Chapter Six
Nate

Top three things running through my head:

One, did Kate blow me off with the whole “I don’t have a phone” thing? I asked for her number—quite suavely if you asked me—and she basically saw through the ruse and was like, Hell nah. Who gives a shit about having a local area code? No one, that’s who. Yeah, she blew me off.

Two, if she did text me, would it be weird to tell her that she shouldn’t send me any huge downloads because I had a very limited family data plan? It would be weird, right? Yeah, it’d be weird.

Third, did she think that I thought she was a lesbian? The last thing I said was something about her coming out of a closet, and she didn’t respond or joke around after that. Maybe she was a lesbian, and she thought that I was being weird about it.

Damn. She hated me.

Major Kate hate.

But Kate hate or not, I had a job to do. I couldn’t let this whole thing rattle me.

Deep breath. “Welcome to the Zombie Laboratory. I’m Nate, and I’ll be your host for the evening. Can I…uh…can I…” Oh God. I’d forgotten my lines.

My mind went completely blank. Well, except for those three previously mentioned Kate things occupying 100 percent of my brain capacity.

Fifteen customer service reps from Amazon, there for a management team-building exercise, witnessed me struggling with my lines and immediately jumped in to bombard me with ideas. So helpful, these guys.

“How about you take it from the top, Nate? Start over and get the flow going again.”

“Do you have a handbook or instructions? Maybe you can reference that?”

“Is there a problem? If so, maybe we report the problem to management?”

As the Amazonians brainstormed solutions to solve my brain fart on my behalf, a loud, unsubtle “PSSSST!” came from inside the escape room. I opened the door and popped my head inside.

“Um, yeah?”

Kate whispered from the closet, “Your line is ‘Can I get a show of hands of anyone who has been to an escape room before?’”

“You…heard that?” Please just kill me now.

“Yeah, my hearing’s pretty good.”

Shit. “How did you know my lines? You remembered them from last week?”

She giggled. “I want to be an actress. To do that, you memorize a lot. It’s the only thing I’m good at. Now go back to your group before they ruin all the fun.”

Frustrated, I pressed my forehead on the door frame. This was the most embarrassing situation ever. The only positive thing about it was that I got to chat with Kate again. “Thanks!” I shut the door and jogged back to the group to try the game’s preamble one more time. What was wrong with me? I was completely out of my zone, like someone let go of a full balloon before tying the neck, sending it sputtering and spitting saliva in all directions.

No more mistakes this time. I couldn’t let Kate overhear me screw up twice, and then help me with my lines, even if that would mean visiting her again. I’d rather shrivel up and die in beta dude hell for all eternity than let that happen.

I took a deep breath and took it from the top.

* * *

The rest of the night passed pretty seamlessly. I still couldn’t tell if Kate was mad at me or even remotely interested. So the next night, when my phone buzzed, I did a double take.

Holy. Shit.

Hey. It’s Kate. This is my number

YES. She texted me. She actually did it.

“Nate, you fucking cocksucker, we just lost because of you!” Jaxon screamed so loudly my ears rang. A midbattle text distraction wasn’t the best game strategy. Sorry, team.

“Guys, I gotta go. Something came up.” I tore off my headset and stared at my phone. Multitasking wasn’t my forte. And girls trumped this multiplayer shooter. Every time. Especially zombie-loving, funny, cute ones.

My heartbeat raced as I replied to Kate. Hey. Thanks What’s your last name? So I can put it in my contacts. You never told me

Anderson. Immediate response. Yes! Can you hop on a quick video call? I have a question.

Was there any downside to this? Couldn’t think of anything. The best-case scenario was her asking me out on a seafood pasta plus dessert plus movie date. No, actually, best-case scenario was her wanting to come over, no fancy date stuff.

Fingers crossed.

Sure, I’m around

Only a few seconds to decide the best backdrop for our video call. Preteen Nate had plastered the bedroom walls with Marvel and Star Wars paraphernalia, shark drawings, and glow-in-the-dark space decals, decor that I hadn’t thought twice about until now. The nautical-themed sheets and comforter on my too-small twin bed were impossible to remove in time. I’d have to avoid them in my video call cinematography.

My parents’ room wasn’t an option, with their long, Korean-countryside vertical wall hangings, multicolored decorative tassels hanging from their bedposts, and a twenty-four-by-thirty-six-inch framed oil painting of Jesus’s crucifixion above the headboard. My sister was downstairs watching PAW Patrol and banging on the piano, so the living room was out. The bathroom? Um, no. No more associations between me and toilets.

I had no choice but to position myself on my bed in front of my “Rebel Scum!” poster, a birthday gift from Annie, Jaxon, and Zach last year, the least embarrassing background in the entire house.

BZZZZ.

BZZZZZZ.

BZZZZZZZZ.

I answered on the fourth ring, to make it look like I wasn’t just desperately sitting around waiting for her call.

“Hey,” I said, my stomach somersaulting.

Kate leaned in and tossed her long, brown hair locks behind her shoulders. “Hey!”

I’d gotten so used to zombified Kate, it took me a second to register this was the girl beneath all the makeup.

Behind her was a super-sophisticated, fancy white backdrop with wall moldings, like something you’d see in one of those house renovation shows that my mom loved binge-watching on HGTV. Waaaa, so fancy! She’d point at the screen, mouth gaping. Jae-Woo, my dream house!

“Hey,” I said. Again.

Oh God. Nate, you suck.

A second or two passed, and my mind went blank. There was only one thing running through my head: KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate.

She finally spoke, cutting through my inner Kate KATE Kate KATE commentary. “What are you up to?”

Say something normal. “Me? Ah, not much. I just finished up a game with some buddies.”

Wow, if I had to rate this conversation, it would get an F minus. Zero stars. The absolute worst. We had no problem chatting in person. What the hell was happening here?

She nodded and pursed her lips. “I like your poster.”

Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE Kate KATE.

I turned around, looking at the words Rebel Scum! plastered on top of an image of a dramatically exploding Death Star. “Oh yeah? Me too. I was big into Star Wars for a while, like, I dunno, sixt—um, seventeen years?” I didn’t want her to know I was younger than her.

Her eyes crinkled as she laughed. “Well, I like it a lot.”

My speech sped up like a self-conscious auctioneer. “So last year, for my birthday, a-bunch-of-my-friends-got-me-Star-Wars-stuff-like-collectible-figurines-and-Star-Wars-tickets-and-popcorn”—breath—“Annie-picked-out-that-poster-because-she-used-to-say-I-walked-as-slow-and-stiff-like-an-Imperial-Walker-heh-but-she’s-just-a-friend.”

Annie and I were barely still friends. Why did I mention her? Beads of sweat spawned across on my forehead. I didn’t want Kate to see me wipe them off because then she’d know I was a nervous mess. “Naaaate! I need help!” my little sister cried out from the bottom of the stairs.

Kate’s eyes got all puppy-dog-like. “Awww, someone needs you. Her voice is so cute!”

“Yeah, hold on for a sec.” I put my laptop down on the bed. Out of the camera’s view, I swiped my forehead in a semicircle with my shirtsleeve, like I was on a one-time windshield wiper setting.

I shouted, “Lucy? What happened?” as I barreled down the stairs.

Pointing at the screen, she shrieked, “There’s a ghost in the TV!” The DVR recording was choppy and poorly digitized. The characters’ askew faces and bodies, formed from blocks of misaligned squares, resembled a Picasso cubist painting.

“Sorry, Luce, it looks like the channel we recorded from didn’t air correctly. Maybe something’s wrong with the cable connection. Can you watch something else?”

“No, no, no! I want PAW Patrol!” By her quick escalation to hysterics, you’d think I’d asked, “You want me to fart on your head instead? Because that’s what you’re getting. Lots and lots of farts!”

Lucy threw herself onto the couch and buried her face in a throw pillow. She screech-gasped with shuddering shoulders for nearly twenty seconds, to the point of oxygen deprivation. She looked up from her cry-muffling cushion with red, swollen eyes and asked in a clear, high-pitched voice, “Can I have ice cream?”

“No, you can’t have ice cream,” I said. “That’s a special treat for when you try your best or accomplish something. You need to toughen up, Lucy Goosey.”

Probably not the best pep talk for a kindergartner, in retrospect. She went back into pterodactyl mode, screeching and sobbing, while I just stood with my arms crossed. Being the youngest, she got away with a lot. Lucy needed to learn about having thick skin, not taking things personally. She was five and always throwing tantrums. She wasn’t going to get anywhere in life by being a crybaby.

At the rate she was going, she’d wear herself out in no time, and then I could put her to bed early.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I said, scooping up some of her favorite toys near my feet. “You can play in the hallway in front of my room, and I’ll come out after my call with my friend, and then we can play Noah’s Ark.” She had a hand-me-down Fisher-Price toy ark and dozens of pairs of animals that she loved more than anything else in the world. Some belonged to the original set. Other animals she’d added on her own, like her pairs of My Little Ponies and Pokémon. Lucy’s face lit up, and she dragged her giant stuffed panda up the stairs. “Coco comes too, to watch me play,” she said firmly.

Minor crisis averted, for now. I followed Coco and Lucy up the stairs and dumped the toys I’d collected on the hall floor. “I’ll come out and play soon. Knock on the door if it’s an emergency.”

“Okeydokey!”

For ten years I’d been an only child, and then surprise! Instant little sister. My world changed after that. My parents had less time for me, and I was always tasked with being the babysitter. They constantly scrambled to make ends meet, thanks to having another mouth to feed. Thanks to having more birthday and Christmas presents to buy. Thanks to full-day preschool costs. None of this was my sister’s fault of course, I knew that, but there were plenty of times like now when it sure would have been nice to have the house to myself. So I could take a call with Kate without worrying about Lucy.

I hopped back on my bed and was greeted with Kate’s smiling face. She stayed on! “Sorry about that. Minor kindergartner meltdown. Where were we again?”

She laughed. “You were gone a while. I was worried! We were just exchanging boring pleasantries, to be honest.”

Right. Don’t say “hey” again. “Well, YOU wanted to talk to ME, right?” I smirked. “So, what’s up?”

She scrunched her nose. “I need your help. It’s something I’ve been researching that sounds like fun. I think.”

“That’s not quite a ringing endorsement,” I joked. “And I never commit to promises before I hear what the favor is. It’s too risky.” Honestly, though, for Kate, maybe I would.

Kate smiled, one dimple appeared near her mouth. “It’s not like I’m asking you to do some kind of Ocean’s Eleven–level Bitcoin heist.” She took a deep breath. “I want to move to New York one day. To do that, I need money. There’s this local contest sponsored by Zeneration, and I need a partner to enter. Remember the flyer at work? It’s a weekend zombie survivalist competition, and it starts in a few weeks. The first twenty-five teams to sign up are automatically entered. For everyone else it’s lottery. There’s an entry fee of one hundred dollars, but the grand prize is fifty thousand dollars if you’re the first team to finish. We get zombie-themed swag too.” She sat up straight and then leaned toward the camera. “Would you be my teammate? Pleeeeease? I can’t think of any team of people who knows more about zombies than you and me.”

One hundred dollars was a shit ton of money, but there was also a chance to win a much bigger shit ton of money. And bonus: I’d get to throat-punch zombies, and maybe she’d share a tent with me. Not that anything would happen between us, but even if something did, or didn’t, hell fucking yeah I’d do it! Calm the fuck down, Nate. Be cool. “Um, sure, count me in, I guess.”

“Really? Nate, you’re seriously the best! I’ll send you an email with all the details. The registration opens tomorrow afternoon, and I want to get one of those first spots.”

My sister burst through the door, no knocking, crying, of course. “Nate! My boat broke! All the animals died! They hit an iceberg!”

Oh my God, not now, Lucy! But I had to give her credit for the A-plus dramatic Noah’s Ark meets Titanic story line. “Lucy Goosey, I’ll come out really soon, and we can save all the animals in a special rescue boat.” I pushed her back through the door and scanned the room for a pretend ship. The closest thing I found was old baseball mitt. Eh, it would have to do. It was boatlike enough.

“Gotta go, Kate, I have to save some soon-to-be endangered species. Oh, wait! Want me to sign us up for the competition, or do you want to?”

Worry flashed across her face. “Could…could you do it? I’ll pay you back. I promise.”

“Uh, sure.” Whatever spooked her, it wasn’t too big of a deal because she grinned and clapped. “Want to come by sometime after school?” I asked. “We can discuss zombie survival strategy. I’ll text you my address.”

“That’d be great! I can pay you back then.”

I couldn’t help but mirror the beaming smile on her face. “Cool!”

I closed the laptop to assure she couldn’t see me dance. Best day of my life. Ever.

My sister cried out from somewhere down the hallway. “Nate? NATE? Uh-oh!”

“Uh-oh, what?” I flung open my bedroom door.

No Lucy.

No ark.

Shrieks came from the bathroom. “Nate! The animals can’t swim! Uh-oh, Noah’s stuck sideways in the toilet! I made a flood.”

I missed being an only child.