I'm Dreaming of an Undead Christmas (7 page)

Was emotional torture
via boredom part of my “audition” to work for the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead?

On the evening of my interview, I sat in the local Council office’s painfully nondescript waiting room and fidgeted. A lot. The Council had not been courteous enough to provide a TV or magazines or anything to distract me from the fact that I was sitting in the most stimulus-free room on the planet while waiting to interact with the undead. And while I had been fifteen minutes early for my appointment, Ophelia was nowhere to be found nearly an hour later. I resorted to playing Candy Craze on my phone to prevent beige-madness.

And while I certainly understood that someone who oversaw all of the vampire-related issues in the tristate area could have unexpected mayhem and bloodshed derail her to-do list for the day, I couldn’t help but be a little annoyed. I was on time. I was ready. I’d put on my special navy-blue “professional” blazer and pulled my hair into a bun and everything.

Was this some sort of psychological-warfare tactic? Was Ophelia trying to prove I didn’t have the spine to work for vampires? Well, bring it on, sister. I was a Scanlon. “You can’t outstubborn me” might as well be stitched on the family crest.

I sighed, adjusting the heavy knot of dark hair at my nape. I was probably just in a bad mood because I had authentic spruce splinters under my fingernails. I was up to my cuticles in real Christmas spirit. After the fifth Band-Aid earned while wrassling our Christmas tree into the logic-defying tree stand, Iris eventually agreed that we would go back to using a fake tree next year.

Of course, Iris’s including Ben in the evening may have made me a little grumpy about the whole thing. I was going to have to tell her about my boyfriend ambivalence, or she was going to keep pushing the two of us together in the interest of sisterly double dates. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy spending time with Ben. I did. In the same way I enjoyed spending time with Collin or Jamie or Sam. He was a friend. That was all.

The door opened, and I popped up to my feet, discreetly slipping my phone into the back pocket of my smart pinstriped slacks. Ophelia Lambert looked like a teenage dream but behaved like a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Michael Corleone. I didn’t really understand her relationship with Jamie. He seemed to grasp that there was a cold-blooded schemer under the big Kewpie-doll eyes and glossy chestnut ponytail, but he treated her like she was the most lovable thing on the planet. And because Jamie was my friend, I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

Sort of.

Because of what she would only call “personal history,” Jane didn’t have many warm, fuzzy feelings toward Ophelia, either. The only nice thing Jane had to say about her potential future daughter-in-law was that Ophelia’s personal style had changed over the years since she’d started dating Jamie, meaning she’d stopped wearing jailbait-themed outfits in favor of sweet little sundresses and sweater sets, like the candy-apple-red cardigan and pencil skirt ensemble she was currently sporting. I might have rolled my eyes if not for her awesome red patent-leather pumps with the little ankle straps. If I rolled my eyes, she wouldn’t tell me where she got them.

“Miss Scanlon.” Ophelia somehow managed to say my name without any change to her blank expression.

I raised an eyebrow. Apparently, we were going to pretend we didn’t know each other. “Miss Lambert.”

She turned on her heel and walked through the door to the administrators’ offices, without signaling that I should follow. I did anyway, letting Ophelia lead me into a spacious office decorated with way too many Hello Kitty desk accessories to be considered normal. Iris had warned me, but really, nothing could have prepared me for the crystal-encrusted Hello Kitty stapler. The only remotely approachable object on the desk was a portrait of her little sister, Georgie, who had been turned into a vampire when she was nine. The least freaky thing in the room was a picture of an undead child. Yikes.

“Just a few quick questions before you . . . complete your assigned task,” Ophelia said, settling into her Hello Kitty pink leather office chair. She waved an indifferent hand toward the chair opposite hers.

I sat. But I did not appreciate the pause before “complete,” implying that I couldn’t complete said task. It was a loaded pause.

“What makes you think that you’re fit to work for the Council?” she asked, without looking up from the paperwork on her desk.

I gave her my best “interview” smile. “Aside from being one of only a handful of programmers living in this area who could handle the job? Having lived with a vampire relative for the last three years, I am uniquely prepared to deal with the special issues involved in working with and for the undead.”

“You seem very confident in your skills as a programmer.”

Now she got the “bitch, please” smile. “I have no reason to be anything but confident.”

“Are you sure you’re not just attempting to develop inroads with certain vampires?”

I frowned. “You mean my brother-in-law? Because I don’t have to make inroads with him. We pretty much live on the same road.”

Ophelia rolled her eyes and slapped an index card onto the desk. Two words were neatly printed on the card: “Geraldine Dvorak.” Ophelia huffed. “Come along,” she said, and escorted me down the hall to a tiny, windowless room lined with well-stocked floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a desk, and a globe. It was like a study hall for those people who end up on
Dr. Phil
because they’re afraid to leave their houses.

Ophelia nodded to the card in my hand. “That is the name of a local vampire who is interested in finding her living descendants. Using only the resources in this room, find those descendants, and list them with their contact information. Please print legibly. You have two hours.”

I glanced around the room. “But there’s no computer equipment. I was informed that most of the job description involved computer programming.”

Ophelia smiled sweetly. “Yes, I know.” And then she snatched my purse out of my hands and slammed the door shut in my face.

“Rude,” I grumbled as I heard the lock slide into place.

It took me
an hour, but I soon discovered . . . that I was in no way qualified for this job. I searched census records, marriage records, birth records, voter registrations, even the
Cole Directory
. I couldn’t find a single Dvorak who had ever lived in McClure County.

And that was saying something.

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the enormous bookshelf across the room. A huge three-inch white plastic binder stood out from the tooled-leather books. The bright pink label read, “Vampire Registration Records, Western Kentucky Division, 2000–present.”

“Hmmmm.”

Shoulders slumped in near-defeat, I crossed the room and flipped through the book, searching for the Ds.

There was no vampire named Dvorak listed anywhere in this half of the state.

This was ridiculous. I was auditioning for a job that revolved around computers. I should be allowed to use a computer in my search.

I shifted in my chair to prevent the corner of my sparkly purple phone case from poking me in the butt.

Wait a minute.

I was only allowed to use the resources in this room.

I whipped my iPhone out of my pocket and opened my Internet browser. “Smartphone, bitch!”

OK, no one heard me, but it was a moment of personal victory.

I Googled “Geraldine Dvorak,” swiping through the results with a fingertip. My lip curled back into a snarl. “Ophelia!”

I made a monumental effort to calm myself. Threatening an already-predisposed-to-be-bitchy vampire was not a good idea . . . even if she deserved it, the freaking cow!

I banged on the door until some hapless vampire data-entry stooge passed by and let me out. With a growled “Thank you,” I stomped down the hall toward Ophelia’s office. The HBIC herself was sitting at her desk, placidly filing her nails.

“Geraldine Dvorak?” I spat, slapping the index card onto the desk. “Really? The uncredited actress who played the role of Dracula’s bride in the original Bela Lugosi film?”

Given the way that nerve in Ophelia’s cheek was twitching, she hadn’t expected me to locate this information. “How did you find out? Did Jane somehow slip you the answer?”

“No. You told me I could use the resources in the workroom. That included my phone, which has an Internet browser. I harnessed the power of Google. You gave me an impossible task so I couldn’t get this job! I don’t know what I did to make you hate me, but that’s just low. And antifeminist . . . and mean!”

Ophelia sank back into her chair and crossed her arms over her chest in a gesture that was almost pouty. “No, I have given every applicant the
same
impossible task.” She sighed. “So far, you’re the first applicant to confirm that the vampire actually existed before declaring the search pointless. Also, you’re the first one I haven’t searched for a phone. I thought you kept it in your purse, like a normal person. And don’t presume to lecture me on the principles of feminism. Betty Friedan based her entire philosophy on something I once wrote on a cocktail napkin.”

“How old are you, exactly?” I asked.

“Do you really think that line of questioning is going to help you here?”

“Nope. So does this mean I have the job?”

Ophelia thought about it for a good long while before finally saying “Yes” in a tone so begrudging you’d think I’d asked her for a spare kidney. “It appears that we can’t find anyone more qualified than you to fill the position.”

How did she manage to make that sound like an insult and a compliment at the same time?

She sighed again. “Welcome to the team.”

“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.”

Her answering smile was downright acidic. “Just wait until orientation.”

Vampires lack the enzymes to process solid food. Their new liquid diet is not a “crazy fad” or a rejection of your much-beloved green-bean casserole. Eating the casserole will make them projectile-vomit, which is a downer for any holiday meal.

—Not So Silent Night: Creating Happy and Stress-Free Holidays with Newly Undead Family Members

T
his bonding activity could only end in tears and third-degree burns.

“Something is bubbling,” I told Iris from across the Jetsons’ kitchen, where she was shelling about five pounds of pecans on a polished-aluminum tabletop. It was as close as she wanted to get to the golden, rippling mixture of butter and sugar on the space-age stove that was eventually supposed to be toffee. I lifted the pot off the stove and tilted it toward Iris’s spot at the table.

“Was this how it looked when Mom did it?”

Iris shrugged. “I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

“Ack!” Tess shrieked, launching her petite frame across the kitchen. She’d actually donned her chef’s jacket, but I think it had more to do with protecting herself from molten sugar and knife-wielding amateurs than trying to lend dignity to this debacle. “Don’t do that! You spill that stuff on your floor, it will be like trying to clean up the unholy offspring of cotton candy and lava.”

“OK, then. Let’s not do that.” I gently put the pot back on the stove while Tess tried to explain the delicacy of the “soft ball” stage of candy versus the “hard ball” stage using an old spatula and a glass of water. It was all very confusing and made me sorry I hadn’t given Oompa Loompas more respect while watching
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
.

Making candy was a terrifying business. But bending to Iris’s insane holiday agenda was one of the many ways I was attempting to soften the blow of telling my sister that I was about to dig myself even deeper into the world of vampires. Any doubts I’d had about taking the job had pretty much evaporated when I opened the envelope containing the “undisclosed” portions of the Council’s salary and benefits proposal. It was a comfort to know that while I was selling out, I was doing it in a big way and in style.

Pretending to enjoy crafting confection seemed underhanded and sneaky, but it was on the advice of Cal, who knew exactly how to make underhanded and sneaky work without being obvious.

My brother-in-law experienced a strange mix of pride and horror when I showed him the enormous Council potential employee information packet/required liability waiver. (It took up two three-ring binders.) He got as far as the celebratory hug but then immediately informed me that he would not, in fact, tell Iris about it for me. I even pulled the wounded-baby-deer face, and it had no effect. His love and support only went so far, it seemed.

Cal did, however, give me a whole raft of advice on how he would handle the “buttering up” stage of informing Iris, including participating in her holiday rituals without complaint and traveling to a specialty story in Murphy to pick up her favorite dessert blood, Sangre Select. He also gave me a precisely folded list from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table.

“What’s this?” I’d asked.

“It’s a to-do list. I may not be happy about you taking the job, but that doesn’t mean I will leave you unprepared. I would like you to study these subjects before you begin working for the Council. I have arranged for you to work with several tutors near UK’s campus.”

I skimmed the list. “Small-blade defense, Brazilian jiujitsu lessons,
crossbow proficiency
?”

Cal shrugged his broad shoulders. “Given the mishaps that befell your sister during the early days of our relationship, I thought it would be better for you to build certain skill sets before your arrival in the Council office.”

“How do you even find a crossbow tutor? Troll Craigslist for retired Hunger Games participants?”

“Gigi, for my sake, please take this seriously. Working at the Council office means that you will stay local, which will make Iris happy. And I will be able to monitor your workplace safety and what Iris called the ‘general ooginess’ of your coworkers, which will make me happy. But there are so very, very many things about this situation that upset me. Humor my need to keep you safe.”

“I would like to think you two will grow out of this whole ‘treat Gigi like an incompetent child’ thing, but you never, ever will, huh?”

“Probably not, no,” he said, putting his arm around me and squeezing me to his side. “But to be fair, you should have seen this coming years ago.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder, thinking back to that night in high school when Cal scared the hell out of Ben before our date and then presented me with my very own bright pink Taser, which I’d dubbed Mr. Sparky. “Yeah, you’re right.”

So I was humoring both Iris and Cal with mock enthusiasm for homemade caramel and Brazilian martial arts. I hoped I was better at the martial arts, because so far, I was a failure as a confectioner. I
had
managed to melt chocolate chips in a double boiler without hurting anyone. I thought that should count for something.

Jane peered over the stove, waving her hand over the now-smoking pot. “Unfortunately, while the three of you have been standing there debating, your pot of sugary goodness has burned.”

Tess sighed, wrinkling her nose at the acrid, too-sweet smell of burned sugar. “Crap.”

“Even the best chefs get distracted, Tess,” Miranda assured her, using a hot pad to whisk the pot off the stove and drop it into the sink.

“And to be fair, you’re putting up with more distractions than usual,” Andrea added from under a surgeon’s mask as she stirred the caramels melting in yet another double boiler. After a particularly colorful incident in Tess’s restaurant involving key lime pie, Andrea was not taking any chances with the smell of the candy ingredients making her sick. Apparently, neither willpower nor nostalgia for desserts could overcome vampire physiology.

“OK, I am putting myself in time-out before I create more sucrose chaos.” I snagged a takeout container from the fridge and retreated to the table. Iris didn’t like the idea of my cooking dinner for myself (because of the danger to myself and others), so she’d arranged for Miranda to deliver dinner for me from a different restaurant each night. Even I could eat only so much of Tess’s magical mac ’n’ cheese without a marked difference in the way my jeans fit.

And while I had developed a taste for sushi at college, where you could get two amazing rolls for ten dollars around the corner at Jasmine Palace, the same quality was not to be found in Half-Moon Hollow. Tonight’s Philadelphia roll stuffed with canned salmon just didn’t tickle my tastebuds, so I was sticking with the veggie roll. Fortunately, I’d already talked Miranda out of picking up tikka masala for me the next day. I felt strongly that people should not buy Indian food from a gas station.

While I chowed down on veggies and rice, a lively debate broke out at the stove over whether the burned stock pot could be salvaged. This was the second batch of candy we’d ruined during Iris’s brilliant “candy exchange” using my mother’s recipes. Mom wasn’t a talented cook when it came to meat and potatoes—I mean, the woman made “moist-free pot roast”—but she was some sort of sugar savant. Every December, she would spend weeks making big batches of fudge, bourbon balls, and soda-cracker candy, which was saltine-covered toffee topped by a layer of chocolate and nuts. She’d divide the candy into pretty decorative tins and take it to neighbors, teachers, friends from church, and anybody she might owe an apology to for the previous year’s events.

I was failing at making my mom’s weird soda-cracker candy. Jolene brought a recipe for candied bacon truffles, which sounded disgusting but she swore were delicious. Miranda brought brownie mix and premade cookie dough, because, unlike the rest of us, she knew her limits. And Tess was just trying to keep us from hurting ourselves. Whatever edible product we managed to make would sustain the humans during the holiday celebrations. Anything left over would go to Jolene’s pack, who would eat anything.

That was another fun fact shared with me during the previous year. Jolene not only had the whole sultry, Angelina Jolie look-alike package working, but she was also a werewolf. Because all ridiculously hot women deserve superpowers, too. The karmic imbalance put me in a snit for about five minutes, before Jane pointed out that the trade-off Jolene made for these gifts was a twangy backwoods accent that could peel paint. Sometimes, when she got excited, she sounded like Dolly Parton on helium.

Werewolves, unlike vampires, were not “out” to the human community yet, still waiting to see how the vampires’ transition panned out. And even more unlike vampires, they enjoyed carbs, and fats, and proteins, pretty much all foods, as shifting back and forth between two feet and four was a real drain on the metabolism.

“Do we have to use the candy thermometer again?” I asked. “It frightens me.”

Tess nodded. “We’re supposed to make caramel for the chocolate turtles.”

“Screw it,” I huffed, tossing my takeout container into the trash. “I went to the store earlier and bought a three-pound bag of caramels. Let’s melt those bad boys in the microwave.”

Tess clutched at her chest as if to ward off palpitations. “I can’t believe you just said that in front of me.”

“We won’t tell the homemade-candy police, we promise,” Andrea told her.

Tess pouted more than a little as she plopped down at the table to unwrap the caramels. I couldn’t blame her.

“I never understood why it was necessary to individually wrap caramels when they were already in a bag. It’s one of life’s great, annoying mysteries,” I muttered.

“Uh, because they are sticky, and if you didn’t wrap them, you’d just have one big lump of caramels,” Jane suggested.

“Mystery solved,” I said. Eager to put Tess in a better mood, I asked, “So, Tess, how’s the restaurant? The mac and cheese alone should keep your tables filled.”

“Great!” Tess enthused. “Folks seem to like having both vampire and human menu options. Word of mouth has spread around the vampire community, and we’ve gotten a few write-ups in
Southern Living
and
Undead
Epicure
. And if the guy claiming to be a production assistant with
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives
wasn’t a prank caller, we might end up with a segment on the Food Network. We’re packed every night. Jolene’s been on me about maybe opening a second location in Murphy, but I’m thinking about something a little smaller. Food trucks are all the rage now. So maybe I could open a truck with a limited Southern Comforts menu and warm blood on tap. We could set up at community events and the Main Street Square on summer weekends. It’s still a risk, but it’s not quite the same level of failure if I have to close down a food truck as it is to lose a restaurant.”

Jane grinned, nudging Tess gently (for a vampire). “And you and Sam?”

“Oh, Lord.” Miranda rolled her bottle-green eyes toward the ceiling.

“What?” Jane asked.

“You’ve got that unintentionally smug look that married people get when they’re weaseling marriage plans out of their single friends,” Tess told her.

“That’s not—I didn’t . . . smug?” Jane sputtered. Andrea gave her a hard stare. “OK, I was a little smug.”

“You were a smidge smug,” Jolene agreed.

“We’re happy with the way things are right now,” Tess said. “Unless I get turned into a vampire—which, given the fact that I make my living as a chef, isn’t all that likely—and live another hundred years, I don’t think I will ever see the day when Sam and I are simultaneously ready for marriage. His divorce left him really messed up, and my fiancé leaving me for a dental hygienist didn’t do me any favors in the trust department, either. Really, we’re both happy this way. We love each other. We enjoy living together. We don’t see the reason to bring paperwork and special jewelry into it.”

Unlike every girl on my dorm floor who made the same antimarriage speech, it sounded like Tess actually meant it. It was enough to give me hope that I might not be as romantically messed up as I believed. Maybe Tess was proof that waiting for the right guy
and
the right time was the mature, rational thing to do. Then again, Tess once injected Sam’s blood bags with essence of ghost chili to prove a point, so maybe she wasn’t the best role model.

Also, Miranda was twitching, actually experiencing facial tics, as she was unwrapping caramels. She wouldn’t look up, wouldn’t make eye contact, and her hands were doing this weird clenching thing that was not productive in terms of unwrapping candy.

“Miranda, are you OK?” Iris slid the caramels closer to her, then thought better of it and pushed them toward me. “Miranda . . . why do you look like you’re about to explode?”

Miranda attempted a casual shrug and failed miserably. “It’s nothing.”

Tess’s lips twitched as she measured out a second batch of butter and sugar into a saucepan. “Miranda.”

“Nothing!”

“Spill it, or we’ll have Jane poke through your brain,” Andrea told her.

Jane protested, “That’s— Hey, I wouldn’t use my— OK, yeah, I totally would,” Jane told Miranda. “Tell, or I will scan you like airport security.”