Excerpt
Not Quite Dead Yet: A GMA Book Club Pick
OneDead gray skin, rotted away to show off the stringy sinews of muscle below. Sunken, rubbery sockets around sparkling hazel eyes. Those were actually hers, though; they moved as she studied herself. Decaying corn-on-the-cob teeth with gore stuck in the spaces between. What did zombies eat again? Just brains, or they weren’t fussy about the other guts too? Probably didn’t enjoy the candy apple she’d had earlier.
Jet watched her reflection in the funhouse mirror, her dead face—sorry—her undead face. OK, she’d worn the mask for three whole minutes, so Mom couldn’t complain and now Jet couldn’t breathe; hot toffee air that turned wet against the rubber, sticking it to her skin. She pulled the mask off. Still pale, slightly less gray, though, but the mirror elongated her round face, distorting her thick brows and upturned nose. Her short blond hair was sticking up now; static buzzed against her hand as she flattened it.
“Jet?”
“—Damn.” She flinched. The mirror warped his face behind her, squashed his muscular frame into accordion ripples, but Jet knew his voice. Of f***ing course. JJ Lim. But not with his usual black swept-back hair and clear tawny skin. He wore a garish red wig and denim overalls over a striped shirt, train-track gashes drawn on his face. Chucky. They’d watched that movie together on their third date.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he sniffed, awkward.
“It’s Halloween, that’s the point.” More awkward. Jet walked away without looking at the unwarped him, past a stall of pumpkin pies and apple bread.
Just $5!!! yelled the chalkboard sign.
“It’s . . .” JJ slipped off his wig and stumbled after her, through a group of freshly face-painted kids. Why was he following her? She’d given them both an easy out.
Again. “Sorry,” he continued, “I was wondering. I just . . .”
Well, this was fun. Jet was super glad she’d come to the Halloween Fair now. The whole of Woodstock, Vermont, swarming The Green in the middle of town, and she’d managed to run into the one person she didn’t want to see.
“Trick-or-treat!” a small vampire yelled up at her.
Jet hoped he’d choke on his slobbery fangs. Were kids always this annoying, or did the sugar rush bring it out of them? It was past ten now; when did parents put children to bed these days? Not f***ing early enough.
She picked up her pace, but JJ didn’t give up.
“Jet, please.” He reached out for her arm. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Jet stopped, sighed.
Something meant
them, didn’t it? And they weren’t a
them anymore, not for months. “I can’t right now.” Lie. “I’m helping my parents run the fundraising booth.” Bigger lie. “Did Henry draw those scars for you?” Change the subject.
JJ narrowed his sharp eyes. “Please, Jet, it’s important.”
“Oh,
important,” Jet snorted, “like when you said I was the best you could hope for . . . in Woodstock. Such a poet, J.”
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. And it’s not about
us, it’s—”
“—Hey buddy, think you dropped this,” a voice said over JJ’s shoulder, saving her. It was her brother, Luke, bending to retrieve the crumpled red wig from the grass. Pinpricks of string lights reflected in his matching hazel eyes as he straightened up and squared up, passing JJ the wig.
JJ took it, and finally took the hint too, losing himself in the crowd.
“Saved you,” Luke said.
Jet would never admit it. She was about to tell Luke so when he punched her in the shoulder, aiming for the dead-arm spot. He missed. But—also—he was f***ing thirty and a dad now. When would the punching stop?
Jet didn’t react, a lesson all sisters learned one way or another. It annoyed them more.
Luke grinned, sharpening his jaw. Actually, his whole head somehow—he’d had his honey-brown hair cut too short again; no honey, just fuzz. But Sophia liked it that way, apparently. And—great—here she was now, holding baby Cameron dressed as an unhappy pumpkin.
“Was that JJ?” Sophia asked, slotting in beside Luke, hip to hip, claiming her husband back. She was dressed as Catwoman, tall and lithe in a tight leather suit that would be unforgiving on Jet’s shorter, curvier frame. Remember when they used to share clothes, when they were teenagers? Back when they were the ones joined at the hip. Until Sophia got tall and Jet got boobs.
“Didn’t JJ get the message?” Luke surveyed the bustle of the fair, finally starting to die down, thank god. “How clear can you make it when a guy gets down on one knee and you say no?”
“Literally,” Sophia added, unhelpfully.
“That’s not how it happened,” Jet said.
“So, Marge,” Luke said, looking for another reaction. “What did you come dressed as this year?”
“Oh.” Jet gestured down her black turtleneck sweater and sleeveless denim jacket, black pants and boots. Yes, the boots were also black. “I thought it was super obvious. I came as a law school dropout who still lives at home with her parents at twenty-seven.” Made the joke before someone else could.
Luke hissed. “Scariest costume here.”
Sophia nudged him.
Something stirred in Jet’s gut, burned in her cheeks.
“You’re also not wearing a costume,” she reminded her brother.
Luke cleared his throat. “No, ’cause I’m here representing our family, representing Mason Construction. This is our fair, important to look professional and approachable.”
“With that hair?” Jet laughed, still smarting. Maybe she’d feel better if she took Luke down with her. Just a little. “Company’s not yours yet, Luke.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Next year.” Sophia squeezed Luke’s arm, a red-lipped smile spreading across her face.
Next year, when Dad retired. No, sorry,
if. He’d been “about to retire” three times already. They weren’t supposed to talk about that and Jet knew it; she shot him an empty grin, too many teeth.
“Cameron’s first Halloween,” Sophia said quickly, switching to something they
were allowed to talk about. Her baby. All she ever wanted to talk about, actually. “He’s a pumpkin.” She jiggled him on her hip.
“Oh shit, really?” Jet said. “I thought he was a butternut squash.”
“Jet.” Sophia turned on her. “Can you not swear in front of the baby, please.”
“F***, sorry.” Jet clapped her hands to her mouth.
“Seriously?”
“It slipped out.” It hadn’t.
“You still writing that . . . what was it?” Sophia asked. “That screenplay?”
Jet shuffled, digging the toe of her boot into a fallen leaf. Didn’t want to talk about that but Sophia and Luke were staring, and she had no choice. “No, I’m not doing that anymore.”
Luke tucked his hands into his front pockets. Here we go. “Given up already?” he said, and clearly enjoyed saying it. “That must be a new record.”
“I’m working on something else, actually.” Jet kept her voice level, walls up, teeth together. “A new idea.”
“It’s not that dog-walking app business thing, is it?” he said.
That feeling burned brighter, churning in her gut. Jet hardened her eyes, an unsaid question.
“Dad told me.”
“Well,” she said, like she didn’t care at all. “I wish you’d all stop talking about me.”
“Well,” he replied, “I wish we didn’t need to.”
“F*** off, Luke.”
“Jet!”
“He can’t talk yet, Sophia.”
“That’s the difference between me and you,” Luke said. “When I have goals, I actually see them through.”
Jet laughed. A dark, husky sound that didn’t match her face, people said. An old man’s laugh, like she’d smoked a pack a day when she’d never smoked one.
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” she said, same thing she told herself every Monday morning when her parents went to work and she didn’t. Repeated the words until they stuck. Anyway, she shouldn’t let Luke get under her skin like this. “And I think you’re forgetting that I won that district spelling bee when I was just ten.”
Luke bowed his head. “I remember.” Of course he remembered, because that wasn’t the only thing that had happened that day.
“Well,” Sophia said, unaware of the dark memory she was trampling over with her singsong voice. “We’re heading off. This little guy is getting grouchy.”
