A sharp, loud whistle rings out. I put my hand on my holster, which I plan to wear at all times after last night, but Jorge says, “That’s Guillermo.”
A big guy, a few years younger than me and dressed in shorts and a long-sleeved shirt, walks out the back door of what’s referred to as the Hipster Zombie House. He waves and then trots over, first shaking Jorge’s hand and then mine after Jorge introduces us.
“So this is your place,” Guillermo says to me.
“My parents lived here, then my sister. I came in to find her, but she’d already left with Maria’s daughters.”
“That’s who was with Penny. She has long brown hair, right?” I nod. “We killed some Lexers on the street outside Maria’s. Your sister leaned out the window to thank us. Sorry you missed her, man. But it’s good she got out.”
“I’m glad she did,” I say. “Most people didn’t.”
Guillermo looks to Jorge and tilts his head my way, eyes popped. “And this crazy motherfucker came
in
. You’ve got to tell me that story one day.”
“You got it.”
“You come alone?” Jorge asks.
“Yeah, just wanted to make sure you were all right over here.” Guillermo gazes over my shoulder. “Look at that, the three prettiest ladies in Brooklyn.”
Maria, Grace and Sylvie meet up with us, every one of their eyes rolling. “Quiet, Willie,” Sylvie says.
“Love this girl.” Guillermo flashes a smile and then just as quickly frowns. “You hear those gunshots last night?”
Jorge nods. “Was that you?”
“Some of it. Someone decided to pay us a visit. Don’t know who it was. Shot at the Key Food and up our block. Gary says he thinks they wanted to see what we have, where we are, all that shit. We chased them off. I would’ve come sooner, but we didn’t want to lead them to you. They’re gone now.” Guillermo rubs his dark scruff with his knuckles. “No one knows you’re here, right?”
“Don’t think so,” Jorge says.
“I said it before, but you should come live by us. It’s safer.”
“Um, Willie,” Sylvie says, “they’re shooting at you. Why would we want to come there?”
“They’re not getting in, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“I’d like to see your place,” I say. “I hear it’s pretty cool.”
“And getting better every day,” Guillermo says, rubbing his hands together. “Come by tomorrow.”
This isn’t the time to bring up tomorrow’s journey. “I will in the next few days.”
“What’s going on over there?” Guillermo points at where I’ve collected some supplies for my coffee-making operation. It’s not imperative that we have coffee, but it is imperative that they have some way to cook besides a solar oven. The reality that I might not make it back from upstate is woven under and through every thought I have, and I plan to leave them in good shape in case I don’t.
“Something I’m working on. Want to see?”
I lead him over and explain the design. Guillermo is more than interested and says the aforementioned Gary will understand my drawn-up plans, so I sketch out another set.
Guillermo tucks the papers in his back pocket and shakes my hand. “Appreciate it. All right, just wanted to make sure you all were okay.”
Then, with a tip of an imaginary cap to the women, he’s off the way he came. He has a gun, a knife, a small backpack and a whole lot of confidence. I have a feeling it’s well-earned. I hope it’s well-earned enough to keep out whoever wants in his Safe Zone. And if there are people out there who want in, Maria and the others need more than a stove. They need to keep watch and know how to use their weapons.
“That was Guillermo,” Jorge says to me.
“I like him.”
“He’s a
mensch
,” Maria says, and winks at Sylvie.
***
Sylvie walks me through the basement with a clipboard like a corporate PR person, in an unnecessary attempt to justify what they’ve eaten. I’m humoring her, but how many times can you tell a person she’s welcome and have her ignore you before you lose it? I have a suspicion I’m going to find out.
“Maybe we should’ve saved those two cans of beans,” she says, “but we needed the calories. When Grace and I find her family, we can go to Guillermo’s if there’s nowhere else.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I remain silent and stifle my compulsion to shake her. She tucks her hair behind her ear. She does that when she’s something: nervous, uncomfortable, upset, edgy, angry. I have no idea.
“Here’s the baking stuff,” she says. “We didn’t eat any of it.”
I look over the baking supplies, and that’s when it occurs to me—you can’t go toe to toe with Sylvie. If I push, she’ll shove. But maybe I can sidestep her defensiveness the same way she sidesteps any attempt to get through those defenses. She likes cake—she’s dying for cake—and that’s my way in.
I have no problem locating the cake mix. My mother baked cakes from scratch much of the time, but she wasn’t above a quick cake when we begged for one. Cassie and I would bring a box to the kitchen and leave it on the counter as an unsubtle hint. I pull out a box of yellow cake.
“Do you like cake?” I ask.
“Of course. Who doesn’t like cake?” she says, inspecting canned peaches as if she didn’t perform a monologue about cake days ago.
“There’s icing, too.
Icing
.”
Her narrowed eyes dart my way. “Are you fucking with me?”
“I am not fucking with you,” I say, but I can’t keep a straight face. “Let’s make cupcakes in your solar oven. They’ll cook faster than a big cake, and there’s enough sunlight left in the day.”
I hold out the mix. She takes a step forward with her hand out and then drops it by her side. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to bake a cake?”
“Because cake is delicious?”
I’ve made her smile, sort of, and it only took the same effort as summiting a mountain. “Okay,” she says. “But we don’t have eggs.”
I shake my head sadly. “Well, this is the part where we’re going to have to be somewhat healthy. We have the oil, but we’ll have to use applesauce for eggs.”
“Soda.”
“What?” I ask.
“You can mix a cake with a can of soda and bake it. It’s good. My mom did it a couple of times. We found some soda in the other houses.”
“Soda is full of high fructose corn syrup. The mix already has sugar. You might go into a sugar coma if you’re not careful.”
“You sound like Grace,” she says with a sigh that suggests this is not something to aim for. “Are you really that concerned about corn syrup? I mean, out of all the things in the world to worry about right now, is that high on the list? Like, first is corn syrup, then zombies, then water, then food?”
“Well, no.” I turn my attention to the box I hold, feeling like an uptight health freak. I thought she knew I was teasing, although high fructose corn syrup isn’t something I seek out due to my mother’s hatred of the stuff. “If you want to use soda, we can. It’s not that big of a deal, obvi—”
I hear a snort and look up to find her eyes shining with mischief.
She’s
fucking with
me
. I wiggle the box. “Do you want cake or not, woman?”
Sylvie reaches for the mix, but I pull it away just before she makes contact. She clasps her hands behind her back and laughs. “You know I do. That’s why you’re torturing me with it.”
“Well, grab a can of high fructose corn syrup and let’s do this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I know you’re
esurient
for cake.”
Her jaw drops. “That’s why we’re having this conversation, isn’t it? So you could use the word. You’re diabolical.”
“I wish I’d thought of that, but it just happened. And I’m hardly diabolical—this is the first one I’ve gotten. We’re making cake because it’s the least I can do for you nursing me.”
“God, could we just forget about that already?”
“Then don’t thank me for every bite of food you eat,” I say. “We could waste another hour with you saying you owe me for this food and me reminding you that you helped save my life. Saving my life is a much bigger deal, which means if anyone owes anyone, I owe
you
. Can we just make some damn cake and enjoy it? Or maybe you want to argue until there’s not enough sunlight left to bake a cake. Which is it? Cake or arguing?”
“Cake,” she says. “Thank y—”
“Really? You’re thanking me? Now I have to remind you that you saved my life.”
Her laugh is loud and genuine. However reserved she may be, there’s no question she has a sense of humor—and appreciates one. Appreciates
mine
. Which, I admit, is a point in her favor.
“Fine,” she says. “I’ll never thank you for anything ever again.”
Before now, she was pretty. But like this—eyes sparkling, smiling and receptive—she’s more than just pretty. Dad would’ve called her
a knockout
. And it’s an apt term, at least in my case, because my next thought strikes with a wallop and leaves me a bit unsteady—while I’m eager to check on Paul, I can’t wait to return and see more of Sylvie.
“I guess I helped save your life.” She bends for a can of Sprite, then straightens with a thoughtful expression. “But, had I known I was going to get
cake
, I would’ve tried much harder.”
I lean against the shelves with my laugh. Whatever I expected to find here, I never imagined this smart, funny, compassionate, standoffish, slightly maddening person who throws me a wicked grin before she mounts the hatch steps to the yard, soda in hand. And it doesn’t hurt that the back view of her is as pleasant as the front. It’s only been a few days, but Sylvie’s thrown me off balance in more ways than one.
Chapter 52
Sylvie
I’m eating cake. I’m eating cake and it’s so delicious I might die of joy, even if it is slightly chewy. It’s so sweet my teeth hurt. White icing coats my mouth. Yellow cake with white icing is like going to church to find God and He’s sitting in the front pew saying, “Hey, Syls, want some cake?”
“Good?” Eric asks.
I nod and chew. I’ve chosen to believe what Eric said about owing me—I can’t refuse cake. “It’s like I’m mainlining sugar. The icing. Is so. Good.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Jorge says, and lifts his fork my way. I salute him with mine. I know ex-junkies crave sugar the way I do, hence my mother baking soda cakes during brief spells of sobriety. Shockingly, there were no eggs in the house.
“Sylvie fed us all candy when we were trapped in the bathroom at the hospital,” Maria says. “You should’ve seen what was in her bag.”
“The bag she takes everywhere?” Eric asks.
“Why do you take it everywhere?” Jorge asks me.
“She’s always taken it everywhere,” Grace says. “She used to take it from room to room. She’s done it forever.”
They all look my way. I swallow my cake and shrug. “You never know when you’ll need something: lip balm, gum, book, lotion, candy…”
“You can always go get your bag,” Maria says.
“But then you have to get up.”
They laugh. Laziness isn’t the only reason—I feel naked without it. It started as a way to keep my mother from my most important things, which is why it traveled everywhere with me. In high school, it contained a shirt and a spare pair of underwear in case I stayed the night at Grace’s—always a welcome treat. Like cake.
“So, what was in there?” Eric asks me.
“A Twix bar, Twizzlers, gummy bears and potato chips.”
Eric pushes back his hair, eyebrows up. “That sounds like a kid who spent all their allowance at the corner store.”
“I like candy.”
“Obviously.”
“Especially orange.”
He makes a face. “Who likes orange best?”
“Me. Plus, all the people who don’t like orange share their candy with you.”
“Oh, is that how it works?”
“Yup,” I say. “But I’m an equal opportunity candy eater, except for blue. Blue candy is a crime against nature.”
“I like blue. How can you not like blue raspberry?”
“It makes your teeth blue, it’s gross. There’s no such thing as a blue raspberry.”
Grace waves her fork at me. “When has whether or not a food exists in nature been your criterion for eating it?”
Eric laughs. His skin has returned to a healthy glow as in the photographs—sunburn or windburn on his cheekbones, shallow lines around his eyes from squinting at the view from the tops of mountains or whatever outdoorsy people squint at, and a wholesome smile that would be annoying if he wasn’t scruffy and brimming with sarcasm. But, mostly, he’s nice. Normal. I can’t tell if he’s flirting, teasing or just friendly. But he’s so easygoing that he puts me at ease—or as easy as I get, anyway.
He turns to Maria. “I’m going to Paul’s tomorrow. I don’t think they left Bay Ridge. When I get back, we’ll decide what we want to do about going upstate. I can go and check the cabin, then bring you there if it’s safe. If it’s not, we’ll figure out something else.”
Maria frowns. “You’re not ready for either one of those things.”
“Maria, I’m fine. His house is less than two miles. I’ll take a bike.”
“And just how are you planning to get out of the city after that? Especially since you got sick coming in.”
She waits for his answer with dual arched eyebrows and a set to her mouth that suggests there’s no correct answer. Eric’s healthy glow pales a shade. Not scared of Maria, my ass. “I’ll check the bridges first—”
“You want to get killed?”
“I thought you’d want me to go,” Eric says quietly.
“I don’t want you to
die
. I won’t send you off to die.”
“How about he goes to get his friend and then you discuss it?” I ask. “He has to at least go there. Paul has a kid.”
Maria crosses her arms, but she knows she’s been outplayed. Eric winks at me. Earlier, while we mixed the cake batter, he said he wouldn’t have been able to build a better solar oven out of the same materials, which pleased me more than one would expect. It’s bizarre that someone complimenting my solar oven has become high praise.
I know I was driving him crazy about the food, but just when I thought everything was settled, Eric appeared. Maybe this food wasn’t originally Maria’s, but the majority of it genuinely belongs to Eric. As does this house, the bedroom, the books and all the other things that have kept us alive for the past weeks. But I’m fairly certain he doesn’t mind us here, and I’m trying to hold fast to that certainty the way a rational human would. Operation
Sane Sylvie
has been put into effect.