Stella

I couldn’t help staring at Howie as we filed out of Physics class. I hope I did it subtly, but subtlety is not one of my talents. Besides, Howie tended to know what I was feeling about things so there was probably no point in trying to disguise it. When I saw him hand in that quiz, I was shocked. I mean, Jesus, he was teaching me this stuff just last night, and it was obvious then that he completely understood it. Howie was a fantastic teacher. He had this way of making complicated things seem really simple. I’d been thinking that if he could just get a B.Ed., he’d make a great teacher. Sure, he’d look a little young but we could age him up a bit with make up and clothing and stuff. Put him in tweed with elbow patches and he’d be your standard absent-minded professor.

I knew that Howie got pretty dopey when he wasn’t well-rested and well-brained, but wow. I think this was the first time I had actually seen, first hand, the way that his disease interfered with his school work. Like, forgetting things he knew perfectly well the day before kind of interference.

He looked so miserable and defeated. I reached out and took his hand. He gave me a tight smile and clung to my hand like a drowning man clutching a life preserver.

Howie remained subdued through lunch. When he finished his thermos of brains the usual sparkle didn’t return to his eyes. Amy noticed.

“Are you okay, Howie?”

“Oh. Yes. I’m just a little tired today,” he said, smiling at her briefly and then dropping his eyes back to the table.

“So, The Skeez is at it again,” said Kate abruptly. Kate had an ongoing feud with her mother’s boyfriend, who insisted on acting like a step father even though he wasn’t married to her mother, didn’t live with them, and Kate was practically an adult anyway.

“What happened this time?” I asked.

“He wanted to talk to me about Seattle. Tried to sit down with me and have a talk about the Zombie Killer, like I was a scared little girl.”

I glanced at Howie. I was hyper-sensitive to the word zombie, but his eyes were closed, his long eyelashes brushing his cheek. It was like he was dozing. He must be really tired. What had happened last night?

“What did he say?” Michelle asked Kate eagerly. We all loved The Skeez, because Kate’s stories were endlessly entertaining. One of my life goals was to meet this man in person.

“Oh, something about how I shouldn’t believe everything in the media, and I was perfectly safe here in Vancouver, but if I wanted to back out of the band Seattle trip, he’d be supportive.” Kate deepened her voice and took on a pompous body pose. “A young woman can’t be too careful with her safety, especially in America, with their lax gun regulations.” She relaxed into her usual posture. “It drives me crazy that he thinks he’s this super important law enforcement officer when really he’s just a border control guard. So he’s got it in his head that he’s all that’s standing in between the Seattle Zombie and mass chaos in Vancouver.”

“Tell me your mom doesn’t want you to back out of the band trip just because her border-control boyfriend is a paranoid weirdo,” I said.

“You have to come!” said Michelle. “It wouldn't be the same. Last year was such a blast.”

“She actually kind of did want me to back out. I think he might be getting to her,” said Kate. “I did my best to assure both of them that I probably won’t get killed, since I’m not a hobo or a prostitute.”

“What? This is news to me!” teased Michelle.

“Anyway, if I get my brains eaten in Seattle, The Skeez can say he told me so,” said Kate pragmatically.

“Why do they think the killer is eating the brains, anyway?” Michelle asked practically. “I mean, it’s not like they found a fork and a napkin nearby.”

“I don’t think I want my cottage cheese anymore,” said Amy, putting down her tupperware container.

“Your cottage cheese looks nothing like brains,” I said irritably to her. I glanced at Howie. His eyes were open now, but he was staring at the table.

“They’ll probably catch the guy soon,” said Amy. “I mean, won’t they?”

“How? Hobos are easy pickings. No one to report them missing, no one to say where or when they were last seen or who they were last seen with...” Kate shrugged, looking pissed off. “It took the Vancouver police, like, what, twenty years to notice that Robert Pickton was murdering the local prostitutes? It sucks, but cops just don’t care about druggies and homeless people. Neither do news crews. If it weren’t for the whole ‘missing brains’ angle, six dead homeless people would never be considered newsworthy. But just because it’s a little weird, suddenly Seattle gets this burst of attention. Look it up. People like that go missing in every city, all the time.”

“You’re such a positive person,” Michelle said affectionately.

“It’s just such bullshit. Pickton takes fifty women off of the street and grinds them up into pig food, and people actually see the bloody clothing and report him but still somehow no one cares, but some other guy empties a few skulls and suddenly it’s big news and I’m supposed to cancel my band trip,” Kate griped.

“Or girl,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Maybe. Like ninety nine percent of all mass murderers are male, but you know, it could happen.”

We were quiet for a few moments. Then Kate spoke again.

“I’m thinking of going into gender studies. I’m not sure what you can do with something like that — maybe become a sex ed teacher or do workshops on how to not be a dick to women or something?”

“Like how to date a woman without being all creepy and father-knows-best with her nearly adult daughter?” said Michelle.

“Exactly.”

“That sounds like you all over,” I said.

Kate shot me a look. “So are we allowed to talk about universities again? Are you over whatever that was?”

“Yup. I’m over it,” I said. “Go nuts.”

The girls launched into a discussion of Simon Fraser University versus the University of British Columbia versus some of the small colleges, but I just watched Howie. He looked so depressed, sitting there and staring at his thermos. I reached out and took his hand, and he twined his fingers around mine and gave me a brief smile. But a moment later he had faded away, gone to somewhere I couldn’t reach.

******

IN DRAMA, DEAN WAS bouncing on his chair with excitement like a little kid.

“Okay, so I’ve been planning it out,” he said. “It’s going to be awesome. I figure if I get a wedding dress and a big rosary I’ll look a lot like the Infant of Prague. You just need big glasses and we can deck them out with some red glitter, and maybe a wig to make you Sally Jesse Raphael. We totally need to get to a Value Village.”

“First we need to submit the proposal,” I said. “It might get rejected.”

“Whatever, no it won’t. It’s totally fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. “But okay, yeah, let’s get the boring crap out of the way.”

I ended up filling out the proposal sheet while he flipped through pages and occasionally called out to one of his buddies who had also stayed in the room with his partner. I was ready to kick his hyperactive ass off of his chair by the time I was done. This is what I had imagined working with Dean would be like and I was both disappointed and relieved to have it become a reality. On the other hand, I also wanted to kick my own ass because I couldn't stop taking deep breaths of that damn body spray or whatever it was he reeked of. What was wrong with me?

“So, when do you want to go to Value Village?” Dean prodded after our second read-through of the scene.

“Is this something that really needs to be done together?” I asked. “How about I get my costume, and you get yours.”

“Come on, Stella. We’re partners. This is supposed to be a team project. What do you have against working as a team?” his dark eyes looked almost serious.

I sighed. “Okay. But I’m busy Saturday. I have plans with my friends.”

“And I’m busy Sunday. How about Monday after school?”

I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. “Okay.”

“It’s a date,” he said, whipping out his phone. “Monday, after school. Value Village with Stella.”

Through some miraculous act of willpower, I stifled myself from saying, “It is NOT a date.”

Can you imagine? God, that would have been awkward.

This was going to suck.

******

IT TOOK ME A WHILE to find Howie after school. Normally I didn’t have to find Howie. He just appeared wherever I was. I hung out with my friends for a while but when Howie didn’t materialize I made my way to his car.

He was already there, sitting inside, reading his book. I opened the car door. “Hey,” I said to him.

He looked up and smiled. “Hey, yourself, Beautiful.”

“I got slightly concerned when you didn’t pull your creepy zombie find-Stella act,” I said, getting into the car.

“My class let out a little early and I’m having trouble navigating the halls today. So I figured I would just come here and wait. That way you could hang out with your friends for a while if you wanted. They always stop talking when I show up.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself.”

He stared at the pages of his book. “Just as long as you understand that I did want to see you.”

“It’s fine, Howie. You know I’m not clingy that way. But are you okay? You just seem... a little off today.”

“I think it’s just stress. You know, homework piling up, thinking about...” he shook his head, and then smiled at me. “I’ll be okay.”

“It is stressful,” I agreed. “What do you say we go home and spend half an hour or so going at each other like animals to de-stress before we turn into upright, hardworking citizens again?”

His eyes lit up and he looked at me with that consuming, passionate look that made my insides hug themselves. And then his expression faded and he looked away again.

“I would love to,” he said huskily. “But I really shouldn’t. I should drop you off and go home. I have so much to do and I’m afraid... I’m afraid that if I don’t do well enough, that I won’t get accepted to the school you want and you’ll be upset...”

“Half an hour, Howie. Half an hour is not going to wreck anything.”

“But it’s another half hour late into the night to get my work done, and you’ve seen how I am when I’m short on sleep...” He kept staring at his hands. Am I that scary, that he couldn’t even look me in the eyes?

“Howie...” I laid my hand on his lap and his eyes flashed again. “It’s okay. I’m not going to yell at you for caring about your grades. If today’s not okay, then fine. Maybe tomorrow. Okay?”

“Okay.” He turned the key in the ignition and his car sputtered to life. He sat staring at the steering wheel for a moment, and then turned to me. “Maybe you had better drive.”

“Sure,” I said, both relieved and concerned. We switched seats and I pulled out of the parking lot. There was so much I wanted to talk to Howie about, like physics quizzes and brain-eating murderers, but he was obviously having a bad day and I didn’t want to make things worse. So I channelled my confusion and other negative feelings onto the poor drivers around me.

“Look at that self-absorbed turd-monkey,” I said to Howie, gesturing.

Howie looked around. “Monkey?”

“That asshole there! That waste of a carbon footprint in the black pickup. He didn’t pull over for the fire truck.”

“Oh,” Howie said as an ambulance siren started up behind me and I pulled over again. “I’m just impressed when people do pull over.”

“You’re impressed,” I repeated. “By people following the law?”

“It’s so pretty to see it,” he said. His voice was quieter than usual. “The sirens come and suddenly everyone just makes way.”

“Because they have to. Because it’s the law.”

“But they don’t have to. That guy you saw — nothing happened to him, right?”

“Besides nearly getting plowed into by a firetruck? I guess not.”

“So no one really has to. The police can’t spot and arrest every person who doesn’t pull over for this ambulance. People don't pull over because of the law. They pull over because they want to let the ambulance through. They want to let the fire truck through. They want to do what they can to make sure those rescuers get to the person who needs help. It’s people, all working together to help other people — strangers that they never met. And it took so long to build a society that would work like that. It’s hundreds of years of struggle to get emergency services and health care and organized society, but we did it, and it works. People make way for the rescuers, and I like to see it. It’s beautiful.”

Jesus fuck, I could try my whole life and never be as good a person as Howie was. I glanced at him as I pulled back into traffic. He was looking out the window with a thoughtful expression.

“When’s our anniversary?” I asked suddenly.

He furrowed his brow. “I guess that depends what day you want to count.”

“That’s what I’m saying. I mean, I moved out here almost exactly a year ago. So... is our anniversary, like, the day we met? Or the day of our first kiss... or... when I told you I loved you?”

“It feels wrong to celebrate our love on the anniversary of the day that a bunch of people died,” Howie said. “I’m leaning toward first kiss day. Before all the dying happened.”

“That works for me. So let’s see, that would be...” I counted days in my head. “Wow. A week from Sunday.”

“A whole year, already?” Howie shook his head. “It feels like minutes. Seconds.”

“It feels like a really frigging long time to me. Like, a year ago I’d never kissed anyone and I had never seen a zombie or lived in a place that had daffodils coming up in February. My entire life is so different now.”

He was looking at me thoughtfully. “You’re still missing home.”

“Yes, but... less... I think.” I gestured at the cherry blossom buds on the trees and the snowy mountains beyond them. “I have to admit, the early spring is a nice sell. But anyway, my point is, let’s do something for our one-year-of-kissing day. Maybe something cozy and romantic again?”

“I’d like that,” said Howie. “I can’t ask my family to leave the house empty for us again. But I’d love to take you out somewhere.”

He said the words, but he didn’t seem nearly as enthusiastic about getting time alone with me as he normally would.

I drove into my townhouse complex’s parking lot, and forgot all about anniversaries when I spotted a familiar black car parked in visitor parking. Excited, I gave Howie a shove and he turned.

“The Zom Squad is here,” I told him. “Want to bet it’s about Seattle?”

“Seattle?” He looked blank.

“The missing brains, Howie. I told you it sounded like zombies!”

He shook his head, but he didn’t say anything. He did, however, get out of the car and follow me into the house.