“Ugghh,” says Lavinia, shuddering as if it was 58-Degrees out and not 85.
She crawls out of the shallow end dramatically, dripping clear water all over our brand new pool deck from her long, volleyball limbs. “I hate it when they bump into you, you know? It’s so… creepy. Gawd, why does your Dad insist on hiring those clowns anyway, Viv? It’s so… retro.”
“Somebody has to hire them,” I point out neutrally, not sharing Lavinia’s massive distaste for the undead. “Dad likes to give back to the community, you know? Besides, it’s not like they don’t do a good job.”
“Anyone can do a good job, Viv; it’s pool cleaning, not... rocket science.”
She makes her “you’re so dull face,” which looks a lot like her “I’m trying not to pass gas in front of this cute guy in class” face.
“Besides, what’s the good of having a pool boy if you can’t ogle him while having cocktails with your BFF over spring break? I told you we should have used my pool.”
I avoid her eyes and confess, “Well, I’m waiting for Scott to call and I knew if he knew I was hanging with you, he wouldn’t.”
“Please,” she says, waving a fat-free arm dismissively, her dangling butterfly bracelet slinking up and down her bony wrist. I gave it to her for Christmas last year; I don’t think she’s taken it off since. “Get over that clown, will you already? He’s already gotten over you, trust me.”
“I want to,” I sigh, looking away. “I know I should after what he did with Sheila after the game last week, but… I can’t.”
“Please,” she reminds for about the 1,000th time this spring break. “You can’t take him back now, Viv. What kind of message would that send?”
“I’m not interested in sending a message,” I whine. “I just want him back.”
“Uggh,” she says, that patented look of distaste smeared across her otherwise flawless face. “There’s nothing worse than the tragic story of a good girl getting dumped by a bad boy. Oh, wait, here’s one: the good girl’s best friend who can’t abide the sight of a zombie cleaning her best friend’s pool. I take it back; that story IS more tragic.”
I grin just to shut her up, and try to see if my cell phone is chirping without her noticing.
Into an awkward silence she says, “Besides, you wouldn’t have to actually tell Scott you were at my casa; you could always lie, Viv, you know? Like the rest of the world?”
“Even if I did lie, Lavinia, you’re always blaring your music top-shelf and he knows I’m not into that speed metal crap, so… it was just easier to come here, no? Besides, I wanted you to see the new pool deck. Isn’t it sweet?”
She nods, admiring the cascading waterfall, the bubbling Jacuzzi, the potted palms and the brand new pavers Dad had put in the minute word came back that he’d finally gotten his new promotion.
“The deck I’m in love with,” she sighs. “The dead white guy at the bottom of the pool? Not so much.”
I put down my half-iced tea, half-lemonade and snort, “Well, why don’t you just wait until he’s through to take a dip? I’m sure he doesn’t want you rubbing up on him anymore than you want him rubbing up on you.”
“And why wouldn’t he?” preens my best friend, positively statuesque and stunning in her tiny bikini, the kind that doesn’t match with the barely there pink bottom and the almost there blue top. “Stupid zombies need to come when nobody’s using the pool anyway. I mean, it’s not like they sleep or anything, right?”
I knew it was a mistake to invite Lavinia over when the dude from Past Life Pools was scheduled for his weekly cleaning.
It had just completely skipped my mind that Thursday was pool day and, with spring break almost over, I figured Lavinia could overlook the marble heavy hunk scrubbing the bottom of our pool in order to catch some quick spring rays; guess not.
“I don’t know what your big deal is anyway,” I sigh, craning my neck to see if I can spot Zombie Pool Boy flexing his muscles by the pool drain; no luck.
I’d need to sit up a little higher to peep that and I’m too comfortable for that kind of abdominal gymnastics at the moment, thank you very much.
“You know if he was mortal you’d be all over that in a hot minute,” I tease.
She makes her frowny face and finishes drying off her hair, not just sliding down into the thick deck chair next to me but practically melting into one of the new khaki cushions Mom picked out to match the new deck.
Her limbs are honey brown from the early spring sun, her stomach empty and concave from her since-February diet.
“I dunno,” she hems, pouring a little more of the spiked lemonade from the cooler between us into her melted ice tea. “I’ve never been one for the strong, silent types, you know?”
She offers me some of the lemonade and I hold out my glass with one hand, using the other to make that pinched-off, thumb and forefinger “just a smidge” motion; she ignores me and does the whole glug-glug all over again.
I can’t yank it back because then she’ll spend the rest of the weekend telling everyone at school how I committed a “major beverage foul” so I just let her, figuring I’ll pour some in the planter when she’s not looking; which is usually.
She gets comfortable on the deck chair, all 6-feet-something of her, the late afternoon sun dappling off her still damp skin.
I sip at my spiked tea and lemonade, careful to pace myself.
It’s the first day with my parents out of town on Dad’s self-congratulatory “I finally got that damn promotion” weekend, and if I get too twisted too soon, well, there’s no telling what trouble I can get into.
Lavinia starts texting on her sleek, silver cell phone; nothing new there.
I drift in and out of wakefulness, the hot sun and cold drink lulling me the same way the sound of Lavinia’s fingers quietly clacking out some kind of romance novel next to me soothe my frazzled nerves.
“Jackpot!” she says a few minutes later, creaking up in her chair and slipping quickly into her tiny black yoga pants.
“What’s that mean?”
“That means I got Scott to agree to swing by here tonight,” she smiles, slipping into her pink baby toll t-shirt.
“What? Why? When?”
“What? Scott is coming over. Why? Because your loins are desperate and you obviously don’t care about getting his sloppy seconds. When? Tonight. I told him your folks were out of town and to bring some friends from the team, you know, liven things up around here.”
“Lavinia,” I groan, secretly happy, anxious, grateful and petrified all at once. “I thought you said it was just going to be us tonight.”
“Relax,” she says, reaching for her purse and sliding the offending cell phone deep inside. “I’ll be back before the festivities get underway.”
She leans down to air kiss my cheek, takes her drink to go and sashays sexily through the side door in the back fence, where her convertible Beamer sits double-parked at the curb.
I sigh and lean back, taking a hefty sip of my drink and wondering what I might wear when Scott…
A sudden rush of water catches my attention, derailing my train of thought.
“Oh, sheesh,” I clamor, sitting up and tossing Lavinia’s left behind towel over my teeny bikini and bare midriff. “I almost forgot you were there.”
The pool boy stands, dripping, on the second step in the shallow end.
He is of medium height, fat-free and marble pale.
His black hair is shorn close, his eyes as dark as the hair, his bathing suit snug and white with green stripes on the sides; it stretches to his knees.
“Is your girlfriend gone?” he asks, rubbing long, pale fingers across the deep black stubble on the top of his head as water cascades down his broad shoulders and slows to a trickle near his waistband.
“Oh god,” I chuckle. “Why, you heard her earlier?”
“Heard her?” he smirks, sitting down on the ledge of the pool as if he doesn’t want to track water any further onto the deck. “I almost came out of
the water and turned her.”
I chuckle lightly; it’s such an odd thing to say.
“You guys can… do… that? I mean, just turn people when you want to?”
“Not legally,” he grunts. “But I’m sure if they heard what I did from your friend there, the Council of Elders would let me off with a slap on the wrist if I did turn her into one of us.”
“I tried to stop her,” I mumble, trying to remember if this is, in fact, true.
The look on his chiseled face says he doubts it.
“I didn’t think you could hear down there,” I say as he grows restless, looking like he wants to get back to work.
Or sit next to me; or eat my brain – you just never know with the living dead!
“Yeah, well…” he smirks. “Now you know!”
I sit up a little straighter, straining for conversation.
Dad’s been hiring guys from the Past Life Pool Service for years now, ever since they passed the Living With the Living Dead Laws and made it acceptable for zombies to earn minimum wage.
Usually the guys they send are okay, but pretty… creepy.
When the new guy showed up just after lunch and announced he was here to clean the pool, I almost dropped the last of my organic brine pickle!
“Well,” he starts to say, not quite sliding back into the pool.
“Wait, uh… can I get you something to… drink?”
He eyes the cooler at my feet and says, “Is there anything with sugar in there?”
I smirk; zombies are legendary sugar suckers!
Luckily, I’ve come prepared.
I reach down into the cooler, bypass the spiked lemonade and grab a Sunshine Soda, known the world over as every zombie’s favorite.
It’s ice cold from resting in the bottom of the cooler for so long, and feels strange in my warm hand.
I step from the chair, aware his eyes are on my legs as I let the towel drop and do my best saunter over.
I’m nowhere near as good as Lavinia, but it’s not my first time at the rodeo and I’m not sure if zombies can blink or anything, but he doesn’t so I’m hoping that’s a good sign.
“Thanks,” he says, standing up to accept the drink.
He didn’t look so tall before but now I see I have to look up a smidge to gaze into his soft, black eyes.
“I wasn’t sure what… you guys… drank,” I stammer, sounding stupid.
“Not much,” he confesses, and I realize I’m still holding the can and his fingers are on mine; I can’t tell where they end and the can begins. “But this is perfect.”
I let it go and step back, finding myself at the edge of the pool.
I know he’ll go back to working if I don’t drag this out a little longer, so I sit down and slide my legs in.
The water is cool against my shins and laps, gently, clinging to my warm, brown skin.
He takes it as it’s intended; an invitation to join me, sitting back down on the ledge and putting his feet on the second step.
He opens the can and drinks slowly.
His Adam’s apple is hard and pronounced as it works, up and down, like everything else about him.
“Have you been doing this long?” I ask, slowly swishing my legs back and forth through the water.
“A year or so,” he answers, careful to avoid staring.
If I’d known he was coming, I wouldn’t have worn my skimpiest layout bikini.
“Do you like it?”
“What? Your bathing suit?”
I snort, not expecting a zombie to be so… quick.
Or funny or pervy or… interested.
I slap him on the cold, hard shoulder and say, “No, silly; your job.”
“Not as much as your bathing suit,” he sighs, finishing his soda and setting the empty can down on the deck. “But, sure, some jobs are better than others.”
“What’d you do before this?” I ask.
“This and that,” he sighs, leaning back on his open palms the way guys do; I try to avoid the way it stretches his body out, long and lean, like cold vanilla taffy. “Things got a lot better when they passed the Living with the Living Dead laws.”
“Yeah, how long have you been, I mean… are you… oh gheez…”
“It’s okay,” he says, looking over at me from the semi-reclining position. “I’m 19, but… I have been for a few years. Not too many, though, so don’t think I’m some 98 year old creep who’s ogling you by the…”
I snicker, but quickly fall into his trap when I say, “Now who’s ogling who?”
By the time we’ve blushed our way through an awkward silence – well, that is to say, I’ve blushed enough for both of us – I ask, “How did it happen, I mean?”
“Do you always interrogate your pool boys, because… your Dad wasn’t this thorough when I came for my interview last week!”
“Let’s just say my Dad’s had more experience with the living dead than I have.”
“I see that. It’s okay, I’m just kidding, you know. I don’t mind talking about it; not really. Not when someone actually seems to care about the answer, that is. Anyway, I was a freshman at college, pledging this stupid fraternity. Some of the guys had this bright idea to chain us to a cemetery gate during a lightning storm. You know, as a kind of initiation…”
He looks down at his knees, as if suddenly remembering all over again.
I feel bad now, because I don’t want him to have to relive something so unpleasant but, with that setup, I don’t want him to quit telling the story, either!
“Didn’t they know lightning is, like, the leading cause of reanimation?”
Zombies Don’t Read: 25 YA Short Stories Page 6
