by Dyan Sheldon
That’s what happens when you sit out in the sun all day, thinks Orlando. You start seeing things.
But he can’t help wondering if the dead see things, too.
It wasn’t until the next afternoon that Celeste found out about Sorrel’s accident. She had just arrived home from her Summer job at the day camp and was doing the dishes left from breakfast when her phone rang. She’d been texting Sorrel whenever she had a minute to herself, and thought it must be her answering. At last. But, of course, it wasn’t Sorrel. “Hi, darling,” said Lilah. “I just had a phone call from Professor Groober.” And burst into tears.
Celeste stopped what she was doing and sat down. All the while her mother struggled to tell her what had happened, Celeste listened patiently, staring at the plastic bag caught in the branches of the oak tree in the back yard. Plastic lasts for ever. Celeste didn’t cry. “It can’t be true,” she said when Lilah finished. “She just had her birthday.” Which made her mother start sobbing again. Celeste advised her to take some Rescue Remedy and camomile tea to help her calm down. After she hung up, Celeste finished the dishes, and then called Ruben because she knew his mother never answers the phone so no one would have told her and Ruben wouldn’t know what had happened. After that she went to her room, picked up her guitar and started writing a song. The song is called “Things That I Miss About You”. She’s been working on it ever since, adding verses and taking them out. It’s a long list. But no matter how many changes she makes, it always ends with the same line: The thing I miss most is you.
It is a rainy afternoon. Celeste is sitting on her bed, working on the song now, singing softly, when the door opens and her mother pokes her smiling head in.
“Hello, darling.” Lilah steps into the room. “What are you doing?”
Another girl – Sorrel, for instance – would say something sarcastic. Whipping up a soufflé. Building a bridge. Deconstructing the works of Harold Pinter. But Lilah doesn’t take kindly to sarcasm; it reminds her of Celeste’s father. “Nothing,” says Celeste. “Just messing around.”
Her mother’s smile steps up a notch. “I’m a little worried that you’re spending a lot of time in your room by yourself lately.” She gives the guitar the sort of look that is usually reserved for dung beetles. “Playing music.” Tylor Redwing plays music, which makes it something to be discouraged. “I really don’t think that’s healthy. It’s so internal. You need to see people. Get out more.”
Celeste leans against her guitar. “I go to work all week, Mom. That’s getting out, and it’s full of people.”
Her mother shuts the door behind her. “You know what I mean. You need to socialize. See your friends. When I was your age, Summer vacation was the time for the beach and parties and just hanging out. For having fun.”
Of course, when she was Celeste’s age, she hadn’t just buried the best friend she’d ever have.
Celeste absent-mindedly plucks a string. “I just don’t feel like it right now.”
Lilah sits down on the foot of the bed, smoothing the spread with one hand. “Oh, honey, I know you’re upset about Sorrel – this has upset us all – but I thought we agreed not to dwell on it. The best thing to do with something unpleasant is to put it behind us and move on. You can’t spend your Summer moping around.” Moping, in Lilah Redwing’s world, is any mood that isn’t positive and agreeable – and is a serious crime. Celeste’s father moped a lot.
“I’m not moping, Mom. And I’m not upset. I just like to take it easy on the weekend.” She smiles like a girl who never mopes and isn’t upset. “Anyway, everybody has jobs or else they’re away. There’s not much going on.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well, that’s good news. I’d hate to think you were missing out.” She pats Celeste’s knee. “It’s just that everyone always noticed how preoccupied you always were with Sorrel. I tho— This is your chance to do different things. To hang out with the people you’ve been neglecting – maybe even make some new friends.”
“I have plenty of friends. I don’t need any new ones.”
“What about your old friends, then?” You don’t get to be estate agent of the year three years in a row by giving up easily. “Why don’t you ring Orlando? You haven’t seen him since…” She pats Celeste’s knee again. “I’m sure he’d be glad to have your company.” If Lilah’s smile goes up many more notches, she’ll blind them both. “Everyone thought when he broke up with Sorrel—”
“Mom, please.” Her mother has been pushing Celeste to date since middle school – which was when Lilah herself started dating; after that she was rarely without a boyfriend. Ironically, when Celeste and Sorrel first became friends, Lilah encouraged the friendship, thinking that Sorrel’s looks would attract the boys and that Celeste would get a boyfriend from among Sorrel’s rejects. But it didn’t quite work out the way she had hoped. Now Lilah would be happy to see Celeste with almost anyone except Ruben. Not only is he artistic (Lilah knows from Tylor Redwing just how unreliable those artistic types can be), but he also has the added disadvantage of being too short for a girl of Celeste’s height. Orlando, however – handsome, super jock, school star, tall – has always been her boy of choice. “Orlando’s not interested in me and I’m not interested in him.”
“I wasn’t suggesting…” Lilah’s smile is now mildly affronted. “All I meant was that you’ve been friends since you were little. Good friends. Remember that Halloween you sprained your ankle because your father made you that crayon costume you couldn’t see in and you fell off the Roebucks’ porch and Orlando carried you all the way home?”
Celeste sets the guitar down beside her on the bed. “Mom—”
“I can still see the two of you coming up the road. This tall skinny rabbit with this big blue crayon wrapped around his back. I should’ve taken a picture. But your father—”
Having moved past moping and Sorrel as topics of conversation, Lilah will sit here for the next hour, finding more and more things to blame on Tylor Redwing if Celeste doesn’t stop her. “Mom!” Celeste gets to her feet. “You’re totally right. I haven’t seen Orlando since the funeral. I should check in on him. I think he took it pretty hard.”
“Now that’s more like it.” At last her mother looks pleased.
Celeste is not so pleased. Her conversation with Lilah has upset her. As far as her mother is concerned, the period of Celeste’s mourning ended the day after the funeral if not immediately after the burial, but for Celeste it has barely begun. She has no intention of checking in on Orlando; right now all she wants is to get out of the house and away from her mother before she says something they both regret. She grabs her raincoat and an umbrella, and, cheerfully calling out, “See you later, Mom,” walks through the front door – resisting the temptation to slam it behind her, the way Sorrel would have done.
Sorrel rang Celeste only minutes before the car hit her, but Celeste never got the call; not then. Her phone had gone missing. As it does. Astra is always picking it up by mistake and then leaving it wherever she happens to be when she figures out it isn’t hers. It wasn’t until the next morning that Celeste found her phone under a pile of her sister’s things on the sofa – and heard Sorrel’s teary, hysterical message. Cel? Where are you? Pick up! Please! I have to see you. I’m coming over. I finally told Meryl the truth. She went ballistic. We had the biggest fight. And hears it now. Cel? Where are you? Pick up! Please! I have to see you. I’m coming over. I finally told Meryl the truth. She went ballistic. We had the biggest fight. Cel? Where are you? Pick up! Please! I have to see you. I’m coming over. I finally told Meryl the truth. She went ballistic. We had the biggest fight…
What if Astra hadn’t misplaced Celeste’s phone? What if Celeste had answered? Calm down, she’d have told Sorrel. I’ll meet you halfway. Then Sorrel would have come over; then Sorrel would still be alive. Instead of being dead. Celeste constantly has to remind herself of this. Dead. Dead. Dead. She still finds herself thin
king, I’ll call Sorrel now or, I have to tell Sorrel that, and reaching for her phone. Even though she knows there is no Sorrel on the other end. Which doesn’t mean she hasn’t tried. In the first few days after the accident, Celeste called Sorrel every day, but of course her phone didn’t exist anymore, either; like Sorrel, it had been crushed under the wheels of a Ford. Celeste wonders what she would have done if the phone hadn’t been destroyed; would she have left a message on voicemail? Would she have waited for a reply?
Sorrel’s death is the worst thing that has ever happened to Celeste. Worse than primary school when she was bullied for being so quiet. Worse than when her father left them and her mother fell apart. Worse than when the other kids started making fun of her and calling her Shrek in middle school. Worse than when Astra went from being a difficult child to a really difficult teenager. Worse than when her father moved to Brooklyn. Worse than when he married Jake and her mother banned him from ever stepping foot in her house again. Worse than every bad, humiliating or painful experience Celeste has ever had – all put together and intensified a thousand times. And there have been plenty of them.
Not that anyone would know how devastated Celeste is. It might be different if she’d had to go straight back to school and face everybody – all that sympathy mixed with stories and speculation – but the Summer is protecting her from the brunt of that, and by the time the Summer’s over Sorrel’s death will be in the past. No, despite her mother’s concern about moping – and her obvious desire that Celeste put Sorrel so far behind her that she as good as never existed – Celeste is presenting her usual cheerful, upbeat self to the world at large. At work she deals with the daily crises of the day camp – the squabbles, the mishaps, the minor injuries – with competence and good humour, smiling and laughing as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. At home she deals with the daily crises of her mother and her sister – the things lost or forgotten, the panics, the moods – with efficiency and enough patience to stock a troop of saints. Sorrel’s name is rarely mentioned – not at work, of course, but not at home either. When Celeste does run into someone she knows, she agrees about how awful what happened to Sorrel was, and quickly changes the subject.
Only Tylor seems to suspect the truth. “You have to let it out,” he tells her every time they speak. “Keep working on Sorrel’s song. The song’ll help.” And every time they speak he asks if she’s sure she’s okay. It’s not too late to change her mind and come down for the rest of the Summer. “Of course I’m okay,” Celeste repeats again and again. “Life goes on.” And she goes on, acting as if her heart doesn’t feel the way a gutted building in a bombed-out city looks.
Between her Summer job and helping her mother, Celeste has a lot to do, and, as everyone will tell you, busy hands keep the mind busy, too. By being more efficient, more responsible and busier than ever, Celeste manages not to think about Sorrel or that night or that Sorrel was coming to see her or why. Celeste manages not to think of these things most of the time. Or a lot of the time. Or some of the time. And when she does think about Sorrel she tries to picture Sorrel in Heaven – or someplace like Heaven – and happy. Celeste believes that she and Sorrel will meet again. Though, at the moment, she doesn’t foresee that happening for quite a while.
Right now, however, as Celeste flees her home, Sorrel is the only thing she’s thinking about. Memories of her play like a video in her head. Sorrel talking. Sorrel laughing. Sorrel dancing. Sorrel putting on make-up. Sorrel singing off-key. Celeste stops under a large oak tree, and takes out her phone, flicking through the photos from a few weeks and a few lifetimes ago at the birthday celebration, until she finds the one she wants. And there they all are, smiling as if nothing bad has ever happened to any of them, and never could. And there’s Sorrel with her head on Celeste’s shoulder. Celeste stares at the screen, feeling Sorrel leaning against her. Although she has no memory of having felt it at the time, she also feels Sorrel’s breath on her cheek. It takes a few seconds for her to get her own breathing back to normal and turn off her phone. She’s in Heaven … she’s happy… Celeste tells herself. Mom’s right, death isn’t the end…
As it happens, only two of those statements are true.
Fighting back tears, Celeste looks around her in some confusion; she doesn’t know where she is and has no idea how she got here. In front of her is a large and unfamiliar yellow house with white window frames, shutters and doors, and a veranda that stretches from one side to the other. It is, in fact, a lot like the Groobers’ house, but larger. As her eyes fall on the house, Celeste gives a yelp of alarm and drops her phone. Sorrel, it seems, is not in Heaven. She does, however, look pretty happy. She’s sitting on an old-fashioned rocking chair, wearing an equally old-fashioned yellow fisherman’s mac and matching sou’wester hat, and eating an enormous piece of chocolate cake. There’s chocolate frosting all over her face.
Celeste retrieves her phone, telling herself not to be stupid. There may be a girl on that porch, but she can’t be Sorrel. Sorrel is in the pink box, six feet under the ground. Or, as Lilah Redwing would say, no longer in this dimension. Celeste blames the rain, she’s not seeing clearly because of the rain. That’s why Sorrel had her accident, because of the rain. And because she was crying. Neither she nor the driver could see properly. Poor visibility. Not paying enough attention. The distortion of looking through water. Anyway, look at how the girl is dressed. Sorrel would never wear a coat and hat like that. They’re as chic as green wellies. And she never ate cake, especially chocolate (cake is fattening and chocolate made Sorrel break out).
Nonetheless, since she is staring at the girl and doesn’t want to be impolite, Celeste waves. Tentatively. The girl, busy chewing, doesn’t wave back. Of course she doesn’t. Sorrel would wave back, she’d be overjoyed to see Celeste, but this girl isn’t Sorrel and has no idea who Celeste is. Crazy girl, waving at her in the rain. Celeste steps out from under the tree, and squints through the veil of rain. The girl really does look like Sorrel, even with frosting all over her face. Celeste sniffs. The scent of lilacs, Sorrel’s scent, is in the air. How is that possible? Lilacs don’t bloom at this time of year. Is it a sensory memory? Or does it mean that it really could be Sorrel sitting on the porch, moving back and forth in the creaking old rocker? What if it is?
“Sorrel?” she calls. “Sorrel, is that you?”
This time the girl looks right at her, and smiles. “Hey, Cel! How’s it going?”
If a heart could dance, Celeste’s would be doing the fandango.
“Sorrel! I wasn’t sure it was you. I’ve never seen you dressed like that before.”
“You’ve never seen me dead before, either.”
“I can’t believe it’s really you!” Celeste is not the sort of girl to troop over other people’s property uninvited, but this is a unique situation. She leaves the road and strides across the lawn, only stopping when she reaches the porch. “Sorrel. What are you doing here?”
“Eating chocolate cake.” She stuffs the last piece into her mouth. “You know how Meryl would never let me have anything like that. I mean, God forbid I should put on an ounce or get a pimple. That would be my life over.” Sorrel puts the empty plate down on the floor beside her. “But now it is. So I’m making up for all the cake I never had.”
For the first time in quite a few days, Celeste laughs. “I’m so glad to see you. I didn’t think. I…”
“Isn’t this wild?” Sorrel opens her arms to embrace the air. “It’s raining. And you still have that same yellow umbrella! Just like when we first met. Remember?”
And how could Celeste forget? It was a Saturday in their last year of middle school. Celeste had walked into town under her yellow umbrella to post a birthday present to her father without her mother knowing and was on her way home. Sending Tylor secret birthday gifts were then the only times she went against her mother’s wishes (even if they are unspoken wishes) and Celeste was feeling guilty. Her mother would have been so hurt if she knew.
/> “Of course I remember. You were sitting under a tree in the rain.” Sorrel had moved to Beaconspoint during the Summer vacation, but, although Celeste knew her by sight (who didn’t?), they’d never spoken. “Crying.” In public – right there in front of the whole block of houses and passing cars.
“Anybody else would’ve kept on walking,” says Sorrel. “I mean, who but you would just accost some stranger sitting on the ground sobbing her heart out?”
“I felt bad for you. I wanted to help.” If she were a place and not a person, Celeste would be a sanctuary. Celeste can’t bear to see anything in distress, whether it’s an insect or a human being. She’s been bitten trying to rescue a cat, has broken her wrist trying to rescue a spider and got a black eye (accidentally) trying to rescue a drunk from the middle of the road. She always wants to help, and feels bad about everything.
“That’s your MO all right,” says Sorrel. “Celeste saves the world. You should either be a superhero or a registered charity.”
“I was worried about you. You looked really unhappy.”
“I was really unhappy.” She grins. “You remember what you said to me? You said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to bother you. But are you okay?’”
Celeste remembers it as if it happened only minutes ago. “You said you were fine.”
Sorrel winks. “You said I didn’t look fine. In case I hadn’t noticed, you told me I was crying, my nose was running and I looked like I had two black eyes.”
“You really looked awful,” laughs Celeste. “Then you said the raccoon look was totally in that year.”
“And you sat down next to me and said, ‘Oh that’s what it is. I thought you were upset about something’. That cracked me up.”
Sorrel had had a big fight with her mother – another big fight, although Celeste didn’t know that then, didn’t know how often they fought – on top of all the stress of moving to a new home and a new school and having to make new friends. Which was why she was sitting there, crying in the rain. Celeste, already something of an expert on the subject of stress, totally understood. She thought Sorrel would have to be superhuman not to get stressed.