Chapter Two
T Minus Two Hours and Five Minutes
Until Shit Hits the Fan
Everett
Jaxon passes back an empty white paper bag, which I stare at blankly.
“For vomiting, man.”
“Ah, thanks.” I glance around the back seat, unnerved by the damp feel to the cloth seats. “Has that been…happening a lot?”
His eyes find mine in the rearview mirror, his furry eyebrows lifted beneath the goggles.
“Right,” I say to myself more than him, my eyes catching on something shiny in the front seat. An aluminum baseball bat juts up from the floorboard, in grabbing distance.
Well. That’s ominous.
Durham’s streets are strangely empty for a midsemester Friday night, but I guess that’s to be expected when the NCAA postponed March Madness “indefinitely.” Rumors among the faculty are that GI-27 is currently decimating the Tar Heels star lineup, which, if my last class’s abysmal turnout is any indicator, is probably true.
I haven’t paid much attention to the virus outbreak.
To be fair, I haven’t paid much attention to anything, but now I’m wondering if I should have.
Tonight, the quaint downtown looks unnaturally gray, as though a vampire drained all the life from its red, rusty bricks and evergreen awnings.
One storefront, though, glows with a supernatural yellow-green neon sign spelling Gatherers in loopy cursive.
I sigh a fog into my mask, tickling the short stubble that perpetually lines my jaw.
At least Sandeep got the choice of restaurant right.
I’ve been living off Gatherers takeout for years.
“Thanks.” I slap the top of the car as I close the door, but Jaxon’s window rolls down another inch.
“Be careful out there, man.” Behind the faceted Plexiglas shield, Jaxon’s small smile is refracted back at me, more insectile than human. A shiver runs down my spine—a feeling. I marvel at it. It’s the same thrill of unease a great horror movie seeds in the first few minutes.
Unfortunately, I don’t like horror movies anymore.
Jaxon waggles his hand in the hang-ten surfer sign, the words “no pukies!” trailing out his window as his tiny car hums down the road.
“No pukies,” I mumble in return, then try the door to Gatherers. It doesn’t budge. I try again until a light tap on the window from inside calls my attention upward. A masked hostess on the other side of the glass gestures at the buzzer, which I press.
“Welcome to Gatherers! When was the last time you had diarrhea?” her bright voice, tinny through the speakers, burbles at me.
“Oh, um.” I run a hand through my hair, blushing furiously beneath my mask. “Last year, maybe?”
“Do you currently have runny stools?”
I shake my head quickly.
“Vomiting? Gratuitous belching? Odorous gas?”
“Jesus, no!” I blurt. “I’m sorry—just, no.” I try to smile, but of course she can’t see it beneath my mask. The door clicks open, and a server appears on my left like a bolt of lightning, startling me back.
“Gloves and mask, sir.” The server thrusts a biohazard bin at me, which opens and refuses to close until I peel off my gloves and mask and toss them in.
The hostess walks me to my table, which luckily is empty.
After the surreal trip here, I need a few minutes to gather my wits and cuss Sandeep out some more.
Everett: I can’t believe you talked me into this. It’s SO weird out here right now.
I stare at my phone for a minute or two longer, but no typing bubble appears, so I put it away and take several deep breaths.
At least inside the restaurant it feels pretty normal.
People are happily eating their wholesome vegan fare and chatting as if half the country isn’t trapped in the bathroom right now.
My phone buzzes, and I pick it up, then nearly drop it in revulsion.
It’s a call from my parents.
I send it to voicemail on the second ring.
I blink down at the cursed phone as if it could tell me what the illustrious Colonels Greer want with me, the disappointing offspring, on a Friday night.
About five years ago, thanks to Louise and my sister Gemma’s not-so-gentle prodding, my parents and I reestablished communication, tentatively and with great reluctance on my part.
It’s been exclusively over text and email up to now, but that’s their fifth call this week.
All unanswered. Their texts are bad enough.
I’m just not ready to hear their uncomfortable words, too.
Maybe they’re calling about the virus—to check in and see if I’m okay. After a second, I pull up our text chain. The last message was sent more than a month ago.
Everett: Hey, I’m still fine, if that’s what you’re calling about. Can’t talk now. I’m—
I pause. Am I going to be honest about this date?
And if so, can I handle the resulting flood of overly encouraging texts and congratulations that, coming from my parents, would veer from tone-deaf to downright insulting?
Good to hear you’ve stopped wasting your life.
Good to hear you’re not a total coward. Good to hear, good to hear, good to hear…
Nope.
—out for the evening. Hope you’re both well, too, I finish with a magnanimous spirit, and press send.
There. But before I put my phone away, a missed-call notification pops up, too, from Gemma, our parents’ offspring of choice.
Even after the FDA fired her and she started working full-time at a rebel lab my father once described as “borderline seditious,” what did our decorated colonels-for-parents do?
Sign up for her underground newsletter on FDA corruption and blacklist the entire agency, of course. Dr. Gemma Greer can do no wrong.
Dr. Everett Greer, on the other hand…well. One child is a toxicologist, studying the effects of chemicals and pathogens on the human body in a clinical setting. The other is a film professor, who watches horror movies and is clinically depressed. It’s an easy choice for them.
I actually consider calling Gemma back, because even though her obnoxious perfection makes my own substandard quality more apparent, my little sister is my favorite person.
God. I hope she’s not sick.
Before I can make a decision either way, the front door buzzer sounds. I watch as a masked woman outside endures the same barrage of ultra-personal digestive questions with a straight back and slightly panicked eyes. She’s immediately recognizable from her profile picture.
Looking at Maisie as she surrenders her mask and gloves to the hostess, it’s hard to believe she’d want to meet a gangly dork of a professor at all.
She looks like she could kick my ass. Strong, lean, lithe little body.
Her platinum-blond hair is cut short on one side, revealing the tight line of her jaw, but a length of silky straight hair settles over the other side in a shaggy asymmetrical cut.
The healthy golden hue to her skin sets off the pale blue of her eyes, and it’s like an ethereal Midsommar May Queen just floated into this vegan restaurant.
My mouth goes dry, and I hurry to suck down some water so I don’t greet her with a coughing fit.
She slides out of a black fleece jacket but refuses when the hostess offers to hang it up for her.
Her eyes scan the restaurant, landing on mine with a little jolt I feel in my chest. Clutching her jacket, she walks steadily toward our small table in the back.
Halfway over, she seems to remember to smile, and it’s like invisible puppet strings suddenly yank her mouth upward.
Jesus, she looks terrified.
Something in me registers this and squeezes.
Even though I desperately do not want to be here, it isn’t her fault she got catfished.
I resolve not to be a sad, sorry prick who makes her regret coming out on this surreal night to meet a stranger in the hopes of finding something more.
I can be kind and polite for an hour over dinner.
I rush to stand, nearly knocking over the small bistro table.
“Maisie? Hi, I’m Everett.” I hold out a hand to shake hers, momentarily horrified at my own giant paw hanging there between us. She stares at it, too, as though assessing whether the coiled snake before her is venomous.
After a second, she reaches out to shake it. “Hi. You’re—real.” Her lips twitch along that nervous smile. “I was worried that you, ah…weren’t.”
“Yep. It’s really me.” I internally cringe.
I can’t tell her she was right to doubt my veracity.
That the “Everett” she likes is just a picture and some sales words, a construct made by my best friend out of his misplaced hope that there’s still something inside me worth salvaging.
I start to sit, but she hovers uncertainly.
“Could we switch seats? I have to face the door.”
“Ah—”
“I have to.”
“Oh…sure.” I slide around to the opposite seat, nearly knocking the table over again when I notice her real-deal combat boots. Her olive-green jumpsuit is formfitting but utilitarian, and the numerous pockets along her legs make a distinct clinking sound when she sits. I swallow. “Former military?”
Her head tilts to the side. “No. Why?”
Why? She’s dressed like Lara Croft, winter edition, that’s why.
Add a pair of aviators, and she’d be the next Top Gun.
Still, relief pulses through me. I come from a long, unforgiving line of career military officers, but somehow, the gene that allows you to click your heels together as you salute your commanding officer skipped me altogether.
Thanks to my parents, military people turn me off as a rule.
“Just a guess.” I try to smile, but she looks away before I can manage it.
“It’s my jumpsuit, isn’t it,” she says, dismay lining her words.
“It does give a G.I. Jane vibe.” I offer the outdated reference lamely, like a soggy, room-temperature hors d’oeuvre on a platter. Jesus. This is solid proof I’m not ready to date. I can’t even speak to a beautiful woman.
“G.I. Jane.” She frowns. “Who’s that?”