TWENTY
“Oh, now, what is this shit?”
I was back in the big fat nothing that was the pit, Hades, the place where you could never find your receipt and even if you could, Hell doesn’t take returns.
I’d wanted to be back in Hell—or at least gone from that kitchen. And I was. Blink! Jeannie and her pink outfit of scarves and air (and her disturbing habit of referring to an air force major as “Master”) had nothing on me. Too bad I had no real idea how I did it. More of that “Hell and its rules are shaped by the force of your will” bullshit? The force of my will? What, like, think positive? Don’t think you can run Hell . . . know you can! What? No. Nothing was that easy.
Could those business seminars I’d endured for various office jobs have been right all along? Communicating with Tact, Diplomacy, and Professionalism . . . do I have to say what a waste of money that was for management? Almost as much as the bucks they shelled out for Conflict Management Skills for Women. Should I hang some of those motivational posters in Hell? Be the Bridge: Problems become opportunities when the right people join together. Excellence: Some excel because they are destined to. Most excel because they are determined to. Are they also determined to end a sentence with a preposition? Because that’s what they’re doing. Show me that poster, thanks.
“Oh, look,” a familiar, bored voice drawled behind me. “It’s back.”
I whirled and glared at the Ant. “What the hell is going on in Hell?”
“You aren’t tired of hammering that stupid joke over and over yet?”
“I will never get tired of hammering stupid jokes,” I retorted. “Now tell me what’s going on. How long was I gone? And how come I was only here for a few minutes but the gang said I was MIA for a day? And what’s up with the weird babies?” This was why I hadn’t said anything to Jessica or DadDick about what I’d seen their babies do. Because if there’s one person on the planet who loathes my stepmother more than I, it would be Jessica, who loathed her with all the power her love and loyalty brought to bear.
The Ant had, after all, been the one to tip me off to the problem with Jessica’s pregnancy9 and the strangeness therein; I assumed she’d also know what was up with Oil and Vinegar. But there was no way I could have said, Something unprecedented and terrifying is happening to your children and the only one who might be able to help us is a woman you and I both despise and have never been nice to, but, no big, I’ll go play Twenty Questions with her in Hell and maybe she’ll be helpful and maybe not. Later, bitch!
Uh. No. If I had, Jess never would have let me go back to Hell without her, and taking my best friend to Hell was not happening, ever. And she wouldn’t have forgiven me for going without her.
“Oh, now you want my counsel?” The Ant was cupping her elbows and shivering as if she were cold, which she totally wasn’t. She was also tapping one foot, which I assumed was to remind me that a) she was Very, Very Busy and b) she still had terrible taste in footgear. “That’s nerve. I thought since you killed my boss I was now the—how did you put it?”
“Annoying Nobody,” I reminded her, then realized I wasn’t helping myself. “Um, I think. I dunno, it was so long ago.” Maybe. “Look, just cough up what you know about this place, okay?”
“No,” was the predictable answer, and there it was, the thing I loathed more than pleather: the Pout. The Pout had precipitated my father filing for divorce, cruises to tropical islands, my father’s second marriage, and various shopping trips abroad. And that was just the stuff I knew about. It was the Ant’s mightiest weapon (aside from her stiff hair, which, I was pretty sure, was bulletproof from all the product she shoveled on) and one that never failed to work.
On my father.
“Don’t even,” I warned. “I will rip your lips off your face. Then throw them on the ground and stomp on them.” What ground? Hell was still a big pile of nothing. I was undaunted; for the purpose of lip stomping, I’d find a way to make Hell have a ground again. Have an up and a down and a right and a left, too, if it came to that. “Look, you think I don’t know this sucks? I’m well aware this sucks and I’m just as horrified as you are to find out we’re still in each other’s lives.”
“That,” she replied grimly, “is impossible.”
“Ha! You remember how appalled you and Dad were to find out I’d come back from the dead? As a vampire, no less?”
“Yes,” was the short, stiff reply. “Nightmare.”
“For me, too! You think that was any kind of fun for me? You think that was my plan? Because that was not my plan, Antonia; in no way, shape, or form was any of that my plan.”
She opened her mouth to retort, but I was off and running.
“Being run over by a Pontiac Aztec on my thirtieth birthday after I’d just been fired was not my plan. Hearing my skull shatter—it sounded like ice cracking, by the way—was not my plan. Coming back as a vampire was not my plan. Coming back as the foretold queen of the bloodsuckers . . . wait for it . . . not my plan! And that’s just the stuff that happened that first week! That insane amount of insanity was all before I found out about the Antichrist being a blood relative and Satan looking like Lena Olin and—and—and me messing up the timeline and time travel and the cold, frozen netherworld of the future and Ancient Me and helping run Hell!”
“Yes, yes, you have problems. We know. We all know, because you never shut up about how put-upon you are with the money and the happy marriage and the minions.”
“I don’t have minions,” I said, sulking a little. “I have helpers. Like . . . like Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts on a liquid diet possibly for eternity. And what the fuck would you even know about my marriage?”
“Do you think this is what I wanted?” she snapped back, gesturing at all the nothing while ignoring my very sensible question. “I’m well aware of what a skull sounds like when it shatters, or did you forget I died almost exactly the same way?”
Um. I kind of did. Forget, that is. The garbage truck had pancaked them. Yeah, them. Because there were two people in that car and one of them was definitely my dad. It never occurred to me to wonder how much of the fatal, devastating accident my stepmother remembered. It was horrifying even to think about, never mind quiz her about. Even more horrifying: of almost all the people I knew, the Ant was someone who could empathize with some of the less-than-great aspects of my life after death.
The Ant! Why does the universe hate me and want me to be sad? Because could empathize wasn’t the same as would empathize. In fairness (groan), I had zero interest in empathizing with her, either.
And, oh good God, she was still bitching. “Do you think it was my plan to be possessed by the devil, to have her run my body for a year?”
“I thought you were more upset about how no one noticed you were possessed,” I admitted. It wasn’t funny, except to me. It was actually pretty vindicating: she was so awful, no one noticed she’d been possessed by the evilest thing in creation.
The smirk fell off my face as I realized that was something else we had in common. I’d read the Book of the Dead in a misguided attempt to learn more about vampires and their nature and what I could expect in the future.10 I’d turned evil for a bit and raped Sinclair, who had been delighted for every second of it.11 That was an awkward conversation, later.
More empathy, ugh. And at the worst possible time. I couldn’t afford to feel anything for the Ant except my usual exhausted contempt. Anything else only made complicated matters even more difficult.
“And did you think—” Oh, good, the shrill bitching was helping me back off from the momentary empathy. “Did you think it was my plan to have another baby in my thirties?”
“Forties,” I mumbled.
“And die in my late thirties?”
“Forties.”
“And find out that my daughter—the one I’d been forced to carry for nine months and squeeze out without so much as a Tylenol, never mind an epidural—was the Antichrist?”
“Well, I had to find out she was my sister, and also the Antichrist.” Speaking of, where the hell in Hell was she? Where was anyone besides This Woman? “So we can both relate, so what? This isn’t further proof we should go get coffee together or something, right?”
Judging by the expression on her face, the Ant found that concept as repulsive as I did. Whew! “And before you ask,” she continued, “my daughter had to tend to something back on earth.” Wow. I’ve lived long enough to have “back on earth” be a true, literal thing, something I barely blinked at. “She has many responsibilities and demands on her time.”
“So do I!” I cried. “So many. Speaking of, Jessica’s babies—”
Nostril flare at the name. I stomped on the urge to take off her shoes (which weren’t really there) and beat her to death with them (which was impossible) and then set the shoes on fire (tricky, since the shoes and the fire didn’t exist). Ultimately futile, sure, but sooo satisfying. I think.
“Keep your bigotry out of this,” I warned, which was like telling Cinnabon to keep their sugar out of anything.
“I am not a racist!” she cried, contradicting many, many of her actions, conversations, and boldly stated philosophies. “We’re very supportive of all their causes. For years we donated to the—ah—”
“Can’t remember the name of the charity you use for a tax break? That’s not surprising. Not even a little tiny bit.”
“You’re as bad as I am—”
“You take that back!”
“—with your one black friend and—”
“Wait. What?”
A snort, followed by an eye roll. “Sorrrry. African American friend.”
“No, that’s not what I take objection to.” And never would. I’d made that mistake once, and as a consequence Jessica almost fed me my own face. My parents and grandparents and greats and great-greats and great-great-greats were not African! We were from Jamaica! This PC shit is going too far! Don’t assume you know where my family’s from because I’ve got more melanin in my skin cells than you do, you silly bitch!
All right, all right! Say it, don’t spray it. Sorry.
The Ant cut through my stressful flashback (it was so real! I could remember the feel of her fingers as she seized my shirt and twisted, giving it the fabric equivalent of a purple nurple). “Oh, you know what I’m talking about. You’ve got your one African American pal to cement your street cred but you don’t hang out with any other—”
“Stop. Talking.” I took an unnecessary breath (it didn’t calm me but the dizziness helped me focus). “You’re awful. And nobody says ‘street cred’ anymore.”
“Sorry. I’m not up on current slang.”
“And that’s what you’re apologizing for, which sums you up perfectly. But shut up already, I’ve got bigger problems than you and isn’t that a crying goddamned shame. Jessica’s babies turned into toddlers and then turned back. Except everybody else thought they left the house, then came back. I’ve got no idea what to do about that.”
She beckoned my petty concerns forward in a “hurry up, out with it” gesture.
“And . . . that’s it.” I thought about it. Yep, that was the sitch in a nasty little nutshell. “There’s no more to tell. Isn’t that enough? Any ideas?”
“Several.”
“About Hellman’s and Miracle Whip?”
“Who?”
“The babies.”
“Yes, kick them out of your lives. All of them.”
I was surprised I was surprised. I’ve never been what you would call a fast learner. Or even a medium-speed learner. “Okay, now can I have a suggestion that doesn’t reek of sociopathy?”
Another shrug, one that barely concealed her impatience and boredom. “Don’t do anything. They’ll adjust, the way they’ve had to since you didn’t have the common decency to stay dead.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “that was ill-mannered of me.” Ill-mannered? Sinclair was rubbing off on me, and not in a sexytimes way.
“They’re fine. You’re fine. You know what the problem is. Just explain it to their parents.”
“Right, because it’s just that easy.” Wait, was it? Naw. That was not how life worked. How my life worked. “And where is everybody? Not that I want a crowd, but it’s so odd to be standing around in nothing having awful conversations with you.” I gestured to the nil of perdition. “There should be billions milling around.”
“They’re here. You’ll see them when you wish to see them. That’s all.”
I gritted my teeth at how she said “that’s all” like it was the entire explanation and there was no need for further discussion. That’s all. Cripes.
My stepmother rubbed her temples and looked like the Before picture in a Pepto-Bismol ad. “Think of it like a chest of drawers. You know exactly where your socks are even though you can’t see the socks. And before you squawk about how it can’t be that simple, you’re wrong. Because I have to break it down so far in order for you to get it, it is that simple.”
I had to give it to her; when she explained Hell that way, it was a concept I could grasp. “Then why are you here? I wasn’t thinking about you; I didn’t accidentally summon you.” In fact, it was probably time to get back to the Game. White bear, white bear. Except I was thinking DadDadDadDadDad. The whole time she’d been reading me the race riot act: DadDadDadDadDad.
She looked away. “Where else would I be?”
“Uh . . .” Oh God, no. Please. No more empathy for the Ant. It went against everything I believed in. And everything she believed in. “Okay.”
“I was always going to end up here.”
“You were?” The way she said it made me a little sad. Like she was stuck and there was nothing to be done. Which exactly described my father’s second marriage. (Yeah, I know, very meow. I literally cannot help myself.)
But was that even correct? She had been the devil’s right hand. Satan had been fond of the Ant as undivine vessel for the Antichrist, and they both cared about Laura, which made the Ant one of the few souls (?) Satan could absolutely count on to keep the Antichrist’s interests front and center. Satan was gone or dead or whatever, off to Heaven or another Hell or a dimension we didn’t know about or just total nothingness, but that still put Laura (and me to a much lesser extent) in charge. So was the Ant really stuck here? Was she staying by choice? Did she just hang around in all the nothing, waiting patiently for Laura or me to turn up?
Wow, any more parallels to her marriage to my father and I wasn’t going to be able to shake the feeling that Everything Happens for a Reason. Also, ugh.
“Of course I ended up in Hell,” she said with a sigh, in response to my polite “You were?” “I led a married man into adultery.” At my uncomprehending look, she elaborated. “It’s a sin.” Then she snorted, “Presbyterians.”
First off, I knew it was a sin, I just didn’t think many people these days truly thought they would go to Hell for treating their marriage vows as marriage suggestions. Second, my religion was none of her business. Third, I had no idea she was religious. Or moral. “It, um.” What the hell to say to that? Any of that? “You know the saying. I mean, it wasn’t all you.” This would kill me. I would literally nice myself to death, and for the Ant, of all people. Death was coming. “It takes two to, uh, adult. Be adulterous, or adulterate. Whatever. You weren’t in it by yourself. In fact, you weren’t even married, he was. So he was the actual adulterator. Right?”
A sullen shrug, but the way she peeked at me out of the corner of her eye while refusing to look straight at me was almost cute. “We made mistakes,” she finally allowed.
I accepted the olive branch (which was more like an olive twig, or maybe the pit) and went back to what I really wanted to know. High time, even if I didn’t have a hidden agenda. Because being stuck in Hades talking about my father’s marriage with my stepmother . . . if I’d had any doubt we were in Hell, that would have cleared it right up.
And again, because this was starting to bug me, I was here . . . without Laura! Unfortunately I didn’t have a leg to stand on in the “how come you punked out on that thing we agreed to do together?” department, due to my avoidance shenanigans. Still, it was annoying. Laura was supposed to be the better (wo)man, dammit. Never in my life, not once, had I been the better (wo)man. Why would anyone expect me to start now? Frankly, their unreasonable expectations were kind of a burden.
Because it’s your responsibility? You’re not just a queen, you’re the older sister.
I shoved those thoughts away so I could get back to what I needed to discuss. “Yeah, speaking of adulterating and all that came with it . . .” I made a show of looking around. “Where’s my father?”
A silence that could, at best, be referred to as uncomfortably awkward was my only answer. It took me several seconds to realize she wasn’t going to say anything. That this might not be a conversation, but a monologue. An uncomfortably awkward monologue.
I cleared my throat and tried again. “Did you understand the question? About Dad?”
“I’ve got no time for this. Neither do you.”
And she turned her back on me.