Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse #10)(6)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"Claudine sure was. And I guess if you’re a woman, Claude looks pretty good."

"Claudine really toned it down since she was passing for human." Claudine, Claude’s triplet, had been a stunning six-foot-tall beauty.

Jason said, "Grandpa wasn’t any picture in the looks department."

"Yeah, I know." We looked at each other, silently acknowledging the power of physical attraction. Then we said, simultaneously, "But Gran?" And we couldn’t help but laugh. Michele tried hard to keep a straight face, but finally she couldn’t help grinning at us. It was hard enough thinking about your parents having sex, but your grandparents? Totally wrong.

"Now that I’m thinking about Gran, I’ve been meaning to ask you if I could have that table she put up in the attic," Jason said. "The pie-crust table that used to sit by the armchair in the living room?"

"Sure, swing by and pick it up sometime," I said. "It’s probably sitting right where you put it the day she asked you to take it up to the attic."

I left soon after with my almost-empty casserole dish, some leftover steak, and a cheerful heart.

I certainly hadn’t thought having dinner with my brother and his girlfriend was any big deal, but when I got home that night I slept all the way through until morning, for the first time in weeks.

MARCH

THE FOURTH WEEK

"There," said Sam. I had to strain to hear him. Someone had put Jace Everett’s "Bad Things" on, and just about everyone in the bar was singing along. "You’ve smiled three times tonight."

"You counting my facial expressions?" I put down my tray and gave him a look. Sam, my boss and friend, is a true shapeshifter; he can change into anything warm-blooded, I guess. I haven’t asked him about lizards and snakes and bugs.

"Well, it’s good to see that smile again," he said. He rearranged some bottles on the shelf, just to look busy. "I missed it."

"It’s good to feel like smiling," I told him. "I like the haircut, by the way."

Sam ran a self-conscious hand across his head. His hair was short, and it hugged his scalp like a red gold cap. "Summer’s coming up. I thought it might feel good."

"Probably will."

"You already started sunbathing?" My tan was famous.

"Oh, yeah." In fact, I’d started extra early this spring. The first day I’d put on my swimsuit, all hell had broken loose. I’d killed a fairy. But that was past. I’d lain out yesterday, and not a thing had happened. Though I confess I hadn’t taken the radio outside, because I’d wanted to be sure I could hear if something was sneaking up on me. But nothing had. In fact, I’d had a remarkably peaceful hour lying in the sun, watching a butterfly waft by every now and then. One of my great-great-grandmother’s rosebushes was blooming, and the scent had healed something inside me. "The sun just makes me feel real good," I said. I suddenly remembered that the fae had told me that I came from sky fairies, instead of water fairies. I didn’t know anything about that, but I wondered if my love of the sun was a genetic thing.

Antoine called, "Order up!" and I hurried over to fetch the plates.

Antoine had settled in at Merlotte’s, and we all hoped he’d stick with the cooking job. Tonight he was moving around the small kitchen like he had eight arms. Merlotte’s menu was the most basic – hamburgers, chicken strips, a salad with chicken strips cut up on it, chili fries, French-fried pickles – but Antoine had mastered it with amazing speed. Now in his fifties, Antoine had gotten out of New Orleans after staying in the Superdome during Katrina. I respected Antoine for his positive attitude and his determination to start over after losing everything. He was also good to D’Eriq, who helped him with food prep and bused the tables. D’Eriq was sweet but slow.

Holly was working that night, and in between hustling drinks and plates she stood by Hoyt Fortenberry, her fiancé, who was perched on a barstool. Hoyt’s mom had proven to be only too glad to keep Holly’s little boy on the evenings Hoyt wanted to spend time with Holly. It was hard to look at Holly and recognize her as the sullen Goth Wiccan she’d been in one phase of her life. Her hair was its natural dark brown and had grown to nearly shoulder length, her makeup was light, and she smiled all the time. Hoyt, my brother’s best friend again since they’d mended their differences, seemed like a stronger man now that he had Holly to brace him up.

I glanced over at Sam, who’d just answered his cell phone. Sam was spending a lot of time on that phone these days, and I suspected he was seeing someone, too. I could find out if I looked in his head long enough (though the two-natured are harder to read than simple basic humans), but I tried hard to stay out of Sam’s thoughts. It’s just rude to rummage around inside the ideas of people you care about. Sam was smiling while he talked, and it was good to see him looking – at least temporarily – carefree.

"You see Vampire Bill much?" Sam asked when I was helping him close up an hour later.

"No. I haven’t seen him in a long time," I said. "I wonder if Bill’s dodging me. I went by his house a couple of times and left him a six-pack of TrueBlood and a thank-you note for all he did when he came to rescue me, but he never called me or came over."

"He was in a couple of nights ago when you were off. I think you ought to pay him a visit," Sam said. "I’m not saying any more."

MARCH

THE END OF THE FOURTH WEEK

On a beautiful night later that week, I was rummaging in my closet for my biggest flashlight. Sam’s suggestion that I needed to see Bill had been nagging at me, so after I got home from work, I resolved to take a walk across the cemetery to Bill’s house.

Sweet Home Cemetery is the oldest cemetery in Renard Parish. There isn’t much room left for the dead, so there’s one of those new "burial parks" with flat headstones on the south side of town. I hate it. Even if the ground is uneven and the trees are all grown up and some of the fences around the plots are falling down, to say nothing of the earliest headstones, I love Sweet Home. Jason and I had played there as kids, whenever we could escape Gran’s attention.

The route through the memorials and trees to Bill’s house was second nature, from the time he’d been my very first boyfriend. The frogs and bugs were just starting up their summer singing. The racket would only build with the hotter weather. I remembered D’Eriq asking me wasn’t I scared, living by a graveyard, and I smiled to myself. I wasn’t afraid of the dead lying in the ground. The walking and talking dead were much more dangerous. I’d cut a rose to lay on my grandmother’s grave. I felt sure she knew I was there and thinking of her.