The Ups and Downs of Being Dead

by M. R. Cornelius

  “But you weren’t sending those kind of vibes…”

  “He let my friends Christy and Angela in. Then he clipped that fucking velvet rope shut right in front of me. Excluded me but not my friends!”

  Robert wished he had the nerve to slip into her side of the booth and pull her into his arms, but Amanda had already turned her humiliation into anger. She dug fuchsia-colored fingernails into the top of the table.

  “It’s not fair,” she snarled in a hoarse whisper. “I’ve worked just as hard as they have. And I’m sick of people telling me my hips are too wide, my breasts are too large. What they really mean is they don’t want a woman who looks like a woman. They want some skinny bitch who eats Saltines and then barfs before she steps out onto the runway.”

  “Maybe your agent isn’t sending you to the right places.”

  A tear dripped onto the table and she finger-painted with it, her head bowed. “I don’t have an agent.”

  Bells rang. Birds sang. Robert tumbled like a pubescent teen with his first crush. All he could think about was how much he wanted Amanda. But not that night. She was too vulnerable, and too soused.

  “Look.” He abruptly stood and fished his money clip out of his pocket. “I’m staying at the Empire—”

  Her head jerked up so fast a tear flew off her chin. Seething anger burned in her eyes. “How dare you…”

  “—and I have to be up at the crack of dawn for a commercial we’re shooting in one of their ballrooms.” He laid a twenty calmly on the table to pay for the coffee. “Why don’t you come by tomorrow and meet the director, Frank Chambers. Maybe we can all go somewhere for lunch.”

  With every ounce of will power he possessed, he walked out of that bar.

  * * *

  The elevator doors whooshed open. Robert lumbered inside and stood in a corner.

  “Don’t start second-guessing your decision, Robert,” Maggie said. “Cryonics was the right thing to do. Now you have to learn to adapt.”

  Sam agreed. “You have to think of this as retirement. A lot of men have trouble coping with their free time at first, but believe me, you’re going to love this opportunity.”

  “Most retirees live on a fixed income,” Maggie said. “So they spend their golden years picking and choosing. We can save for a trip to Italy in two years, but next summer we won’t be able to rent the lake cottage. You, on the other hand, have been given carte blanche to go anywhere you wish, first class.”

  “Think of all the knowledge you’ll garner over the years,” Sam added.

  The elevator doors opened. After the others stepped out, Robert shuffled along behind.

  “I’m not going to go back to school,” he said.

  Rising on her toes, Maggie got right in his face.

  “Stop sulking. You sound like one of my grandchildren.”

  She passed through the door of an insurance agency and was gone.

  Sam offered Robert a sheepish grin.

  “She can be a bit brutal,” he said, “but she’s right. You’ve got to get over your disappointment. There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

  After passing partway through the door, Sam glanced back at Robert.

  “Let’s go take a header out of a sixth floor window. Maybe that’ll make you feel better.” He winked and disappeared.

  Robert decided to suck it up and get on with it. Later, he’d ditch these two and go find something to do.

  Standing close to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the insurance office, Sam gazed down.

  “Okay, raise your arms over head, like you’re going to dive—”

  With a bump of her rump, Maggie tried to knock Sam out of the way.

  “He’s just kidding,” she said. “It’s hard to explain, but you see the sidewalk, you think it, and there you are.”

  Robert closed his eyes and visualized the trash receptacle next to a parking meter. When he didn’t feel any difference, he pressed his eyelids tighter, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes to tell Sam it wasn’t working, and was shocked to find himself standing in the trash basket.

  Next, they transported from one end of the block to the other.

  Maggie didn’t seem to be holding a grudge over Robert’s surly attitude. If it had been Amanda, she’d have given Robert the silent treatment for the rest of the day, at least.

  “Let’s step it up,” Maggie said. “See that church spire in the distance? Let’s see who gets to the top first.”

  An instant later, Robert found himself hovering high in the air right next to the steeple. When he looked down, the shock made him attempt to throw his arms around the spire in a bear hug.

  Ever the clown, Sam pretended to dangle from the side by one hand, while the other fist beat his chest King Kong-style.

  “Hey! I’ve got an idea,” Sam said. “Let’s go check out the Rutherford Art Museum. They’ve got a new collection in the basement that doesn’t show until the first of the month. We can be the first to view it.”

  How many times had Robert dragged himself through the High Museum in Atlanta for one of Amanda’s many charity benefits? At least at those, he’d been able to network with other bored husbands. And drink. What was the point now?

  After spending an hour meandering through the museum’s basement, where most of the paintings were still in bubble wrap, Sam and Maggie decided to tour the museum upstairs. They stopped to read every stinking plaque at every single painting. Robert was about to run screaming from the building when Sam stopped at the picture of Amanda.

  They were in an alcove labeled pop culture. There were a couple Warhols, a Peter Max, the photo of Marilyn Monroe standing over the grate with her white dress blowing up, Farrah Fawcett in the red maillot. And right next to Betty Grable glancing over her shoulder, was Amanda in the champagne-colored gown. She lounged back on a chaise with one arm draped over her head. Her lips had been exaggerated as though they were swollen slightly, her eyes were dazed, her hair tousled as though her lover had just walked away.

  Robert had often wondered what she was thinking at the moment the photographer caught that sated smile. He’d never been able to convince himself that her thoughts were of him.

  That photo shoot had been quite different from the first time Amanda agreed to model an Audrey’s fashion.

  It was the morning after he’d happened onto her in the bar drowning her sorrows in tequila. He was amazed when she showed up at the Empire Hotel where he had a crew shooting a commercial. Unfortunately, Amanda’s irascible attitude was with her as well.

  “What’s going on here?” she’d demanded as she glared past Robert to the set behind him.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the runway that had been erected, the paid actors posing as photographers, and the women who strutted to the end of the catwalk. Of course, the women weren’t modeling designer originals; they were dressed in ready-to-wear from Audrey’s.

  “That woman in the pink pantsuit can’t be taller than five-two,” Amanda carped. “And who did the woman’s hair in the black evening gown?”

  “That’s the whole point.” Robert had calmly explained. “All women want to look beautiful, even if they’re short or have frizzy hair. Don’t they?”

  Amanda had practically snarled, “I suppose.”

  How could she not agree? She’d just been lamenting to him the night before how unfairly the modeling industry treated her.

  He touched her arm. “You could be part of this, too.”

  She jerked away with such wrath that for a second he thought she might slap him. “And what? Be the token blond bimbo in your freak show?”

  When Robert caught up with her in the lobby, she did take a swing at him.

  “How dare you,” she sputtered.

  “Stop it!” he demanded, gripping her arms. “Just calm down and listen to me.”

  The moment he turned her loose, she folded her arms tightly across her chest, her lips pinched in a scowl. At least she hadn’t stormed out the door.


  “I want you to be the Audrey’s girl. The featured model wearing our top-of-the-line fashions. You’ll be the close-up when we fade to black, the model in our magazine ads. You’ll be my celebrity endorser, my Cheryl Tiegs, the face every woman can identify.”

  With every word he spoke, he watched the lines of her face her soften. Her arms slowly unfurled. He closed the deal with one last zinger. “Look, you want to be a model – so model.”

  Grudgingly, she chose a sapphire blue gown that fit like a glove. Her first couple passes on the catwalk were awkward at best. There was no exaggerated flaunt of the hips, no haughty swagger in her shoulders. But as the actors flashed their cameras, and the extras murmured their approval, she loosened up. On the final take, she strutted with a confidence begging to be released. And when she tossed her head over her shoulder to give the director one last pout, the camera captured the essence of Amanda. She was indeed the Audrey’s Girl.

  * * *

  “Va-va-voom,” Sam said as he leered at Amanda’s picture on the museum wall. “Come to papa.”

  Clearing his throat, Robert said, “That’s my wife.”

  Sam chuckled. “You wish.” He turned to Maggie for her dig at Robert, but she wasn’t laughing. She merely nodded.

  Swinging his head back to the picture, Sam said, “Wow! No wonder you want to come back. I assume she’s a member of the Cryonics Center, too.”

  “No.” Robert didn’t feel the need to reveal how much Amanda had ridiculed him for joining the center.

  “Well, at least you got to spend 28 years with her,” Sam said with a wag on his eyebrows. “That’s more than most men get.”

  Robert huffed a breath out through his nose. “I heard a quote once from Carole Lombard, about her marriage. She said ‘Clark Gable is no Clark Gable’. Amanda’s beautiful, but she doesn’t have that va-va-voom you’re talking about.”

  Sure, she’d come on like a sex goddess in the beginning, with the screaming and clutching at Robert as though she were in the throes of an earth-shattering orgasm. But after a while, he recognized her orchestrated performances as rewards. She doled out her affection as payment for full-page ads in magazines, or as a thank you for a new bauble.

  When he gave her that 10-carat marquise diamond pendant for their first anniversary, she performed oral sex on him for the first time.

  As the years went by, he learned not to trust any of her squeals or groans.

  * * *

  “Okay, Robert,” Maggie said. “Time for the big finish. We’re going to teleport back to the Cryonics Center.”

  “Raise your arms, point your fingers to the sky like you’re Superman,” Sam instructed.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Maggie grumbled. “Think about some place in the center, like the surgical suite. We’ll be right behind you. If you don’t make it, just take a bus.”

  Robert closed his eyes, and visualized the freezing chamber where his body currently laid, the temperature slowly dropping. When he opened his eyes, he was right beside the chamber.

  Sam and Maggie appeared almost instantly.

  “That was easy,” Robert said. “Where should we go now?”

  “Sorry, pal.” Sam crinkled the corner of his mouth into a frown. “That was pretty much the whole tour. Maggie and I are still on duty until the first of the month. You know, in case another temp comes in.”

  “You’re welcome to hang out with us,” Maggie said. “Once my time is up, I’m going to Savannah. They have a haunted house tour that I’ve been dying to check out.”

  She waited with anticipation for Robert to respond to her ‘dying’ comment.

  Instead, he turned to Sam. “And you’re going to college.”

  “Not any college. Stanford. Participants will be discussing whether bioengineering is the route to take for nanotechnology.”

  “Geez,” Robert said. “And I thought Savannah sounded boring.”

  Sam and Maggie tilted their heads together and rolled their eyes.

  “You’ve got to get out of business mode,” Maggie said. “You don’t have work hours anymore, no one is waiting for you to make a decision, the economy will not rise or fall at your bidding; you’re basically a nobody now. So you better find something you enjoy doing.”

  Jamming a fist into his hip, Robert glowered down at Maggie. “You’re the one who keeps telling me I’ve got all the time in the world. So why don’t you back off and give me some time to adjust to this?”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Sam said, stepping between the two of them. “Why don’t you cruise around town some more, practice what we showed you. Surely there were times in your life when you caught yourself saying: ‘If I had the time I’d…’ what? Read books, go to every Mets game, learn another language?”

  “Exactly,” Maggie said. The woman was not easily intimidated. In fact, she seemed oblivious to Robert’s little outburst. “If you spend a month in the Smithsonian, so what?”

  “Wow,” Robert said in perfect deadpan style.

  ‘Okay, how about this.” Maggie held out a hand to stop him. “You were into clothing, fashion. Why not pick your favorite designer and go hang out at his shop. You can watch his people come up with new ideas, or see someone create a new dress.”

  A glimmer of hope broke through Robert’s depression. He actually could go to any designer house in the world now. He could go to all of them. And the autumn/winter fashion weeks were coming up. He could attend all four, starting with New York in February, hitting London and Milan and ending with Paris in March.

  His imagination cranked up. Not only could he attend the shows, he could go behind the scenes, hang out in the dressing rooms, see the supermodel Gabriella buck naked if he wanted.

  Relaxing his eyebrows, Robert hoped Maggie hadn’t noticed the leer on his face. Especially after he’d made such a big deal about her strip club comment.

  “One last thing,” Sam said. “Our December meeting is in New York. You should definitely plan to attend. You’ll be the guest of honor since you are the newest member.”

  “Oh, swell.” Robert scrunched his face at the prospect of meeting a bunch of old codgers.

  “You must come,” Maggie insisted. “The temps are your only network of friends now. You’ll be glad to have them as the years go by.”

  “It’s not important yet,” Sam said. “But eventually, you’ll want to be present at all meetings because you never know when something might break in technology. You don’t want to be late when they thaw you out.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Robert said with a wave of his hand. He was tired of arguing with these two. “Maybe I’ll go home first, see what Amanda’s doing.”

  Robert was sure she had big plans for a memorial service for him, some elaborate final performance for the grieving widow. Plus, he wanted to be there when his attorney, Martin, gave her the bad news.

  Poor Martin. Stuck with one last unsavory task. Remorse flickered for an instant, but Robert shrugged it off. That’s what an attorney was for, to handle the dirty work, and Martin had made a small fortune off Robert over the years. Let him earn his severance check.

  “Let me just warn you about going home,” Maggie said. “It’s a lot tougher than it sounds. You see your family grieving and you can’t do anything to ease their pain. Or worse, they’re not grieving.”

  She paused to give Robert a moment to grasp the implication, but Robert didn’t expect anyone to grieve. Well, maybe his daughter, Rachel.

  “If your business is successful,” Sam said, “you’re hurt that they’re getting along without you. If the business starts to slide, you’re frantic to get things back on track.”

  “You see your children, your grandchildren make mistakes, and you’re powerless to help.”

  Sam snorted. “You find out things you don’t want to know, or things you wish you’d known twenty years earlier. I checked in on one of my colleagues and found out he was surfing the ‘net for young boys. Very disturbing.”

  “But you both
went back,” Robert countered. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “No one’s saying you shouldn’t,” Maggie said. “We all go back. But it’s rarely what we want to see.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Robert was the first to board the flight to Atlanta, although soon enough, a businessman claimed the same first-class seat Robert occupied. He stood. It didn’t matter. The flight attendant wasn’t going to interfere, and he wasn’t uncomfortable standing.

  For all the walking he had done since leaving the Cryonics Center, his feet weren’t sore. He hadn’t slept; he wasn’t hungry. His only concern was time. How was he going to fill seventy-five years?

  He pondered Sam’s question: What had he always wished he had time to do? He wasn’t into watching sports. Sightseeing, travel, that whole tourist thing held no lure. Go back to school? Learn a new language? Boring. Reading books posed some major problems. He couldn’t pop into a library and take a book off a shelf. If he read an e-book, it would be over someone’s shoulder.

  The truth was that anytime Robert had wished for more time, it was to squeeze more business into a day. He hadn’t taken many vacations with his family. He didn’t have a circle of friends with similar leisure activities. In fact, he couldn’t think of any friends at all. Maybe Martin. Interesting how his only friend was also his attorney.

  Martin was an ace at negotiating real estate contracts with failing shopping centers in need of a new anchor store. He’d also come to Robert’s rescue on personal problems, like the skiing fiasco in Utah, or when his daughter, Rachel decided at the age of fourteen that she wanted to be emancipated.

  The first person Robert called when he found out about the cancer was not Amanda, but Martin. True to form, Martin had objectively walked Robert through his options: go public with Audrey’s and re-distribute the stores as franchises, or turn the privately-owned corporation over to Rachel. Martin advised Robert to limit any inheritance to his son Robbie, and offered to act as executor to Robbie’s portion, rather than Amanda.