The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,23

the woman who did for Ann Savage. Francine was older, with a face like a dried apple, and not many people still hired her in the Old Village because she had a vinegary nature.

She and Francine locked eyes through the glass. Patricia lifted one hand in the barest semblance of a greeting, then tucked her head down and scrambled up the street as fast as she could, mentally ticking off all the people Francine might tell.

CHAPTER 7

All the way home Patricia tasted Ann Savage’s nephew on her lips: dusty spices, leather, unfamiliar skin. It made the blood fizz in her veins, and then, overcome with guilt, she brushed her teeth twice, found half of an old bottle of Listerine in the hall closet, and gargled it until her lips tasted like artificial peppermint flavoring.

For the rest of the day, she lived in fear that someone would drop by and ask what she’d been doing in Ann Savage’s house. She was terrified she’d run into Mrs. Francine when she went to the Piggly Wiggly. She jumped every time the phone rang, thinking it would be Grace saying she’d heard Patricia tried to perform CPR on a sleeping man.

But night came and no one said anything, and even though she couldn’t meet Carter’s eyes at supper, by the time she went to bed she’d forgotten the way the nephew’s lips had tasted. The next morning she forgot about Francine somewhere between figuring out where Korey needed to be dropped off and picked up all week, and making sure Blue was studying for his State and Local History exam instead of reading about Adolf Hitler.

She made sure Korey and Blue were enrolled in summer camp (soccer for Korey and science day camp for Blue), she called Grace to get the phone number of someone who could look at their air conditioner, and she picked up groceries, and packed lunches, and dropped off library books, and signed report cards (no summer school this year, thankfully), and barely saw Carter every morning as he dashed out the door (“I promise,” he told her, “as soon as this is over we’ll go to the beach”), and suddenly a week had passed and she sat at dinner, half listening to Korey complain about something she wasn’t very interested in at all.

“Are you even listening to me?” Korey asked.

“Pardon?” Patricia asked, tuning back in.

“I don’t understand how we can almost be out of coffee again,” Carter said from the other end of the table. “Are the kids eating it?”

“Hitler said caffeine was poison,” Blue said.

“I said,” Korey repeated, “Blue’s room faces the water and he can open his windows and get a breeze. And he’s got a ceiling fan. It’s not fair. Why can’t I get a fan in my room? Or stay at Laurie’s house until you get the air fixed?”

“You’re not staying at Laurie’s house,” Patricia said.

“Why on earth would you want to live with the Gibsons?” Carter asked.

At least when their children said completely irrational things they were on the same page.

“Because the air conditioning is broken,” Korey said, pushing her chicken breast around her plate with her fork.

“It’s not broken,” Patricia said. “It’s just not working very well.”

“Did you call the air-conditioner man?” Carter asked.

Patricia shot him a look in the secret language of parenting that said, Stay on the same page with me in front of the children and we’ll discuss this later.

“You didn’t call him, did you?” Carter said. “Korey’s right, it’s too hot.”

Clearly, Carter didn’t speak the same secret language of parenting.

“I’ve got a photograph,” Miss Mary said.

“What’s that, Mom?” Carter asked.

Carter thought it was important his mother eat with them as often as possible even though it was a struggle to get Blue to the table when she did. Miss Mary dropped as much food in her lap as made it into her mouth, and her water glass was cloudy with food she forgot to swallow before taking a sip.

“You can see in the photograph that the man…,” Miss Mary said, “he’s a man.”

“That’s right, Mom,” Carter said.