chapter seventeen

ten years later

Kate no longer asked one of the other bartenders at Patient Zero to walk her back to her car at the end of the night. Half of the customers still called it Cato’s; the employees hadn’t gotten around to making a new sign. Most of the storefronts on Piedmont Avenue were back to being occupied by retailers, though the really boutiquey stores selling things like handmade organic fair-wage baby clothes were gone. Evolutionary dead ends. 

She dried a glass with a towel, setting it in the rack. Business was slow tonight. She watched the television, which showed Piedmont High School’s production of The Tempest. Prospero was eighteen at best, but had the gravitas of someone who remembered everything. “Full fathom five,” Kate mouthed along with Ariel. 

Derek sat down at the bar. Kate poured him a shot. Employees weren’t supposed to drink on the job, but everyone did it. “You’re up after Audrey,” he said. “She’s got another two songs after this.” His cheek had a long shiny scar, and he was missing an eyebrow. Kate had never gotten the nerve to ask him how it had happened. She could guess well enough. Still, some people were into that. Evidence of the new order. 

“There’s almost no one here,” she said. “Won’t be much in tips.” 

Audrey was dancing to “Rodeo” by Juvenile. In the colored spotlights, you hardly saw how gray her skin was. 

“Like the new shirt.” He drank from his cup. 

“It’d look great on your floor, right?” That was one of his lines. He flirted out of habit, as she did. The shirt had been an impulse buy from a street vendor, a baby tee on which was printed No Bugchasers in pink letters. It rode up, showing off the Ouroboros tattoo around her hips that had cost several weeks’ take. The pain and exhilaration from being tattooed had been the closest she’d come to an orgasm with someone else in years. 

“Any floor, baby. Try me.” 

“That drunk still hanging around outside?” Kate asked, mostly to change the subject. She didn’t have to tell him that it was bad for business. 

“I can’t do anything about it. I’ve told him to go away. He’s one of them. It’s a little tactless, hanging around in front of this place. PTSD, sure, fine, but we’ve all been through worse than he has. I wish the council would do something about them.”

“Most homeless people are mentally ill,” Kate said. “There just isn’t funding. Prop Eight failed. It’s the damn three-quarters majority requirement.”

“New government, same old problems. People would rather have the power on, and the water running, never mind getting some of these potholes fixed. That’s what the Reparation was supposed to be about. Not just jobs. Not just safety. I drove into the city the other day—”

“‘When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler,’” Kate quoted. She’d gotten it from a novel about kids whose parents were making the bomb during WWII. Gas coupons and rationing. The public libraries were gone, but Patient Zero had a take-one-leave-one bookshelf.

“I picked up some people from the casual carpool. But listen to this, at the tollbooth they made us all sign a waiver. Sheet full of names, on both sides. Bridge has finally been declared unsound, but what’s the option? Walk through the BART tunnel? No, thank you.”

“You could drive down to the 92. It’s a newer bridge.”

“Yeah, but it’s out of the way. Another hour or two, depending on traffic. I don’t have the gas credit for that. Everything takes longer, these days. You’re old enough to remember how it was.”

The song finished. Drake’s “Best I Ever Had” started. Audrey flipped upside down on the pole. Her hair hung down like a mop. She wore it long to cover her scars. Kate watched her. Audrey had a beautiful body. She’d gotten ripped, ab muscles visible. Sometimes they’d trade backrubs after their respective sets. The pole took it out of you. But she never touched Audrey at home. In the beginning, they’d both been afraid to live alone. They split the bills, and they didn’t talk much except for work. It was like being married, except that neither of them was seeing anyone else. 

“I’ll watch the store if you want to get ready,” Derek said. “This’ll be your last set before the power goes out.” 

Kate poured herself a shot. “All right, I guess. Only for you.” She drained it, trying to psych herself up. She went into what used to be a storage closet. She took off her shirt and bra. She pinched her nipples erect, then put clamps on them, grimacing. A clamp had fallen off once, during her act. She changed into white panties. Then she put on a black leather hood with holes for her eyes, nose, and mouth. She used the hood not because her face was scarred but because it wasn’t. 

Patient Zero was a fetish bar. The fetish was survivors like her, but there was overlap with the BDSM community. She and Audrey were lucky that they’d each been locked up. Most zombies had been shot on sight by the time research groups at UCSF and Stanford had come up with antiretrovirals that worked. Audrey’s song ended. The applause faded. Derek called out, not bothering to use the mic: “Next up, put your hands together for our very talented Kyrie Eleison!” 

Kate made her way to the stage. She stood, looking at the mirrored ceiling, and waited for the song to start. She’d picked “Easy Come, Easy Go” by the bluegrass Jugtown Pirates as her first piece. They still played the bar circuit, mostly in San Francisco. The stand-up bass player reminded her of Michael; he made the same goofy faces. She’d chosen the song for the chorus: “Life keeps moving along.” And because people thought it was funny. When the crowd was particularly frisky, she’d swap it out for their song “My Baby Left and Became a Stripper.”  She climbed up the pole, swirling around. She made eye contact with the audience. It was mostly middle-aged guys who smelled of beer and work sweat. She touched herself. It was a job. “Bonnie and Clyde” by Haystak was next. 

A slender guy came in and sat down. Kate felt the blood leave her head. It couldn’t be. It was. Walter. Or his father. No, it was him. She felt weak. So he hadn’t died. 

She kept dancing. He wouldn’t recognize her, the hood covering her face. “Comfortable” by Lil Wayne came on. She did a belly roll, making the snake’s tail twitch. She refused to be self-conscious. When the song was over, she collected her money from the floor and bolted from the stage.

She sat in the closet for a while after changing back into her clothes. She counted the cash. Almost fifty, in Bear Republic dollars plus a few wrinkled US dollars. End-of-the-night take. The United States was a joke; bankrupted from the Siege. New England had incorporated. Southern California was now the Orange Republic; Northern California and Oregon the Bear Republic. States printed their own money, but everyone still took US currency. She put the bills in her pocket, then checked her reflection in a mirror that had been manufactured decades ago to fit in a high schooler’s locker. Her skin was pale and gray in the light from the single incandescent bulb. They’d shaved her head in the hospital, years ago, and she’d decided she liked it that way. It was a kind of penance. Too little, too late, but it was something. She put on lipstick and smiled at herself. 

The light went out. It must be midnight already. She came out of the closet. Derek was lighting candles. Audrey had gotten her guitar and was sitting on a stool on the stage in the semidark, playing Tracy Chapman songs. A few of the customers had stayed to look up her skirt and sing along; others drifted to the bar.

Walter sat by himself, head propped on his hands, examining his bottle of beer. He wore a Stanford sweatshirt with the anti-zombie logo. Kate went behind the bar. She grabbed another bottle of beer from the melted ice in the cooler, and set it in front of him. He looked up. 

“Fancy meeting you in a place like this,” she said.

He blinked a few times. “Kate?” he said, tasting the word as if for the first time. “I didn’t know. Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” His face did some complicated things. “How are you?” 

His voice sounded like she remembered. That was hard.

“Surviving,” she said. “Glad to see you are, too. I’m one of the lucky ones. I was in the hospital for a while. Then moved into a tiny apartment by the lake with my friend Audrey. I lost touch with a lot of people. Went off the grid, basically.” 

“Happens, especially when phones and the Internet are on-again, off-again. I lost all of my email to a server crash.” Was he trying to explain why he hadn’t tried to contact her, or was he saying that he understood why she hadn’t contacted him? She rather liked the idea that all of their correspondence was gone. 

“So you’re working here?” he asked. 

“It’s all right. Not a lot of jobs for people like me.”

“If I’d known, maybe I could have brought a whip.” He smiled as if he already regretted the joke.

“I’ve got it under control, thank you very much. Antiretrovirals. The whip sound doesn’t work once the drugs are in your system. You see the size of those speakers? I’m not sensitive to sound any more, for sure. Glad to see I didn’t give it to you, though.” 

He took a sip. He’d aged. It was in his face, and his posture. “I’ve been looking for you, believe it or not. For years. I needed to see you, Katie. I asked around at Mills, after they opened again, but no one knew anything. I needed to know that you were OK.”

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “Yeah, I just told you that I was in school to impress you.”

He looked away. “I guess I deserved that.” 

“I actually do write, now,” she added, softening her voice. “Not for publication, though.” She thought of a quick poem. The world does not end / How precious your guilt / How poisonous your love.

“Kate, give me a hand?” Derek called from the other end of the bar. Now that the dancing was over, the drinking had picked up. 

“Sorry. ’Scuse me.” Kate touched Walter’s hand, out of habit. His skin was soft, in an age where most people worked outdoors. He flinched, just a little, but she noticed. Probably he’d never been touched by a zombie before. People always expected her skin to be cold.

“Wait—when are you off shift? I’d love to buy you a burger or something.” In the old days, they’d eaten steak. He must have come down, from whatever he did then to whatever he did now. The panic during the Siege had killed off the remaining banks. His 401(k) was surely lost. Retirement was a joke. 

“I’m vegetarian, these days. I’ll never eat flesh again.” She smiled, trying to look malevolent. If she scared him away, she wouldn’t have to talk to him. “Be right there,” she called to Derek. 

“Touché.” Walter wasn’t sure whether to laugh. That meant she made him nervous. Good. “Pizza?” he asked. “There’s a place down the block that serves late.”  

She considered.

“Please?”

“Excuse me,” she said. She moved to the other end of the bar and mixed a Manhattan for a white-haired man who always tipped. She threw in an extra cherry. 

“That guy bothering you?” Derek asked.

“No. Just someone I used to know. We went out a few times.” She saw no reason to conceal it.

“Really?”

“Before.” 

“I was going to say. You never date.”

“It’s not the zombie thing. I just had a bad experience once.” 

“With this guy?” Derek’s face darkened.

“Oh, no. Another guy. It’s all conflated in my brain, though. I don’t like to talk about it. I’m not embarrassed; it just tends to weird people out. Violence might turn people on, here, but trauma turns them off. There is a difference.”

“Well, you looked haunted, cutie. Just tell me if you want me to get rid of him.”

“Thanks.” She bumped her hip against his, checking first to see that he wasn’t holding anything that would spill. He smiled. She slung bottles of beer, made here in Oakland, and mixed a few cocktails. When business calmed down, she leaned against the back counter. It was good to have work. Derek stood next to her. 

“Stick with your own kind,” he said under his breath. “I don’t have to tell you why. The vitalists don’t understand what it’s like. They’ll parade you around to show how PC they are, dating a zombie, but they get over it fast. It’s all a fantasy. And they’re lousy in bed. Afraid to touch you.”

“Believe me. It’s not like that. I’m not dating anyone. This guy, he wants to get the guilt monkey off his back. He ran out on me during the Siege.”

“Everyone did shit they regret. Especially us.”

She nodded. Honesty / until it hurts / No safe word. “I ate my friend. I don’t talk about it.” 

“So did I!” Derek said. “I ate my girlfriend. How sick was that? I mean, I took it home to her. It was my fault. I think of her every day.” He poured a shot for each of them from the well. The alcohol burned on the back of her throat. 

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t remember all of it,” she added. “I tied myself up and told my friend to go away. But he didn’t. Then I woke up in a hospital. I saw pictures. What was left. They couldn’t even take a dental impression. His face was gone. He’d tied himself to me.” She’d never told this to anyone, outside of the hospital shrink. The kiss of death / a shotgun / smears the lipstick. 

“And we remind them of it, so the only jobs we can get are working for tips in a fetish bar. I guess there’s always farming, but we’re not safe outside of urban areas. We’re barely safe in them.” 

Kate put her arm in Derek’s. He at least understood. On Tuesdays, he danced and she emceed. He squeezed her arm against his side, then let go. 

“You don’t owe him anything, darling.”

“No,” she said. “I suppose not.”

After last call, Walter was still there. He’d had a few beers, but he wasn’t drunk in her professional opinion. She busied herself cleaning, wiping down the bar and then the pole. She carried a cooler of melted ice to one of the two single-stall bathrooms, dumping it into the graywater reservoir that was hooked up to the toilet. The bathroom walls were riddled with graffiti. She found a Sharpie. She wrote: Water washes blood / You can’t tell me / it’s OK.

She used the toilet, flushed, then washed her hands in the sink. There was a knock, and she went to the door, in case it was a customer.

 “Leave the mopping up to me,” Derek said. “You’re not making it any easier by putting it off. If you’re going to go talk to him. Which I’m still not sure you should.” 

“I owe him this much,” she said, realizing she’d made a decision. “I owe myself this much. Wish me luck. And thanks.”

“Luck,” Derek said. “I’ll give Audrey a ride home.”

“You’re the best.” She retrieved a sweatshirt from the closet and went to collect Walter. 

“Thanks for waiting. Shall we?” she said. 

Walter stood. He seemed shorter than he used to be. She followed him. The street was quiet. The guy who’d been hanging around outside had gone to wherever they went. Since the BART train had ceased, homeless people had claimed the tunnel. It was always dark down there, or so she’d heard, and there were often fires. Drunks smoking in their cardboard beds. Kate had signed a petition to clear out the tunnel and close it down.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Walter said. “It means a lot.”

“No worries.”

“It’s not exactly like old times. I never did take you to the Claremont. I owe you that, I suppose.” He reached for her hand. 

She squeezed it to be polite, then dropped it, ignoring his last comment. “Well, nothing is. So what are you doing these days?”

“Lawyers always have work. Contracting for the government, mostly. The office is gone. Squatters moved in, last I heard. I got one of those efficiencies downtown, and I work from there. I miss the way things used to be.”

“Everyone does. I never thought I’d pine for retail work. That’s what I did, back when. I never told you about it. There’s a lot I didn’t tell you.”

He nodded. “Customer service is good for the soul.”

“Have you ever done it?” She thought, after she’d said it, that she could have made a joke about him not having a soul, and was glad she hadn’t. 

“I do it all the time. Unless you’re talking about retail customer service. I was a trolley-cart kid. My first job. They’d just invented them.”

“Seriously. They’d just invented kids?”

“Sort of. I was a prototype. But I did work retail.”

It was easy to slip back into the joking. They could segue from there to anything. She stopped. They walked down Piedmont Avenue. She let him lead.

Walter cleared his throat. “So you’re living with someone named Audrey these days, you said?”

“She’s all right. We used to work together, and we work together now. Chick singing on stage? Between us we make enough for rent and utilities. She still misses cable and Netflix, but I don’t mind so much. We watch old movies and news on the indie stations when the power’s on, or read borrowed books.”

A homeless guy stood in their path, muttering. He wore a hat and several jackets, despite the warmth of the evening.

“Let’s cross here.” She put a hand on Walter’s arm and steered him towards the street. She kept talking. “Doesn’t matter that Hollywood’s dead, or New York publishing. There’s already enough culture to last anyone’s lifetime. I saw Casablanca the other day for the first time. I can understand why a generation of women were in love with Bogey.”

The homeless guy’s eyes widened. She forced herself to look away. It was dark. Maybe he hadn’t seen her skin. She always hated this, the yelling that would follow. Sometimes they’d walk after her, like Mary’s little lamb, picking up other crazies as they went. She often wore hoods, sunglasses, makeup, anything that would cover her skin.

“Kate?” the homeless guy said. “Is that you?”

She stopped in the middle of the street, stunned. She had to see who it was. “Sorry, I don’t normally get recognized by street people,” she said to Walter. She took a breath, and turned around. 

She had to look at him for a moment before it clicked into place. Their old boss from Trader Joe’s, the one Michael always referred to as Fearless Leader. “Shit,” she said, groping for his name. “Darren? How are you?” It was a dumb question, but she didn’t know what else to say.

“You’re one of them,” he said. His face darkened. “It’s your fault. All of this happened.” He swayed. “Because of you.”

She hissed at him, making her best zombie face. He backed into a wall. From the smell, he’d wet himself. She walked away. 

“For God’s sake, Kate, why’d you do that?” Walter caught up with her.

“Can’t reason with those people. Thought he’d be different, maybe. Knew him from back in the day.” 

“How did you know he didn’t have a gun? You could get yourself killed like that.” 

She gave him credit for not saying, “You could have killed both of us.”

“I don’t. I just like to see the way they react.” She was only half-joking. 

“It’s dangerous. What if they attack the next, er, one, after you’ve yanked their chain?” 

He held the door for her. They went into the pizza place. 

“We’re zombies. Just say it. What would you have me do, shrink like a violet? Pretend I’m not what I am? I didn’t choose to be like this. But I’m out and proud, like Popeye said.”

He smiled then. “It was ‘I yam what I yam.’”

“Just seeing if you knew that.”

“You’re young for Popeye references.”

“I watched the cartoons.”

“Cartoons? I read the comics.”

They sat on plastic chairs at a table next to the wall, among the single-slice crowd. There were candles on the tables, classing the place up, but the kitchen on the other side of the counter was lit with camping lanterns. She felt sober. 

“You’re right, though,” she said. “I half expect to get killed one of these days. Once, not long after I got out of the hospital, I was jumped by a group of them. They dropped me off at the emergency room, after, the nurse said. Rolled me out on the sidewalk like a batch of bad dough. Which meant that someone with a car had been involved. It wasn’t just the street crazies. I didn’t scar much.”

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry to hear that.” Walter reached for her hand, on the table, and she moved her hands into her lap. She couldn’t believe that she’d been attracted to him. It had been so long ago; it was as if it had never happened.

“People were scared,” she said. “They still are. And sometimes it’s in my interest to have that particular person moving away from me. You just have to have control of the moment.” She picked up the wrinkled paper menu that was wedged behind an empty napkin dispenser. The dispenser was clearly there for this function alone; paper was precious. The menu was handwritten on half a sheet, and listed toppings and prices.

“I hadn’t heard anything about ratpacking coming back,” he said, after a moment.

She didn’t bother to pretend that she knew what he was talking about. “Is that an East Bay motorcycle gang reference? The Rats?” 

“No, it was this series of random attacks in the early nineties. Four or five guys would get out of their car, beat someone within an inch of their life, and drive away. It wasn’t gang-related. They didn’t know the victim. It was just utterly random.”

“Hate crimes is hate crimes.” She passed him the menu. They talked about what to get. A girl with legs up to her ears came to the table and took their order. A whole pie. Mushrooms and black olives. Water to drink. They both watched her walk away, her ass high and round in her shorts.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that day,” he said. “I should have taken you with me.”

“Everyone feels that way,” she said. “I haven’t talked with anyone who doesn’t regret something.” He had offered to take her with him. He just hadn’t wanted her to come; that much had been obvious. 

He shook his head. She feared he might cry. This would not be the place, or the time. Not that there ever really was a right place and time. She reached for his hand, not because he would have wanted her to, but because she wanted to. His grip was strong. He turned his face to the wall. She looked at their hands together. Pink and gray. As long as she took her pills, she was safe, never mind that most people had already gotten the vaccine; the Bear Republic sponsored treatment and prevention. Her skin, though, was stuck like this. She moved her hand into her lap. 

He passed both hands over his face, collecting himself. “So I went home, that day,” he said. “And I barricaded myself in. I tried to call my wife. Over and over.”

She let him talk, knowing where this was going. “She didn’t make it, did she? I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “I suspected it at first, and then I knew it after the third day. After the power was gone, and I was drinking from the hot water heater. When it went straight to voicemail, when I called. But that’s another conversation, not something I intended to burden you with. It was a long time ago, and it’s not why I’m here. I felt terrible leaving you. You were—” he looked to the wall. “Very special. Someone I cared a lot about.”

Kate nodded. “I cared about you, too,” she said. “It took me a while to understand that. I mean, that was the game we were playing, that we didn’t care. I was doing what I did with you because I wasn’t going to get hurt.” 

“Oh,” he said.

“It was a long time ago. I was a kid. But I’ve thought about you.” 

There was a moment of silence between them.

“Do you see your folks often?” he asked. “How’d they fare? They OK?”

He hadn’t asked about her family before. “They’re holding up. Mom’s on the community garden council, and queen of the school board. Dad’s an alderman at their church. He designs and builds solar cars with his old bowling team. I call them from the bar about once a week to check in. They know what I do for a living, and they’re OK with it. My brother’s in construction, but he prefers demolition. He came out, and the ’rents met his boyfriend during the Siege. Then he broke up with the boyfriend. The next one was a nut, everyone agrees, but there were some interesting guys in there, and those are just the ones I know about. Every relationship you’re in will fail until one doesn’t. So I’ve heard.”

Walter half-smiled. “That’s a cutthroat way of putting it. I guess it depends on how you define failure.”

“But anyway, yeah. It wasn’t as bad back home. Though I haven’t seen them since planes flew, and I don’t know when I’ll see them next. I could take the Hound, but the waiting list for a ticket is so long, and I can’t really afford to be away from work. Plus you have to be willing to drive the bus; I heard it’s gone co-op. And I don’t know how I’d get the gas credit to drive Focahontas, my old Focus. She needs a new radiator. I only use her for work, and only then because it’s too far to walk safely this late at night.” 

“I’m sure you can work something out. Maybe I can help you. I’m glad they’re all safe, at least.” He paused, considering his words. “So what happened to you and that kid, that day? Did you find your friend? What was his name, Mike?”

“His name was Michael.”

Walter nodded at the past tense. “I’m sorry.”

“We met up at Alcatraz. That kid, Trevin, came with us. I hear from him occasionally. He’s in nursing school.”

“Kate,” Walter said. “Was it—I mean, what happened to you?” 

“You really want to know?”

“Please.”

So Kate told him. The whole thing. She started from the beginning. It had been so long, she was afraid she’d lose the details, but the images never went away. They only got a little easier, as time passed. She allowed herself to say everything that she remembered. About Jamie and Cameron. Michael. How she’d felt. How she’d lied.

The pizza was served on a hubcap, with two paper plates and two napkins, and two paper cups of water. She distributed the plates and napkins, and took a slice. She talked about Paul, and the boat. Arriving at the Rock. She told him about Rob. How she still dreamed about it. The trauma of rape, wrapped inside the trauma of her own expected death, and the trauma of nearly killing someone. She took another slice, leaving the crust on her plate. “And I tied myself down, and Michael showed up, and we were locked in together. I tried to get him out. After that, I don’t remember anything. But I saw pictures.” 

“Oh, kitten,” Walter said. He wasn’t eating. “It’s my fault, for not taking you with me.”

“No.” She’d considered this. “I have lots of regrets. You’re not one of them.” She realized that this could be interpreted to mean that dating him was not something she regretted. She supposed that was a fair interpretation.

“Pizza’s good,” she said. “Some days, the only hot meal I get is toast.” She knew that by talking around money, he might think she was asking for help. She didn’t care. She wasn’t trying to fool around with implications and subtext. It was too much work. She was saying what occurred to her to say. “So Charles Dickens walks into a bar, orders a martini,” she said to fill the silence. “‘Olive, or twist?’ the barkeep says.”

Walter laughed, though it wasn’t funny enough for a laugh. “Sorry, I’m just recovering. I’m serious, I’ve been looking for you. Wandering around the local bars and streets like a lost thing. I never suspected you’d be a—well.” He couldn’t say zombie. “Was that you dancing?”

“Yeah,” she said. 

“I—Christ, child. Why hide your face like that?”

“It’s a shtick. Customers eat it up. Everyone’s gotta sell something. While I’m still young enough, that’s what I have.” He should know.

“And later? Won’t you go to school, get your own nursing degree, or that MFA? Something practical?”

She laughed. “MFAs are hardly practical. Only if I wanted to teach. And who’s going to hire me? Who will listen to me? Who, these days, is even going to want a liberal arts degree? It’s as useless as an MBA. Think of all those Harvard grads digging graves and planting golf courses with crops.”

“But don’t you think about it? Where you’re going?” He meant, don’t you want to grow up? Get out of the bar?

“I don’t know how long I’m going to live,” she said. “There are no long-term studies. Which is not to say that I don’t think about it. But I try not to think about it too much.” The past / is a series / of bad decisions.

He was quiet for a minute. He’d taken a few bites, but was still working on his first slice. He used to polish off his plates: entrees and sides, salads and desserts, coffee and brandy. “Shit. I miss you. I need to see you again.”

She took a third slice to have something to do with her hands. “Who are you kidding?” she asked. 

He looked away. Her stomach turned. “You think you can just pick this up where you left off?” she asked, unable to meet his eyes. “Because this train has gone. Sorry.” 

“Not the sex, that’s not what I mean. It’s you. The zombie thing doesn’t bother me.” 

The bill arrived. She let Walter take it to the counter and pay. Kate stood, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and bussed the table, throwing away their half-eaten slices. 

“Thanks,” she said when he came back. She was standing, holding the remaining pizza sandwiched between their plates. 

“Let me walk you to your car?” he said. It was too late to do anything else. 

She acquiesced. This late, the street was at its quietest. Even the crazies had settled down for the night. 

“Can I get your phone number?” he asked. “Or your email address?”

She didn’t have a lot of friends. It seemed like a waste to throw one away. She probably shouldn’t have told Walter the whole story. He was the only person alive who knew it. Yet she didn’t regret telling him. 

“Sorry,” she said. “You just remind me too much of it all.” Departing / is sweet / only when tomorrow is like today. 

“Oh.”

They walked in silence for a while.

“Do you mind if I stop in and see you?” he asked.

It was good that he was asking. He might do it anyway, whatever she said. “I rather do mind, actually. I don’t like to think of you seeing me like that.”

“OK.” It wasn’t, by his tone of voice.

She stepped into the street and unlocked her car door. “This is it,” she said.

“So this is it.” He followed her to the door. He took a piece of paper from his pocket, and wrote something onto it. “If you change your mind. My address, and my phone number. If there was something I could do, I owe it to you. Get you the gas credit you need to go home, and the car repairs. I mean it. It would be the least I can do.” He pressed the paper into her hand.

She got into her car. She didn’t offer to give Walter a ride back to his. “You wouldn’t believe the day I had,” she said. She patted the console between the seats. Some of Michael’s cremated remains were there, in a Nalgene bottle. She had another one in the apartment, and a film canister’s worth in the dressing closet at work. She drove the few miles home, and went inside. She brought the piece of paper with her. 

“Hiya,” Audrey said. She was lying on the couch, reading a paperback by candlelight.

“Hi.” Kate set the pizza onto the coffee table. “If you’re hungry.” 

“How’d it go?” Audrey asked. She took a piece of the pizza. 

“All right. I talked a lot. He wants to see me again. Gave me his phone number.”

“And?”

Kate considered the cramped writing. “He offered to get me the gas credit to drive home. And he wants to be my friend.” 

“Better take a few burly dudes, if you go,” Audrey said. “You could probably find some on the ride board. I don’t want you to come home lynched.”

“Good point. I guess I could do that.” She found a pen. Want you / to want me / after the moment is over she wrote on the back of the paper with Walter’s information. She made her decision. She held the paper above the candle, turning it to watch it burn. 

“Guess that’s a no, then,” Audrey said. “You’re ruthless.” There was approval in her voice. “Don’t want to go home?”

“I do, just not on his credit. He means well. I think. I just can’t be around him. You know I dated him, before?” Kate sat on the couch. 

“I get it. I don’t talk to anyone that I knew back then, either. Aside from the awkward oh-you’re-still-alive-too-isn’t-that-peachy conversation. It’s easier to lose touch.” Audrey’s breath was fragrant with liquor. She held up her Harlequin in the candlelight. “You know something, though? I miss sex. The way it used to be. Romance. Stability.” 

“Those are all different things.” 

“I mean, I haven’t been kissed in years, except for Derek, and he’s a total player. They’re all afraid of me. Every guy I meet. They think it’s hot, at a distance; they’ll totally walk through the mall holding hands, as if anyone wants to do that once they’ve gotten out of high school. But they don’t know what to do when you get them alone. I’d just about murder someone to be held. Which is what they’re afraid of, I guess.” 

“I didn’t know you were dating anyone. Noli me tangere, that’s how I feel about it.”

“Mole whey tangerine? Hardly would call it dating, anyway.”

Kate leaned against Audrey. “Latin. It means don’t touch me.” She fingered Audrey’s hair. It was damp, and smelled of the coconut shampoo from the co-op. The good kind.

“What are you doing?” Audrey asked.

“Nothing.” Kate found Audrey’s shoulders. She rubbed them. The girl was made of knots. Audrey let out a breath and put a hand on Kate’s knee. It was very late; dawn would come soon. Until then, they were alone. Safe. Darkness abetted privacy.

“I was with a girl, once,” Kate said. “You know. Before.”

“At that party, right?” 

Kate thought about what she was doing. Once you’d started touching someone, things changed. Audrey’s fingers tightened on her knee. Kate thought about what it would be like to kiss her. To be kissed. She wondered why they hadn’t done this before. Years had passed, and Audrey had been there. Audrey would be there. 

“Her name was Jamie. She was good,” Kate said. Stick to your own kind, Derek had said.

“Like, how?” Audrey turned around.

“Like this.”

“I think zombies have more fun. For sure. I mean, can you imagine just randomly being able to eat flesh? I mean, how fun? … Like, don’t you ever think about that, like when you’re giving a blowjob? Don’t you think about just biting down?” 

–Jenna Jameson
on Up Close with Carrie Keagan at NGTV.com