So, it made sense that my grandma Ruthie chose this moment to come storming through the door.

“Jane Enid Jameson!” she thundered, slamming the door behind her. Grandma was in a fine froth, her snowy white hair frazzled and her cheeks flushed. She was dressed in a pink and orange plaid pantsuit, the kind of thing that would send Aunt Jettie into a giggle fit when she was living. Apparently, it worked its wonders after death, too, because my ghostly aunt was laughing her invisible ass off. And she wasn’t alone.

“Enid?” Dick snickered.

I ignored Dick’s low laughter as Grandma screeched, “How could you embarrass your sister that way? She told me what you did at the Chamber of Commerce meeting. How could you? You know how important her public image is with this new business she’s starting. How dare you attempt to sabotage her by telling prominent members of our community that she’s—”

“Related to me?” I tried to keep my voice calm as I said, “Grandma Ruthie, as you can see, I have guests. Maybe we can have this discussion at another time.“

“Don’t you tell me when and where I can talk to you, young lady!” she yelled. “This is your mother’s house. I’ll come and go as I please.”

“Mama, what is all this fuss about?” my mother asked as she came out of the kitchen. “Just calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Sherry,” Grandma Ruthie snapped. “It’s bad enough that you’ve continued to let Jane into your home, but now you’re letting her drag her undesirables into your living room? Hosting parties for them? This foolishness has gone on long enough.”

“Don’t talk like that in front of my friends,” I told my grandmother.

“Oh, don’t mind us,” Jolene said, transfixed by the family feud unfolding in front of her. I’m sure it was a novelty for her, considering that most McClaine family disputes ended in both parties phasing and proving their werewolf fighting skills. Usually naked.

“ These are your friends?” Grandma Ruthie sneered, observing my motley group, my chosen family. “ These are the type of people you spend time with under your great-great-grandfather’s roof?”

“Watch it, Grandma,” I warned her, seeing the expression of insult on Andrea’s face. Dick, on the other hand, was used to that sort of comment and remained unperturbed.

“Now, let’s all just calm down,” Mama said in a different tone from the one she normally used during these confrontations. She wasn’t trying to placate Grandma. She was just trying to keep us from coming to blows in her parlor. That was weird.

Grandma drew herself up to her full height and used her matriarch voice. “I will speak my mind, Jane.”

“Well, then, you’ll speak it in the kitchen.” I put my hand under Grandma’s elbow and not-quite-gently led her through the kitchen’s swinging door.

Mama warned, “Now, Jane, be careful.”

“Mama, I’m not going to hurt her.” I sighed.

“No, no, I know that,” Mama assured me. “It’s just that all of my nice dishes are sitting out on the counter. Try not to break anything.”

I barked out a laugh. “Mama!”

“Oh, she’s had it coming for years,” Daddy told me. “Your mama’s just not ready to do it herself yet.”

“I’m working on it,” Mama promised. “She can’t keep talking to you that way. I’ve let it go on for far too long. Maybe if I’d stood up to her years ago, we’d have a better relationship. You and I might have had a better relationship. I’m trying to set some boundaries with her, honey, but she’s so old. And I’m so—”

“Scared of her?” I suggested.

Mama nodded. “Give her hell, baby.”

That said, I squared my shoulders and marched into the kitchen to face off with my tiny septuagenarian foe.

“Be as rude to me as you’d like,” I told her. “But don’t ever insult the people in that room in my presence, do you understand me?”

“Don’t you talk to me that way,” Grandma snapped. “You were raised to have respect for your elders, Jane.”

“I was raised to have respect for people who show respect to me. That’s something you have never done. Now, why don’t you go home to your half-dead fiancé and let me and Jenny figure out our issues for ourselves?”

Grandma stamped her size-six orthopedic shoe. “You will apologize to your sister, Jane. And you will end this foolishness with the lawsuit and give Jenny her share of the Early legacy. I command it.”

I goggled at the raging geriatric before me and then burst out laughing so loudly that Gabriel stuck his head through the doorway to check on me. I waved him away as I leaned against the counter for support and let the bloody tears roll down my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I said, giggling. “Did you just command me to do something? Have we met? Has that ever worked for you? Jenny got her share of the ‘Early legacy.’ She took it, out of the house one piece at a time, without asking. And so did you. You’ve been smuggling valuables out of that house since Aunt Jettie’s funeral. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

“Let me tell you something about your precious aunt Jettie,” Grandma spat.

In the corner of my eye, I could see Aunt Jettie squinting at the dry-erase marker Mama kept on her refrigerator. She grasped it and began to scrawl on the front of the fridge. Ruthie’s face froze in horror as an invisible hand eked out, “Ruthie … This is Jettie … I need … to tell you … you’ve gotten fat.”

“Jane, I don’t know how you’re doing that, but stop it. It’s morbid,” Grandma scolded, her face paling.

“I’m not doing it,” I said. “I’m telepathic, not telekinetic. Aunt Jettie, maybe you shouldn’t …”

Aunt Jettie winked at me. “Honey, she’s had this coming for years.”

“Jane, stop that right now!” Grandma yelled as Jettie called her a “natural brunette,” underlining “natural” three times.

“It’s not me, it’s Jettie,” I said. “She’s been haunting the house ever since she died. I wasn’t able to see her until I was turned.”

“Of all the sick jokes,” Grandma Ruthie spat. “How dare you use my sister’s memory this way!”

“Oh, come on, you can believe in vampires but not in ghosts?”

Grandma Ruthie sneered at me.

I sighed. “What if I told you something that only Jettie would know?” I asked as Jettie leaned in to whisper in my ear.

Grandma’s mouth flapped open like a beached guppy’s. “I’m not going to—”

“Aunt Jettie says that if you don’t cut me some slack, she’s going to visit your mother and tell her all about what you were doing in Edgar Oliver’s backseat when you were supposed to be at Bible study.”

Ruthie blanched. “How could you—my mother’s dead.”

“Yes, but Jettie can go over to the Half-Moon Hollow Women’s Clubhouse anytime she wants and visit Grandma Bebe. That’s the way ghosts work. They can haunt wherever they choose, move from place to place. They even visit each other.”

OK, that last part was a total bluff. Grandma Bebe was a sweet old lady who had no unfinished needlework, much less unfinished business, when she died. She moved into the light a long time ago. But Ruthie didn’t know that. And I told her that so I could tell her this: “Jettie’s even visited Grandpa Fred a few times. He’s haunting the golf course.”

Jettie cackled with glee as Ruthie’s cheeks drained of color. “You tell her to stay away from my Fred.”

“Tell her yourself, Grandma. She can hear you. Much better, in fact, than she could in life. Besides, you’re engaged. Why should you care? And I don’t think he’s your Fred anymore. Remember till death do us part? He’s dead. You’ve parted. Grandpa Fred’s on the market again.”

Ruthie turned a sickly white under her artfully applied Elizabeth Arden powder. “You lifeless Jezebel! You stay away from my Fred!”

At this point, it seemed a moot point to note that Aunt Jettie had actually broken up with Grandpa Fred earlier this year to take up with Mr. Wainwright. Aunt Jettie, obviously enjoying Grandma’s discomfort, seemed to think so, too.

“They can’t … all be yours. Though you … certainly had more … than your share,” Jettie scribbled out in surprisingly legible script.

“Dried-up old maid!” Ruthie yelled.

“Black widow!” the refrigerator spat back.

“Unclean spirit!” Ruthie gasped.

“Varicose-veined ho!” Jettie scrawled, prompting an indignant gasp from Grandma.

“I will not stand here in my daughter’s home and be insulted!” Ruthie shrieked. “Jane, you tell your great-aunt that I will not set foot in River Oaks until she can keep a civil tongue in her skull—which, by the way, never had the bone structure I have. And she was always jealous!”

“She can—”

The door slammed in dramatic fashion.

“Hear you.” I finished.

Jettie slumped to the floor, clearly exhausted by her telekinetic efforts.

“That was awesome,” I marveled. “Telling Grandma everything you’ve ever thought about her doesn’t mean you have closure and you’re moving on, does it? I was just getting used to having you around.”

Aunt Jettie reached up to stroke her transparent hand along my cheek. “No, I could have insulted Ruthie while I was living. I’m sticking with you, kiddo.”

“Lucky me.” I chuckled. “My relationship with Grandma isn’t ever going to change, is it?”

Aunt Jettie led me over to the swinging door, where my friends were crowded, listening. “No, baby, it’s not. You and Ruthie have exactly the kind of relationship you want with each other. It was the same with us. Ruthie and I chose not to like each other. I’m not saying that’s right, but it’s the way things are. There’s no law that says families have to be best friends. You can choose your own family, which you have. Of course, you can also choose to want a better relationship with people you were born to. It’s up to you. Until then, sit at the fountain of my experience and learn Ruthie’s weak points.”

“‘Vericose-veined ho’ was one I hadn’t heard before,” I admitted as we pushed through the door, gently popping an eavesdropping Dick in the side of the head.

Dick cursed. Aunt Jettie shrugged. “You leave the TV on during the day. I’ve watched a lot of Maury Povich .”

14

When you’ve taken all you can, walk away. Be the bigger person. Or at least find a bigger person, and use your vampire strength on them. It’s the sporting thing to do.

—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less

Destructive Relationships

G iven my history with my sister, it was inevitable, really, that we would end up wrestling in the mud, beating each other senseless with pieces of foam rubber.

The Half-Moon Hollow High parking lot was carefully organized into a carnival grid: flaccid, half-inflated bouncy houses in the south quadrant, food booths in the east, and no fun to be had in either.

At a normal Hollow charity carnival, the signs were hand-painted posterboard affairs. The games consisted of tossing pool rings over two-liter bottles or softballs into bushel baskets. You paid too much for a corn dog and a stuffed bear, you felt as if you contributed to your community, you went home.

This Halloween hell hole involved professionally screen-printed signs and catered low-carb treats. I’d suggested a cotton-candy machine, and Head Courtney gave me a look that would have vaporized lesser women. And forget any preconceived notions of streamers or balloons. This was strictly a Martha affair, pumpkins as far as the eye could see, artfully arranged with corn and various raffia accoutrements.