by Beca Lewis
Thinking about Pete’s nod to her through the window, she thought that maybe they shouldn’t wait until Monday night to get together.
Something was niggling at her, and Grace knew, after years of paying attention to niggling, that ignoring that little voice that told her that something was happening was never a good idea.
Twenty-Two
Connie looked around the room and wondered how she had ever gotten to this place. Dead and only three people to talk to. There was no one to blame but herself. So, if it were possible to change the past, she would try.
“Are you sending me back now?” Connie asked.
Eddie looked at her with his clear blue eyes that reminded Connie so much of his mother.
“No. First, you will tell us what you think happened. Play out the game so we can see what you did.”
“Where do I start?”
“Before the wedding,” Eddie replied.
Connie closed her eyes and drifted back to that time, seeing it as it was happening all over again.
That spring break, when Edith announced her engagement, Edith was radiant. Her happiness spread throughout the family. It was impossible not to be happy for her. Theodore Prince was her dream come true. Handsome, charming, and rich enough to take care of her and the family she wanted to have.
Connie’s trepidation about Theo was something that she kept to herself. She told herself that she was only worried because Theo offered Edith a life that she would find stifling. She also had to admit that a part of her was jealous. But Connie didn’t let any of that show. Instead, she did all the things that a maid of honor should do for the bride.
The two of them went to lunch and giggled over the plans. Lorraine joined them as they thumbed through bridal magazines, looking for ideas that they could afford. Although Ralph made a good living, they weren’t wealthy enough to provide everything that Edith wanted. It didn’t matter. They were enjoying the dreaming.
Then Theo’s mother, Virginia, stepped in. After hearing about the plans for a wedding in a small chapel in Doveland, she said it wasn’t big enough. Seeing the dress Edith had planned to wear, Virginia said it wasn’t good enough, and bought her another dress. Invitations to family and friends were changed to include people that even Theo hadn’t heard of before.
Connie and Virginia disliked each other at first sight. Connie kept her feelings to herself, Virginia did not. She did everything she could to derail Connie’s place at Edith’s wedding. Virginia changed the colors and style of the bridesmaid dresses to ones that didn’t look good on Connie.
When Connie’s name came up, Virginia would lift her head just enough, so she was looking down her nose at what they were talking about. She called Connie trailer trash behind her back, but loud enough that Connie would hear.
There was nothing that Connie could do. She did come from a trailer park. She did have a drunk, abusive, loud-mouthed, uneducated father and an absent mother. Her friends growing up were the women of the trailer park. If that made someone trailer trash, then yes, that was what she was. So she took it, not refuting Virginia’s innuendos and her direct insults.
Edith’s family didn’t fare much better. Virginia constantly overturned Lorraine’s choices for her daughter’s wedding. Virginia questioned Ralph’s’ business acumen, insinuating that he was incompetent. And Bill. They didn’t even mention his name. It was as if Bill didn’t exist.
Theo’s dad, Joseph, stayed in the background, ignoring his wife and the family that would soon join them. But when Joseph was present, he was like an older version of his son—handsome and charming and vaguely sinister.
Connie couldn’t decide which member of the Prince family that she disliked the most. But for the sake of her friend, she kept those thoughts to herself.
Although Edith cried more than once after Virginia overruled her choices for the wedding, Theo would soothe and comfort her, and she would smile through her tears and agree that it was all for the best.
After all, they had to make a good impression on all the Prince’s friends, family, and business acquaintances. These were the people who would be the source that would provide for the stable family life she wanted.
As Connie told the story of the months of preparation for Edith’s wedding, she glanced over at Eddie. How did he feel about hearing about the past? But he gave her a blank look and a hand gesture that meant to continue. So she did.
She and Edith finished up their last few months of school differently. Their small apartment off-campus was always busy with friends visiting and Friday night parties. Bridal magazines, mixed with business journals, sat on their coffee table.
Connie had splurged and gotten an electric typewriter, and she was on it all the time writing letters to companies, and following up with the interviews she had with the recruiters who came to the school.
Although they weren’t looking for women, she was so impressive that many were considering hiring her. Ralph had written her a glowing letter of recommendation, which helped tremendously.
Finally, right before school ended, she chose the company. It had an office in Pittsburgh, which meant she wouldn’t be that far from Ralph and Lorraine, or even the trailer park if she decided to visit.
Edith would be in Pittsburgh too, but Connie knew that Theo would discourage Edith from inviting her to their house. However, she figured that she and Edith would meet in Doveland whenever they wanted to see each other.
Connie paused and looked around the room. Eddie kept his blank look, not giving away anything. Bryan looked bored. Only Rachel appeared interested.
When no one said anything, Rachel was the one who asked, “Did the wedding go well?”
“If big weddings made to impress are your thing, then yes.”
Eddie cleared his throat.
“I’ve heard enough for now. I think what needs to happen before Connie can go back in time is she needs to practice changing things right now. You know, act like a friend. Help people.”
“Like what? How?”
“Go out there and find people that need help and then help them.”
“But I’m dead.”
“That’s what makes this job easy,” Eddie said. “You need to practice becoming alive enough to change something for the better.”
“Oh!” Rachel said, “She’ll do things like an angel.”
“Exactly,” Eddie said.
“Are you kidding me?” Connie snapped. “I’m no angel.”
“Well, that’s true,” Eddie said with the tiniest sneer. “But you can learn to be one. I’m going to help you with this first one.”
Turning to Bryan and Rachel, he added, “We’ll find you two later.”
With that, they were gone.
Twenty-Three
The next thing Connie knew, she and Eddie were hanging in the air, watching cars and trucks fly by on a freeway far below them. They were so far above them they looked like the Hot-Wheel toy cars she had seen children play with.
After adjusting to the view, and the fact she was so high up but it didn’t feel any different from being on the ground, Connie asked, “What are we doing here?”
“Watch. In a minute, something will begin to happen that you can stop. Let’s see if you can do it.”
Connie asked how she would know, and how she would stop it, but instead of answering Eddie just smiled.
A split second later, Connie was standing beside the freeway. The rush of the cars and trucks speeding by was overwhelming. Even though she was already dead, it terrified Connie. Eddie had done his vanishing act, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do next.
With nowhere to go and nothing else to do, Connie started watching the drivers as they rushed past her. The more she watched, the clearer her vision of each driver was to her as they sped by. It was as if each one was still for a moment, like a pause button on a recording.
It was amazing how many things were going on in each vehicle. One woman was actually putting on makeup while speeding by in her car.
A mother was yelling at the kids in the back seat to be quiet. A man smoked, his hand hanging out the side of the car, letting the smoke drift away.
People sang along to the songs playing in their cars. A few seemed to be practicing with language tapes. Connie heard a snatch of her favorite NPR show and realized that it meant it was Saturday. Then she remembered that people listened to recordings of things like that, which meant it could be any day of the week.
For a moment, Connie felt even more disoriented, if that were possible. She not only didn’t know what day of the week it was, but she also didn’t know what month it was. How long had she been dead? And where was she? She didn’t recognize the freeway or the surrounding areas. Nothing was familiar. Without thinking, she turned around and stepped back—directly into the path of a semi-trailer.
Connie screamed. The driver kept going as if nothing had happened. After recovering from the shock and returning to the side of the road, Connie asked herself if nothing could hurt her now. She found herself pleased with that thought. It was as if she had gained a superpower. The pleasure faded when she remembered that she couldn’t do anything with it.
Or could she? Maybe she could. Perhaps that was why she was there. After all, Eddie told her to help, which meant she could. Why else was she there? Why would Eddie put her beside a freeway, if he didn’t want her to do anything? So what could she do? What did Eddie want her to do? Help someone? How?
Connie turned her attention back to the drivers. She figured that was what she was supposed to do had something to do with what was happening, or going to happen, right where she was standing.
Eddie might think she was stupid, and perhaps she had been. But she hadn’t always been such a loser, and Eddie was definitely not stupid. He was counting on her to figure it out. Whoever needed help was also counting on her to figure it out, even if they didn’t know that. Yet.
As a blue car came towards her, Connie caught sight of a face staring out of the back window. A small child, strapped into a car seat, looked right at her and waved.
Without thinking, Connie waved back, and the child smiled at her and waved harder.
Connie laughed out loud. She had been seen!
*******
Angie Harris played with the radio dial. She needed something to listen to, something to take her mind off what had just happened.
Angie had yelled at her boss, and he had fired her. How was she going to take care of her son if she didn’t have a job? Tears streamed down her face, and she brushed them away, angry at herself for feeling sad, for being afraid, and most of all, for yelling at that horrid man.
Yes, he was horrid. Yes, Angie hated her job. Yes, he deserved her anger, but none of that mattered. What mattered is she had barely enough money to pay the babysitter. The car was so old it rattled while she drove. And now the radio didn’t work. She smacked it, hoping that whatever was wrong with it would be fixed with a good whack.
That’s what her father used to say as he would haul off and hit her and her brother. He would fix them with a good whack.
She had learned to be quiet, never to say anything about her feelings. Yes, she had learned that, so why hadn’t she stayed quiet today? Fresh tears poured down her face, blurring her vision.
The car sputtered. Fear spiked throughout her body.
“Oh, no. Not here!”
She was on the slow lane of the freeway, but there was nowhere to pull off. Cars and trucks were behind her, going as fast as they could. She would die. Her son would be without a mother. The people in the cars behind her would be injured. All because she was poor and couldn’t fix her car.
“Please, God,’ Angie yelled, “Help me!”
The car sputtered once more and then stopped. Connie shut her eyes, waiting for the inevitable crash. Hoping it was painless.
A moment passed.
Then someone tapped on her window.
Startled, Angie looked up to see a man in a business suit tapping on her window. She rolled it down, wondering if she was dead, and God had granted her wish that her death would be painless.
“Am I dead?” Angie asked the man with kind, dark eyes.
He didn’t laugh. Instead, he said, “I saw you pull off, and thought you might need some help.”
Only then did Angie see that somehow she was now safely parked on the side of the road. Something made her look in her rearview mirror, and for a moment, she saw a woman standing behind her, smiling. When she looked again, the woman was gone, but the man was still there.
Stepping out of her car, she took his hand. And at that moment, Angie knew that she and her son would be fine from now on.
“Thank you,” she whispered, now knowing that someone was listening to her, and she and her life mattered.
Twenty-Four
Connie was still smiling when she appeared again in Bryan’s living room. For Rachel and Bryan, nothing had changed. But for Connie, it was a whole new world. A child had waved at her. An accident had been averted. And hope had come to a woman who had thought she had nothing.
Turning to Eddie, she asked, “Can I help her more?”
Eddie, for once, smiled back at Connie.
“No need. Others will help her when she needs it.”
“The man?”
When Eddie nodded, Connie smiled again.
“Something happened?” Rachel asked.
With the slightest hint of pride in his voice, Eddie answered, “Connie passed her first test.”
Connie continued smiling as Eddie told the story of what happened. Only when he finished did she ask the question she had been burning to ask since the moment she saw the car parked on the side of the freeway.
“How did I do that? I don’t know how it happened. I just wanted her to be safe, and then she was. How can I do it again if I don’t know what I did? And what if I would have failed? Would she have died?”
Eddie sighed before answering.
“You had backup, just in case. And the more you do this, the more control you will have of what you are doing. That’s a good thing, because when you go back in time, everything will be much more difficult.”
Turning to Bryan, he added, “Bryan, you will watch over her. First from here as she practices, and then when she returns to the past.”
When everyone started talking at once, Eddie raised his hand.
“One thing at a time. Bryan will be Connie’s guide. Since he is not dead, he will communicate with her through the door his mother opened for him. Rachel, you are his anchor. With you here, he can follow the line back to you so he won’t get lost in the in-between with Connie.”
Rachel and Bryan turned to look at each, and Rachel’s hand tightened on Bryan’s arm.
Eddie ignored them and continued, “It will work the same way when we go into the past. But for now, the three of you need some practice working this out together.”
“Wait,” Bryan said, “I don’t understand why it has to be me. Aren’t you her guide? Why can’t you do this with her?”
Eddie raised his hands in frustration. If he hadn’t promised his mother and Bryan’s mother to help these two, he would just leave now. He was tired of these people already.
The truth was, he was just tired of it all. He was tired of having to train people to be helpers in the in-between. Sometimes they already knew that they were, but didn’t know how to help effectively. Other times it was a slog waking them up to what they were there to do.
Once in a while, he had met people that taught him something or were delightful to be around, but mostly, he was teaching the unenlightened and often the unwilling.
Jillyan had promised Eddie that her son Bryan would be willing, just to give him a chance.
That’s what Eddie was doing, or trying to do.
Because of his promise, and despite his irritations with everyone, Eddie answered Bryan as politely as possible.
“Bryan, this is a gift. Like all gifts, it can feel like a burden sometimes. Trust me. I know this. But if you don’t accept this gift and make the most of it, you’ll live a life without meaning and purpose, just as you have been doing up to now. You might be alive, but your life will be dead. Is that what you want?
“Besides, I won’t always be here. I am leaving after this is over. But there will be others who will come to you, and you will help them.
“What you don’t know, Bryan, is that there have always been people who have come to you, but you ignored them because you had that door to that awareness fully closed. You, my friend, were almost as dead as Connie here.”
Sighing again, and running his hands through his hair, Eddie said, “I’m tired. I need to rest. You do, too. Go home, Rachel. Go away, Connie. Bryan, get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll begin again.”
Before Eddie had finished speaking, he had begun to fade out. Watching him go, Connie did the same. She wanted to go back to Edith’s house and sit in the garden and watch the birds.
When both of them were gone, Rachel turned to Bryan, kissed him on the cheek, and let herself out the front door. Rachel had so many questions but didn’t know where to direct them. Bryan wouldn’t know the answers.
She needed to think.
Why had she understood what Eddie had said? Why wasn’t she questioning the truth of what he was saying? Was it because she already knew about this other place? Eddie called it the in-between?
She supposed it was called many different things. The afterlife, maybe? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was asked to help. And she wanted to. And she believed Eddie. And she and Bryan would work together. She wasn’t sure which of those things pleased her the most.
However, Rachel knew that if she would be Bryan’s anchor, she needed support, too. What she had to do was not something she could do on her own. But who could she talk to about this? Most people would think she was making it up.
