The Dearly Departed Dating Service

by Rae Renzi

  “Yes, Miss Joy. They said she loves me so much and it makes her so sad that I died, but she’ll be better when you find someone else to for her to love. Then I can leave.” He spoke with a childish lisp. “I know I have to pay. I have three dollars and fifty cents saved from my allowance.”

  I had to blink away the tears that suddenly filled my eyes.

  “Is it a friend of yours that’s so sad?” Parents and other family members are usually exempt from this type of thing—it’s love freely given that tethers the Departed to our world, not love that is a condition of birth. Given the age of my client—he couldn’t be more than six or seven years old—romance was not likely to play a part.

  “My best friend in the whole world.”

  By now, a host of the Departed had gathered around, including, I was curious to notice, Ronnie, the Departed twin. Which alerted me to another, and more difficult, possibility. Maybe a deceased twin couldn’t move on until their other half joined them.

  “Um, Danny, your best friend isn’t your twin sister, is it?”

  “No, Miss Joy. I don’t have a sister yet. My best friend is Alice.” His little face screwed up. “She’s very sad.”

  My spirits began to rise. This I could handle. Obviously, little Alice needed another friend. Maybe she already had an acquaintance or two in the wings, just waiting. I had the general impression children this age traveled in joyful packs of energy and noise. “Danny, do you think one of your other friends might want to be Alice’s best friend now?”

  Danny pondered on it. “Maybe Shelby? Or Teddy?” The challenge, of course, would be to convince Alice’s family that DDDS could do the job.

  I brought it up to Marybob that evening. She completely agreed with my idea of helping Alice as a service. Deep down inside, I suspected she was responding to a business-sense aspect to this project that I had missed. Of course, she was also in a benevolent mood. I knew she would be, since I’d brought up the subject of Clydes and had agreed to move ahead with the Madam Mystique intervention as soon as possible. I’m not manipulative as a rule, but sometimes a little quid pro quo went a long way.

  Getting relevant information from Danny was a little more challenging, so Marybob and I decided to scout out the situation with him. Ruby, who had taken a special interest in the little tyke, came along to offer the adult Departed perspective, should it be needed.

  Danny liked the idea. “Then you can see her—she’ll be sitting on the front porch—and you’ll see how really great she is, and how really sad.”

  “She’ll be sitting on your front porch?” My throat tightened at the idea of the forlorn little girl sitting all alone waiting for her friend who would never return.

  “Yes. She always is.”

  Marybob was engaged with more distal aspects of the project. “We could add a special division to DDDS, with a slightly different name… Dearly Departed Buddies Service? Dearly Departed Romper Room?”

  We rounded the corner to Danny’s house and slowed as we came to the walkway. The Williams home was a two-story mission-style house with lovely casement windows and a big wraparound porch. It wasn’t enormous, but it looked warm and welcoming. Or would have, rather, were it not for the drawn curtains and the feel of deep despair about it. It was a painful fact that an intervention has never been discovered that would heal the hearts of parents who have lost a child. It made me feel helpless.

  The air of sadness wasn’t helped by a dolorous mutt lying on the porch with its muzzle on its paws, looking down the stairs as if its head were too heavy to lift. It was a medium gray-and-white dog with a strong dose of terrier. It lifted one furry eyebrow, then the other when it spied us, but that was the extent of its reaction.

  “Oh,” I said, as the light dawned.

  “Alice! Alice! Here, girl.” Little Danny ran up to his best friend in the whole world and petted her. I noted with interest that his little hands flattened her fur and wiggled her ears, so he, like Luke, could interact with the material world. But, not, it seemed, perfectly. Alice lifted her head and sniffed all around Danny, as she whined and thumped her tail confusedly.

  I knew just how she felt.

  “See? She’s so sad. Can we help her?”

  I knelt beside the sad little dog and ran a hand over her head. She gazed at me with great melting eyes that looked like they held countless unshed tears. Her fur was softer than I expected, and warm, and she wriggled a bit with simple pleasure at my touch.

  I’ve never believed that only humans have souls, but I’d never spent much time thinking about those other, nonhuman citizens of the world, who, through selfless love and devotion, earned love, and by death were left behind. That had to change.

  “How do you feel about Dearly Departed Pet Service?” I asked Marybob.

  “Works for me.”

  I started up the sidewalk. Marybob caught my arm. For once, she hesitated. “Uh, Joy? What are you doing? We don’t have a plan.”

  “I do.”

  I marched up to Danny’s door and knocked.

  When steps sounded from inside, Alice raised her head and looked back at the door, heaved a sigh, and dropped her chin back to her paws. The front door opened, and a woman in her early thirties looked at me through tired eyes. She wore a pair of dark slacks and a blue crew-neck sweater, which, if I wasn’t mistaken, was designed for maternity wear. I was glad to see she dressed nicely. Sometimes despair got the upper hand and beat down everything else.

  “Yes?”

  “Hello. My name is Joy Abercrombie. I’d like to adopt this dog.” I wondered fleetingly, again, if I’d been spending too much time with Marybob. But, in for a penny, in for a pound. “I know she’s lost her best friend, and she needs attention and love.”

  The woman frowned. “Absolutely not. We love her. She’s all we have left of Danny.”

  “I’m afraid I have to disagree with you. Alice isn’t all you have left of Danny, because she isn’t now, and never was, a part of Danny. She’s wholly herself, she’s his friend, and he’s worried about her.”

  Confusion hit. I was used to it. I merely talked over her inarticulate sounds. “Mrs. Williams, Danny loves you. He also loves this dog, and wants her—and you—to move forward and have a happy life. I realize you miss your child dreadfully, so happiness may not be within reach for you at the moment, or, realistically, for some time. Having Alice serve as a vessel for your sorrow will not in any way encourage happiness for either of you. Or Danny.” This last was striking a little below the belt, but it was the truth, after all.

  Something in my argument must have hit home, for her face showed a shift from the brick-wall defense she’d built around herself to something merely opaque. After a few more rounds of gentle but unassailable logic, I walked away with a leash, a bag of dog food, and a small, sad dog.

  What was I was thinking?

  Alice was perfect. In spite of the minor adjustments I had to make to my life, I liked having her around the house. She was warm and affectionate and enjoyed my attention. I could cuddle her without feeling guilty. She was simple: easy to talk to, completely accepting, and as far as I knew, free of any obscure agenda. I realized she just might be a cure for my recent peculiar behavior. Maybe all I needed was some touch. A sweet little dog was perfect. Maybe now everything could go back to normal.

  Squelching my anxiety about my last dismal conversation with Craig about our future—or the lack of, from his perspective—I wrote out a daily plan for feeding, grooming, and scheduling her walks around my working hours, all with child-centric hints provided by Danny.

  He helpfully informed me that Alice liked to wear sparkly jewelry at dinner—bracelets on her tail, necklaces around her middle, the occasional brooch on her collar—because it made her feel pretty. I doubted that very much, but rather than dispute his opinion, I fell back on the excuse that I didn’t happen to have any sparkly jewelry (unlike, I guessed, Danny’s mother). We compromised with my offer to find something suitably sparkly for her soon. Alt
hough Alice was subdued, she seemed to perk up once we reached some necessary understandings (namely, she was not allowed to sleep in the bed with me, but she could curl up on the couch while I watched television or read a book). All in all, I had to admit that my solution to Danny’s problem, although a little impulsive, had been inspired.

  There were only a few complications. The morning after she came home with me, when I started to leave for work I found I simply couldn’t leave the sad little thing behind. Danny agreed. I decided to take her to the mortuary with me.

  Some resistance from the Tranquility Park management (i.e., Mr. Botts) was to be expected on the topic of dogs in the workplace, and so I employed strategic measures. I combed her so she was more fluffy than wiry, and, with Danny’s coaching, tied a tiny pink bow in the hair over each ear. I also stopped by the pet shop on the way to work to buy a pink rhinestone collar and matching leash. By the time I was finished, the hapless dog looked every inch the canine fashionista. Danny was enthusiastic. Alice, less so.

  Her debut appearance in Mr. Botts’s office came off better than I’d hoped, although (why was I surprised?) it took a twist. Mr. Botts seemed more vague than usual that morning, but when I brought up the mascot potential of Alice, he snapped to attention.

  “Yes… yes, I can see it. Oh my God! It’s a whole untapped market! Pet funerals. Not your dismal backyard shovel-and-a-cardboard-box thing, but a ceremony worthy of a cherished family member. How about… I know! I know! Doggie caskets shaped like a bone… Kitty caskets shaped like a fish… Little bitty parakeet caskets shaped like, like… an egg. Even goldfish caskets. Fantastic!” His eyes took on a faraway look. “All without any unpleasantness…”

  I felt slightly guilty about failing to mention the laws about disposal of animal remains, but it would come out soon enough if Mr. Botts followed up on his latest inspiration. All in all, I was pretty darn pleased with the situation.

  Danny took somewhat longer than I thought to appreciate how well things were working out. I’d expected him to disappear immediately, but he didn’t. I woke up two days in a row to find him curled up beside Alice on the floor.

  “Don’t you think it’s time you left, Danny?” I asked him the second day. I didn’t necessarily want to get rid of the little guy, but having a seven-year-old Departed around the house was even more disconcerting than having an adult Departed lounging about. I kept feeling like I should take care of him.

  “I want to make sure she’s happy.” How exactly he’d know that was a mystery to me. That is, until I came home from a quick trip to the grocery store that evening.

  As I walked up the steps, I heard an excited little yip. When I opened the door, I was treated to exuberant tail-wagging and a happy-dog dance. I picked her up and hugged her, getting a slurp on the face for my trouble. Danny stood off to the side, a sweet smile on his face.

  “She likes you a lot.”

  “I’m so happy to have her.”

  “I know.”

  The next morning, Danny was gone. Either Danny shared Luke’s ability to move objects or had appealed to him for help, because I found three dollars and fifty cents on my kitchen table. It wrung my heart.

  But it was the first profit for DDDS. And that’s what this was all about. It was. Really.

  Chapter 31

  That night Marybob and I went out to celebrate our success. Carried away by our (entirely symbolic) profit, and helped along by my need to blow off some stress, we downed not one but two bottles of champagne—an overindulgence I came to regret for more than one reason.

  On the day after—a Sunday, luckily—I barely dragged myself out of bed by noon. My brain felt like it had swollen inside my skull and was attempting to squeeze out my eyeballs. I carefully shuffled into the bathroom for aspirin and water, moving as if the contents of my head might spill out my ears. A glance at the mirror told me this was not a day to be wandering around in public. Fortunately, it was my day off, so I could do penance for my debauchery in peace.

  I was successful in hanging around the apartment for a few hours, reading halfheartedly, drinking fizzy things, and whimpering to Alice for comfort, who obligingly licked my face. By four o’clock, my head was still fuzzy and my stomach overactive. I was badly disappointed to discover that wallowing in misery by itself didn’t result in a full recovery. How on earth did habitual drinkers do it?

  Memory loss, I suppose. Perhaps this kind of amnesia actually encouraged alcohol over-use by allowing the afflicted to forget the pain. Maybe it was nature’s way of hastening the departure of those who had fallen into a metaphorical mud hole in the earthly plane and were merely spinning their wheels, expending energy and flinging mud on anyone around them until their gas ran out. Among the Departed, I seldom saw such people, who, I suppose, were too mired in their own misery to return whatever love came their way, so they didn’t have anyone to look after when they died. They got to the Hereafter pretty quickly, I’d guess, but, still, I couldn’t envy them.

  On the other hand, I couldn’t envy me at the moment, either. Not only was I suffering for my overindulgence the night before, but for some reason I had plunged into mental vertigo. I blamed the champagne. Or, to be exact, the hangover. I decided the term hangover was justified, as certain thoughts and feelings from the past week seemed to be hanging over my usually clear and well-organized mind. It was cognitive sloppiness of the worst kind, and I couldn’t seem to shake it.

  “The best thing for a hangover is lots of water and exercise,” Craig said, materializing in the easy chair as I lay on the sofa forlornly flipping channels. “Why don’t we go to Memorial Park for a run?”

  I glared at him. I hadn’t yet forgiven him for his complete disregard of my betrayal and his bald assessment of our future. “You mean why don’t I go to Memorial Park for a run. You don’t have to run—you can just float, or whatever.” I very much wished I could float—even the smallest, most gentle shuffling steps seemed to jar my brain.

  “Yes, I can. But I can also keep you company and take your mind off your pain.”

  I didn’t remember Craig—post-mortem Craig, that is—ever suggesting an activity before. He usually puttered around my apartment or spontaneously joined me when I planned to do something. He was protective of my health and well-being—reminding me to be careful when I drove and the weather was bad (of course, he would), keeping an eye out when I went for a run through the neighborhood after dark. But now—suggesting I go for a run—did he know something I didn’t? Was I in danger of acute champagne toxicity? Were my brain cells, awash in poisonous alcohol, gasping their last breath? I glanced at the television remote in my hand. My mental acuity, usually quite high, did seem to be in a downward spiral.

  “Give me a moment to get dressed,” I said.

  Craig was right. After the first excruciating minutes, exercise seemed to help. True to his word, he stuck with me through the ordeal, even mimicked running for my benefit. The shared physicality of it, although an illusion on his part, gave me a sense of closeness to him I had missed (although it did nothing to relieve the drudgery of the run on my part). Of course, the illusion was somewhat compromised when speedy runners skirted around me and ran right through Craig, and oddly, seemed to drag bits of him after them, swirling like a thick fog. It was disturbing, not only to me, but, judging from his expression, to Craig. I’d ask him about it later. Right now, I had to concentrate to maintain the idea we were an average healthy (or trying to be) couple out for a run. Fortunately the day was lovely, sunny and crisp with a tiny nip in the air, which kept me going. Also fortunately, or perhaps the result of planning, the track at Memorial Park was a long loop around a combination of golf course and woods, which didn’t encourage shortcuts.

  About three quarters of the way around, I was parched.

  “I need some water,” I said over my shoulder as I turned off the running path and headed toward a water fountain. The crunching sound behind me of feet hitting gravel slowed in pace with mine. So complete w
as the illusion of mortal-Craig by my side that it wasn’t until I had bent to drink that the discrepancy hit me: Craig’s feet no longer had weight, so the crunching of gravel…

  “Maybe we should go on a date.”

  I choked on the water and spewed it back into the fountain. I spun around to face Sam Kendall. He stood beside me, hands on his hips. The late afternoon sun slanting across the path doused him with gold, sparked glints of fire in his tawny hair, and set his muscles in high relief. In his gym shorts and sleeveless sweatshirt, he looked like he belonged in a chariot. All he needed was a sword.

  I glanced around for Craig. He was gone.

  “You’d have to give up ambushing me in unpopulated corners,” I said as I wiped my dripping wet chin on my sleeve. “In any case, I don’t see the point.”

  “Fate obviously has something in mind for us, or we wouldn’t keep running into each other.” He took a step closer and gazed down at me, a lazy smile on his lips. “Don’t you think?”

  Well, it was true that we seemed to bump into one another more than pure chance would allow. Quite a lot more. A suspicion began to creep over me. “Oh, I think fate may be getting a little push.” I stepped back. The warmth radiating from him seemed to interfere with my thought processes. “Tell me, do you run at a certain hour every day?”

  “Not every day, but I come here few times a week about this time. Depends on my call schedule.”

  “Is your schedule posted somewhere?”

  “Yeah, sure. In the staff room. Why?”

  “Just wondered. Well, goodbye. I have to catch up to my boyfriend.” I gave him a little wave, jogged away from him as quickly as I could, and turned abruptly onto one of the lesser-traveled nature trails. It was lesser traveled because nature wasn’t always agreeable to real runners. I hoped Sam fell into that category.

  He didn’t. Of course not. That would be far too obliging of him.

  “If we went on a date, we could have a real conversation,” he said, jogging along beside me.