The After Wife

by Gigi Levangie Grazer

  Jay rushed at the phone, slapping the receiver to the floor.

  “Guess who I saw at the bar?” Jay said. “Wait. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. You’re not ready for this. You’re too … young and inexperienced.”

  Dee Dee’s face brightened. “Who?”

  “The big ‘O,’ ” Jay said. “Owen.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, checking her phone. “But I haven’t even gotten a text. How is that possible?”

  “No one else recognized him. He was in the corner. Wearing a baseball cap and Ray-Bans, the official celeb uniform. Guess who he was talking to?”

  “I can’t! Who?” Dee Dee said.

  “John Mayer.”

  “Sexual Napalm John Mayer?” Dee Dee asked. She sat back on the bed and started hyperventilating.

  Brandon giggled. I was afraid he might throw up on me.

  “I’m not up for this,” Dee Dee said, through short breaths. “I’m not ready. I talk a good game and all, but I’m just a sexy, middle-class white lady trying to get her piece of the American Dream.”

  She lay back on the bed, and put her hand on her stomach. “I’m feeling very Eat, Pray, Love right now,” she said.

  “I just can’t be a party to that,” I said.

  “We’re leaving,” Jay said. “I’ll send the Real Housewives crew up to tape this for a future episode.”

  “Send up a bottle,” Dee Dee said. “I don’t care what kind. I need to curl up with something.”

  Hurrying, Jay and I got Brandon halfway dressed and quickly out of that depraved den of real estate iniquity before Dee Dee could change her mind.

  By the time we reached the car, Jay and I were both sweating from carrying a big load of man between us.

  Stuffed in the MINI Cooper’s backseat, Brandon said, “Dee Dee was supposed to give me advice. She didn’t give me advice.”

  “She was going to give you a lot more than that, my young friend,” Jay said. “We’re a good ten years away from a cure for that kind of advice.”

  “My head hurts,” Brandon said. “It’s ouchie.”

  We sped toward Casa Sugar. Chloe greeted us at the door as we dragged Brandon up the steps.

  “Oh, poor Brandon,” Chloe said. “Aimee’s here. I’ll get my tree tea oil. That’ll wake him up.”

  “Brandy!” Aimee said, as she emerged from the bathroom. She threw her arms around him.

  “Brandy?” Jay asked. “Isn’t she a fine girl?”

  “Are you okay, baby boo?” Aimee said, showering Brandon with kisses. “I was so worried.”

  “Baby boo’s okay, baby loo,” Brandon said.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Is this really happening?”

  “Baby talk,” Jay said. “Endearing or repulsive? I can’t decide.”

  “I was going to tell you,” Chloe said, as Aimee wrapped herself around Brandon, kissing his ear.

  “I thought I was going to lose you,” Aimee cooed in the woozy young man’s ear.

  “I’d never let you lose me,” he slurred, manfully—or, boyishly.

  “I’ll never let you go,” she gasped as she maneuvered him to the couch.

  “I’ll never let you let me go,” he said as they sat down, and then lay his head in Aimee’s lap.

  “That’s it,” Jay said, grabbing Brandon’s hand. “He’s going back to Dee Dee.”

  “Brandon is the father of my baby,” Aimee said, rubbing his golden-haired head.

  “What? Our little Brandon?” Jay asked. “They grow up so fast!”

  “When?” I asked. “How? I mean … Wait, don’t tell me.”

  “Christmastime,” Aimee said, rubbing Brandon’s head. “He was like a gift, just waiting to be unwrapped.”

  “And I’m the incurable romantic?” Jay asked.

  “I’ve never seen you look so happy, Aimee,” I said. “It’s sweet, in a somewhat alarming way.”

  “Thank you,” Aimee said. “You know, Hannah, if you’d never talked to my grandfather, I don’t think I would ever have been open to love. But I’m ready now.”

  Jay put his arm around me. We all had tears in our eyes.

  Brandon burped, then fell back asleep.

  There was a knock at the front door.

  “Dee Dee,” Jay whispered, in fear.

  “Don’t they know NoMo is closed?” I looked at Aimee. “Take the boy in the back.” I felt like a frontier mother.

  “Should I get my gun?” Chloe asked, too eagerly.

  “No!” Jay and I said at once.

  I opened the door, as Aimee shuffled Brandon back into his room. A woman with gray hair and glasses—who couldn’t seem more innocuous if she had taken Method classes—was standing there, wearing black flats, khaki pants, and a white blouse.

  “Are you Hannah Marsh?” the woman asked. She had a soft voice, like someone who’d spent a lot of time at the library. Or who’d had their vocal cords cut because they barked too much.

  “Yes. The house has been sold. And, it’s late—”

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, her voice rising. “It’s about my mother.”

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  “No. We’ve never met.”

  “Then what is it about your mother?”

  “She’s dead,” the woman said.

  “Aren’t we all, honey?” Jay said, escorting her inside. “I’ve never been so tired in my life.”

  23

  Raising the Dead

  (It Helps if You Are a Good Listener.)

  The woman looked around the living room. “I heard you talk to dead people,” she said. “Is that true?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes,” Jay said, “constantly. It’s like a dead people telenovela in here.”

  “They talk to me,” I said. “It’s nothing I have control over. Trust me.”

  “I need to contact my mother,” she said, her voice cracking. “She died a few months ago but it feels like yesterday. I know it might sound strange, but I wake up and I listen for her shuffling around in her slippers on the kitchen floor. And the cats don’t know what to do with themselves. They just look at me with their big kitty eyes, wondering when Nana’s coming home. Wondering what I did with her. They were her babies, you know. She loved them so …”

  She started crying. Any other house, people would look at her like she’s insane. In this house, she was family.

  “My dogs would be lost without me,” Chloe said, now on the verge of tears, herself. “They’d be running around, ‘Where’s Mama? Where’s Mama Chloe?’ I can just see their little faces …”

  I wondered how long I would be listening for John’s footsteps, his soft thud on the wood floors. His humming. Then, I realized … did I listen anymore?

  Time heals all wounds, even the ones that seem like they will bleed forever. How screwed up is that?

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?” Jay asked.

  “Rachel,” she said, turning to me. “I heard about you. I was at the coffee shop on 17th. Some women in tennis skirts were talking about you. They said your house was for sale. That you had a little girl. And that you were … um … not well.”

  “Not well, or batshit crazy?” Jay asked.

  “The second one,” Rachel admitted.

  “NoMo is like Gossip Girls for the perimenopausal,” I said.

  “Is it true? Can you contact my mother?” Rachel asked. “Please?”

  I hesitated. First of all, I wasn’t sure I could do it. Second, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  “I just want to be normal,” I said. I’d felt abnormal long enough. Ellie and I needed normalcy more than we needed money, more than we needed Casa Sugar. We could do normal in an apartment next to the Santa Monica Freeway. Fuck it.

  “I’m begging you,” Rachel said.

  “I don’t conjure up people,” I said. “They appear. Or they don’t.”

  “Usually at inopportune moments,” Chloe said, then whispered, “like in the bathroom.”

  “Or
the gyno’s office,” Jay said.

  “Or the V-Steam,” I said.

  “Please, Hannah,” Rachel said.

  “I’m not good with begging,” Jay said. “I cave every time. Every. Time. Hannah?”

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  “She’s no Jennifer Love Hewitt,” Jay cautioned, putting his hand on Rachel’s shoulder, “but then, who is?”

  “Lend an ear, Hannah,” Chloe said, turning to Rachel. “Your mother sounds wonderful. Why are all the best people dead?”

  * * *

  The sky was darkening as Rachel and I sat in my chairs under the avocado tree. I fully immersed myself in the moment, willing the memories to sink into my marrow, so that someday, when I looked out from my new apartment window and saw, say, a Dumpster … I’d remember, at my deepest core, this avocado tree in the moonlight. The stars above its branches.

  I took a deep breath.

  “What’s your mother’s name, Rachel?” I asked, closing my eyes.

  “Beatrice,” she said.

  “Beatrice,” I repeated her name, like a mantra. I hoped I could help Rachel contact her mother. Wouldn’t that be a mitzvah? “Beatrice,” I called.

  I heard Rachel sigh. That sigh sounded like it had taken years to come out.

  Remember to breathe, I said to myself. Breathing is as important as red velvet cream cheese cupcake icing. Maybe. Close. “Beatrice,” I repeated. I felt nervous. I wanted to help. And if I managed to contact Rachel’s sweet old cat-loving mom, I would no longer be the neighborhood crazy; the mad movers could take back their mantle.

  I was looking to dead people for validation. How’s that for a therapy topic?

  “Bea—”

  “What? What do you want?” an annoyed voice said. Like I had awakened her from a nap … the big nap, I guess.

  I opened my eyes.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked. I looked to the sky. That voice didn’t sound like it belonged to anyone’s mother.

  “I think I got the wrong Beatrice,” I said to Rachel.

  “What is it?” the gravelly voice asked. “Why are you bugging me?”

  Rachel stared up at the sky, eyes anxious, wanting.

  “Are you Beatrice Richards?”

  “Yes, what?” I couldn’t see her—her demise was too fresh.

  “The Beatrice Richards whose daughter is Rachel?”

  “Oy. Yes. What do you want?”

  “Can you just confirm that with me? I’m sorry, I’ve got to get this right.” I was still worried I had the wrong person—or spirit.

  “What’re you, Citibank? I don’t need to prove anything to you. I’m dead!”

  “Please. Just. Something?”

  “Okay.” I heard Dead Beatrice sigh. “Rachel has an extra toe on her left foot.”

  “Whoa—a what?” I asked.

  “It’s not my fault. Her father was a genetic freak.”

  “Rachel,” I said, as gently as I could. “Do you have an extra toe on your left foot?”

  Even in the moonlight, I saw her face pale.

  “No one knows,” Rachel whispered. “I’ve never been able to wear flip-flops—or walk barefoot in the sand—or do sports in high school. I was too ashamed.”

  “It could come in handy for rock climbing,” I said, trying to help.

  “I died so I could get away from her,” Beatrice said. “Let me tell you—Rachel’s a whiner, always has been. And look at her. I would die if I had those thighs. I did die! She’d be pretty without the bulk. I told her all the time, did she listen to me … no one would look at her—”

  I couldn’t shut Beatrice up. Meanwhile, Rachel was waiting, delicate hands trembling in her lap. I wondered if she’d ever had a boyfriend, ever had someone other than her mother show her what love is. And what it’s not.

  “Is she talking?” Rachel whispered.

  “Yes,” I said, as Beatrice continued her dead mom diatribe. “She wants you to know …”

  “From the time she was born, she was nothing but a burden—a burden, I tell you! She cried day and night, night and day, that’s why her father left—”

  “Shush!” I said out loud.

  “What?” Rachel asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Did you just shush me, young lady? A dead woman? Is there no respect at all?”

  “Your mothe”—I looked into Rachel’s eyes—“Your mom …”

  “Yes?” Rachel asked.

  “Her hairstyle makes her look like a diner waitress, I tell her constantly—”

  “Misses you terribly,” I lied.

  “She does?” Rachel asked. Her face opened up. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Your mother loves you,” I said. “Her greatest wish is that she could have had one more day with her daughter.”

  “Really?” Rachel asked, brow wrinkling.

  “She says you look pretty, Rachel,” I said. I was on a roll. “But you could put on a little weight.”

  Rachel stopped crying. “That’s not my mom. You’re lying to me.”

  “Death changes a person,” I said, perhaps unconvincingly.

  “Not that much,” Rachel said. “Tell me the truth. What did she say?”

  I took a deep breath. “She says you’re a whiner, you have a weight problem, and bad hair.”

  Rachel started crying again. “Oh, Mommy,” she said to the sky, “I miss you so much!”

  I walked Rachel through the house to the front door.

  “So how’d our little reunion go?” Jay asked from the living room couch. He was thumbing through an old copy of Martha Stewart Living. The house was silent. “Chloe had to get back home—she has a homestead to protect.”

  “Our session was incredible,” Rachel said. “I feel so much better. How much do I owe you?”

  “Owe me?” I asked.

  “What’s your fee?” She reached into her fanny pack and took three hundred-dollar bills from her wallet. She pushed them into my hand.

  “I can’t accept this,” I said.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll give you five,” Rachel said. “Five hundred must be the going rate.” She reached back into her fanny pack, with its endless amounts of hundred-dollar bills.

  “Please, I don’t want your money,” I said.

  “Yes, she does,” Jay said, snapping the bills out of my hand. “And more than that, I want her to have the money.”

  “You’re a good friend,” Rachel said.

  “The best. Tell all your friends about NoMo’s own Miss Cleo, here,” Jay said. Rachel looked confused. “I mean, when you get some friends. And take care of your pussies.”

  We watched Rachel get into her 1970s Mercedes convertible. I’d see those old cars parked outside aging, run-down houses in NoMo, and always wonder about who lived inside. Someone who liked nice things, once upon a time.

  “Mother, we’ve just found you a new gig,” Jay said to me, as she drove off. “I have the business card in my head. Ready?”

  I looked up into his eyes.

  “The Happy Medium,” Jay said.

  “There are crazier ways to make money, I suppose.”

  “Not really,” he said, putting his long, muscular arm around me, “but who gives a frock, sweetheart?”

  That night, under the avocado tree, I consulted with Trish. I call her O.G., for Original Ghost. We hadn’t spoken for a while, but like old friends, we fell right back into a rhythm.

  “Trish, what do you think? Am I disrespecting the dead by charging for hookups?”

  “We’re dead, who cares? I don’t hear AT&T asking that question.”

  “I want a real answer, before I turn this place into the Starbucks of the Netherworld.”

  “Zeiguseunt,” she said. “It is what it is. Don’t you worry your pretty little head. It’s meant to be. You worry too much, you know that?”

  I smiled. “I have plenty of reasons to worry.”

  She laughed, then waved and drifted away. For the first time in months, I felt something bubbling
up inside me. Happiness. Or perhaps acid reflux.

  * * *

  Jay and I went to a stationery store with a sweet, sticky name in the Brentwood Country Mart to select business cards. I almost needed a stretcher to carry me out.

  “Eight hundred dollars for fifty,” said the clerk with the shiny ponytail and private school education. “They’re two-ply,” she added, with a wink.

  “Two-ply?” I asked. “Like toilet paper?”

  “It’s the weight,” Jay whispered. “Feel the weight,” he said, as though handling a Ming vase.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I fly one-ply.”

  A week later, Aimee, Chloe, and Jay presented me with a small, chocolate-colored box, tied with a light blue ribbon.

  “Open it,” Jay said.

  I held it in my hand. “Is it a very, very small man?”

  “Open it,” Chloe said. I untied the ribbon, and lifted the top of the box. Inside were perfectly embossed business cards on the best stock.

  The Happy Medium, 310/555-2354

  They had a drawing of a tree on the side. My avocado tree.

  “Is this … This isn’t two-ply, is it?” I asked, looking into their eager little faces.

  “We just couldn’t do the one-ply,” Jay said, beaming.

  “One-ply is for amateurs,” Aimee said. “You’re a professional.”

  “One client does not a professional make,” I said. “I love it. Aimee, you drew the tree? It’s … breathtaking.”

  “That old shrub? It’s nothing,” Aimee said. “It’s just simple, elegant, and timeless. Like us.”

  “I’m elegant, Aimee’s timeless, by design, and our little Chloe is simple,” Jay said.

  Spring arrived, and business was booming. Lines formed outside Casa Sugar’s front door. NoMos would try cutting to the front by offering more cash or by displaying a sudden interest in me as a human being. However, the khaki-shorted SoMos held their ground.

  “Holy dead people mother lode,” Jay said, as he’d escort a lululemon-wearing, Brazilian-blow-dried, Vuitton-and-Vicodin-addicted NoMo to the back of the line. “Dead is the new black.”

  Everyone had issues with the dead—and I mean everyone.

  “I have to speak to my brother. He knows where my mom has her safe-deposit box.”