I tried to imagine living out in the country, surrounded by nothing but fields and sky and animals. Even though I’d gone through a Laura Ingalls Wilder phase in grade school, I couldn’t fathom it. I’d been a city girl all my life, and the thought of anything else, even a farm in Kansas, was sort of exotic and interesting.
I leaned forward, just a little. “Do you miss it?”
He dropped the country boy act and leaned forward, too. He was mimicking me again. “Most of the time, I do. If I could get home for the holidays, I would. But it was a choice between me going home now, or mom and dad coming out here for graduation. There will be other Christmases, but graduation only happens once. Until I graduate from med school, that is. Anyway, it made the choice seem obvious. I was pretty bummed out about it this morning, though.” He grinned, and his eyes crinkled behind his Clark Kent frames. “But now, being trapped in California doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.”
We talked so long that the staff started cleaning up around us. They swept, picked up trash, straightened chairs. Finally, the girl that had served Jake earlier turned the sign around in the window, closed-side out. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called out through the make-shift megaphone, “Closing time! Sorry, folks, we’ve gotta go.”
Jake looked down at the book. “We didn’t read any of this.”
“No, we didn’t. But I’ve got an idea.” I pushed it toward him. “How about you take it home tonight, and I can get it from you tomorrow?”
He dipped his chin, looking at me over the top of his glasses. “Tomorrow?”
I nodded, smiling slowly. “Umm hmm. How do you feel about pizza?”
“I have very positive feelings toward pizza.” Jake picked up the book, stood, and held his hand out to me. “It’s a date.”
18
Vinnie’s Diner
I shake my head, bringing an abrupt end to the film that’s been unspooling inside my brain. If I go back to the beginning, it’s easy to see why I fell for Jake. He was handsome, charming, smart . . . but in the end, it hadn’t been enough. Bigger things stand in our way. There is no way Jake and I can ever be happy together.
“I don’t get it,” Norma Jeane says, winding a chocolate brown curl around her finger. “If you didn’t want to marry him, why not tell him so? Why just leave him hanging and never give him an answer?’
I stare at the brunette waitress in front of me, thinking of the woman she becomes. If Marilyn were standing here right now, she would get it. More than anyone, Marilyn would understand that sometimes it doesn’t matter if you love someone. She would understand that sometimes, being in love only makes things worse.
The sad truth is, I did want to marry Jake. But I couldn’t. And it scared me to death to tell him the reason why.
“I didn’t give him an answer because then he’d want to know why I wouldn’t marry him. I was afraid if I did that, he might talk me into changing my mind.” Or hate me, but I keep that part of the thought to myself.
My answer is firm and direct, so I hope this will be the end of the discussion.
Norma Jeane glances at the radio, then looks back at me, equally as determined not to let it go. “It doesn’t sound like that would have been so bad.”
She’s a tenacious one. But I’m done talking about this. In fact, I’m just plain done. “Enough about me.” With my hands on my hips I stroll into the middle of the room. I don’t want to talk about myself anymore. I’m sick of picking apart every little piece of my life. Turning slowly, I look at the eclectic cast of characters surrounding me. “What I really want to know is why are you all here?”
Vinnie, still sitting in the booth with Joe, shakes his head. “You figured that out already. We’re the equivalent of your life flashing before your eyes. Remember?”
I let my chin fall to my chest and roll my head from side to side. I should have known I wouldn’t get a straight answer the first time out.
“Yes. I did figure out that much. But what I want to know is, why this bunch? I’ve studied all kinds of trivia about all kinds of people. So why did I wind up here with only dead people?” Lassie barks at me. “And a dog,” I add. Then Grimm barks and I huff out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, and you too.”
There’s a roar in the diner as everyone starts talking at once. The room is full of shouts, exclamations, and denials. Oh boy. Apparently, whoever put this all together hadn’t thought to let the people in the room know anything about their own destinies . . . or histories. I’m not sure which one you’d call it.
Either way, none of them know they’re dead.
Looking around at the shock and dismay on their faces, I feel bad for hurting them and guilty for dropping this huge bombshell in such an untactful manner. But then I pull myself together. These people aren’t real. They can’t be. They’re all dead, for crying out loud. They ceased to be a long time ago. I know that, so I guess it’s time they know it, too.
I lift my hands, flapping them like I’m a bird trying to take off, until I restore some order. “Yes. I’m sorry to tell you, but where I come from, you’re all dead.”
“I’m not dead,” says Joe.
“Neither am I,” says Vinnie.
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. It makes sense that Joe and Vinnie aren’t dead celebrities, since I don’t recognize them from anywhere. So why are they here, and who are they, really? Are they figments of my imagination? Time travelers? Aliens? The by-product of too many nacho cheese Doritos? I want to pursue this thread of conversation, but everyone else presses in around me, cutting me off from the two not-dead people. Ironically, this is the liveliest I’ve seen this bunch as a group since I got here. They all want to know the same thing: What happened to me? How do I—did I—die?
If I hope to get to the truth behind Joe and Vinnie, I’m going to have to deal with the peanut gallery first.
“Okay, okay. One at a time.” They back off, giving me a little breathing room. I start with the burly cook standing next to me. “Elvis, you overdosed and died at home in a bathroom.”
His usually smiling lips turn down, and he shuts his eyes for a moment. Then he looks back at me, his head cocked. “When?”
“Too young.” I reach out and squeeze his shoulder. “August 16, 1977. You were forty-two.”
“Everyone wanted a piece of me.” Then one side of his mouth curls up, and I see a miniature version of his cocky grin. “Guess I showed them.”
He walks away, and I can’t help but feel sad for him. Being found unconscious in a pool of your own vomit after falling off the toilet isn’t what I’d consider a victory.
I turn to Judy Garland. She can’t seem to hold her head still. “You overdosed and died at home in a bathroom.”
She doesn’t ask when. She doesn’t even look surprised. She just walks away, following unevenly behind Elvis.
Norma Jeane grabs my arm. “What about me?”
I’ve very rarely seen motivation or true emotions reflected in a person’s eyes, but Norma Jeane is one of the exceptions. I remember once Aunt Bobbie and I were watching a documentary on Marilyn Monroe. There was a clip of her being escorted out of her home by her lawyer. She’d just announced that she was filing for divorce from Joe DiMaggio. Flashbulbs were popping, microphones were being stuck in her face, and she looked like she might collapse. Her eyes were completely raw, full of pain and disillusionment. They told the whole story.
Looking at her now, a crazy amalgam of the girl she was and the woman she became, she’s still the most tragic person I’ve ever seen. The last thing I want to do is bring more pain to those eyes, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The past is the past. It’s her history, and she has a right to know.
I lay my hand gently on Norma Jeane’s shoulder. “You died of an overdose.”
Her eyes are wide. Her hands are clasped together and pressed against her lips so that when she talks, it’s a challenge for me to make out what she says. “Please. Please don’t tell me it was in the bathroom.”
I give her shoulder a squeeze. “No. Not in the bathroom. In your bed. Naked.”
She lets out a sigh of relief and backs away. My hand falls from her shoulder and slaps against my side. Huh. I guess dying naked in bed beats keeling over in a bathroom.
Mark Twain waves an unlit cigar in my face. “After hearing the fates of these poor souls it seems they are following a pattern of self-extinction. However, I refuse to believe that I would in any way consider the taking of my own life.”
I smile. “You don’t have to believe it because you didn’t do it. You died of natural causes. A heart condition.” But he wasn’t a very happy man when he died. Despite all the wit and wisdom he’s known for, Twain was deeply depressed after the deaths of two of his daughters and his wife. I’ve always thought that his was the case of a man truly dying of a broken heart. But there’s no point in telling him that.
Einstein runs a hand quickly over his wild shock of hair as he looks down on me. “And in your slice of time and space, how do I meet my demise?”
I tilt my head back a bit, surprised to realize how tall he is. After all his hiding behind the booth, I thought he was a shorter man. “You also had a heart condition.”
He nods, accepting the answer, and moves away, hands in his trouser pockets.
There’s a bit of a commotion across the room. A man gets up from a stool at the end of the counter and makes his way to me. His dark suit is neat, as is his trimmed beard and mustache and the snow-white crown of hair that starts three-quarters of the way back on his scalp. He’s been sitting in the corner the whole time, observing, taking everything in, and occasionally scribbling down notes on a lined yellow pad of paper.
“Hello, Dr. Freud.” He seems even taller than Einstein, and I couldn’t remember if that’s right or not. Trivia was failing me a bit. But I had to tilt my head back to look up at him.
He doesn’t return my greeting. Instead, he pinches his chin, looking at me closely. “Very interesting. Of those you’ve spoken to, three have killed themselves, and two have died of natural causes. Which leads me to wonder, which group will I fit into?”
It’s the kind of observation I’d expect from Dr. Freud. “Actually, you kind of fit into both groups. You were dying of cancer, so you asked a friend to help you end it. He gave you three doses of morphine, and you died of an overdose.”
“So in point of fact, I did kill myself.”
“Yes.”
He purses his lips, pulling his mouth to the side as he ponders this revelation, “But only after living with the pain until it became too much to bear.”
“Yes. It was an assisted suicide.”
He nods, rubs a hand over his bald pate, and walks back to his seat, muttering the whole way. “Interesting. Very interesting.”
Yes, it is interesting. But what does it mean? Norma Jeane, Elvis, and Judy . . . they’d all had difficult lives. Although it was never proven that any of them meant to commit suicide, they’d chosen to dull their pain through drugs. It was their attempt to escape from reality and deny the ache of their existence that ultimately killed all of them.
Then there were Twain and Einstein. Neither one had lived an easy life. Twain had lost just about every person he ever loved. And Einstein was so consumed with his work that he was writing a speech in the hospital when he died. But both had continued on, pushing through their suffering. Both had died when it was their time to go.
And finally, there was Freud. He was a mixture of the other five: a man who suffered for years and finally gave in to the pain. When he knew he was close to death and couldn’t take it anymore, he decided to end it himself. He made a conscious decision.
I walk over to Vinnie. He’s turned sideways facing out of the booth, one elbow on the table, the other at his side, his hands clasped in front of him.
I motion back at the others. “This is all supposed to mean something, isn’t it?”
He nods slowly. “Yep.”
“You’re not going to tell me what, are you?”
His head moves slowly in the other direction. “Nope.”
Fine. Then I’ll try something else. I look at Joe. “Who are you?”
A glimmer of a smile plays across his lips. “You know me. You just don’t recognize me right now. But you will.”
He gets up and walks to the front door. As he pulls it open, “Here Comes the Sun” begins playing again. He starts to go outside, but turns around in the doorway and looks back at me. “By the way, my name’s not Joe. But you can call me that until you’re ready to use my real name. I’ve been called worse.”
19
Vinnie’s Diner
The door swings shut. The music stops. Empty air presses in on me from all sides. The diner feels a little smaller now that Joe—or whoever he is—has gone.
Wait a minute. The diner is smaller. It seems to have shrunk, closed in on itself. And it’s a lot less crowded than before. Norma Jeane hovers by the radio. A deep-throated hum rattles out of Elvis as he wipes down the counter, which is now half the size it used to be. Across from him, Freud sits on a stool, intent on scratching his chin. A couple of stools away, Einstein is using toothpicks and sugar cubes to create what looks like a model of an atom. Back in the booth, Vinnie is still sitting sideways, still looking at me, one elbow resting near the open chest.
But everyone else is gone.
My legs wobble and exhaustion pushes me down into the seat across from Vinnie. “Who are you?” I need to know before he vanishes like the rest of them.
He shifts his body until he’s facing me again, but he doesn’t say a word. Just smiles that irritating it’s-for-me-to-know-and-you-to-find-out smile of his. My patience is stretched long and tight, like the strings on a violin. Buzzing fills my ears. Finally, a string in my head snaps with a nearly audible twang
“You told me I have more control than I think I do. So okay, I’m ready to take control. Tell me who you are. Now.” I pound my fist on the table for emphasis, making the salt and pepper shakers hop.
The last reaction I expect from Vinnie is a smile. But that’s what I get. He almost looks proud. “I knew you could do it.” He takes hold of the chest by its base and turns it so it’s sideways between the two of us. He reaches in, takes out something the size and shape of a baseball card, and hands it to me. “What do you know about this?”
The card has seen better days. It’s old and faded with bent, split corners and a tear on one side. It has the Lord’s Prayer printed on it in intricate, faded calligraphy.
“It’s a prayer card.”
“Yes, it is.” He taps the top of the cardboard. “You’ve prayed that prayer before, haven’t you.”
He’s telling me, not asking. “You know I have. And if you know that, then you should also know how long it’s been since I prayed it.”
He nods. “Yes, I do. But to quote your wild-haired friend, time is relative.”
Einstein remains bent over his arts-and-crafts project, but bounces his head up and down, shouting out, “Yes! Yes!”
“Besides,” Vinnie continues, “You’re not the only one who’s ever said that prayer. Or prayers in general.”
I look down at the card and then back at Vinnie. “So you’re here because I prayed once, a long time ago?”
“Partially. Other people have been praying for you, too.” He points toward the radio. “I’m sure you know that Jake’s been praying for you since the day you met.”
Truth is, Jake’s been praying for me since before we met. But that’s a whole other story, one that I don’t want Vinnie nosing around in. So I just nod.
“And don’t forget your Aunt Bobbie. She prays for you every day.”
My eyes sting, and my throat tightens. I know my aunt is a praying woman. I’ve seen her pray before meals, when she’s seen an accident report on the news, and for Brad Pitt to win an Oscar. And I know she’s been praying for me while I’ve been in the hospital. But it never occurred to me that I might have been the subject of h
er prayers on every other normal day. “She does? She prays for me?”
“Absolutely. The morning you left on your trip, she felt a particularly strong urge to pray for your safety. The woman literally fell to her knees and called out to God. I think her exact words were, ‘Lord, send your angels to protect her’.”
My nose starts to tingle like a thousand little pins are sticking it from the inside. “How do you know that?”
Vinnie’s face softens and light spills in from a tiny window high up on the wall by the ceiling. The area behind him is illuminated, making his paper hat glow. George Lucas and all the computer wizards at Industrial Light and Magic couldn’t have created a better effect.
He gently pulls the prayer card from between my fingers, turns it around, and gives it back to me. “How do you think I know?”
The picture on the other side of the card is stunning. The background is a mosaic of sun rays hitting a bright stained glass window. In the foreground is the face of a man, beautiful in its calm peacefulness, yet at the same time strong and commanding.
It’s a picture of an angel.
It’s a picture of Vinnie.
What I wouldn’t give for a Vanilla Coke right about now. Or maybe even something a little stronger. Even though the inside of my throat feels like it’s been glued together, I force myself to speak. “You’re . . . you’re an angel?”
He dips his head. “At your service. Guardian angel, first class.”
My head is spinning. I’ve seen lots of angels in lots of movies, and Vinnie doesn’t remind me of any of them. Nor does he look like any of the angels I’ve seen in famous paintings. I’ve seen tall, Viking warrior-type male angels with flowing blond hair, white robes and enormous wings. I’ve seen female angels who looked more like fairy princesses than heavenly beings. And then there are the little chubby baby angels wearing strategically placed cloth coverings and perched on clouds. But not a single angel I’ve seen represented in any form of media wore suspenders and a banana boat hat.
“Am I your project?”
One side of his mouth tilts up. “What do you mean?”
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