Page 11 of 10 Things I Hate About Zombies

‘And ruin my moment of being the first person in Portland to try the Brain Mush?’ Nestor flicked back his curly thatch of hair, which resembled a stack of Scrub Daddy sponges tied together with a scrunchie. ‘The best smoothie I’ve ever had. Even better than the She’ll Be Apples one with the twenty heirloom varieties.’

Zoey nodded. ‘I’ll let our mushroom guy know.’

Nestor’s eyes widened as a realisation hit him. ‘Wait, these aren’t … special mushrooms, are they? Like the dispensary kind? Because I know that microdosing is a whole thing, but I’ve been straight-edge since I was fourteen, when I discovered punk and veganism in the same summer.’

‘For that price?’ Sascha nodded at the chalkboard menu that Ainsley had so painstakingly painted. ‘That’s how we know you don’t get out much. This place is like discount Erewhon.’

‘We try,’ said Zoey, who wasn’t particularly upset by this comparison. Who didn’t want to be a more affordable Erewhon?

‘You know, there might be room in the market to be a more expensive Erewhon,’ said Terriffany, as the two left. She’d broken out an Excel spreadsheet and was running formulas.

‘Let’s try less ice on the next one,’ Zoey suggested, as Nestor, who was flouncing down the street, clutched his eye again.

She waved at Darina and June, who’d just sidled in through the door. Well, June had. Darina had cartwheeled. Which was impressive, given that she was carrying an armload of fabric. Were they off to a picnic? Putting up curtains?

‘I didn’t use ice,’ said Terriffany, frowning. ‘You know I hate that machine. My misophonia?’

Apparently Nestor was just being theatrical. Or he’d had a psychosomatic brain freeze.

‘Speaking of misophonia,’ added Terriffany, ‘is the new fridge coming? The humming on this old one is a violation of my rights.’

‘This evening,’ promised Zoey. She’d been tracking the updates on her phone all day.

‘Is it one of those natural clay refrigerators?’ asked Darina curiously, from her upside-down position. (She was doing a handstand, as usual.) ‘They’re like cellars for your produce. You don’t even need electricity. They just plug into nature.’

‘No, it’s … just a fridge,’ said Zoey, who was pretty sure that the health department wouldn’t let her plug a day’s worth of fruit and veg into nature.

‘Hmm, what’ll it be …’ June thoughtfully tapped her moon-phase chest piece as she browsed the menu, even though she ordered a dragon-fruit latte without fail.

Zoey let her contemplate. After all, the one time she’d offered to make someone’s ‘regular’, the person had gone running out, sobbing about being predictable even though they were an artist, dammit. Well, not running. People in Portland didn’t run. They sort of slunk to avoid the rain.

‘Hmm,’ repeated June thoughtfully. Now she was tapping her lip, flashing one of Joaquin’s temporary tattoos in the process. (She’d been at the soft launch for selfie-taking purposes, although apparently she preferred to get her tattoos in Poland from an internet-famous guy named Laszlo.) ‘What do you think, Dar?’

‘We have our new Brain Mush.’ Zoey pointed to the mushroom display she’d put together. ‘We’re on a mushroom kick this week.’

‘Oh, I like it,’ said June. ‘I can’t get enough nootropics. Especially when I’m trying to come up with my content buckets for the month. And when we’re working on the King Pigeon in yoga. It really does something for the appetite, you know? It awakens the beast.’

Zoey nodded politely. After June had tagged the shop in a smoothie selfie a few months back, she’d gone down a June social-media rabbit hole, which had proven a fascinating jaunt through the mind of the narcissistically unhinged. You definitely didn’t want to get on June’s bad side. (She was the third potential serial killer who’d stepped through the doors this morning. Although Zoey wouldn’t put that past Darina, either. Could you really trust someone whose dress sense could be described as ‘if Cyndi Lauper had been involved in a glitter factory explosion’?)

‘Wait.’ June squinted at the ingredients list on the blackboard. ‘Are the mushrooms from that hot guy at the farmers’ market? The one with the dog?’

‘Alice,’ blurted Zoey. ‘Alice is the dog. The farmer is Nick.’

June nodded approvingly. ‘Am I detecting a …’ She made a suggestive back-and-forth gesture with a spindly finger tattooed with tiny stars.

Zoey felt herself flush. ‘He’s just the mushroom guy. We barely even spoke.’

Especially since he hadn’t picked up her call.

June was not having this. ‘Uh-uh. I’ve read your horoscope. I know what the stars have in store for you.’

June, of course, never shared what specifically the stars had in store for anyone. Especially when they predicted the lottery, which apparently they often did. June had bragged several times that she could have won the jackpot, but that it didn’t seem fair to use the energy of the universe to her advantage. Besides, she wasn’t a material woman. (All of her designer clothes were thrifted.)

‘He’s a catch, for a farmer,’ mused June. ‘If I didn’t have Nate, I’d so go there.’

‘Nate,’ echoed both Zoey and Darina, because honestly, his name was the only nice thing you could say about the guy. Nate was the very definition of a hater. He was a black cloud of a human being, just skulking around and complaining about how unoriginal and derivative everything was. Except for his novel, of course, which he’d been working on approximately a decade, with very little to show for it other than being able to say that he was working on a novel. Zoey suspected that June was mostly keeping him around because she’d put so much work into him and deserved some of the kudos if he ever hit it big.

‘Anyway, we’ll have a Brain Mush for each of us,’ said June decisively. Darina gave a thumbs up, her thumb topped with a nail shaped like a mermaid’s tail. ‘And a dragon-fruit latte for me, just in case. Plus my influencer discount.’