by Kim Linwood
“Pretty much.” Leaning back in my chair, I put away some papers on the shelf behind me.
“It’s not like they own the place already. What the hell is wrong with those people?”
“They’re pushy, but he’s not all bad,” I say with a shrug, not quite sure why I’m defending Carter. “He sounded honest when he said he didn’t know it was there. I think someone just jumped the gun.”
Zoe doesn’t look convinced. “Or, the whole family’s just a bunch of entitled jerks who see us as nothing more than another notch in their profit spreadsheet.” She paces back and forth like she’s trying to wear a hole in the rug. “I just wish there was something we could do.”
“Like what? You’re making this sound like world war three.” I make finger guns at her. “I’m firing my lasers.”
She sends a pained glare in my direction. “Could your memes be any more out of date?”
“Really? Do people not use that one anymore?”
“No, and if you’re going to use it, it’s, ‘I’m a’ firin’ mah lazer’.”
“What-ever,” I snark in my best Clueless imitation.
She ignores me, a crafty and somewhat scary expression taking over her face. “What we need is to send a message. Something subtle but unmistakable, and most importantly, impossible to trace. Fortunately for you, these sorts of things are my specialty.”
I laugh nervously. “How about we just take Carter’s word at face value for now?” One make out session and I’m suddenly Team Carter? What’s wrong with the world?
“You’re too nice, Sadie.” She stops her pacing so she can hop up to sit on my desk. “This is why you need me. I’m not. That’s why you’re the sucker with a closet full of professional straightjacket clothes and legitimate contact information on the website, and I’m the one with a fully stocked zombie panic kit in the basement. But that’s neither here nor there,” she adds quickly at the slightly terrified look on my face. “What’s important is that I’ve got your back.”
“I don’t know… I don’t really want anything bad to happen to Carter.”
She narrows her eyes and gives me a suspicious look. “Sadie Williams, are you sleeping with the enemy?” Her glare straddles the line between accusation and disbelief. “What exactly happened on your little field trip?”
“Nothing.”
“Saaaaaadie…”
“Nothing! Much.”
Zoe doesn’t have to say a word, she just stares at me until I’m squirming in my chair.
“There might’ve been a couple bases rounded, but there were no home runs, I swear. We had more time on our hands than we’d planned and—”
“Sounds like his hands were up to more than passing time. I’m shocked. Honestly shocked, but actually a little proud. I must be rubbing off on you because the Sadie I met a few years ago would never have taken a mid-day corpse run as an excuse to get herself a little somethin’ somethin’.”
“Oh my God! Ew! It wasn’t like that. It was…” A little like that, but only a little. “Boys are complicated, okay?” I complain.
“And you think girls would be easier?”
“Sure.”
“Could you even imagine dating me?” Zoe asks with a teasing laugh. “Putting aside for a minute the fact that even if you were my type, dating you would be like dating my little sister.” She shudders a little just to drive in her point.
“But baby,” I reach out and take her hands in mine. “We’d be so good together, and there’s nobody else I’d trust to save me from the zombie apocalypse.”
She bats her long black lashes at me. “That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, but I prefer my partners to have a lot more…” Her voice trails off, and her gaze drops to my lap. “Penis.”
It takes a lot of work not to burst out laughing, but I manage a pout. “There are some options if that’s all it is. I mean, so I’ve heard.”
She snickers. “And less boobs?”
“Oh come on, now you’re just being unreasonable. Who doesn’t love boobs?” I pull my hands back and fling a rubber band at her from the pen holder on my desk.
“Ow! Workplace brutality! And you expect this to ever work out between us? I deserve better!”
The look of mock indignation on her face finally cracks me up, which makes her laugh, and then we’re both giggling like kids. That’s the great thing about Zoe. She can always help me feel better, even if that means that I get pelted in the middle of my forehead with the same rubber band a moment later.
“Sooo… about that plan?”
I look up at Zoe. That tone in her voice usually means trouble. “What are you thinking?”
“I think the details might be best kept on a need to know basis, but how much paint do you have handy?”
“No, really. What are you thinking? I’m not vandalizing my own parlor. Or doing some sort of Carrie reenactment that’s going to get us in trouble.” I give her a look of bemusement.
“No major structural damage or personal assault intended. Cross my heart. The aim here is catharsis, not jail time. I’ve got something in mind and I think you’ll like it.”
“Okay, um, I don’t know. A few tubes maybe. How much do you need?”
“Never mind, I think I have what we need in my garage.” She gives me a stern look. “It will be a very clear statement. Trust me, this’ll be right up your alley.”
I love Zoe, but whatever this is, it’s going to be a terrible idea. The smart thing to do is to cut her off now, but maybe I do need to blow off some steam, and Zoe’s terrible ideas are usually fun.
At least until they aren’t.
18
Sadie
“I can’t believe I let you drive.”
“Don’t listen to her, Cherry. You’re the best car ever. Aren’t you, baby?” Zoe strokes the dashboard of her vintage Cadillac hearse lovingly. You’d think the hearse at the office would be enough for her, but she got herself this one when I forbid her to turbo-charge ours. “You showed those kids who’s the boss. Aunt Sadie is just a mean ol’ buzzkill.”
“Just because drag racing at two in the morning on a Thursday isn’t my idea of a good time doesn’t mean I’m no fun.”
“No, but not a mark in your favor, that’s for sure,” she says with a snort.
“You’re going to have to tell me what the plan is eventually. You know that, right?” I put my hands on my knees, trying stop them from hopping. My muscles are jittery from all the caffeine running through my veins after Zoe held me captive in her apartment, force feeding me chocolate and coffee. “I’m going to be completely dead in the morning at this rate. There isn’t even anything open all the way out here.”
“Exactly. Don’t worry. It’ll all make sense when we get there.”
I sigh and stare out the window into the darkness. We’re on the highway heading out of town, and aside from the reflectors on the side of the road and the occasional streetlight, there’s nothing to see but us in Zoe’s dark plum colored deathmobile. It’s about as quiet as you’d expect in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania after midnight.
She revs the engine and shifts, gunning it briefly before settling back down to a more legal speed. “I wish I could really open up and test out the new engine tweaks, but knowing my luck we’d pass the one cop awake enough to care at this hour.”
Thank goodness for small favors. “Can you at least tell me if it’s going to be much longer? Maybe I could stretch out in back and try to sleep.” Then again, maybe not, considering what’s normally back there.
Zoe smacks my arm without taking her focus off the road. “Stay awake, Grandma.”
We sit in silence while she drives a few exits towards Stinson before pulling off, crossing under the highway and back up going the other direction, heading back home.
“Are we doing laps?”
“Nope, we’re just about there.”
“Almost where? There is no there out here.”
“There,” she says crypt
ically, slowing down and pulling over to the shoulder.
The car coasts forward until a huge smiling face comes into view. It’s Carter, staring down like he’s going to sell us the most amazing funeral experience money can buy. Suddenly the bag full of spray paint Zoe raided from her garage starts to make a horrible sort of sense.
“Seriously?” I turn to find Zoe grinning at me, eyes sparkling.
“As serious as an open bar at a Czech funeral.”
“That’s a lot of things, but I’m not sure serious is one of them.”
“Fine, as serious as the tab after an open bar at a Czech funeral.” She doesn’t wait for my response, slipping out and slamming the door before hauling her gym bag full of paint out of the back. “Come on.”
I get out, not sure how I ended up on the side of a highway in the wee hours of the morning looking down at the can of metallic blue spray paint she just forced into my hand.
She grabs it back and puts it in her bag. “There, now you’re an accessory. No backing out.”
“So… your plan was what exactly?” It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection between her spray paint and a giant picture of Carter alongside the Graves logo, but the billboard is way up there, and we’re way down here. This isn’t like scribbling a moustache on a magazine cover. “How do we get up there?”
“We climb.”
She pulls two flashlights out of her bag, giving one to me. Swinging her light around, she pauses when it catches on a narrow metal ladder.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” From a distance the ladder looks rickety enough, but as we get closer I can see flakes of rust on the rungs and a couple of brackets that look like they have more screws loose than Zoe.
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fine.” She gives the ladder a good shake, making it ring with a deep hollow sound and rain rust flakes onto the ground at our feet.
“I don’t know. Maybe we should just find out where he’s staying and prank order pizza to his room or something.”
She mutters something under her breath that sounds like ‘amateur’. “Relax, the sign hasn’t been up long, right? The guys who put the billboard up must’ve climbed it. If it’ll hold some dudes with all their gear, it’ll hold us and a few cans of spray paint.”
That makes sense, but still… “I guess.”
Zoe shimmies to the top with her bag like it’s no big deal. Safely on the metal grate of the platform, she waves down. “See? Nothing to it.”
Two paths open in front of me. One is safe and sensible, the other pretty much exactly the opposite of everything I’d normally do. Zoe’s face is shadowed, but I can sense the dare in her expression from here. Behind her, Carter’s smug, handsome face smiles at me.
Fine. I can do this.
The moment I grab the first rung and feel rust and paint flake off under my hand, I nearly change my mind, but it went fine for Zoe, right? All right. I take each step deliberately and carefully. The ladder shakes a little, but for all the creaking, it stays right where it’s supposed to. It’s probably been like this for years and I’m just being a baby. I crawl onto the platform with relief, hands shaking and sweat soaking the back of my shirt. I peer over the edge. The ground looks way further away than it seemed from below, but fortunately my fears aren’t quite so boring as things like heights and spiders.
Zoe sorts through her bag, giggling like a grade schooler. She plucks out a can and gives it a shake, quickly filling in one of Carter’s perfect teeth with inky black. I snort out a laugh at his new gap-toothed smile.
“See? This is just what you need. Let’s see what you can do with all those fancy art skills of yours.” She nudges the bag of cans towards me with her foot.
I look around. We’re totally exposed up here. The billboard is well lit, so even though it’s bright as day up close, it makes it hard to see through the darkness around us. The road is dead, but if anyone drives by, we’ll be easy to spot. Hopefully the cops don’t show up.
Choosing a can of vibrant pink, I prepare to give Carter’s cheeks the clown makeup treatment. I stick my tongue between my teeth and concentrate on creating perfect circles under his strong cheekbones. I’m not used to spray paint, though I did take an airbrushing class as an elective in college. Those are just a hair more accurate than these things, though, and my circles end up a little drippy.
High art it’s not, but it puts a smile on my face. Zoe was right. This is fun. Done with the rouge, I switch to black. He’s about to get some fabulous raccoon eyes that would make an eighties glam rocker jealous.
“I think those are going to be nice,” Zoe comments wryly. “It’s a good club look for him, don’t you think? We should suggest it next time we see him. He’d definitely attract plenty of attention.”
“Right?” I hand my can to her. “Here, do the other eye. I’m going to fix his eyebrows.”
I get a curious look, but she sets to doing her best in duplicating what I did with the first eye while I rummage through the bag for the right colors. She has quite the selection, but they were probably bought to detail cars, so matching his complexion is asking too much. Still, I manage to mostly blend away his eyebrows. Back to black, and then I pencil in thin, high eyebrows that are as amazingly on point as any vandalized billboard has any right to be. When I’m done, he looks frozen in an expression of never ending surprise.
Zoe grabs my arm, squeezing it hard in her excitement. “Is he coming in tomorrow? Please say he is. We’ll send him on an errand to Stinson. He’ll have to drive right past this.”
“I’m not sure. The trade show’s this weekend and he might have gone back to Philly to help get ready for it. He doesn’t exactly keep me apprised of his every move.” Or that I’d want to know, because it’s not like we’re an item. “I have a feeling we’ll know when he’s seen it though.” We laugh together.
By the time we run out of details to add, he’s sporting hoop earrings, even more missing teeth and sprayed up bangs that really add to the surprised rocker clown look. I yawn, satisfied with our prank, but it’s almost four in the morning, and the sky’s just starting to lighten in the distance. A few cars have driven by at this point, but nobody seems to be paying attention, so I’ve stopped panicking every time I hear the rumble of wheels on the road.
We’re not getting much, if any, sleep today, but it’ll be worth it.
“I can’t wait to see his—” Zoe puts her foot on the top rung to climb down, followed by a loud, metallic popping noise. There’s a moment where we look at each other with wide eyes, and then the ladder pulls away from the platform.
“Zoe!” Spray cans tumble out of my arms as I reach out to catch her hand. She shrieks in terror, and I just barely manage to get a grip on her jacket. Her one hand locks around my arm, and at the same time, she catches hold of the railing, scrambling back onto the platform. We both fall back, shaking and panting for air, but at least she’s okay.
The same can’t be said for the ladder. With a long, agonized creak, the top half leans away from the platform, putting more and more strain on the bolts intended to keep it in place. There’s a snap, loud enough to make me jump and cover my ears, and then the whole thing gives way like a rusty line of dominos. As each link snaps, it puts more weight on the next, and with a deafening crash, the whole thing smashes into the ground, leaving us stranded.
“You all right, Zoe?”
She nods, but doesn’t let go of her death grip on my arm, and she’s breathing so hard that if I had a bag I’d tell her to breathe into it.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Zoe takes a huge gasp of air and visibly forces herself to relax. “Or, at least, I will be. Holy shit.”
“No kidding.” Carefully, I look over the edge at the mess of broken metal far below us. “Maybe the last people up here used a crane. I don’t think they climbed that ladder.”
“Stop being right,” Zoe grumbles.
“So now what?” Without the ladder there isn’t anywhere for us to go, and i
t’s way too far down to jump. “We’re stuck.”
“We need a ladder.”
I pat my pockets and shake my head. “Sorry, I don’t happen to have one on me.”
She sticks out her tongue. “We need to call someone who does.”
Wonderful. Suddenly the fun we had vandalizing the billboard doesn’t seem as worth it. Who could I call that would be responsible enough to help without just taking pictures and then leaving us here? “We could try Kenny.”
“You say that like he, one, has a car and two, could find us. He gets lost going to the bathroom sometimes.”
“Fair point.” Obviously, my parents are out of the question. “Lena?”
“She can’t leave her daughter alone to rescue our miserable butts.”
“True. Josie?”
“Maybe?” Zoe pulls out her phone. A few moments later she shakes her head. “Her phone’s off, or something. Doesn’t even ring.”
I pull out my own phone and look through my contacts. Old college friends: wrong city. Business contacts: probably not a good look if I want to keep them. Kenny, Mom, Dad: already ruled out. Carter: no way. Maria: She’s in her eighties. No way am I calling her in the middle of the night to get her to rescue us. Three different pizza restaurants: pretty sure they don’t deliver ladders. Also, I need to vary my take-out habits.
We look at each other. “No one good in your list either?”
Zoe shrugs. “Who do I know that you don’t? I’m a basement dweller. Aside from you guys, everyone I talk to on a regular basis is online.”
Shit.
I shuffle over to sit next to her, both of us with our backs to the billboard, watching the faint sunrise in the distance. We can’t stay here. We’ll get arrested, or die of embarrassment and thirst. “I’m going to call Carter,” I mumble really quickly, kind of hoping she doesn’t hear me.