I shrugged. “Pretty sure my dad is the rich one. I just live here.”
“With a kitty! Ooooh. So cute!” Carly ran towards Burt, who was curled up near the fireplace. She laid down right on the floor until she was practically nose-to-nose with him. He loved the attention and happily walked circles around her, his bushy tail straight up in the air.
Meanwhile, Claire was literally touching everything. She ran her hands over the mantle, then switched gears, heading towards the dining room and right towards my notebook which was lying half-exposed.
“Wait,” I yelled. Both the CC’s exchanged a look and stared right at me. They really did look alike, especially when they were both making the same curious expression.
“Sorry. I really like your dress.”
Claire’s expression changed and she did a little twirl. “It’s vintage. My mom was big into floral in the 70’s, and I took the liberty of repurposing it.” That explained why it only had one sleeve.
“You need to stop calling old crap from your mom’s closet vintage.” Carly had lost interest in Burt, who was still circling her ankles, desperate to be petted some more. “Anyways, we’re going out.”
“Stop being a flirt, Burt.” I chided him. I still didn’t understand why they showed up in my house, especially if they were leaving anyways. I was about to ask when the ringing of a doorbell reverberated off the walls. At least, whoever the next round of people was, they were nice enough not to pound
“That’s probably Matt.” Claire jumped up, tugging at the bottom of her dress which had gotten stuck in her shoe. She headed towards the door. Burt chased after the bottom of her dress which dragged behind her.
“Wait you said you were going out?” I protested. Matt knew where I lived too? Sure enough, he entered my living room along with Darrington and Jenna. They were looking around, like tourists going from a small town to the big city. Instead of fanny packs, Matt was holding a six-pack and Jenna had a bottle sticking out the top of her purse.
“Hope this is a good time,” Matt said as he pulled me in for a hug. Such an odd thing to say when you’re the one who shows up in someone else’s house uninvited. I was still unsure of Jenna’s feelings towards me and vice-versa. Clearly she made no move to hug me.
“Matt said your fam was out of town,” Darrington said, spinning in a circle. “He didn’t say you lived in a fricken mansion. Way cool!”
I buried my annoyance. “How did you guys find where I lived?”
Jenna laughed and then quickly covered her mouth, from which the smell of peach vodka was radiating. “Sorry.”
My guess was that she was already drunk, a suspicion confirmed when she laid her head down in Darrington’s lap a short while later. “Sorry,” she whispered again, this time to no one in particular
“I’ve got an in with the office assistant,” Matt boasted as he walked in circles around the couches where everyone was gathered.
“I see,” I nodded as Darrington chimed in. “What he means is he got it in with the assistant,” Darrington said making a crude gesture with his hands.
“Gross,” I said out loud before reminding myself to be a good hostess. This was my chance to leave no stone unturned, much like Matt, who was now fiddling with the decor that lined shelves on the walls.
“Here.” Matt took a seat almost on top of me as he offered me a beer.
“It’s not much.” A sad expression crossed his face for a second before he perked back up. “But I got my brother to buy it for us! He was on a bike, though, so it wasn’t the most stable booze-transporting conditions.”
“Hey guys.” Carly yelled from somewhere off in the distance. I didn’t even realize she had left the room. “Daddy has booze.”.
Everyone whooped at once. I jumped up, tailing after them to the pantry where her voice was coming from.
“I knew you’d have a booze room,” Claire announced proudly as she poked her head into where Carly was now standing.
“Clairebear,” Matt chided, taking the bottle of whiskey she was now holding out of her hand and inspecting it. “Most people call this a pantry.”
“Wait,” I half yelled as Matt was getting ready to twist the top off. “What if that’s like really old and expensive?”
“You fill it with water,” Matt announced as if it were obvious. “Gosh, Abs, have you never been eighteen before?”
Twice, actually. I took the whiskey from Matt, recognizing the brand as a pricier one.
“Go drink the beer in the basement.” I shooed them out of the pantry. It was a complete and total guess, but somehow I ended up being right.
A half an hour later, we were sitting on my back deck, facing a massive expanse of land. With the sun beginning to set, it made quite for the picturesque scene except that Jenna was puking, Matt was groping, and the CC’s were drunk-texting their exes and erupting into fits of laughter.
“So how did the whole feud start?” I asked grabbing Matt’s arm and taking it off my shoulder for the fifteenth time that night.
He was more flirty than usual, and I was trying my best to go along with it. I remembered back to the mysterious project they were working on, the one I wasn’t privy to yet--but I was hoping by the end of the night I would be. After all, I had given them booze and a place to party, even ordering pizza in an effort to sober Jenna up, which unfortunately might have led to her puking all over my upstairs bathroom.
It took me a moment to realize that Matt was actually responding to my question.
“I guess it’s better you learn now that there’s a bit of a social divide at the school.”
Here we go. Who needed heaven’s help when I had cliff notes from Mr. Matt Ernst himself?
“I really wish I could just draw you a picture right now,” Matt was inches from my face, and I had to lean back to avoid getting little specks of his spit on me.
I had no clue what he was talking about. “Of the social divide?”
“No, of how beautiful you look right now.” He leaned his head on my shoulder as he gave a deep sigh, the smell of alcohol radiating off his breath.
I patted him on the head before I shook him back awake. “Focus, Matt!” His head shot back up and he continued.
I had learned that in the three years of me not being at the school, I’d surely missed out on a lot. I’d probably be in a lot better position to stop people from dying if I had actually been given a fair chance of getting to know my classmates.
If drunk Matt was to be trusted, then I learned that there were basically four groups in the senior class.
There was the varsity volleyball team, who apparently were the “mean ball-smacking queens” of the school. His words, not mine. Nobody actually liked them, but they were especially afraid of Bailey, their leader who had chastised me the first day.
I learned that Matt did triple duty. Aside from his group of friends, he was an all-around jock, and an aspiring filmmaker thanks to his uncle being a big shot in Hollywood.
Those were the ones who had it easy. As I had imagined, Alyssa was made fun of for her attitude and her weight. Thorton and Noah were known for being druggies. It was unclear who gave Matt’s group the right to be the judge and the jury seeing as how they seemed to be heavy drinkers themselves. If only the real Judge could see this whole spectacle on earth.
“She’s just dumb.” Matt laughed as he recounted the story of how Thorton got expelled freshman year for smoking pot in a bathroom stall next to a teacher.
“Woah, dude.” Darrington had appeared from behind us, giving our porch swing a shove so that we started rocking.
“Bro, don’t do that,” Matt said placing a hand over his mouth. “You’ll make me pull a Jenna.”
Darrington stopped mid-laugh. “Shit, I should go back and check on her. And, uhh, make sure your bathroom is okay.”
“Then there’s Chase.” Matt turned his attention back to me. “Wanna know what he did to the ranch dressing?”
I put a hand up in protest. That was a
story that didn’t need to be told again or at all for that matter.
“His ass got lucky. Mr. Nash took him under his wing and has been attempting to turn him around ever since.”
“Wow, that is nice of him,” I responded. “I would have been pissed.”
“Yeah, well, Chase has some issues that no one knows about except Nash who is always telling us to give Chase a pass. Whatever. Kid’s still a freak.”
I had a flash of Mr. Nash’s warm smile at lunch as he shared his cheese fries with Chase. I had so many more questions and so little time to get them all in before the booze wore off.
“Hey, we have to go.” Carly had appeared. Well, that was even less time than I had hoped.
I stood up and peered through the glass windows which led right into the kitchen. Darrington was standing there waiting for them, Jenna was half hanging onto him, half onto my kitchen counter. Her hollow eyes focused on the floor as if she had seen something fascinating that no one else had noticed.
I was nervous to go in for fear of how much puke would be in the house.
“Say your goodnights,” Carly said making a kissy face at Matt and me before heading back inside.
Fear instantly filled me. This was not something I was prepared for. I could feel Matt staring at me expectantly. His face was inching closer and closer until I could make out each individual freckle that dotted his nose. His breath was heavy with the smell of whiskey and spearmint from the gum that I didn’t even know he popped into his mouth. I kicked us off so we were swinging harshly again, just like Darrington had done before.
The wine in my glass swished out, soaking my lap and Matt’s.
“What the hell?” He jumped up and away from me. Thankfully.
“Oops.” I put the wine glass down and attempted to feebly brush myself off. My dress was soaked, but that was okay. “I’m sorry. I’d hug you goodbye, but I’m gross.” I suppressed a smile at my stroke of genius. And with that I turned to head inside to say my goodbyes and wash off.
When they were finally gone, I searched high and low for a pair of silky pajamas, craving the way that they had always felt on my skin. There were none to be found. There was, however, a pair of cotton button-up ones folded up on my chair. I hadn’t remembered placing them there, but when I put them on, I felt immediately comfortable.
I crawled into bed. The red wine had done the trick in making me sleepy. I couldn’t shut off my brain. Memories were steadily popping in from somewhere deep inside me. There were faces, places, and even feelings that raced through until the next one took their place. It was like someone hit the fast forward button on a movie and there was no way to hit pause. Actually there was, but Glen held the remote.
The last thing I thought of before drifting off to sleep was Jenna being carried out of the house by her friends.
Something soft was touching my face. “Go away, Burt,” I grumbled as I rolled to my other side away from him. Crunch. My eyes immediately flew open.
“Not again.” I groaned again as I looked around. Snow was falling softly around me, illuminated by the glowing of soft street lamps.
I was back in heaven and I had no idea why.
This time, I pinched myself hard. I knew this wasn’t all just a dream, but you could never be so sure the second time around.
There was a figure off in the distance. It was Glen striding towards me, leaving a trail of footprints in his wake.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” He plopped right down in the snow next to me, as if we had this meeting scheduled the whole time.
“The guy before you had a circus-themed heaven. I hope we got all the tigers rounded up.”
I looked around nervously, suddenly all too aware of the cracking of branches in the distance.
Glen chortled. “I’m kidding. Although, don’t be alarmed if you see the bearded lady. She did not want to leave. Everyone seems to be a fan of your Christmas-card heaven.”
I had several questions but first and foremost, I wanted to know if I had done something wrong.
“You’re wondering why we’re here,” Glen said. He wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he was reading my mind. “We don’t have much time.”
I looked at Glen, who was digging around in the snow. It took me a moment to realize that he was building a tiny snowman.
“I’ll talk. You just listen. It’ll go quicker.”
I nodded. For a moment, I wanted to hug Glen to show how much I appreciated him bending the rules for me.
“Look, when we send people back down that’s it usually, but I’ve taken a liking to who you were and who you are. So have the others.”
The others?
“Any time we have too much contact with those fulfilling their purpose of the doors, lines get blurred and things get confusing. You, however, have been given a task that doesn’t happen very often.”
Glen was now carefully digging through a small pile of sticks, looking for arms to complete his snowman. “I mean, the odds are astronomical. Most people have small jobs. But you, you’re Abigail Rose Henderson. You’re a remarkable girl with a remarkable task. We want you to realize that.”
Everything was becoming more clear. All of the thoughts that had been entering my brain had been shaping me into someone new in preparation for this moment where it all became clear. My memories were vivid, more vivid than ever before.
A sudden crack of thunder interrupted my thoughts. The sky had shifted and snow had stopped falling completely. Glen looked around nervously.
“What the hell?” I looked down. Drops of rain were falling on my arm. I blinked, and it was pouring.
The rain came fast and hard, blurring my vision and chilling me to the bone.
“We’re not perfect up here. We try to give you as many memories of Abigail as possible. It gets confusing because it does take a while to completely forget who you were before. And some people never truly forget. We do what we can to help speed the process along.” Glen was yelling now, struggling to be heard over the thunder clapping. I remembered the red notebook and finally knew what it was.
“This is way too confusing.” I shouted back. There wasn’t much time left. Glen reached out and grabbed my shoulder as a final gust of wind blew through, almost knocking both of us over.
“Pay attention to your creative writing class” was the last words I heard before my Christmas card started melting away. The last thing I saw was two sticks and two buttons from Glen’s snowman, swirling around and around in a puddle until everything went black.
CHAPTER 12
“Honey, come downstairs.”
“One second,” I yelled back to my father, who was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I was applying the finishing touches to my makeup. I had found some gold shimmer powder buried away in a drawer which complemented the rose gold sequins covering my homecoming dress. As I surveyed myself in the mirror, the light coming through the windows bounced off my sequins in a way that made the dress come alive.
I had gone shopping the week before, when my dad came back from his business trip. I didn’t even realize how much I had missed him until he wrapped me in a hug, giving me a coffee mug he had collected from his business trip..
I couldn’t believe homecoming was finally here. It almost wasn’t. The students had been avidly voicing their complaints about all the changes. The main ones being the dress code and the breathalyzer.
Matt had asked me to the homecoming dance. If I was into it, I would have considered it a sweet gesture. In true aspiring filmmaker fashion, he had created a short video of him singing a song he had written for me. But alas, I had already had plans. Those plans were waiting for me downstairs.
“You’re cutting into picture time,” another voice yelled. “And food!”.
“Sorry!” I did one last spritz of hairspray. I had managed to get all my curls into an updo at the top of my head. It was perfect. I was thankful for that, since it had taken me three hours to do on my own.
I made my way
downstairs, where my father was the first one I saw. He had wiped a tear away before it even had the chance to slide down his cheek. He pulled me into a hug and whispered in my ear, “You’re beautiful, just like your mother.” I knew what the tear was for.
Standing next to him was Noah, who actually cleaned up nicely. He was wearing a dark blue pinstripe suit. He had even cut a few inches off his hair and ditched the bandanna for the day. That meant the gel he was now using had to work overtime to keep his curls down.
Then there was Alyssa. She had a floor-length pink dress covered with the outlines of silver sparkly stars. She had told me she planned on being a walking galaxy, and there she was true to her word.
“Hot mama,” Alyssa yelled, grabbing my hand and making me twirl as I reached the bottom of the stairs. I laughed along with them.
We spent the next hour taking pictures, eating several appetizers Dad made, and drinking grape juice, which my father was nice enough to pour into wine glasses and garnish with a lemon twist. There was no way the breathalyzer was going to stop us.
“Be safe.” Dad reached over and kissed me on the cheek once he dropped us all off.
“Will do.”
The dance was in the school gymnasium and, much to the dismay of the student body, the theme Magic Moment had been chosen. The school had voted against having a magician come in, much to the dismay of Principal Medina.
There were a few students, like Alyssa, who were still excited for the dance. She was on the homecoming committee, actually getting along with Bailey. They had wanted everything to be perfect, and I was surprised that Alyssa had put her full effort into this. That meant she was constantly running ideas by me, and I was sleep deprived from blowing up balloons.
I grabbed her hand as we entered the gymnasium. I wanted everything to be perfect for her. She never dreamed she would have liked something her mother forced her into. Yet, she was now considering a career in event planning after high school.
Even though Noah was a man of a few words, he conveyed that he was proud of her too.
I was in awe of just how perfectly everything came together. I ran my hands over the arch of black and white balloons we passed. Unfortunately, no one was there to see any of it.
If Heaven Had Cheese Fries Page 13
