He glanced sideways at me, and his expression lost some of its hardness. “I guess I can see how you’d need to excel at that. Actually, you remind me a lot of my aunt. She’s good at it too because of stuff that happened to her growing up.”
I added that to my list of things to get more details about. “Great. I’d love to meet her.”
He stopped and looked at me with a little smile. “Maybe you can the next time she and my uncle are in town. They try to make it to at least one of my chess tournaments. I’ll let you know when they’re coming.”
I did my best to look pumped at the idea of attending a thrill-a-minute chess tournament. “Okay, I’ll bring my foster brother Nathan. You’re like his chess idol.” I realized too late that I’d just told him I’d been talking about him at home.
He narrowed his eyes. “Oh, so that’s why you keep hitting on me. Is the kid paying you or blackmailing you with something?” He waited until my face was flaming and I started to stammer, then he laughed. “Hey, lighten up. That was a joke.”
I elbowed him. “Yeah, you’re a real comedian.”
He smiled again. “I need to go talk to my chess coach about something. See you tomorrow.”
I watched him walk away and could almost feel myself floating several inches off the floor. Considering all my new zombie powers, I had to check my feet to make sure I wasn’t levitating for real. I managed to make it to the bus without drifting off to Lovestruck Land on a freaking cloud. Annalee was in a seat near the back.
“Hey, that bird book you talked me into isn’t bad,” I said as I sat beside her. “I got a chance to read some after I finished my chemistry test.”
A smile lit up her face. “I knew you’d like it. It’s my favorite book.”
Dougie got on the bus and made an obscene crotch gesture in our direction before he sat down a few rows ahead of us.
“Looks like Tree Boy’s still pissed at me,” I said. “Can you hear my heart breaking in my chest?”
Annalee giggled. “Yeah, I can see how bummed you are about it.”
“Does he get off before we get to your stop?”
She nodded. “Mine is one of the last stops. Why? You think he’ll try to do something?”
“Who knows, but don’t worry about it. I’m not taking any crap from him. I’ve put up with enough jerks today already.”
Her fingers played with the strap on her backpack. “Yeah, I heard about what Matt did to you and Lew in the hall.”
“Wow, this school’s got a kickass grapevine.”
“Everybody on the bus was talking about it when I got on.” She kept looking at her hands. “I thought you said Lew couldn’t stand you.”
My stomach might not work normally anymore, but I found out it could still knot up. Was I risking my friendship with her if she found out how I felt about Lew, or would I be risking it even more if she knew I was being dishonest? My devious little mind searched frantically for something to say, and I surprised the hell out of myself by coming up with something that was pretty much the truth.
“Yeah, well… I guess I’ve got you to thank for his change of heart. Turns out he likes girls who read the classics.”
“Really?” She looked up at me, and I could tell she was wondering if that might work for her advantage too.
“You like him, don’t you?” I said.
“No.” She blushed the deepest shade I’d seen yet. “I just think he’s nice.”
“Yeah, right.” Encouraged by the success of my honesty, I decided to keep going. “Look, I don’t blame you. I like him too, but I can tell he still doesn’t know what to make of me. I think he feels kinda sorry for me right now, but that won’t last long. I don’t want anybody’s pity and sure as hell don’t need anybody to protect me.”
“I got that from the Tree Boy incident,” she said and we both laughed. “You’re probably right about Lew. He might not look like the brawny type, but he’s not afraid to stand up for something important.”
“Sounds like you know that from personal experience.” I tried to keep any hint of jealousy from my voice, but it wasn’t easy. “He mentioned something about you having a lot to deal with. How does he know that?”
She sighed. “I’ll tell you about that when I tell you the rest of my sad story. But remember, you have to tell me yours too.”
Didn’t see that happening anytime soon.
“So are we okay with both of us having a thing for Captain Chess Champ?”
She doubled over with laughter. “Oh, I’m so sure he loves you to call him that. And I don’t have a thing for him. He’s just a friend.”
“I repeat—yeah, right.” I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the competition, but at least we’d gotten our feelings out in the open. “Okay, so give me the scoop on him. Matt said something about his family having money. Is that true?”
She nodded vigorously. “They’re loaded. His grandfather owns Stanton Land and Timber, and his dad’s the CEO.”
“For real? So why does he go to a public school?”
“I’m not sure. He only transferred here at the end of last year. I think he went to a private school before that.” She paused and looked thoughtful. “Come to think of it, Matt transferred here about the same time.”
“Yeah, I can tell they have some kind of wicked bad history with each other,” I said. “I don’t see him spilling his guts to me about it though. Hey, maybe I can get Matt to tell me since we’re such good buddies.”
“No, Gwen.” All trace of humor left her face. “Stay away from Matt. He’s bad news.”
I didn’t even bother to ask what she meant by that. Apparently, everybody here had a secret, and it was gonna take some major Sherlocking on my part to find out what they were.
Shouldn’t be a problem for Zombie Girl.
Chapter Ten
Julian knew it was no use trying to work when he got this way. It had been way too long. Time to arrange another rendezvous.
He left early after giving McCarthy some weak excuse about a stomach virus. Woefully unoriginal but guaranteed to work because of McCarthy’s pathological fear of germs. Predictably, he’d insisted that Julian stay home for at least three days to make sure he didn’t return while contagious.
Tonight he would get the girl to accept the car and arrange the details of the drop off. Of course, the actual meeting wouldn’t take place until the following week when McCarthy went to Atlantic City, but Julian intended to require another naughty web cam interlude from her as payment for the Ferrari. That would tide him over until their date, and it made him eager to go home and get started.
After a quick stop at the drug store for some needed supplies, he sped home to his small apartment over his mother’s garage. To keep her from hearing the car and coming to see why he was home early, he turned off the engine at the end of the street and coasted down the driveway. If she started in on him again tonight, he swore he would indulge his lifelong fantasy and finally slit her throat.
Inside his apartment, he pulled down all the shades and closed the nauseatingly ugly duck curtains. God, he hated those mallards in flight that his mother had insisted on because she thought they were so “manly.” How old did he have to be before he could make his own damn decisions?
Once the apartment was soothingly dark, he undressed and booted up his laptop. As always, he smiled as he typed the password that unlocked the private world his mother couldn’t infiltrate: matricide. The graphic images on the desktop had ceased to titillate him the way they did when they were new, but that was okay. He’d be getting some new ones very soon.
Before sending the chat message to WETNWILD16, he logged in to FaceSpace and went to the page for the new Sugar Daddy group he’d joined. He wanted to check the member list to see if any new greedy sluts had joined. There were several fresh prospects, including one calling herself Cherry Licious. Julian licked his lips and started to click on the profile picture, but he was interrupted by insistent pounding on his door. He closed his eyes
and could practically see his mother’s ham-like fist beating on it.
“Julian Francis Pugh, what are you doing in there? Why are you home from work so early? Let me in!”
He grimaced and hurried to the door, leaning against it with his eyes squeezed shut. “Mr. McCarthy let me come home early because I have a stomach bug, Mumsy. I just need to sleep for a while. I’ll be fine.”
More pounding. “Open this door right now, young man! You could be seriously ill. I’m the nurse, not you. I’ll decide if you’re fine or not.”
“No, Mumsy. Please.” He hated the pleading note in his voice, almost as much as he hated her. “I already took my temperature. It’s only ninety-nine. Just a little stomach flu that’s going around.”
“Did you use the rectal thermometer? You know I don’t trust any other method!”
“Yes, Mumsy. Don’t I always do what you tell me? Just let me take a little nap, then I’ll come down and you can check it for yourself.” One of his hands gripped his coarse black hair and yanked hard enough to make his eyes water. God, he disgusted himself.
“Well, I don’t know…”
“Will you make me some soup when I come down later?”
“You mean some of Mumsy’s special chicken soup?” He could hear the grin in her tone and knew he had her. “You love it so much, don’t you, Julie?”
“Yes, Mumsy.” He pinched the inside of his thigh, relishing the pain.
“Okay, go take your nap and then come down to eat your soup. And you’ll be sleeping downstairs where I can check on you tonight, so bring your pillow and jammies with you. We’ll watch ‘Operation Repo’ together.”
“Okay, Mumsy. I will.” When he heard her heavy footsteps descending the stairs, he added, “Yeah, I’ll bring my pillow with me. And after your fat ass is asleep in your chair, I’ll smother you with it.”
But he knew he wouldn’t. He’d wimp out just like he’d done so many times in the past.
As he felt the familiar warm trickle run down his leg into a yellow puddle on the floor, he sobbed and twisted one of his nipples mercilessly. When his tears stopped, he went back to the computer and logged in to his favorite Sugar Daddy chat room.
WETNWILD16 was online.
Chapter Eleven
When we got off the school bus at Annalee’s stop, she said, “Did you let your foster mom know you were coming to the library with me?”
“Crap, I didn’t even think about it,” I said. “I’m not used to having anybody who cares what I do.”
I knew she thought I was talking about living on the street, but that’s not what I meant. Vanessa had always been too busy scaling the corporate ladder to worry about what her whack-job daughter was doing. And I reminded her too much of my womanizing drunk of a father for her to stomach looking at me for very long.
“You don’t have a cell phone?” Annalee asked as we walked.
I shook my head. “Brad and Karen said they’d get me one after my first report card if I had at least a B average.” I knew better than to ask if she had one after the computer episode. “Maybe they’ll let me use the phone at the library.”
She nodded. “There’s one they let people use to call for a ride at closing time. I’m sure they’ll let you use it.”
As we walked further down the sidewalk, I noticed how rundown the area looked compared to Coconut Grove. Karen and Brad lived in one of the modest sections where the houses were older, but their place still looked like a mansion compared to the low-income housing complexes separated by empty buildings or trashy-looking businesses in this neighborhood. And was that a drug deal going down on the corner across the street? I started to say something about it, then I saw the embarrassed look on Annalee’s face.
“Reminds me of home,” I said instead. “Hope we don’t run into any of my former colleagues.”
Her relief materialized in a smile. “Or any of my relatives.”
“No worries there for me,” I said. “All mine are either dead or doing five-to-ten.”
Two guys leaning against the burglar-barred front of a barbeque joint yelled something filthy at us. I flipped them off and Annalee pulled my arm down.
“It’s better if you just ignore them and keep walking.”
“That’s not how I roll,” I said. “Don’t worry. I got your back.”
She shook her head. “The guys around here are a lot worse than Dougie. And neither of us are bulletproof, you know.”
Speak for yourself, girlfriend.
Since I couldn’t argue with her without revealing my zombie powers, I said, “Yeah, okay. I keep forgetting that I actually want to live through the day now.”
We made it past the store without getting assaulted by anything worse than more obscenities, which made me feel both relieved and a little disappointed. I entertained myself with a mental viewing of what it would be like to teach the scumbags a lesson for disrespecting women. Maybe I’d come back sometime when I didn’t have Annalee as a witness. Midnight shenanigans for Zombie Girl.
The library was only two blocks away, and the neat little building stuck out like a sore thumb in such a crappy area. Annalee pointed it out to me then stopped abruptly.
“What’s wrong?” I followed her gaze and could tell her attention was on a red Corvette parked by the library’s front door.
“That’s Lew’s car,” she said. “What’s he doing here?”
“How do you know for sure it’s his?” I noticed the tag read CHKMATE and said, “Oh, never mind. Okay, let’s go find out why he’s creeping on us.”
I managed to keep from sprinting up to the library entrance, but I still arrived way ahead of Annalee and had to wait for her to catch up. Apparently, she noticed my eagerness.
“Hey, maybe you should go in the front door and I should go in the back,” she said. “You know, just to make sure he doesn’t get away.”
I actually considered it a second before I realized I was being mocked by a library mouse.
“Cute,” I said with a cheesy smile. “But don’t pretend you aren’t excited to see him too. At least I’m honest about it.” I braced myself for the lightning bolt that was sure to strike me for claiming that virtue.
When we went inside, Annalee was greeted by every employee in the library. I was busy looking for Lew, but I couldn’t help noticing how beautiful the place was, especially the murals painted on two of the walls. One looked like a Cuban festival and the other featured famous African-Americans. There was also a display of kids’ artwork in the children’s fiction room.
“Don’t forget to call your foster mom,” Annalee said. “I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me and make them not want us to be friends.”
I had to laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure they don’t want me hanging out with somebody who takes me on unauthorized library visits.”
“Well, you still should call,” she said. “The phone’s over there at the circulation desk.” She indicated a station in the center of the fiction room. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye out for Lew so he doesn’t escape.”
I stuck my tongue out at her before walking over to the desk. Just as I expected, Karen was thrilled to hear I’d made a friend and was at the library with her. I promised to call when we got to Annalee’s house and purposely didn’t mention what part of town we were in.
“Mr. Christopher is upstairs at the reference desk,” Annalee said when I got off the phone. “He’s the one who does the classic book discussion group and gave me the list. We can check the study rooms and the computer lab to see if Lew’s up there.”
I followed her up the stairs, admiring the framed prints on the walls. “They’re really big on art in this place, huh?”
She nodded. “Mr. Christopher says it brings in a lot of patrons who might otherwise never step foot in a library. They support all the fine arts, like movies, concerts and plays.”
When we got to the top of the stairs, I saw a row of chairs facing the large windows, all of them occupied by scraggly-look
ing people. Most of them were asleep, but one old lady who looked like she was wearing every ratty article of clothing she owned was reading a book with a lighthouse on the cover. She looked up and waved at Annalee.
“That’s Hazel.” Annalee waved back at the woman as I followed her into the big room in the center of the floor. “She’s read just about every book in the library and can remember the characters and plots from most of them.”
“Is she homeless?”
Annalee nodded. “She has paranoid schizophrenia. She used to be a teacher but lost her job, her house and all her money when her medication stopped working after her husband died.”
“How do you know so much about her?”
“Mr. Christopher told me, and I’ve talked to her some too. She’s a nice lady except for thinking the government has assassins looking for her. Mr. Christopher convinced her the killers would never think to look for her in the library. That’s why she spends most of her time here reading.”
I gave her a suspicious look. “You sound kinda sweet on this Mr. Christopher. Is he cute?”
“Yes, but that’s not why I like him.” She blushed one of her medium shades. “He knows more about books than anybody I’ve ever known. Now, shush. There he is.”
The man behind the desk smiled when he saw Annalee, and I was relieved to see it was just a fond smile and not a lecherous one. Not that I really expected the library to be staffed by perverts, but I was glad I wouldn’t have to eliminate Annalee’s hero.
“Hey, Mr. Christopher,” Annalee said. “This is my friend Gwen. Can we get a copy of your list of classics for her?”
“Most certainly.” He took a sheet of paper from one of the drawers to his left. “Glad to meet you, Gwen. Maybe you can help me talk Annalee into coming to our next discussion group. The upcoming dates are printed at the bottom of the list.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said, still looking around for Lew. “Thanks for the list. Annalee, where are those study rooms and computer lab you were talking about?”
After Me Page 6