"Listen," my mom said again. "Something is very wrong here. None of you seem to know when Jess got pregnant-"
"Gross," I commented. "Didn't ever want or need the details."
"None of their damned business!" Jess agreed, lightly spraying my mother with toast crumbs.
"-or when she's due-"
"Next summer, isn't it?" Marc asked vaguely. He was seated at one of the islands, flipping through the January 2007 ish of Martha Stewart Living. He frequently reread the "How to Keep a Sharp Mind" article. Was it ironic that he needed to reread an article about staying sharp? "Around the Fourth? Hmm, says here anagrams are a way to go."
"Is that like a word jumble?"
"No, it's like when you rearrange all the letters of a word to form new words. Like..." He glanced at my mom's coffee cup and his eyes went milky as he thought. ". . . caribou for cuba rio. Or... uh... permission. For... impression? Yeah, impression."
"Sounds hard." I had no gift for puzzles of any kind. No gift, and no love for doing them. If someone whipped out their new crossword puzzle app, I gave serious thought to faking a heart attack.
"Yeah." He smiled and circled the relevant paragraph. "It does. And-what were we talking about?"
"We were saying Jess is due at the end of the month."
"No, no," the lady herself said. "First day of spring. Or something."
"No, that doesn't sound right."
"Of course it doesn't," Sinclair said, filching a piece of toast from Jessica's plate and sneaking it to Fur and Burr. "Autumn."
"Or a New Year's baby." I drained the remnants of my smoothie. "It's... you know. Whenever."
"But it's sure nice of you to take an interest, Dr. Taylor," Not-Nick piped up. He'd slipped his toast to Jessica's plate, probably saving Sinclair's life in the process. "We registered at Cracker Barrel if you want to know what to get for the baby."
I gasped at his Freudian slip. "Crate and Barrel," I corrected. "Cracker Barrel's the restaurant." Did Crate and Barrel even have baby stuff? I thought it was all yuppie furniture and kitchen accessories. Translation: I'd never set foot in the place and never would. Shit, maybe she really did register at the restaurant.
We were gathered in the mansion's kitchen, our unofficial conference room. Come to think of it, maybe it was official. We sure had enough meetings there. Mom had brought BabyJon over as she'd threatened, and I'd told the others she wanted to come by and say hello and catch up on all our doings. ("Marc's a zombie but Ancient Me won't ever be back, Jessica's still pregnant, and No-Longer-Nick still doesn't hate me. We don't have a cat but Sinclair has two dumb dogs, and the Antichrist hasn't been around much. We're out of milk.")
My mom, embracer of all things bizarre (especially since her only child walked out of an embalming room after dying the first time), was so kind to Marc I almost couldn't watch. He'd been hanging back a bit, knowing he was different, knowing my mom knew he was different, but not knowing how my mom would react to the changes. I could have told him, but why spoil the surprise? Her reaction was the same as it was to my return from the grave: thank God, thank God, thank God.
"Now we won't worry about you so much," she told him, holding both of his hands in hers like he was a child instead of a grown man who towered over her. "Now you can take care of yourself and Betsy even better than before."
"I didn't do such a good job with either," he said with a rueful grin, but his face was lit with relief to be so easily accepted, and he paid close attention to everything my mom said. When she excused herself to use the bathroom, he started to follow her before he caught himself. I failed to hold back my snicker.
He tried to wither me with a faux glare, but even actual glares don't always work. Then he dropped the act and leaned down to whisper (which was dumb, since almost everyone in the house had superhearing), "She didn't even mind that I feel different! Like this." He held out his hands, cool and pale. "And..." He gestured to his long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. He couldn't bear to wear scrubs anymore.
I grabbed his with my own clammy paws. "So you're permanently chilly now, and you dress better. Welcome to our horrible, horrible club. Four words, Marc, four words that will change your unlife: knee-high fuzzy socks. And also those little hand-warmer dealies the deer hunters use, the ones you keep in your pockets."
He nodded and actually wrote it down; he kept a cell phone on him nearly always and a small notebook and pen in one of his back pockets. One of the many ways he kept himself engaged.
"Write down 'the fuzzier the better-my manliness is not as important as being warm so bring on the pink.' And then write down 'nothing I buy is too good for Betsy.'"
He snorted but didn't look up from his scribbling. "I'm sticking with 'little hand-warmer dealies.' You should have gone into advertising."
"And miss all this?" I said dryly, gesturing to the controlled chaos of the kitchen. Except there wasn't anything controlled about it. Jessica was turning toast into cinnamon toast and then eating it, turning it into fuel for her brand o' crazy; Not-Nick was showing her something on his cell (it must have been pretty cool, because he was also doing jazz hands); the puppies were frisking around everyone's ankles... for such a big kitchen, it didn't take many of us to fill it. "Say it ain't so!"
"You love it, so quit that. You love"-he gestured to the not-controlled chaos-"all of this stuff. At first you didn't, or pretended you didn't, but we all grew on you."
I nodded. "Like lichen. Icky, smelly lichen. Lichen found all over the world, in places you'd think lichen would never be able to flourish. The symbiotic lichen." At his raised eyebrows, I added, "Eighth grade science report. Isn't it strange, the stuff you can't ever get out of your head?"
"Fine, we're lichen. Point is-these days?-the 'oh, it's so awful here with all the weird people and weird stuff going on in our mansion of weird' is strictly pretending."
"Nuh-uh!" Blast! Was my cover blown?
"Yuh-huh! The roommates, being queen, being eternally hot and strong and rich, most people in your life liking having you around, the puppies, Sinclair's mood swing-"
"Mood swing? That's a mood hurricane."
Ever see a zombie roll his eyes? It's terrifying. "Jeez, Betsy, sometimes I think if you didn't have something to bitch about you'd leave town looking for something to bitch about."
Ack! My secret was out! "Tell no one," I threatened, my fingers sinking into his forearms. "Not unless you want me to blab the major spoiler in A Storm of Swords."
He yelped and pulled his arm free. "Just sayin'. You know you love this shit."
"Maybe 'love' is a little strong..." I was super glad he hadn't called my bluff. Have you seen any one of the GoT books? Doorstops. Who has the time? Besides, HBO was doing a pretty good job. More giant books should be made into TV shows and movies. Big time-saver.
"It's not," Marc retorted, then went back to his magazine article.
I looked around the restaurant-sized kitchen. Butcher blocks everywhere, dozens of cabinets, multiple fridges and freezers, multiple blenders (we were all hard-core smoothie addicts), multiple drawers, multiple pantries. Every gadget you could think of. Any dish you wanted to make you could whip up right there. It was always warm and bright here; we always felt safe. Well. Safe-ish. "Yeah, well. Keep it to yourself, will ya?"
He gave me a look I translated as You're not fooling any of us, but since it wasn't out loud I could let it go and keep my pride. Because that's what it's all about! Me keeping my pride in the face of everything, all the time.
Ugh, did I really just think that?