She nods and pulls the engagement ring out, twisting it around her finger. “At first it was annoying, but I don’t hear it anymore.”
I can’t imagine not responding to my own name. I stare at the ring. It’s huge. Even with help from his friend, how could a college student afford something like that? I bet he was loaded.
“It really is pretty, isn’t it?” Sandy says when she catches me looking. Her face is bright and for an instant, I can imagine her on a college campus, vibrant and alive.
“It’s amazing,” I admit.
She smiles, one of those memory smiles of hers. “I know. You should have seen it in the moonlight.”
Again with the moon. “When you said people who hold on to things from their life have a hard time moving on …”
She lets out a throaty laugh. The clatter of the old people stops and I can feel them looking at us with disapproval. Sure enough, when I turn around, several of the blue-haired crew are shaking their heads.
“Ignore them,” Sandy says, sticking out her tongue in their direction. “As to your question, you should see how often the processors try to get me to hand this thing over to them.”
“But you don’t want to move on?”
She looks at the ceiling. “I do. It’s exhausting watching trainload after trainload of souls move through here. I feel the pull to move on all the time.”
“So hand the ring over and go.”
Sandy sighs. “I can’t.”
I slap my thighs in frustration. I really don’t get this girl. “Why the heck not?”
When she speaks, there’s a quiver in her voice. “I can’t give up on him. When they finally turn off the machines and he dies, I can’t let him sit here like them,” she says, gesturing to everyone around us. “I can’t stand the idea of him being shell-shocked and closed off. He deserves better. We deserve our happy ending. Together. Even if it isn’t exactly the way we planned.”
“Is that what Lillith meant about you pining away?” I ask, and Sandy nods. “But can’t you wait for him on the other side?”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen once I leave the Lobby. What if I can’t find him? What if I forget I want to find him?”
“But—” I start to say.
Sandy’s hand slices through the air in resolve. “No. I’m not going. When he gets off the train, I will be right here. Until then, I’ll wait.”
I don’t have time to argue. A moment later I hear my name over the loudspeaker and I know what Sandy means about the pull to move on. Every part of me wants to move toward the line. I look at the front desk. I sense, rather than feel, Sandy’s hand on my arm.
“Wait,” she says softly. “Don’t go yet. I told you my story. Tell me yours.”
I shake my head. “I told you, car accident.”
“And I called you a liar, remember? Please, give me something else to think about. What makes you different from all the other brain-deads that come through here?”
I look into her pleading eyes. Maybe she knows something that will help me. “Okay, fine. The Reaper was supposed to collect this gypsy at our school carnival. She saw him coming and at the last second threw me in front of her. He caught my soul instead.”
Sandy looks at me for a long while before bursting out laughing. “You’re kidding, right?” she gasps.
I just look at her.
“You’re not joking.”
“Nope.”
The look of shock is unmistakable. “That’s unreal. Did he get the gypsy?”
I toss my hair over my shoulder and get ready to stand. “Not that I know of, though I hope this time they take her out action-movie style.”
“So you weren’t supposed to die?”
“Not today. But I’m going to find a way back.”
“I bet if anyone can do it, you can. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who takes no for an answer.” She studies me and I can see the wheels turning in her head. And I’m afraid of what she’s thinking. She’s spent too much time in limbo pining for the not-yet-dead boyfriend. When she opens her mouth, I brace myself. “If you do, could you do me a favor?”
“What?” I say, regretting not heading for the line sooner.
“Find him,” she pleads. “He’s at a medical center in Indianapolis. Convince his parents to let him go.”
“And just how am I supposed to do that? Even if I can find someone who will send me back, I doubt they’ll want me to remember all this. My story wouldn’t exactly be good public relations for this place.”
She beams a smile of hope and I already know I’m going to do it. It’s not like it takes that long to get to Indianapolis from my house.
“Take this,” she says, tugging the ring off her finger and pressing it into the palm of my hand.
“I can’t,” I argue, pushing her hand away. “You need it. If I take it, won’t you start to forget?”
I can tell by the look on her face that she hasn’t thought this plan through. She shakes her head. “It’s a calculated risk. If you keep it on you, maybe it’ll make it out of the Afterlife when you go back.”
I look down at the ring. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“You’ll figure it out,” she says, standing up. “Now come on. We need to get you in line. Don’t want Lillith thinking you’ve joined my rebellion.”
“For someone who doesn’t want to leave, you sure are in a hurry to send me into the great unknown,” I say, letting her pull me up and drag me toward the front desk.
Once we’re there, she turns and pulls me into a tight hug. “Thank you.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” I argue.
“Oh, but you have. You’ve given me hope.”
I shake her off. “Don’t get too excited. There’s still that little detail about getting back to the land of the living.”
“Failure is not an option,” she says, perkier than a dead person has any right to be.
I take my place at the end of the line. Sandy follows me as I inch forward. Just as I turn the corner, she reaches out and grabs my arm. “Thank you.”
I smile at her. What else can I do?
“Good luck,” she calls out as I step up to the counter, but the words already sound so far away.
When I finally reach the front of the line, a woman with blond hair and an airbrushed complexion greets me. “Name?”
I shift my weight, taking one last look over my shoulder before turning back. “Um, RJ Jones.”
She types in a few swift keystrokes and I hear a buzzing sound from her machine.
“What’s that?” I ask, standing on my tiptoes. But all she does is smile. “Is this like check in? Because I need to talk to a manager or someone in charge. There’s been a mistake. I’m not supposed to be here.”
She looks up at me with a dazzling smile. “We don’t make mistakes,” she says with a sweetness so heavy my teeth hurt.
“But you did, or at least the Grim Reaper did. He even admitted it to me.”
She looks at me in amusement. “Well, if there was some error, I’m sure Azrael will look into it.”
Azrael? Why does that name fill me with dread? A loud beep distracts me. “What is that?” I ask again.
She slides a thin brown package about the size of a dinner plate across the desk. “Rowena Joy Jones, this is your life.”
Crap.
Chapter 5
I stare at the disc and then back up at the woman behind the counter. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
She points to a long hallway. “Pick any open room and watch it.”
That’s it? She hands me a highlight reel of my life and then tells me to pick a room? People get more counseling before they adopt a dog. When I don’t move right away, she clears her throat and tells me with her eyes that I am dismissed. Looking at the line of souls behind me, I decide not to argue. Besides, if anyone is going to be able to help me find a way back, it’s not going to be a paper pusher.
Following the red c
arpet, I slip into the first open room I see. The walls are a sunny yellow, except for the space above a machine that looks like an oversized DVD player. In front of the machine is a high-backed chair upholstered in a deep shade of purple—my favorite color. Other than that, the room is empty.
I slide the disc out from the cover and slip it into the machine before sinking into the soft cushions. It’s like snuggling up in a cloud. Too bad there’s no popcorn. If I remember correctly, my life is pretty interesting. Ski trips with friends, shopping in Chicago, sneaking backstage at more than a few concerts. Maybe it’ll be fun to remember the good old days.
The opening scene of my birth lights up the space just above the laser disc player. I watch my mom’s face when they place me in her outstretched arms. She’s glowing with joy, which is how I got my middle name. Although it’s about as cliché as you can get, it’s also pretty cool. After all, I wasn’t exactly aware of what was going on during the actual event and my dad didn’t have the foresight to record any of it.
Even through the exhaustion of a forty-two-hour labor, my mom looks amazing. Then again, maybe the HD in the Afterlife is better than the projector in our movie room back home. I dip my head to dab a tear from the corner of my eye just in time to see Dad singing softly to a bundle of cloth. It takes me a second to realize he’s holding me. A moment later, a petite woman with a huge smile walks in, plucks me from my father’s arms, and immediately begins kissing every inch of my face.
“Gladys,” my mother says, “you didn’t wash your hands.”
“Oh pish,” Grams says. “I’ve raised five children, you being one of them, and all my kids turned out pretty healthy. Besides, this is my first grandbaby.” She looks sheepishly at my dad, who’s grinning ear to ear. “But of course, she’s your firstborn.” She starts to hand me back but he just laughs.
“You keep her, Grams. But she is going home with us, understand?”
She grins and begins cooing at me.
As the scene fades away, it hits me that I haven’t thought about my parents since I got here. What are they going to do when they see their only child lying on a slab in some morgue? Mom will cry hysterically. She’ll be inconsolable. I can’t even imagine how Dad will react.
Okay. That’s it. I have to find a way back. I cover my ears as the humming sound starts up again. This time, I put two and two together and realize that anytime I try to think about returning to my old life, my head threatens to explode.
Another scene flashes, recapturing my attention, and the pain slowly eases. This time I’m on the playground near my house. There are tons of kids, but even now, the only person I see is Abby Richards. She doesn’t know it yet, but it won’t be long until we are inseparable. Her mom travels for work all the time and Abby’s dad stays home.
Abby takes one look at me and bounds over. I’ve always wondered why, with all the kids at the playground, she picked me. It’s like she sensed a connection between us.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” I respond cautiously.
“You wanna race me down the slide?”
I’m still painfully shy at this point in my life and I remember the debate taking place in my mind. Do I run, full steam, back to my house and lose the chance to make my first friend or do I say yes? Finally, after what seems like eternity, I answer her.
“Sure.” Without another word, we race toward the double slide and the picture fades away. A split second later, another takes its place. It’s the same park, but this time I’m walking away from Abby, who is cowering on the snow-covered ground in front of several older girls. It’s the day of her mother’s death, though I won’t find that out until later because I’m too afraid to stand up for her.
The images last only a couple seconds before vanishing.
My stomach tightens. If there was one thing in my life I could do over, it would be this moment. Abby had called me to tell me about her mother. But I left her behind. Not only did I lose my best friend, but Abby got a pretty nasty beating from those girls. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. I’m not proud of what I did, but what’s done is done. I focus intently on the next scene.
In sixth grade, I transferred to a private middle school with a bunch of people I didn’t know. Most of my old friends were attending the public school across town. I feel bad for the me back then, especially during lunch time. My younger self walks into the cafeteria, scanning the crowd for any familiar faces, but there aren’t any. On the verge of tears, I watch myself stare straight ahead and move toward the door that leads to the quad. My destination is the back stall in the girl’s bathroom.
“You can’t take that out of the cafeteria,” someone says behind me. I turn around and see Marcy Hampton. She’s a seventh grader. She’s also a cheerleader.
“I was just going …”
“To eat lunch in a stairwell?”
The stairs. Why didn’t I think of that? Much more hygienic.
“Come sit with us,” she says, gesturing to a table full of girls dressed just like her.
My eyes widen in terror. I remember thinking, Is she joking? This has to be a trick. I can’t just sit down with all the popular kids. They’ll know I don’t belong there and will probably eat me alive.
“Hey, everyone. This is …” she turns to me and whispers, “What’s your name?”
“Rowena,” I answer.
She shakes her head, a look of disapproval in her eyes. “Okay, what’s your middle name?”
“Joy,” I say, wishing the floor would open up under my feet and swallow me whole.
To my surprise, her face lights up and she turns back to her friends. “Sorry. This is RJ. I told her she could eat with us.” It isn’t a question. With that one simple statement, Marcy deems me cool enough to be seen with and gives me a new name. Talk about power.
I watch as the girls pepper me with questions about which teachers I like and the ones I don’t. Apparently I give them the right answers because no one laughs at me. By the time the bell rings, I’m in, and insecure Rowena is a ghost. I get the irony.
On the way out of the cafeteria, Marcy says, “You know, they’re having tryouts for the sixth grade cheerleading squad next week. You should show.”
“Really?” I ask in surprise. “But I’ve never cheered before.” What I don’t tell her is I think cheerleaders are a bunch of stuck-up snobs.
She beams a blazing white smile at me. “Well then it’s a good thing you know me. I can teach you all the routines. Maybe you can get your parents to hire my gymnastic coach. She can give you a crash course in tumbling so you’re ready for tryouts.” When I hesitate, she adds, “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
And then the fuzzy screen fades once more before flickering back to life at my eighth grade graduation. After the principal reads off the names of all the recipients of a ton of worthless awards and the fake diplomas are safe in the hands of our doting parents, everyone rushes back to the quad to pick up the yearbooks. All around me, classmates are passing their books around in a frenzy to make it seem like they have more friends than they really do.
“Just a minute,” I say to someone waving their picture in front of me. Before I sign anything, I have to see the superlative page. During the last round of voting I’m on the ballot for three titles: most outgoing, most popular, and most likely to take high school by storm. To win all three is next to impossible, but I want it so badly.
I lean forward, a silly grin spreading across my face. In about three seconds, I’m going to shriek and all heads will turn in my directions, but I won’t care. It’s the trifecta. All three honors are mine. They even put the photos on the same page. I’m an instant legend.
I pull out a metallic gold marker. Now I’m ready to sign yearbooks, but only on my page. No way am I using the signature sheets in the back where everyone signs. I snap the lid of my pen and jot down so many DON’T EVER CHANGE! and SEE YOU NEXT YEAR! that my hand is cramping by the time I climb into my mom’s BMW.
Looking
back, I have to admit, this was a pretty cool day.
The disc fast-forwards a few months. It’s a week into my freshman year of high school and I’m trying out for the Junior Varsity cheerleading squad. After three years cheering in middle school, I’m actually pretty good. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Marcy is captain of the JV squad. She’s spent the summer putting me through brutal practices so I can sail through tryouts. A bonus of Marcy taking me under her wing is that I’ve been hanging out with a lot of the high school cheerleaders. After a particularly grueling pre-tryout workout, just after school starts, we’re all at the Smoothie Shack sucking down protein shakes when someone mentions Whitney, another freshman who’s trying out for the squad.
“She’s so fat,” one of the girls says, making pig noises.
Everyone laughs. “I know. And her upper body strength is horrible. I mean, if you’re going to be big, at least be strong. We always need girls for the bottom of the pyramid,” someone else adds.
Now, for the record, Whitney is not fat. She just doesn’t look like the other girls do. And, she’s really nice. We’re in geometry together and she’s hilarious. I don’t really want to make fun of her, so instead of joining in, I concentrate on my drink.
But Bella, the Varsity captain, isn’t about to let me off the hook. “What do you think of her, RJ? I could have sworn I saw you talking to her earlier.”
I sink a little in my seat, looking around at the expectant faces. I know they want me to join in on the bashing. I decide to try playing it off like I don’t know her well. “Yeah, um, we have math together. I couldn’t remember the homework assignment.”
Bella doesn’t look like she’s buying it. “Really? Because you looked awfully chummy after practice yesterday. Didn’t I hear you tell her you’d go shopping with her this weekend?”
“Well, it’s not like she’s going to give her the assignment if RJ is mean to her,” Marcy says, coming to my defense.
I watch Bella roll her eyes and I see myself squirm under her gaze. If only I knew then what I know now. In a few months, the Varsity captain is going to find herself staring down at two pink lines on a pregnancy test. She’ll be so embarrassed she’ll transfer to another school and her reign of terror will be over.
It's a Wonderful Death Page 3