La Vida Vampire by Nancy Haddock

Normand a happy vampire. I’d explained that psychics weren’t omniscient, but Normand the Nutcase had expected a perfect protégé princess, not a resentful rebel.
    And though he was a royal pain, I never believed he was a real nobleman, much less a king. He’d hitched a ride on French ships with the soldiers who’d tried to hold Fort Caroline in what is now Jacksonville. When the Spanish slaughtered the French soldiers, King Normand moved south with his enclave of vampires and mortal slaves to settle outside the city gates. The Spanish soldiers, and later the troops of the British period, would’ve killed Normand sooner if they could’ve. My rotten luck they didn’t. I steered my thoughts away from Normand and back to tonight’s mind reading. Unprecedented since I’d become a vamp, so why had it happened? I’d read somewhere that the moon was moving away from Earth at the rate of 1.2 centimeters a year. Could that bit of distance lessen the moon’s influence over my psychic abilities? Wished I knew. Nothing is as scary in the light as it is in the dark. The sunshiny Tuesday morning dawned, and thoughts of the past and weird Cat faded. Picking up my sweet Chevy SSR with its aqua metallic paint job lifted my spirits, and so did stopping at Home Depot. Not to chew nails. To pick up a chandelier Maggie ordered and to ogle the playground of gizmos and gadgets. I returned to the penthouse and parked in the lot behind our building. Mostly it ’s bank parking, but each tenant gets one uncovered space. Since parking is hell anywhere downtown, I gladly paid for an additional slot. I mustered enough energy to brush my teeth before I fell into bed.
    I slept dreamlessly and far later than usual, all the way to five thirty. Maggie breezed in looking as fresh in her blue gray business suit as she had this morning. She plopped her purse on the kitchen island just as I finished rinsing out a single Starbloods bottle.
    She raised that brow at me. Or maybe it was at my butter yellow terry cloth robe and fuzzy dolphin house slippers —the kind with memory foam. I’m usually dressed by now.
    “You look like something the cat dragged in. Have trouble sleeping?”
    I startled at the C word but recovered and shook my head.
    “That’s an advantage of being underdead. No insomnia.” I dropped the bottle in my own recycling bin. “What are you and Neil doing tonight? Is he still groveling?”
    Maggie wagged her hand so-so. “If he shows up with dark chocolate or raspberry fudge, we may stay in. Did Home Depot have my chandelier?”
    I nodded toward corner of the dining room. “Right there.”
    “Hot damn,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “It’s playtime!”
    She immersed herself digging into the box, and I went back to my room. Now that I was awake, the first order of business was to double-check my Craftsman cabinet design. I tweaked it for twenty minutes before I was satisfied and e -mailed it to my instructor. The same prof’s new lecture was posted online, so I hunkered down to read first the lecture, then the textbook. After that, I reviewed my notes for the landscape class and dreamed of the garden I’d create for my little carriage house. Since I tend to go off in the ethers thinking about design, I set an egg timer for seven thirty. A quick shower and I tackled my hair.
    I hate to admit it, but if you ’ve seen The Princess Diaries , you’ve seen my hair. My flatiron won’t work Hollywood miracles. Would a straightening product help? Industrial strength? I could cut it, but I ’d had hair to the middle of my back for so long, would I feel freer with short hair or just terribly naked? Growing it back probably wouldn ’t be an option. I’d had Maggie’s cosmetologist, Julie, wax my eyebrows, and not one stray hair had grown back to ruin their shape. Maybe I should try a short wig for a while?
    I swept my mop up in a thick bun but didn’t bother with all the hair spray. I’d live with the tendrils