Lipstick & Zombies (Deadly Divas Book 1) (22 page)

"Okay."

"Is that all you're going to say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know." Carrie bowed her shoulders in and curled into a ball on the floor. Between her knees, she whispered, "I can't go back out there."

"This is a weird place to call home. Secluded."

"I like it."

"Okay."

"Don't make me laugh. I don't deserve to laugh."

"Okay."

"I fucked up."

"Okay."

"But I wasn't even wrong." Carrie took in a deep breath. "That's the worst part. That's the scariest part. I'm only half sorry." She exhaled, and on the weight of her breath, said, "I fucked up."

"Okay."

DEE

"Gerri?" Dee asked. "Gerri?" Dee put her hand on Gerri's shoulder and shook her gently. Gerri's arms were wrapped around her legs, and her whole body wobbled when Dee touched her. She was sitting in the corner of their small dressing room, staring blankly in front of her. She could have won an award for creepiest stare. It was that bad.

Jo said, "Maybe give her some space."

"That's all we've been doing," Dee argued. "Giving her grumpy self space. Letting her moan and have time to herself. And now look what's happened! Enough of that! Gerri? Honey?"

Gerri sneered up at her.

Dee smiled. "You think you're going to scare me, bitch? I'm not Carrie; it's going to take a lot more than that."

Jo gave Dee one of those looks like she was stupid, mixed with some how-could-you-be-so-mean, but it fell away in shock when Gerri laughed.

"That's more like it," Dee said, satisfied with herself.

"You're both so weird," Jo said, which was exactly the perfect thing to get all of them laughing harder than they had in a while. "Please don't say it's time for drinks."

Gerri sighed and leaned back against the wall.

"What?" Dee asked. "You expected to join a band with no drama?"

Gerri tilted her head at Dee and rolled her eyes. "No."

"Drama, drama, drama," Dee said.

“She's just so mean!”

“Okay,” Dee said.

"Sometimes it's just really hard," Gerri admitted.

"That's why it's not for losers, you know?"

"You're smarter than you look," Gerri said.

"I know."

"I want to throw her bed out a window."

"Sure," Dee said.

"With her on it."

"Great, now I'm an accomplice, jerk," Dee said.

"You don't want to be my accomplice?"

Jo leaned forward and said, "Of course we do." It was so sincere.

Dee patted both of them on the knee. "Now do we hug or something?"

"I don't hug," Gerri said.

"You call everyone honey and are, you know, the way you are, and you don't hug?" Dee asked.

"I don't hug."

"We'll work on it," Dee said.

"Or not," Gerri argued.

"Or not," Jo agreed.

"Outvoted," Gerri said.

Dee huffed. "My vote counts for five of any of yours."

"How you figure?" Gerri asked.

"Because I'm small."

Gerri laughed. "And how's that work?"

"I'm handicapped."

"I don't think you know how being handicapped works."

"You can't say that; it's racist," Dee said.

"I can't argue with you when you don't make sense."

"So I win, is what you're saying," Dee said.

Gerri put her face in her hands. "What a day."

"Are you going to say that every day?" Dee asked.

At the same time, Gerri and Jo answered, "Probably."

GERRI

Even with the little group pep talk, Gerri went straight into her room the first chance she got and locked the door. They only gave her two songs peace before she heard Dee, and then Sadie and Jo, banging on her bedroom door. They were screaming some nonsense about cutting it down with machetes if she didn't open up soon.

Gerri opened the door, if only so she didn't appear to be the difficult one. She didn't want to make Carrie jealous by stealing that title from her. Who knew what the girl would do in revenge!

"So what do you want?" Gerri asked.

"This way," Sadie said, walking over to the couches.

When Gerri didn't follow, Dee got behind her and put her hands on Gerri's back, shoving her forward.

"Come on," Gerri pleaded. "I've had enough bonding for today, okay?"

"Nope, not okay," Dee said. "We are going to work this out once and for all."

"It is worked out," Gerri said. "Everything's peachy."
"Peachy?" Dee asked.

"It means fine," Gerri explained, and sat down. "Why can't you just stay out of it?"

"You haven't given us a choice," Sadie said. "Dee, keep her here."

Dee spread her arms out to block Gerri in, and Sadie ran over to Carrie's door with Jo.

"Oh, hell," Gerri said. "You know these things never work, right?"

"Sure they do," Dee said. "You have to talk out your problems like an adult."

"Like an adult? Have you ever seen an adult do this?"

"Whatever. We're a family. So just do it. Okay?"

Gerri adjusted the hem of her skirt and quit arguing. She was sure that if she really wanted to she could get them to leave her alone, and possibly make them think it was their own idea, but it wasn't worth it. If you did stuff like that too often, people would start to catch on. Better to use her powers when she needed them most.

Carrie walked over to the sitting area like she was being escorted to her execution. Maybe this could be more fun than she'd thought. Carrie stood off to the side, like she was about to go into one of her poses, but Sadie looked from her to a chair and Carrie took the hint. She still sat with her back straight, legs crossed, hands poised on her knee, like any second her photo could be taken. Gerri slouched back in her seat, just to further illustrate the difference between Carrie and herself. Gerri was relaxed. Gerri had a clean conscience. Gerri was a real person, instead of a stuck up brat.

Sadie took the chair between the two of them, clearly the designated referee for their meeting. "So this is what we're going to do," Sadie said, hands splayed out on the coffee table in front of her, like an extra buffer between the two girls. "You will talk one at a time. I'll be the moderator, and stop things if they grow too heated. We clear?"

"Yes," they both said.

"Alright. Anyone want to go first?" Sadie asked.

Carrie nervously raised a few fingers off her knee, and Sadie nodded her permission.

"I'm sorry." She took a deep breath and then quickly, like it pained her, said, "I don't know what to do to make it better because it's awful and embarrassing but I'm really, really sorry."

"It's embarrassing for you?"

Her neck jutted out with tension as she swallowed. "It's embarrassing being an asshole."

"Whatever," Gerri said, and turned to the other girls to ask, "What do you want from us?" If Carrie thought the shock of her saying a naughty word was enough to win Gerri over, she had another thing coming.

"To not murder each other, to start," Sadie said.

"I wasn't trying to..." Carrie turned so red so fast that Gerri thought she'd overheat and pass out. She almost asked the girl if she was okay before catching herself. "Again, I'm sorry. I... I lost control."

Carrie was clearly uncomfortable with Gerri's scrutiny, which encouraged her to deepen her stare. Gerri hadn't even known you could blush with your whole body. "Yeah, don't worry about it," Gerri told her.

“Okay, I think we all know that Carrie did a bad thing,” Sadie said. “But I think we should talk about before that. I know you don't want to, and maybe it's partly my fault for telling everyone to give you space, but we all know you've been... going through something. I think it's time you told us what.” Sadie was looking at Gerri expectantly. They all were.

This wasn't how things were supposed to have been by now. Gerri was supposed to be the leader of the band. Of course, she couldn't say anything like that—not after Carrie had outright accused her of wanting to be the leader, like it made her some kind of evil. But she was supposed to be. The girls were supposed to be looking to her for what to do next. People always used to do that. No one had been sure how they were going to function without Gerri when she went off to be a star. Somehow, they were already rehearsing for their first concert, and she was... the image of herself scared on the floor while the others took out the zombie kept flashing in her head.

“I'm fine,” she told them. “You don't know me. This is just how I am.”

“This is not how you are,” Sadie said. “We all saw you change.”

“This is how I am when I'm stressed,” Gerri said. “You're all different, too. We're just busy. Everything's fine. Carrie's the one who tried to kill me. I don't know why you're making this about me.”

“I wasn't trying to kill you!” Carrie had that freaked out look, the one she'd had when she'd been yelling at Gerri on the stage.

“Right,” Gerri said.

“I'm sorry,” Carrie said again.

Gerri shrugged. “Don't do it again.”

“I would never—I mean, I won't,” Carrie said.

“Good.”

Dee clapped the palms of her hands and said, "Well, yay! We're best friends again! Who wants cake?"
"Cake?" Sadie asked.

Dee's hand went to her hip and she asked, "You got a better suggestion?"

Sadie put her hands up in surrender. "Don't do the hands-on-hips things with me, Princess Dee. It was an innocent question."
"Is this really it?" Jo asked.

"I don't think so," Meghan said from the doorway. The girls jumped. They hadn't heard the door open, or the security system beep.

"How did you do that?" Gerri asked.

Meghan let the door fall closed and ran her hand slowly over the walls, the kitchen counter, and the back of Gerri's sofa. She had everyone's attention, for a change. "You know, I keep telling you to appreciate this opportunity, but I don't think you've fully grasped any of it yet." She bent over and rested her elbows on the back of the sofa, looking at each of them in turn before continuing. "Yes, I mean the trainers, the exposure, the luxury, the opportunity to touch the lives of possibly every person left on this planet. You should appreciate the chance to do things very few people left in this world have the chance to do. And yes, Dee, you should appreciate the clothes. But you know what else?" She stood back up and shook her head with disappointment. "You should appreciate each other. You should have each other's backs. Not just because it's nice, or because it's good for the band, but because you're going to need each other. You think it's hard now? You just don't have any idea. And you can do it alone, most of us do all the hard stuff alone, but you Divas have been given the perfect opportunity to not have to. You can do all this together. And judging by today, you people don't get that at all. I hope you figure it out." She patted Gerri on the head, messing up her hair. Gerri looked up with a glare, and Meghan smiled, a rarity. "Are you okay?"
Gerri flipped her frown to a smile.

"Good," Meghan said. "Keep that fake smile up."

"Thanks, honey," Gerri said, stretching her cheeks a little harder with the force of her smile.

"Good work. Carrie?"

She almost squeaked when she asked, "Yes?"
"Now you're scared of me, huh?" Meghan sighed a laugh. "Forgive yourself. Even if the rest of them don't. Don't go crazy on us."

Carrie reluctantly nodded. Reluctant because she was scared? Because she didn't think she could promise not to go crazy? There was no telling.

"This was as much a failing on my part as it was on the rest of you. You can expect me to be keeping a much closer eye on the lot of you in the future. Now, get a good night's sleep, Divas! You're going to need it!" She turned back toward the front door, her clunky pink heels slapping against the tile where they'd been silent coming in. She clapped her hands when she got to the door and turned back around to look at them, eyes sharp and smile long gone. "Do you plan to sleep there with your eyes open? Get some sleep! I mean now, Deadly Divas!"

They bolted up and into their own rooms, another day gone.

EUREKA! NEWSFEED

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Chapter Twenty

JO

Another day of rehearsals. Meghan, true to her word, never strayed far from the group, and didn't tolerate them going off on their own during breaks. Jo had gone to the bathroom alone around lunch time, and apparently taken too long for Meghan's liking because she knocked on the door and asked what was taking so long.