“We need baby formula,” Kearney says abruptly. His eyes flick to Sylvie, then away, and his jaw muscles bulge. I step partly in front of her, directly into the line of mutual dislike.
“Got a lady whose milk dried up,” Emilio says. “We have some, but she says babies need a year’s worth, maybe more, since we don’t have regular milk.”
There was a baby aisle, but I don’t know what it contained. “Did we get formula?”
Jorge sticks his head into the van and asks the same. After a moment, he comes out and nods. “Claudia says she thinks it’s in your truck. They’ll go check.”
I hold up a finger as Claudia, a stout woman in her forties, leaves the van with Guillermo and a few others. “If we can reach it now, it’s yours. Otherwise, we’ll bring it by once we unpack.” I nudge Sylvie. “Want to go help?” She doesn’t give me the courtesy of an answer.
Kearney’s nod of thanks seems to pain him. Emilio lifts a hand. “Thanks. How’s it going?”
Sylvie mutters something behind me, and Indy snorts. Eli’s expression is outright aggression. This stand-off, or whatever it is, is not working to smooth relations. Jorge must sense it—he perches on the van’s bumper and spreads his arms as though relaxing in an easy chair. Man-speak for we’re cool. “Glad they freeze, I’ll say that.”
“Right?” Emilio agrees. “Your water still going?”
Jorge nods. “We keep it running a little when it’s cold. Keeps the lines from freezing. Built a greenhouse, too.”
“Nice. Maybe we’ll come by again soon, if they stay frozen.”
“You should. We’ll throw a block party.”
Emilio laughs. They shoot the shit for a few more minutes, and when conversation dies down, I ask, “How’re Walt and the others?”
Kearney stiffens and his gray eyebrows drop low. I guess there’s no love lost between them, though Walt might be unaware that it works both ways. Or maybe they’ve had an interesting few months.
“Oh, you know,” Emilio says, eyes cautioning me to drop it, “same old shit.”
We stand in silence until Claudia and the others return with formula cans. “There wasn’t much, but this is all of it,” she says.
Emilio and Kirk put them in their truck. The vehicles beyond theirs have backed out and driven away. “Do you need anything else?” I ask. “We got a lot today, and we don’t mind sharing. We were going to bring some over to the monastery.”
“No,” Kearney says shortly. “We have Annunciation covered, so you keep what’s yours.”
He turns on his heel. Kirk gives a wave and follows. Emilio shakes our hands and gets in the driver’s side. After a jaunty salute, he quickly backs down the street, and we head to our truck, where Sylvie warms her hands by the dash vent. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“No thanks to you,” I say.
Her mouth drops. “What did I do? I didn’t say a word!”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Who says not to bring things to help out nuns?” Sylvie asks, her voice rising with each word. “And did you see how he looked at me?”
“Did you see how you looked at him?”
“No, I did not,” she says primly. “Obviously. But I assume I wore a completely normal expression.”
“You do, huh?”
“Yes.” Her stare is guileless, lips slightly parted in shock that I would think otherwise, and I know for a fact she’s lying through her teeth. But, if I didn’t, I’d believe her in a heartbeat.
“You are such a bullshitter,” I say. “The worst part is that you’re good at it.”
She holds my gaze until a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “It’s a gift.”
“Just use it for good and not evil, remember?”
“I’m trying,” she says, and I think she means it.
Chapter 74
Sylvie
We don’t have a tree, but Grace appropriated a limb off a tree cut down to make room for the greenhouse. She and Leo stuck it into a pot of dirt and then we decorated it with things they found in basements. It’s scrawny but festive, and being my first Christmas tree, it’s also the nicest.
“You really never had a tree?” Leo asks.
“My mom was Jewish. We never even had a Hanukkah bush.”
“Were you sad?”
“Maybe a little, but now, look, I have a beautiful Christmas branch.” He giggles, and I ask, “Are you sure you’re ready for Santa to come tonight?”
“Yeah!” he yells. I probably shouldn’t have started him up again, since he’s been bouncing off the walls and he’ll never sleep.
“From what I hear, Santa won’t come if you’re awake. Or crazy.”
“Emily says her brothers say Santa isn’t real.” He rests his chin on the arm of the couch, blinking in astonishment. “But I know he is.”
I nod. Thankfully, he’s not asking me. I’ve promised to tell him the truth, but I will not be the person who tells a little kid there’s no Santa. I knew for a fact there was no Santa, since he didn’t swing by my house, and, after my grandma died, the Hanukkah Fairy was suspiciously absent. I was also pretty sure there was no magic in the world, and I want Leo to believe as long as possible.
“You have to go to sleep for him to come,” I say.
“He doesn’t have as many kids to visit,” Leo says woefully, then gives me an impish look before whispering, “Does that mean I get more presents?”
I drop back on the couch and laugh until I cry. Kids are such jerks. Paul enters and scoops up Leo. “Bedtime!”
“Your kid wants to know if there being fewer kids in the world means he gets more presents from Santa.”
Paul hangs Leo by his ankles. “Now you’re getting coal.”
“Coal is good!” Leo squeals, red-faced but sincere. “I can make a fire and keep us warm.”
Kid are jerks, but they’re also sweet. Sometimes. I give him an upside-down goodnight kiss and head into the kitchen. Eli and Grace stand by the counter, so close that I want to mash them together already. I haven’t told Grace we saw them kiss, and I don’t think anything more than that has happened, but I have a feeling there’s a racy Christmas present in the wings. We have no need for radiators with the heat they’re producing.
“Ready?” Maria asks, and rises from the table.
I follow her to the basement, where we’ve been stashing things for Leo. We had one more day of freezing and hit up two schools and every store we could find, which resulted in my grabbing everything that looked remotely exciting to a five-year-old boy. And some stuff for Bird—I don’t want him to lose faith in Santa, either.
Maria pulls the sheets off the pile and stands blinking. “Sylvie, this is a lot.”
“But isn’t that what happens at Christmas? You get all the toys?”
I take it in. I suppose he doesn’t need a Razor scooter, a bike, and a skateboard, every board game known to man, along with five trucks, assorted kid weapons, a few handheld video game thingies, books, and forty other random toys. Grace would say I’m overcompensating for my own lack of presents as a child, but I can’t wait to see Leo lose his mind at this haul, even if it does reinforce the belief that millions of kids dying works in his favor.
Maria opens her mouth, then closes it and throws up her hands “You know what? Why not? Who knows what next Christmas will be like.”
I jump up and down like I’m on the receiving end of all these presents; Grace knows about these things. “Because we might as well dance while we wait.”
Maria cocks her head before a spark of comprehension flares in her eyes. “Do you remember everything I say?”
“Yes. The important stuff, anyway.”
I bend for two trucks, but Maria maneuvers me into her arms and rests her chin on my shoulder. “I love you, mamita,” she says. “You know that?”
I sort of knew, but my eyes fill at this confirmation. “I love you, too.”
She squeezes me extra tight and releases me with a smile. “Let’s start puttin
g this out. It’s going to take all night.”
We drag it upstairs, and, once Paul gets over his initial shock at the obscene number of presents, he spends the next hours assembling things and cursing while I stuff candy and cat supplies into the stockings we found in someone’s Christmas things. I’ve just gotten into bed when Eric enters and sits beside me to remove his boots.
“That is an insane amount of presents down there,” he says. “Leo’s going to plotz.”
“I know.”
He puts a hand to my cheek. It’s still cold from hours on a roof, and I tuck it into the warmth of my neck. “I know we agreed no presents, but I made you something small, so it doesn’t count. And you’re going to have to open it in front of me.”
Before I can protest, he gives me the smile he thinks lets him get away with anything. It works, so I sigh and say, “Hand it over.”
He takes a little brown paper bag from a dresser drawer and sits facing me while I turn it in my hands. It weighs next to nothing and is flat. It’s not candy, as far as I can tell.
“I see you went all-out with the wrapping,” I say.
“Why do I put up with you?” he asks, though it’s followed by an indulgent laugh. He’s not the only one who gets away with stuff around here.
“No clue.”
I peek inside and pull out a sheaf of square pages sewn together by neat stitches at the top. On the front, in his handwriting, it says Word of the Week, Year 1.
“It’s the first year of the new world,” he says. “And next year I’ll make you another. And another the year after that. It will never be over. Okay?”
A tear plops to the cover page while his words repeat in my mind: It will never be over. Love never dies, which means neither do we. Isn’t that wonderful? I can feel it, and it is wonderful. It floods the space between and around and inside, and it could never hurt me, though the loss of it is too awful to contemplate. I dry the paper and then my face with my sleeve. I don’t want to ruin this, which is the best, most perfect gift I’ve ever received.
“Okay,” I say, and meet his eyes. It’s still hard to do sometimes, and maybe it’ll always be difficult to turn off the voice that whispers people can’t love you. But I can see that he does as clearly as I can feel it, both in the way he looks at me as if I’m the most valuable thing in the world and by the proof I hold in my hand. I kiss his still-chilly lips. “I love it more than anything ever.”
“More than candy?” he asks, and feigns shock at my nod. “You can look at the first word, but no cheating after that.”
“But you’ll know them and I won’t.”
“You’ll still win.”
I lift the cover and laugh. The first week’s word is moist, complete with definition. “Really? Panties better not be in here.”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he says.
I know it’s in there, along with waterbug. But I’d bet anything shenanigans is, too. I pull him to me and decide the calendar is the second-best gift I’ve ever received. Sweet, funny, wonderful Eric is the first.
***
Twenty minutes after waking Christmas morning, Leo’s mouth is ringed with chocolate and he sits in the middle of his overabundance of presents like a dragon on its treasure. His eyes are gigantic and his naturally rosy cheeks glow bright pink.
“That kid is cracked out,” I say, then watch Bird divebomb his catnip toy and pin it beneath his paws, eyes frantic. “Everyone’s cracked out.”
“This will never be topped,” Paul says from beside me on the couch. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” I say. “It was fun.”
“Christmas was always Hannah’s job. I was avoiding it because I didn’t want to think about her. And I was afraid I’d screw it up.”
“Have you been talking to Grace?”
He produces a small smile. “No, figured that one out on my own.”
“Very astute. But you’re doing fine. He’s the happiest kid in the world right now, and it’s not just because of unbridled consumerism.”
Indy kneels to plant a Christmas kiss on Leo’s head. He returns the favor on her cheek. And though she has child germ aversion syndrome the way I do, she also gives Leo a pass, and she wipes the chocolate off her face without a grimace. “Have you seen Eli?” she asks.
I glance at the stairs to the top floor. It’s just past dawn, which is when Leo woke, and, like a sane person, Grace hasn’t yet left her bed. Or maybe Grace and Eli haven’t yet left her bed.
“You think?” Indy asks.
“Think what?” Paul asks.
“That Grace had some company last night,” I say.
“Oh yeah, she did. I heard it.”
Indy crawls to the couch, screeching, “What?”
“What’s wrong with you?” I whisper-yell. “This is the first thing you should mention to us.”
Paul smirks. “ ‘Merry Christmas everyone. Oh, by the way, Grace got laid last night.’ Like that?” Leo is involved with a noisy toy, so he doesn’t hear.
“Yes, just like that, Paul,” Indy says, then taps my leg. “Okay, now can we bother them?”
“I have to pee,” I say. “I’ll spy while I’m up there.”
I mount the stairs and linger outside Grace’s room, then tiptoe to the bathroom when I hear nothing. Her door opens as I re-enter the hall. Eli steps out, wearing rumpled jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt, which is what happens to clothes when they’ve spent a night on the floor.
“Hey,” he says. His hand remains on the doorknob, as though he can’t decide whether to close it behind him or run back in.
“Merry Christmas to you.” I lean toward the door and call out, “And also to you, my friend who would never not tell me anything.”
“Just get in here already,” Grace calls.
I grin at Eli, who returns my smile and throws the door open before he heads for the bathroom. Grace lies in bed, surrounded by puffy white comforter, her blond hair splayed out around her flushed face. I dive next to her and put my chin in my hands.
“Good morning!” I sing. Her smile sags a little as she fingers her moonstone. She feels guilty. But also happy, and that’s what I want her to focus on. “Before you say anything, I think this is great. We’ve all been waiting, and I may have won the betting pool. I just need to know the exact minute, you know…” I make a circle with my thumb and index finger, then stick the index finger of my other hand through it a few times. The gloves are now off, and the bothering Grace campaign has officially begun.
She laughs. It’s not entirely carefree, but it’s close enough. “You’re an asshole.”
“I’m spreading Christmas joy throughout the land!” I check over my shoulder for Eli, then whisper, “So did you guys get in a morning one, too, or should I not count on you for breakfast?”
“Oh my God, get out!” she yells. But she loves it, I can tell.
Eli returns and finds his socks in the discarded pile of clothes on the floor. The combination of bliss, lust, and tenderness when he glances Grace’s way tells me he knows how special she is, and, for me, that makes him almost as special as her.
I jump to the floor. “I’m leaving. Breakfast is in a little bit, but you guys take your sweet, sweet time.” Grace makes a noise to let me know she appreciates my thinking of them on this joyous day. I wink at Eli and head for the door, where I pause. “I mean, how long has it been since you first kissed? We saw you over a month ago.”
Grace’s mouth opens and closes several times. “You did?”
“You’re lucky I didn’t turn the hose on you,” I say. “Consider it your present. Merry Christmas, jerk.”
I close the door behind me and hear, faintly, “Merry Christmas, asshole.”
Chapter 75
I am very disappointed in this winter’s ability to freeze things. We only had the few days in December, and January has been the same thus far. And because Lexers only seem to freeze to final death if frozen for a lengthy period, they thaw out in the sa
me numbers. For the first time in my life, I’m jealous of people who live in North Dakota. We heard them once on the shortwave, and they’ve had nothing but Lexer icicles since November.
But it’s another freezing day today, and we’ve split into teams to visit various places on our map. My team is visiting a few smaller food possibilities whose proximity to the hospital made them unreachable until the Lexers froze, and up to now we’ve had more pressing places to visit.
The other teams will go elsewhere—into Queens and the outskirts of Brooklyn—to scout out new sources. While I’m not pleased to be separated from Eric, he and Eli are biking far into Queens in freezing weather, and I would only slow them down.
I’m on youth group duty, along with Gary, Maria, Indy, Grace, and Guillermo. Leo has a fever, and though Maria offered to stay with him, I’m pretty certain Paul wants to get in on some sickbed video gaming. Guillermo has come out of hiding, and he’s allowed Rissa to leave SPSZ for only the second time since Bornavirus hit.
Once Maria herds the gaggle of teens into the van, we start our rounds. The local police station is empty of everything remotely weapon or radio-related. We find nothing but a misshapen metal security door and defunct machinery at the unmarked pizza dough factory. The Chinese food supplier is barren. Industry City, an old factory turned upscale shopping, is full of broken glass, and any fresh food rotted long ago. Our last stop, an unlicensed bakery, is similarly looted. Industry City was an obvious destination, but some of the others weren’t. The bakery belonged to a friend of Lupe’s and was hidden in a building that housed a carpet business.
We stand in the biting wind outside the carpet shop. “Nobody knew about that place,” Guillermo says.
“Someone did,” Jorge says, “or they found it.”
Even he looks skeptical of the latter idea. The kitchen was tucked behind endless rolls of carpet on the second floor, and I can say with certainty that no one has had a pressing need for wall-to-wall carpet in the past months. But it’s very possible someone else knew and got there first.