Playlist for the Dead(15)

I could just imagine Mr. Beaumont giving a pamphlet like this to Ryan. He’d probably jump all over the fact that Hayden had used a girl’s strategy. Leave it to the bully trifecta to come up with reasons to mock him even after he was gone.

The lack of sleep was starting to make me dizzy so I lay down on my bed for a while and tried to take a nap. But my head was still spinning from all the different things going on—Hayden being gone, of course, but also Astrid, and the Archmage. Except I was pretty sure I must have dreamed the Archmage. I wasn’t in the habit of falling asleep in my desk chair, but there was a first time for everything. I tried to put it out of my head but just when I thought I was about to drift off there was a knock at the door.

“Mom, I’m trying to sleep in here.”

“It’s not Mom.” I opened my eyes. The door opened and Rachel came in my room wearing her usual outfit: a very tiny skirt and so much makeup it looked like she’d spray-painted it on. Funny, when she didn’t have on a fake face she and Mom looked a lot alike—both were tall, with long brown curly hair and big brown eyes. But while Mom looked tired all the time from working, Rachel looked like she worked at one of the makeup counters at the mall. Which was actually her dream job. All that makeup made her look old, though, almost as old as Mom. If she just took off half of the makeup and gave it to Mom, they’d both look great.

Not that I’d ever say that to either one of them. I wasn’t a complete idiot.

“You haven’t stepped one foot in my room in at least a year,” I pointed out. “What are you doing here?”

She looked around at the band posters that covered every inch of the walls not already taken over by my bookshelves. “It hasn’t improved much. Listen, Jimmy’s coming over for dinner and I need you to get your ass downstairs ASAP and make this as painless as possible.”

“I totally forgot,” I said, and closed my eyes again. “Mom said something this morning. I think I’ll just stay up here.”

I felt the weight of Rachel sitting down on the edge of my bed, which was weird enough that I opened my eyes again.

“She probably didn’t tell you she’s decided to cook,” Rachel said, wrinkling her nose. “There are so many ways this could turn into a complete disaster that counting them is making my head explode. I need you to get my back on this one, little brother.” She looked at me with what I could only assume she intended as puppy-dog eyes. All I could see were cracks in the makeup as she widened her eyes as far as they could go.

Still, Rachel almost never let herself get into a situation where she owed me a favor. This could be fun. I stood up slowly, feeling pretty dizzy. “You owe me big,” I said. “But I must have misunderstood you. You said Mom’s cooking? Does she want you guys to break up?”

“That might be the strategy. Cover for me for a bit, okay?”

She disappeared down the hall, and I was left to face the prospect of Mom in the kitchen all by myself. Jimmy was already sitting at the kitchen table by the time I got downstairs. I’d never met him—Rachel had never invited any of her boyfriends to anything involving the family, and this one didn’t go to Libertyville High. As soon as I saw him, I understood why she’d never brought him around: he looked like any parent’s worst nightmare. Tattoos, stretched earlobes, studded leather jacket, the whole thing. I’d have expected someone who looked like him to be lounging, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth even if he was smart enough not to smoke inside. But Jimmy was sitting straight up in his chair, hands folded in front of him like he was at a business meeting. Mom was at the stove, stirring something in a pot billowing with smoke, which was already making me nervous.

Jimmy stood up and held out his hand. “How you doing, man?”

“Not too bad.” I shook his hand. His grip was firm, but he didn’t do that thing guys do sometimes where they almost crush you so you know how manly they are. “So you’re here for dinner, huh?”

Jimmy nodded and tried not to look worried.

“I hope Rachel warned you to eat first,” I said.

“Not nice,” Mom called out.

“Need some help over there?” I asked.

She turned around and I could see beads of sweat on her forehead. “I might just take you up on that, Sammy.”

I hated it when she called me that, especially in front of Jimmy. It almost made me wish I hadn’t offered. But I didn’t want her to burn the house down; we’d avoided fires in the past, but narrowly. There was a macaroni-and-cheese incident that I was still trying to forget, and some stains in the ceiling brought back memories of exploding eggs every time I looked up.

I walked over to the stove and looked into the pot, waving away the smoke to see a sludge of white and brown and black, though I couldn’t identify anything that actually looked like food. “What is that?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.

“It was supposed to be risotto,” Mom said. “With mushrooms and—”

She was interrupted by the smoke alarm. I reached over and shut off the burner, then took the pot and put it in the sink while Mom disabled the alarm. I hoped Jimmy wouldn’t notice that we had a system. “What do you like on your pizza, Jimmy?” I asked.

Rachel laughed behind me. I turned and saw she’d changed into a slightly longer skirt, taken off a little bit of the makeup. She looked just respectable enough to make Mom happy. She must really like this guy. “Nice outfit,” I said.