CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Before I left, I went down a flight of stairs and tapped on Marc’s door. I’d expected to find him holed up with a dozen teeny mouse corpses or working on the new Sudoku book or pitching a Rubik’s Cube out his window (he liked retro puzzles, but not that one). Instead he was watching TV in his room. Odd, because Marc believed watching TV was a spectator sport, or at least a couples activity. I took one look and mentally groaned.

Quick! Be quick!

He looked away from the television and gave me a distracted smile. “What’s cookin’, good-lookin’?”

“I’m going to Hell to try the time thing. Wanna come?”

“Hell yes. Heh. See what I did there?”

“Yes, I’m definitely not tired of that joke yet.” I was rarely in Marc’s room, partly because I respected his privacy, but mostly because it was where he’d killed himself.

Tina had bought him a new bed (he’d told me suicides always made sure they were as comfortable as possible before ending it, so not only had he killed himself in his own room, but he’d been snuggled securely in bed while he died) over his halfhearted protests.9 “It’s not like I pissed myself when I died,” he’d tried to explain while Jess burst into tears and I ground my teeth so hard I felt my jaw try to pop out of place. “I went to the bathroom before I OD’d. I’m not a savage.”

We didn’t care: new bed. New bedding. (“You threw out my Twister bedsheets? I’ve had those since med school!”) New clothes. And extra bookshelves. Before he died, he’d had two shelves stacked mostly with NEJM and JAMA,10 everything George R. R. Martin and Stephen King had written, the Narnia collection (“C. S. Lewis killed everyone in the last book but people bitch about G.R.R.M.?”), and X-Men graphic novels. He still had all those, but now he had five more shelves and they groaned with puzzle books, Gray’s Anatomy (he didn’t have his predeath dexterity and was scared of losing any predeath knowledge as well), and horrible jigsaw puzzles (a five-hundred-piece double-sided Dalmatians puzzle, a thousand-piece pencil collage—the horror and eyestrain were relentless).

But he stood firm on the “don’t you want a different room?” issue: “Not only can I not hear Betsy and Sinclair’s Sex Olympics from here, it’s got a west-facing window. I hate trying to sleep with the sun in my face. Even before I died. Plus the bathroom’s just across the hall. I might not need to piss or shit, but I still like showers.”

All that went through my head while he grabbed the remote and shut off the TV, looking like he wanted to throw something. Possibly out the nearest window, which had only recently been fixed after he’d tossed the Rubik’s Cube through it. Usually breaking furniture was strictly a Betsy-and-Sinclair thing. And it was usually our bed. We were on the ninth—tenth?—headboard.

“Yeah, I’d love to get out of here.”

“Great!” Go, go, go! Don’t give him time to—

“This fucking movie.”

I swallowed another groan. Deflect, avoid, or embrace?

Hell with it. See what I did there? “Why do you watch it every time it’s on if you hate it so much? And don’t say it’s hate-watching, because that’s a different thing.”

“Oh, please,” he scoffed, “tell the gay man about hate-watching.” But his retort was amiable enough. He’d gotten up off his bed, stripped off his T-shirt, rummaged in his closet, and pulled on a clean scrub shirt, leaving the jeans and loafers. He raked his fingers through his short black hair, squinted at a mirror, then shrugged as if to say: Good enough. And it was. Marc was a remarkably handsome zombie.

“It’s such bullshit. Snow White and the Huntsman demands we jettison belief in the first five minutes. Hair black as night, skin white as snow, lips red as blood . . . hah! It’s Kristen Stewart! Should have been hair brown as a dead branch, skin pale as someone who never goes outside, lips thin as paper.”

“She’s pretty enough. I don’t think anyone could have competed with Charlize Theron.” What was wrong with my life when I was moved to stick up for Kristen Stewart, of all things? Fame and wealth beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, but she never smiled and didn’t seem to own a brush. But all that aside, the poor thing never had a chance. Because Charlize Theron! “Also, I might have been rooting for Ravenna,” I admitted. It was true. Charlize forever, Kristen Grumpypants never.

“Everyone rooted for Ravenna,” Marc assured me in an “also, fire is hot and water is wet” tone. I realized my mistake almost at once and prayed that was the end of it, but Marc had latched on to one of his favorite grievances. “Though it’s creepy to watch it now, all those annoying close-ups on Kristen Stewart.”

“She was the star,” I mumbled. Why? Why? Why even open his door? Why didn’t I run? Why didn’t I knock him unconscious and then run?

“And smooching the director, Rupert Sanders! Who was married, thank you very much, to the eternally fine Liberty fucking Ross!”

“I don’t think that’s her middle na—”

“Thank Christ they didn’t let him direct the sequel!”

“Marc, it was years ago. Time to let it—”

“Who picks Kristen Stewart’s flat butt and lack of tits and utter inability to smile over Liberty fucking Ross?”

Rupert Sanders, apparently.

“If I had someone like that, I’d never throw them over for a sullen teenager.”

And there it was.

“No, of course not,” I said, tugging at his hand until we were heading out the door and down the back stairs to the kitchen. “You’d be the best husband ever. Whoever you picked would be so lucky.”

He barked a laugh. “Yes, and they’re lining up, aren’t they? C’mon, Betsy. It was hard enough to get a date when I was a live, cute doctor. Now? Christ. Fuck getting a date, I’d settle for getting laid. No pun intended.”

“Oh. You can . . . uh . . . you . . .” I made a vague gesture in the general direction of his crotch. Sinclair could get hard, of course, which made no sense. It was one of the things Marc found so interesting about our “condition.” Vampires shouldn’t be a thing. There was just no way. And yet we lived (kinda) and laughed and banged and drank. And could do so indefinitely, provided we got regular “live” blood and nobody cut off our heads. It was pretty ridiculous, really.

“Everything still works,” was the dry reply. “Believe me, I know.”

“Well.” At his expectant look, I gave him an apologetic shrug. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“You’re a well-meaning moron, Betsy.” He pulled me into a hug and I got a noseful of his shampoo (Head & Shoulders . . . wait, zombies got dandruff? Or was it just familiar?) and soap (St. Ives apricot scrub . . . wait, zombies had clogged pores?). “I love you and I’m lucky to have you for a friend.”

“Well, thanks.” Yes, he definitely needed to get laid. I’d already known he loved me, but getting maudlin and handsy while obsessively washing with apricot scrub and bitching about Kristen Stewart wasn’t like him at all. “Back atcha.”

“Can I ask you something?”

Uh-oh. That never prefaced something good. This was a guy who had no problem greeting me with, “Those flip-flops make you look fat.”

“Suuuure . . .” Drawn out because I was trying to think what would be so awkward that Marc of all people hesitated to bring it up.

“Why aren’t you letting Sinclair help you with Hell?”

I looked at him and felt my eyes narrow. “Did Sinclair ask you to ask?”

“What? No! C’mon, no.” He shook his head at me. “What are we, in high school? Besides, that’s not his—”

“Did Tina?”

“No! C’mon. Well, yes. But it’s not like she made me ask . . .” He cleared his throat. “We’ve all been wondering. Why wouldn’t you put him on the committee? Tina was really surprised when you asked her but not him.” He paused, then emphasized, “Really surprised.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Because it’s a vampire thing?”

“Nooo . . .”

“Because it’s a queen thing?”

“Because I don’t really understand myself. I just—can’t do it. Every time I think about it, I just shut down inside. I don’t know why. And you know me, you know I’ve got no problem ditching crap on other people.”

“Some crap,” he corrected. “You take the serious stuff seriously. Y’know, after you put on a show about how put-upon you are.”

“It’s not a show; I’m very put-upon, and—you know what? Go to Hell. And I’ll come with you.”

And on that note, we hit the kitchen, saw it was empty (a rarity!), and I thought about us being in Hell.

And then we were.