Zomburbia (14 page)

“Will you be okay?” he asked. I didn't answer.

“We have a grief counselor on staff,” the principal said. I wasn't sure if she was talking to him or to me. “For now we're going to take you to the nurse's office, Courtney. We'll call your father to come and take you home.”

The nurse came in again and I let her lead me to her office. I lay down on the cot and she put a thin, scratchy blanket over me. She turned off the lights and I drifted in and out of sleep for a while. I came to at one point and my dad sat on the bed beside me, stroking my hair. We didn't say anything for a long time.

He told me he had to talk to the principal before we could leave, and he'd be back soon to take me home.

Even worse than finding out one of my best friends killed himself and thinking I was partly to blame was that kids were between classes when I emerged from the nurse's office. I walked out on my dad's arm and every face turned to watch us as we passed. I wasn't sure how long I was in the office. It must have been more than an hour. Word of what happened started to spread through the school. I knew from experience what I looked like after a crying jag, what with me wearing too much eyeliner and all.

Heads came together and whispers were exchanged. Eyes followed us. For someone who made it their mission to pass through their school years invisible, it was pretty traumatizing.

My dad must have picked up on my anxiety. He snaked his arm from me and wrapped it around my shoulders instead. He squeezed me tight.

We finally emerged into the bright sunlight outside. There were fewer kids out there, which made it a bit easier. Dad poured me into our car and he pulled through the gates.

We drove on in silence for a while, Dad trying to give me my space. He cleared his throat after a bit.

“Your principal says you can take a few days off, if you'd like.” He gave me a weak smile. “The whole week, if you want.”

I didn't respond, just sat and stared out the window at the passing houses.

“We'll get home and we can do whatever you'd like,” he said. “Rent a movie or get dinner from Muchas Gracias. Or you can just rest if that's what you want.”

Without turning, I said, “I might want to just rest.”

“Sure, sure. I have more sedatives at home if you need them. Whatever you need to make you feel better, okay, sweetie?”

I nodded, still looking out the window. I didn't know how to tell him that I felt like I'd never feel better again.

T
he next few days passed by in a fog. I took Dad up on his offer to feed me pills to sleep. I sort of hate taking drugs of any kind, even prescriptions—which is one reason I've never been tempted to try any of the product I sell. The other reason, of course, is because it's a drug made out of
zombie brains
. I guess I just felt being asleep was better than being awake right then. Dad came into my room periodically to check on me and tell me if people called or something. He'd arranged for my homework to be gathered. More than once, he stopped in to say that Brandon or Sherri had called. I barely roused myself out of my stupor of self-pity to acknowledge what he told me. I didn't really care that they, especially Sherri, were trying to deal with all of this, too. It was pretty pathetic. Put me in a wedding dress and I could have played Emily Grierson in a high school adaptation of
A Rose for Emily.

I kept waking up from bad dreams that I didn't remember. I was just left with the feeling like I needed a shower. Which I didn't take. I rolled over and went back to sleep. When I finally got up from the bed, burning the sheets would be a priority.

Extracting myself from the bed finally happened on Thursday night. More than seventy-two hours after escaping into my room. I sat up and placed my feet on the rug next to my bed. After so long in bed, my whole body felt raw—even the bottoms of my feet resting on the long shag.

I reached for my phone to see what messages and texts I'd missed. A bunch from Sherri and Brandon, a couple from the school—probably the grief counselor—and one text from a number I didn't recognize right away. I thumbed the message to life:
Call Me,
it said.

Call me?
Who the . . . ? And then it hit me. It didn't come up in my caller ID because I have strict instructions not to store it. It was from Buddha, the guy who sold me Vitamin Z. If Sherri thinks I'm a drug dealer, it's just because she hasn't met Buddha, who is the real deal. He'd sent the message on Wednesday during the day. He probably wondered why I hadn't called back. I should have already gone back to him for some new product. I needed to make time to call him tonight.

First things first, though; time to let Dad know I was still among the living.

He and Beverly snuggled on the couch. Her legs draped across his and he rubbed them idly. I felt so grateful for the way Dad had been treating me that I couldn't even muster the reserves to feel gross about their PDA.

Personal displays of affection aside, Dad started to get up when I came into the room. I told him not to. I sat in a chair next to the couch. I didn't want the lovebirds to have to move.

“How are you, hon?” Bev asked.

“I'm fine, thanks.”

“Are you?” Dad asked. He looked skeptical.

I shrugged. What was I supposed to say?

“I'm okay, I think.”

Dad accepted this and said that they'd ordered takeout from Kim Huong's. They were going to leave in a few minutes to go and get it. He'd ordered plenty for me. If I didn't want that, there were three days of leftovers in the fridge. Dad had kept making or ordering enough for me at every meal, hoping that I'd eventually join them. I told him Vietnamese would be great. I was starved like you wouldn't believe. I'd pretty much only had water for the three days I was in bed.

Everyone's attention drifted to the TV. They watched some lame sit-com.
Undead and in Love
or something equally horrid. The makeup on the star of the show looked completely fake. I noticed my dad was looking at me.

“Do you think you'll wait until Monday to go back to school?”

I thought about it. “I'll go back to school tomorrow.”

“Only if you think you're ready.” He raised his eyebrow at me. He probably thought he looked like Mr. Spock when he did it. He actually looked like he had an uncontrollable facial tic.

“I'm ready,” I said, “and if I'm not, I can always come home, right?”

“Of course.”

“Besides,” I said, “all I need is to fall even further behind.”

I thought about the stack of homework on the desk in my room. I'd start in on it tonight and stay in all weekend if I had to to get it done. I couldn't fall too far behind. If I screwed up my grades, I wouldn't get accepted to an out-of-state school no matter how much money I had.

And then, without meaning to, I was thinking about Willie. Tomorrow, Friday, he would have had Auto Shop, his favorite. He'd been so good at those vocational classes. Even if he hadn't been too bright, he'd always been really good with his hands. He could have made his way in life using the skills he picked up. At least that's what I always suspected. Now I'd never find out if I was right because he was gone. Gone because I'd blown him off and hurt his feelings. I didn't care what he said in his stupid note, I knew that on some level I was responsible. I felt tears welling up in my eyes.

“Where'd you go?” my dad asked. He and Bev were looking at me with real concern.

“I just started thinking about . . .”

My dad took up when I trailed off. “It's normal to think about the dead when you least expect it,” Dad said. “The one thing you can't do is to let yourself feel guilty—”

“For surviving, yeah I know,” I said.

“Well, it's true.”

What about feeling guilty because you think you're responsible for the person's death?

“Hey, shouldn't you guys go get the food?” I asked. “I'm starving.”

“Okay,” Dad said. “Want to come with?”

I said I didn't and they got up and headed for the door. Bev stopped and looked at me, her eyes wet.

“Are you sure you're gonna be okay, Courtney?”

I resisted the urge to be flip and just said I would. Then I shooed them out the door. They wouldn't be gone long and I wanted to call Buddha before they returned.

Buddha's deep voice sounded genuinely happy when I called.

“Courtney, I thought I was never going to hear from you again.”

“Things here have been pretty crazy, Buddha,” I said. “Crazy and shitty.”

“I hope you're okay.”

“A friend of mine killed himself,” I said, and a lump formed in my throat.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” he said. “I don't want to keep you long, and I'm really sorry to bother you with business. I just thought I would have seen you again by now.”

“Sure,” I said, “I don't know if I can come see you till Saturday.”

“Saturday would be fine,” he said, and then something crept into his voice that I couldn't quite place, but that I didn't like. “That is, if you still want to come and see me . . .”

“I have to, Buddha,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “I need to give you some money and pick up some more . . . stuff from you.”

“Well, then I'll be expecting you Saturday,” he said, “and I am sorry to hear about your friend. Take care, Courtney.”

“You, too, dude,” I said. He hung up.

What did he mean by, “if I wanted to come see him”? Did he think I was considering running out on what I owed him? He'd never threatened me or anything, but even I knew it would be a bad idea to cross a drug dealer. Zombies aren't the only thing in the world that can kill you.

Dad and Bev came home and I ate with them as we watched TV. They tried to talk to me a little. I was so busy cramming cabbage rolls into my face I couldn't answer and they gave up after a while. My belly swelled as I ate and ate and ate. I looked like a teen mom by the time I was done—the memory of the preggo shuffler started to well up in my mind, but I stifled it. I had a hard time waddling down the hall to my bedroom.

The bed groaned under me as I sat on it, and then laid on my back with my knees up. I had to call Sherri and let her know I was back. When I was done, I might call Brandon. Sherri answered on the first ring.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Asleep mostly,” I said.

“Jesus, I wish I could say the same thing.”

“Yeah, sorry, I sort of checked out there.”

I could tell she was being delicate with me because she didn't curse me out or accuse me of being a bitch. She just wanted to know what had happened in the office with the cop and what I knew about Willie.

“I thought you'd been arrested until the rumors about Willie started going around,” she said.

I told her everything that happened in the office, everything that Officer Rey told me, and about the note. When I was done, Sherri was silent on the other end.

“That stupid asshole,” she said finally. “God, what was he thinking? And what was up with that snatch of a mom?” I could tell she was being careful not to blame me. That was okay because I was blaming myself. I said so.

“Bull,” she said. “No matter how much he liked you, that's no reason to go and off himself. That's the kind of crap that happens in a, I don't know, a freaking Shakespeare play. No, Courtney, you aren't allowed to take the blame for this one.”

I was touched. I really thought she might agree with me once I said I felt guilty. She must have really thought it wasn't my fault. She knew the situation better than anyone. If she didn't blame me, maybe I could let myself off the hook a little bit about it.

She kept going off about how much she missed him and how mad she was at him for killing himself. It just didn't make sense to her. Through it all, I picked up that she was at least a little mad at me for not being around the last few days. She'd wanted someone to talk to and I wasn't there. She didn't really have anyone else she could confide in.

“Hey,” I said, interrupting another tirade about how dumb Willie was. “I'm really sorry I wasn't there for you to talk to. I couldn't handle it very well and it never occurred to me that you wouldn't be able to handle it, either.”

“Why, because I'm dead inside or something?”

“It's not that and you know it,” I said. “It's just that you're so tough.”

“That's me,” she said, “Miss Tough Girl.”

“I just thought . . .”

“What?”

“I just thought that maybe you didn't like him as much as I did,” I said, and winced as I said it. “Because of the way you would ride him about stuff.”

She was silent again. I knew she was still there because I could hear her breathing.

“Someone needed to,” she said. “Someone needed to kick his ass so he'd get out of that goddamned house and do something with himself. If I was hard on him, it's because I wanted him to be better. I wanted him
to want
to be better.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I don't wish I'd been easier on him. I
do
wish I'd told him more that I liked him. I'm really going to miss him.”

“Me too.”

We spent about a half-hour talking about all the stuff we'd done with Willie and funny things he'd said—intentional and otherwise. By the end, we were both crying again. Sherri cried! I never thought I'd live to see it again since she seemed to give it up in the seventh grade.

We made a plan for her to pick me up the next day since I'd decided to go back to school.

“Prepare to be the center of attention,” she said, “though I'm sure no one will actually act like they're checking you out.”

I groaned. I knew what she meant. I'd seen it in action before. I'd just never been its target. The whole school could sometimes come together and focus on one person without ever saying a word to them. I got a small taste of that on Monday as I walked down the hall with my dad. It would totally suck, but I could deal with it.

“Thanks for the warning,” I said.

“Are you going to call Brandon?” Sherri asked.

“What?” I asked. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Because he's been asking me about you. He's worried about you. It's sort of sweet while also being annoying.”

“I don't know,” I said, “I think maybe I should tell him to give me some distance. Take a break from him for a while until I get my head back together. The situation with Willie has me all sorts of messed up.”

“Don't do that,” she said quickly.

“What are you talking about?”

“I'll deny saying this if you ever mention it to someone else,” she said. “Brandon doesn't seem that bad. For a jock. And he likes you.
And
he had nothing to do with Willie's . . . death. So don't push him away.”

I sat there in shock. Was she sticking up for Brandon? Even more, was she telling me to see him? I didn't know what to say.

“Besides,” she went on, “it would really suck to be alone right now when you have a chance not to be. You know?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I do.”

We said good night and hung up. I immediately dialed Brandon's number.

And got his voice mail. Of course. I left a message telling him I'd be back at school tomorrow and that I was looking forward to seeing him again. I apologized for not being around for the last few days. I hoped he'd understand. I hung up.

I did a couple of hours of homework and then, despite having slept for three days straight, I went back to bed.