Chapter 7: The Word(s) of the Day is (are) ENTREPRENEURIAL NECROMANCY

They (and you, too, I guess) are right, no argument there. Trust IS something I've got to work on, so I'll add it to my list, if that makes you feel any better. For the time being, though, you'd best get real...this is not something that's gonna to happen overnight.

Not that night anyway. We had to get Pam and a decent 'travel box' (that's what vamps call their coffins/homes away from home) into a fairly light-tight room that's also decent enough for me.

Not that I'm all that picky-picky, but Gran brought me up to be a lady and I do have pretty high standards. Things like clean sheets and toilets that actually flush really do mean something to me, and I'll take my tub and shower without the mold and mildew, thank you very much. I like sharing space with surfaces that I'm not afraid to touch. Not to mention that this room was just crying out for some serious redecoration. I didn't need Pam The Interior Designer to tell me that shag carpet of indeterminate color matted with wads of chewing gum has been out of style for some time now.

Pam clicked on one of the search results and scanned a website.

"Got it!" She whipped her phone out of her purse and tapped a number into it.

Before you could say it's always darkest before the dawn, Pam had negotiated delivery of a coffin to the motel room of her choice. All we had to do was actually choose one anywhere but where we were at the moment, which shouldn't be too terribly difficult.

I had gotten the impression from Jason that Branson had just one motel, but we must have driven past a hundred of them before ending up at this dump. Many of those places looked pretty nice, too. It was almost like someone had taken the oldest, most run-down motel in town, and instead of doing the right thing by tearing it down, they hung light-blocking drapes on the windows and declared it "vamp-safe."

This place made me think of Gran's stories about how things were before I was born, with "separate-but-equal" facilities...restaurants, motels, schools...for blacks and whites. People existed together in the same town that wasn't really the same place after all, like living in parallel universes that happened to intersect at that point on the map. Living and dying...even the funeral homes and cemeteries were separate. The way Gran explained it, the problem was not so much the 'separate' part (aside from the bald-faced truth that it just wasn't the right thing to do)...it was the fact that 'equal' was really anything but.

By the time I came along, there was only one elementary and one high school in Bon Temps, with all the kids in town trying their best to learn in the same under-funded facilities, and now everyone can pretty much eat in the same restaurants if that's what they want to do. Sure, Sam would like to have more black customers at Merlotte's, but I can't imagine that many of our black neighbors are all that excited about spending their hard-earned money and their Saturday nights rubbing elbows with a bunch of loud red-necks who have been drinking. Since we've still got separate funeral homes and I don't see any whites choosing to be buried in the same cemeteries as blacks (and vice-versa), I guess that in Bon Temps at least, even death fails to live up to its billing as The Great Equalizer.

Even though they're out of the coffin now, it looks to me like much of the rest of the world would like to keep vampires segregated in one of those parallel universes, too. Somehow, just because vamps are technically dead, some people think they would settle for 'separate but equal' places like The Ozarks Magic Motor-Hotel, the rat hole we were in the process of digging ourselves out of. In fact, the vamps I know would rather dig their way out of a hole in the ground every night than even set foot in a place like this. Come to think of it, a hole in the ground might actually be a cleaner place to sleep.

And that's where these folks in Branson have got it all wrong. Vamps are, in general, wealthier than the average living and breathing American (just think about how much money you could sock away in your 401-K over a period of a few hundred years or so!). They demand and are willing to pay for the best their money can buy, and they really, really don't like being taken advantage of. You can count on it...if anyone's going to do some blood-sucking, it's gonna be them, but I know from experience that they tip well for good service.Other touristy places, like Las Vegas, New Orleans, and a bunch of all-inclusive resorts figured that out pretty quick. Heck, there's even a high-end cruise line that caters to vamps. (No, I'm not kidding...I saw it on the Travel Channel!) If businesses in Branson want a piece of that pie, they're not going to get it with dumps like The Ozarks Magic, and you sure don't have to be telepathic to hear opportunity knocking...beating...on that door.

And then there's the weres, the shifters and the other supes who (for the most part) look and act 'normal.' Normal...now there's a word that's staring re-definition right smack in the face these days. Under a full moon, they may run in a parallel universe, but most of the time they manage to fly under our radar without even having to try very hard, so their separate actually ends up looking pretty darned equal. I know from my own personal experience, though, that it's practically impossible to really relax and have fun when you can't be yourself, and I haven't seen any place that offers them a vacation experience with the kind of privacy that would make it possible for them to literally let their hair down (!) and enjoy themselves the way they'd like.

Now all Pam and I needed was a place where we could do exactly that.

She looked up from the laptop and asked, :How would you like to stay in the Presidential Suite at the Radisson?"

The Pope is still Catholic, right?

There's practically no traffic in Branson at that time of night, so we were checking into our new ninth-floor concierge-level digs in no time flat. The Presidential Suite had a living room with a sleeper sofa and half-bath, a kitchenette with refrigerator and microwave, and the bathroom off the separate bedroom had a huge walk-in shower and whirlpool tub. The toilets were fully functional (after the Ozarks Magic debacle, I made it a point to check), the carpet was clean, and, just as importantly, it was not like any funeral home I've ever seen.

We had a special room key to access this floor by elevator, and the door locks appeared to be state-of-the-art. Pam inspected the window coverings, pronounced them acceptable, and called her contact at the mortuary to tell them where to deliver her coffin. While we waited for it to arrive, we checked out the king-sized bed's mattress, the kind you see on those infomercials...you know, the one you can adjust to get just the right level of firmness? Pam and I had some fun playing with the controls, trying out every level from super soft to practically rock-hard firm.

By the time the coffin was installed in the living room, the clock said 4:00 a.m. and we were both ready to go to our rest, but not before we made plans. Pam and I decided that I'd catch a few hours of sleep, find someplace to have brunch, pick up some True Bloods and other stuff to stock the fridge, have a look around town and eat dinner. Then, after dark, Pam and I would do some serious damage at the outlet malls.

It would have been fun, I'm sure, if any of it had actually happened the way we planned. But that would have been 'way too easy, and where's the story in that, my friend?