green nail polish ugly. He would have found the stud Kaleigh wore in her nose vomitous. There were days when for some reason she had dark circles under her eyes. He knew they were supposed to be ugly (his mother hated it whenever she had them), but now they, too, were somehow attractive—one of those things, like the silver nose stud and the metallic green nails, that he liked looking at when Kaleigh was there and thinking about when she wasn’t.
Whenever he saw or thought about those circles under her eyes, he wanted to kiss her there—even after he heard Pete Druzzi say, “When a chick’s got circles under her eyes it means she’s wearing the red mouse.”
But by now his secret hope had been crushed. He’d held on to it for as long as he could, the hope that here, in this new town, among all new kids, things would be different from the way they’d been in Chicago. Where the apocalyptic girls had looked right through him.
“Oh, those damn girls,” his mother fumed. “Every school has them. Cold, mean, narcissistic, and usually dumb. They should never be allowed to get away with their destructive behavior. But trust me, Cole, they’re not worth suffering over.”
His mother was so wrong. Kaleigh wasn’t dumb. She was one of the best students in the class, and already focused on getting into a good college. She was going to be an obstetrician. She already knew that. And she wasn’t mean. Cliquish, yes, but not mean. She just didn’t like boys staring at her. He could understand that. And everyone knew she was kind. They knew it because of Mr. Henderson, the Spanish teacher. Middle-aged, married “Hairpiece” Henderson. He was in love with her and unable to hide it. His heart was breaking for her and he couldn’t hide it. Scream! Everyone knew, and everyone wanted to make something of it. But just try. Just try making fun of Mr. Henderson in front of Kaleigh.
“Oh my god, Cole. How awful!”
He had slid down on the couch with his head back and had been staring at the ceiling instead of at the screen. He had never turned up the volume.
There they were again: the men in the hazmat suits. Not chickens or pigs this time but people. Corpses. Laid out in rows. Being swung onto a gigantic pyre.
“I can’t watch this,” his mother said, gasping as if someone had just knocked the wind out of her. Cole shrugged and turned the TV off.
He didn’t want her to sit down on the sofa next to him, but she did. He didn’t want her to put her arm around him, but she did. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to go up to his room. He didn’t want to talk, but he knew she would. Why did she always do the wrong thing?
Now that his father was sick she was all upset. His father, whom she was secretly planning to dump. (“The truth is, Addy, I feel like I’ve done my duty. I don’t owe this man the rest of my life.”)
She hadn’t been able to reach the doctor. He was just a name to her: Dr. Corbutt. The only primary-care doctor in the area still taking new patients enrolled in the college’s insurance plan. She had reached a recording saying people who thought they had the flu should not come into the office or go to the hospital. They should stay home instead and call a certain number. But when she tried calling that number it was busy.
“Of course, we don’t know for sure if it even is the flu,” she said. “Anyway, I’ll try again later. Let’s talk about dinner. I’m afraid it’s slim pickin’s.”
Very long ago, it seemed, he’d been sent home from school with a pamphlet about Emergency Home Preparedness. Every home should always have on hand at least a three-week supply of food, water, and medication for each member of the family.
“But there’s frozen pizza. You like that. I could heat up some vegetable soup, and we could have that with the pizza. Would you like that, sweetie?”
Something was being shredded inside him.
He wasn’t afraid of the flu anymore. He wasn’t afraid of everyone dying. He believed his parents when they said they weren’t going to die. They were made of sturdy stuff. None of them would die. They would all go on living, day after day, in the same dumb, totally fucked-up way.