The Accidental Human Read online

Voilà. One cranky vampire pacified. “Okay, consider it done. I promise to turn myself in after my Bobbie-Sue party tonight. So is there anything else you want to rag on me for, or are we good to go for today?”

  “Hey, hey, hey! Don’t you make me sound like some nagging fishwife for giving a rat’s ass about you, Wanda. Don’t even. If it weren’t for you and Marty, I wouldn’t be doing all this sappy-crappy shit like caring or worrying or being BFFs.”

  “If it weren’t for me and Marty, Nina, you’d have no BFFs,” she reminded her caustically. “And, yes, I know. We’ve dragged you kicking and screaming into the world of the sensitive, the courteous. We should hang our heads in shame. What were we thinking? Now mind your manners, you—you—meanie butt.”

  “Oh, c’mon now. You can do better than that. Go on and call me something really shitty. Like a bitch. You know you want to,” she taunted back.

  “I do not.”

  “Do.”

  “Nina?”

  “Wanda?”

  “Stop goading me. Jesus!You call me a nag? I don’t want to call you the B word. I’ll just sinisterly think it when I’m alone late at night, plotting your demise. And don’t think for one second I don’t think the words you throw around like you’re flinging mud. I do. I just don’t say them out loud, because it’s crass and un-Bobbie-Sue-like. Now, I do want to go back to what I was doing, which was trying to make a living, if that’s okay with you and the gestapo.”

  Nina’s voice suddenly softened, something that had occurred more and more lately since she’d met her life mate, Greg. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? Marty and I were just worried is all. I mean, Jesus Christ, Wanda. We couldn’t reach you by cell, you weren’t at home, and I can’t remember a time when we couldn’t get in touch with you. It was shopping . . .”

  Which seemed utterly insignificant and meaningless compared to what she’d found out today. Who needed a discounted pair of Cole Haan’s when . . . Wanda halted her thoughts with a sharp tug.

  No. No efin’ way was she going to linger. She didn’t have time to linger. She had a business to run and desperate housewives to offer color wheel hope to. “Yes, it was shopping, and I blew it, and I’m going to have to chalk it up to my busy schedule as of late.The Bobbie-Sue ads in the paper have exploded, and I’ve been booking in-home parties left and right.”

  “Do you still put those bullshit ads in the Register, Wanda? You know, the cryptic ones that say you can earn a buttload of money part-time, but really mean you have to sell your fucking soul and join the cult known as Bobbie-Sue?”

  She’d get angry with Nina for mocking the multilevel sales techniques of Bobbie-Sue, but she was too damned wrung out. “Nina, sometimes you really can be the biggest of B words. It’s not cryptic, it’s enticing, and it’s written that way so people won’t miss the opportunity of a lifetime, you naysayer. Now, I really have to go, because I haven’t even begun my weenies in a blanket, not to mention my cheese log. Still love me?”

  Nina snorted again, that derisive, skeptical sound she made when anyone broached the subject of a deep emotion. “Love schmove. What-ever. Just don’t do that to me again, got it? I hate to worry, and you made me worry. It pissed me off. The world just isn’t right if you aren’t hounding us about being on time to get somewhere or organizing our every breath.”

  A brief smile flitted across Wanda’s lips, but her gut clenched and her skin grew clammy again. Who would keep her friends on track if she didn’t? “You’re eternally pissed off, and right now, it’s because you love me and you were worried, Queen of the Night. Now, go call Marty and tell her to stop the search party. I’m fine. Just busy. I’ll see if I can’t get my hands on some AB neg to make it up to you.” Being the rarest form of blood, AB negative was a treat for vampires, because it was so hard to come by, and Nina loved her some AB neg.

  Nina cackled, her laughter crisp in Wanda’s ear. “You’re a real smart-ass these days, Wanda. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been going on with you for months. You’re all fiery and mouthy, and under normal circumstances, I’d totally dig that in a fellow chick. But there can only be one mouthy woman in this trio from hell. I’m the mouthy one in this relationship, and don’t you forget it.”

  Nothing had been going on for months—she’d learned to speak up, hanging out with Nina and Marty, but that was just personal growth.

  Today, well, her mouthyness had a whole different motivation.

  Wanda blew a strand of hair out of her face and glanced at her list. “Well, just get used to it. After hanging around you and Marty, I guess I got myself a spine. They were on sale at Wal-Mart. It was a two-fer deal. Buy a set of balls and get a spine for free. I needed one so I could stand upright between you two when you go at each other like mud wrestlers, now didn’t I? Besides, you only live once, right?” She slapped a hand over her mouth. Had she just said that? Shutupshutupshutup, you twit.

  “No,Wanda. I don’t know. Remember? Eternal life here,” Nina joked.

  Tracing a pattern over her small kitchen dinette table, Wanda felt that tightening in her throat again.Yeah. Eternal life. She knew. Okay, she had to go or she’d lose her focus and turn into a total pile of poo. “I remember. How could I forget that I’m the only one in this threesome that’s of the human persuasion—especially after paranormal-palooza?”

  Nina’s sardonic laughter rang in her ears. “Yeah, we’ve had some shit fly, haven’t we?”

  Indeed. The three of them had had more shit fly than a horse farm. Mucho shit. “We have, and now I’m going to go make stuff you can’t eat anymore, because blood is your beverage of choice. Byyyeeeeee, vampire.” Wanda clicked the phone off before Nina could find another reason to chew her a new one.

  The moment she put the phone down, it rang again to the tune of “Love Story.”

  Her caller ID said it was the other person she’d stood up today—Marty. Marty the werewolf. The person who was responsible for them all becoming friends, and Wanda’s first ever paranormal experience—first only to Nina the vampire, that is. Ironically, Marty, too, had been accidentally bitten by Keegan, her now husband, another one of those life mates that seemed to float all over the place completely unnoticed. If she were less secure, she might feel left out because she was so average, and she couldn’t fly like Nina or shift into a shag rug like Marty. Or for that matter, live forever . . . But life wasn’t meant to be eternal, not on purpose anyway.

  But it could be . . . a voice, desperate and filled with fear whispered in her head.

  Oh, shut the ef up already, she mentally warned her subconscious. It could not. What was meant to be was meant to be. Accidents happened, but you didn’t purposely seek immortality.

  You didn’t.

  Her phone kept chirping. Damn. If she took the call, she’d only get more of what Nina had given her—it’d just be minus the cranky and involve much less swearing. If she didn’t take the call, Marty would stalk her until she answered, and she couldn’t have that in the midst of a Bobbie-Sue event. It was unseemly.

  With a heavy, reluctant hand, Wanda flipped open her phone and prepared for her next blast of shit. “Yes, Marty?”

  Marty’s breathing was rapid when she spat her words out. “Where have you been, Wanda Schwartz? Do you have any idea how worried Nina and I have been about you? I know I’m going to basically live forever, but eventually, wrinkles will ensue, and I think I’m getting some around the sides of my mouth. Know why?”

  Wanda put Marty on speakerphone and popped open her fridge, looking for the crescent rolls and mini weenies. “Why, Marty?”

  Marty’s sigh crackled throughout Wanda’s kitchen, leaving a pinging, irritated reverberation. “Because you didn’t show up today! And we were shopping,Wanda. Shop-pppiiing,” her voice rose an octave, dragging out the word with an accentuation on the letter P. “Remember—discounted designer clothes? You’re the most predictable woman I know, and all of a sudden, out of the blue, no one can find you. It was like you fell off the face of the
planet or something, and that’s so not like you. You don’t do unavailable. That’s Nina’s thing. Now, I want answers, and I want them this instant.”

  Cracking open the tube of crescent rolls with a thwack against her countertop,Wanda sighed, too. She was too tired to take issue with Marty’s demanding tone. Though less abrasive than Nina, Marty could be just as much of an incessant nag. “I already explained this to Nina, Marty. I’m sorry about missing our lunch date and, yes, I know all about the sacrifices Nina makes when we do a day trip. God knows she reminded me using her favorite swear word of the day, but something came up, and I forgot all about it.”

  Marty’s tongue clucked into the phone, admonishing her. “You never forget, Wanda.”

  Sweet fancy Moses, was she really that predictable? Okay, so she liked things to run smoothly. Often.

  All right, always.

  Was it a crime to like things to come off without a hitch? Was she a bad person because she liked order and harmony in her world? Wasn’t the world a better place because of nitpicky whack jobs like her who didn’t know how to do anything without a list and a stopwatch? Would it even matter after today? “Well, today I did. Oy and vey, just shoot me for having a lot on my plate, would ya?” Clearly, the task of keeping this afternoon’s issue to herself wasn’t going to be simple.

  “No. Nuh-uh, Wanda, you don’t get off that easy.”

  “Easy? This being read the riot act is easy? You’d think I missed you and Nina curing cancer.” She fought a gasp. Keep yon trap shut, Schwartz—you’re the suckiest of liars. Don’t get in too deep. Keep it simple, mouth.

  “Wanda, honey? Again, I say.You never forget. If there’s a detail to be had, you’re on it like Vaseline on a beauty queen, Ms. OCD. You’re the one who’s always fifteen minutes early to a party—the one out of all three of us who coordinates everything and makes a big ole stink if we’re even two minutes late. Wasn’t it you who almost pitched a hissy in front of the House of Hwang when me and Nina were five minutes late—because of traffic, I might add—on buy-one-get-one-free mai tai night? I believe it was. So I’m not buying this ‘I’m busy, and I forgot’ gig. Now, what’s going on?”

  Wanda shrugged her shoulders as if Marty were in the room with her, averting her eyes to her carefully planned weenies in a blanket. “What if I told you I was off wonking my next door neighbor Harry Stein all afternoon, and we got so jiggy—because, as you know, it’s been a long dry season for me since my divorce—that I blew you guys off for some white-hot sex?” Take that from good old, predictable, list-making Wanda, why don’t ya?

  Marty’s laughter tinkled, bouncing off the pristine white walls of Wanda’s kitchen. “I’d laugh and laugh, and then I’d tell you to cut the delusional crap and tell me what’s going on.”

  No one was going to make this easy, were they? She needed to buy herself some time, so she could talk to Nina and Marty at her own speed. “Why couldn’t it have been that I was having freaky, sweaty, hot sex? I like sex just as much as you and Nina, and you guys are always having sex since you hooked up with Keegan and Greg. All I hear about is the incredible sex you crazy paranormals have.Well, maybe today I was having average old human sex. Whaddya think about that? Sex is good. Well, maybe not as good as it could have been had I had it with someone who knew what he was doing with his man-tool for half my adult life. My ex is a podiatrist, but I just know having sex, any kind of sex, is good. So how do you know that’s not what I was doing?”

  Marty coughed on a chuckle. “Because you don’t have sex, Wanda, except for whatever you read in those romance novels. If you were having sex, you’d have told us, because both Nina and I know that eye roll you give us whenever we talk about our sex lives. It means you’re not having any, and hearing about ours makes you want to puke.”

  Wanda scoffed. “I don’t either want to puke, and maybe that’s all changed due to the hotness of Harry Stein.”

  “Harry Stein is eighty if he’s a day, Wanda.”

  “So, maybe we use Viagra. A lot of it.”

  “Yeah, and maybe those white socks he wears with his sandals are an über turn-on, too.”

  A giggle spilled from her throat at the image Marty evoked. Yeah, okay, so Harry had been a stretch, but she’d diverted Marty successfully. “Jeez o’ Pete. Look, I swear nothing’s going on. I’ve been booking a lot of in-home parties lately, and I have one tonight. I got my dates mixed up is all. I thought we were meeting tomorrow. I’m sorry. Even us OCs falter, and you pointing that out to me only makes my OCD worse.You don’t want me to spend a month obsessively berating myself, do you? So, I already apologized to Nina, and now I’ll do the same for you. I’m sorry, Marty Flaherty, and if that’s not good enough, would you consider my humble offering of a live organ?”

  Finally Marty laughed, and Wanda’s deer-in-the-headlights moment passed. “Okay, okay. We’ve just been worried lately. You always look so tired these days. Are you feeling okay?”

  She felt fabulous. Grand. Dope, as Nina would say—even if she really shouldn’t. “I’m fine, really, Marty. I’m just tired because I’ve been working long hours. I totally want that new pension plan Bobbie-Sue is offering, and I can’t get it if I don’t put in the extra hours.” Marty knew what ambition and Bobbie-Sue were like. At one time, Marty had sold Bobbie-Sue, too, and that’s how they’d all met—because Marty had recruited both Wanda and Nina.

  “Fine. You’re off the hook for now, but don’t forget karaoke next week. If you think Nina bitched at you for missing our lunch date today, imagine what she’ll do if we miss a night of her caterwauling Barry Manilow at the top of her lungs.”

  Rolling her eyes at the phone on the countertop, Wanda nodded her head. “I’d rather be dead than suffer the wrath of a Barry-less night.” She gulped hard. Dead . . . Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Wasn’t it funny how often that word was so carelessly bandied about in causal conversation? Her heart picked back up to that rapid pace. She absolutely had to shut her piehole. Breathing deeper still, she closed her eyes and fought to concentrate. “Am I grounded now? Can I go, or is there more?”

  Marty cleared her throat. “Don’t you get snippy with me, Wanda. Because you know I can—”

  “Yeah, I know.” She began to drone the words Marty had used more than once with Nina since she’d been turned into a werewolf. “You’re a werewolf. You can take me. Nina’s a vampire. She can take me, too. I’m just a plain old human with no superpowers.”

  “That’s right, and don’t think I won’t kick your getting-skinnier-by-the-second ass if you give me shit,” Marty barked.

  “Marty!”

  “What, honey?”

  “I’m fine, but I really, really have to go. I’ve got a houseful of women coming over tonight, and if I’m going to have weenies in a blanket on the menu, I need to get my tuchis in gear.”

  Marty paused, her voice giving way to a warmer tone. “You go charm the socks off of more Bobbie-Sue recruits with your infamous cheese log, and I’ll call ya later this week. ’K?”

  “Deal. Bye now.” Wanda clicked her phone off and blindly reached for a chair, sinking into it. Marty and Nina were right. She was tired, and today it seeped into her bones, settling in her muscles at an alarming rate.

  She wanted to climb into her bed, burrow under the covers, drag them up over her head, and wait . . .

  For the inevitable.

  But it didn’t have to be the inevitable, did it? She did have friends. Friends who could help her, but if she did something that drastic—that life-altering—there was no going back. God only knew, no one knew that better than Wanda after this past year.

  Her mind raced with what to do next.

  Her phone chirped once more, thwarting further dilemma-wallowing. If it was Nina, calling back to give her hell again, she’d scream. Maybe she’d even swear. Yeah. Lots and lots of swearing—very unlike the banal non-wonking Wanda Schwartz everyone was so sure they knew so well, eh? But when she picked up the phone, she didn’t recognize th
e number. It could be one of the women she’d recruited via her newspaper ad, and she couldn’t take a chance she’d miss someone. Swallowing her worry, she summoned her Bobbie-Sue spirit. “This is Wanda Schwartz, your Bobbie-Sue regional color advisor. How may I help you?”

  Someone coughed, then cleared their throat. “Um, hello. I’m calling about the ad you placed in the Register.” It was a man someone. A man someone with a liquid silk voice. A man someone who’d just sent a shiver up her spine with said liquid silk voice.

  She shifted in her seat, crossing her nylon-clad legs. A man? Answering her ad? The hell? “Uh, yeah. I mean, yes. That was my ad. How can I help you?”

  There was a slight pause, as if this man on the other end was struggling to put a sentence together, but when he spoke, though his words were far from remarkable, they commanded her attention. “I’d like to know how I can earn two to five thousand extra dollars per month working only part-time.”

  Calling her astonished that a man had answered her ad was an understatement. A man. A real live one. Shut. Up. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Wanda’s brow furrowed, her freshly plucked eyebrows raised. “Why?” Maybe he was some kind of perv. And then she remembered he had no clue what the ad was about. Yet it was so odd for a man to answer her ad. Even though the ad was designed to be cryptic, for whatever reason, she mostly got calls from women.

  “Uh, because I need a job, and who wouldn’t want to know how to earn an extra two to five thousand dollars part time per month?”

  Indeed. Who? But a man-who? “But . . . you’re a man.” Shite. She bit her lip to stop herself from blurting out anything else. When had a little ole thing like a man stopped her from using her best sales techniques? Bobbie-Sue had men’s products—they just didn’t sell them as actively as they did cosmetics. Oh, wasn’t she a sorry, sorry sales rep tonight for even questioning his gender. A recruit was a recruit.

  “I am,” his voice assured her with a seductive ripple in her ear, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. “Is that a problem?”