The Sweet Dead Life

by Joy Preble

  “Maybe people will tip bigger at BJ’s,” I said, my brain racing. “Maybe you can make ’em.”

  Casey grinned. “Maybe.”

  There were probably a lot of angel angles to work. Okay. Time to go to bed. My brother might be my guardian now, but I still had to keep my eyes open. Somebody had tried to poison me. I wasn’t dying anymore, at least not that I knew. But I wasn’t safe. Especially since my brother had apparently been assigned to figure this whole mess out. Okay, that sounded meaner than I meant, but Casey was never a deep thinker. He was an instinct guy. Make out with Lanie! Get stoned! Risk everything to drive little sister to the hospital! If the A-word transition process was a long one, I probably couldn’t afford to wait.

  In the morning, I checked on Mom. She ate some toast in bed. I brewed her a pot of coffee and made her swallow a vitamin. I had to hold the glass while she drank. Her muscles seemed extra weak today, or maybe I was just noticing because I was feeling stronger. Then I helped her into a clean pair of sweats, and she held her arms up so I could slip a gray tank top over her head. I wanted to put her into a T-shirt, but everything she owned was dirty. I needed to get after the laundry.

  Then I got myself dressed for school.

  Here is what I wore: jeans, a purple tank top and my gray hoodie with the plaid lining. Also my old gray Converse with the black laces. I double-checked them. As far as I could tell, they were poison-free. But they were not my boots. My poor Ariats that I would never wear again! My feet were still itchy, by the way, and I was on and off thirsty, but I figured I’d keep popping the Cipro and things would get better. When I came back to say good-bye to Mom, she was still chewing the same piece of toast, staring off into nowhere.

  Here is the stupid thing I did then: I started to cry. My eyes filled with tears. My throat plugged up. I looked away when she asked me what was wrong.

  “Nothing,” I croaked.

  I had assured Casey that I wouldn’t tell her about what had happened to him, and I aimed to keep that promise. But for a few rotten seconds, it seemed horrible and unfair.

  Then I looked up. Casey had appeared behind me in Mom’s doorway. He reached over his shoulder and scratched a spot on his back, right where I knew those wing nubs sat.

  “You look really handsome, sweetheart,” my mother told him.

  She was right. He did. He stood tall and arrow-straight, eyes sparkling. I was happy beyond words that he looked so good. I was sad beyond words because I knew why. Sadder when I looked at Mom. At how she was. And because she had no idea why Casey was all shiny and new.

  “I have to brush my teeth,” I said, bolting before I lost it completely. In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face and blew my nose. I frowned at my puffy red eyes and splotchy face. Then I overheard Mom’s voice.

  “Why is Jenna so sad?” she was asking Casey.

  I decided to skip saying good-bye to her on the way out.

  THE GILROYS WERE hanging up their Christmas lights when we locked up the house and climbed into the Merc. Mr. Gilroy, dressed in Dickies overalls and a tan Henley shirt, was perched on a ladder, screwing in bulbs. I saw that they had already decorated the yard with a manger scene and two lit-up full-sized angels. Maybe once they got them plugged in, Casey could go stand in the middle.

  Mrs. Gilroy hot-footed it across the strip of grass between our houses, a tangled extension cord clutched in her hands. “That looks like Nell Pittman’s car,” she observed. She wore black velour pants and a button-down red Christmas sweater with Santa heads all over it. A white pom-pom sat at the top of each Santa hat.

  I shut the passenger side door on her and leaned out the window. “Manger’s looking good,” I said. “Y’all get rid of the reindeer?”

  I knew they had. Last Christmas Brett Colson and some of the other Spring Creek football guys had driven around the neighborhood in the middle of the night for two weeks straight moving everybody’s reindeer into compromising positions. Mrs. Gilroy had never gotten over the shock of walking down the driveway for her morning paper only to find Donner and Blitzen humping each other.

  “The Prius is in the shop,” Casey added. “This here’s a loaner.” As if to prove it, he shoved one of the leftover snickerdoodles into his mouth. (I didn’t know if angels had to eat, but my brother had not lost his interest in chowing down.)

  “Nell really doesn’t mind y’all using her car?” Mrs. Gilroy asked.

  Why the hell do you care? I wondered.

  “Hmm,” Casey said under his breath. He revved the engine. “Uh-oh. Looks like MJ’s in trouble.” He pointed to Mr. Gilroy, still at the top of the ladder. The strand of lights he’d just tacked up had come unpinned, dangling just out of his reach. Then he tore out of the driveway. “Best not to go overboard with this stuff,” he muttered. “Mrs. Gilroy is too damn nosy.”

  “What stuff?” I asked him.

  He hung a right at the Kroger center and parked by the doughnut shop.

  Had he done something to make those lights dangle? I didn’t mind if he had. Mrs. Gilroy was nosy. “Casey, what happened back there?” I persisted.

  “Nothing. We’re meeting Amber,” Casey said without any other explanation.

  Sure enough, Amber was inside by the window, dressed in her EMT outfit, munching on a sausage and cheese kolache. Snickerdoodles and now kolaches.

  “Do y’all need to eat?” I asked as Casey and I plopped into two empty chairs at her little table.

  “Jenna!” Casey scowled.

  “Morning to you, too,” Amber said. She made a point of biting into her kolache. Cheese oozed onto her lower lip and she dabbed it with a napkin. “And no. But I enjoy it. Some of us don’t. My theory is they never liked food that much in the first place. I did. I still do. But if you want great kolaches, you really need to go to the Hill Country. There’s this little doughnut shop outside of Fredericksburg that makes cheese and fruit kolaches to die for.” She smiled. “Metaphorically speaking.” She looked from me to Casey and then back to me. “I take it your brother has filled you in.”

  I couldn’t even nod.

  Casey bought himself a blueberry doughnut. Then we all headed outside where we could talk more privately. There was a bench a few stores down—in front of Texas Nail Salon, which didn’t open until ten. We sat with our doughnuts. Well, they did. I’d lost my appetite.

  The gist of the conversation was this: Of course Amber knew Casey had told me. That was Amber’s job. The AIC was real. Casey wasn’t making it up. Initially there had been a majority vote to keep the angel thing a secret from me. It was Amber who had argued that if he didn’t clue me in, I would eventually mess up Casey’s attempts to help solve everything that had been going on.

  The more I listened, the more pissed I became.

  Who was running the show up there in angel land? The same people who believed that WWF was real wrestling? My brother had a 33 average in Teen Leadership, but I was untrustworthy? Casey would remain on a sort of probationary period for awhile. That was the only part that made sense. The results of Mom’s blood work were still pending.

  “But something’s not right,” Amber concluded. “My friend at the lab wants to run more tests.”

  I wondered if the AIC sat around playing cards or harps or whatever and decided, Hey, I know what’ll perk things right up. Let’s screw with the Samuels family. It’ll help pass eternity. “Y’all are holy beings, right?” I wasn’t quite sure if I could extend this to my brother, but I put it out there in general terms. “If you’re angels doesn’t that mean you just know stuff? Why does it all have to be a mystery? I mean, can’t you just tell us who’s been poisoning me and what’s going on with Mom and what happened to Dad?”

  Amber slurped another gulp of coffee from the Styrofoam cup. “No,” she said slowly. “That’s not how it works.” She twitched her mouth. “When I’m—when we’re like this,” she motioned to herself and Casey, “we’re bound by Earth rules. Human form. Human rules. There’s a little more to it, but that�
�s the basics.”

  I glared at her. “The basics?” My brother might have used his A-powers to mess with the neighbors’ holiday décor. We needed the advanced course.

  She met my gaze. “Think about it, Jenna. You wouldn’t really want a world where everything was predetermined, would you? What fun would that be?”

  Suddenly we were in a staring contest. I blinked first. Now I was cranky again. The guarantee of free will aside, I knew that Amber and the AIC were convinced that my father’s disappearance was not just a random event, and that Dad was somehow tied into everything else, including my poisoned boots. Casey was back because he was best suited to connect the dots. But she was still lying to me. I was sure of it.

  “Throw this stuff away, would you?” Amber pressed her napkin and empty Styrofoam cup into my brother’s hands. Obediently, he trotted toward the garbage can. I stifled a grin. Okay, maybe she wasn’t evil. It was sort of a kick to see someone bossing around my brother.

  Plus honestly, she had told me stuff I’d wanted to know. I didn’t like her any better, but I could tolerate her. For now, at least. For Casey’s sake.

  “They didn’t want to send him back, Jenna,” she whispered. “But someone, I can’t say who, argued that your brother had potential.”

  “And you’re telling me this because?”

  Amber lowered her voice. On her utility belt, her cell phone gave a soft little beep. The red light started blinking. Someone needed her. I wondered if it was someone human. “Because I think you deserve to know. Because we all heard you praying for him in that car.”

  “I don’t pray.” This wasn’t entirely true, but I felt like pissing her off. She still thought she knew me. She still absolutely did not.

  “Things happen for a reason, Jenna.”

  More bullshit. Or maybe she’d read my mind. Maybe she knew about Maggie’s philosophy of life, too. I thought longingly about my boots.

  “So what happened to you?” I asked. “How come you’re an A-word? I figure it’s only fair I know since you seem to know so much about us.”

  She blinked at me. For the first time ever, she was at a loss for words. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered. “Listen, Jenna. I get it. I really do. You heard what I said last night; I know you did. Angels aren’t always infallible. The world is set in motion and sometimes things happen. Scientists call it chaos theory; philosophers call it free will. My explanation? It’s just the way Nature works.”

  Yes, I understand. Once again, you are telling me that ‘shit happens.’ You’ve just given it a fancier set of names.

  “Your brother’s friend Dave is the type who brings extra chaos. It’s like dominos, Jenna. Casey did something kind for his friend. He loaned him your car. But Dave’s behavior while in the car … that was the wild card.”

  “Are you telling me that a bunch of advanced supernatural beings couldn’t predict that loaning a guy who smoked his breakfast—and lunch and dinner—was going to turn out badly?”

  Amber opened her mouth, then closed it

  Casey had paused by the garbage can. Then I saw why. He was chattering away on his cell phone again with that same dumb grin he’d worn last night with Lanie Phelps.

  “Listen, you asked why I’m here,” Amber whispered furiously. “There was this angel from A&M. We got into a little, um, debate about football. I mean, who doesn’t believe that the Longhorns are the better team? Turns out there’s a lot of Aggies after, you know. After. Who would have thought? They’re a bunch of self-righteous sons of bitches, by the way.”

  I laughed in spite of myself. Okay. I may not have trusted her entirely yet, but I’d clearly underestimated this woman. Because finally, Amber Velasco had said something that made some sense. The A&M/UT rivalry was legendary. In Texas, almost everyone sided with either the Aggies or the Longhorns. Even when they weren’t playing in the same conference. The Aggies weren’t much for Austin, said it was filled with hippie-types and liberal tree-huggers. Longhorns dismissed College Station as a rinky-dink country town.

  I was generally neutral about the whole thing, but my favorite asshat (or not), Mr. Collins was an Aggie through and through. I wouldn’t have held this against him, but Aggies were sticklers for their football traditions and Collins had tried to put an Aggie guilt trip on my brother when he quit the Spring Creek team. “You were always there for me, Samuels,” he’d growled. “Even if you weren’t playing. You were my 12th Man. Now you’re nothing.”

  Here’s how the Aggie 12th Man thing worked: Only eleven guys went out on the field to play, but the whole student body was that twelfth. A win for the team was a win for everybody. You didn’t leave in the middle. Of course it had never occurred to Mr. Collins to wonder if he was the one who was quitting on Casey. It sure as hell hadn’t occurred to Lanie Phelps. Or had it, finally?

  “You got stuck with my brother because you went to UT?” I managed.

  It did sound like the lamest possible excuse. On the other hand, it was highly entertaining. But I still didn’t know how she had died.

  “Casey!” Amber hollered before I could ask any more questions. “Stop acting like a jackass and take your sister to school!”

  WE WERE PULLING up to Ima Hogg when Casey turned to me. His well-groomed brows pinched toward each other. He made a “hmm” sound. For a second, he looked kind of constipated.

  “Casey,” I warned. “You can’t show your wings in the Ima Hogg driveway.”

  “What? No. I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “You.”

  This was not the answer I’d expected. I figured he was daydreaming about Lanie Phelps and how maybe they could do it in the locker room or something. (I meant no disrespect to either of them, but let’s face it. I had recently heard Dave describe Casey’s situation, in between bong hits, as such: “You couldn’t get laid if you were a load of cement.” Neither could Dave, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that this was an accurate description of my brother until the day he died and came back like this. It took some getting used to.)

  “What about me?” I rested my hand on the door. I needed to get to class. Someone behind us honked a horn. We were messing up the drop-off rhythm.

  “Who would want to hurt you, Jenna? No one. You’re a pain in the ass sometimes, but you’re in the eighth grade. You’re not exactly a threat to mankind. Who would want to hurt Mom? Same answer. She’s not someone people hurt. She’s Holly Samuels, a speech therapist at Oak View Convalescent Home. At least she was. And a mom. No one hurts someone like that. I mean, look at Dr. Renfroe. He still looks out for Mom and she doesn’t even work for him anymore. So here’s what I’m thinking. Dad’s disappearance must be connected somehow. You heard what Mom was saying. I know we both figured she was rambling nonsense, but what if she wasn’t? What if Dad is alive? What if wherever he went or whatever happened to him is the same reason someone went after you? What if it’s the same reason Mom’s so wacked out? Like we were thinking—not just depressed, but something else, maybe.”

  Goosebumps rose on my arms. The Merc was still idling in the middle of the drop-off lane. More people had started honking. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the school cop plodding toward us. (For the record: Officer Jenkins weighed in at about two-eighty. If we had a real emergency here at Ima Hogg, he would probably bust a clot before he actually caught up with anyone.) But Casey wasn’t done. He rested a hand on my shoulder to calm me.

  “Jenna, I keep going over and over what Mom said. Like, that he’s been trying to contact her, but he has to stay hidden. What if all that’s true? What if something’s been keeping him away? What if he’s scared to come back? So I asked myself: If a guy—if Dad—is totally terrified of something, what’s the one thing you can threaten him with to make him do what you want? What would make him come back? Only one thing as I see it. Something that would make him even more terrified.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “
You,” he said.

  My heart was beating too fast for me to speak.

  “What I mean is: Like someone he loves, in danger. Like someone trying to poison you. Think about it, Jenna. Maybe whoever poisoned you figured that if you got sick enough, it would make Dad come home to try to save you. Maybe they’re even trying to make Mom sick, too, for the same reason. Maybe they’re trying to ambush Dad when he comes to save us all.”

  My goosebumps turned to boulders. Was this possible? I had convinced myself that our father didn’t love us. That he’d run off to some new place or new life. In my worst moments, I sometimes even thought that it was partly because of me. I didn’t know why, but it had to be something. Why else would he disappear after promising to ride Magic Mountain with me at Disney World?

  Back then, Casey already played football. He had promise. Hard to believe, but he did. I was just a hyper nine-year-old who liked to come with her father when he scoped out the different restaurants to review. I liked going to the sports games, too, sitting with him in the press boxes at Minute Maid and Reliant and Toyota. But I loved the restaurants most of all. Casey never wanted to go, but I did. Dad would order brisket or ribs or—for the sequel he’d started on classic Tex Mex—street tacos and refried beans and fresh guacamole and enchiladas with gooey cheese and sauce. He’d share his plate with me and we’d confer. Were the ribs smoky enough? Was the brisket too fatty? How about that guacamole? Had the avocados been fresh?

  It was just me and Dad and the three meat platter. Or Combination Number Two with an extra cup of queso because my father liked to dip his chips in the molten cheese. Or fresh salsa studded with jalapenos that made me sweat after the first bite … After five years without him, though, I had come to the conclusion that my memories were mistaken. My father hadn’t enjoyed those times. I’d just “projected.” Maybe I’d eaten too many enchiladas. Or given him a lousy opinion about the tacos al carbon.