The Ups and Downs of Being Dead

by M. R. Cornelius

  “This is exactly how Amanda tried to dress Rachel. Like a little princess in puffy sleeves and satin sashes, right down to the Mary Jane shoes with lace socks.”

  He shook his head slowly as he stared at the picture of a girl in a colorful stripped sweater with matching stripped leggings.

  “All this time, I thought Rachel hated the clothes. But she was just rebelling against Amanda.”

  “Maybe she craved some of the attention Robbie was getting,” Suzanne suggested. “As a teacher, it never ceased to amaze me how inappropriately children behave when they want attention.”

  The meeting quickly wrapped up. A couple of the buyers pulled out their Blackberrys as they headed for the door. Rachel stayed behind to chat with the representative from the design house that had created her presentation, then strolled back to her office.

  Her personal assistant followed Rachel to her desk.

  “Jack Courley called, wants to reschedule for Tuesday. The Springfield store is still insisting you come for their Pioneer Days.”

  She glanced at the next pink slip in her hand and hesitated before telling Rachel, “Robbie called again.”

  Rachel sighed, then took the memo from her personal assistant.

  “Thanks, Joanie.”

  Once she left, Rachel dialed the number on the memo.

  Robert moved in closer to hear both sides of the conversation.

  “What took you so long?” Robbie asked the moment he answered.

  “I was in a conference, Robbie. I told you my schedule when you called yesterday.”

  “Did you talk to Briscoe?”

  “No. I told you there’s no point in talking to your attorney until you finish the program. You’ve only been in rehab a week, Robbie. You have to give it some time.”

  “I’m over this dump. You tell Briscoe to come up with a better plan or I’m leaving.”

  “We can’t keep going over this every day, Robbie. You need to successfully complete rehab before your next court appearance so that Mr. Briscoe can show that you’ve not only gotten cleaned out, but that you’re remorseful for your actions while under the influence of drugs.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Robbie blathered. “That’s bullshit. The people here are cretins.”

  “Rockmore is the top-rated rehab facility in the Southeast, Robbie.”

  “Fuck you!” he screamed. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  Rachel took a breath to calm her anger.

  “I’m not going to return any more of your calls, Robbie. If you stole the cell phone you’re using right now, please return it. And stick to the plan. The sooner you get straightened out, the sooner you can get out.”

  Robbie started to scream something else, but Rachel disconnected.

  Robert turned to Suzanne.

  “And you think Mark’s a jerk.”

  “No, I think Mark’s hiding something. Robbie’s definitely a jerk.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Let’s go see him.”

  “Are you kidding?” Robert said. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Morbid curiosity?”

  “You go, I’ll meet you in Ft. Lauderdale.”

  “It’ll be fun. Think of all the satisfaction you’ll get watching him endure withdrawal. He sounds like he’s on the edge already.”

  Robert considered the possibilities: Robbie with the dry heaves, uncontrollable shaking, profuse sweating, all the ghastly symptoms shown in the movies. He would find that very satisfying.

  * * *

  Rockmore was located an hour north of Atlanta. The owners had refurbished an old resort lodge in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, then added two single story wings off to the sides to house additional patients. It came into view after Robert and Suzanne had trudged nearly a mile on a winding road through dense pine forest. There had been no signage other than a street number out on the county road.

  “This is it,” Suzanne said, obviously relieved that she hadn’t been dragging Robert on some wild goose chase.

  “They sure make it hard to find,” he grumbled.

  “It’s a lovely setting. The tranquility is probably what these people need most. And being so secluded like this, it might discourage patients from wandering off.”

  “I’m sure the fine folks in the surrounding area insisted on that. No one wants a bunch of drug addicts in their neighborhood.”

  Inside, the lobby of the old hotel had been converted to a gathering place for patients. Two boys, probably in their mid-twenties, sat at a table playing cards. One of the boy’s hands shook so hard, Robert marveled that he didn’t drop his cards.

  A large screen television dominated one corner of the room. A teenage girl sat curled up at one end of a sofa, watching a wildlife program with the volume muted.

  “Do you think that’s all the louder they can have the television?” Suzanne asked as she wandered closer.

  “I’m sure they do all they can to keep these kids from getting riled up. Check her out.”

  The girl’s knees were drawn up tight against her chest. Her eyes had darker circles than Angie’s did after her accident. The girl didn’t even look eighteen, but maybe that was because she was so thin that her body was shapeless. She wore a tank top and flannel pants even though it was almost January.

  One hand held the other steady as she chewed on a fingernail. When a nurse walked nearby, the girl spit the nail at her.

  Robert heard yelling down a hallway, and what sounded like a scuffle. Then Robbie came careening around the corner with a male nurse or orderly close behind. The orderly grabbed Robbie’s arm.

  “Get your fucking hand off me,” Robbie snapped as he jerked his arm free. “Fucking moron.”

  “You’re on thin ice, Malone,” the orderly snarled back. “And I’ll be the one to personally escort you to the door.”

  The orderly stomped over to a nurses’ station, pulled out a folder, and began to scribble furiously.

  Robert shook his head. “Another in what I’m sure is a long list of grievances against Robbie.”

  Robbie flopped onto the sofa next to the curled-up girl with such force that the thumb she was chewing on jammed into her mouth.

  “Hey!” she said.

  “Shut up!”

  She licked her lip, then dabbed at it with a finger and checked to see if she was bleeding. Not that Robbie cared.

  “That guy’s a tool,” Robbie huffed. “So’s that doctor.” He looked over the girl’s head to see down the hallway. “I bet he’s not really a doctor. Just some fuckwad that can’t get laid.”

  The girl giggled but it sounded strained.

  “He always wants to talk about my mom,” she said. “Maybe he wants to fuck her.”

  “If he can get it up.”

  She spit another piece of fingernail in the general direction of the television.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” she said, lowering her voice. “I’m leaving.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I am. I’ve got a friend picking me up during dinner tonight.”

  “Bullshit,” Robbie said. “You can’t just walk out.”

  She gave Robbie a glare like he was the moron. “Watch me.”

  “How are you going to do it?”

  “I’m going out the door at the end of the hall.”

  “It’s got an alarm.”

  “Duh. So what? I jump in the car and we’re gone.”

  “What if they come after you?”

  “This is rehab, not prison,” she said. “They got their money. What do they care?”

  “Sounds too simple.”

  “I’ve done it before,” she said, searching her fingertips for a sliver of nail that she could get her teeth on. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  Robbie sat and gazed at the TV for so long that Robert decided he hadn’t heard the girl’s invitation.

  But then he finally said, “I better not. My attorney will have a cow.”

  “Whatever.”

/>   Suzanne was proud of Robbie for sticking to his guns. All Robert could do was laugh.

  “The night is young,” he said.

  When a bell chimed, all the slugs in the lounge heaved out of their seats and shuffled to a dining room. Robert and Suzanne followed Robbie. He sat next to the girl, who was propping her head up with her hand like she didn’t feel well. She took a couple bites of her meal, then dropped her fork.

  “I’m gonna barf,” she announced, and dashed out of the room.

  A nurse sitting one table over watched the girl flee with her hand cupped over her mouth. After giving it five seconds consideration, the nurse went back to her meal.

  Robbie sat with a fork gripped in one hand, his knife in the other.

  “The battle begins,” Robert said. “I give him thirty seconds.”

  Sure enough, Robbie calmly laid his utensils down, wiped his mouth, and casually stood.

  “I’ll go see if she’s okay,” he said to the nurse, and slowly strolled to the door.

  “Oh, no!” Suzanne said.

  “Oh, yes.”

  He and Suzanne scurried to watch. The girl was already at the end of the hallway. She pushed open the door and immediately an alarm went off.

  Robbie lowered his head and sprinted after the girl. An orderly shouted for Robbie to stop, but he surged on, then dove into the open back door of a car and it sped away before he could even get the door closed.

  “That’s my boy,” Robert said as they watched the taillights.

  “I don’t believe it! He’s jeopardizing his court case.”

  “You don’t get it. He doesn’t care. He assumes someone will fix it. They always do.”

  “You always did.”

  Robert held up his hands in surrender. “Not me. This is all Amanda’s doing.”

  “I want to see where he’s going.”

  Before Robert could even object, Suzanne disappeared.

  “Oh, for the love of God,” he huffed. Then he concentrated on the taillights far in the distance, and zipped forward to catch up.

  * * *

  The car parked in an underground garage of some fancy Buckhead highrise. Robert had ridden on the roof, refusing to get in the car with the others.

  Robbie and the girl tumbled out of the back seat while the driver and his girlfriend staggered toward the elevator.

  Suzanne eased out of the empty car and stood watching the four stumble and giggle.

  “Happy now?” Robert asked from the roof.

  Unaware of his presence, Suzanne jumped. Then she furrowed her eyebrows at him. “I thought you didn’t want to know what he was up to.”

  “I’m not here for him,” Robert said. “I’m here for you.”

  Her jaw dropped slightly at the comment, and Robert pinched his face into a snarl. “Can we just go to the airport?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  At the port in Ft. Lauderdale, hundreds of people waited in a holding area to board the ship. Robert wasn’t sure he’d ever seen so many Hawaiian shirts and straw purses in one place before.

  He and Suzanne headed right for the front of the line. Just beyond the gangplank, the ship’s photographer had stopped a large family to take a picture. It took a bit of juggling to get grandma and grandpa front and center, with mom and dad flanking the right and three bratty kids all jostling each other on the left. When one of the boys continued to tease his sister, dad reached over and whacked the kid on the back of the head. He immediately turned around and smiled for the camera.

  “Could it really have been that easy?” Robert asked.

  First on Suzanne’s agenda was to investigate every inch of the ship. That was okay with Robert, since they had to wait for the other two thousand and sixteen passengers to get on board before the ship sailed.

  It really wasn’t any different from a five-star hotel, but Suzanne oohed and aahed over wide staircases and chandeliers. Not only did she check out the main dining room, she went into the kitchen. The staff was already busy slicing and dicing for dinner.

  On another deck, a small café had laid out a buffet of hot items, and cold make-your-own sandwiches, salads, and ice cream sundaes.

  As passengers boarded, they dropped off their carry-on bags and made a beeline for the food.

  “Good God,” Robert said as a rather portly man balanced a plate of hot foods in one hand, and a seven-layer sandwich in the other. “Let the feasting begin.”

  “I’ve always heard about the food on these cruises,” Suzanne muttered. “Look at that child.”

  They watched as a little boy glopped every syrup available over a small scoop of ice cream.

  “He’ll be sick before the ship leaves port,” Suzanne said.

  The tour continued deck by deck. Robert was dismayed to see all the bars. There was a nightclub-type bar with a stage for shows; there were bars near every swimming pool; and cute little grass shacks that offered beer and wine.

  “I’d hate to be an alcoholic,” he said. “Or dead. All this booze, and nary a drop to drink.”

  Every available space on the upper decks was lined with lounging chairs, all perfectly aligned and waiting for sunbathers. At the front of the top deck, Suzanne stopped at a door to read a sign: ‘Nude sunbathing. Adults only’.

  She turned and smiled at Robert.

  “Don’t you even say it,” he warned.

  After Suzanne found the largest stateroom on board and claimed it as hers, they wandered back to the gangplank.

  People were still pausing for a photo before getting shuffled off to their cabuns.

  A woman in a wide-brimmed hat caught Robert’s attention. She wore a Spandex tube dress in fuchsia that rode high on her hips. Her heels had to be four inches.

  “Dang! I hope we don’t hit any rough water,” Robert said. “Or she’s going down.”

  She lolled on the arm of some greaseball with dark slicked-back hair and a knock-off of a Nat Nast shirt. The two paused for their photo, and she pressed her ample bosom against his arm.

  “Must be a boyfriend,” Suzanne said. “Or newlyweds.”

  “I’m guessing she either answers the phone at his used car lot, or she’s the one who sprays the deodorant in the shoes at his bowling alley.”

  Right behind the couple, a husky man wearing what looked like a mechanic’s coverall stomped up the gangplank, talking way too loud.

  “Filthy whore,” he said. “You goddamn cheating slut!”

  “Whoa!” Robert said.

  “How did he get past security?” Suzanne wondered.

  The man and woman ignored his ranting and locked lips for another picture before moving on.

  “Don’t you walk away from me,” the mechanic yelled.

  Suzanne shook her head. “Do you think he’s talking to the woman in the hat?”

  “I can’t believe they’d let him on board dressed like that.”

  The burly man stormed right past the cute girl with the camera and the bell captain directing passengers to their rooms.

  Suzanne’s mouth dropped open, but Robert laughed. “Looks like we’ve got another ghost on board. Maybe they’ll seat us together.”

  Robert and Suzanne stood at the railing with three thousand other people and watched the sun set as the ship pulled away from the dock. As Suzanne promised, Calypso music tinkled from speakers. Kids chased each other between deck chairs. Couples snuggled arm-in-arm, dreaming of idyllic days to come on the open sea.

  Once the skyline began to fade, most of the passengers hightailed it to one of the bars or for the next all-you-can-stuff-in-your-gullet meals. Robert and Suzanne stayed on deck.

  As he gazed out at the churning water below, Robert said, “I guess you’re waiting for me to make some comment about Robbie.”

  “You were pretty quiet on the flight. I figured I should just leave you alone.”

  “I kept telling you what a loser he is, but I guess a small part of me hoped the rehab would get him turned around. I knew better than to get my hopes
up, but I still did.”

  “I was disappointed, too,” she said. “As soon as Robbie and his friend got in the car, the girl in the front seat gave them both some pills, and then they passed around a pipe. What kind of friends are eager to bring you back down into the mire?”

  “He’s always associated with losers. Even as a little kid, he was always in the play-group that got time out for misbehaving. If paint got spilled, if a fire alarm went off, you can bet Robbie was right in the middle of it.”

  “You always point out the negatives of Robbie, but surely you can remember some good times, too.”

  Robert guffawed, but he knew Suzanne wouldn’t let him off the hook that easy.

  “I guess when he was a baby, he was pretty cute. And Amanda was still a semi-celebrity. I was golden, opening new stores every six months. We’d take Robbie with us for grand openings and the shoppers loved it.

  “Robbie really ate up the attention, too. Even before he learned how to talk, he was babbling to strangers. Everyone adored him.”

  “He was a star,” Suzanne said.

  “Exactly.”

  For a while, Robert studied the wake the ship made on the water, as it churned to a foamy white and then settled back into ripples.

  “But then some tabloid ran a picture of Amanda on the beach. Her hips had gotten pretty big, and she had quite a belly of fat. It was really cruel, and she took it hard. She started refusing to go to openings.”

  “Those newspapers are so vicious. Every time I go to the grocery store, they’re lambasting someone. Usually women.”

  “I think one of the biggest reasons she got pregnant again was to have an excuse for looking the way she did. That sucks, doesn’t it?”

  “Women struggle so much more than men do with self-esteem.”

  “After Rachel was born, Amanda was huge. And this was before personal trainers and all the fancy gyms. There were a few exercise places in Atlanta, but Amanda couldn’t bring herself to go there. Afraid she’d be recognized. Now all the fatties are on TV flaunting how bad they looked before they joined some weight loss program.”