Chapter 42 The Escape from the Small Town Trope
Wayne and the cop took a left out of the driveway and headed back into town.
Imminent disaster was averted yet again, but a storm was rolling in.
Up until now, the snow had looked like movie-set fluff, the kind made for building snowmen and making snow angels.
Now the howling winds turned each flake into a little knife.
“Are you okay?” Vlad asked. We’d only been outside for a minute, but his hair and shoulders were covered in snowflakes.
“Thanks for glamouring Wayne,” I said. “I just need a little time.” Maybe five minutes. Maybe a month. My confusion, anger, dashed hopes, gratitude—all my feelings were tangled like Christmas lights in November.
Vlad and Heaven nodded and headed inside, leaving me alone with my feelings.
It was just me and the plastic statue of Santa staring into the distance with an unrealistically jolly expression.
That smile suddenly pissed me off. What did he have to be so happy about?
He was an ancient, stored-in-the-basement Santa, his coat faded to pink from the sun.
With a guttural scream, I bear-hugged the plastic lawn ornament, intending to drop-kick him to the moon, but he was fused to a sleigh, which was tethered to reindeer.
I was strong, but this was an awkward package.
I dropped him back to earth and kicked him while he was on the ground.
Emotionally exhausted, I flopped onto the snow next to Santa, the two of us collapsed like fighters too tired to finish what they’d started.
Vlad might be able to cover up my mistake with Wayne. We might be able to appeal the condemnation of the house. But nothing could change that I was a vampire. Listening to one more Christmas song might actually kill me. What the hell was I doing in Vermont?
Going harder at being human was a failure. I only had one option left. Actually, it had been my only option from the start.
Vampires drank blood, existed alone in the dark, and definitely didn’t celebrate Christmas. What had I been doing? Celebrating a holiday that I couldn’t pronounce? Had I lost my mind? I was a bloody vampire—literally!
Coconut water wasn’t in my diet.
Energy drinks weren’t in my diet, not even Bloodshot-flavored No Fear.
I looked up to see Heaven standing nearby. I thought she was going to console me, but instead she said, “Don’t worry. I got that on camera.”
I laughed, but then I slumped over again. “What have I been doing decorating trees and dating Santa? I’ve lost my mind, Heaven.”
“You’re fine. Who hasn’t lost their mind over Santa Claus, especially a fine-ass Santa like Tyrone?” She pointed at the plastic Santa face down in the snow. “Girl, you might just have some daddy issues to work through.”
“No, it’s loneliness,” I said, still lying in the snow next to the plastic lawn ornament. “That’s what Dr. R said, but more of an existential loneliness than an I-don’t-have-any-friends variety.”
“Whatever. I call it like I see it and you gots daddy issues.”
“What does it even matter?”
I knew what I needed to do.
I needed to leave. Valentine wasn’t for me.
I’d misinterpreted the Happily Ever After hearse. I’d thought it was a sign, but everyone else saw it for what it was: a joke. It was taunting me. I’d been misreading everything, straining to make reality fit my fairy tale.
“Come inside, Tiff. It’s snowing on us.”
In the entryway, we stomped the snow off our shoes. I said, “Heaven, I need to get out of here. Do you want to come with?”
“Now?” She looked out the window. “I know we can’t die, but it’s really coming down out there. Didn’t you get that travel advisory alert on your phone?”
I was a vampire, and I laughed in the face of Mother Nature. “I’m not going to let some bureaucrat from the National Weather Service who decided to send an alert change my day.”
I hadn’t drained Wayne, but the next guy might not be so lucky. What was a little snow going to do to me? I couldn’t freeze to death. I couldn’t drown. It’s not like the snow was going to chop my head off or stake me.
“Tiffenie, there is no way in hell I’m getting in a car tonight.”
“Suit yourself. I’m sure Vlad will drive you when you’re ready to leave. Tomorrow maybe? Before the city knocks the place down, anyway.”
“I thought you were going to figure out who you were and what you wanted, maybe slow down a little?”
“I’m a vampire, Heaven. I guess I needed to come to Vermont to remind myself. Any figuring out I have left, I’d prefer not to do it while living on a condemned Hallmark set.”
Heaven accepted my decision and opted to stay in Vermont until the bitter end. “I like it here.”
Twenty minutes later, I had the back of the hearse packed.
Cat was in her carrier, yowling in protest. I’d thrown in a few things but left most. Wayne might as well take a wrecking ball to my life.
I left my baskets of anti-aging creams and my LED mask.
I was a vampire. It was time to stop spending money on anti-aging products.
Plus, I couldn’t find the charger for the mask anyway.
And I left all of the bridesmaid gowns and coats I wore to parties a hundred years ago.
What was I doing being in weddings for other women in the secretarial pool?
They didn’t know me well enough to be my friend.
They just needed a fifth bridesmaid to walk down the aisle with the groom’s weird cousin who someone decided had to be in the wedding.
It was just me, Cat, and some sweatpants. On second thought, I grabbed that jar of Crème de la Mer. J.Lo swears by La Mer, and she looks better than a vampire.
By the time I’d loaded up the car, it was covered in snow. Heaven and the weathercasters were right. It was coming down at advisory levels. I was trying to scrape the ice off the windshield while the wipers were going because it was a two-man job.
“Tiffenie, what are you doing?” Vlad walked out to the car, the collar flipped up on his overcoat.
“I’m leaving, Vlad. Some of the wisdom I’ve gained in this immortal existence is knowing when I’ve failed. And I have one hundred percent without a doubt failed at running a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont.” I couldn’t even believe that sentence had just come out of my mouth.
I would have liked to peel out of the driveway and leave some rubber on the road, but a couple of weeks of Vermont driving let me know that wasn’t a good idea. I would only make it into the ditch.
As I pulled out of the bed-and-breakfast at a reasonable speed, I gave the house one last lingering look. Heaven’s brand-new sign out front read Radiance. A Christmas tree twinkled in the front window. Vlad was watching me leave from the driveway, fuming.
According to Dr. R, happily ever after came from within. No Vlad. No Tyrone. I was going…to find myself. Destination unknown. At least I knew I was a vampire.
Cat meowed in the back. “Be patient, Cat. This could take a while.”
The radio blared with a discordant emergency alert beep. A loud robotic voice announced, “The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning. Be prepared for icy conditions, blowing and drifting snow, and significant accumulations. No travel advised in the state of Vermont.”
The devil was shaking my snow globe.
That felt about right. Flakes were coming down so hard and fast that the windshield wipers couldn’t clear the snow. A mile away from the house, I was driving in a whiteout. I couldn’t see the lines to know if I was on the road. If I stopped, something could run into me from behind.
Cat kept meowing, complaining about her stupid crate when a much worse fate awaited her if I didn’t keep us on the road.
“Shut up, Cat! We’re going to die if I don’t concentrate.”
Well, I wasn’t. But she could. And I couldn’t let Cat die. She had at least seven good years left.
Even going as slow as I was, I could feel the car losing connection with the road.
As I approached a curve, I turned the steering wheel to no effect.
The ditch was calling us home. I slammed on my brakes like you’re not supposed to do—oops—and the car spun out sideways until I slammed into something.
Thankfully. It stopped me before I could crash into the river or, even worse, a quaint small business.
We would just stay here until the snow died down.
“It’s okay, Cat. We’ll be fine. Just breathe.”
She howled.
What a dumb escape. I wasn’t even sure which direction I was aimed in or what I was jammed under. When there was a break in the snow, I could see I was lodged under the town welcome sign. Lol. Very funny, universe.
In that moment, I let go. I was powerless against the elements. I released my struggle and my desires. Going full Buddha, I contemplated the sign: Find your heart in Valentine!
One’s heart is not the same as true love. That one true love I’d been looking for all along was myself. I certainly couldn’t connect with someone else if I didn’t find my own heart. If you don’t love yourself, there can’t be a happily ever after. Those are the rules, for humans and for vampires.
Dr. R’s advice about learning to love myself wasn’t new.
I’d lived through (19)90s self-help culture.
I’d watched Sex and the City and Girls. Even Bridget Jones’s Diary encouraged this kind of thing and that movie came out more than twenty years ago.
But I’d never actually internalized these thoughts.
Was that what I’d come to Valentine to learn?
Well, I’m listening, universe! I don’t need to be alive or be human, I just need to connect with my own damn self!