Soul Selecta

by Gill McKnight

  “Hey.” She smiled as they hugged. “Did you hear me coming?”

  “I can hear Michael Kors moccasins from a mile away.”

  “That’s weird. Yet curiously classy.” The hug was a microsecond too long. She saw that Loa noticed too and drew away awkwardly.

  “I also know a Valentino shirt when I hug one.”

  “Stop reading my labels.” Norrie laughed and touched the back of her collar self-consciously.

  “I’m not. There’s a V on your breast pocket.” Loa pointed it out. She gave a cheeky grin and said, “Come and meet my kids.”

  The floor of the children’s ward was littered with toys. Runaway balloons hung from the ceiling tiles. There were four beds in the small room with three children sitting on the floor playing a board game. The children’s ages varied. Norrie guessed the youngest was around seven or eight but small for her age. The other two were a boy and girl both in their early teens. They played patiently with the younger girl who was fidgety and non-attentive. All three looked up as Loa and Norrie entered.

  “Loa!” The youngest girl struggled to her feet. She moved clumsily, and Norrie could see it took her some effort.

  “Good morning, Oona.” Loa drew the girl into a big hug. The teenagers also rose to greet her. “Hi, guys. What are you playing?”

  “Risk, but it’s boring,” Oona answered on behalf of everybody. She still clung to Loa.

  “Norrie, meet Ross and Michaela, and this little monkey is Oona,” Loa said. She didn’t seem to mind Oona draped around her waist.

  Norrie wished them all good morning, noted a violent flush cover Michaela’s cheeks, and knew she’d been recognized by her.

  “Loa told us you were helping with the fundraiser,” Michaela said. “I love your music. I have all your CDs.”

  “They must be pretty battered. I haven’t recorded anything new for nearly six years,” Norrie joked. The main audience for her heartbreak ballads had been ladies of a certain age, and Michaela failed that demographic by at least several years.

  “My mam listens to you all the time. Would it be okay if I asked for an autograph? For my mam?”

  “Of course.” Norrie’s smile widened. It made sense that Michaela had heard of her through her mother.

  “Better yet, why not a photo for your mam?” Loa waggled her iPhone. “There’ll be a proper PR campaign nearer the release date, but we could take a few pics now, just for fun.” She looked at Norrie for an okay, but Norrie was already moving into a group hug, pulling everyone in closer and smiling brightly for the camera.

  She had noticed the waxy pallor of the children’s faces when she came into the ward, but up close, she could see it was jaundice pallor. Ross’s and Michaela’s eyes had a bruised, tired look with little strings of red where the capillaries had burst. And when Oona stood up straight, her swollen abdomen was obvious. She hung off Norrie as she had off Loa, but not with the gauche preteen neediness Norrie had at first presumed. The little girl clung to her in borderline exhaustion. Oona was fighting her tiredness. The distraction of their visitor had kept her on her feet longer than was wise or necessary, and now she was sagging at the knees.

  The camera flashed, and immediately after, Loa ushered Oona to her bed. “Your parents are dropping in later,” she said. “If you take a nap now you won’t fall asleep while they’re here. Deal?”

  Oona didn’t argue. She was happy to kick off her slippers and climb into bed. Ross started to clear away the board game, and Michaela hovered nearby, clearly starstruck.

  “I’ll send the photo to your phone so you can show your mother,” Loa assured her. “Do you want a copy, Ross?”

  He nodded eagerly and Loa started pressing buttons. Norrie found it interesting Loa kept these kids’ phone numbers in her own phone. It underscored the friendliness she had witnessed between them. Loa really did go that extra mile for the people she was helping.

  “I think I have some ancient promo packs at home from my last tour. I’ll hunt them out and Loa can bring them over. If you want, that is?”

  They did want, and on that promise, Loa escorted Norrie from the ward.

  “They are wonderful kids,” Norrie said. They were heading toward the main hall. “I’m honored to be helping them.”

  Loa stopped by the elevator doors. “Have you time for one more visit?” she asked. “There’s someone I want you to meet. The one you might help the most.”

  “Of course.” Norrie was intrigued. Especially when they entered the elevator and Loa pressed the button for the top floor.

  “That was our new hepatology department. We share the rest of the ground floor with orthopedics and gynae. On the top floor are the labs and the ICU. I want to drop in there before our visit is over,” Loa said. The elevator doors slid open on a similar corridor with a similar smell of newness. They approached the ICU nurses’ station.

  “I always bring a cake or biscuits or something,” Loa said, producing a small box of cupcakes from her bag. “Though they get more than enough.” She indicated a box of chocolates opened on the counter.

  “Sure, we need all the calories we can get. It’s frantic here.” The charge nurse, a small, roly-poly woman, offered up the chocolate box.

  “Norrie, let me introduce charge nurse Rose Connelly,” Loa said, picking a chocolate from the box. “She runs this place like Dublin Central Station. Nothing comes in or goes out unless it’s on her timetable.”

  “And I already know who you are,” Rose told Norrie. “We all think it’s wonderful what you’re doing with the fundraising.”

  Norrie blushed. “It’s my pleasure.” And was offered a second chocolate.

  “Is it okay to drop in on JC for a minute?” Loa asked. Rose agreed and they moved along to the ICU ward, which was quiet and pristine. From this one main ward, several smaller rooms opened off it.

  “This is a local case.” Loa indicated they enter a private side ward. “I’m hoping patients like JC will benefit from our high profile fundraising efforts, like your song.”

  The room was cool and colored by the drabness of the day outside. Rain ran in rivulets along the windowpanes, and overcast skies brought a dour stillness to the room. A woman lay in the solitary bed. She was motionless. Central and arterial lines led out from her covers. She was attached to a nasogastric tube as well as a ventilator.

  “This is JC Waites,” Loa said. “She’s had an encephalopathic episode and is in a coma. JC was born with a damaged liver, and it’s deteriorated over time.”

  “What will happen to her? How long has she been like this?”

  “She’s been in the coma only a few days. She had respiratory failure.” Loa gazed compassionately at JC. “She’s a truly lovely person, Norrie. If you met her I guarantee you’d like her. She’s a civil engineer. In fact, she helped build the bridge you drove over to get here.”

  “What will they do if her liver is failing? A transplant?”

  “She’s on the transplant list already. That’s where you come in,” Loa said. “Your song will raise awareness of our waiting list. We need more donors. It’s as simple as that.”

  “You know her then?” Norrie asked.

  “Yes. I’ve known JC for years. She’s been attending the clinic since her condition slowly began to destabilize, and before that she helped out with fundraising any way she could.”

  “Will she get a liver donation in time?”

  “I hope so. It’s touch and go.” Loa stood by the bedside smoothing the coverlet. Norrie could see the strain on her face. It must be an impossible position, running the regional branch for a charity so connected to the well-being of a friend.

  “We better go.” Loa led Norrie from the room. “Before Rose throws us out.”

  Rose met them in the corridor. “I’m glad you came along to see her,” she said to Norrie. “It’s cruel that we can’t do any more for her just yet.” Then she asked, “How’s the song coming along?”

  “The first draft is done,” Loa told her.
“I’m going to hear it soon.”

  “When?” Rose asked.

  “Why don’t you come over this evening? I can play it for you then.” Norrie spoke out before she thought and immediately panicked. Did she want this? Wasn’t it too over familiar? Loa’s face brightened, making Norrie feel the exact reverse. She was now uncommonly pleased she had offered. Rose clucked in approval.

  “Maybe you can bring over a copy we can play to JC?” she said. “Lord knows what she picks up from the everyday world. It can hardly hurt.” Norrie agreed she’d drop off a promo CD when she was happy with the quality. No promises as to when, though. These things took time. Rose seemed happy enough and left them to return to her duties.

  “In fact, why don’t you come for dinner?” Norrie felt a little braver.

  “I’d love to. I really want to hear you play,” Loa said, then confessed, “I watched a few clips on YouTube.”

  “Ugh.” Norrie grimaced. “I sound better without a perm. Is eight thirty okay? I’m not a great cook, but I promise you a decent supper.” She forced herself to relax. The evening would be what it would be. Loa was a lovely companion, and she was interested in getting her opinion on the song before she tinkered with it any more.

  “Can I ask what it’s about? What angle you took?” Loa said.

  “It’s about waiting for the tide to turn and for the day to dawn. Of course it’s all allegorical. The dawn represents new life, and the tide, well, that’s the wait, I suppose. I think it will work okay. It feels right to my ears, but I’d like you to hear it, too.”

  “I can’t wait. Will I bring red or white?”

  Norrie looked at her blankly for a moment. “Oh, wine.” The penny dropped and she laughed. She could feel the tension between them. It was a cord of rawhide drying in the heat they were building, and it was slowly pulling them together. Her stomach hitched, and she concentrated on sensible, everyday thoughts. I’ll stop at the supermarket on the way home. What will I get for supper? Pasta? Pizza? It didn’t work. Already she could feel the soapy walls forming around her. Soon she would be floating in her little bubble above the rooftops, ignorant and uncaring of the fall beneath her. She needed to take this slow and not rush in and trample it to death. Be sensible. Think sensible.

  “Bring red,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with H. C.”

  Jesse rocked back on her heels startled by the voice behind her. A young man in a pastel green shell suit was leaning over her shoulder staring into the pool. His hands were on his knees for balance and his soft brown cheek was inches from her nose. He smelled of cinnamon and warm honey. The smell reminded her of the Sunday morning oatmeal her mother used to make.

  “Who are you?”

  “Oops, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Death. How do you do?”

  “Haven’t we already met, seeing as how I’m dead and all.”

  “Ah. You’ve heard about that.” He paused and looked all about him. “I like what you’ve done here.”

  Jesse looked around her. She was by the pool, but it was now in the shade of a cluster of jacaranda trees. The fine feathery leaves whispered in the breeze, and drooping panicles of purple flowers swung over her head. Large flat rocks circled the water, the dappled sunlight crazing them with warm, hazy, tortoise shell patterns.

  “It wasn’t like this a moment ago.” She was awed by the change. Gone were the mud and the straggly sharp-edged reeds. This place was weird. Nothing was fixed down.

  Death shrugged. “You must have made it like this. Sort of decorated it with your mind. I like the big wocks. They’re much nicer for sitting on than the mud. You have some good ideas,” he said with approval.

  It was hard for her to register that this young man was death. He seemed so unthreatening. Gentleness and goodwill flowed through him like sunlight through linen on a washing line.

  “Hepatic coma, by the way,” he said.

  Jesse stared at him blankly.

  “That’s what the H C was,” he explained, pinking up a little. “I spy hepatic coma.”

  Jesse looked back to the hospital scenario. It was already fading. The white walls fell away until only a soft glow shone beneath the water.

  “It’s gone now,” Death said, nodding at the pool. “You have to be quick.” He sat down on a flat rock and made himself comfortable. “I like coming here to see what’s going on. But don’t tell Soulie. She’d have a fit.”

  “Hey. I call her that, too.”

  “She hates it.”

  “Good.”

  Death tittered behind his hand, and Jesse slowly warmed to him. He was as crazy as everything else around here.

  “She does seem very territorial about her pool,” she said, eyeing his pastel attire. “Is this your day off?”

  “I’m not what you expected, am I?” His face sagged a little.

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Most people are disappointed. They want a bit of pathos in their last moments, but I just can’t do the Weeper thing.”

  “Weeper? Oh, Reaper. I see.”

  “Pathos doesn’t work with a lisp.” He shrugged nonchalantly but still managed to look embarrassed.

  “I suppose I didn’t expect you to look so…easygoing.” Jesse chose her words carefully.

  “Black is so not my color. Not with this skin tone,” he confided. “And I hate that ugly old cloak, unlike someone we know.” He giggled again.

  “She does the Reaper thing much better what with that sour puss face. Pity you couldn’t swap jobs.”

  “Oh my, no. It’s not my thing. I like to have a little chat with my clients before we head off on the big one. It’s much nicer that way.”

  “I don’t remember having a chat with you.”

  “Ah.” Death looked at her with apologetic, big brown eyes. “You weren’t actually on my list. The dog was, but somehow you got in the way. Pity weally, especially as Soulie had a job for you. She’s off trying to fix things wight now.”

  “I died instead of that stupid dog?” Jesse was outraged. “How can that happen?”

  “Beats me. I’ve been over the paperwork a million times, and I’ve no idea how you did it. You must have found a loophole in the wools.”

  “The wools?”

  “This is the afterlife. Of course there’s wools. The higher powers make up the wools and we obey. Simple.”

  “Oh, rules.” Jesse was getting the hang of his lisp. “What higher powers? You mean God?”

  “Which one? There’s thousands of them, old and new. These are the Elysian Fields on the Celestial Plains. The old gods wool here. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, that lot. One big, crazy, dysfunctional family.”

  “You don’t look that ancient.”

  “I moisturize.” He stroked his shell-suited thigh. “And unlike others I could mention, I pay attention to what’s going on below. Especially the latest fashions.”

  Jesse was unsure what fashion venues Death had been paying attention to; the bingo halls of Florida?

  “Soul Selector told me I’d been dead for years. She yammered on about hard time and soft time and stuff like that and basically said I couldn’t go back.”

  “She can be so negative sometimes.” Death tutted. “She’s so uptight, always has been.”

  “I’m dead here. Dead when I shouldn’t be. I think I’ve got more to be uptight about. Can’t you do something about it?”

  Death shook his head. “You may be dead, but you’re not in my department. You’re a soul mate, so Soulie is the boss of you.”

  “I’m a soul mate?”

  “Of course you are. Look at you, glued to this muck puddle. That woman you see, she’s your other half.”

  “The one in the hepatic coma?” Jesse felt sick to her stomach. She was dead and her soul mate was in a coma. What shitty sort of happy ever after was this?

  “No, silly. The blond one is your other half. I’ve no idea who’s in the coma. She’s
not on my list so that’s good news for her, eh?”

  “I wasn’t on your list either.”

  He sighed. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

  “Not for the foreseeable.” Jesse turned back to the pool. She was excited. She had a soul mate. She longed to lie beside it in peace and while away eternity gazing at her. Her intense attachment to the woman made sense now. It also made her intense longing bittersweet. “Do you know what her name is?”

  Death shrugged. “No idea. Not my department. Ask Soulie.”

  “So what’s she doing about it? You said she was trying to fix things.” There was so much hope in her voice it made her cringe to hear it. She had no faith in Soul Selector. The big weird chick didn’t come across as a fixer type. She couldn’t even trick the dead into eating drugged oranges. And as for Death, his aim was as awry as his fashion sense.

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath…oh, sorry.” He giggled shyly. “I don’t mean to joke. It just comes out that way. It’s a nervous habit kind of thing.” Death was surprisingly gentle, and not at all what she expected. She rather liked his awkwardness and super sensitivity.

  “She was so mad at me,” he continued. “I felt so bad, but there was nothing I could do. Honestly.”

  “It’s okay. I’m too tired to care. I think Soul Selector got the worst of my mood,” she said.

  “It’s not her day then. She’s been summoned by Aphwodite, the queen of bitches.”

  “I thought Aphrodite was the goddess of love?”

  “Oh, she is. But things are never as they seem here.”

  “Despite the wools?” Jesse stared glumly at the pool. It was still and impenetrable and it wasn’t giving up any of its secrets while she had company.

  Death nodded. “Despite the wools.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No!” Death said hotly, then, “What do you mean?”

  “What are you doing here with her?” Soul Selector jerked a finger to where Jesse hung over the pool. “You know I have to wean her off it, yet here you are encouraging her to snoop.”