Free Undead and Unfinished by MaryJanice Davidson

whisper-screamed. “I don’t know how I got here. All I remember is going to bed last night in my room, and now I’m naked in the spoon!”
    As someone born and raised within an hour’s drive of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, I knew at once what the problem was and, even better, where it was.
    “I’m coming,” I told her, dropping the phone back in my pocket and all but diving out my bedroom door.
    It wasn’t running away. It sure wasn’t a retreat. A family member needed help. I had to go, no matter what just happened with my husband, no matter how much I wanted to stay and thrash this out.
    Yup. That was my story. It even had the advantage of sounding almost true.

Chapter 18

    H ennepin Avenue wasn’t too wretched—it was only ten at night—which made me wonder why Laura was waking up at such an odd hour (and naked, no less). She was a student at the U of M; she tended to stick to the typical daytime schedule of a nine-to-fiver. Time enough to pin her down on that one once I rescued her from the spoon.
    The spoon was one of the things the Twin Cities were famous for (aside from subzero temperatures that would make a weasel squeal).
    It was an enormous sculpture of a spoon with a cherry sitting in the bowl of said spoon, and was the pride and joy of the sculpture garden. The husband-and-wife team who created it were hailed as artistic geniuses, and gobs of people came to look at the thing every year.
    Not me, though. Once was enough (ninth-grade field trip, which was made even more exciting when Jessica barfed her Dilly Bar all over my new sweater). Okay, it was a very nice gigantic spoon. And a very vibrant, pretty cherry.
    Uh, geniuses? The ones who thought this up were geniuses? The guy—the husband—even admitted that he sketched while he ate. He would get inspired. While he ate. No wonder he thought of doing a giant spoon. He was probably wolfing down ice cream at the time. Maybe even an ice cream sundae. With a big red guess what on top? I s’pose we’re lucky he didn’t sculpt a giant pudding cup. Or a giant tuna melt.
    Okay, so, as a people, we midwesterners are easily impressed. All anyone has to do is eyeball the sculpture garden to figure that out. Don’t even get me started on the guy who did the sculpture of a bench. He used three kinds of materials for his sculpture. Of a bench. Which people keep insisting is art. When it’s a bench.
    This was probably why my major had been Studies in Cinema, as opposed to Art History, before I dropped out. Never mind; I had stuff to do and Antichrists to haul out of giant cherries.
    I parked (badly), then beat feet over to the sculpture garden. I was wearing good shoes, of course, but they were Dolce and Gabbana floral print sandals, which meant they were gorgeous, expensive, and flat. I could actually run in them.
    For a wonder—at least it was a chilly night—there weren’t any couples trying to sneak over to have sex in the spoon. So I found Laura alone, shivering, and—she hadn’t exaggerated for dramatic effect, though I’d had hopes—naked.
    “What happened?” I asked, already shrugging out of my jacket. I handed her a small, crumpled Target bag—no time to shop, or wrap—which held one of a thousand pairs of my leggings. (You know how, a couple years ago, everybody credited Lindsay Lohan with bringing back leggings? A vicious, damnable lie. I brought ‘em back. Me.)
    I didn’t bother to bring shoes—she was two sizes bigger than me. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
    “I don’t know! I woke up in here. And I was cold and this thing—this spoon is so cold! And—”
    “Wait. You woke up like this? Just like this?” I watched as she yanked on my leggings—should have remembered to bring underwear—and pulled the jacket closed over her breasts. “How did you call me?”
    “There was a guy with a sketchbook—he said he’d quit sketching because it was dark, but was still hanging around—and he gave me his phone. He said I