Redefinition

I’ve thought about that word a lot lately.

This morning I was going to walk the dog down for coffee, not for the dog, but for me. I usually use my lovely little red French Press… anyway, you don’t care about that.

I didn’t get coffee because I was called out. My brother Aaron said I must come quickly to his office. I asked why. He just said to come to his office. I yelled at him to tell me. I hate games. Just tell me. He hung up the phone.

What is it with Vampires that they’ll never tell you anything.

Thirty minutes later (I didn’t want to get a ticket) I was sitting across my impeccable brother in the law offices of Todd and Xavier, my brother Aaron being the Todd half of the firm.

He smiled, something he doesn’t do enough of. “So how are things?”

Really? How are things? “OK,” I said. “Clara made the highest score in the class on her English essay. It was about peer pressure.”

“Fantastic.”

That was all he said. I could hear the birds outside and some traffic in the distance. Otherwise we sat there in silence.

“Why’d you call me Aaron? What is it?”

He slid a paper across his desk. He didn’t tell me to read it. He just put it in front of me.

It was to Mr. Aaron Todd, Esq.  It made me slightly proud of my brother. Then I read what he’d pushed in front of me.

I read the letter then shrugged. I like to shrug when I think something is stupid.

“You never told me you had a grave,” said Aaron.

Back in 1921 my then boyfriend Pleasant Van Dusen and I were buried. Then we were unburied and, long story but in a cemetery in Southern California are empty caskets and a double headstone with our names on them.

Aaron’s office phone rang. He answered and said, “show him in.”

And there was Pleasant, my old flame. “I hear someone wants to exhume us.”

Then we just laughed. I mean, there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. We could say no but why not add to the mystery. How someone even found Aaron as the heir to the Aaron who lived in 1921 and took care of the “estate.”

My brother spoke up. “They want to film a documentary on cemetery mysteries. It seems as if someone back then thought you were Vampires. I don’t want to have to answer to anyone when they dig up empty caskets.”

Pleasant smiled. “The caskets aren’t empty.”

Well, that was a surprise.

“Who pray tell is in them?” I had to ask. I mean, I really had to ask.

Pleasant sat next to me and took my hand. “You’re looking good Jewels. How are Teddy and the kids?”

“Who is in the caskets?”

“An architect and his wanna be movie star girlfriend.”

“Donald and Olive. I thought they’d skipped town.”

“After they tortured and killed his pregnant wife they headed out with all of her money but…some friends of his wife, who were also friends of mine took care of them.”

I suddenly felt sick thinking about all of the stupid things I’d done in my past. But I had no idea this had happened.

“Do whatever you want. I don’t care. They don’t have our real names so nothing will come back to us. Beside that we’d be, what, a hundred and twenty years old according to the dates on the gravestones.”

“I’ll say no,” said Aaron. “Rest in peace.”

Pleasant and I left Aaron’s office together and walked around the corner for coffee. It was nice being with Pleasant even thought there were so many times that I truly hated him.

We talked about our spouses and raising Modern Vampire children. Of course we raised them to be far smarter and wiser than we were in our sorted pasts.

Pleasant took my hand and asked, “do you think we could have made it together.”

“Maybe, but no. We were too stupid. We would have stayed stupid if we’d stayed together.”

He laughed and we agreed to keep in touch.

So anyway, I try not to dwell on the past. I know where the bodies are hidden but that doesn’t mean I need to go visit them, much less think about them.

I headed over to meet my daughter for coffee (around the corner at a different coffee place that is exclusively organic) and talk about college. How things have changed. Her life will be far better and far more sane than mine ever was. That is a good thing. The same goes for Pleasant’s children.

The goal is to learn from our mistakes, before we become parents. I can’t expound on that anymore than I already have.

So much for weird days. Then again, most of my days are weird. I can only hope that yours, dear reader, are not.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

First published April 28, 2015