One of the massive front doors flew open and Emily darted out, the smile on her face so wide her jaw looked like it was wired in place.
“Connor! Oh my God! Connor!” She jumped up and down as he got out of the Rover, then wrapped him in a hug so tight he felt like the occupant of a Chinese finger trap.
He hugged his cousin back. A dark-haired man and three children stood in the front door. Connor looked at his cousin, drinking in the sight of her. It was Em, alright. Her grey eyes were alight with joy and overflowing with tears. She was the spitting image of Aunt Maureen, especially around the eyes and nose.
“I don’t even know what to say, Em. It’s good to see you doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“I can’t believe you’re here, Connor! I just can’t believe it!”
Emily wrapped her arms around him tighter. Connor saw Miranda and Karen over her shoulder. They both smiled and cried, their shoe quarrel forgotten, but Miranda’s body language was off. When the dark-haired man, who had to be Emily’s husband, approached them, she stepped away. Delilah did not share her mistress’s sentiments, for she jumped and wriggled in front of the man, warbling with delight. The smaller boy called for “Auntie Miranda” to pick him up. An older boy and a toddler, a girl if the pink trousers were any indication, joined their father in fussing over Delilah before the older children ran off with the over-stimulated pit bull.
Emily loosened her grip a little and turned, wiping her eyes. Keeping her left arm around Connor, she said, “Come meet my family.”
The dark-haired man, now carrying his young daughter, stepped forward. He smiled at Emily with affection as he shifted the toddler to his left arm and reached to shake Connor’s hand.
“Connor, this is my husband, Mario,” Emily said.
“It’s great to meet you, Connor,” Mario said. His square, even teeth were the white of toothpaste commercials. “Her feet haven’t touched the ground since she heard the news.”
“It’s good to meet you, too,” Connor replied, not sure if that was true.
Mario Santorello was not what Connor had expected. He knew Santorello was thirty-five, a few years older than himself and his cousin, and that he was a celebrated biochemist, but had never seen his picture. His eyes were dark, brimming with an intelligence that was almost tangible, but what struck Connor most was how ordinary he looked. He was dressed in blue jeans, a white polo shirt, and wore (of all things) espadrille sandals. Not quite the Prince of Darkness that his imagination had conjured.
“It looks like the boys have run off with Delilah,” Mario said. “Why don’t we go inside and get a drink?”
“I’ll drink your good booze any day,” Karen laughed, accepting a peck on the cheek from their host. To Connor’s ear, her laughter seemed forced, too cheerful. But Karen had told him she liked Mario. Miranda’s discomfort around Emily’s husband was obvious. Karen must be worried about Miranda, he thought, I better make sure she’s all right.
But Emily hugged him again and asked a question as they entered the house, and the thought flew away.
They were dining al fresco on a veranda overlooking the extensive grounds with the help of several patio heaters. Emily had taken Connor on a brief tour of the richly appointed residence. Emily’s home was on the decadent side, but what else would the home of one of the world’s most powerful men be?
“So, Connor,” Mario started. “What are you planning to do with yourself once you get settled?”
“Mario, he hasn’t even eaten his dinner and you’re already grilling him!” Emily protested.
“No worries, Em,” Connor answered. He passed the platter of homemade fettuccine in a basil cream sauce, topped with sliced tomatoes, down the table. “I have no idea, Mario. I’ve only been here for two weeks. I still don’t know the lay of the land.”
Mario sat down, now that everyone had food, and spread his napkin over his lap. “If you ever want a job, just let me know. I’m sure we can find you something.” He raised his wine glass and the rest of the table followed. “To Family.”
“To Family,” they echoed, glasses clinking together.
The conversation meandered from old family stories to getting to know you chit-chat. Emily told Connor how she had gone to GeneSys for an interview and never left. Her first impression of her husband had been poor but improved while they were holed up in one of GeneSys’ bunker-like labs. Every so often Mario would offer his perspective, which sometimes diverged from his wife’s account, but humorously so.
Connor watched the interplay between them and had to keep reminding himself that Santorello was the enemy. Emily’s husband was intelligent, charming, and personable. If he had run for President before the ZA, he would have won the all-important “Who would you rather have a beer with?” poll. His actions around the vaccine, the source of his considerable power and wealth, left no doubt as to his true nature but even so, Connor could not help but like him. No matter how evil, every person has at least one good quality. Even Hitler liked dogs.
“Business must be good, Mario, if you’re already offering Connor a job,” Miranda remarked mildly.
“Good enough. A little slow just now, but there are always ups and downs.”
“Maybe you could expand into agriculture. If you perfect the Sonalto tomato it might expand your market share.”
“Miranda!” Karen hissed as the table fell silent. She raised her voice and continued, “Emily, this pasta is wonderful! Did you make it yourself?”
“Yes,” Emily replied, giving her husband, his face flushed with anger, a warning stare. “I made it this morning.”
“It’s great, Em,” Connor added, trying to neutralize the now charged atmosphere. “Aunt Maureen’s recipe?”
Mid-bite, Emily nodded.
“Dad, what’s a Sonalto tomato?”
The table fell silent again.
“It’s nothing to discuss while we’re eating, Michael,” Emily said to her oldest son.
“Are they on our pasta?” the boy persisted.
“No, of course not!” his mother said. She shot Miranda a filthy look. “And it’s nothing we’re going to discuss today.”
“What’s the big deal about a tomato?” the boy asked again, perplexed.
“Michael,” Emily said, but Mario interrupted her.
“He’s almost nine, Em. He’s old enough to know.”
“Anthony and Maureen aren’t,” Emily disagreed in a low voice.
“And they’re eating mac and cheese in the kitchen with Inez,” Mario replied. “It’s okay, I’ve got it.”
“Okay Michael,” Mario said, directing his attention to his son. “You know that people turn into zombies after being bit by a zombie.”
The boy nodded his head.
“Have you ever thought about how the first zombie came about?”
“Well, yeah… but no one ever talks about it,” Michael said, his voice soft.
“Well, before there were zombies, there were biotech companies like mine. Some of them made food and things to grow crops, and Sonalto was one of them. You remember what DNA is?”
“Only the building blocks of life on Earth,” the boy said, sounding insulted.
“You’re so smart, Michael,” Karen interjected. “Maybe you’ll be a scientist like your dad.”
“Well,” Mario continued, “Sonalto changed the DNA of some of the tomatoes they sold so that farmers could spray their crops with pesticides that would kill weeds but not the tomato plants. Since they didn’t have to spray around the tomato plants the farmer could do it quicker, which let them plant more crops and make more money.”
Miranda snorted. Connor jabbed her with his elbow.
“Did it work?” Michael asked.
“For a while,” Mario answered. “But after a few years the DNA they added to the tomatoes mutated and people who ate those tomatoes turned into zombies. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. No one had ever seen a zombie before, so at first, we tried to help them. We thought they were ju
st sick, but then we realized they weren’t. Before, there used to be restaurants that were the same company all over the world, and they bought a lot of Sonalto tomatoes. Some of those restaurants were in airports, which is one of the reasons the epidemic spread so fast. But those tomatoes that Sonalto made don’t exist anymore. All the tomatoes we eat are safe.”
“Are you sure?” Michael looked down at his plate in alarm.
“I’m sure. See?” Mario popped a tomato wedge in his mouth and chewed, smiling widely. “We eat these all the time and none of us have become zombies, have we?”
“I guess so,” the boy answered with a marked lack of confidence.
“And besides,” Emily added. “We’ve all had Daddy’s vaccine, so there’s no way you can ever turn into a zombie no matter what you eat. Or even if you got bit.”
“Some people still won’t eat tomatoes because they’re afraid, but it’s impossible to be Italian and not eat tomatoes,” Mario said to his son, his voice that of a conspirator. “Isn’t that right, Miranda?”
All eyes turned to the other end of the table, awaiting her reply.
“That’s right,” she said. She bit into a tomato wedge for Michael’s benefit even though Connor could see it killed her to agree with Mario. “That’s one thing your dad and I agree on.”
“I know I said it already,” Karen said with forced good cheer after draining her wine glass, which she held up for a refill. “But really, Emily, this pasta is fantastic!”
Emily latched on to Karen’s conversational lifeline. They chatted about cooking while Michael peppered his father with more questions about zombies. Connor leaned over to whisper in Miranda’s ear.
“I can’t believe you. You’re upsetting Emily!”
“This is why I never come when he’s here,” she growled. “We always end up sniping at one another.”
“Well get your shit together and act like a grown up. This is supposed to be my family reunion and you’re busy scaring a kid.”
Connor watched her bite back an angry retort. Emily and Karen moved on from cooking to eligible bachelors that Emily might introduce to Karen. Mario started offering suggestions and soon they were all out brainstorming. Michael vetoed two of his parents’ choices of potential suitors with loud exclamations of “Him and Aunt Karen? Ewww!!!” but gave his stamp of approval to two others.
“Miri, can you pass the water pitcher?” Emily asked, still smiling from the spirited match-making session.
“It’s empty, Em.”
“Lupe can get it,” Emily said, looking around. “She must have gone into the house for another bottle of wine. Pass it over and I’ll go get some.”
“I can do it,” Miranda said, starting to stand up.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Miri. You’re a guest.” Emily snatched the pitcher away and excused herself from the table.
“Speaking of fixing people up,” Mario said, “I understand you and Miranda were quite the item when all of you were at SCU, Connor.”
From the corner of his eye, Connor saw Miranda stiffen.
“That was a long time ago,” he said.
“Maybe the spark is still there?” Mario asked, a devilish gleam in his eye.
“Or maybe not,” Miranda snapped.
What the fuck, Connor thought, not sure if he should be worried that Miranda just said she was not interested in him almost to his face, or if her comment had more to do with who had asked the question.
“You were a Jesuit for a while, weren’t you, Connor?” Mario queried.
Pre-occupied, Connor only half heard the question. “Um, yeah, for a short time.”
“What was it like?”
Connor could not say why, but Mario’s questions about his time as a Jesuit made him uncomfortable. “I learned a lot about myself, but I just wasn’t cut out for religious life.”
“It definitely takes a special kind of man to be a priest,” Mario agreed. Connor watched his attention shift from himself to Miranda. “I imagine it would be difficult for any man to be celibate after having a lover as passionate as Miranda.”
“You motherfuck-” Miranda snarled, her cry lost in the clatter of bumped plates and tipping glasses and cutlery as she rocketed to her feet. Connor jumped up as well, grabbing her arm to keep her from flying over the table.
“What the heck is going on?” Emily asked, out of breath. The pitcher in her hand was half empty, and there were wet patches on her blouse and skirt. She must have seen the commotion as she left the house and dashed over to intercede, splashing the pitcher’s contents on herself in the process. She looked around the table and settled on her husband. “Honey, why don’t you help me in the kitchen?”
Mario smiled like a mean-spirited Cheshire Cat. Karen sucked down another half glass of wine. Michael watched the commotion, wide-eyed.
“Of course, sweetheart,” Mario said, his venomous stare focused on Miranda.
“You too, Michael,” Emily said as Mario rose from his chair to follow her rigid form into the house.
“That fucking asshole! That fucking piece of shit!” Miranda spat when they were gone. She wrenched her arm free of Connor’s grip, stumbling over the chair she had knocked over when she had rocketed to her feet.
“Miri, you shouldn’t get into it with him,” Karen scolded.
“So it’s my fault he’s a bastard?”
“You’re the one making smart ass remarks about tomatoes,” Karen countered. “If you’re upset, you have no one to blame but yourself.”
Miranda spun on her heel and stormed off, slamming the French doors that led from the veranda to the end of the house away from the kitchen. Connor started after her, but Karen called to him before he had gone ten feet.
“Let her go, Connor. She’ll just take it out on you. Let her cool down.”
Connor was taken aback by the viciousness of Miranda and Mario’s riposting. He knew Miranda loathed Emily’s husband but had thought they could at least be civil. She was Michael’s godmother, the kids thought of her as their aunt. Connor had assumed they could put a good face on things in front of the children at least. He was afraid to think what might have happened had Emily not all but dragged Mario from the table.
“They really don’t like each other,” Connor said.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Karen muttered as she drained the rest of her wine glass dry. The absent Lupe reappeared to refill it almost before Karen set it on the table. “I knew this would be a disaster.”
18
.
Miranda wandered the house. She was not sure how much time had passed since she fled the dinner table, but she needed a bathroom. Every time she thought she found one it turned out to be a room she did not recognize. She knew Emily’s house better than this. Why was she was so lost? She finally found a bathroom she had never seen before. It was huge, with fixtures that were undersized and mismatched. The geometry of the room felt wrong, but there was nothing she could identify to support the feeling. It just did.
She rifled through the medicine cabinet, then the linen closet, then the drawers under the sink. As she gripped the handle on the last drawer, she realized what she was doing.
I’m looking for a razor.
She froze, outstretched arm trembling. The scars on the insides of her forearms and biceps itched and throbbed. She knew everyone thought it was terrible. She knew herself that it meant something was wrong with her, that something was broken. What no one else understood was that it wasn’t about the sharp bite of metal into her skin, or the fiery pain, or the blood that welled up in the razor’s wake and trickled around the curve of her arm. It let the pain, the fear, every bad thing seep out. She didn’t know why or how, but it helped. Sometimes it was the only thing that did.
She couldn’t go back to the others with her forearms in bandages, not after the scene she had just made. She could not handle more disapproval. She stepped away from the sink on shaky legs, turned to leave, and realized she really did need to pee.
She sat on the toilet, replaying the disaster again. She ought to try acting like an adult and return to the so-called celebration. Storming off like a child was pathetic. She had instigated the antagonistic exchange, Karen was right about that. It didn’t excuse Mario’s behavior, but it didn’t make hers any better.
She headed for the door, resolving to keep her mouth shut, play nice, and drink heavily, then tripped so badly she almost fell. As she righted herself, she saw that her foot had caught on a toy dump truck, its scuffed metal attesting to years of use. Where had it come from, she wondered, as she realized the entire bathroom was littered with toys. Rubber duckies and wind-up swimming otters were near the tub. There were Tinker Toys, stuffed animals, children’s books, wooden blocks, and a step-up stool painted in bright primary colors by the sink. They were everywhere.
How did I not see them?
She grasped the doorknob but met resistance when she tried to turn it. Someone was turning it from the other side. She let go and stepped back. The door opened. Mario stood before her.
“You look lovely today, Miranda. I forgot to tell you earlier.”
She glared at him. “I don’t have time for this, Mario. Get out of my way.”
Instead, he pushed the door shut and walked toward her. Miranda backed up, stumbling on yet another toy she had not seen a moment ago before bumping into the long marble counter of the oversized sink.
“Playing hard to get these days, Miri? It suits you.”
He stopped in front of her, an inch between them. Miranda tried to sidle past, nonplussed at the invasion of her personal space. He closed the tiny distance, pressing his hips against hers.
A traitorous flame of desire rippled through her body. Her pounding heart filled her ears with white noise.
Undead Age Series (Book 1): Love In An Undead Age Page 12
