by Tara West
“Good luck,” he said. Then he did the most gentlemanly thing ever. He removed his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.
I pulled it tightly around me, not just because the drizzle was cold, but because his jacket smelled like him, and feeling the warmth of his musk encircle me was the second best thing to a hug.
Geez. I watch too many chick flicks. I need to rent a karate movie tonight.
“May I call on you later?” he asked.
“Sure.” I shrugged, not wanting him to see how much his kindness had affected me. But it had. Despite the cold and gloomy weather, I had a whole freaking tropical island paradise floating inside that stupid heart of mine.
As I turned to walk across the street, he stopped me with a strong hand on my arm. “Oh, and one other thing.” His smile faded, replaced by the hard lines of the Grim I’d met the night of my death. “Whatever you do, do not tell anyone you came from the Penthouse.”
“Why?” I asked, but his sharp look was answer enough.
I said goodbye and made my way across the street, accidentally bumping shoulders with a few other pedestrians who kindly apologized. I’d been too distracted to watch where I was going. Too many thoughts were swirling around in my head, and they all revolved around Grim.
I had been cast out by God, a fallen angel, disgraced and humiliated. Though Inés had handled the news I'd come from Heaven fairly well, I suspected she’d taken me under her wing because of Grim. I wasn’t so sure others would be so forgiving.
Grim had done so much for me since I’d first arrived in Purgatory. What could I do to pay him back? I knew of one way, but I couldn’t get the guy to leave second base. I had no credits to give him, and I had the feeling he wouldn’t take them, anyway. This man was an enigma wrapped in a jerk, smothered in a delectable piece of man-meat, served with sides of confusion, humiliation, infatuation, and desire.
And damn me for wanting another taste.
Walking ten blocks through the rain wearing 1940s too-tight heels was almost as torturous as shitting my pants and getting lost in Purgatory.
Almost.
One thing for certain, it sure as hell sucked.
I guess I should have counted my blessings. Grim’s jacket kept most the rain off of my dress. Another thing I found odd was how at least a dozen strangers offered to share their umbrellas. I’d taken up the offer with a few different passers-by, walking at least a few blocks without getting drenched, until two nice sisters, Becky and Michelle, offered to share one and gave me their spare. I remembered their names, because they pulled me into an alcove and made me sign their good deeds checklists.
I thought it odd that nobody had cellphones. Maybe Purgatory had poor reception or they were locked into a contract with the crappy carrier I’d used on Earth. Either way, I hadn’t seen a single cellphone, or any twenty-first century technology other than flat screen televisions and DVR players.
By the time I showed up at the big ugly building where I'd be serving ten to twenty miserable years, I looked like a wet, permed rat who waddled like a duck, thanks to my sore, swollen feet.
Shielding my eyes from the pelting rain, I followed a crowd of people through a revolving door, stumbling to the side and shivering as I dripped all over a rubber mat. The others were oblivious to my suffering as they filed past me and disappeared down an adjacent corridor, the clinking and clacking of their shoes echoing across the marble floor.
The place was grand inside, a total contrast to its ugly grey exterior. I stood inside a large chamber with a cathedral ceiling. The gleaming floors and polished wood accents reminded me of something out of a fancy hotel. An ancient chandelier the size of a small car was suspended directly above me, and in front of me was a long counter that reminded me of a hotel reception. Standing at that counter was a dark-skinned woman with bouffant hair and a beaming smile. She was staring directly at me with this expectant look, so as soon as I shook off enough water from my clothes, I made my way toward her. I was a little freaked out as her smile slowly widened as if it was on a switch.
I offered a hesitant smile of my own as I stepped up to her counter. She was dressed in some weird polyester print ensemble with a wide pointy collar and lots of gold chains draped around her neck. I wondered if maybe she'd just stepped out of a disco nightclub.
"It’s a beautiful day." The way she spoke through that frozen smile made me think she was practicing to be a ventriloquist. "How may I go out of my way to help you?" she said in a perky tone that sounded annoyingly rehearsed as her pearly white grin stretched impossibly wider.
Luckily, I had enough presence of mind to pull the printout my creditor had given me out of my purse. "I’m here for work."
"Welcome to the Prayer Hotline Call Center family.” Again, perkiness overload. At least her voice was perky, but the rest of her was as stiff as a mannequin. “Let me see your assignment." I placed the sheet in her hand. "Oh, you’re on level three."
"How do I get there? Don’t tell me," I said wryly. "I need to use the elevator."
Turns out I didn’t need to use the elevator, because this damn place didn’t have any. So ten blocks in the rain and three flights of stairs later, I was finally at work. I sure hoped unnatural perkiness wasn’t a requirement, because if so, my creditor would have to find me a new position.
The lobby on level three was much smaller than the one downstairs. A pretty young woman with a bright pink scarf tied around her neck and matching pink Ann-Marie nametag sat at an office desk typing at a clunky computer. What was it with the outdated technology in Purgatory?
Behind her was a glass wall, and beyond that wall was an endless hall of cubicles. I stood on my toes to get a better view, but I couldn’t see where the long row ended. Oh, this was so not good. I’d sat in a cubicle at Schwartz, Parker, and Boone but there’d been only seventeen secretaries. I wasn’t exactly a math wiz, but seventeen was far less than infinity.
The secretary looked up from her typing and smiled. “It’s a beautiful day,” she said as she folded her hands in her lap. “How may I go out of my way to help you?”
Okay, that was weird. I felt like I was stuck in a cheesy sci-fi movie, Attack of the Perky Clones.
I wordlessly handed her my assignment, not because I was being unsociable, but because overly nice people annoyed me. Okay, so maybe I was being a bit unsociable, but sheesh!
She glanced over my papers and then handed them back with a pasted-on smile. “Welcome to the Prayer Hotline Call Center family.” She turned and punched a plastic button on an old landline phone. When she held the big receiver to her ear, I thought it was going to swallow her whole. “Let me page a shift supervisor.”
The button blinked red, and then I heard a male voice echo from the receiver. “We have a new family member,” Miss Perky said through a giggle.
Jeez Louise, what was wrong with these people? Were they all smoking the same happy crack?
A few minutes later, I was greeted by an overweight, middle-aged man with a walrus moustache and cheeks as red as apples. Sweat dripped down the side of his face, and his chest heaved as if he’d just run a marathon, but I’d seen him leave a cubicle right beside the window partition.
“Ashley Macleod?” he said as he held a hand to his heart, trying to catch his breath.
Somehow I got the feeling his cause of death had been a clogged artery, aka, a super-sized cheeseburger, onion rings, and milkshake with a vat of bacon grease on the side.
“Yes.” I warily eyed him. I wasn’t quite sure if people needed paramedics after they died, but this guy looked like he was ready to keel over.
“It’s a beautiful day.” He waved and then held out a hand. “Welcome to the Prayer Hotline Call Center family. I’m your shift manager, Danny Dallin.”
I grimaced as I took his hand. His palm was sweaty, and he squeezed my fingers too hard. I followed him through a maze of cubicles, feeling kind of bad as he had to stop every few blocks to catch his breath. By the time we made it to my st
ation, I was convinced he needed to book an appointment with a cardiologist, although I suspected he’d rather schedule a date with a doughnut.
“Attention, all section B family,” he said through a wheeze. “Please welcome our new sister, Ashley MacLeod.”
I nearly keeled over when dozens of heads popped up from behind their little square cells and all chimed in unison, “Hi, and welcome to the family.”
Okay, this was nuts. I suddenly had the feeling I was stuck in an episode of The Twilight Zone, which probably wasn’t far off the mark. I had met a guy with a hammer stuck in his head, after all, and my grandpa shaved his nipples. By this point, I should have learned to roll with the weirdness.
I quickly scooted inside the cubicle Mr. Dallin pointed to and sat down, hoping all of those perky eyes on me would vanish. Luckily, phones started ringing, and one by one, the smiling faces disappeared behind their walls like prairie dogs burrowing beneath their holes.
I stared at my workstation, which was stocked with Purgatory’s latest technological advances: a clunky computer, circa sometime in the 1990s, and a dial phone. Oh, joy. My job was going to be real groovy, or whatever they’d said in the nineties. I was just a kid back then, so I hardly remembered.
I sat with my hands fisted by my sides while I waited for my boss to tell me what to do. I could still hear him wheezing behind me, so I knew he hadn’t gone anywhere.
“Vickie and Nikki,” he said through a grunt before breaking into a series of phlegmy coughs.
“Yeah, boss.”
I jerked as two blondes with heavy blue eye shadow popped up from behind the partition. One girl’s cubicle was directly next to mine, and the other catty corner. I did a double-take, as they appeared to be identical, though one wore her hair down in feathered waves, just like that magazine cover with Farrah Fawcett, and the other had pigtails tied up in fluffy yarn bows.
“I’m going to need you to train Ashley for me,” Mr. Dallin said before placing a hand on his heart and leaning against the corner of my partition. It creaked from his weight, and I feared the whole thing would topple.
“Sure thing, boss.” The twin with pigtails casually answered as she smacked loudly on a wad of gum.
“Are you okay, Mr. Dallin?” I asked.
“He’s fine,” Farrah Fawcett twin answered with a disinterested drawl. “He does this all the time.”
I watched with morbid fascination as Mr. Dallin hobbled away, stopping every so often to hunch over and catch his breath.
“Hi, and welcome to our family,” pigtail twin said as she twirled a lock of hair between her fingertips. “It’s no Townsend Agency, but we call it home.” She held down a hand. “I’m Vickie.”
I took her hand, surprised at her firm grip for such a young woman. She couldn’t have been older than twenty.
“Hi again.” The other twin waved and smiled. “I’m Nikki. We’re the Smith sisters, as in Jacqueline Smith, but our hair has way more body.” She brushed a hand through her stiff, wavy do while turning up her nose.
“You tell it, sister,” Vickie said.
My gaze kept darting between the pair as I craned my neck to look up at them. I had a hard enough time keeping their names straight, let alone remembering who was talking.
“You just come from level twelve?” Nikki asked.
I nearly answered ‘no,’ but then I froze as Grim’s stern warning reverberated through my mind.
“Uh, no.” I shook my head. “I just died.”
That sort of wasn’t a lie. I had died a few days ago. Nobody needed to know I’d spent my first night in the afterlife in the arms of a big and beautiful stud while feasting on divine cheesecake.
“Oh?” Vickie perked up like a dog begging for treats. She popped a big pink bubble while fixing me with a quizzical expression. “How did you go?”
“Electrocution,” I said sharply, hoping they wouldn’t ask any more questions, although I supposed I should be less worried about them discovering my method of death than the fact that I was really a level two nobody who had somehow managed to squirm her way into the not-so-shitty floor of eternity.
Vickie shivered and rubbed her arms. “Ouch.”
“Laura from section 12-B was electrocuted,” Nikki said to her sister, as if somehow the fact that I wasn’t the only idiot in this place would make it all better.
“Oh, yeah, I remember….” Vickie stopped mid-sentence and looked wide-eyed at both of us. Then she started hacking, and when I say hacking, it was far worse than Mr. Dallin’s phlegmy coughs. This sounded like the cough of an old lady chain-smoker.
You know, the kind who lives in a run-down single-wide trailer and sounds like she subsists on cheap menthols for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
“Suck on your ice cubes, sister,” Nikki said with an impatient eye roll.
Vickie disappeared behind the partition and then reappeared with a tall Styrofoam cup. She dumped the contents down her throat and began crunching.
Luckily, the coughing subsided… for now.
“Maybe you should go to a doctor,” I said to Vickie.
She responded with a snort. “Thirty credits to write us a prescription for cough drops? We’re not doing that again.”
“Carbon monoxide poisoning.” Nikki pointed to herself and then to her sister. “Both of us.”
“It was not an unpleasant death,” Vickie said, “but it sure was a rude awakening.”
Nikki leaned forward, eyeing me with an intensity that would match mine at an all-you-can-eat chocolate buffet.
“Here’s a tip. Never take a nap in your car.”
“While it’s running,” Vickie added.
The twins shared a knowing look before they chimed in unison. “And the garage door is shut.”
Okay, I was starting to feel a whole lot better about my blow-dryer accident.
I sank low in my chair, trying to muster the most sincere look possible. “I’m sorry.”
Nikki rolled her eyes. “Not as sorry as our parents were the next morning after they’d locked us out of the house.”
“All that money for junior college down the drain,” Vickie snickered as she shoved another wad of pink bubble gum into her mouth. “We had a nice funeral, though.”
Nikki perked up like my dog Jack whenever my mom had fried up bacon. “Oh, yes, lots of flowers.”
Wait a minute? How did they know? Hadn’t a grim come to get them after they died? “You saw your funeral?”
“Of course,” they answered before exchanging puzzled looks.
I sat up straight. If they were able to see themselves, did this mean they had the power to turn into ghosts? “How?”
“On the television, silly.” Vickie giggled and then popped a bubble. “Don’t you have a television?”
Heat infused my cheeks as they both looked at me like I’d grown a second head. I fumbled with the strap on my belt. “I got a flat screen yesterday.”
“Hey, big spender,” Nikki said with an exaggerated wink, “got any credits to share?”
Vickie busted up laughing before breaking into another coughing fit.
Nikki rolled her eyes. “Ice, sister. Ice.” She leaned forward, resting her chin on her upturned palms. “So lucky you shot straight to thirteen. You must have been a good person.”
I fumbled with my belt some more, pretty sure the ends would be frayed by the time I clocked out. “Uh… I guess.”
“What did you do?” Vickie asked before she spit her gum in her palm and crunched on some more ice cubes. “Volunteer at an orphanage?”
“Um….” I shrugged, averting my gaze. “Not really.”
“I know!” Nikki held up a finger and then pointed at me. “She died saving someone else.”
“Yes, that’s it. She electrocuted herself to save an orphan.” Vickie tossed the rest of the ice down the back of her throat.
“No orphans involved. Really.”
They both tilted their heads, these confounded looks in their youthful gazes as
if I’d just asked them to name the state capitol. They seriously had to be natural blondes because they made me feel about smart as a rocket scientist. If I was going to spend the rest of my sentence in Purgatory working next to Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, I’d never get anything done. I sure hoped we weren’t paid on commission.
“I volunteered at a retirement home,” I finally answered through a sigh. I sure as heck hoped the Big Guy couldn’t strike me down for lying. Besides, I was sort of telling the truth. Driving three hours to Portland and spraying disinfectant in a rest home bathroom with sticky poop splatter all over the floor had to count for something.
Vickie swatted the air with her hand. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“She was being modest.” Nikki leaned over and elbowed her sister. “I told you she was a good person.”
“Well,” I interrupted, “I should probably learn how to do my job.”
“It’s really easy,” Vickie said as her head disappeared from view. In the next moment, she was sharing my cramped cell. We waited for at least ten minutes while my computer warmed up. It made all kinds of grinding and groaning sounds when she turned it on. I wasn’t sure if I was worried or hopeful it wouldn’t work.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when she clicked on the homepage to POL, Purgatory Online. Today’s news story was about a man on level eleven who’d given away half of his credits to his long-lost girlfriend on level four, so they could live together on level eight. The positive part of me, those few shriveled up and starving little cells in my brain that still believed in a happily-ever-after, wanted to believe they’d spend their afterlife moving up the floors together until they reached Heaven. The bitch in me, that 99.9 percent of my brain that believed Happily-Ever-After only existed at the bottom of a Ben and Jerry’s tub of Cherry Garcia, wondered if he’d regret his decision in a year or so, after she complained too many times about the coffee grounds he left on the counter and ran off with her personal trainer.
Vickie clicked on my email, and we waited another five minutes for the window to pop up. “I just love technology,” she said in a chipper tone while I picked peeling polish off my nails. “It makes our job so much easier.”
