The Shambling Guide to New York City (4 page)

“Sheesh, either you guys are baby-eaters or I’m really making a bad impression!” she said.

He laughed, his voice echoing in the large dressing room. “I just want you prepared. I honestly am interested in your credentials, I just know you won’t take the job.”

Zoë glared at him. “Reverse psychology?”

He shrugged. “Simply the truth. Now. Your résumé is impressive. We don’t have any of the
Misconceptions
line here yet, do you happen to have one of your books on you?”

She handed over
Raleigh Misconceptions
. “I led the team on
Raleigh
, and launched the
Misconceptions
line, actually.”

He flipped through the book. “Impressive, I have to say. I still—”

Zoë interrupted him, her voice desperate. “Please, Mr. Rand, I have no idea what you have against me or what you think I may be, but please just give me a chance. I’m really open-minded, it’s hard to shock me.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her and stared, his brown eyes studying her. She felt blood rise to her face, but she knew she couldn’t back down. He handed the book back to her. “I’m hungry and it’s quitting time. Let’s go get a bite to eat.”

Echoes of the situation she had recently exited ran through her mind. She pursed her lips. “I’m sorry, Mr. Rand, but I’m not going on a date with you—or doing anything more—for a job.”

He gave a close-lipped smile, amused. “Oh, Zoë. You’re delightful. I am merely hungry, I don’t require anything else
from you except companionship. Do you want to work at Underground Publishing?”

The unconventional work space was intriguing, and she needed a job in a bad way. If she honestly did end up standing out among her coworkers like a redheaded stepchild, she could always turn him down, or quit later. She nodded firmly. “Yes, sir.”

He checked his watch. “We can leave in about half an hour. I’ll wrap up what I’m doing here, and John can show you the rest of the office. I think everyone has gone home; everyone except Kevin and Opal, anyway.”

He got up and moved to his office door. Zoë admired the graceful way he handled his somewhat heavy body before she caught herself.
Not again.

John was at the door as soon as Phil called for him. They spoke quietly, and then John peeked into the room. “Zoë, can I show you around?”

She got the tour for the next twenty minutes, seeing the large dressing rooms with dressing tables serving as desks. Zoë found out that about ten people worked at Underground Publishing, that it had been around for about a week, and that it still didn’t have computers. It had PR, marketing, and writers, but no managing editors yet. She and John settled in the “break room,” which had a decidedly non-relaxing atmosphere, with the whole of the theater spread out before them. The woman in the audience had gone.

“There was a woman here before,” Zoë asked. “Who was that?”

“If she was Japanese, that was Koi. She likes to read the papers in the audience.”

“I didn’t see her face, but her hair was really long and dark,” Zoë said.

“Yeah, that’s Koi. She’s in charge of our operations. Office manager, distribution, she handles about seven different tasks at once.”

“Gotcha. Koi. Operations.”

John looked at her curiously. “Do you like what you’ve seen so far?”

Zoë weighed how honest she should be. “It’s definitely interesting,” she finally said. “I’m dying to know what the dreadful secret is that separates me from all the rest of you, though.”

John looked over to where Phil had joined them onstage. The big man had barely made a sound while walking. “I expect you will find that out tonight. Right?”

Phil carried a briefcase, and a dark coat hung over his arm. “She certainly will. We’re going to the little Italian place around the corner.”

John blinked. “Ah. Well. Yes, that will do it. Can I come?”

“No.” Phil was matter-of-fact, but his voice held a no-nonsense tone. Zoë was surprised at the sudden change in demeanor. “You’re not even hungry.”

How does he know how hungry John is?
Zoë looked from one man to the other. “Is everything all right?”

Phil smiled. “It’s best if it’s just the two of us. You’ll be fine, Zoë. I won’t let any harm come to you.”

“Is that a possibility?”

Neither man answered.

They said good night to John, who smiled mischievously at Zoë and said he hoped to see more of her in the future.

“He’s a little forward,” Zoë said.

“Well yes, what did you expect?” Phil said, leading them down Fifty-First Street toward Broadway.

“Uh, a little respect? If he talks like that all the time, someone could sue you for sexual harassment,” Zoë said.

Phil frowned. “It’s his way. Everyone we work with understands that.”

It made no sense, but Zoë shrugged it away, refusing to rise to the constant “You’re not like us” bait. She just made a mental note to throat-punch the guy if he ever tried to touch her. “So where are we going?”

“A little Italian place on Ninth Avenue. My favorite place to eat. It’s a little hole in the wall, something you wouldn’t find in mainstream tourist guides.”

Zoë nodded and prepared herself to survey the place. Food, atmosphere, and service, not to mention clientele. Maybe a write-up of the restaurant after the meal would impress Phil.

“Is it the kind of place you’d want written about in your travel guide? For ‘your kind’ of people?”

“Most assuredly,” Phil said. He looked at her then, his face inscrutable in the city lights. “Do you honestly think you could fit in with
any
office environment?”

She blanched. “Well, sure. I mean…” She thought briefly of hard-core bondage fans, or people who ended each conversation with “God bless,” but shook her head. “No, I can’t think of anyone I couldn’t work with. Maybe the Ku Klux Klan or Westboro Baptist Church PR departments, I guess.”

“Oh, we’re not bigots. We like all kinds of people. But you may change your mind. I will not judge you if you do.”

“So if I turn out to be an unintentional bigot, it’s OK?” she asked, laughing.

He didn’t share her mirth. “Actually, yes. You can decide not to take the job, and you move about your life in the city, and we work on our books.”

Zoë stopped laughing. “Look. I’m no racist or whateverist. You have a job that needs doing. I can do it. Let me prove it to you.”

“Let me show you whom you’ll be working with first,” he said.

Zoë was all ready to look at the restaurant with an appraising eye in hopes of impressing Phil with her keen observation skills. Gothic decorations covered the walls, wrought-iron twisted into curlicues on top of red wallpaper decorated with dusty weeping flowers. She squinted into the low light as she realized the only illumination came from candles.

Was he planning something romantic after all?

A tall, willowy woman, looking to be in her late forties, swept up to them and embraced Phil. She wore a long blood-red dress that clung to her shapely torso and then draped gracefully in a fuller skirt that hung to her feet. Black lace peeked out from her sleeves and collar. She reminded Zoë of something gothic, only much more authentic than the goth girls she’d gone to college with.

“Phillip, it’s so good to see you again. I had begun to fear that you had forsaken us!” she cooed.

Phil returned the hug with more warmth than Zoë had seen him show, but cleared his throat quickly as he let her go. “Sylvia, I’ll need a table for two tonight.”

Sylvia stepped back and glanced at Zoë and then turned back to Phil. “A table in the back, perhaps? And would you like to see a wine list, or did you bring your own?”

“Wine list, please. And my companion will take the standard menu.” He said “companion” with a little bit of emphasis, as if telling Sylvia that they weren’t on a date.

“Of course! Only the best for you,” she said, and swept through the shadows to the back of the restaurant, motioning them to follow.

Zoë surveyed the other patrons as she followed Sylvia. A handsome couple dressed in a fashion that spoke of older days, almost Victorian ones, returned her gaze coolly, and she flushed. Sylvia led them to the table and asked Phil if he wanted his usual server. He paused and then nodded.

Zoë sat and put her napkin, a fine piece of linen that she feared dirtying, in her lap. She grinned at Phil. “I feel a little underdressed.”

Phil inclined his head. “That is nothing to fear.” The question of whether there was anything else to fear hung between them, but Zoë refused to ask it. She was tired of his enigmatic attitude and wanted him to just come clean with her.

Admittedly, something about the restaurant had thrown her off her game, and she was desperately trying to regain her footing. She opened her mouth to speak, but a dry voice over her shoulder interrupted her.

“Mr. Rand, lovely to see you.”

“Eric, the pleasure is mine. I’ll have my usual vintage, but my companion will need a wine list.”

“Ms. Stoll already indicated this to me,” the voice said, and Zoë craned her neck back and took the proffered menu. She did a double take when she saw the waiter, and then looked back at Phil, who watched her closely.

She took a look around the restaurant and then again at the waiter, who loomed calmly over her. She laughed. “Is this what you were worried about?”

Phil stared at her, his mouth slightly open. It was the first time she had actually surprised him, and it felt good. “Well. Frankly, yes.”

“I told you, I don’t judge. Is that what the book will be? A view of New York for cosplayers?”

“Cosplayers,” he repeated faintly.

“Yeah, people who are really into costume play. Storm Troopers or Slave Leias or Master Chiefs from that video game. Or”—she surveyed the waiter who shuffled away from them—“makeup. That was some seriously good zombie makeup.”

Each of the patrons now made sense. It was a room full of sore thumbs; but together they all seemed to fit in. A man ate alone in the corner, dipping his spoon into a bowl full of a black liquid. Small demon horns were glued to his forehead. The handsome couple she had noticed earlier had fangs that glinted as they talked and laughed. And three hulking men devoured plates of meat in a way that made Zoë think they were being a bit too true to the role-playing aspect of their costuming. And their waiter—wow. He waited for her order, hunched over, gray skin peeling from his face. She worried that it wasn’t terribly sanitary, but she figured the management would have taken that into account.

She took a look at the pathetically short wine list and decided to go with the house red. She looked up. Phil was still staring at her. She laughed. “Come on, did you think I would be so judgmental about it? I played Dungeons & Dragons in college, and a lot of my friends were into live-action role-playing and cosplay. Some were even furries. I’ve been to cons with guys just like these people. I didn’t get the memo that we’d need to come in makeup. I can do a good vampire if I can find my fangs.”

Phil smiled at last, then laughed loud and long, startling the patrons near them. “I would make a safe bet that you can do just that.”

The shuffling waiter looked at Zoë. “And the lady would like…?” he asked her in his dry voice.

“A glass of your house red, please,” she said, smiling at him.

“You would not enjoy our house red, ma’am,” the waiter replied. “It’s… clear your tastes run to a much finer vintage.”

“Well, what would you recommend?”

“We have a lovely shiraz that many of our human customers enjoy. I will bring you a glass.” He shuffled off.

Zoë grinned at Phil. “ ‘Human customers’? This is so cool. I really wish we’d dressed the part. This is exactly the kind of restaurant I’d love to write about in the guidebook.”

Phil nodded, picking up on her segue. “Let’s look at your book again.”

He perused the book on Raleigh, nodding in some areas and frowning in others. Zoë pointed out her specific work, whether it had been editing or writing, and he read in silence for several minutes. Their wine arrived without further comment from the zombie, and she sipped her red and tried not to fret.

Phil closed the book and handed it back to her. “I’ll be frank. You are nearly perfect for the job. And it bodes well that you are not put off by the various customers we hope to reach. But I admit I haven’t been one hundred percent honest with you.”

At that point, time seemed to slow for Zoë. Four waiters had gathered around the table where the three burly men sat after devouring their meat. Two were dressed as zombies, one was much cleaner and his fangs indicated he was probably a vampire, and the fourth had some superb scaly makeup covering his face and hands. They all began to sing “Happy Birthday” to one of the men, who beamed and didn’t bother to wipe the juice from his steak off his face. A fifth waiter approached from the kitchen, this one wearing stuck-on demon horns and carrying…

He carried…

Zoë swooned for a moment, a memory hitting her like a fist to the jaw. When her family had moved to the suburbs of North Carolina, she would often ride her bike around the development.
During one mid-morning Sunday ride, she came across a scene that took her brain a full ten seconds to process. Nothing she saw was otherworldly, but it was so out of place in a peaceful suburb that she refused to see it. A family stood in the backyard watching a man butcher a deer they’d hung on their kids’ swing set. The skin lay in a discarded pile to the side, and the man approached the pink muscles and sinew and started to carve off hunks of venison with a long knife. Zoë stopped and stared and her brain attempted again to process, but it failed.

They’re slaughtering a deer. A deer. In the suburbs. A skinless deer is hanging RIGHT THERE.

Nope. Still the brain didn’t acknowledge. She moved on, worried the family would notice her blatant staring, and only about a minute later did her brain work out what had happened. She slammed on the brakes and toppled from her bike into a hydrangea bush, where she vomited, clutching her stomach and voiding her mother’s signature hash browns. She had not expected to see a skinless deer hanging from a child’s swing set, and when she did, her brain rejected it until forced to understand.