Fiona makes a big show of sighing, this full-body situation like she’s trying to make sure it reads all the way to the very back of a theater. They’re standing close enough that when she shifts her weight his knee brushes hers, just for a second; Sam feels the contact all the way up his thigh.
“Fine,” she says at last, rotating her neck like possibly she’s gotten a cramp just from the physical strain of having to talk to him, “but only so you’ll leave.”
Sam nods seriously, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. He feels like he landed a part he didn’t even know he wasauditioning for, and he tells himself it’s just because he’s happy to have won. “Uh-huh.”
“I mean it,” Fiona warns him. “Don’t say anything else.”
He mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key.See you tomorrow, he mouths, then holds up nine fingers in case somehow she’s forgotten. Fiona groans.
Sam heads back out into the steamy pink twilight, where someone has let their dog—at least, Sam hopes it was a dog—drop a steaming dump beside his right front tire. It takes an hour and fifteen minutes to get home, with traffic. He hums along to the radio all the way there.
Chapter Seven
Fiona
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Claudia asks the following night, standing in the doorway of Fiona’s bedroom with her arms crossed.
“Uh, yup.” Fiona looks at herself in the mirror. She’ll be damned if she’s about to get dressed up to meet Sam Fox of all fucking people so she’s wearing her usual jeans and boots and tank top, a hair elastic looped snugly around one wrist. “Why?”
Claudia shrugs. “I just think maybe sometimes you don’t realize the message you’re sending, that’s all.”
“Oh?” Fiona eyes her in the mirror. “And what message is that, exactly?”
Claudia seems to know better than to answer. “Will you just let me do your hair, at least?” she asks, padding barefoot across the carpet. “I’ll be quick.”
Fiona sighs loudly. “I guess.”
Claudia’s smile is megawatt, which almost makes this ridiculous masochistic stroll into Mordor worth it in advance. “Thank you,” is all she says.
She makes Fiona sit on the bed while she coaxes out the tangles with a wide-tooth comb, careful not to tug too much. Fiona closes her eyes, tilts her head back. She’s always liked having her hair played with; she used to fall asleep in the makeup trailer on set sometimes, while the girls straightened and curled and teased and braided her into Riley Bird. Even all these years later it’s the one form of physical contact that’s never made her feel itchy or weird.
“There,” Claudia says finally. Fiona opens her eyes, peering at herself in the mirror on the back of the closet door. Claudia’s done something with the flat iron to smooth the frizz out; she looks nice, but not like she’s auditioning for the role of a florist slash amateur detective on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.
“Thanks,” Fiona says, touching it tentatively.
“No problem,” Claudia tells her. “You’re pretty. Also, and I’m just going to make this pitch one more time, you should change your shirt. You’re going dancing with the Heart Surgeon, not out to hunt vampires or scavenge canned goods during the zombie apocalypse.”
“That’s what you think.” Fiona huffs out a breath. “I’m not trying to date him,” she reminds her sister.
“Why not?” Claudia asks immediately. “You should date someone.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re lonely.”
Fiona blinks, the baldness of it catching her up short. Back when she was in the hospital Pam was always trying to get her to make ridiculous pronouncements like that, to emote all the goddamn time:I feel lonely. I feel angry. I feel betrayed. Fiona couldnever quite get the words out, even though she liked Pam and wanted to do a good job at therapy. The whole thing made herfeel, quite honestly, like a giant fucking chump.
She doesn’t say anything to Claudia for a minute. Then: “You know what?” She shakes her head. “I’m not going to go. You need somebody to quiz you on your Spanish—”
“Estelle will quiz me,” Claudia says immediately, then marches over to the window and shoves it open. “Estelle!” she yells, voice carrying across the backyard like a Klaxon. “Will you quiz me on my Spanish so that Fiona can go out?”
Estelle, who’s reading her Kindle and vaping on her patio, thrusts one thumb into the air. “You bet I will, señorita!”
Fiona rolls her eyes.
“You realize it’s okay for you to go have fun,” Claudia says, flopping backward onto the pillows. She herself is wearing vintage JNCOs and a Backstreet Boys tank top, so Fiona doesn’t actually know if she’s in any position to be doling out fashion advice. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
“That sounds like the beginning of the zombie apocalypse to me.”
