Who are you looking at back there? Why do you…” She gets it; suddenly and blindingly. Her date – her prom date – is behind her. “Oh God, he’s already here, isn’t he?”
“Please don’t turn around yet—”
It’s too late. She turns, spots Chester and then turns right back around. Fortunately, he was wiping coffee off of his boutonniere so he didn’t see her panicked reaction.
Now it’s Cara’s turn to lean over the table. “Chester? Chester Poindexter? Even his name is a joke! Are you kidding me? That’s who I’m supposed to spend prom with?”
“You have to trust me, Cara.”
“Why? How? In what universe is spending prom with Chester – Chester! – supposed to complete my life?”
She picks her coffee cup up and then puts it down nervously. Then picks it up again, holds it in front of her mouth. She’s been twisting it around in its saucer while we talk, and now the lipstick stain is facing me.
“I asked you to trust me.”
She opens her mouth to fight, to fuss, but shuts it again; nods, somberly. “Okay, I will.”
I don’t expect that. Not. At. All. I start to ramble, suddenly, inexplicably, stupidly: “I sit behind him in art. He draws you, constantly. Not in that gross way some guys will, all half-naked in armor riding a giant dragon between your legs, but your face. He gets it right, too, like he’s really studied it. The wisps of your hair, tucked behind your ears. The way your eyes get big when you’re excited, the shade of your favorite lipstick.”
I can see her eyes softening even as she shakes her head. “And he’s funny,” I blurt, as if running out of time. “I sit a table away from him in B-Lunch and hear him with his friends.”
“Friends? Why don’t you call it what it is, Rex: The daily meeting of the Nerds Who Think ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ is a Rocky Movie Society?”
I snort. “Okay, but… so what? While he’s with his… friends… he’s funny, the funniest of that group.”
“That’s like saying he’s the cutest one in that group.”
“Well, he is.”
She frowns, then slides her cup toward the edge of her stained placemat. I go to speak more, to defend Chester more. To tell her about his gentle brown fingers when he sketches her, that time I followed him home from school and watched how he took care of his grandmother, made her dinner, wheeled her in front of the TV. How he lost his parents in the first infestation. How he lives in a crappy neighborhood. Rides a crappy bike to school, the works.
But she is already opening her compact, looking at it, sliding a wisp of hair behind her ear, reapplying makeup, sucking in her cheeks, letting them out with a sigh of minty fresh breath.
“Okay, Rex,” she says with finality, standing up and smoothing down her snug maroon dress. I stare at her black stockings, the tall shoes, her legs for miles and there is suddenly a wisp of regret shuddering through my dried, cracking veins. “You asked me to trust you, so I’m going to trust you.”
I look up, catch her eye. “And… and you’re going to have a nice time?”
She looks away from me, toward Chester. I turn slightly and follow her gaze. Chester sees her, eyes getting all buggy, and stands, wiping his sweaty palms on the sides of his light blue dress pants. He smiles, that gentle smile I’ve been studying for days.
I turn back and watch Cara blush. She turns back to me. “I’m going to give it my best, Rex.”
She takes a step forward, away from me, toward him. Her heels are loud and cold on the tile floor. Then she turns, leans back. “I’m going to try and enjoy myself, and then we’re never going to speak again.”
“Wait, what?” I rise to stand and she smirks, gently pushing me back into my seat.
“What’d you think was going to happen, Rex? I’ve been looking forward to this night for weeks, months even. You dump me at the last minute, replace yourself with some guy I barely know and, what? We’re going to talk about it tomorrow like a couple of BFFs? Not gonna happen…”
I nod, suddenly jealous. I listen to her heels clap on the tiles, listen to Chester’s coffee cup clatter as he stands, listening to his voice crack as he says, “H-h-h-i Cara.”
Hers is smoother. “Hi Chester. Thanks… thanks for being my date at the last minute.”
There is an awkward pause where I swear I can hear Chester’s eyelashes trembling, then the chime of the bell over the door. I turn toward the plate glass window at my side and see Chester open the back door of the limo for her. I smile to see the expression on his smooth, brown face. It’s like he can’t decide which to be more jazzed about: an actual limo or him holding a limo door open for Cara Wells.
THE Cara Wells.
She smiles at the gesture, making me regret that I didn’t do the same earlier tonight when I had the chance. Chester helps her inside, his smile wide and anxious with the mere touch of her hand. When the last of her heel disappears inside, he turns to find me looking at him.
He nods and does one of his gentle, bashful waves. Then nods again, then turns and slides inside quickly, as if I might change my mind and reveal this has all been some cruel, practical joke.
I watch the limo peel away from the curb, then sit in absolute silence. No, that’s not quite right. With Cara gone, I can suddenly hear the soft music playing overhead. Something instrumental, a guitar maybe. Something by the Beatles? The Stones?
Soft shoes walk over and the waitress slides the light blue “Zombies Only” menu in front of me. I sit back and loosen my stiff, black bowtie.
“What’s good?” I ask.
Her zombie eyes stare back, gray and soft. “The brain smoothie’s on special,” she says, voice hoarse, pen poised in her grayish-green fingers.
I smirk. “Yeah, but is it good?”
She shrugs, looks busy. Uninterested. “It’s mostly scraps.”
I think of the hundred bucks I’d given Chester, to show Cara a good time. It left me mostly broke until the government sends me my monthly allowance check next week. “Sounds good to me.”
She nods, writes it down out of habit. “Prom night?”
I finish undoing my tie. “How’d you guess?”
Another shrug. “You’re throwing in the towel, huh?”
I look up with a questioning glance. She’s been background noise for most of the evening, but now I take a closer look. She’s young. By that I mean, she can pass for young. No zombie is young, even a new one. But they look like their age when they died, for the most part. And they look that way forever.
She was probably reanimated in her early 30s. Maybe even her late 20s.
“Towel?”
She waves a dish rag at my tux, so crisp and polished and new. “Giving up on proms,” she explains.
“I guess.”
She nods. “How many you been to, all told?”
“Two while I was alive, almost thirty since I’ve been dead.”
“That why you broke up with the little hottie there? Sent her off with a living date?”
I shrug. “Pretty much.”
She nods, but doesn’t go anywhere. So I ask, “You think it was the right decision?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think, prom boy.”
Then she stands and starts away. She stops, leans back in. “But I’ll put it this way: your brain smoothie’s on me, just because.”
I smile, then slide out of my jacket. I take out my cell phone, expecting a text from Cara any minute. Something rueful and sarcastic, like, “Thnx!” or “Booooring,” but nothing comes.
Not then, not after Vera brings me my brain smoothie, not after she takes it away, not when the diner is closing and Vera gently, with a smile, tells me I don’t have to go home but I can’t stay there any longer.
I walk home, checking the cell phone every few minutes. Nothing. I think about walking out to the school, peeking in the gym all duded up for prom. I don’t sleep, not really, and walking a few miles or more a day is nothing when you can’t really feel your legs, but I decide against it.
/> I’ve made my bed, now I have to lie in it. I just hope I’ve made the right choice for Cara, and that Chester isn’t disappointed by going on a date with the girl of his dreams.
I don’t think he will be. He strikes me as the kind of guy that even if he is disappointed, even if Cara dumps him and runs off with her friends to cry in the punch bowl – which I don’t think she’ll do – he’d still sketch pictures of her in Art Class on Monday morning.
At least, I hope so anyway…
* * * * *
About the Author
Rusty Fischer is the author of over a dozen zombie novels, including Zombies Don’t Cry, Zombies Don’t Forgive, The Girl Who Could talk to Zombies and Panty Raid at Zombie High! Visit him at www.zombiesdontblog.blogspot.com to learn more and read tons of FREE zombie stories and poems just like this one!
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