“Isn’t poetry supposed to rhyme?” she’d asked Ryan at the time.
He flinched as if she’d dropped a couple of ice cubes down his boxer shorts, and she knew she’d said the wrong thing. He tried hard to cover up his disappointment in her, but Susan wasn’t a dummy. She knew he thought she was worthless since the accident, and as it turned out, poetry did not always rhyme.
The poetry incident had been months ago. Now she was a whole lot more careful about what she said. She was like a Christian with one of those “What Would Jesus Do?” wristbands, but hers would ask the question “What Would Saint Susan Do?” God, it was tiring and so easy to screw up. One night Ryan had taken her out for dinner and she’d ordered strawberry shortcake.
“But you’re allergic to strawberries!” he had said, getting all choked up as if he were going to cry. “Don’t you remember?”
Their relationship was like a gorgeous Oriental rug spread over a layer of dust and crud. The situation had gotten unbearable and he’d been giving her creepy looks as if he knew the truth.
Ryan never talked about it, but she could see it bubbling behind his eyes. He couldn’t, of course, actually know the truth; the truth was rotting away, God-only-knows where.
But since he’d been home from the hospital, Ryan had turned into Mr. Nice Guy. His expression had lost that dangerous probing quality. He seemed like a person who’d finally accepted lies as truth, which would make life easier for both of them.
She closed the door of her office. While she was in the bedroom or den she felt that she had to pretend to read Saint Susan’s long-winded books or listen to her Edith Piaf records. Her office was the only place in the house she felt free to be herself. Susan sat down at her desk and blew a kiss to her framed Johnny Cash poster. “Country is king and you are the prince,” she said. Her entire office was covered in Johnny Cash memorabilia, from coffee cups to concert posters to ticket stubs. She’d even bought a pair of his custom-made knee-high alligator boots on eBay. They had pocketknife marks on the soles where he’d scuffed them up so he wouldn’t slip onstage. Ryan didn’t know what to make of her “newfound” devotion to Johnny Cash, and Susan didn’t give a damn. She needed at least a shred of her old life to remind herself of who she really was.
The phone rang on her line, and Susan practically dove for it before Ryan could pick up. She was expecting a call.
“Susan Blaine?”
“Yes?” Susan said, her heart fluttering against her ribcage.
“I’m calling to confirm your appearance on Talk to Me. Everyone in America wants to hear your story. Did you speak with your husband?”
“Yes, I did,” Susan lied. She kept meaning to bring it up with Ryan, but she hadn’t yet worked up the nerve.
“Can we count on you?” the woman asked.
What would Saint Susan do? She would have turned the producer down because she respected Ryan’s need for privacy. But Susan refused to let this opportunity slip by. She deserved a prize after more than a year of the worst suffering of her entire life. (Which was saying something, since her life had never been all that great.)
“I’ll be there with bells on.” Not to mention a fancy new designer dress.
Fifteen
When Caroline first woke up, she had no idea where she was. The wallpaper was striped, not flowered; the window was on the wrong side, and hers was the only bed in the room.
“Emily!” Caroline shouted as she sprang upright on the bed.
“Miz Brodie,” Gertie said. The nursing assistant was stationed in front of the television, watching Live with Kelly. “You’re awake. Finally.”
Caroline touched her forehead, feeling a section of gauze taped to her skin. “What happened?”
“You were like Humpty Dumpty, Miz Brodie. You fell out of a chair and broke your crown. The doctor had to come by and put a few stitches in your head.”
“Jack.” Caroline experienced a wave of wooziness from sitting up so fast. “It was Jack who broke his crown. Not Humpty Dumpty.”
Gertie turned off the television and now towered over Caroline’s bed.
“What’s that, Miz Brodie?”
Last night. Something extremely important happened. What was it, and why was she in such a daze?
“Emily!” Caroline said again.
Gertie tried to give Caroline a severe glance, but she ended up looking about as scary as a Kewpie doll. “I hope you’re not planning to go off again, Miz Brodie.”
Emily had spoken to her last night. Three words. Clear as the pluck of a harp. That much Caroline remembered, but why was she so foggy about everything else?
“Have I been drugged?” she asked.
“Yup.” Gertie took a Snicker’s bar from the pocket of her smock and unwrapped it. “They gave you something to calm your nerves. You were out of your head.”
A memory took shape in her mind. She was shouting in the semidarkness as hands tried to subdue her.
“Maybe you should tell me what happened.”
“Miss Chance came in late at night to check on you and you were on the floor. She told me this morning it looked like there’d been a bloodbath in your room. You’d hit your head. Head cuts bleed the worst, ya know.”
Caroline didn’t remember anything beyond Emily speaking. She must have been so startled she’d fallen out of her rocking chair.
“Turned out you had a cut in your scalp as long as a paper clip,” Gertie said, measuring the length with her fingers. “When Miss Chance tried to help you up, you started screaming and thrashing around, saying something about Emily. She said she’d never seen anything like it. Your eyes were open and you were hollering, but you were still asleep. Miss Chance finally gave you something to calm you down.”
“Why am I here instead of my own room?”
Gertie made a choking sound as if she’d gotten a peanut stuck in her throat. She avoided looking at Caroline as she got up from her chair.
“I better fetch Ms. Waters. She can explain everything to you.”
“You know why I hit my head, don’t you? It was because of Emily. She spoke to me. I’d like to hear someone tell me that was just reflexes.”
“I’m getting Ms. Waters,” Gertie said, hurrying toward the door.
Caroline had no intention of waiting around for that horrible Betty Boop woman. She was going to get out of bed and go back to her room and check on Emily. Then she intended to find the name of the doctor who’d given her stitches and speak with him about Emily directly. She should have talked to a doctor in the first place. Best to go straight to the experts instead of dealing with all these aides and their misinformed opinions.
Caroline was about to get out of the bed when she noticed a set of familiar clothes hanging in the open closet. They were hers. What were they doing there? She scanned the room and spotted more of her things: her blue ceramic pillbox, her back issues of large-print Reader’s Digest, and her clock radio.
They’d moved her. They’d come in like thieves, packed up her things, and plunked them down in this strange room without her say-so.
“Hello, Mrs. Brodie,” said Betty Boop, a.k.a. Dixie Waters, entering the room with Gertie trotting behind her. “How are you? Is there some kind of problem I can help you with?”
“Yes.” Caroline raised her chin in a regal manner despite the fact that she wore pajamas and her hair was probably sticking out from her head in nappy tufts. Fortunately, whatever drugs they’d given her were wearing off and she was finally feeling clearheaded. “There is a serious problem. Why am I in this room? I don’t want a change.”
“For your own good, Mrs. Brodie,” Dixie said, standing at the foot of Caroline’s bed. “It wasn’t healthy for you to room with that vegetable anymore. I’m surprised Mona let it go on so long. Miss Mona is the nursing home director, Mrs. Brodie. Remember?”
“I’m not senile or deaf, Ms. Waters,” Caroline said. “And Emily is not a vegetable. She spoke to me.”
Dixie and Gertie exchanged a look.
“Mrs. Brodie,” Dixie began. “Emily’s in a coma. That’s like a long sleep, only you never wake up. People in comas don’t talk. You must have been hearing things.”
There was no point in reasoning with this woman; she was dumber than a dinner roll.
“All right, Ms. Waters,” Caroline said. “Maybe I was imagining things. I won’t argue with you, but I still want my old room back. It’s where I belong.”
“This is your new room, Mrs. Brodie. Room 206,” she said, pointing to the door. “I’ve already moved Mrs. Kale into your old room.”
“With Emily?” Caroline asked.
“Yes, indeed,” said Dixie. Her eyes were so round and glassy they looked as if they belonged in the head of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Caroline was horrified. At one hundred and two years of age, Mrs. Kale was deaf and dumb and had just enough gray matter left in her shrunken skull to spit at people as they walked by. The nurse’s aides claimed it wasn’t deliberate, but the old biddy had excellent aim for someone who wasn’t doing it on purpose.
“Mrs. Kale can’t room with Emily. I’m the one who’s been looking after her.” Caroline imagined Emily waking up at midnight as usual, and instead of seeing Caroline next to her in the rocking chair, she’d see the cloudy-eyed Mrs. Kale, her pruney lips slick with saliva.
“She can’t miss you, Mrs. Brodie, because she’s in a coma. That’s a deep sleep that—”
“I’m done with you, Ms. Waters,” Caroline said, putting a foot on the floor. “If you won’t move me back, I’ll just have to move myself.”
“Mrs. Brodie,” Dixie said. An ugly note had entered her voice and the foolish round eyes now looked hooded. “You will not be moving. Do you understand?”
Caroline ignored her, looking under the bed for her shoes. “I’ll be speaking about Emily with that doctor who treated me, and as soon as Miss Mona comes back she’ll get an earful too.”
Dixie nodded to Gertie, an ominous gesture. The nod of one Klansman to another just before they ignite a cross. The nod of a plantation owner to his overseer, prior to the flogging of a slave.
Big clumsy Gertie lumbered toward Caroline wielding a hypodermic needle she’d been hiding behind her back. At least she had the decency to look shameful. It was the last thought she had before the nurse’s aide plunged the needle into the cheek of Caroline’s left buttock.
Sixteen
Skye woke up with someone’s hot breath on her face. “Yow!” she screamed, throwing off her bedclothes and sitting up straight.
“Calm down. It’s just me.”
Chelsea was sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing a nightshirt that skimmed her knees. She nibbled on a Pop-Tart.
Skye blinked several times to clear her head. How long had she slept last night? Five, ten minutes? Her head felt stuffed with wads of cotton. “Did you have a nightmare?”
“Did I have a nightmare?” Chelsea said with a giggle. She broke the frosted Pop-Tart in half, revealing an oozing strawberry interior. “Want some?” she asked. Her blue fingernail polish contrasted brashly with the red filling.
Skye shook her head. “No thanks. Why were you on the bed then?”
“I was checking on you,” Chelsea said. “Who’s Lynn?”
“Lynn? I don’t think I know anybody named Lynn.”
Chelsea crawled along the length of the bed to lie beside Skye. “You were talking in your sleep, saying, ‘Call Lynn,’ or maybe it was ‘call in’? Or how about ‘Colin’? Do you know a Colin?”
“No,” Skye said. “I was talking in my sleep?”
“Practically all night. But in the last few minutes you were shouting.”
Skye ran her fingers through her tangled curls. “I have this strange dream every night, but I can never quite remember it...Good Lord, would you look at the time? I’m going to be late for work.”
Later that morning Skye sat at her desk, sipping on a tall mug of coffee and reading a brochure about the attractions she and Chelsea might visit in the Supreme Being Sector. She noticed an article for the Nocturnal Theater, a place that retrieved a person’s dreams and projected them on a screen for viewing. It wouldn’t hurt to pay the theater a visit. Maybe she’d finally be privy to the odd dreams that were plaguing her sleep every night.
“Hi-de-ho!” Rhianna said, sticking her head into the cubicle.
“Hi, Rhianna,” Skye said.
For the first time ever, Rhianna was following the Hospitality Sector dress code to the letter. Her white shirt was pressed, her skirt was regulation length, and her knee socks were spotless.
“What’s the occasion?” Skye asked, indicating Rhianna’s uniform.
“It’s my last day here,”’ Rhianna said. “I wanted to go by the book.”
Skye’s eyes trailed to Rhianna’s feet. She was wearing purple Converse tennis shoes.
Rhianna smiled. “Well, no sense in being anal about the whole thing.”
“So it’s official,” Skye said. “The next time I see you, you’ll be a guardian angel.”
“I finally finished my orientation. That’s why I haven’t been around much. I’ll be getting my first client any day now.” Rhianna’s glance fell on the brochure on Skye’s desk. “Oooh, the Supreme Being Sector. I love it there. I’ve heard they opened a new amusement park. ‘Watch Sodom and Gomorrah burn daily at three and seven p.m.’ Sounds like fun.”
“You’re welcome to come with me,” Skye said. “I’m taking Chelsea, one of my clients, on Saturday after lunch.”
“I’d love it.”
“Meet me in the newcomers’ lobby.” Skye paused. “I don’t suppose you found out anything—”
Rhianna smacked her forehead. “That’s why I came in here in the first place. I did find something. I used my password to look you up in the computer to see if your record would reveal anything. There wasn’t an explanation about why you were chosen to go to Earth, but I did see something peculiar. Just under your name it said ‘L’ status, and it was blinking. When I clicked on it for more information, I got a message saying ‘access denied.’ I looked up a whole lot of other people and no one had that particular designation by their name.”
“What does L stand for?” Skye asked. “Lazy? Loopy? Loveless?”
“No clue, and no one else seemed to know.”
“That’s so odd. I just wish—”
The red light on Skye’s desk flashed. “Incoming,” she said, summoning the appropriate file on her computer.
“See you on Saturday,” Rhianna said as she dashed off to her own cubicle.
Seventeen
“This is my favorite lesson,” Dr. Mullins said. “And I’m celebrating with treats for everyone.”
Skye watched her teacher stroll down the center aisle. He had a basket on his arm and was passing out cupcakes. The blue and white frosting on the cupcakes was swirled to look like planet Earth. When he was finished, he returned to the front of the room and eagerly surveyed his students.
“This next lesson is the most powerful of all. Are you ready for it?”
“Ready,” everyone said in unison like a class of kindergartners. Most of the students couldn’t wait to live their first lives.
“We have a very special guest who will help us with our lesson today. She can’t physically be here, but I have Her on speakerphone, direct from the SB Sector.”
Dr. Mullins clapped his hands together several times as if he couldn’t contain his glee and the class buzzed with excitement. He picked up the speakerphone set up on the table in front of the room and dialed.
“Office of the Supreme Being,” a female voice answered. “How may I direct your call?”
“This i
s Dr. Mullins from over at the university. The SB is expecting my call.”
“Please hold,” the voice said. An interlude of Bob Dylan singing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” emanated from the phone.
After a moment the music was interrupted by a female voice.
“Mullins, is that you? Testing, testing? Can you hear me?”
“Yes, SB, it’s me, and you’re coming in loud and clear,” Dr. Mullins said. “I’m standing in front of a classroom of students waiting to hear from you. They’re ready for their most important lesson.”
“I think it’s ingenious the way you’re pairing lessons with Beatles songs. I’ll bet Moses wished he’d thought of it.”
Skye shook her head in disbelief. The SB was cracking jokes! And corny ones to boot.
“Are you ready to hear another Beatles tune?” the SB asked.
“Yes!” answered the class in response.
“Fabulous,” continued the SB. “I’ve got two of those cute little mop-tops with me today, John and George. The others couldn’t join us because they’re still alive and kicking, thank Myself for that. George brought in his guitar, and John is going to help me harmonize. I think John actually wrote the song we’re about to sing. It’s a marvelous tune and perfectly conveys the most important lesson to know while living on Earth. So here it goes.”
Skye braced herself. If the lesson came straight from the SB, it had be extremely important.
A guitar riff served as an introduction, and the SB and John started harmonizing.
“All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.”
As they sang the song, Dr. Mullins walked around the room, opening half a dozen cardboard boxes situated throughout. From each box sprang several helium heart-shaped Mylar balloons printed with the word “Love.”
The class busied themselves by climbing on the top of the desks to reach for the balloons. When the song was finished, they hooted and clapped, and the SB said, “Thank you so much, John and George. I enjoyed that. Maybe in another ten or twenty years we can have a Beatles reunion.”
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