little hand-warmer dealies.’ You should have gone into advertising.”

“And miss all this?” I said dryly, gesturing to the controlled chaos of the kitchen. Except there wasn’t anything controlled about it. Jessica was turning toast into cinnamon toast and then eating it, turning it into fuel for her brand o’ crazy; Not-Nick was showing her something on his cell (it must have been pretty cool, because he was also doing jazz hands); the puppies were frisking around everyone’s ankles . . . for such a big kitchen, it didn’t take many of us to fill it. “Say it ain’t so!”

“You love it, so quit that. You love”—he gestured to the not-controlled chaos—“all of this stuff. At first you didn’t, or pretended you didn’t, but we all grew on you.”

I nodded. “Like lichen. Icky, smelly lichen. Lichen found all over the world, in places you’d think lichen would never be able to flourish. The symbiotic lichen.” At his raised eyebrows, I added, “Eighth grade science report. Isn’t it strange, the stuff you can’t ever get out of your head?”

“Fine, we’re lichen. Point is—these days?—the ‘oh, it’s so awful here with all the weird people and weird stuff going on in our mansion of weird’ is strictly pretending.”

“Nuh-uh!” Blast! Was my cover blown?

“Yuh-huh! The roommates, being queen, being eternally hot and strong and rich, most people in your life liking having you around, the puppies, Sinclair’s mood swing—”

“Mood
swing
? That’s a mood hurricane.”

Ever see a zombie roll his eyes? It’s terrifying. “Jeez, Betsy, sometimes I think if you didn’t have something to bitch about you’d leave town
looking
for something to bitch about.”

Ack! My secret was out! “Tell no one,” I threatened, my fingers sinking into his forearms. “Not unless you want me to blab the major spoiler in
A Storm of Swords.
”

He yelped and pulled his arm free. “Just sayin’. You know you love this shit.”

“Maybe ‘love’ is a little strong . . .” I was super glad he hadn’t called my bluff. Have you seen any one of the
GoT
books? Doorstops. Who has the time? Besides, HBO was doing a pretty good job. More giant books should be made into TV shows and movies. Big time-saver.

“It’s not,” Marc retorted, then went back to his magazine article.

I looked around the restaurant-sized kitchen. Butcher blocks everywhere, dozens of cabinets, multiple fridges and freezers, multiple blenders (we were all hard-core smoothie addicts), multiple drawers, multiple pantries. Every gadget you could think of. Any dish you wanted to make you could whip up right there. It was always warm and bright here; we always felt safe. Well. Safe-ish. “Yeah, well. Keep it to yourself, will ya?”

He gave me a look I translated as
You’re not fooling any of us
, but since it wasn’t out loud I could let it go and keep my pride. Because that’s what it’s all about! Me keeping my pride in the face of everything, all the time.

Ugh, did I really just think that?

CHAPTER

NINE

Before I could wallow further in the black hole of my vanity
and pride, Mom and Tina came into the kitchen. They would have collided but Tina saw it coming and courteously stepped back. Mom, I was sure, had no idea Tina was anywhere near. Certainly not right behind her, as in
Look out! The vampire is right behind you! Also, the call is coming from inside the house!

“All right.” She took a breath, like she was bracing herself to tackle something tricky. Were we out of toilet paper in one of the guest bathrooms? “I want to try to talk to all of you about this again.” She’d shoved open the swinging door (I awaited the day somebody would get smacked with it—swinging kitchen doors always led to smacking hilarity according to every TV show about swinging kitchen doors ever made), then came forward enough for it to swing shut behind her. It didn’t, though; Tina had caught it and held it, waiting for my mother to notice and step further in.

“I knew something was wrong yesterday. And now that I’ve talked to Jessica and Marc—and you, too, dear—” Dick-Not-Nick beamed, always happy to be included. A smoothie vote, faithful “forward this to everyone you love so they know how much you love them!” FB follower, the occasional bar brawl: this timeline’s version of Nick was a joiner. “—and I think, yes, I think you may be in real trouble. Something is very—yeek!”

Mom’s sluggish senses had finally tipped her to Tina’s presence. Not for the first time I thought it was amazing and a little scary how quickly you got used to superkeen senses. I’d heard Tina while she was still upstairs. Heck, I practically heard her before she got up that night. At any point up to her arrival in the kitchen I could have told you exactly what part of the house she was in. I knew she was almost out of fabric softener and had switched shampoos. I knew she hadn’t cracked open one of her treasured flavored vodkas today, and that she’d spent some time in the attic, likely chatting with Marc (she’d gotten protective after he came back a zombie).

Not bad, right? Then there’s this: I knew those things without thinking about them. Without trying to listen, without walking over to her and sniffing her, without keeping an eye out for her. I just knew them. Just like I could shut all that stuff out if I wanted. I tried to think of a nonvamp parallel and the best I could come up with was when you’re in an airport headed to your gate, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people around you all the time. They’re all having conversations and eating and working and using bathrooms and you know all that’s going on, the stream of life just flows all over and past you and maybe even through you, but you don’t have to pay attention to any of it. You just know it’s all happening. And if you’re looking for something specific, you can filter through the stream and come up with just what you want.

That was the best I could do and as analogies went, it sucked. Still, I wondered—

“Good God, Tina, you scared the hell out of me!” Followed immediately by, “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Tina, who’d flinched at “God,” managed a smile. “Quite all right, Dr. Taylor.”

“Yes, the other Taylor girl breaks the third commandment several times daily,” Sinclair teased. He was dressed casually: a Joseph Abboud suit in gray wool he’d had for years, my husband’s version of blue jeans and a sweatshirt. He’d been sneaking toast to the puppies, who, now bulging with toast, had abruptly decided, as babies do, that they were going to nap
right now.
Clunk. Snore. “Yet we soldier on.”

“I thought the third one was to not have other gods before the big guy,” Marc said, at once interested in a new puzzle. “Right?”

“No, that’s the first one. A lot of people think it’s the most important, but I think it’s just the most important to the big guy.” Hearing
God
out loud was like ground glass in their ears, to vampires. Don’t get me started on what Christmas carols did. This whole month Tina likely wouldn’t go near a retail store of any kind. Thus our
big guy
euphemism. “Put me down for number six. I think the ‘thou shalt not murder’ is the most important.” I caught some of their stares. “What? Sunday school. I occasionally remember something useful. Sometimes more than once a day!”

Sinclair was leaning toward my mom, his body language radiating “solicitous.” “Are you all right, Dr. Taylor? You seem distressed.”

“Distressed! Yes!” Mom ran her fingers through her curls and made fists, then winced and let go of her hair. “I’ve been trying to tell all of you that something’s wrong with Jessica’s baby, and all you want to do is talk about Laura and—”

“Speaking of Ms. Goodman,” Tina said, waving her phone at me, “she called.”

No, she was waving
my
phone at me. Now where did I leave it that Tina could—oh. I dared not look at Sinclair. It was possible that when we’d come home the night before, BabyJon-less, we had badly wanted some fun. So much fun that we couldn’t wait to get started with the fun, and our bedroom was too far away for instant fun, so we’d ducked into the first unoccupied room for our fun, which was Tina’s office.

This part would not be fun.

“Yes. Well. Here it is, Majesty.” She handed it over. I took it silently. Still didn’t dare a peek at Sinclair. “In your, ah, anxiety, you must have dropped it.”

“Don’t feel bad.” Marc gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder. “They’ve left things where I’ve stumbled across them, too. Terrible things.”

“I would not have minded so much if they had let me leave before starting.”

“Wait, you were still in the room?” Huh. Strange how our keen vamp senses hadn’t picked up on that. Horniness apparently correlated with dulling senses. Or Tina turning invisible?

Sinclair lost it and started to laugh, which got me going, too. Tina just stood there, emanating Disapproving Elder, which didn’t work. I knew she was old and brilliant, but today she looked too much like a cheerleader for me to be cowed
. “Give me a Q! Give me a U! Give me an I! Give me a T! Quit banging in my office, yeeeaaah!”
Cue waving pom-poms and her hair in pigtails.

“As I was saying,” she said, raking us once more with a glare and then giving up like a sensible brilliant vamp, “Laura called you. I saw her name come up and snatched it; I pray you will pardon my familiarity with your equipment, and with the Antichrist.”

“Sure, sure, no prob.” I waved all that away. I wasn’t sure if I was thrilled or terrified that she’d called so soon after visiting. “What’d she say?”

“That she is free to join you for Thanksgiving, if you can do it tomorrow. December fifth,” she added, in case none of us knew what
tomorrow
meant.

I was so startled I almost dropped my phone. “Wha—? But that’s so great!” I turned to the gang, delighted. “Isn’t that so great?”

“What’s so great about having to buy another turkey at the last—hmm. Turkey. And stuffing and mashed potatoes and cranb—I’ll help you shop.” Jessica was looking sadly at her (now) empty plate. “Let’s go right now.”

“Hell yes right now!” I was halfway to the door. “I can’t believe it! I thought she’d hold out for weeks!”

“Betsy, please.” Mom had stepped in front of me, her hands up, palms out, like she was being arrested. “We haven’t settled—”

“Mom, I know, and I promise we’ll go over whatever it is later, but I’ve got to head to the grocery store. C’mon, Jess, I’ll drive. We can stop at Dairy Queen on the way.” Jess loved eating ice cream (or whatever Dairy Queen claimed that stuff was) when it was cold. She liked her insides to match her outside. “Okay, so.” I gave Mom a quick kiss. “We’ll talk later, I promise.”

“But—”

“Dr. Taylor, as long as you’re here, I have been in touch with an old friend. She has agreed to allow me to show you original letters to Clara Barton for the Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army.”

Mom, still pissy about whatever was bugging her, whipped her head around to look at Tina so fast I heard tendons creak. “What? No. What?”

Tina, who could be pretty literal, began again: “I have been in touch with an old friend. She has agreed to show—”

“That’s so kind, Tina, but I’ve seen them. The archives—”

Tina smiled her “I look like a cheerleader but I’ve been to the rodeo a few times” smile. “No one has seen these except Miss Barton and my friend, who found her brother on her own and thus had no need of Miss Barton’s services.” (Tina never said
Ms.
She was old-fashioned.) “My friend took her letter back along with a few other things you may find of interest.”

Whoa.

“Whoa.” My mom disappeared in a puff of Civil War gunpowder and Dr. Taylor took her place. Long before she made her living teaching the Civil War, Mom put the
buff
in
Civil War buff
. For her sixteenth birthday my grandpa gave her some Civil War canister shot, which looked exactly like big dirty rocks, and she cried. Not for the reason I would have cried; apparently certified authentic dirty rocks are a sweet gift. So natch, Tina had been almost a literal gold mine of info. Sometimes I had the idea Mom wanted BabyJon
and
Tina in her house all the time.

Too bad! They’re mine! But hey, Mom was distracted and thus off my back, so all was well. Also: they’re mine!

On that possessive note, we left.