After Life

by Rhian Ellis

  Vivian got to Maxwell’s before me and stood waiting at the door. She wouldn’t go in alone. She had once, and the bartender made her cry by demanding to see her ID. She had trouble recognizing when she was being teased. She didn’t look at me when I reached past her to push open the door. It was a quiet afternoon, and the only other person in the bar was Troy Versted, the Australian medium, who was puffing on a small cigar. Smoke hung in the air like ectoplasm. He waved at us from his barstool as we sat down.

  Vivian ordered her french fries—I made her do it herself, and told her to look the waitress in the eye—and then I gave her some quarters for shuffleboard. She trotted off, and after a few minutes Troy slid into her seat, across from me.

  “I came here to meet your mother, but look who I found,” he said, gently tamping his cigar in the ashtray. “We have a martini date.”

  We were sitting by the big front window, looking out over the lake. Large drops of rain slid down the glass. The bar smelled of stale smoke and beer and fried appetizers and rain. I couldn’t think of anything to say to Troy. I smiled at him instead.

  “You look pretty,” he said.

  “I do?”

  “Rain in your hair. Did your mother look like you when she was young?”

  “She was skinnier. I could show you pictures.”

  Troy nodded. “That’s right. I remember. I suppose she wasn’t much older than you are when she first came here.” Troy was wearing a pale-blue-and-white golf shirt with matching pants. Another little cigar stuck out of his shirt pocket. “Funny, mediumship does that to women sometimes. They get bigger and bigger. Men get bony.” He patted his own gaunt chest.

  “I hate it,” I said.

  “Oh, you shouldn’t. Many men like a woman with a rump.” Mini min, he said, with his accent.

  “Well, I’ve never met one.” Peter certainly didn’t like it.

  “What about me?” said Troy.

  “Okay, one.”

  Across the room, Vivian’s shuffleboard puck went flying off the table. It hit the floor with a bang. She chased after it and caught it just before it rolled into the men’s room. Troy chuckled. He lit up his cigar again, sucked on it, and blew the smoke out behind him.

  “So, I hear your mother’s working with the coppers.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Traitor!” He waggled his eyebrows. “The coppers are a medium’s worst enemy. Whatever is she thinking? Has she forgotten what her brothers and sisters have gone through? Has she forgotten the years of oppressive fortune-telling laws? Back when I lived in the city, cops once confiscated my Ouija board, told me I was a charlatan. I’d have gone to jail if they’d found any money on me. Good thing I’d spent it on booze.”

  I couldn’t tell how serious he was. Troy with a Ouija board? “You’re not really mad?”

  “Ah, no,” he sighed. “Jealous, I suppose. My career is going to hell in a handcart, too, but I’m too old to care, really.” He coughed a rattling, old-man’s cough and squinted at me through watery eyes. “So. Have you heard the latest?”

  “About the skeleton? No. I don’t think I have.”

  “They think they know how the poor bloke died.”

  “Really.” Our french fries arrived then, so I leaned back, blinking and bracing myself for this new information. The waitress clunked down a crusty bottle of ketchup.

  Troy reached over and took several of my fries. “Apparently, it was a brain injury,” he said, chewing.

  I drank some Coke, trying to keep the shock from registering on my face. “Hmm. I wonder how they can tell something like that from a skeleton.”

  He shrugged. “Oh, they have their ways! A little crack, I think it was, a hairline crack in the skull. Wasn’t obvious at first.” He touched his own temple with his long, bony fingers. “Blunt instrument. According to my sources, anyway.”

  I called for Vivian then, and it seemed my voice echoed in my head, as if I were shouting in an empty theater. I put my napkin on my lap, fussed with my knife and fork, straightened the arrangement of condiments on the table. When I looked back up, Troy was staring at me, examining my face with his medium’s frank gaze.

  “Am I making you nervous?” he asked, grinning.

  “Of course not.”

  “It’s a scary thought, though, isn’t it? A murderer in our midst.”

  “Hush,” I said, indicating Vivian, who came wandering over. But it was too late.

  “Who’s a murderer?” she asked.

  “I am!” growled Troy. He picked up a spoon and brandished it.

  Vivian smiled, delighted. “Who did you kill?”

  “Time. I killed Time!”

  I ate my french fries quickly. Troy, I decided, was the real thing. He could see right through me. “Eat up,” I told Vivian, who was still fooling around.

  “French fries are fattening,” she said, making a face.

  Troy guffawed. “The truth comes out!”

  I felt myself blush. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Troy was still chuckling, lighting another of his awful cigars, as I paid the bill and steered Vivian out the door. Let him get drunk alone, I thought, the miserable old alcoholic. Then I remembered that Troy had said he was waiting for my mother. My mother hadn’t said anything about it. Were they…dating? A headache crawled into my skull and lay down.

  The ditch along Line Drive was deep and full of leaves. Vivian climbed down in and waded through them. They reached her thighs.

  “I can’t wait until Halloween,” she said. She took a big handful of leaves and threw them into the street. “I wish it was tomorrow.”

  “What are you going to be?”

  “A witch!”

  “That’ll be fun,” I said. It was still cold and drizzling. My headache was waking up, stretching its arms and kicking the backs of my eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking of my mother going to bed with Troy. “Are you going to be a good witch or a bad witch?”

  She thought for a minute. “Just a regular one.”

  “You have to be one or the other.”

  “Which kind gets to have a broom and a big hat?”

  “I think those are the bad witches.”

  “I guess I’ll be bad, then.”

  We walked through the gates, circled the park, and stopped to look at the fountain, with its naked gold baby holding the showerhead aloft in the rain. The water was turned off for the winter and leaves floated in the pool beneath. Through the trees, I noticed someone with a big umbrella come around the corner of Rochester Street. It was my mother, heading for Maxwell’s. At this distance she looked old and awkward and slow, though it was obvious she was hurrying. She was paying attention to the ground, careful not to step in any puddles. She didn’t see us.

  Not long ago, I thought, I’d have been so happy to see her, I’d have run to her, helped her over the puddles. But I did not feel that way anymore. Now she seemed sneaky and secretive and out for herself. It enraged me. My whole body throbbed with emotion. Was I jealous? How could I be? I certainly didn’t want to date Troy.

  “You know why I want to be a witch?” Vivian asked. She poked at the water with a stick.

  “Because they can do magic?” I guessed.

  “Nope. Because they can live forever,” she said. “I read that in a book.”

  That evening I had a private client scheduled, and I thought about canceling. My head still ached. After Elaine picked up Vivian, I lay on my bed for a long time, trying to figure out how I could possibly derail my mother and Officer Peterson. I was just sitting here waiting to be caught, for Peter’s name to surface, for someone to say I know what happened. I could force the Ouija, tap the planchette toward other letters, but I’d have to have another story and another name, and they’d have to be convincing. If I just created a lot of dead ends, I’d do nothing but draw attention to myself. But any other name would lead, eventually, to a dead end…. What I’d have to do, I thought, is build a parallel universe. A universe in which there is a me, an
d there is a Peter, but one in which we part amicably, and the skeleton belongs to an anonymous no one….

  I fell asleep for a little while. Then it was too late to cancel my appointment, so I washed my face in the deep-blue bathroom sink, changed into some clean clothes, and went downstairs to wait.

  Odette was right on time, and she brought someone with her: a tall young woman with pale brown hair and a plain, pinched face. Odette herself was middle-aged, chunky, and French. She’d come to the United States when she was nineteen, freshly married to an American serviceman from Wallamee. She couldn’t have imagined Wallamee from France. She must have pictured white frame houses and friendly shopkeepers and a village green. Instead she found streets and streets of poorly weatherized houses, their cheap siding peeling off, their yards full of old toys. She stayed married to the serviceman until he died, but she never shook the feeling that her life had taken a wrong turn the moment she first saw him. Her spirits were all French, and they reminded her of the farm she grew up on: the stone floors, the parrot, the bowls of sweet coffee.

  “This is Wendy, my niece,” said Odette, removing her coat. I helped her and hung it on the coat tree. Wendy made no move to take hers off. “Thank you, Naomi. Wendy lost her baby. It was not right when it came out and did not last the month. I told her you will make her feel better.” Wendy looked down at the floor.

  “Well, I can’t promise that,” I said carefully. “It is very difficult when a baby passes over. But come upstairs.”

  I led them to my séance room at the end of the hall. I loved this room. I loved the small beveled glass doorknob, the old-fashioned brass key that rattled in its lock, and the heavy way the door swung when I pushed it. I loved the way it smelled: sweet, like the old fabric of the curtains, and slightly dusty. It was the room I did my best work in, and so I felt a small flood of happiness whenever I entered it. Odette made herself comfortable in one of the blue wingback chairs and gestured for Wendy to sit in the other one. I entered them in my logbook, sat down on the low wooden stool I used for readings, and we got started.

  At first everything was fine. I found Wendy’s baby right away, and told Wendy that the child was in its great-grandmother’s arms, and that it was happy and was with her all the time. I talked about the stuffed bears everyone had brought the baby in the hospital, and a particular undershirt the child had, one with tiny sheep on it. Wendy did not break down and cry as I’d expected, but that was all right. The first sign I had that something was off-kilter was the expression on Odette’s face: she was nervously glancing back and forth between Wendy and me. Odette was never nervous.

  “Is something…?” I began, but stopped when Wendy’s fists slammed down on the table.

  Slowly and emphatically, her face wrinkled in anger, she said, “You stinking fraud.”

  I did not respond. Once every few years I had a customer get angry, and it had been a long time since the last one. Sad people are like soufflés: they might look perfectly solid, but if you’re clumsy you’ll flatten them. Keeping my mouth shut and letting her speak would be the best tack. I looked at my folded hands while she berated me.

  “I’ll bet you read the obituary page every single day, don’t you? You just rub your hands when there’s a big car wreck or a house fire full of dead children. More business!” She let off a little shriek.

  Odette tried taking her hand, murmuring, “Wendy, love…” but Wendy shook her off.

  “They’re all just better off dead, aren’t they? The afterlife is so fucking happy! Why don’t we all kill ourselves? Why don’t you?”

  I stood up, walked to the door, and held it open without saying a word. Odette scrambled out of her chair. “I’m so sorry, Naomi,” she said.

  “Shh,” I answered.

  “I have no idea why I came. My child is dead. It’s all right to be depressed; I’d be nuts if I wasn’t depressed…” She trailed off. Odette took her upper arm. “Let’s go, dear.” This time Wendy acquiesced. She stood up and stumbled to the doorway.

  “We can show ourselves out,” said Odette, pink-faced. It was clear she was mortified. But as they passed by, Wendy lunged at me. She sprung up like a jack-in-the-box, and I didn’t have time to raise my arms to protect myself. One of her hands hit me under the eye and a fingernail raked my nose. I fell against one of the blue chairs. Wendy ran down the hall, Odette hurrying after her.

  “Forgive her!” Odette cried from the stairs, but I wasn’t sure who she was talking to.

  When they were gone, I washed my face in the bathroom and examined my small wound in the mirror. It was a gouge about three-quarters of an inch long. Not small at all, actually; it was big enough that I would have to explain it. I dabbed at it with a wad of pale-green Kleenex. It took several minutes to stop bleeding.

  I felt terrible. I felt many things—physically sick, humiliated, furious, and depleted—but they all added up to terrible. Back in my bedroom, across the hall from the séance room, I buried my face in my stale bed sheets. I was too tired to cry. Nothing Wendy had said was true, except that I did read the obituary page. And I’d heard about her baby. But so had everyone. What was wrong with that? I kicked off my shoes, and they banged against the wall.

  But I hadn’t connected to Wendy, not at all. Perhaps it was the baby business—I’d never lost one, never had one, never even gotten pregnant. It was hard for me to feel much on the subject. The reading had been real, I was sure of it—I’d seen the child, the great-grandmother, the little shirt—but something was missing. What was it? Empathy? Had I ever had it? Maybe not since before Peter. For so long, all I’d felt for people was, well, envy. Envy for their lives and their loves and the spirits that gathered around them….

  What was it my mother called me? Ice queen.

  God. I was so tired. It suddenly seemed impossible to carry my secret any further. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t! I sat up, breathing hard. I would call my mother—that’s what I would do!—call my mother and say, I’m sorry, Mama. Mama, I did something.

  God! The telephone ached to be picked up.

  I didn’t do it. Not telling was such a powerful habit that it froze my tongue and kept my phone-dialing fingers curled into fists at my side. It would take a force more powerful than I to confess. It would take Peter himself showing up, huge and glowing and righteous in the middle of Train Line, pointing his finger at me and shouting my name.

  The first time I saw Peter, standing in my mother’s yard next to poor Nelson Karp, I didn’t think much of him. He was almost as thin as Nelson, and paler. He had thick, round glasses and black hair that stood up from his forehead. But his hands, when I shook them, were warm, square, and strong. Nelson’s were skinny, his fingers like spiders’ legs.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. “Do you want some iced tea?”

  Nelson did. I showed them into the kitchen and poured us three big glasses full. I cut up a lemon and found the sugar bowl and even ran out to the yard for some sprigs of mint. I’d spent the morning being bored out of my mind—it was still too early in the season for there to be many tourists, and I didn’t have any readings scheduled that day—so I was glad for the company. Also, I was wearing my favorite sundress and was happy to have someone see me in it.

  Both boys were shy and as polite as Mormon missionaries. Nelson did most of the talking. Apparently he’d found a girlfriend.

  “Diane’s spending the summer in the city,” he said. “She might come visit in a few months,” and, “She’s not the New Agey type, but she’s quite interested in the work I’ve been doing with Kirlian photography.”

  Peter, who’d been sitting quietly with a half-smile on his face, caught my eyes with his. One eyebrow twitched. I narrowed my eyes, just slightly. He slowly moved his head back and forth. I’d never seen such an expressive set of eyebrows in all my life. Nelson kept talking, unaware we were laughing at him.

  I stretched my arms over my head and put my bare feet on the table edge. My sundress shifted across my thighs.
/>   “So, Peter,” I said, when Nelson ran out of things to say. “Where are you staying?”

  “He’s got a room on the third floor of the Silverwood,” said Nelson.

  “Communal toilets, huh?” I said.

  “Just the way I like it,” said Peter.

  Nelson blushed. “The rooms are pretty cheap, but not bad. I stayed there my first summer. Tell Naomi about your night, Peter.”

  Peter shifted his chair up and put his elbows on the table. “Well,” he said. “This may not sound like much of a story to you, if what I hear about you is true.”

  “Nothing you’ve heard is true,” I said.

  “Good. Because I want you to be as surprised as I was. So. Last night I went to bed around ten o’clock, early for me, but I’d gotten up at four to drive from New Jersey.”

  “You went to Princeton, with Nelson, then?”

  He nodded. “I had a book to read, a very very boring one, but I have to read in order to fall asleep, no matter how tired I am. So I was reading, reading, reading, listening to all the bumps and creaks in the hotel, and the wind blowing branches against the window, and I got just a tiny bit spooked.”

  “As well you should.”

  “Well, yes. But I have this compulsion I’m embarrassed about, and I have to tell you for the sake of the story. I have trouble sleeping unless my bed is against the wall. I mean right up against the wall. Especially if I’m in an unfamiliar place. So I got out of bed, shoved the bed tight against the wall, and got back under the covers, feeling much much better. In about ten minutes I was out cold. I hadn’t even shut the light off.

  “But then, I don’t know how much later, I was awakened by a loud bang. My eyes flew open. There was no one in my room, no apparitions whatsoever, so I sort of staggered out of bed, shut off the overhead light, and staggered into bed again. I fell asleep right away.

  “When I woke up the next morning, though, I couldn’t find my book! I looked under the covers, on the floor, everywhere. You know where I found it?”