by Penni Jones
Louisa’s dad plops down on the couch. We move in front of him.
Her scent hits his nose. His eyebrows jump up and his eyes dart around. His hand moves to his face and he belches.
“That’s gross,” I say.
“You have no idea how gross he is. He should be the one who’s dead. Not me.”
“If you want to hold this off until he’s asleep so you can punch him, I’ll support you in that.”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that,” she says. “He sleeps really hard because of the beer and pills.” Louisa looks down. She starts to speak again but stops.
“What is it?” I ask.
She looks up at me. Her eyes are green with flecks of amber. She would have grown into a beautiful woman.
“I want to murder my dad.”
But what good is beauty when the soul is rotten? I think an ex-boyfriend said that to me once.
My mind races to comprehend what Louisa suggested. I can feel the pull and know I need to do something. But it’s too late. I’m gone again.
Chapter 16
Luke
Another file. Another soul staring at me across the table.
This one is a young man. Probably just a few years older than me.
“Is it over?” he asks. His eyes are that huge brown that look like a child’s in that they’re slightly too big for his face. The type of eyes that reflect innocence or insanity, depending on the point of view.
“Yes. Your grief watch is over.” I smile at him. It’s best to be reassuring, though I don’t know why I’m doing this job.
“But I missed someone. I know I did. My girlfriend. Or something. Whatever she was.” He’s shaking his head.
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“I don’t want to go until I see Naomi,” he says.
A chill runs through me. I didn’t know I could feel like that anymore. I look down at his file. His name is Greg.
“Naomi?” I hold my hands out to indicate big tits. It’s rude, I know. But I don’t know her last name.
Greg stares at my hands and nods.
“She’s dead. That’s why you didn’t see her.”
“Is she one of us?”
“A suicide soul? Yes.”
“I have to find her.” He looks desperate. It’s sad, but also somewhat enraging.
Naomi. Not my Naomi yet, but I was hoping to get there.
“She was just here,” I say.
“Do you know her?” he asks.
I shrug and say, “Yeah.”
“She comes off as a real bitch, doesn’t she? But she’s really not. She’s sweet,” he says.
“Sweet?” Though I’ve grown fonder of Naomi, I don’t think of her as sweet. She’s several beats removed from sweet.
He nods and a slow smile spreads across his face. “She cooked for me sometimes.”
“No way.” This can’t be the same girl.
“Yeah. She also surprised me at work sometimes just to say ‘hello’ and give me a kiss. Always brightened my day.”
“Then how come you offed yourself?” I ask.
“I’m thinking undiagnosed depression. Probably bipolar. Grief watch gives you a lot of time to figure shit out.”
“True.” I can’t release the feeling that he’s my enemy now. Two males locked in a battle over a female. Only Greg doesn’t know it.
* * *
Naomi
I met Greg in the airport. We were both flying out of Little Rock. It’s a small airport with one bar. At least it was back then.
I was getting one last drink in when I looked to my right. He was sitting two chairs down from me. There was an empty seat between us.
Jamie had just proposed to Laney, and I was headed to Austin to visit some friends and drink enough hipster craft beer to forget about Jamie’s impending nuptials.
Greg looked up at the same time I did. His big brown eyes locked onto mine. It was one of those rare moments when just a glance makes your stomach jump. It was the moment that put me back together. Made me think Jamie-fucking-who?
Greg slid to the seat between us. He smelled like cigarettes and beer, with just a hint of shower gel.
“Hi.” He smiled and held out his hand.
I shook it slowly, deliberately. “Hi.”
“What’s your name?”
“Naomi.” I smiled at him. A smile that said, “Don’t be afraid to flirt.”
“I like that name.” He took a sip of his beer said, “I’m Greg.”
I wanted to tell him that his eyes were beautiful like a baby pony. That I liked his baggy jeans, even though they were a few years out of style.
“Jane’s fan?” He pointed to my chest. To my Jane’s Addiction T-shirt. I had to look down to remember which shirt I was wearing.
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah. Porno For Pyros, too. I wish they had put out more music.”
I nod. I’m afraid if I agree out loud he’ll just think I’m being affable for the sake of him liking me.
I’m not that girl. Haven’t been since I was eighteen.
But I know that I agree with him. And that’s enough.
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
“Houston. Meeting some friends there for a Green Day show.”
“That sounds awesome.” Awesome. Shit. I could do better than that.
“Should be. How about you?”
“Austin. Visiting some friends.”
Austin is cooler than Houston. Everyone knows it. That was enough to give me the upper hand.
“Do you live in Little Rock?” I punctuated the question with a sip from my mimosa.
“Yeah. Stift Station. You?” Before I can answer he says, “Wait. Let me guess. The Heights?”
“No.” I don’t know what about me said The Heights. The yoga pants and spas and wine bars Heights. “Hillcrest. The cheap end near Stift Station.”
We’d soon learn that we lived about five blocks from each other. Five blocks that felt like 500 miles on the days that our love was at its strongest, and after it turned sour. There were times the distance between us was vast when we were in the same room. His ability to shut me out was amazing. And so fucked up.
But that day in the airport bar, we felt close in only that way two people who know almost nothing about one another can. Maybe it was heightened by the temporary feeling that only exists in an airport bar.
None of this is real. None of this can last more a few hours.
We had to leave at the same time. Both of us putting it off, not realizing that we were on the same flight. That we had another hour and fifteen minutes or so together.
But we figured it out. And Greg talked the businessman next to me into switching seats with him. Greg and I were able to breathe the same recycled air. Inhaling the stench of stale breath and farts on a perpetual cootie-filled loop.
And now he’s here at the food court with Luke. I killed myself to find him, maybe. But now I don’t know what to do with his presence.
You know what it feels like when you finally get over someone and then they call you out of the blue? This feels like that on an infinite scale.
Chapter 17
Luke
Naomi is back. The beautiful viper of my death is here. And the man across from me says she is his. By the way she’s staring at him, I’m guessing he’s right.
“Greg.” The name escapes her lips in a whisper.
Greg stands up and rushes to her. He hugs her, even though it doesn’t feel the same way as it did when they were alive. And all I can do is watch.
I bet they would both cry if they could. Those sloppy tears of ultimate joy. Tears I never cried when I was alive.
How am I the loser even in death?
Naomi suddenly becomes aware of my presence and says, “You’ve met Luke.”
“Yeah. He just told me that my grief watch is over. And that you’re dead.” Greg’s smile is that of every boy who could make punk slacker look cool and sexy instead of
lazy. How did he end up here? People like that don’t commit suicide.
Naomi leads him back to the table and they sit down. She doesn’t look at me.
“Any second now, Greg will be sucked away to wait for a vapid body.” I look down at this file. “He’s currently number 213 in queue.”
Naomi looks at her hands, then at Greg, then finally to me.
I want Greg to disappear. But more than that, I want him to never have appeared in the first place.
“I didn’t know you were wearing that when you died,” Naomi says to him, pointing at his Black Crowes T-shirt.
“You bought me this. It was my favorite shirt.” He points to her red dress and says, “What’s up with that dress?” He’s smiling again. It’s that mischievous grin that women find sexy. I guess.
“Eliza talked me into wearing it.”
“Typical.”
“How long were you two together?” I put them in the past tense on purpose. A reminder that things have changed.
They both kind of shrug and squirm until Naomi says, “About a year, year and a half.” Then she adds, “On and off.”
Greg stares at her and smiles again.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he says. “I kept waiting to see you in my grief watch, but you were never the destination. How long were you alive after me?”
“A couple of months,” she says.
And then Greg is gone. Sweet relief. Maybe he was never there at all.
But when I look at Naomi, I know he was there. She’s looking down at her hands in a way that tells me she’s sad without me seeing her face.
“I had given up finding him.” Her words are almost a whisper.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I try to keep the accusatory tone out of my voice, but it doesn’t work.
She looks up. She somehow looks tired. It’s the first time I’ve seen her like that.
“I told you when we were at Daisy’s.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, but I’m not sure anymore. “What happened with him?”
“It’s my fault he’s dead. I broke up with him because he was so sad all the time. I was always taking care of him. I never had time to feel anything of my own. It was so much fucking work.” Naomi looks back to her hands. “But I loved him. I loved him so much. And I destroyed him.”
“Is that why you killed yourself?”
“Yes. That and I had about four vodka cocktails, a bottle of champagne, and three Vicodin in my system when I made the decision. And a dozen or so other reasons, including another ex and his dumb baby. But Greg’s death was the sweet buttercream frosting on my depression cake.”
I feel bad for her, for Greg, for me. There is a misery to life that some of us simply can’t tolerate.
“I wonder if I’ll see him again.”
“No idea.”
“I told you about him. I can’t help it if you were too caught up in your own shit to pay attention,” she says.
“I had a lot to deal with at Daisy’s.” I look at her face.
“I know, I know. A lot to process.” She air quotes “process” and leans back in her seat.
“It’s just weird. Okay? Even if you told me, it’s still new information.”
“Okay.” She shrugs.
If she told me when she knew I wasn’t listening, is that the same as actually telling me?
Would I be so enthralled by her if she wasn’t the only person I know?
“How come you haven’t offered to be the one?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” The way she asks it, I know she knows exactly what I mean.
“I said I would go to Oblivion. And your only response was to make it be Nolan.”
Naomi leans forward and narrows her eyes at me. “Because I want to live. Because I shouldn’t have killed myself. I’m not going to offer to sacrifice myself just to make you think highly of me.”
And then I’m back with Nolan. Just like that. We’re in a mobile home. Another fucking mobile home. Don’t any of us know people who can afford real houses?
“Luke,” he says. A man’s greeting. If he knew my last name, he would have used that instead. I’m sure of it.
“Nolan.” I can be a man, too.
“You look down, son. You okay?”
A strange question from one suicide soul to another. None of us are okay. Are we?
“Yeah. Girl problems. It’s stupid.” I don’t know why I say it out loud. I guess because I know Nolan’s been through some shit himself.
“Sorry, son,” he says.
“Thanks.”
We’re sitting on builder’s grade carpet. It looks pretty new. Definitely newer than the carpet at Daisy’s.
“Is it the woman in the boobie-dress?”
Nolan’s use of the word “boobie” gives me pause. I’ve never heard a man his age use that word before. I wonder if next he’ll say “oopsie-daisy” or “footsies.”
“Yeah.”
“Figures,” he says.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“My son’s. It’s a turd-box, ain’t it?”
“It’s not so bad.” And it’s really not. At least it’s clean and the furniture isn’t threadbare.
“My boy’s not so great at keeping a job. He gets distracted. He’ll decide to go camping and stay four days instead of two, basically forgetting to go back to work.” Nolan shakes his head. “He’s a good kid, though. Well, not a kid. But you know what I mean. He’d do anything to help a friend.”
“Grandkids?” I ask.
“Nope.” Nolan looks around the room and says, “If I don’t volunteer to slip off into Oblivion, what will happen?”
“Then it will probably be me.” I didn’t want to tell him the truth. But my mouth didn’t listen to my brain. That’s how it works here.
“But you’re so young.”
I shrug and say, “I killed myself, Nolan. I put myself in this predicament.” I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up about another chance. Things were easier when I had a complete lack of hope.
“That girl.” He holds out his hands to mimic breasts. Straight men all speak the same anatomical language. “Is she special?”
“I think so. But maybe she’s just the only person I know.”
“I had a girlfriend like her when I was young. She was a beautiful girl, but there was always something treacherous lurking underneath the surface. Like she would stab me in my sleep if it suited her.” He smiles at the memory. “Best sex of my life, though. It was worth possibly getting stabbed.”
“I recently found out that I’m a dad.” I know my admission doesn’t match his, but I needed to get it out.
“Oh, wow. Congratulations. Boy or girl?”
“A boy. I think he’s nine.” Eben. I have to get back to Eben. Don’t I?
“Nine? How long have you been dead?”
“Ten years.” The words shock me again. Ten years. I was only alive twice that amount of time.
“You haven’t had an easy go, have you, son?”
The way Nolan calls me “son.” It’s the way strangers show compassion.
I shake my head “no” and look down to my shoes. My suede skater shoes that I wore with pride, even though I was too clumsy to ride a skateboard.
A man walks in the room. He’s tall like Nolan. His head is shaved bald and he’s wearing a mechanic’s uniform or something like that.
“Looks like he has a job,” I say with a smile. Time to stop with my bullshit misery again.
“Sure does.” Nolan stares at his son with pride.
“What are you going to do? Emit your scent? Manipulate TV energy?”
“Nothing just yet. I’d like to just stay for a while. Is that allowed?”
“It is. Just be careful. If you take too much time, the Shadow will come for you.” The horrifying Death Shadow. The beast that Nolan has not yet seen. And hopefully never will.
* * *
Naomi
Greg’s gone, and Luke’s gone. I should se
e Luke again soon if the recent pattern holds up. But probably not Greg.
That was cruel. Only being allowed to see him for a minute. So many times, I’ve dreamed of seeing him again. And that was it.
Maybe there’s something I can do.
I concentrate as hard as possible on Doris. Maybe I can make a deal with her. What sort of deal? I have no idea. But maybe there’s something that can be done.
Doris with her Gloria Steinem-collar and indeterminate height. Doris with her thin nose and chronic resting bitch face.
And then I’m in the waiting room. It worked. Mind over matter is a real thing here.
There is a Mentor’s Handbook on the table next to my chair. Doris gave me one before, but I don’t know where it is. We move around so abruptly, it’s hard to keep up with anything besides ourselves. I pick up the book and start flipping through it.
There is a detailed table of contents on the first page. But Doris enters the room before I can finish reading it.
“Naomi,” she says.
“Doris.” I stand and walk toward her with the handbook in the crook of my arm. “Any tips on how to keep up with this bad boy?”
“If you are referring to the Mentor’s Handbook, then yes. If you are determined, you will find it when you need it.”
I follow her into the office.
“Like how I came to you just now?”
“Yes. Exactly.” Doris smiles at me as she sits down. It’s not her bitchy know-it-all grin. It’s a genuine smile that looks like it might come from a place of enjoyment.
“Doris, did I do something right?”
“You did indeed, Naomi. You are a fast learner. And a very determined young woman.”
We sit down across the desk from each other. There’s only one chair on my side this time.
“Thank you.”
I feel like I’m in the office with my old boss, except that he was an older white man who always stared at my chest. Even when I was dressed modestly. Doris here isn’t interested in my body at all.
“The only problem with you that I can see is your propensity to get distracted by young men.”