Kiss of Life (26 page)

256

Griffin shakes head.

"I don't know. You made a choice on the night you died, no? A choice for her. You cannot let the results of that one choice absolve you from choosing for the rest of your life."

Smile.

Griffin returns smile. "Sorry. Existence, whatever we term it. I am glad you are listening!" "She ...needs ...to ...live."

Griffin sits, patient and frowning, waiting for me to finish. "She ...needs ...to ...forget ...me." Griffin inhales. "Is that what she wants, Adam? More importantly, is that what you want?" Don't answer. Can't

Griffin, serious. "You have a choice to make. Your heart, beating or not, will tell you what to decide. Keep listening."

"How was karate?" Joe asks, driving home. "Good."

Choices. Pushed Phoebe away. Hurt her.
Chose
to hurt her. Chose to die for her. She chose ...what? Chose to waste time on FrankenAdam.

"Phoebe hasn't been around a while." Just drive, Joe.

She chose, why? I thought guilt. Think guilt. Who am I?
What
am I?

"Kind of strange, when she was over every day." Won't quit.

"Hurt...her ...feelings." "You hurt her feelings?"

257

Nod. Manage smooth nod. "Well, you better apologize, and quick." Joe's right, Master Griffin's right. FrankenAdam's wrong. Choice would be Phoebe. Choice always was Phoebe. "You listening to me? You need to apologize to her right away."

"Miss ...her ...cooking?"

"Do I
what?
Do I miss her
cooking?"

Joe hits, actually hits, with knuckles on my arm. Don't feel it. Funny.

"You love her, you big idiot!" Ramped up, now. "And she loves you! You're smarter than that." Real smart. "Was ...joke."

"Real funny. You better apologize to her." Apologize. Choice always was Phoebe. "I...will." "You better." "I...will."

Phoebe was surprised to see Adam at the door. He hadn't crossed the thin patch of grass that separated their yards since falling on Mischief Night. "Hey ...kid," he said, "can ...I ...come ...in?"

"You never had to ask before," she said, holding the screen open for him.

"We need ...to be ...invited," he said, his hand slapping at the screen and stepping inside.

258

Phoebe turned so that he couldn't see her smile.

"So," he said, "what are you ... up to?"

"Just getting ready for school, same ol' same ol'."

"Doing anything ...after ...school?" he said.

"I'm supposed to have a driver's lesson," she said. "But I'll be home around five. Why?"

"Funny," he said, "I always thought ... I'd be the one ...teaching you ...how to drive."

"Me too," she said, sitting down at the kitchen table and taking her bowl-size mug in both her hands. "The gearhead next door."

"Me," he said, pointing at himself, his thumb about even with the bullet hole over his heart. "Want to ...toss ...the disk around ...sometime?"

He stopped his shuffling to look at her.

"I'd love to," she said. "Getting a little cold, though."

"Good," he said, "that's really ...good. Frisbee ... I mean ...not ...the cold."

She sipped her coffee. "Taking the bus today?"

"Yep."

"Can I sit with you?"

"Well," he said. "I ...guess ...so."

"It doesn't have to be in the same seat. If you're afraid of your dead friends seeing you."

"You know ...how they can get," he said, smiling at her. She thought that even his smile looked more like it had in his pre-death days, much less a rictus. "All bent ...out of ...shape."

259

"Okay," she said, "I'll try to be discreet."

There was a lot they could say there, she thought, in the quiet kitchen, a lot that had gone unsaid and a lot about what had been said, but for the first time she felt that nothing needed saying. The link, the bond--call it friendship, call it telepathetic--that had been broken was there again, radiating in the air between them as palpably as the aromatic steam rising from her cup.

"It is ...almost...time," Adam said. "Can ... I take ...your ...bag for you?"

Her negative reply was reflexive, but the bond enabled her to catch it before it was out of her mouth. Adam, who in a hundred small ways, through opening doors and driving her to work and carrying bags and holding coats and letting her pick songs on the stereo, had not been able to do a single thing for her in the past two months.

"That would be great," she said, nudging her heavy bag from its place beside her chair with the toe of her boot, "because it is pretty heavy."

"Good ...thing," he said, "that I am ...pretty ...damn ...powerful."

"Good thing," she said, and excused herself to get her coat, hat, and gloves.

"Phoebe." He touched her arm.

She turned, and when she did, he leaned forward and he kissed her.

Kissed Phoebe gently gently didn't want to hurt her. Can't hurt

260

her hurt her enough already. Kissed her. Long but not too long. Steps back is she angry is she horrified is she happy? She's shocked.

"Adam," she says, and she's sad. Made her sad crying tears and then "Adam" again and she hugs, her arms are tight around and she's holding like she doesn't want to let go. Like she never wants to let go.

Hug her back. Gently.

She looks up. Kiss.

No magic. No instant resurrection, no return from the dead. No bolt of lightning that starts the heart and pumps the blood. Can't move faster, can't speak more clearly.

But

Oh the kiss.

261

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

HE KISSED ME
Phoebe thought, as they walked to her locker. It's

all she could think about.

Adam had to duck beneath some poorly hung strands of garland as they walked. Phoebe again fought the urge to mother, to take the bag from him at the door so he would have time to shuffle (walk, she reminded herself,
walk)
down to his own locker and have a chance at getting to class on time. But she didn't. Adam was a big boy and being dead made him slow physically but not mentally. He wanted to do this for her and she needed to let him.

"Company," he said. She looked through the puffy-coated crowds milling through the hall and saw Margi waiting for her at her locker. She waved and Margi blew them both kisses.

"Thanks, Adam," she said, accepting the heavy bag back. He nodded and blew a kiss back to Margi, managing a fair approximation of a sneer as he did it.

262

They watched him walk back down the hallway, where he was joined by Thorny, whose red-and-green elf hat looked oddly appropriate on his curly head.

"Hey, Pheebes,"

"Hey, Gee."

"Good to see you and the Lame Man all chummy again."

"Yep. We're chummy."

"Did he ask you to the Winter Jubilee yet?"

"No," Phoebe said, a quip about Adam probably having a healthy aversion to school dances dying on her lips. "Where's Colette?"

Margi sighed. "She didn't finish her algebra assignment last night, so she got to class early to work on it."

"She doesn't have to sleep, but she still didn't finish her homework?"

"I know, kind of crazy. If you didn't have to sleep you'd probably have a sequel to
War and Peace
written by Thursday," Margi said. "But we got to talking last night, and you know how that goes."

Phoebe paused in the careful stacking of her textbooks to look at Margi and saw that the darkness around her eyes wasn't all eyeliner.

"Uh-oh," she said.

"Nah, it was good," Margi said. "Deep but
sans
drama. We've all had enough of that lately."

"Mmm. So what did you spend all night gabbing about then, if I may ask?"

263

"Well, we started off by talking about you and Adam, if you really want to know." "Margi," Phoebe said.

"No, hold up, it wasn't like that either," Margi said, leaning into her and giving her a nudge. "It was all hugs, smiles, kittens, lacy underwear."

Phoebe slammed her locker and waited for her to finish.

"And then Colette said, 'You know, Gee, you haven't spent any time with Phoebe lately. Just the two of you. We've gotten together, the three of us, and that's been a hoot, and we've gotten together with the Dairy Queen--"

"The Dairy Queen?" Phoebe said.

Margi bit her lower lip. "That's what we call Karen."

"The Dairy Queen? Margi, that's terrible!" Phoebe said, but she was laughing. "I know. I know, I know. It's wrong. We don't mean anything by it, other than she's well, a little frosty. And very, very, white."

"Terrible."

"I know. We're just evil. Well, C.B. is more evil than I am ' 'cause she thought it up. Anyhow, she was saying how we all get together, but you and I never get together anymore, just the two of us. And how, before she, like, died, and Adam died, you and me used to hang out all the time."

"Colette is a good friend," Phoebe said.

"She really is, Pheebes," she said. "And she's sharp. She said that you and I ought to go out and do something together, you know, and not bring her along."

264

"That would be great," Phoebe said. "I mean, it's great when she's along, too, but it would be fun to be just me and you."

"Yeah," Margi said, taking her arm, a bauble from one of her bracelets snagging on the frilled cuff of Phoebe's blouse. "Us beating hearts need to stick together."

Phoebe tried to detach the charm, a gloomy-looking pewter teddy bear. "Not tonight, though. Adam and I are going to play some Frisbee."

"Holy crow," Margi said, "you guys are really back on track, then?"

"We're back on something," she answered, smiling. "That's great!" "Yeah, it really is."

She could feel the weight of Margi's stare upon her. "What?"

"You tell me what. You've got this goofy, faraway look on your face. You look like you just landed on the moon." "Oh."

Margi stamped her foot. "Come on, Phoebe! Give!" Phoebe lowered her voice. "He kissed me, Margi. Adam kissed me."

Margi shrieked and clutched her arm. "Adam
kissed
you?" "Shhhhh!"

"What was it like?" A little thrilled, a little scandalized, a lot curious. "Come on, Phoebe, tell me!"

There was so much that Phoebe thought she could tell her. How different it was when Adam kissed her than when she had tried to kiss him.

265

Phoebe was going to tell her, but then the bell rang, and the girls ran down the hall to their class.

There was little of the sense of moral outrage that had followed the news of Tommy and Phoebe's relationship once word about her and Adam got out, at least at school. Phoebe thought there were a few reasons for this, the first being that she and Adam were friends, and people were used to seeing them together.

Unlike Tommy, who was an outsider, an alien, Adam had been a favorite son of the community prior to his death, and as such, was exempted from the hatred that many people reserved for the undead. He was also exempted from blame, as it was common practice for bioists to blame zombies for the "crime" of being undead, as though they'd chosen such a fate. They knew Adam had been killed, and many people, while not knowing who specifically he was trying to protect, knew that he died trying to save someone.

Even when Phoebe and Adam chanced a trip to Winford to see a movie, people mostly ignored them, which was about the best reaction that a mixed living/dead couple could hope for.

"I'm amazed no one is saying anything," Phoebe said. "The popcorn guy didn't even blink when you handed him the money."

Adam was having a difficult time folding himself into the narrow theater seat, and Phoebe was glad the movie they'd chosen was sparsely attended.

"Played ...football ...against ...him."

"Really? Maybe that's why."

266

"Maybe ...people ...are getting ...used ...to ...us."

She wasn't sure if the "us" meant "zombie" or "Adam and Phoebe." They stopped by the food court after the movie to check in with Mr. Kendall, who was sipping a soda and reading a paperback, ready to spring into action if any of the traditionally biotic denizens of the mall chose to make trouble for his daughter and her date. Phoebe tried to talk him out of staying, feeling both foolish and guilty that her father should feel he had to chaperone them in such a manner. Not so foolish and guilty that she didn't ask for more time.

"Hi, Dad. Can I bring Adam over to Wild Thingz! before we go?"

"Did you have any trouble?" he asked. "No ...trouble."

"We'll only be a few minutes, Dad. We'll be done by the time you get the car."

Her father bent the corner of his paperback down, a practice Phoebe hated. "Okay. Ten minutes, okay?"

"Thanks, Dad."

The main reason that she wanted to bring Adam to Wild Thingz! was so he could see the line of Slydellco zombie hygiene products. Body spray, lip gloss, hair gel--she always got a kick out of the display, even though Tommy was the only zombie she'd known who actually used any of the products, most of which probably went home with trad kids trying to be edgy. She herself had a tube of Kiss of Life, a dark crimson lipstick "especially formulated for the differently biotic."

She had just begun showing him the rack when she noticed