Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,55

say no to all the cash he’s giving them,” Diwata went on. “He’s renting the whole damned park for a whole damned day. There will be fancy bands and fancy food and hundreds of fancy people. When was the last time we had that many people here at once?”

“This is a public park. As in, for the public.”

“That’s cute. This place is no more public than the water is.”

Diwata was right, Diwata was always right. Long ago, the zoo used to be free, but now it took twenty-five dollars to get in, more for parking. At the Safari Café, french fries cost eight dollars, a bottle of water ten. Now, just past dawn, the zoo was cold and deserted, a stray napkin twitching under the café tables, moved to dance in the chilly lake wind. But the place wouldn’t be much more populated at opening, or at lunch, or at dinner. There would be no laughing crowds of children piling into the Macaque Forest, no families bursting from the Lionel Train Adventure, and the AT&T Endangered Species Carousel would twirl around and around all by itself, imagining the species that might join it one day, if there was anyone left to carve a polar bear or cast a tiger.

The old, fruitless anger rose in her, souring her guts. Though she’d pay for it, Jude drank down the rest of the coffee in one long pull, crushed the cup in her fist. It didn’t help. Only one thing would, but she wasn’t doing that ever again.

She tossed the crushed cup into the nearest trash can. “Score,” she said. The flies and the ants and the other insects burrowing inside the garbage protested with the bug equivalent of WTF, we’re trying to eat here! But Jude had too much practice to flinch at language only she understood.

Diwata’s face went soft anyway, the lines smoothing out. “Listen, kid. Maybe this party won’t be so bad.”

Jude hated when Diwata felt sorry for her. She scratched at the phone in her pocket as if she suddenly had to answer a call, take a meeting, make a reservation. “Stop.”

Diwata sighed, sounding a lot like Lolo. Old and sore and disappointed. “I just meant that maybe there will be some people for you. Young people. Not asshats.” Her eyes cut to the young man with the copper skin and then came back to rest on Jude’s face. “I know you don’t think so, I know how much you love Lolo and Olive and Nell and the rest, but you’ve got to find your own pack.”

“Lolo is my pack. Olive and Nell are.”

“I’m talking about humans, here.”

“Humans are animals, too,” said Jude.

“Knock it off.” Diwata waved a veined and gnarled hand. “Everybody needs someone.”

“I have you.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. Find some girlfriends. Find some boyfriends. Find some friend friends. Have some fun. You must have had fun once, right? You remember what that feels like.”

She did.

There was an animal that threw up its own stomach to distract predators, but Jude couldn’t recall which it was. Diwata was the furthest thing from a predator and the closest thing to a pack that Jude had, but Jude vomited the Mojo Joe all over their boots anyway, one more mess they had to clean up.

* * *

Find Disney movies.

How many days since I’ve eaten?

When did all the ice melt?

Play some blues.

Are we there yet?

Text Brett I’ll be late.

After a long day of feeding animals, mucking out stalls, and scrubbing what they could with the little water they had left in the zoo’s rainwater catchment system, Diwata and Jude tucked in the critters, locked up the gates. Across the street from the zoo, security guards welcomed rich residents into grand buildings with solar panels on the outside and marble foyers on the inside as Jude and Diwata trudged the five blocks to the nearest bus stop. Because of low ridership and competing fleets of self-driving cabs, the city had axed all but a few bus routes. That meant that the buses were always packed with people. They waited as first one graffiti-covered bus and then another drove right past the stop. Diwata unzipped her army coat, reminiscing about how frigid Chicago falls and winters used to be—“So cold your breath froze in the wind! Snow up to there! Everyone in coats so puffy they looked like bears!” Now, the sky was the same angry purple as it had been at dawn, the air dry enough to electrify