Diana Vega
Cynthia forgot to focus on how quickly things were moving. All she could hear was the quickly fading sound of glasses tinkling and the faint murmur of conversations. Then she heard the light clack of her teeth lightly tapping Billy’s. She felt his breath; surprisingly cool, against her cheek. There was the light rasp of his beard stubble on her cheek then the quick warmth of his tongue as it tentatively touched her lip.
Her hand rested on his shirt sleeve, lightly tracing the soft cotton of the cuff, feeling the warmth of his skin. All of these sensations flooded over her so quickly that it almost made her dizzy. She felt a little wobbly and warmth began to spread between her legs. As she melted into the kiss, she couldn’t stop her practical side from hearing Emily’s voice, “Isn’t that Zombie moving awfully fast?” Very astute for a twelve year old who was just as startled as she was to see a costumed carnival worker practically running to catch them.
With that one thought, all of the emotions Cynthia was on the verge of feeling, shrieked to a halt, because even without the costume, this whole thing with Billy was moving awfully fast. In spite of what her body was feeling and how quickly she was responding, her head told her to stop this kiss before it went any further.
When she thought about it later, she realized that she was getting in her own way. In fact, she had just been talking about this very thing.
“I absolutely cannot meet guys.” Cynthia knew as the words came out of her mouth that her friends would immediately begin to roll their eyes. She was just as tired of saying it as they were hearing it.
“Maybe you’re not opening yourself up to meeting anyone. You work all of the time and you aren’t exactly going to meet anyone at work.”
Cynthia worked as a part-time Nanny. She couldn’t bear to think of herself as a babysitter, because there was so much more to her life than that. But it was true that the only males who wanted her attention were the ones asking her for another juice box or bartering for another ten minutes at the Xbox. Now here she was about to hear the words she was so very tired of hearing.
“Maybe we could fix you up.”
Were there ever more horrifying words spoken? But the thought played itself over and over in her head as she went to work the next day.
When she arrived, the twin boys she looked after were sitting at the dining room table. The fact that they were sitting quietly should have tipped her off. Then she noticed that their sister was sitting between them. They smiled beatifically at her and she got that waiting for the other shoe to drop feeling.
She didn’t have long to wait.
The kids wanted her to take them to a carnival. At night. On a weekend. Well, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do and the boys volunteered to go into the fun house with her so she wouldn’t get scared. Emily was excited because she would be free to run around with her friends without the stigma of having her parents on the premises.
At least she could tell her friends that she had plans for the weekend so they wouldn’t try to force her into a blind date. That was even scarier than any fun house could possibly be.
***
This particular carnival couldn’t decide if it wanted a fun house or a house of horrors. So they kind of mashed them together. The kids didn’t know if they were supposed to be scared or amazed so there was a constant medium loud scream coursing through the long narrow halls. Cynthia wanted to get out of there before she got to the freak show at the end of the hall. As she was chiding herself for calling other human beings freaks, she realized that she was looking into one of the Funhouse mirrors.
“Oh Perfect.” She couldn’t help but say this out loud. Emily stopped short behind her.
“Isn’t that Zombie moving awfully fast?”
Emily was right. There was a long lanky ghoul lurching at top speed towards them both. Cynthia pulled Emily tight behind her and fumbled around in her purse for her pepper spray. Just as she was about to spray the costumed man in the face he smiled.
“You’re Cynthia, aren’t you?”
“Your diction is very good for the undead.”
“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot.”
Cynthia wasn’t sure what kind of person would forget that their face was caked with layers of makeup and that there was a synthetic wound from which an eyeball on a spring protruded.
“Hi, I’m Billy.”
Billy the Zombie held out his grimy hand for Cynthia to shake. She took it hesitantly and shook it briefly. Chris and Steven appeared from out of nowhere clamoring around Emily who still clutched the hem of her shirt.
“I have to go.” Cynthia had no idea why she felt the need to politely excuse herself from a total stranger who had, after all, approached her in the dark. If any other circumstance was better suited for rudeness she could not think of what it might be.
She herded the kids away from the fun house, just as confused as they were about what had happened. A few hours later after she had helped the two boys wash the dirt and slushy stains off of their faces and put their mustard stained shirts in the wash. Emily asked her, “Who was that guy?” That was a good question. Who was that guy and how did he know her name?
That little mystery was solved when she returned a missed call from her friend, Anna.
“Cynthia, I think you ran into a friend of mine tonight.”
“I don’t recall meeting anyone.”
“Billy, did you meet a guy named Billy?”
Oh yeah, that.
“A zombie came up to me in the fun house and said his name was Billy.”
“That’s the guy I wanted you to meet.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I think I can meet a ghoul just fine on my own.”
Cynthia hoped that would be the end of it. But of course, it wasn’t. Out of sheer curiosity to see what this guy looked like in the real world, she agreed to go out with him. She had no choice but to accept the blind date or be forced to go on a dreaded double date. That was even worse.
The date was going well. Suddenly Billy leaned forward towards her and said, “I’m going to kiss you. Everything’s going good right now, and I don’t want to risk the chance of losing out should I suddenly screw up.”
She was so surprised she couldn’t move. Then he was kissing her and she was enjoying it. Until her brain had to go and ruin it.
She tried valiantly to make up for her post kiss silence, but she couldn’t keep the awkward out of the rest of the evening. The date ended shortly after that. He didn’t try to kiss her again.
***
The next thing she knew it was almost a month later, she was waking up in his bed. His sheets smelled pleasantly of fabric softener and his shoulder had a light sprinkling of freckles that were the exact color of cinnamon sprinkled on a latte. His arm lay draped across her stomach and she was afraid to move.
She didn’t want to wake him up and she didn’t really want to get up. She was incredibly comfortable snuggled next to him. Just like with the kiss, things had moved so quickly, all of the events leading up to this moment were a little blurry. She heard Billy sigh and then he rolled over, taking his arm off of her. She arched her back as she stretched and cuddled back into the pillow. As she tried to go back to sleep, the night before came back to her in bits and pieces.
***
As part of her non-dating, not-looking ritual, she went to the bookstore on Friday after work. It was too late for coffee so she grabbed a bottle of juice from the coffee shop as she walked towards the paperbacks. She browsed for a moment or two then heard someone say her name.
“Uh, Cynthia?” She turned; completely unaware that she was holding a steamy romance novel with a very graphic cover.
Billy was standing in front of her, holding a magazine. He looked very cute with his longish hair brushing his
