Page 33 of Even If the Sky is Falling
“Sprint,” Dianna responded, impatient. The quicker they figured this out, the quicker she could calm down. She hated not having every piece of information available. She hated being left in the dark.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, the Reserve Room actually went dark. Dianna shrieked, dropping her phone and her Bubly.
“Shit,” she said, as she felt the water soak through her skirt before the can made a now-empty echo on the floor. All she could see was the flash of Jones’s face in her phone’s light before the backup generators kicked in and the room was filled with the blue-gray light that was always present in industrial freezers in every zombie movie she’d ever seen.
“My email’s down,” Jones said in disbelief. “My email is never down. I have Verizon.” She tried to send a message to Naima, her incredibly reckless younger sister, who since turning eighteen was responsible for at least half of her recent gray hairs. Dianna herself could claim the rest.
Jones tried not to worry as she received a“failed to deliver message.”Her sister wasn’t reckless enough to ignore the alarm and stay hanging out at whatever friend’s house had the most booze. Right?
“Sorry for your loss,” Dianna said as she wiped at her skirt. She hadn’t drunk nearly as much of that water as she had pretended to when trying to get on Jones’s nerves, and she was paying for it now as every last drop soaked through the fabric and made her thighs sticky.
Jones fixed her mouth to retort before noticing the wet stain spreading across Dianna’s skirt. “Oh,” she yelped. She moved to the door again, forgetting for just a moment they were trapped there, as she barreled into it. “Oh!” she groaned before rushing back to her backpack to pull out paper towels. Being helpful would distract her from trying to send one hundred more texts to Naima that would do nothing but go straight to the ether.
“Why do you have so many of these?” Dianna asked as Jones helped her dab at her skirt with a handful of paper towels and napkins that looked like they came from every restaurant on 53rd Street.
“Ragweed,” Jones muttered as she focused on pressing at the spot between Dianna’s legs.
Dianna stilled. “What?”
Jones looked up finally. In the near dark, her brown eyes were nearly black. “I’m allergic to ragweed pollen. I keep tissues on hand so I’m not a snotty mess.”
“Oh,” Dianna said, distracted as Jones’s hands continued to move. “Maybe I should...”
“What?” Jones asked before immediately dropping her hands to her sides. She was both thankful that it was so dark and that she was a deep brown that hid embarrassment from her face. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Dianna said. It was the most cordial conversation they’d ever had. She didn’t want Jones to think she was upset with her and set off the attitude she was so used to receiving. Plus, it hadn’t been that bad letting Jones’s hands work over her thighs. Jones was surprisingly gentle, Dianna thought, for someone who approached every interaction with a sharp edge. “I just hope it’s not ruined. It’s vintage.”
“So expensive?” Jones corrected, handing the rest of the dry paper towels to Dianna to finish drying off.
“Probably not.” Dianna shrugged as she pressed the paper towels against herself. Dabbing was always more effective than scrubbing. “It was my grandmother’s. She died six years ago and I inherited her closet. Well, I inherited everything, and her closet was all she really had.” Dianna’s voice broke at the end of her sentence. Jones pretended not to notice.
“Oh,” Jones said, surprised. She inspected the skirt more closely now, at least what she could see in the shadows. “It’s nice.”
Dianna stared at her, the paper towels forgotten. “It’s nice?”
“I like vintage clothes,” Jones explained with a shrug. “Better than the stuff we’ve got now.”
“Well, thank you. And agreed.” Dianna smiled and the most surprising thing of the evening so far happened—Jones smiled back. You could have knocked Dianna over with a feather. Jones had a beautiful smile. Her lips pulled all the way back to show two even rows of teeth, and her eyes brightened. All of the frown lines settled in Jones’s forehead and the corners of her eyes disappeared, making her look softer.
“I bet that caused quite the stir,” Jones offered as she watched Dianna press into the fabric.
“What?”
“Your grandma shafting the rest of the family,” Jones laughed. “In my family, there would have been a no-holds-barred, knockdown, drag-out fight between my mom and sister for clothes.” Her fingers twitched at her side as she restrained herself from texting the family group chat. It wouldn’t make it to them, and that would just further stress her out.
“It was just us,” Dianna said, the words barely loud enough to reach Jones just a few feet away.
Jones realized Dianna hadn’t reached for her phone even once after they received the warning. There wasn’t anyone she needed to reach because there wasn’t anyone. Her stomach twisted. Maybe needing to be accepted by everyone was how Dianna avoided feeling alone. Jones didn’t know what she would do without her family.
Dianna dumped the used paper towels into a pile on her abandoned chair. She reached behind her back and unzipped her skirt. Jones leaped away like Dianna had pulled a boa constrictor out of her back pocket.
“What are you doing?” Jones asked in nearly a whisper.
“It’s wet. And sticky,” Dianna answered, sliding the skirt down her legs and stepping out of it. “And it’ll dry better flat.” Luckily it was just seltzer water so it hopefully wouldn’t stain. She would just have to get it to the dry cleaners as soon as possible. She laid it flat on the carpeted floor. And then she shimmied out of her tights, rolling them into a ball before shoving them in the trash can. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too cold when they got out of here.Ifthey got out of here.
Jones’s eyes burst open like tiny saucers. It was never quite warm enough in Chicago for Jones to see much of her classmate’s skin during the school year, and she had never seen so much of Dianna. Her legs were stronger than they looked when covered by tights or jeans, because Dianna would never be caught dead in yoga pants like the rest of the student body. And despite how body-shaping Jones had considered Dianna’s clothes to be before, she was realizing now how much they had left up to her imagination. In just her panties, Dianna was slender but muscular, sinewy tendons rippling beneath her skin even in the dark. The kind of body that Jones had only seen on professional athletes during her biennial watch of whatever Olympic event was on television. Her legs were slightly paler than her face, which was already gold medallion, but still sunlight soaked.
Dianna caught Jones’s glance, which was concentrated on a small dimple settled into Dianna’s skin. She anticipated the slick comment that was probably nestled at the tip of Jones’s tongue and she rolled her eyes in anticipation. “I’m not going to walk around in a pair of tights. I would look ridiculous.”
