Twice Shy (28 page)

Ani sat down on the far side of the cushion, not daring to get too close.
Not yet.
"Just as well you play soccer and not football, huh?"
So lame.
But he smiled.

"Sure." They sat, smiling at one another. A minute stretched to two. "I'm glad you're here."

"Me, too." Her desire was like hunger, only beautiful instead of horrific. Her eyes traced his jaw line, speckled with stubble, and flitted to his mouth. She forced herself to look out the window.
Phew!
"So will you be back in school tomorrow?"

He shook his head but inched closer to her. Now less than a foot separated them. "I'm seeing a psychologist tomorrow." She raised an eyebrow. "You know, nightmares."

She'd been euphoric for two days, and it hadn't occurred to her how the attack might have damaged Mike. "I've had trouble sleeping, too," she said.
Nightmares.
The word felt strange to her. She hadn't slept in two years, and had forgotten what it was like to dream.

"I'm sure," he said. "I can't imagine watching my mom do... what your mom did." He shifted his weight. Six inches between them, maybe less.

"I'm just glad she did." Ani swallowed. Her mouth was dry, and it was hard to concentrate.

"Ani?"

"Yes?"

"Will you go to prom with me on Saturday?" The universe exploded in bliss. She couldn't bite her lip and smile at the same time, so her mouth hung slack. He leaned in and she stopped breathing, her lips inches from his. An inch. Less.

She put a hand on his chest and turned away. "I can't. There's no way my mom would allow it."

"Why not?" He looked hurt.

She shrugged. "It's the rules."

Mike smirked. "She doesn't have to know."

Ani bit her lip. "How could she not know?"

Mike smiled. "I gave my dad tickets to the Journey concert in Buffalo this Saturday."

A laugh escaped her mouth.
That's happening a lot lately.

He leaned in again, and she put her finger to his lips. "Not too fast." He frowned. She smiled. "We've waited a long time. We can wait a little more." He returned her smile.

She dragged herself away from him, shambled to the door, and blew him a kiss. "See you Saturday," she said.

"I'll pick you up at seven," he replied.

*  *  *

As Ani came down the basement stairs, her mom looked at the clock. Blond wig on the floor, her bald head hidden under a Bills cap, she had an ink smudge on her nose and bags under her eyes. She looked back at the chemical equipment in the lab. "You're home late."

"It's nice out. I walked now that it's safe." Ani strangled a pang of guilt.

Her mom turned the stopcock on a burette, and fluid trickled into an Erlenmeyer flask set on a magnetic stirrer. "You're supposed to avoid sun exposure."

"I wore a hat," Ani said. "A big hat."

Her mom sucked some of the solution into a transfer pipette and dripped it onto a microscope slide. "Come here, sweetie." As Ani approached she picked up a scalpel. "Arm." Ani put out her arm and her mom grabbed her wrist with her left hand.

She drew the knife across her arm, expertly removing a nickel-sized flap of skin almost down to the muscle. Ani winced, but she endured much worse on a regular basis. Her mom sliced a vertical section out of what she took, placed the skin on the slide, put on a coverslip, and slid it into the incubator. A digital stereoscope displayed the images on the computer screen. "Don't go anywhere." Ani waited five minutes, then ten, then twenty, then an hour while her mother stared at the monitor. Without looking up, her mom crooked a finger at her.

As Ani approached, her mom stepped out of the way, eyes ablaze. "What do you see?"

Ani looked. She recognized the cell membrane and the nucleus. Some of the nuclei looked funny, barbell-shaped, with smeary nuclei. "Mom, are those cells dividing?" She looked up, mouth open. "They're alive. Those are my cells, and they're alive."

They hugged, and Ani's heart felt fit to burst. Her mom pulled back, and she wasn't smiling. "Don't get too excited. It's a huge step, but the division is way too fast, faster than anything we've ever seen, and we don't know what it will do uncontrolled. I'm going to let it grow overnight and then test it for ZV."

"What then?" Ani asked.

She ignored the question. "It might take a while to iron out the kinks. Either way, I have some big news for you."
What does 'a while' mean? And what could be bigger than this?

"Rishi—that's Doctor Banerjee, the man from the other day—has been sharing our data since I had to tell him about you. He's been very careful and hasn't shared our identities. One of his colleagues, Doctor Bhim Raychaudhuri, developed this serum. He's invited us to his lab to continue this research."

"For what, like, the summer?"
She'd miss Mike, but it'd be worth it.
"That's awesome!"

Her mom shook her head. "Indefinitely." Ani's stomach lurched. "Someone needs to look after you when I'm gone."

"Uh..." Ani couldn't put her thoughts together. "Um... Where is his lab?"

"Tempe. It's just outside Phoenix."

Ani sat. "Arizona." Her heart died, but the machine in her chest kept it pumping.

"You'll like it there. They've agreed to all my demands. Your secret will be safe. You'll go to school, be a normal girl."

"But my friends..."
Mike. You can't take Mike. Not now.

"You don't have friends, you have cover. You can make friends out there, and they can be real friends, Ani. You won't have to pretend anymore. These people are going to cure you."

She realized then how much she missed Fey.
Petty, vindictive, angst-filled bitch that she is.
"I do have friends, Mom. Fey and Mike are my friends."

"Regardless," her mom said. "Done is done. This is necessary and we're doing it."

Ani tried to speak through her broken heart. "When?"

"The movers will be here Monday."

"Monday."
So soon.
Ani couldn't wrap her brain around it. Ohneka Falls was the only place she'd ever known. "So tomorrow's my last day of school?"

She shook her head. "No, tomorrow you're staying home with me to pack up the basement ahead of the movers. One day either way makes no difference to your education, but we need this place looking normal."

Chapter 30

Friday morning the printer hummed, and her mom snatched the paper from it. Ani raised her eyebrows and she handed it over. Ani had seen something like it before, when they'd tested her saliva. The markers for ZV were absent. The sample was clean.

They hugged, danced, and packed, giant smiles plastered on their faces the entire time. The Zombie Virus could be cured. Dead flesh could be reanimated. Sure, they weren't quite there yet, but they were close enough to taste it. It felt weird to hope.

*  *  *

That afternoon Ani managed to escape the endless packing while her mom took a quick nap. She went to Fey's house to say goodbye. She rang the doorbell and Mrs. Daniels answered the door. "Ani, what a surprise!"

Fey sat on the couch watching TV, a bowl of chips perched on her stomach. "Tell her to go away," Fey mumbled. Ani stifled the hate she still felt when she looked at her.
Let it go, Ani. Let it go.

"Tiffany Michelle, you get over here and greet our guest like a civilized human being!"
This is starting off on exactly the right foot.
Fey rolled her eyes, set the chips on the coffee table, and grumped her way to the door, arms crossed.

"What do you want, Ani?"

Fey's mom rolled her eyes and stole Fey's spot on the couch. "I'm moving," Ani said. "I wanted to say good-bye."

"Good-bye," Fey said. Ani stopped the closing door with her foot.

"I'm sorry things went so sour with us. I only ever wanted to be your friend, even if you are an insufferable bitch."

Fey smiled. "Not for nothing, but you can be quite the bitch yourself."
I'm the walking dead. What's your excuse?
They looked at each other a moment. Fey broke first. "So where are you moving to?"

"Arizona. We leave on Monday."

"Mom get a new job?"
Something like that.

"Yeah, some research position at a big hospital."

They stood in companionable silence for a minute, then Fey said, "Well, get a freaking cell phone and we can keep in touch. I've missed you."

"I will," Ani said.

*  *  *

Ani snuck across the street to Mike's house and peeked in his bedroom window. He sat in his jeans on the bed, topless and barefoot, playing Xbox. He was all tan skin and lean muscle, the angel of her paintings in the flesh. It hurt to look at him, to want him, crave him so much.

She tapped on the window. He looked up and smiled, paused the game, and tiptoed to the door. With a furtive glance down the hall he closed it, then opened the window. His face darkened when he saw her expression.

"Hey," he said through the screen. "Who died?"

"I did," she said. "Or I may as well have."

"What happened?"

"We're moving. Mom got a new job."

He leaned against the windowsill. "Moving? Where?"

"Arizona."

Tears sprang to his eyes.
I wish I could cry for you, too.
"At the end of the school year?"

"Monday."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Ah. God. This can't be happening." His house phone rang. He looked at the screen, then showed it to her. 'ROMERO'.

"I need to go. I'll see you tomorrow night."

"Okay," he said. "Bye, Ani."
Not goodbye. Not yet.

When she walked in the door her mom was still on the phone.

"Ah, okay then. Thank you very much. Good-bye." She hung up and slammed the phone into the charger, her voice turning accusatory. "According to Jennifer, Mike and Devon are no longer a couple."

"So I heard," Ani said. "It's about time they broke up."

"And yet Mike is still going to the prom."
Shit.

Ani tried to look blasé and crestfallen at the same time.
"Oh? Did she say who with?"

"She did. And you're a terrible liar."
I can fool everyone but you, Mom.

"Mike asked me. I didn't say 'yes.'"

"You apparently didn't say 'no' either, so you're either lying to me or leading him on, and neither is acceptable."
Nothing but complete honesty ever was, but it's always been a one-way street.

"Aren't we packing tomorrow night anyway?"

"You can finish up your stuff. Mike's father is taking me out." She grabbed Ani under the chin and turned her head to face her. "I'm putting a great deal of trust in you. Don't screw it up."

Ani widened her eyes. "I won't, Mom."

"Promise." Her mom squeezed her cheeks.

"I promise."

"Good, 'cause I'll know if you try anything stupid." She kissed her forehead. "You want to be a headstrong teenager, but you don't have that luxury. If you think I've been restrictive before, try lying to me again. You'll never leave the lab until you're cured."

Her mom never bluffed. Ani would be chained to a chair. She thought of Arizona, of leaving Ohneka Falls, of leaving Mike.
Does it even matter if I am?

*  *  *

They spent the rest of the evening and most of Saturday packing the basement and turning it into something more nearly normal. A bare concrete floor swept clean, whitewashed walls, and a hot water heater were all that remained. Even the 'just in case' room had been turned back to its original purpose, the washer and dryer ensconced where a shackled recliner once sat.

They talked of research advances from her mom's new colleagues, improvement ideas for her serum they could try, advanced regenerates that could repair bone, and promising antiviral therapies. When her mom tried to talk up Arizona's virtues, Ani moped until she gave up. They stopped at three so her mom could get ready.

*  *  *

Her mom left at four-thirty. Ani waited a half-hour to call Mike. The phone rang once.

"Hello?" Her throat closed at the sound of his voice, tight and breathless. She closed her eyes against the hollow gnawing in her chest.
Is this how I'll always hear it, on the phone?

The words rushed out. "It's me. There's no way I can go to the prom. Mom has spies who will rat me out in a second. It will literally ruin my life like you have no idea."

Silence brooded on the other end of the line. "Do you want to go?"

"Yes, Mike, more than anything I want to go."

"Well, I have an idea. I'll pick you up at eight-thirty."

"Why eight-thirty?"

"It's dark out by then. No one will catch us. I'll see you soon."

"They'll catch—"

"Trust me."

"Okay. I trust you. I'll see you soon." She licked her lips. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Ani. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to see it."

"Me, too. See you soon."
I'm babbling.

"Okay."

"Bye."

"Bye."

She hung up the phone and opened her eyes. The world blazed with color and life.

*  *  *

Ani took a hot bath and cranked the heat in the bathroom as high as it would go to raise her body temperature. Her mom called at six-thirty. She called again at seven. And again at eight. Ani checked online, and the concert started at eight-fifteen.
Good call, Mike.
She listened to Katy Perry's
One of the Boys
on repeat while she got ready.

Ani's only dresses were black, and that couldn't be helped, but she used her mom's makeup. Glossy pink lipstick and pink rouge over a very light foundation made her look more human. It made her look like a girl.

She quashed the butterflies in her stomach, or tried to.
If I know this is the right thing to do, why do I have to keep telling myself it's the right thing to do?
She shoved the thought away, touched up her lipstick, and waited on tenterhooks. At eight-thirty sharp she went downstairs.

A soft tap on the kitchen door startled her. She leapt up when she saw Mike, dapper and handsome in a black tuxedo with a pale green bowtie that matched his eyes. She disarmed the alarm system and pulled open the door, confused.