Zombies in Love (22 page)

              Wandering through the sunlit campus of Winthrop University, Jack was shocked that no one stopped him.  He was covered in filth and dried blood, his pants were shredded like the Hulk's, and he had no shoes.  Maybe he had passed into the category of the socially ignorable.  Or maybe it was just that the people around him were busy.  On the steps of the great library, a band was playing, and the lawn was filled with dancing students.  A cute little child was chasing a squirrel, and two students were making out on a park bench.

             
They look happy,
thought Jack. 
Weird. 
But he had no time to consider what had changed.  He had to go see Lisa.

              No, he had to shower, change, dress, and then go see Lisa, so she could take her biggest carving knife, gut him from pelvis to breastbone, and throw his entrails into the street.  Usually the thought would have excited him, but today he was sure he was going to screw up, the way he always screwed up, and then he would never see her again.

              So he dithered, and puttered, and by the time he finally made it out to Alioto's Pizza, Lisa was already hauling the afternoon delivery into the storage closet.  He could smell her sweaty body from the door, and she was so beautiful that he was afraid to look at her, as she turned around and said, "Where the hell have you been?"

              He hadn't quite expected that.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," she said, accelerating towards him.  She grabbed his hands in hers.  "I thought you were dead.  I asked everyone, and no one knew where you were.  Even Arturo.  I was the last person to see you.  I thought you were dead."

And then she shocked him by bursting into tears.  He hugged her and realized that he was holding her up, supporting her entire weight, as she cried without restraint.  Cried for him, because she'd almost lost him.  Lisa, his hard case, the woman he loved so much he'd eat the devil, bones and all, if it got him back home to her.

For a moment it felt as if he were floating, as if the world he'd always imagined was not quite the world he was living in.  And then everything snapped into focus, realer than real, and it felt like something in his head, a puzzle piece that had always been waiting for him to reach for it, had finally clicked into place. 
She needs me,
he thought
. She loves me.  And here I am.
"I'm fine, sweetheart, I'm fine," he said.  "I'll always come back, whenever you want me."

"Everyone dies on me," she explained, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

"Already have," he said, stroking her warm hair.  "Not going to do it again."

She pulled away from him, patting down her pockets for a Kleenex.  "Where were you?"

"I had to jump off the tower to get away."  He handed her a napkin from a nearby table.  "It took me a while to heal.  But see?  Here I am."

She took the napkin, her tears slowing.  "I waited a few days..."

"A few days?"

"You've been gone a week!"

He'd come that close to permanently dying, then.  It hadn't all been some strange dream.  "Well," he exhaled.  "Maybe it wasn't the greatest plan.  But at least it worked.  Here you are.  Home safe and sound."

She nodded and blew her nose.  "I know you're leaving.  I'll get your paycheck.  I forgot--"

"What are you talking about?"

"Look at you," she said.  "You're wearing your best clothes.  The ones you bought for Nancy's party.  You don't dress like that for work.  And it's okay.  I knew this was temporary, just until you got on your feet.  And I know your family's waiting for you.  I'm just glad you came back to tell me, first."

She was always so quick, quicker than he was in a lot of ways.  Quicker at reading him, anyway.  "I am going home, aren't I?" he said.  "But I didn't know it until you said it.  I have to.  They need to know what happened to me."

Lisa turned towards the till.  "So I'll just get your--"

"Wait," he said, taking her warm arm.  "Come with me."

"I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"There's no one else to run the restaurant."

And there it was, what she needed from him.  She needed him to remind her how free she was, to get her to trust the world a little.  She was going to be all right, but she needed to hear it.  "Lisa, I know what you've got here.  I understand how important it is, what your family built for you.  Believe me, I know.  All right?  But you've earned a vacation.  Just a week, with me.  I'll feed you some she-crab soup, take you running on the Battery.  You can meet my family.  You can see my house.  Aren't you curious?  You can't tell me you're not curious."

Now she was smiling a little, as she was wiping her eyes.  "You're always getting me to do things I shouldn't."

"It's just a week.  It won't hurt your business.  How much pizza do you sell this time of year, anyway?"

"Now that finals are over?"  She shrugged.  "Not as much as I'd like."

He tugged on his soggy shirtfront.  "I didn't dress like this for traveling.  I just thought, the better I looked, the better chance I had for you to take me upstairs.  How do I look?"

"You know how good you look.  You're a good-looking guy.  But it's the middle of the--"

He kissed her, and with a low chuckle, she kissed him back.

"You keep messing me up," she said.

"Do you really think so?"

"No."  She took his hand.

#

Jack rolled off of her and Lisa smiled up at the ceiling.  It had been different this time.  For the first time, it hadn't felt frantic, like one of them might leave at any minute.  They had taken their time together, and it had been sweet and lovely, and so good.  She could hear the growling noise of a passing car and smell the sunlit air drifting in the window, and it felt like the bed had turned into an open boat, sailing out to sea.

"I forgot," she said.  "I have something for you."  She got up and rummaged through the junk on her bureau.  She could the bedsheets rustle as Jack checked her out from behind.

Very flattering.

She turned and held out the watch to him.  "Is this yours?"

He took it from her.  "It was my grandfather's.  I always wore it.  Where did you--" He froze in place, not even blinking.  "Oh God, did Sam follow me?  Where is he?"

Smart man. 
"The back bedroom," she said.

Jack sat bolt upright.  "Please tell me you're joking.  He's the man who killed me."

"Okay, I'm joking."

Jack put the watch on and looked at his wrist for a moment.  "Where is he?"

"Jail," she said.  "Waiting his arraignment for attempted murder."

He reached for his undershirt and started to put it on.  "We have to get him out.  I don't want anything to happen to him for what he did to me."

"I know that.  Not you.  Me."

"Oh, Jesus," he said.  He dropped the shirt and hugged her, sniffing her neck as if the scent gave him comfort.  "I didn't think he'd follow me.  Why would he know I was here?  I didn't think he could find me.  I didn't think you were in danger.  I never thought he'd do that to anyone else.  I would have skinned him alive, do you know that?  Are you all right?  What did he do?"

"He held a gun on me.  He was looking for you.  It's fine."

He held her almost tightly enough to be uncomfortable, but she didn't say a word.  Here was her chance for the real story.  "I understand why you didn't want to tell me.  Because it was family.  But why did he kill you?" 
Please,
she thought. 
Let me know we can trust each other. 

He pulled away from her and looked at the floor.  "My parents were trying to decide who would get the
Palmetto
.  He had a much better track record than I did, so I lied.  I said if they gave it to him, he'd sell it out of the family.  They believed me, because his wife was running through all his money as fast as she could.  He came to me and begged me to take back what I said, but I wouldn't.  So he killed me."

She could picture it, she really could-- but now that she knew, it seemed to have nothing to do with the man in front of her, who, despite the occasional screw-up, wasn't the sort of person who would cheat his way into what he wanted.  He'd learned how to work since then.  Or maybe, if she could flatter herself, maybe he was a better man and a stronger man when he was around her. 

She shook her head.  "Family businesses.  More trouble than they're worth."

"I know," he said.  "Believe me."

He looked so sad that she leaned in and kissed him again, and kept doing it until she could feel him relax.  It was a funny thing; at one point, it might have mattered what he'd done, but now she only cared that he'd been willing to tell her.  Because all she really wanted from him, the crucial, central thing, is that he was really in the room with her.  Not some fake version of him, slicked up for public consumption.  The real Jack, paying attention to the real Lisa.  And here he was.

She bet someone had shot him in the head again.  It always seemed to do him a lot of good.

"So what happens now?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Everything I have is here.  Everything you have is in Charleston.  We have this vacation-- which I still haven't agreed to, by the way-- and then what happens?"

"I don't know what happens," he said.  "I don't know if they'll want me back at the
Palmetto
.  And even if they did, maybe I'd rather stay here with you.  Ask Arturo if I can be his media relations guy for the Zombie Support Group.  I think I'd like that.  Or maybe you'd rather have me here."  He looked her in the eye.  "What
do
you want?"

"I don't want this place to close.  But I don't think I want to be the one who runs it."  She snorted.  "Honestly, I'm tired."

He grinned.  "Maybe I can run the pizza place and you run the newspaper."  He bit his lip.  "I forgot I was contagious."

She put her hand on his cool cheek.  "Not that contagious.  That's what Sarah said, anyway."

"That's a relief.  But what do you want to happen?"

"I don't know," she admitted.  "I never really thought about it." 

For a long time, she'd stopped dreaming, because she knew that dreams don't come true.  And that had been a mistake, because those dreams should have been a way for her to picture what she really needed.  Morocco?  Not really.  She could see beauty and strangeness all around her.

And it was dawning on her that keeping Alioto's Pizza the same as it had always been was no way to honor her parents' legacy.  Even museums moved the paintings around once in a while, except for the Gardiner, and look what happened to them-- when the art was stolen, they had to display empty picture frames, because nothing could ever change.  An empty shell, nothing real there anymore.  The restaurant had been great, and it could be great again, if she could only keep the essence, and let the parts that didn't matter fall away. 
They come in shaking and lost,
he'd said,
you bring them back to life, you're good at that...

So it was time for her to let go.  It was time to say, yes, school's out, I'm ready, to feel the world crack open with possibility, to let her life grow and bloom and change.

"I do want you around," she continued.  "I know that much."

"I love you too," he said.

What a relief it was not to have to tell him.  How relaxed it made her feel, that he already knew.

An airplane cut through the spring sky and the two of them listened to it.  And then Jack started talking, slowly, in his strange accent, as if he was figuring out what to say at the very moment that he said it.  "It'll be all right, Lisa.  It's the funniest thing, but I feel very sure.  Because we never should have met each other.  Because I shouldn't be here at all.  And here we are, and it's summer, and we'll be all right.  I just feel certain.  Do you believe me?"

She looked at his bright blue eyes and her heart ached because she loved him so much, and because he loved her back.  "I do," she said, and held his cool sweet hand.

              Fifteen minutes from Winthrop University-- recently named America's top party school by US News and World Report-- is a small pizza parlor.  And you're hungry, so why not go in and have a slice?

              It's beautiful and a little creepy inside, in the way of a lot of places in Boston.  Is it something about the dim lighting?  Or the slate-topped tables, the way they look like they might be recycled tombstones?  Or is it something about the smell of the place, mixing with the oregano and tomato and toasted cheese and root beer-- like nail polish remover?  Formaldehyde? 

              Never mind.  That can't be right.

              You close the door behind you, and the bells hanging from the handle ring, but you barely can hear them.  The place is busy, and the short handsome man behind the counter is working fast, a quick snap of a grin for each customer.  He looks familiar, but you can't think why.

              It's a sharp-looking place, and you've got no real reason to feel so ill at ease.  There's fresh paint on the walls, newly-refinished wood floors.  (Maybe that's where the smell is coming from?)  On the side wall is a big, blown-up photo of three people: a mother, father, and teenage girl.  She's dressed up in a purple velour dress with short spiked hair, a look which dates the photograph back at least twenty years, though the print looks new.  The modern version of the teenage girl is working the room, laughing at something one of her customers has just said.

              Some strange-looking customers.  Everyone looks a little blue, literally.  (Maybe it's the lighting?)  No one blinks much.  There's a lot of staring into place, and people eating way too fast, slamming down their food.  Maybe the pizza's really good, but honestly, it smells a little off, so you don't know why they seem so eager.

              So you think you might try someplace else, but now you realize where you've seen the man behind the counter before. He was just interviewed on the NewsHour, wasn't he, flashing that cheerful bright slick grin at the nice news-lady?  And what was he talking about? 

              And it comes to you with a flash of lightning-- this room is full of zombies.  Eating pizza.

              And you're trying to decide what to do, when the woman whose name is over the door comes up to you.  And she says, "I don't think you're in the right place. Do you?"  You nod and scuttle away, glad to be well away from there.

              Or maybe she takes you by the hand and pulls you inside. 

              Who can say?