“It’s great,” Kate says. “Though being ambushed by Mo while getting it home wasn’t. Apparently, he knew the trucks were yours, but he didn’t know you weren’t in them.”
Teddy’s shoulders harden. “You spoke with him?”
“No, he left us a note when he returned the trucks. No one was hurt, but thanks for asking.”
Teddy snaps his fingers in the air. “Carmen!”
The two men and two women at the truck have listened to but not participated in the conversation, and now a powerfully built woman with a low black ponytail comes forward. She totes her rifle like it weighs two ounces and regards Teddy’s fingers as though deliberating biting them off. Her belligerent stare isn’t friendly, but I like her anyway.
“Mm-hmm?” she asks, one eyebrow lifted.
His hand lowers to his side. “This is a surprise. I thought Mo was taken care of.”
“Did I say that?” she asks. “I said he was gone. Obviously, he found somewhere new to go.”
“Well, find out where he is!”
Carmen blinks, expressionless. “You want me to do that now? Or can it wait until tomorrow?”
Teddy laughs, though it’s for appearances—his hands are knotted at his thighs, the knuckles white. “Tomorrow, once our guests are gone.” He directs his next words our way. “Mo was here when this began, but he became unruly and was asked to leave. Since then, he’s made our lives harder.”
“Unruly how?” Louis asks.
“He wanted to call the shots. And he got violent when he didn’t get his way. Not only did he try to strangle me, but he also caused an explosion that killed ten people when a gate went down. Shall I go on?”
Kate opens her mouth. Louis cuts her a look and says, “I think that’s enough. Is that who took your plants in the spring?”
“We think so.”
“Why not tell us?”
“Because you didn’t need to know.”
“It would have been helpful to know when we were attacked by zombies,” Louis says lightly, though his eyes are ebony with irritation.
Teddy seems to realize what a dick move that was and gives an appropriately remorseful nod. “I’m sorry. We did think we had it under wraps. So, forgive me, and take advantage of all we have to offer tonight as an apology. Lexers gave us some trouble with the gates to the FDR, but we’re fixing them as we speak. If not by tomorrow, then the next day.”
“Thank you,” Louis says. “We appreciate it.”
“Move the truck and put them in the clubhouse tonight,” Teddy orders his people. “They might want to watch movies.”
“Um, yes,” Chris says. “We most definitely do.”
“Maybe we could partner,” Teddy says to Kate. “We might need your help with this Mo situation.”
“If he’s a threat, we’ll help,” Kate says.
Off to the side, Carmen frowns enough for me to know she’s not on board with that idea. She sees me watching and about-faces for the truck.
“Excellent,” Teddy says.
I can’t get over this place. The space, the fields of crops, the freaking cows. The groupings of cabins and brightly painted shipping-containers-turned-living spaces. The expansive feeling is similar to Prospect Park on my birthday, though it’s warm instead of freezing and people live here.
They don’t get it. They walk around as if it’s normal. It is for them, but everything in my head is italics at the sight of the trees and grass and food growing around me in vegetable and animal form. They’re playing frisbee, for God’s sake, without anyone yelling at them for ruining a tomato plant or accidentally lobbing someone in the head.
“They have a pond,” I say. “A pond.”
Eric and I stand on a shaded wooden platform at the end of Turtle Pond. They ate some last year, but enough survived to make more, and numerous turtles of every size wave their little flippers in the water beneath us. Rocks rise from the pond to the castle, from whose terrace I got to see this Safe Zone spread out before me. I avoided Teddy’s hand on my waist, though I did get the Gentle Guiding Hand on the small of my back up the stairs.
“We’ve been here for hours and you’re still going,” Eric says. “You like it more than I do.”
I watch a turtle dive beneath the surface. “Maybe I’m not a city girl anymore.”
“Does that mean you want to sleep in a tent tonight?”
“No, freak. We’re sleeping in the clubhouse. It has a television. We’re going to watch TV all night long.”
Eric leans against the wooden railing. “Murder, She Wrote sound good?”
“We can watch static, I don’t care.” I take a deep breath. Even the air here is better. “How’s Paul?”
“Paul may decide never to leave Leo again. Every time he does, we get stuck out here.”
Paul came so he could collect his ten percent, and he’s not happy about this development. I wasn’t either, until we came up on the Great Lawn and I lost my shit. May will do her best to keep Leo distracted with Emily and Chen, and I hope he doesn’t worry too much.
Eric checks his watch. “Dinner. They eat in the theater on nice days. I told Paul and Casper we’d meet them there.”
The hum of talking comes from the circular wooden building behind us, and, though I love Central Park Safe Zone, I don’t actually want to meet any of the people who live here. “Can’t you bring me food? We’ll have a picnic, just us and the turtles.”
“Nice try, Nature Girl, but we have to show our faces.”
He takes my arm in his, and I take solace in the fact I don’t have to walk in there alone. “I suppose I should know where things are for when I take over.”
“You wouldn’t know the first thing to do with it. You still don’t know bush beans from pole beans.”
“That’s why I have you,” I say. “And I can always get a book: How to Run your Stolen Safe Zone. Teddy doesn’t deserve this.”
“You and Kate are two peas in a pod. You should spend time with her.”
I don’t want a new mother figure; I want Maria. I would say that, but tears already push at the backs of my eyes. Thoughts of Maria turn to thoughts of Grace, and I don’t want to consider where she is.
We stop at the service window of the theater café, where we both receive a full plate. There are no punch cards when you have plenty of food. I inspect my dish of pasta, fresh peas, and carrots in a creamy sauce that’s likely cream-of-something soup. I’m so sick of cream-of-something soup I could scream, but I’m hungry enough to take a quick bite. I stop in my tracks. The metallic-tangy taste of condensed soup is absent, replaced by the rich flavor of real cream and cheese. Except for a few sips of goat’s milk, I haven’t had non-reconstituted or un-canned dairy in over a year. It tastes like angels singing alleluia.
“Holy crap, this is cheese. Cheese.”
Eric takes my arm. “You’re holding up the line.”
I glance behind, where people wait patiently, and walk through the theater doors after an apologetic wave. The semicircular seating area rises row after row, and people sit in small groups throughout. Some sit on the stage, at tables put out for that purpose, along with a long table of beverages.
“Drink?” Eric asks.
I shake my head. That would require I walk the stage in front of everyone. We reach where the rest of our group sits clumped in the first three rows at the end of the semicircle. Eric hands his plate to Paul and disappears in the direction of the drink table.
Indy pats the empty seat beside her. “Can you believe this place? Cheese.”
I sit and fork in more food. “I know. It’s insane.”
“Yes, it is good to be back in my old stomping grounds,” Landon announces. Paul coughs from the row behind, and I’m fairly certain I hear dipshit.
“I meant the food and the farm,” Indy says with a hint of annoyance.
Eric reappears and hands me a glass of iced tea, then winks when I thank him. Powdered or not, it’s sweet and delicious. “Did you get a drink?�
� I ask Indy.
“I’ll get one in a minute.”
Like the supportive friend I’ve promised to be, I don’t look pointedly at Landon’s glass by his feet. Jerk.
“I’m going anyway,” Paul says. “What do you want?”
“Anything with flavor,” Indy says. “Thank you.”
Paul’s big body bumps the back of our seats on his way out. I watch him climb to the stage, as do two girls at a table. Paul steps aside to let a woman go first, and then fills two glasses. He notices a little boy standing beside him, hands him one of the glasses, and then fills another before he returns.
The two girls observe the entire process, whispering and giggling, and I realize that I rarely ever see Paul the way he must appear to others. He’s handsome in a brawny way, and he has Leo’s eyes, which are lovely when he’s not narrowing them like he did for the first portion of our acquaintance. I smile as the girls track him down the stairs.
“What’s your problem?” Paul asks.
“Can’t I smile at you?”
“No.” He hands Indy her glass, nods at her thanks, and sits in his row. “Still no Roger?”
Julie sets down her empty plate. “He probably turned west. He’s never lost for long. He’ll either be here soon, or he went back to StuyTown.”
“I almost miss him asking if I’m having thirds when I haven’t even had seconds,” Casper says, and blushes when he gets a laugh.
I feel sorry for Roger, stuck out there alone. Then again, he wouldn’t be alone if he hadn’t kicked Casper out of his truck, but I do hope he’s safe. I scrape the last of the sauce off my plate and lick my fork. “I wish I could have seconds and thirds.”
Once everyone has finished, we bring our plates to the rubber bins set out for that purpose. Paul surreptitiously dumps what was left of one glass of iced tea into the one he holds, then downs it all. He wasn’t going for a drink. He went for Indy, which is precisely the type of thing Landon doesn’t do.
I bump Paul with my shoulder as we reach the path that circles around the Great Lawn. “You’re a good guy, even if you are a jerk.”
Paul gives me a blank look. I motion to Indy and mime drinking from a glass, to which he shrugs and scratches at his cheek. Brother David appears, walking toward dinner.
“Where were you?” I ask.
“I was being measured by a nice elderly lady, who has insisted on sewing me a new habit.” He leans in. “She was scandalized I’m out and about in this outfit. It turns out she was a seamstress long ago, and she sews whatever they need sewn.”
“Hipster priest is leaving us?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I like the robe better. It lends you a dashing air.”
Brother David chuckles. “I’ll get some supper and meet you all at the…” He cocks his head. “What do you call a shipping container house?”
“A couse?” Chris says.
“Very well. I’ll see you at the couse.”
He wanders off, and Chris says, “I like that dude. How’d he get to you guys?”
I tell them the story of Grace’s and my trip to Brooklyn Heights while we pass row after row of plants that stretch into the distance. I know more of them now, though Eric’s right—managing this place is beyond my capabilities. I finish the tale of how we found the church starving, and we reach our home for the night: two attached shipping containers with big windows and a deck out front.
Inside, the floor is wood, the smooth walls are painted cream, and the four couches, assorted easy chairs, and coffee tables look new. A pool table takes up one corner and stacks of board games sit neatly on shelving.
“This is their rec room,” Julie says. “The bigger one is for meals and meetings when it’s cold.”
“How’d they get them here?” Paul asks.
“There was some art installation where, like, forty of them hung by pulleys, and they lowered what they needed onto trucks.”
We make ourselves at home. There are no flush toilets except by the theater, but they have fancy composting toilets found at a boat shop, as well as a humanure setup, about which Eric grilled them today while I did my best to remember details. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard two grown men discuss poop for an hour.
“I might be willing to give up flush toilets to live here,” I announce.
“And showers?” Indy asks.
“They have showers. And they’re probably hotter than our lukewarm water.”
“Our water’s hot in the winter,” Chris says. “But it sucks right now.”
“Knock, knock,” a woman’s voice comes through the open door. She steps in, her tight face stretched into a smile. “I’m Lauren, Teddy’s wife. I brought you some treats.”
She sets a plate of cookies on a table and comes forward. We introduce ourselves and rise from the couches to take her proffered hand. Hers is workworn, like ours and unlike Teddy’s. Maybe she isn’t as vain as her face-lift suggests.
“I heard about Mo,” she says. “I’m sorry that happened.”
Eric smiles, lifting his shoulders. “All’s well that ends well.”
“That’s kind of you to say. I won’t stay, but please make yourselves at home.” Lauren nods at the room and takes her leave.
“You heard the woman.” Chris grabs a cookie and lies on a couch. “Someone get me the remote.”
29
We stayed up too late watching movies and eating snacks from our found stash once the cookies were gone. It was the best night I’ve had in a while, even with Landon’s critique of the various movies that I suspect irked Indy as much as the rest of us. Now, after breakfast, we’ve been told that it’ll be hours before the gates are fixed.
“I’m going back to sleep,” Julie says. She leaves the deck for inside. Chris and Landon follow.
“Want to go to sleep or go on an adventure?” Eric asks me.
I yawn. “Sleep.”
“Wrong answer.”
“Fine. Adventure to where?”
“You’ll see. I cleared it with Teddy this morning.” He waves at Indy, Paul, Casper, Brother David, and Jorge. “You guys coming?”
Although no one is quite as chipper as Eric, they agree, and we set out around the Great Lawn to the wall on the east side. Carmen and a long-haired guy named Kieran stand on a platform above a door in the metal. “It’s clear and should stay that way,” she says, “but keep a look out.”
“Thanks,” Eric calls.
She nods. We step onto the empty East Drive, which is gated, but, as we all know, things happen. The back of the Metropolitan Museum of Art sits in front of us, and Eric heads straight for the glass at ground level.
Excitement flutters in my chest. “It’s zombie-free?”
“It is,” Eric says. “And you can fondle art to your heart’s content.”
“What?” Indy squeaks happily. “Now this is a cool adventure.”
We enter what was once the museum café. The food is long gone, as are the tables and chairs—likely liberated by Central Park for their own cafeteria. In the glassed-in courtyard beyond, the sculptures are flooded with light, and the golden statue of Diana, goddess of the hunt, gleams. I touch the cool stone foot of one, the slightly pitted knee of another, half expecting a guard to yell or an alarm to buzz at any moment.
We walk up steps and enter the front door of an old building’s stone facade that sits on one wall. The inside is laid out as rooms of a house, with ornate moldings, window seats, and loads of antique furniture. Indy oohs and ahs before she delicately lowers herself into a wooden chair with a velvet seat, though I still hear a thunk when her butt settles. “This is so uncomfortable. Give me an easy chair any day.”
“That’s why they never smile in those old paintings,” Paul says. Indy makes a stern face, hands clasped primly in her lap as for a portrait, and Paul chuckles.
Light from the atrium enters these rooms, but the ones beyond are dark. I pull my flashlight from my messenger bag. Eric, always prepared, hands out othe
rs he’s brought. We test out the four-poster bed, the settee, and the vanity table in one room. In a parlor with muraled walls, Eric and Brother David recline on a blue silk couch while Indy and I drink make-believe tea at a table.
“I do say,” Indy says, her accent upper-class and her pinky sticking out from her cup. “These cups must have cost dear.”
“Aye, Guv’nor,” I say.
“You two are weird,” Paul mutters on his way out the door. He yells from the hallway, “I found my bed.”
We find him on a sleigh bed topped with yards of velvet curtains. He lies back on the pillows, feet propped on the curled end. Indy drops down beside him with a thump. “Ow,” she says. “It’s not comfortable at all.”
“It’s a museum, not a mattress store.”
Indy jabs Paul with a finger. I don’t care if they never get together as long as they return to their old bickering ways. With Landon gone, Indy is herself, and I’ve missed her. After a minute of contemplating the ceiling, Indy says, “Leo would love this. Maybe we can bring him sometime.”
I’ve been thinking the same thing, especially since it was a dream of my own when young. As an adult, this is amazing. As a kid, it would be magical.
“That’d be cool.” Paul’s gaze shifts to Indy and away before she sees. He notices me watching, swallows, and rolls off the bed. “Let’s see what else there is.”
We wander the halls, lingering in the rooms with natural light, where evidence of people who took refuge litters the floors. It’s possible they’re at Central Park now, or they cast their lot with the zombies outside and likely joined them. The medieval art room is high-ceilinged and cool, with stone floors and statues of godly people whose expressions appear remarkably pissed off.
Brother David sweeps through in his new habit, soaking in the triptychs. That seamstress found a nubby brown fabric similar to the fabric of old and sewed lovely straight seams. I join him in front of a particularly disapproving statue dressed in a similar fashion. “You belong in this room with your new duds.”
The City Series (Book 3): Instauration Page 20
