“Calm down, Creature,” Lola whispered back my way. “She can call herself the Queen of Sheba, just so long as she comes out here.” She saw me seething and patted my arm. “Breathe and count to ten, sweetie.” She realized the error in that and edited it down some. “Or just count to ten.”
As it turned out, I only needed to make it to eight because Blondella appeared a moment later. “No!” she yapped, standing fifteen feet away.
“No?” Lola replied, looking utterly confused.
“I mean, no, it can’t be,” rephrased Blondella as she pushed her way through the crush of guards. “Lola Fontaine! The Lola Fontaine!”
I locked eyes with my newfound friend. “Do you really deserve that the?” I whispered.
She nodded. “Two-time Tony winner, Creature.” She grinned. “Didn’t you know?”
Blondella was suddenly barreling down upon us, or at least teetering at a relatively unsafe clip. “Not a clue,” I whispered. “Congrats.” I leaned in a little closer. “And play it up. Blondella’s a total show queen.”
She grinned, very mischievously. “Mhm, I know the type well.”
And then Blondella was pushing and shoving our zombies aside until she was face to face with Lola. Me she didn’t even notice. Then again, she’d so rarely ever even saw me out of drag that, in the clothes I was now in and with my face without makeup, let alone the ghastly shade of gray that it now was, it was beyond the realm of possibility that she could possibly recognize me. Of course, none of that mattered, really; her eyes were glued, locked, stapled and frozen to Lola.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she cooed. She then eyed Lola suspiciously, the bitch inside of her wrestling with and then promptly pinning the fan inside of her. “But what exactly are you?”
Lola held out her hand. “Lola Fontaine, star of stage, screen and numerous Lifetime movies, albeit in severely underrated roles.”
Blondella nodded and shook the proffered appendage. “Severely, yes.” She then smoothed out her too-tight dress and primped her too-high platinum wig. “And not who are you, but what?”
Lola’s smile was bewitching. “Ah, what indeed. What do you think I am?”
Blondella craned in closer, eyes marveling at the stunning star in front of her, nose twitching, sniffing. “You’re a zombie,” she uttered. “But how?”
“You know the how,” came the reply.
“No,” said Blondella. “I mean, how do you look like you look? How are you cognizant? How do you control these . . .” She deigned to look at us bit players. “These things?”
I neglected to retort that it took one to know one. In fact, I neglected to even make eye contact with her. We were, after all, pushing our luck as it was with me just being so close to her. Because if she recognized me then all hope was lost. For everything and everyone.
Lola smoothed her hair back and nodded. “You’re cognizant,” she replied, then pointed at the guards behind her. “And you clearly control these things, so is it not entirely probable that there are others out there like you?”
Blondella squinted her eyes, clearly mulling the question over. “Fine, I’ll give you that. The world is, or at least was, a large place. And if there’s one of me, then it stands to reason there are more.” She again closed the gap between them, the squint even squintier. “But what doesn’t stand to reason is a zombie who looks human. Dead, after all, is dead.”
Lola flipped her hand over and ran the back of her fingers against her smooth skin, smiling as she did so. Gave you goose bumps to see her, really. Or maybe dead-duck bumps, but still. “The Fountain of Youth is closer than you can possibly imagine,” she replied, ever so cryptically. She held out her dainty hand. “You know my name, by the way, but . . .”
My old and dear friend turned back to admiring fan. “Blondella,” she informed, grabbing the proffered hand. “Blondella Bombshell.”
Lola grinned, catlike. “Befitting. Blondella. I like it.” The smile grew wider. “And I like you, too.”
I could see Blondella fairly melt at the admission. “And I love you.”
“How sweet of you to say,” Lola practically purred. “So perhaps we can join forces, you and I.” Before Blondella could protest or simply kill her outright, Lola added, “And I can then show you to this Fountain of Youth of mine, make you appear human again, as beautiful as you clearly were in life.”
I forced back a snicker. Even in bar light and under twenty pounds of makeup, Blondella could barely boast statuesque let alone beautiful. Still, flattery, even in this zombie age of ours, could continue to get you everywhere. “Would you like to see my home, Miss Fontaine?” she asked in reply.
Lola nodded ever so slightly. “Please, call me Lola. All my friends call me that.”
I grimaced. Ironically, or perhaps sadly, I was her only friend now, her husband’s only friend as well, Dara’s too. It was a lot of responsibility, all of it resting heavily on my iron-stiff shoulders. Still, there was little time to ponder this, what with Blondella suddenly leading us up to the building she now called home.