Chapter 13 The Struggling Single Mom Trope
Our first evening in Vermont Heaven and I sat silently in front of the picture window in the front room. Day one of together forever.
“The view is lovely, isn’t it?” I commented mildly.
It was everything I’d hoped it would be, a serene painting of a landscape and an old barn, the kind that might hang in a dentist’s office, soothing and unobjectionable.
Except for the hearse. It was lodged in the ditch where Heaven had left it, deep tire tracks leading to its final resting place.
“The view—” Heaven scoffed. “That’s what we’re going to talk about?”
“Would you like to say something?” I asked. “You’ve been very quiet.” Uncomfortably so. I couldn’t help but recall that feeling of new motherhood, holding a brand-new human who is at once a stranger and your child. One does not become a mother, or a maker, overnight.
“For one, it would be nice if we had electricity,” Heaven said, turning in my direction and blinding me completely with a headlamp she had found.
Holding a hand over my eyes, I asked, “Can you dim that?”
“No.”
“Okay. Fair enough.”
This was going to be more work than parenting in the 1700s.
Standards were pretty low back then. People these days are always talking about the trials of growing up in the 1980s, but child mortality rates spoke for themselves.
Most kids born in the ’80s survived to adulthood, even if they subsisted on plastic-wrapped American cheese slices and benign neglect.
Heaven was already an adult, a former neighbor, a woman who previously tried to fix me with some volunteer life coaching. This was uncharted territory.
“Well, tonight we have to do two things. Number one, we need to burn all of the vaguely religious decorations and Bibles.” I shuddered at the thought of all the danger around us. The least religious decoration was a Thomas Kinkade painting.
When I plucked the Kinkade from its place on the wall, Heaven exclaimed, “You can’t burn that. I love the light!”
“Which is why it has to go.” There was something sinister about the idyllic cottage. The sunbeams, the saccharine coziness—it was too perfect to trust. On second thought, it was essentially my Hallmark fantasy. I hung it back up.
“Okay, we can keep the painting, but this could kill you.” I picked up a Bible with fireplace tongs.
“Book burning, Tiff, really?”
“Heaven, right now, I know what’s best for you. I’m your m—”
She looked down her nose at me. “What were you about to say? You’re my—”
“Maker. That means a couple of things. First, I need to help you stay undead, instead of regular dead. If you watched Buffy, you know most of it—no stakes, sunlight, religious stuff like holy water and”—I gestured to the pile of cross-stitchery and portraits—“almost everything Aunt Mildred owned. We would get sunburned just living in this house as is.”
Heaven stared out the window listlessly. “Did you have to get a hearse?” Her voice had a “really, Mom?” edge to it.
“We’re vampires.”
She shut her eyes and started slowly shaking her head.
“We’re vampires” wasn’t sitting well with her.
In a preachy tone that filled the vestibule, she said, “Tiffenie, I am a Black woman, I’m a life coach, I’m a lesbian.
I’m a mediocre gardener. I’m a fan of old cartoons.
Vampire”—she spat out the word—“is waaaay down the line of anything I identify as.” Gathering momentum, she said, “Why am I even humoring you? I’m not a vampire and I never will be. You can’t make me.”
Umm…we could talk about that later.
I handed her a coconut water. “Drink this. You’ll feel better.”
She took the coconut water and set it down unnoticed. “Before we light all the Bibles on fire, where’s the rest of my stuff? I found a duffel with some clothes, but that’s not all, right?”
“Your earrings are in the center console. I grabbed those dangly ones you always wear and the African ones. I didn’t know which crystals you wanted, so I grabbed a bunch.”
“That’s it? You didn’t even bring hair products.” She pointed to her hair, which I couldn’t see with the headlamp pointed right at me.
In a huff, she gestured to a pile of things.
“You packed medieval armor, several laundry baskets full of—” She picked up a bottle of encapsulated retinol and a bunch of beauty products that promised to provide a youthful glow.
There was an LED mask. She shook her head in exasperation.
“Isn’t eternal youth one of the perks of this? ”
“Better safe than sorry?” I stood to go get her stuff from the car, grabbing the car keys. “Whatever I missed, we’ll grab in town.” Putting a fun spin on it, I said, “There are so many cute stores in Valentine.”
With an exasperated shake of her head, she said, “Gemma will send me what I need until I get out of here.” Practically growling now, she yelled, “This is insane, Tiffenie. You can’t just turn me into a vampire and move me into your dumb house in Vermont to watch Netflix on my cell phone because there isn’t even electricity. ”
Gemma—oh, no. “I’m very sorry about not packing better and, well, for everything else.” Turning her into a vampire didn’t belong in the same apology as forgetting to pack hair stuff. In my most serious voice, I said, “You need to stay away from people you care about.”
She stomped up the stairs. “I’m taking your pajamas because I don’t want to wear my Halloween costume around the house tonight.” From the landing she shouted, “You turned me into a vampire and brought me a couple of T-shirts and a Halloween costume. What is the matter with you?”
After the sound of violent unpacking lessened, I crept up to the bedroom.
She held up a dress I’d worn in the ’40s with an expression of outrage. “Did you pack anything comfortable?”
I pointed to a jumpsuit that I’d ordered when my targeted ads had me by the throat. “These are very popular.”
Reluctantly, she took the zip-up onesie and walked into the bathroom to change.
Standing in the doorway, I hazarded a few words. “I know you’re mad, but I don’t want this to mess up your business. You still have your life coaching thing.”
“Do I? I haven’t posted in days, because apparently, I was in a coffin—”
“It’s fine. I told them that you were sick.” I leaned against the wall and added, “But there’s been some speculation that I killed you.”
That made her snort.
“I have to admit, I don’t really understand what you do. What is RadianceGlobalLifeCoaching?”
“I’m a life coach, Tiff,” she said, with some edge to her voice. “It’s in the name.”
Basketball coach, volleyball coach…life, though? It’s not a game to win. I kept that thought to myself.
Heaven cleared her throat and climbed up on her soapbox in the too-tight jumpsuit. “I post quality content with unique insights every morning. I’m sponsored by companies that I believe in, and I make enough money to pay for my shit.”
Surfboards and swimwear—the endorsement deals made more sense now. “But what about a retirement plan or benefits or a regular salary. How does that work?”
Heaven rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I forgot that you’re a thousand years old.”
“Only three hundred.”
She scoffed.
I just didn’t get it. “You say nice things—tell people they can get rich, be beautiful, find love. But you don’t know them. You don’t know if they’re smart or beautiful or deserving. What is that—lies that ease the pain of existence?”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “I do know my followers.”
“How?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Cat sauntered in and jumped on Heaven’s lap. For a moment Heaven was quiet while she stroked Cat’s fur. Without all the sunshine and crystals, her demons were visible just below the surface.
Leaping up, Cat suddenly darted across the floor and snatched a mouse like it was an episode of National Geographic.
I gasped in horror as she slowly paraded past us with the mouse in her mouth.
Instead of eating it, she dropped it in one of Heaven’s slippers and waited a few feet away in pounce mode, totally still except for the last inch of her tail.
The mouse made a run for it. Cat chased.
I recoiled and pulled my feet into my chest to keep them off the floor. “Cat!” I yelled. “This violence is very uncomfortable.”
Heaven shook her head like she was trying to erase the image. “You’re uncomfortable with violence,” she said pointedly.
I shrugged. “This is a side of Cat I haven’t seen.”
A while later, Cat was still torturing the mouse, but some of Heaven’s positivity had returned.
“Do you think this is the first time I’ve Funshined my way out of a bad situation, Tiffenie?
” she said, a discernible note of “Don’t fuck with Funshine Bear” in her voice.
She was still wearing the headlamp. It obscured her face in shadows, except for her fang-toothed smile.
I believed her. This wasn’t even the first time she’d cheated death.
With finality, she finished off her third coconut water and crushed the box. “Where’d we put the recycling?”
I pointed to a makeshift grocery bag in the corner.
As she gestured, the beam of her headlamp swept across the room. “If I’m going to be stuck here, we gotta fix this place up.”
“Agreed.” I didn’t think I could stand another night without electricity. Whoever said diamonds are a girl’s best friend was dead wrong. It was Wi-Fi, thank you very much.
“Besides the rodent problem, it’s a super-dope old mansion. All we have to do is clean it up and repaint things. The fireplace is”—she pinched her fingers together in a chef’s kiss—“mwah! Can we light a fire? I might not feel the cold on my skin, but I feel it in my soul, if you know what I mean.”
I did. “We have plenty of kindling.” I pointed at the pile of Aunt Mildred’s anti-vampire décor.
“Are you sure about the book burning?”
I nodded. “We need it gone. G-O-D hates us and we can feel it.” I handed her a copy of I Smooched Dating Farewell: A Christian Girl’s Guide to Intentional Courtship and Holy Submission I’d found in Tiffany’s room.
With a gasp, she dropped the nightmare reading material and blew on her poor fingers.
In no time we had a crackling blaze. The firelight danced on the wall, bright and cheerful. Heaven pulled two delightfully mismatched chairs in front of the fireplace. She settled in with a contented sigh and said, “I’m sorry I insulted your clothes.”
“It’s okay.” That dress was gorgeous, but I knew when to play nice.
“I want to make the best of this, so truce.”
“Truce,” I said.
“So I guess we’re partners, at least until I’m safe in public.”
“I would love that.” A warm glow filled my entire being, and not from the fire.
She gave me a nod and said, “You’re right. I need to post, so here we go. I’m going live.”
“More like undead,” I joked.
“Don’t push it.” She set up her phone on a makeshift tripod, draped her pink and yellow braids over one shoulder like a goddess, and pressed Start.
In an exalted tone, she belted out, “Greatest of grand risings. Today is a new day. You are a new you. Let us face the sun and recharge.” She took a deep breath like she needed the oxygen. “I have had a tough…actually, I don’t know how long it’s been.”
Another side effect of being a vampire. Time means nothing.
“But I’m back.” She took a moment and said, “You might have met my friend, Tiffenie.”
I leaned in and waved.
“I’m going to be recuperating in the Vermont countryside for a while with Tiffenie.”
While I froze, suddenly realizing she didn’t know not to share our location, she nudged me. “Oh!” I scrambled for something to say. “Heaven’s going to be fine, and I’ll be right here with her.”
“This is going to be a challenge, people, I’m not going to lie. I don’t do dark, cold, or winter sports.”
A commenter reminded her that she was supposed to talk about relationships today.
“Damn, my bad.” Heaven collected her thoughts and said, “I don’t have any new advice, but sometimes we have to go back to the foundational principles.
One of those is good dick don’t make up for nothin’, because some of my heterosexual sisters need to hear that.
” With a shrug, she added, “He better have a job, a car, and a place to live. This goes for anyone, he or she or they. They better be vibrating on your level or you don’t need ’em. ”
Heaven got up and started walking with the camera. “At the moment, Tiffenie and I are on our own journey. This house needs fixing.” She showed her audience the surroundings. “As you can see, this is a dusty-ass, low-frequency dwelling, but that’s about to change.”
As comments from real-time viewers came in, she responded. “Hello, Houston! Yep, it’s cold up here! And hello, Australia. What time is it Down Under?”
The mouse had finally succumbed. Cat walked slowly across the room with her prize like a queen, making a brief cameo in the recording. “Oh, and I’m rooming with a feline now. Meet Cat.” When she saw the dead mouse, she changed her tone. “Never mind. Don’t look too close at that killer.”
Behind us the fire sparked. The blaze was going full-on White Christmas. All we needed was Bing Crosby on the record player. Heaven continued chatting with the people commenting on her live feed.
“AngelFire wants to know when the inn is going to be open for business.” A stray ember leapt from the fireplace, and she jumped back. “What’s up with the smoke?”
“I wouldn’t know. It’s been a few years since I lit one.” Like two hundred. I’d been trying to forget that part of my life. If someone asked me to go camping, I’d laugh in their face.
“You know, boos”—she paused to wave the smoke from her face—“I don’t think we can ignore this smoke. Tiff and I have to sign off and deal with the fireplace. Until tomorrow, be radiant!” She flashed a deuces sign and peaced out.
Which is when she turned to me and yelled, “You’re going to set this house on fire!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
The room was filling with smoke. “Do we need to open a flue?” I squatted down to look at the fireplace. “Is there a pull cord?”
There was no way to see into the fireplace, especially when I didn’t know what to look for. Also, the fire wasn’t crackling anymore, it was roaring like an angry, adult male lion. A whole pride of them.
“I’m calling 911,” she said, her eyes wide with fear.
“Heaven, no. The firefighters will be too delicious. You can’t drain a first responder on our second night in town.”
“Firefighters aren’t my type, Tiffenie. You know that.”
“Don’t be sexist. There are women firefighters. Plus, I don’t think you’re going to care. You’re going to want a bite, trust me.”
“Trust me,” she parried. “We need help.” She waved at the gray plumes billowing out from the fireplace.
“Just go lock yourself in the bathroom. Take Cat with you.”
Halfway up the stairs, she said, “You realize you’re locking me upstairs while the house is on fire?”
“You’ll be fine. You can’t die again.”