Page 3 of Life Out of Order

“Buddy is a chemist, these will be the most effective zombies you’ve ever had.”

“No,” Nadia decides. “She needs to dance.”

“No,” I interject. “I do not.” I can hardly walk in these shoes, let alone dance.

Nadia and Junior ignore me. “Hey,” says Junior. He waves his hand as though he’s summoning a taxi. “Zach. C’mere.” All this while, someone has been sitting in the corner of the living room almost out of my peripheral vision, obscured by the Christmas tree. He awkwardly rises from a deep armchair, and keeps rising: my first impression is that he’s unnaturally tall and thin. Junior reaches across Nadia and cups my elbow in his hand and gives me a little boost, as though he’s trying to propel me toward this Zach person. I turn to refuse, I don’t want his matchmaking, but I see that Junior’s smile is genuinely kind, that he really is trying to please me; he smiles like a bad student who knows the right answer for once. Nadia tilts her head in the direction of the door: Go ahead, it’s okay. I look up and Zach is bending over me, offering his hands, and I give him mine and he pulls me up, all wobbly. “Hey, beautiful girl,” he says, easily. Suddenly our faces are inches apart; in these heels I am tall, too. He’s wearing a midnight-blue suit, a green tie, and horn-rimmed glasses with a pretty strong prescription. His face is kind. He is so good-looking that I gasp, and Nadia and Junior laugh. “He has that effect on everybody,” says Junior. “Alba DeTamble, meet Zachary Purcell. Please go dance now, please.”

Zach has let go of my hands, and he gestures toward the parlor. I can hear “Mystery Train” and the rhythmic stomp of shoes on floor. As we edge through the crowded hallway, Buddy reappears and hands me a pink drink. I take a sip. It’s super strong and sickly sweet. We are standing by the stairs, hemmed in by people. “I’m afraid I’m going to spill this,” I say.

“Let me take it,” says Zach. “In real life I’m a waiter.” He reaches over my shoulder from behind and lifts the drink out of my hand. Zach begins to say something but he’s jostled from behind and the zombie almost ends up on his suit.

“Nice save,” I say. “Let’s go upstairs.”

He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t comment, and I realize too late how forward that might seem. He follows me and I’m conscious of my legs, aware that I didn’t take care when I rolled on the stockings. The seams are most likely askew. At the top of the stairs, there’s an open door and I glimpse the bed full of black coats. “It’ll be quieter in here,” I say.

I walk around the bed and sit beside the giant coat pile. Zach hands me my zombie, throws a bunch of coats to the other side of the bed and sits next to me. We aren’t touching, but our knees are only a few inches apart. The room is lit with lava lamps that color our faces green and orange, the zombie an unappetizing brown. I pull the cord of the bedside lamp, and the room fills with warmer light.

“Thank you,” I tell him. “That was very professional.” I feel quite shy. Zach is looking at me attentively and I return his attention: his eyes are brown, he has a narrow, off-kilter nose, his lips are full and turn up slightly at the corners. He has a longish, light brown quiff with the sides and back cut very short. He’s so crisp and smooth-shaven that I have to stop myself from stroking his perfect jaw. I don’t know anyone who looks like this in real life. I realize that I’m staring at him, but he doesn’t seem uncomfortable. He must be used to it.

“How do you know Junior?” I ask him.

“I don’t, actually. He’s a friend of a friend, I’m just staying with him over the Christmas break. I didn’t want to go home this year, my parents are getting divorced and I just, I dunno, I couldn’t face it. And the dorms are closed, so Junior said he’d put me up. He’s a good guy.”

Now I’m confused; Zach seems too sincere and eager to be hanging out with Junior. I wish I could ask Nadia which side he’s on. “Where do you go to school?”

“University of Chicago. You?”

“Northwestern.” I look at my hands. My nails are bitten to the quick, a clue to my usual slovenly style. I fold my hands together self-consciously. “But I don’t think I’ll go back.”

“How come?”

“It’s been hard. I’m not good with stress, and music school is nothing but stress.” Of course, the real problem is time travel: I get stressed out, then I end up in some other time, I miss class or the audition or the performance, I have to make excuses and I get more stressed and the whole thing goes around and around.

“What do you play?” Zach asks.

“Violin.”

“Oh, wow, I always wanted to learn to play violin.”

I laugh. “That’s what everybody says.”

“Can you do that, though? Just not go back to school?”

“It’s not a prison. Of course I can not go back.” I haven’t given the practicalities any thought, but now I feel stubborn. I won’t go back. No one can make me. I sip my drink, make a face.

“Would you like something else?” Zach asks. “I was just wishing I had a beer, I could take that back to the kitchen for you . . . ?”

“Um, yeah. A Coke?” One thing I am noticing about this guy: he is very helpful. I give him the zombie and in a few minutes he’s back with a little bottle of Coke, an IPA and two glasses, one with ice. I hold the glasses; he opens and pours. “You actually are a waiter?”

“Yeah. Why would anybody claim to be a waiter if they weren’t?”

“Good point. But what are you studying?”

“Um, English. Creative writing.”

“So between the two of us we have no practical skills?”

“Waiting tables is very practical.” Zach looks a bit morose.