Dark Days

by James Ponti

  She laughed.

  “It was the coolest move I ever saw. But I still mean it.”

  “I know.”

  “I love you, Molly Koala,” she said, calling me by the nickname I hadn’t heard in ages.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  ‘La Traviata’

  Opera? Are you serious?”

  We were less than fifteen seconds into family night, and my sister Beth was already protesting the music that filled the apartment.

  “Show some respect for your heritage,” Dad said as he handed her some bell peppers and a cutting board. “And chop these while you’re at it.”

  “We’re only a quarter Italian,” she replied. “What about the parts of our heritage that made music, I don’t know, in the last century?”

  “You may only be a quarter Italian, but Molly’s a quarter too and I’m half,” he said. “Two quarters and a half, what does that add up to, Molls?”

  “One whole Italian,” I said, playing along with Dad’s logic.

  “There you go. There’s an entire Italian person in this kitchen, so be polite,” he said with a cheesy Italian accent. “Besides, you know the rules. Tonight’s my night and I get to pick.”

  The rules of family night are simple but firm. Every month we each get one evening to plan. It can be anything, as long as we’re all together. And to encourage fresh ideas, we’re supposed to be open to new things . . . like opera.

  When Dad’s in charge of family night we often end up in the kitchen. I think he likes it for a couple reasons. First of all, he’s a great cook and wants to make sure Beth and I learn the basics. But more importantly, he likes the way it squishes us all into a small space and forces us to talk and share as we literally bump into each other.

  That night we were making kitchen sink spaghetti, which has nothing to do with the sink and gets its name from the fact that Dad puts “everything but the kitchen sink” into the sauce. He thought opera was the perfect addition. But rules or not, he didn’t want Beth to be miserable, so he gave her a possible escape.

  “How about this?” he said. “I’m going to tell you a story about this opera and once I’m done, if you still want me to turn it off, I will.”

  “Why don’t you save yourself the trouble and turn it off now?” she said with a sly smile. “Because I guarantee my opinion’s not going to change.”

  “Maybe, but that’s not the deal,” he said. “I get to tell my story first. Then you decide.”

  She was suspicious, but didn’t really have much choice. “Okay, fine.”

  “You have to keep cooking, though,” he said. “Both of you.”

  We had specific jobs to do so that everything would come together perfectly. Beth was chopping vegetables, and I was stirring and seasoning the tomato sauce while Dad sautéed some Italian sausage. The combination of the sizzle and the smell was incredible.

  “We’re cooking,” Beth said. “Start talking.”

  “Okay, your mom and I had been dating for about two and a half months . . .”

  I knew then and there that Dad was going to win this argument.

  “. . . and one day she told me she was planning to see La Traviata at the Met.” He turned from the stove for a second to explain to Natalie. “ ‘The Met’ is what we cultured people call the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center.”

  She didn’t miss a beat and came right back at him. “ ‘The Met’ is also what you call the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You’d think for cultured people you’d be able to come up with different nicknames for different places.”

  “That’s funny. I never noticed that.” Dad said laughing. “Anyway, your mother was going to go with her sister, Fiona, no doubt because she assumed I was a caveman unable to enjoy something as sophisticated as opera. Now, I couldn’t let her think that, so I told her that it was too bad she was going with someone else, because I loved opera.”

  “Was that true?” I asked.

  “No. I didn’t know anything about opera except what I’d learned from Bugs Bunny. But I didn’t want her to know that. Then she threw me a curve. She said that Fiona didn’t really want to go and asked if I wanted to go with her instead.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “No kidding. Of course I said yes, but I was in full panic mode. I was worried I wouldn’t understand anything because it’s all sung in Italian. I was worried that I was going to prove that I was, in fact, an uncultured caveman. So I spent three weeks studying everything there was to know about La Traviata. I memorized the characters, the plot, famous performances . . . I even knew the English translations of all the song titles. My plan was simple. I was going to dazzle her. But I had a problem.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I was so focused on studying that I didn’t realize I was scheduled to work that night. I had to swap with someone at the last minute just so I could go on the date. I ended up working back-to-back shifts, and by the time we got to the Met I was already pretty tired.”

  Although her back was turned toward Dad as she chopped, I noticed that Beth was now closely following the story.

  “Don’t tell me you fell asleep,” I said. “Did you snore?”

  “I didn’t snore . . . but I may have nodded off a little during the first act,” he said with a smile. “I was just going to close my eyes for a second, but the next thing I know, there was applause. That woke me right up. It was intermission and I was worried that she was onto me so I just jumped right into my analysis. I talked about everything that I had studied. I could tell she was impressed.

  I did a better job staying awake in the second act, and when it was over I picked up right where I left off. She couldn’t believe how emotional I got as I talked about the tragic ending. I will never forget the look she gave me, hanging on every word I said. Even I almost believed that I was smart and cultured. We were right there next to the big fountain in Lincoln Center, surrounded by all those people in tuxedos and gowns and I had pulled it off . . . until I saw it.”

  “What?” asked Beth, now fully engrossed.

  “A giant banner advertising that night’s performance of . . . Il Trovatore.”

  We all started laughing, Dad loudest of all.

  “You did not?” I squealed.

  “Oh, I did. I totally learned the wrong opera. Il Trovatore, La Traviata, the names sound so much alike and they’re both by Verdi. Everything I said had been wrong and your mother just went along with it. She knew what I’d done the second I started talking at intermission, and she just would not embarrass me. I should have known better than to think that I could put one over on her.”

  Now Beth turned from the counter to face him, a wide smile on her face. “So how did she respond once the truth was out there?”

  “Not like I would have expected,” he said. “She figured that if I tried that hard, it must mean that I really cared about her. And I realized that if she was going to go along with it just so she wouldn’t embarrass me, well, that’s when I knew I was in love. And seven months later when I proposed, I did it right at that fountain.”

  He let the story simmer for a moment as he brushed a little garlic onto the sausage. Then he gave her a sly look over his shoulder and said, “But we can always turn it off.”

  Beth just shook her head. “It’s fine. We can keep listening.”

  I had never heard that story before and I loved it. It had been more than two months since that day with Mom in the boathouse. I thought about what she said afterward, about how she wanted me to remember her. She wanted me to think of her as a mother reading stories on a picnic blanket. And here was another memory, of a young woman falling in love. I’m sure this is how my dad pictures her.

  Needless to say, the spaghetti was delicious and the dinner was great fun. Beth told us about a job she was applying for to work as a counselor at a drama camp run by the parks department.

  “That sounds great,” said Dad.

  “If I get it,” she said, “we’ll put on three differen
t plays during the summer.”

  “No operas?”

  “No operas.” She laughed.

  “That reminds me,” Dad said, turning to me. “Have you thought about what play you want to see for your birthday? I want to make sure we get good tickets.”

  For years we’d celebrated my birthday by going out to dinner and a Broadway show. It was great, and something I really loved. But the truth is, one of the reasons it became a tradition was because I never had enough friends to have a party. This year, though, things were different.

  “Actually,” I said, a little worried about how he might react. “I was thinking of having a party instead.”

  “I thought you loved Broadway.”

  “I do. It’s just that I’d kind of like to do something with Alex, Grayson, and Natalie.”

  Right then the opera music hit a particularly dramatic moment, and Dad pretended to be the character as he lip-synched for a few seconds. “He’s so sad because his daughters are leaving him for drama camp and parties with friends.”

  Beth and I both rolled our eyes.

  “Just kidding,” he said. “What kind of party do you want to have?”

  This is where I was stumped. I knew I wanted to have one, I just didn’t have any experience as to what one might be like.

  “I don’t know. Do you have any ideas?”

  “We can get a clown or a magician. If you want I can get you all a tour of the fire house and you can slide down the pole.”

  “Yes, Dad,” Beth said, exasperated. “She’s turning six and she’s wants a clown and a magician. Or better yet, we can get her a fairy princess.”

  “I’m sensing sarcasm,” Dad joked. “Do you have any suggestions, Beth?”

  “Yeah,” I said eagerly. “You’ve got a lot more experience with . . . you know, being with people who are having a good time.”

  Beth absently twirled a forkful of spaghetti on her plate as she thought it over. “You want something fun but easy. Good for guys and girls. With low social pressure that will provide lasting memories.”

  “Yes, yes, and yes,” I said. “I want a party that’s all those things. And I especially like the fact that there isn’t any clown or magician. Although, sliding down the pole in the fire house actually did sound kind of fun.”

  “As fun as Coney Island?”

  Coney Island is awesome. It’s a collection of amusement parks, roller coasters, and attractions all along the boardwalk in Brooklyn. It was the perfect party suggestion.

  “That’s it,” I said. “That’s exactly what I want to do.”

  “I like it too,” Dad said. “It’s been a couple years since I rode the Cyclone.”

  Beth and I both gave him a look, and he took the hint.

  “Of course, you were probably thinking of just the kids riding the rides.”

  “I’ll ride with you, Dad,” said Beth. “And after that we can listen to some of my music.”

  “Gee,” he said in his goofy dad voice, “I wonder which will make me dizzier.”

  It wasn’t until later, after we’d finished putting away the dishes, that I saw the envelope. It had arrived in the mail that day and was addressed to me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten an actual letter, so I was excited.

  I opened it in my room, but rather than a letter there was a folded piece of paper and a small article clipped from a newspaper. The article was dated a week earlier and was about our favorite evil lord of the undead, Marek Blackwell.

  It said Marek and the mayor had negotiated a deal for him to take control of some of the city’s abandoned subway stations. His plan was to turn these ghost stations into underground entertainment complexes with restaurants, shops, and even some apartments. He called it RUNY, Reinventing Underground New York.

  In the article it was hailed as a vision for the future, turning unused space into something good. But I knew something else. Underground and surrounded by Manhattan schist, these entertainment complexes would be the ultimate destination for zombies.

  In a way it was kind of genius. Marek said he was trying to build a better life for the undead. This actually did that. As I considered this, I looked at the paper and saw a single question written with blue felt tip pen in block letters. It said:

  WHERE IS HE GETTING THE MONEY TO DO THIS?

  The Equinox

  One of the great things about having a dad who’s an amazing cook is that the leftovers that make their way into your lunch tend to be much better than those of your classmates. So, unlike the other kids who’d brown-bagged it and brought PB and Js or tuna fish sandwiches, I was savoring every bite of a rosemary chicken panini. Dad even packed a sweet and spicy dipping sauce with it. It was the kind of lunch that could inspire jealousy. At least, it could have if I hadn’t been eating alone.

  You see, of the roughly five hundred students at the Metropolitan Institute of Science and Technology, I was the only one who thought it was a good day to eat outside. MIST is a science magnet school that draws kids from all over New York City. They’re really smart, certainly smart enough to know that you don’t sit outside when it’s almost freezing. And though the gothic buildings that make up the campus look like they belong in a horror movie, the view from the picnic tables is nice enough that I was willing to ignore the temperature.

  I was nibbling on my sandwich and watching a red-and-white tugboat push a barge up the East River, when I heard footsteps approach from behind. I didn’t even have to look to see who it was. Grayson’s walk is distinctive: He goes fast until he’s almost there, then nearly comes to a full stop and takes a breath before taking the final few steps at regular speed. It’s like he’s always in a hurry but never wants you to know it.

  “Hey, G,” I said as I took another bite and kept watching the tug do its job.

  “Hey, Molly,” he said warily. “How are you doing?”

  “Fantastic,” I replied, maybe a bit more enthusiastically than the situation warranted. “I’ve got a great lunch. I’ve got a great view. What more could I want?” I turned and looked right at him, trying my best to punctuate my enthusiasm with a convincing smile.

  “You do realize that it’s . . .”

  “Check the calendar,” I said, cutting him off. “Today is March twentieth, the first day of spring. Spring. As in no longer winter. As in it’s totally appropriate to eat on the patio.”

  “Yeah, but if you check a thermometer,” he replied, “it’s like . . . forty-seven degrees.”

  I’ll admit that I was being a bit irrational, but it had been more than two months since the boathouse. Sixty-four days, to be exact. And despite some occasional fun moments like family night, they had been sixty-four frustrating days.

  There hadn’t been any contact from my mother or the slightest hint that Omega might get called back into action. Even worse, there were signs that my friend group was having problems, and, as if all that wasn’t enough, it had also been the coldest and snowiest winter in more than two decades.

  There was nothing I could do about the first two, and my total lack of social skills left me clueless as to how to fix the third. So I figured the least I could do was celebrate the end of winter. Even if, meteorologically speaking, Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating.

  “I really am fine, Grayson,” I said. “I just . . . can’t spend another lunch period in that cafeteria. I guess I need fresh air more than I need heat.”

  He set his lunch on the table and sat down right next to me. “Works for me.”

  This is what makes Grayson such a great friend. He was willing to sit out in the cold not because it made sense, but because it made sense to me. And on this day that was just the kind of friend I needed most.

  I took a bite of my panini and said, “Thank you.”

  He shrugged as if to say it was no big deal.

  But it was a big deal. Everything about my friends was. I’d never had a group of friends before this school year, and part of me had always worried that I might never have one. But t
hen Omega found me, and suddenly I had three amazing people whom I could literally trust with my life.

  At first glance our foursome seemed like an unlikely grouping. There was glamorous and beautiful Natalie with her chic apartment on the Upper West Side, quiet and athletic Alex whose accent and swagger were straight out of the Bronx, Grayson the megabrain computer geek who lived with his professor parents in a Brooklyn brownstone, and good old awkward me, that weird Bigelow girl from Astoria, Queens.

  I’m sure some people wondered why we hung out together. But that’s because they couldn’t possibly know the big thing we all had in common. It was our job to police and protect the zombies of New York. We were the ones who maintained the peace between the living and the undead. Omega made all of our differences insignificant.

  And that was the problem.

  Now that Omega was on lockdown, our group had begun to drift apart. We didn’t have a case to work on or a problem to solve. We didn’t have a reason to be together. And on top of that, Natalie’s recovery was going slowly. At first she only came back to school for half days, which meant we rarely saw her. And when she finally did return full-time, she had so much make-up work to do she usually skipped lunch and went straight to the library.

  I knew these were all good reasons, but part of me felt like she was avoiding us, or more specifically, avoiding me. Since I didn’t have much experience in social situations, I tried to come up with ways to reassure myself that it was all in my imagination. My birthday party was going to be one of them.

  “Hey, my birthday’s in a couple weeks and I was thinking of having a little party out at Coney Island. Do you think you could come?”

  Grayson was midchew so he had to swallow a bite of his no doubt inferior sandwich before answering, “Sure, that’d be great.”

  I looked back toward the river and asked, “You think she’ll come?”

  He could read my uncertainty and knew exactly what I was talking about.

  “I think she’s struggling,” he said. “She’s used to being the smartest and the strongest, and this is all new to her. But I do think she’ll come. You’re her good friend, Molly.”