The Ten Best Days of My Life

by Adena Halpern

  “Did you tell Dad I got a job?”

  “I’ll tell him later. He’s busy right now.”

  “Can I say hello to him?”

  “Well,” she said, “he’s sleeping. Maybe tomorrow.”

  While it did bother me that my dad and I still weren’t talking, it went away quickly. I was three thousand miles away from being Bill Dorenfield’s daughter. I was just another Los Angeles transplant.

  I hung up the phone as my little dog jumped up on my lap. Buying Peaches was the smartest thing I’d ever done. Meeting Peaches was one of the best days of my life. Because of her, I had a job, friends, a life.

  Just like Tom Joad, I knew California was going to be tough, but I was finally a grown-up realizing my own responsibilities . . . and I wasn’t about to screw it up.

  One Foot in Heaven

  "You are the best dog in the whole wide world,” I tell Peaches as I scoop her in my arms and give her a hug.

  That’s when it suddenly dawns on me again.

  This could be one of the last times that I ever get to scoop up Peaches in my arms and give her a hug.

  I don’t understand it, heaven should be like having a summer house and a winter house except one house would be for the good, fulfilling things you were going to do on earth and the other house, the one you live in permanently, for all the screwups you made. Maybe the winter house isn’t insulated well or something and that’s your punishment. Not being able to be with Peaches every day will be like hell rather than fourth heaven.

  I embrace my little dog tighter as I take her with me to my closet.

  “What’s the point of even getting dressed?” I say aloud to Peaches since she’s the only one there.

  I decide to leave my Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress for another time (most likely no other time, though, since I’m probably out of here soon enough) and keep on the black Juicy velour sweats I’ve had on for the last two days. I take Peaches with me as we go downstairs to watch my favorite show in heaven, What Ever Happened When Your Favorite Movies Ended? It’s nice to know that Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) dumped her husband, David X. Cohen, and went back to Hubbell Gardner (Robert Redford) in The Way We Were. It feels good to know that E.T. was able to call little Elliott when he got back to his planet and they spent years having a nice long-distance friendship. I even start to forget my troubles in the middle of A Place in the Sun when the Montgomery Clift character, George Eastman, suddenly gets a reprieve from the gas chamber and gets out of prison and marries Elizabeth Taylor and goes on to run his uncle’s company. The anxiety begins again, though, when Dorothy realizes that maybe there is another place like home and she starts stalking tornadoes around Kansas so she can go back and visit her buddies in Oz. The whole Wizard of Oz thing is too much like heaven and, at this point, since I know I can’t click my heels three times to get back to earth, I have no idea where home is. This is causing me to freak out again.

  Jeez, I can’t even concentrate on what happened after The Breakfast Club ended. Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald are now the hot couple at school, which is a bad move if you ask me. What does she see in him anyway? I have to say that when it comes down to it, I never liked The Breakfast Club. I don’t even know why it’s on here. I remember the first time I saw the movie and waited the two hours for them to finally leave school for the day, and then the movie was over. Waste of my time. Nothing happened there. Who do I speak to about getting The Breakfast Club off my “favorites” list. Who put it on there anyway? Who in heaven thinks they know me so well that they would put this movie among my favorites? Did they just assume that because I’m a woman I would automatically love this freaking movie? Huh? Huh?

  Oh no, I’m not going to pass this test! My cellulite is going to come back! My shoes are going to pinch! I’m going down to fourth heaven! Oh no, I’m totally going down to fourth heaven!

  Is it possible to have an anxiety attack in heaven?

  I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to just take a walk or something, calm down, clear my head.

  “Come, Peaches,” I say to her. “Wanna take a walk? Come outside with me.”

  Peaches doesn’t answer me and keeps watching the television. Peaches always loved The Breakfast Club.

  “Come on, it’s our thing. We always took walks together on earth, we haven’t done that here.”

  She still doesn’t move, the lazy dog.

  “Fine,” I tell her, leaving the house, “I’ll catch you later.”

  I’m walking through the streets of my neighborhood, mansion after mansion surrounded by rosebushes and fruit trees with the most succulent apples, lemons, grapefruits, and oranges ripe to perfection.

  “Hi,” an old man calls from his Tudor mansion, “feel free to grab a couple of bananas if you like.”

  I don’t even answer him. I don’t even wave back. What did he do that was so special to get those coconut palms?

  I see some other lady potting plants in front of her two-story greenhouse.

  “Hi,” she says. “Isn’t heaven grand?”

  “Isn’t is just?” I say condescendingly, although she has no way of getting it.

  Why is everyone so darn happy? Am I the only person in all of heaven who ever had to take the entrance exam?

  This is when I start my jog. I’ve never been much of a jogger. Actually, I’ve never been a jogger at all, but it’s the only way I can stop these people in their perfect seventh-heaven homes from sharing how fantastic their deaths are. If I can just run a couple of miles and get myself tired and weak, hopefully I’ll be too tired to think about anything.

  Maybe I’ll just turn myself in.

  “Forget it all,” I’ll tell Deborah, my bad-dye-job guardian angel. “I get it. I didn’t lead a fulfilling life and I wasn’t going to. Just send me down to fourth already.”

  There’s just no sense in going on with this. I’m done. They’ve got me.

  Maybe fourth heaven won’t be so bad though. It’s not like I’ll be there by myself. Alice says she thinks all the people on fourth are really cool. Maybe I’ll learn how to play the guitar and join some band.

  “Oh, screw the jog,” I say aloud. I’m not even close to being out of breath. I suppose it’s because I’m not a being who gets tired anymore, darn it.

  “You sure you don’t want any fruit?” the old guy with the fruit asks again as I pass him.

  “I don’t want your stinking fruit, okay?” I shout at him. “Now quit asking!”

  “Okay, okay, you don’t have to fret about it. Are you okay, lady?” he asks. “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea and maybe a bowl of fruit?”

  I flip him the bird. Somehow this makes me feel a little better, but not enough. I look back at him a few times, and every time I do, he’s standing there staring back at me like he can’t understand what just happened.

  “I hope your fruit rots!” I scream and then start to run. Why? I don’t know, it’s not like he’s running after me or anything, but I just need to get away from everything and this seems to be the best way.

  I get back to my house some ten minutes after I left, just in time for Weird Science. Peaches has always hated the movie Weird Science so I guess that’s why she’s not here.

  “Alex?” I hear from outside. “Are you there?”

  “Hi, Adam,” I say, going over to the window. As always, he looks adorable in a pair of Lucky jeans and a black cashmere crewneck sweater. His hair is delectably disheveled, as usual.

  “Your dog came over and she wouldn’t stop barking until I came over here. Is everything okay?”

  I look at Peaches as she stands next to Adam. I know she’s up to something.

  “Yes,” I fake chuckle. “Everything is fine. I don’t know why she was barking at you,” I tell him in the most offhand way I can. “Maybe she just wants you to play fetch with her.”

  “Oh, is that what you want, girl?” he asks, walking over to a stray ball in the yard and throwing it across the lawn.

 
Peaches doesn’t move. She stands there and looks at him, and then she looks at me and barks again.

  “Peaches, chill,” I instruct her from the window. “I don’t know what’s going on with her, she’s been acting crazy all day,” I lie. “Listen,” I tell him, “I just came in from a jog, can I call you later?”

  “Sure,” he says. “You’re sure you’re all right though?”

  Peaches starts barking again.

  “Would you shut up already?” I tell Peaches. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “What’s the matter with her?” he asks me.

  “She’s just trying to stick her nose where it doesn’t need sticking, ” I say, looking right at Peaches, who continues barking.

  “Look, something’s going on here,” Adam shouts up to me. “I mean, come on, Alex, obviously even your dog wants me to know what’s going on. Let me come in and we’ll talk.”

  Oh, for crying out loud. I give up. I’ll just tell him already. Who cares anymore? So what if he wants nothing to do with me anymore. I’ll be in fourth heaven where he won’t come see me anyway.

  “Fine, come on in,” I wave to him.

  He comes in through the kitchen and I sit him down at the table as Peaches runs past us.

  “A lot of help you are,” I yell to her as she runs upstairs.

  “Okay, spill,” he says to me, taking a seat.

  I take a deep breath. The whole thing is stirring in my head and I don’t know where to begin. I still don’t want to tell him. I don’t know how to tell him. What I am about to say to him could ruin everything, forever. I’m still sitting there trying to get the words out in the right way, and he’s just sitting there waiting for me with this reserved look like no matter what it is, it will be fine. Will it?

  “The truth is,” I start as I take a deep breath, “Adam, I’m not like you. When I died and got up to heaven and saw you and this house and all those fantastic clothes, I thought this was what I deserved. I just assumed that I was entitled to all of it. The thing is, after I left your house that morning, I was told something I should have already known. I’m not entitled to any of this,” I say, looking around my kitchen with the island stove in the middle of the room.

  For the first time, I’ve explained what’s going on. I’m not crying and he’s not breaking in. He’s still sitting here in that calm fashion.

  “The thing is, being that this is heaven, I’m being given the chance to plead my case. I’m being allowed to tell my side of the story so that maybe God or whoever is judging will let me stay up here with you. If I don’t explain myself well, I have to go down a few planes in heaven.”

  Adam still isn’t saying anything. He’s just sitting here staring at me with this blank look on his face like he’s really intent on listening to what I’m saying, and I can’t read his feelings.

  “The thing is, I’m writing this essay to give my side of it,” I say, exhaling, “and I’m starting to realize that maybe I wasn’t going on to lead an existence on earth that would let me deserve to be up here in seventh heaven.”

  “But you were really young when you died,” he reminds me.

  “I know and that’s why they let me take the test. As I’m writing it, though, it’s become really clear to me that they’re probably right and I have to accept it. I did not lead a life on earth that would have led to any kind of fulfillment for myself.”

  Adam takes a deep breath as he takes my hand.

  “Well,” he smiles, “if you don’t think we’re going to be able to see each other in the future, why don’t we make the best of the time we have now?”

  “Because I can’t think of anything more painful,” I tell him, and now I start to cry. “If I spend any more time with you, I’ll fall in love with you even more, and I know myself, my heart will be in pain for the rest of eternity. Even looking at you is breaking my heart—to think I won’t be able to see your face every day and we won’t be able to throw softballs at each other’s heads or have the best sex every night for the rest of our deaths,” I say, really starting to freak out. “Adam, I can’t even look at you anymore, it makes me so sad. I have to get out of here. I’ve got to turn myself in and leave here for good!” I cry, starting to walk out.

  “Alex,” he whispers, taking my arm as I begin to leave, “then do something for me. If you have to go, and it’s because you think you were never going to lead a fulfilling life on earth, why don’t you make a fulfilling life for the time you are in seventh heaven? Stay with me for as long as we’re able to be together.”

  “But I can’t,” I tell him as he puts his arms around me.

  “Promise yourself that if you leave here, you’ll leave with only the best memories,” he says as I bury myself in his shoulder. “Make this time worthwhile and then maybe you’ll realize what leading a fulfilling life is all about. It’s not the pain of missing out on what you don’t have anymore, it’s making the most of what you have for the time you have it.”

  He’s got me as I collapse in his arms and we kiss the sweetest kisses I’ll ever know.

  I’ve just had the second best sex of my life and death and we’re lying here as I try not to think that this might be the last time I’ll ever see him.

  “Thanks, Adam,” I tell him. “Thanks for understanding.”

  “I’m just glad to be here with you,” he says, pulling me in tighter.

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, I’m just wondering,” I start. “I mean, you’re such a great guy and you must have done a lot of good to be up here in seventh heaven. I just admitted to you that I’m not all I’ve been cracked up to be. I just have to know, what the heck is it that you see in me anyway?”

  This makes him laugh.

  “No, I’m serious. I know I’m cute and everything, but what is it? What would a guy like you want with a girl like me?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yes, it’s kind of driving me crazy.”

  “Well,” he says, taking a deep breath, “now, taking in the fact that you’re dead and all . . .”

  He leans on his elbow as he looks down at me lying under him.

  “Alex, if there is one thing that I find really attractive in a woman, it’s her ability to work a room.”

  “When was I working a room?”

  “Well, it wasn’t a room exactly, in this case it was the gates of heaven. When I first saw you, you were the most popular girl in line, talking to everyone around you like you were at the hip-pest party. You were this fearless woman who was making the best of a situation, and at the time I thought to myself, ‘Now, that’s a woman who really lived.’ ”

  To tell you the truth, I’m shocked at what he’s saying.

  “Well, it was really fun in that line,” I say.

  “The reason it was so much fun was because you were talking to everyone, being our little cheerleader, our comic relief,” he says. “So all that you’re telling me about not living a fulfilling life on earth or that you weren’t going to lead a fulfilling life on earth, well, all I had to do was see you for five minutes to know that whatever you did with your life, it must have been done with every bit of energy you had. From what you told me earlier, I don’t think it’s that you didn’t live life to its fullest, I think you were so busy living that you didn’t take any time to realize it.”

  His words are sinking in to me. It’s one of those lightbulb moments when everything starts to make sense: the people I’ve loved, the things I did, my own damned insecurity and not believing in myself.

  Have I been looking at my life with the wrong attitude? Is that why I can’t get into my parents’ dreams? Is that why I’m not able to visit them on earth for more than a moment?

  “That’s the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I tell him with tears in my eyes.

  “Alex, no matter what happens to you, I hope you’ll remember it.”

&
nbsp; “I will, I promise I will.”

  I fall asleep that night thinking of only two things: one, I can’t believe I didn’t tell Adam sooner and, two, I must go over and apologize to that guy with the fruit trees for flipping him the bird.

  8

  You might be surprised to hear the following statement come from me:

  It feels good to do good work.

  I had been working in the men’s CO-OP Shoes department at Barneys for six months and I had really started to get into it. The CO-OP section of Barneys, if you don’t know, contains the more-casual shoes and therefore it meant selling shoes to more-casual guys who weren’t anal about their shoes—they just wanted to look cool. It only took me a good six months before I began to realize that the men’s equivalent to “Do I look fat in this?” is actually “Do these look cool?” That’s all they ever wanted to know.

  In the Beverly Hills Barneys, this being Hollywood and all, if you worked in CO-OP, you always helped a lot of screen-writers and directors. If you worked in main-floor men’s shoes, though, that was for the agents, managers, and entertainment attorneys (aka the anal ones who stayed there for hours comparing one shoe to another, though luckily I didn’t have to deal with them). I would even have to go so far as to say that in my casual, laid-back shoe section, it was pretty easy. I don’t know what was with the fashion, but every writer had to have red Adidas sneakers. It must have been a real fashion “do” in the screenwriting world. We were always ordering more red Adidas and that was usually the shoe of choice to sell. In the summertime, though, flip-flops were all the rage and that was great for me for one reason alone.

  Now, if you’ve never worked in a shoe store before and you don’t know what I’m talking about, I should spell it out for you. The bad news about working with shoes is that it’s a bitch getting those shoes down off the shelves in the storeroom, and just about every guy who came in wasn’t sure if he was one size or another. You always had to get two of everything, and if the guy wanted to try on a couple of pairs of shoes, it could take your back out. The best news is that you start to strengthen your biceps and triceps so much that working with weights at the gym for me became a bygone task. I’ve always hated my arms. The upper arms, no matter how many weights I lifted, always had flags of fat blowing in the wind every time I raised them. If I had stayed on earth, one day I would have gotten the fat sucked out of my upper arms, but had I kept on working in the men’s CO-OP Shoes department at Barneys, I bet I could have forgone the hassle. That is, unless flip-flops became really popular all year round, which, thankfully, they never did during my tenure—so my arms were always on the brink of looking like Linda Hamilton’s in Terminator 2.