accidental 09.5 - interview with an accidental (2 page)

Dakota: “Who wasn’t really a dog.”

Marty laughs out loud. Of course, at the time there was a whole lot less laughter.

Marty: “Exactly! We just
thought
he was another dog. Turns out, he wasn’t the biggest German shepherd we’d ever seen but an actual werewolf named Keegan. When I tried to detach Muffin from the alleged canine, because I really began to fear for the other dog’s life (Muffin can be such a beast. She’s sometimes referred to as Killer), I was accidentally nicked on the hand, and voila! Insta-werewolf. Jesus’s underpants, that was a batch of crazy, wasn’t it, Dakota? But long story short, I’m now happily married to that dog…er, werewolf. Who knew the beast in that alleyway would turn out to be the love of my life?”

Marty giggles in her light, girlie way and smiles at the recollection, the highlights of her blonde hair shimmering under the dim lighting in my writing cave…Er, office.

Dakota: “Well,
I
did, Marty. Because, you know, I wrote you?”

Marty: “Right. Anyway, I’m Marty Flaherty, now very happily married to Keegan for seven years and we have a precocious daughter named Hollis. I now own Bobbie-Sue Cosmetics, thanks to my nutbag—”

I press two fingers together in Marty’s direction, using the universal sign to zip it.

Dakota: “Marty! Shhh! No spoilers. You promised to let me do most of the talking just in case people want to read your story. Less is more, Queen of the Color Wheel.”

Marty rolls her big baby blues at me and pouts her perfectly glossed lips.

Marty: “But you
always
do all the talking. We never get a say in what you’re going to do to us. I mean, how much do you think I loved that trip to Hell in…what was it, book four? Um, not. But I went because, for the love of all that’s hot and sweaty, you
made
me go, with all your late-night pecking on that stupid keyboard! It’s unfair! I say we all—”

I give Marty the look. You know the one.

Dakota: “Marty! Hush.”

Marty hangs her head in shame and sighs, folding her hands in her lap after smoothing them over her trendy skirt.

Marty: “Right. I keep forgetting. Less is more. So how’s you? The boys? How’s Oregon and that adorable DH of yours?”

Dakota: “We’re all good, and enjoying empty-nesting.”

Nina: “Yeah, that empty nest gives a hack like you way too much time to concoct more crazy.”

Marty reaches across Wanda and yanks the string on Nina’s hoodie. I’d put Wanda in the middle of them for a reason. You’ll see why in three, two, one…

Marty: “Knock it off, Mouthy McMouth, and let Dakota do what she invited us here to do.”

Wanda: “Nina! I’m almost at my wits end with you. Now, keep your mean, insensitive thoughts to yourself or I’m going to put my foot square up your derriere!”

Dakota: “Girls…”

But Nina instantly pipes down and returns to glowering at me.

Marty repositions herself in her seat and gives me the Thumper look.

Marty: “Sorry, Dakota.”

I smile my acceptance of her apology and cross my fingers that Nina will keep her introduction and complaining short and sweet. But I’ll warn you in advance, it likely won’t matter if a million people cross their fingers because as you’ve already witnessed, my next character is un-shushable.

But wish me luck, okay?

Dakota: “Okay, so next up is Nina Blackman-Statleon from book two, titled
Accidentally Dead
. A gorgeous brunette who shuns all things girlie and wears hoodies and work boots, much to her BFFs’s dismay. Once a court stenographer, she took a job as one of Marty’s Bobbie-Sue reps out of sheer desperation when she was laid-off, which is originally how the girls all met. So, Nina, tell everyone how you became one with the darkness.”

I sit back and hold my breath—because here it comes, people.

Nina cracks her knuckles and grins.

Nina: “Where to start? Oh, wait, I know. One day, probably while you were filing your nails or some such shallow, ex-beauty-queen shiz, you thought, wouldn’t it be funny if I turned Marty’s unsuspecting friend Nina from book one into a vampire? And then you thought, let’s really do this up right. Let’s finally have some damn mercy and give her a real job that doesn’t involve selling stupid lip gloss with names like Slaughterhouse Sienna—”

Marty: “That’s Sunset Sienna, Nina, and you know it!”

Nina: “Whatthehellever. Anyway, in all your wisdom,
Author
, you decided to give me a job as a dental hygienist because you thought, wouldn’t it be rolling-on-the-floor, laughing-your-ass-off funny if, after all that time I was out of work, hawking greasy moisturizer, you finally give me a decent job with bennies only to snatch that shit right out from under me and turn me into a vampire?”

Now I hang
my
head in shame. Okay, so I did laugh. But I never rolled on the floor. Swear it on my Sunset Sienna lip gloss.

Dakota: “We’ve discussed the grudging, haven’t we, Nina? C’mon, pal. Don’t be like that. And we promised we’d just stick to the facts. So continue, please. Minus the pokes at Marty.”

Nina: “Fine. Anyway, book two opens with me at a new job as a dental hygienist, one I really liked except for that dink of a receptionist. I was accidentally bitten when my now husband/life mate, Greg Statleon, came in to have a tooth fixed. He had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia, clamped his mouth shut, and took a chunk out of my hand. Also, because Miss Rhodes Scholar here made a mistake, there was speculation by one or two readers about my position, and whether I should have been the one putting that sucky thing into my man’s mouth as an assistant/hygienist. Which technically means none of this ever had to happen and I could still be eating chicken wings from the Cluck-Cluck Palace by the bucket, but whatever.”

I roll my eyes at Nina and how quickly she forgets all the awesome things she has in her life now because it
did
happen. But whatever.

Dakota: “That’s true. I chalked it up to literary license and fiction. So roll with me, if you will. But forget that; let’s talk about why you hated Bobbie-Sue so much. You know, so people get a really in-depth feel for your brand of cranky.”

And we’re off!

Nina: “I flippin’ hated selling makeup. Hated it. I answered Marty’s stupid ad out of desperation because I was broke and they were gonna turn off my cable. She made it sound like the road to Fort Knox was paved with Bobbie-Sue, and I fell for it. Which it was
not
, people. It sucked more ass than a good cleanse, and
I
sucked at it because I don’t give a ripe shit
what’s
in your color wheel.”

I snicker, because if you could see the picture in my mind of someone like Nina asking people about their color palettes, you’d bust a gut, too.

Dakota: “Ah, yes. A sure way to make my Nina cringe is to have someone ask ‘What’s In Your Color Wheel?’ one of the quirkier catchphrases from The Accidentals. But as much as Nina hates it, fans of the series turned it into a way to greet me at conventions and in emails. She also has a rather strange, intense loathing for the color yellow. This, too, is also something fans of the series have derived much pleasure in calling me to task about—all in good fun, of course.

“Anyway, if I’m honest, Nina despises most everything and everyone—or at least she pretends to.”

Nina glowers at me some more.

Nina: “Who said anything about pretending?”

I reach over my desk and pinch her cheeks because I know she hates it.

Dakota: “You totally know that’s not true. Just finish the story, Crabby Patty. Tell everyone where you are now in your life after nine books.”

Nina: “I’m mated to Greg now and have a baby girl named Charlie.”

Nina’s face is wreathed in smiles. It isn’t often she smiles, unless it’s when she’s leering maniacally at you, but if we’re talking about her baby and her husband, well, nothing makes her happier.

Dakota: “Oh, and as an aside, Charlie is a vampini—half genie, half vampire.”

Nina: “That she is. Thanks for that, Crazypants. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rip your intestines out through your belly button if you tried to hurt my kid, because I’m fekkin’ nuts about her. But not only is she perpetually teething because she’s half vampire and she ages slowly, she can also GD make things disappear. Any idea what it’s like trying to find that kid’s binky in a castle the size of mine?”

I snort right along with Marty and Wanda, who are trying to hide their snickers behind their hands. My only justification for Charlie is that it was a long night of writing and I couldn’t just give Nina a human baby, right?

Dakota: “Sorrysorrysorry. I’ll try to fix the teething thing in the next book. Carry on.”

Nina: “So, Greg, Charlie, and I live in a kooky castle on Staten Island. Yeah, I said castle. Cliché much, Writer? Anyway, it’s got a hedge maze. I don’t like to give you props, Boss, but that was definitely one of the cooler-ish additions to my story.”

Dakota: “Did you just give me my due, Nina? I feel faint.”

I blow her a kiss, one she snatches up with a fist and pretends to lob into the trash can in my office like it’s a basketball
.

Nina: “Faint this. Anyway, we also have a zombie named Carl, who was living with a jacked-up witch doctor named Guido in a filthy shack when I found him. I saved my little buddy from a life of solitude and misery because Guido didn’t know what the hell to do with him.”

Dakota: “A sweet, sweet, non
-Walking-Dead
kind of zombie.”

Nina reaches into her hoodie pocket and pulls out a roll of duct-tape she always keeps on hand for Carl, in case he loses a body part, but she’s smiling again. Carl’s awesome. She knows it, and I know it.

But then she frowns, because how Carl came to be stems from one of my whims, and she thinks I spend entirely too much time being whimsical.

Nina: “Carl’s a product of another one of those moments Mark Twain here had. Somehow, in that head full of air of hers, she had another one of those stupid-ass ideas she’s always having. ‘Wouldn’t if be funny if I wrote a zombie named Carl who no one can keep track of and give him to Nina so she’s always freaking out and wondering where the hell he is? Ha. Ha.”

I sigh because it’s true. Much of what I write is born out of a “Wouldn’t it be funny if” factor.

Dakota: “I wrote him because often on my Facebook page, after watching
The Walking Dead
, I do updates, and we joked about our wish to have the character Carl turned into a zombie so the rest of the
Walking Dead
crew didn’t have to keep wondering, ‘Where’s Carl?’, or continually ask ‘Have you seen Carl?’

“He was my homage to all the fabulous people who participate in our discussions every Sunday night after the show airs, and you know that, Nina.”

I look out the window of my office, fighting a cringe because just the mention of Carl always makes me wonder exactly where he is…

Dakota: “Where
is
Carl, anyway?”

Nina: “He’s plenty fine. He’s in the car with Darnell and Arch. They’re teaching him duct-tape origami. So relax and let’s get this over with, huh? I’ll let you tell the readers all about what an uncensored, straightforward bitch I can be, but on the inside I really have a soft, gooey center when it comes to animals and kids and anyone who’s in need of some muscle—which is a load of shite. But go for it.”

She rolls her hand, ordering me to carry on.

But I point to her lap, where she has not one, but
two
of my furbabies, Pebbles and Milo, cuddling with her while Tallulah, my longhaired Chi, snuggles between Marty and Wanda.

Dakota: “Uh, case in point, Marshmallow.”

Nina: “Oh, blow me, Hemingway. Milo’s my good, good boy, aren’t you, buddy? Don’t listen to your nutbag mom.”

Milo’s my one-eyed, runt-of-the-litter Shi Tzu. A rescue from a parking lot where some guy was selling puppies. He was the last little dude standing, and no one was going to pay eight hundred dollars to take him home because his one eye is defective. So they were going to…well, you know. I swung a deal with this man and snatched up Milo. But truth be told, he’s the orneriest, most ungrateful, defensive little Napoleon ever.

Yet, here he sits with Nina, docile and as complacent as a newborn kitten. Huh.

Nina
: “
And look at this face on Princess Pebbles. Who’s the prettiest girl ever-ever? Tell your nutjob mother to hurry her ass up so Auntie Nina can get away from her before she gives me a rhinoceros with hemorrhoids or something.”

I rest my case
. But
I wink at Nina and bat my eyelashes. I had to soften her edges somehow. She had to have some kind of kryptonite, right? With all her bad language and unfiltered jabs at anyone with a pulse, she had to have a weakness. Animals, kids, and anyone in need or in trouble are her breaking points.

Dakota: “Where was I? Oh, muscle, yes. Nina is indeed the muscle of the group, and has helped me out of many a skirmish. That’s not to say Marty and Wanda aren’t equally as strong, but Nina’s the one most willing to put her dukes up first. However, my Nina, as dreadful as she can be, is the first person to defend you—especially if you’re a child or an animal or even Marty, who, whether she’ll admit it or not, is one of her best friends ever. She’s loyal to the bitter end and gets the job done, and when you become a part of her life, she’s on your side
forever
.”

Nina grates out a sigh of exasperation because I’ve pulled off her wolf’s clothing to reveal a little lamb and it makes her stabby.

Nina: “Oh, whatever. Just get on with it.”

Marty grabs Nina’s chin and gives her a big smooch on the cheek while Nina squirms in discomfort. But Marty just laughs it off and tweaks the tip of Nina’s nose.