Lipstick & Zombies (Deadly Divas Book 1) (11 page)

Jo still said nothing, but Dee went behind the sofa and ran her fingers through Jo's hair. She dumped her purse on the ground next to her, and came back up with a brush in hand.

"Um, everyone?" Sadie asked. "Not to overthrow the conversation at hand, as thrilled as Jo is to be talking about her love life, but has anyone else checked out these updates on our phones about the new single?"

Alarmed, Carrie grabbed for her phone. "I assumed Willa was just talking to the trainers."

"Nope, us too, and there's a track in here," Sadie said. "I'm too scared to play it."

"Well, I'm not," Gerri said, and hit play. She smiled. "Percussion."

The song started out with a band of drums, rattling, booming—Carrie was surprised that she actually kind of liked it. A guitar revved up to a woman asking, "Are we more than this?" And a clap of sound beat into a group of women singing ooooooh bops and nanananas that gave Carrie a bad case of the cringes.

"It's called
Warriors
," Sadie said.

The lyrics were about fighting and proving yourself, about being the champion in the end. It all supported the short and simple chorus, "We are warriors, more than survivors."

"It could be worse," Carrie said. She was bargaining with herself. She'd been doing a lot of that since reading the ad for the band. Her bargaining back then had been that she was sure they'd look at her songs and agree to use her lyrics. Her thinking had already changed a lot. The truth was, there wasn't anything she wasn't willing to compromise on if it meant she could sing.

"Wow," Jo said.

It was the first time Jo had voluntarily spoken since she'd all but growled at Noah, and Gerri sat up, expectant. She wasn't going to give up on this boy business. To tell the truth, Carrie was pretty desperate to know what was going on with Jo and Noah herself, but it was tacky to be so pushy on that kind of thing.

"They're really slapping the survivalists in the face with this," Jo said.

"What do you mean?" Gerri asked.

JO

"The lyrics. 'More than survivors'? The survivalists are proud of surviving, it means something. The world ended, and we're still here." Jo could hardly believe she had to explain, she was used to everyone knowing, like they knew how to breathe. "The planet was covered in people, who died, and here
we
are, the survivors. We are the toughest, the smartest, the best. We endure, we survive. There is nothing more than that."

"That's... depressing." Gerri said.

Jo shrugged her right shoulder. She'd always thought of it with pride.

"Just tell me this," Gerri said, and took Jo's hand. Jo snatched it back without thinking about how it would hurt Gerri's feelings, but Gerri didn't appear to be bothered. "Are you okay?"

She didn't even give herself time to consider what Gerri meant by that question, that she was asking about Noah. It didn't matter. Whatever the implications, there was only one answer. "No." She felt naked.

Gerri curled up on the sofa next to Jo, not touching her again, and said, "Okay. We're here." Sadie and Dee nodded.

It didn't matter that they didn't understand. It was enough.

DEADLY DIVAS SITE

THE FIRST DEADLY DIVAS SINGLE, COMING SOON!

Tell us what you hope to see!

{comment removed by moderator}

Something awesome!

Them all dead. This is an abomination... {read more}

Hawt girls.

I hope they die.

{comment removed by moderator}

Clothes, shoes, hair!

Dead zombies. Do you really think they can kill stuff? They seem a little... you know...

Chapter Ten

SADIE

They were learning the choreography for their first music video, at the same time they were learning the choreography for their first concert, at the same time they were learning to sing the songs for their album, at the same time they were doing everything else Meghan managed to fit into their schedules. They were overworked, overloaded, and too tired to even complain about it properly. Dee gave it a good try, though—especially when they were at voice training, with Sir Grumps-A-Lot, as Gerri had taken to calling him. It had really caught on, since the trainer had never told them his actual name. He never reacted to the nickname. He probably thought Gerri would stop if he ignored her, but Sadie didn't think that worked with Gerri. Or Dee. Or any of them. None of them were exactly lacking in the stubborn gene.

Voice training had advanced to tweaking their parts in
Warriors
to make it the best it could be, and learning what felt like a new song each day. None of them were anything Sadie would have picked out herself, but they didn't have much say in that, or anything else for that matter. It was one thing to suspect that popstars didn't have much say in their own careers; it was another to experience it. Still. This was what she'd wanted, and once she'd proven herself as invaluable to the team, she was confident she could leverage herself into a better position. At the very least, she'd have enough power to excuse her brother from the draft. At the best, she'd launch her own solo career, singing the songs she liked and spreading the messages that mattered to her. But she had to pay her dues first, and she was going to do it with a smile, or, well, not a lot of griping, anyway.

"Are they ready?" Willa had come in. Sadie had already grown accustomed to the way she never looked anyone in the face.

Sir Grumps-A-Lot threw his arms in the air. "As they ever will be."

"That's the spirit," Willa said. "As I've said, I appreciate all you're doing. I have them scheduled for the studio this afternoon." She waved a hand at Meghan from across the room, who nodded, as if Willa could see her.

Meghan clapped. "Today's the day!"

"For clothes?" Dee asked.

"No," Meghan said.

"Shoes? Hair?"

"Dee, please."

"'Dee, please' what? Please go shopping? Because Meghan, I gotta say, I was starting to think you'd never ask! Absolutely. While we're out, let's get you some stuff too. I think you'll enjoy it if you can just open up to the experience. I saw this video and it said that people can be really scared of new experiences, and I think you're like that with your clothes, and I think that if—"

Meghan clapped again. "Lunch, and then we are recording
Warriors
in the studio today!"

"Already?" Carrie asked. Of course. She didn't think they were ready. Maybe she thought she was being subtle, but it was obvious she thought she was the best singer in the group. She was delusional. The whole group could sing, and even if Jo didn't always recognize cues or know the proper names for things, if she heard something, she picked it up eventually. They were ready.

"Finally," Gerri said, and Sadie nodded wholeheartedly.

"Yes," Meghan said, already at the door. She led them into a room two doors down, where someone had set up a table covered with food. She'd sent them menu choices the night before, as she always did. If they replied they got a say in what they ate the next day, if not, she chose for them. Meghan thought this was some kind of punishment, but Sadie never filled hers out. She liked seeing what Meghan assigned her. It was a fun surprise, and often deviated from the menus she sent out. Today was pizza, with all sorts of vegetables she'd never seen, mixed in with some of her favorites. Back home, she usually ate beans, squash, tomatoes, eggplant, or corn when they were in season, like everyone else she knew. The pizza in front of her was out of this world. They all dug in without talking, a few precious minutes of silence as the food comforted their bellies.

"Why do you always eat rabbit?" Dee asked Gerri.

"I don't
always
," Gerri said.

"You pick it every time it's a choice," Dee said. "I like it as much as anybody, but we're rich now. Don't you want to try something new?"

Sadie'd only had rabbit a couple of times growing up. The novelty of fresh meat, of any kind, still hadn't worn off for her—but she saw Dee's point. Why not try some of the new things? There were little yellow squares of something juicy and sweet on Sadie's pizza. She wouldn't have thought to put something sweet on a pizza, but mixed with salty things it was absolutely perfect. Lunch was her new favorite adventure.

"I like it," Gerri said. "It's familiar. We raise rabbits back at home, and we never really got to eat it. So this is like my,
I'm rich now
, thing."

"You raised rabbits?" Sadie asked.

"And horses," Gerri said.

Sadie leaned over her plate in excitement. "You had horses?" She'd seen them sometimes, riding down the streets when she was downtown, but only from afar. Animals were so neat, and most of them were so small. Horses were
huge
. She bet they could just trample a zombie.

"Yeah," Gerri said with a shrug, but she obviously knew how cool it was. "We raised them. I rode horses every day."

"So what are you talking about,
now
that you're a rich person?" Dee asked. "Horses cost, like, a lot of money."

"We rented them out for getting around the city when people wanted something even more special than a car," Gerri explained. Sadie couldn't imagine something richer or fancier than riding around in a car, especially one with air conditioning and new paint. "Or for moving carts or events. Lots of people rent out horses. That is our business—that's how we make money, and most of it goes to the horses themselves. Just like how we raised rabbits, but didn't eat them ourselves. It was part of the business."

"Still, it must be so cool," Sadie said.

Gerri smiled. "Yes."

"What are they like?"

"Big," Gerri said, and Sadie laughed. "Beautiful. Brave, except when they're not. We got in a lot of trouble together."

The grin on her face made it impossible for Sadie not to ask, "What kind of trouble?"

She shrugged, but the grin grew wider.

"Oh, come on!" Sadie begged, because she knew Gerri wanted her to. Gerri was going to tell her story whether Sadie said anything or not.

"Well, okay. There was this boy."

"As all stories begin," Sadie said.

"He was at our place renting some of the horses for his sister's wedding that weekend. We were flirting. I thought it was going well. He seemed alright. I was brushing the horses. He was telling me about how there used to be animals bigger than horses—I swear, everyone who comes around tells me that and acts like I'm supposed to be so surprised by this new information. And like, really, do they know? No. Who knows what to believe about the world before, right? And it isn't like it matters anyway. We live now. You know?" Sadie nodded. "But he's going on about it, and I'm waiting for him to move on, and then he said it was cute that I spent time around horses. He started talking about how he could take me out sometime and teach me how to ride. I told him I knew, but of course, does this guy listen? What a prick. So, I tell him again that I know how to ride, and he tells me that's
cute—
always telling me how cute I am—and then tells me about all the jumps he's done and how maybe he'll show me sometime."

"Son of a corpse," Sadie said.

"I know," Gerri said. "So his dad comes to get him and they're getting into their car—of course they drove a car when it was a twenty minute walk to their house—and, well." Gerri fought a smile. "Whisper was already ready to go."

"Whisper?" Sadie asked.

"My horse. So their car is going down the road, real slow—it's not paved out there, you know, lots of dust—and Whisper and I just got going, and we jumped right over the hood of their car."

No one spoke. Sadie was too occupied picturing it. "Oh my god," she finally said.

"That's terrifying," Carrie said. "What if your horse had been hurt?"

Gerri rolled her eyes. "I knew what I was doing."

"It's just so reckless," Carrie said.

Gerri smiled like it was a compliment.

Sadie swallowed the last of her pizza and said, "Um, so," took a sip of her soda and continued, "what happened with the boy?"

Gerri shrugged. "He didn't talk to me anymore. Told everyone at school I was crazy."

"I'm sorry," Sadie said.

She flipped her hair. "I'm not. There are other boys."

Dee raised her glass, and with a mouth full of pizza, said, "Cheers to that!"

Even Carrie raised her glass.

GERRI

Recording the song was actually kind of amazing, once it was done. Finally hearing them all singing together was a stand-out moment. They got an earful of the final recording from the band—who she was now convinced they were never going to meet—and the percussion loud in her ears was just, everything. Meghan had a lot to say about appropriate studio behavior, or whatever. All it meant was, "Don't dance, Gerri. If you have fun it'll threaten my idea that seriousness equals success." The girl had problems.