Page 80 of 10 Things I Hate About Zombies

‘We don’t do after hours,’ promised Larissa.

‘Well, Larissa does, but at triple her standard billable rate,’ teased Cleo.

After walking the group through the location of the board games, the wall-mounted barometer, and the duck-headed umbrellas (you never knew when it might rain), Charles and Samson retired upstairs. Nick and Cleo rubbed their hands together in exaggerated excitement – the way they’d used to as kids when Mom and Dad had left them home alone.

‘No shenanigans,’ said Larissa sharply.

‘Zoey, you should’ve seen us as kids,’ said Cleo cheerfully, helping herself to a glass of bubbly and a handful of grapes. ‘Once we thought it was a good idea to take out the Christmas tinsel and set it out all along the hallway carpet for our plush toys. You should’ve seen the mess. Mom aged about a decade on the spot when she saw what we’d been up to.’

‘And what about My Little Pony tennis?’ added Nick.

‘Oh my God, I forgot about that. We used to play over the clothesline. Well, Nick and I did. Larissa kept score.’

Nick sipped his wine. ‘She never was a joiner.’

‘I was a joiner!’ retorted Larissa. ‘I was just selective about what I joined.’

‘Zoey, would you like me to pour you anything?’ asked Cleo, who’d finished her grapes and now had a free hand.

Zoey made an odd grunting noise. Nick understood – his voice betrayed him sometimes when he had to speak in front of an audience. At the small-business luncheon he’d presented at a few weeks ago, he’d sounded like Tom Waits.

Yep, that was absolutely all that was going on. Nerves.

‘How about some cheese?’ suggested Nick. Zoey never said no to cheese, after all. (Rare was the human who could say no to cheese.) ‘They’ve got a nice blue and a decent Camembert out.’

Zoey seemed to nod. Nick loaded her up with a plate while Cleo poured her a generous glass of bubbly. Hopefully a few mouthfuls of cheese would help break the ice.

‘So, Zoey, Nick tells us you have a master’s in children’s literature.’ This was Larissa’s attempt at making small talk. Thankfully, it was fairly benign as Larissa’s commentary went: she was making an effort.

Zoey stared at Larissa, crumbling a piece of cheese between her fingers.

Nick grimaced, shaking his head lightly at Larissa. Zoey had hinted more than once that the smoothie shop wasn’t her dream career. And now here they were, rubbing it in that she could’ve been doing something she was passionate about instead.

This was a disaster. He shouldn’t have put pressure on her to meet Cleo and Larissa. Especially after the busy week that she’d had. Especially when she was feeling … out of sorts.

Cleo valiantly tried to steer the conversation, chitchatting about the coffee shops she planned to visit while she was in town, and how many books she could feasibly buy from Powell’s before the tyres on Larissa’s car popped.

‘I can always drive you back up in the truck if things get too dire,’ said Nick.

Larissa shuddered. ‘Is that thing rated for highway travel?’

‘Alice certainly thinks so,’ said Nick. He grinned. ‘So, are you going to come visit the farm?’

‘Of course!’ Cleo beamed around a quince-slathered cracker. ‘I can’t wait to see what you’ve done with it. Remember when you first moved in and we could barely see the house behind all the weeds? And you got Deirdre bogged in that field and had to call the tow-truck guy and it cost, like, five hundred bucks?’

Nick tried to disappear behind a wedge of salami. ‘So, that might have happened again. Although I wasn’t at fault this time.’

And also the tow-truck driver had vanished, so there could be no more backyard-bogging incidents.

‘Zoey, did you get the truck bogged?’ Cleo cackled, almost spilling her wine. ‘Oh, I love this. Peas in a pod. Was Nick upset? Did he say I told you so? Most importantly, did he pay for the tow truck?’

Zoey smiled awkwardly. She nodded, but in a slightly ungainly way, as though it was the first time she’d ever tried the movement. Then she extricated herself from Nick and wandered off through the nearest hallway.

‘Bathroom’s around the corner and to the left, babe,’ called Cleo. ‘It’s a pale blue door with a retro sketch of a toilet on the front. You can’t miss it.’

‘Sorry,’ whispered Nick, as Zoey disappeared. ‘She’s really not feeling well. She’s not usually …’

Not usually dressed like this. Not usually monosyllabic like this. Not usually sporting green eye shadow like this.