Chapter 8 Zombies #3
She smiled. “I grew up on a legit estate, and when I moved to LA, I said never again. There was always the pedestrian gate here, between the front and back yards—because of the pool—but when I moved back, I had to make things more secure. Hence the big gate at the driveway. I can’t have random people coming to my front door. ”
“Just random cranky neighbors levitating over your fence.”
“She’s technically a threat, or so my security company says.
She also has a fence restricting access from the street, but theoretically, there’s nothing stopping someone from getting from her property to mine—over the hedge in front or the fence in back.
The security people installed cameras and sensors that are supposed to trip alarms if anyone comes over.
It seemed like enough; I didn’t think she posed much of a threat. ”
“Because you didn’t know she could levitate.”
“Ha. She’s cranky, but I think she’s ultimately harmless. I’ve been trying to crack her. She’s Morton Afonso’s widow.” She paused. “I know you don’t do TV, but surely you know legendary director Morton Afonso.”
“I do. They didn’t live here before, when you were here the first time around?”
“No. My real estate agent says she bought when he died, which was five years ago. I thought maybe we could bond over downsizing after the ‘departure’ of a spouse. But nope! Lately, I’ve been trying to tell her what a fan I was of her husband’s work, but it’s like she doesn’t even hear me.”
“Maybe she wasn’t a fan of legendary director Morton Afonso.”
Blair snickered. “Maybe he wasn’t a legendary husband. Anyway, enigmatic neighbors aside, I’ve been wondering if coming back here was a mistake. You know that saying You can’t go home again? Do you think that’s true?”
“I thought you were smart enough not to buy into clumsy metaphors. You’re the one who told me being trapped on that plane had no meaning.”
“It didn’t! You’re writing again, right?”
He nodded. He didn’t want to talk about it, though. “I can see why you came back. This is a great house.” The compliment felt clunky in his mouth, but he meant it.
“You think so?”
“It has a lot of character. You have good taste.”
“I must have good taste, though, right, since I liked In Time so much?” She leaned forward and stared at him like she was trying to see inside his soul. “You’re doing OK here in LA?” She hitched her head toward the back of the house. “And out there?”
“I’m not sure LA agrees with me. It’s too hot and pastel.
” She laughed. “But I have to admit, it’s nice to be on the ground.
To be able to just walk out the door and be in nature.
” He stopped short of saying something sappy like Thank you for inviting me to this hot pastel place in which I’m actually writing.
“So what I am hearing is you don’t have a front door?”
“I live in a high-rise.”
“You live in a high-rise!”
“Where did you think I lived?”
“In a cabin in the woods by a stream where you caught your own fish and then cooked them over an open fire.”
He barked a laugh. She could be so funny sometimes. And she was closer to the mark than she knew, at least when it came to the childhood summers he’d spent with his dad.
“I guess I should have known that wasn’t right,” she said. “You told me early on that you tried to go to the woods last summer to get your book done. That implies that you didn’t already live in the woods.”
“My building is on the Mississippi River, and I have a great view, so I can see nature, but I’m in the thick of urban Minneapolis.
” He paused. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to tell her this, but he did.
And given that he did, he wasn’t sure why he was hesitating, other than that debasement was not an attractive character trait.
“I used the advance from my first book as a down payment on the condo. It—the advance, not the condo—seemed so big. I wanted to do something responsible with it.” He scoffed.
“Well, you didn’t blow it on slots and hookers in Vegas.”
“I should have bought something smaller. Something cheaper. I quit my job, too, once it was clear the book was taking off.” If he thought about it too much, he started to sweat. “What was I thinking?”
“I suspect you were thinking that you’d cracked the book-writing code and that this was your new life.”
She was spot on. “I had this charming little apartment. Well, it was actually kind of a dump. I’m probably romanticizing it in retrospect.
But it was fine.” He didn’t want to talk about this anymore.
He wasn’t sure why he’d ever wanted to. “Why does everyone in America know about your real estate situation?”
“People magazine.” She curled her lip. “I’m pretty sure Reggie was leaking stuff designed to make himself look good, which has the side effect of making me look pathetic.”
“Classy.”
“Yeah. If I was having second thoughts about the divorce, which I wasn’t, that would have cured me of them.” She sat up. “Oh! I forgot the wine! You want a glass of wine?”
“Sure.”
She disappeared, and he used the moment of solitude to marvel over the dinner. Both dishes were so good, it was enough to create a kind of disequilibrium inside him.
“I thought you’d like to have your wine in this glass.” Blair plunked down an enormous, balloon-style wineglass.
“Ha ha.”
“Just kidding.” She set down a pair of normal-size stemless glasses, filled them, and picked up the remote. “You ready? I think I’m done enough with dinner to start.”
“Ready.”
He could see the video game influence. He wasn’t a gamer, but you didn’t have to be to understand the concept of a quest, to recognize the stylized bursts of violence against a seemingly endless supply of enemies.
It was rather innovative, the way the writers kept those aspects of the story even as they made it into a more conventional narrative.
Blair watched through her hands a lot of the time. It was gruesome.
Somehow, by the time they were almost through the episode, she had migrated toward him. The gray line in the upholstery was no longer visible. But… he realized with dismay that the line was under his leg. He had migrated toward her.
He migrated away.
“That was horrid,” she said as the credits ran.
“Horrifying,” he said, agreeing with the sentiment but believing horrid wasn’t quite the right word.
“Hideous,” she said immediately, and he somehow knew they were playing a word game.
“Heinous,” he suggested, even though that was too strong.
“Horrendous.”
“Harrowing.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, threw up her hands, and said, “You win.”
He smiled despite himself.
Something buzzed through the house. She jumped about a foot.
Even he startled a bit. “What unholy sound is that?” Damn, maybe Mrs. Afonso was an unlikely representative of the occult.
“It’s the front gate.” She got up. “I have it set up so it buzzes my phone but also this wall unit thing over here. I thought that if I lost my phone or didn’t have it on hand when someone buzzed—like now—I needed another way to see and control the gate.
But I could definitely turn the volume down. ”
“Do you think it’s trick-or-treaters?”
“They don’t bother around here. The houses are too far apart, and many of them are inhabited by people who don’t want to invite strangers onto their property.”
“Is that your way of saying famous people?”
She spoke as she walked across the room. “Some famous people but also just rich assholes. No one trick-or-treated at my house growing up, either.”
“Is that your way of calling yourself a rich asshole?”
“No, it’s my way of calling my parents rich assholes.”
This wasn’t the first time she’d referenced her parents in a negative light. She’d said earlier that moving into this house the first time had represented a hard-won freedom from them. He surprised himself by wanting to know more.
She pressed a button on the wall by the kitchen. “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m just a girl, standing at the gate of another girl, asking her to buzz me in.”
Blair snorted, and in short order Jack was being introduced to a statuesque brunette wearing an off-white onesie with a hood trimmed with fluffy white fur, a blue headband, and an absurdly large blue brooch.
“Jack Branksome, this is Tiffany Murphy,” Blair said. “She’s my producing partner and the chief operating officer of my company and also my best friend. You met on the Zoom of Doom.”
“No, no,” the dog-woman said. “I’m not Tiffany Murphy.” She bent her elbows and folded her hands over to look like paws. “I am Chow Chow Wendy.” After posing for a moment she collapsed on the sofa theatrically.
She must have correctly interpreted Jack’s blank stare.
“Chow Chow Wendy is a character from Bluey.” The next blank stare yielded more information.
“Bluey is an inexplicably yet wildly popular kids’ cartoon about a family of Australian dogs.
I was until”—she looked at her watch—“ninety minutes ago dating a man whose child is, like all modern children, obsessed with this show.”
“What!” Blair shrieked. “What happened?”
Chow Chow Wendy ignored Blair in favor of continuing to provide Jack with information he neither had requested nor wanted.
“This kid wanted me to join her trick-or-treating. She was Bluey and her dad was Bandit, who is, wait for it, Bluey’s dad.
She wanted me to be Chilli. That’s Bluey’s mom.
I wanted to be Chilli. Thank God cooler heads prevailed. ”
“And by ‘cooler heads’ you mean my head,” Blair said.
“Yes. You were right. How much do you love hearing that? Want me to say it again? You were right.” She turned to Jack.
“She told me not to rush it on the whole stepmom role.” Chow Chow Wendy gestured at the wine bottle sitting on the coffee table.
“Can I have some of that? In theory, I am here to deliver the punch-ups to Green Light.” She produced a sheaf of paper from her tote bag and plopped it on the table.
“But in reality, I’m here to drink and cry. ”
“Of course,” Blair said. “I’ll grab you a…”