Layoverland

by Gabby Noone

  “Aw, Bea? So cute!” Sadie replies, tenderly clutching her chest.

  “So are you picking me up? Like, to drive me somewhere?”

  “Mmm, nope! Right here is where you’re supposed to be.”

  “And that is?”

  “Great question, Bea,” she says, blinking once.

  I expect her to say something more, but we just stand in awkward silence.

  “So are you going to answer it or . . . ?”

  “You’re funny!”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Okay, okay . . . We’re at the airport,” Sadie says matter-of-factly.

  “But, like, where? You know, are we in, say, Ohio?”

  She doesn’t answer me, but just gets this funny look on her face.

  “Japan? New Zealand?” I press, my heart pounding in my chest and my mind spiraling with possibilities. “Am I getting hotter?”

  “Pressing me for more specific information? Oh my god, you are going to be, like, totally perfect for the job.”

  “For what job?” I beg.

  “I’m getting ahead of myself. C’mon, your flight was the last to arrive and we’re running late,” she says, putting her arm around my shoulders and steering me away.

  “Late for what?” I ask, elbowing her off me. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where I am and who you are and why you know my name.”

  “Bea,” Sadie says, gripping me again, tighter this time. “I promise if you just come with me, you’ll find out everything you need to know. Unless, of course,” she adds, her voice lowering an octave, “you want to stand around out here completely helpless with the rest of these losers who also have no idea where they are and can’t help you at all.”

  I look around at the clueless groups of people. The distinct smell of hot dogs wafts into my face, and when I look over the heads of the crowd, I spot a cart selling them in the distance. Suddenly I feel just like the barfing man on the plane who I’d been judging so hard a few minutes before.

  “You lead the way,” I say, narrowing my eyes.

  Sadie takes us from the entry hall and down a long, winding wing of the airport. Even though it’s full of people, the whole place has the vibe of those abandoned malls you’d see online with some annoying headline like “15 Pictures of Ghost Malls That Look Haunted AF.”

  We pass a counter with a neon sign that says REFRESHMENTS (half the lights are busted, so you can only read SHMENTS) a newsstand selling magazines that look more like props than actual publications, and a bar with a poster on its door that reads IT’S FIVE O’CLOCK ANYWHERE!

  Finally we turn down a narrow hallway then stop at a door with a RESTRICTED sign on it. Sadie knocks on the door three times in a row at three different spots, like she’s communicating in some kind of code. The door opens the tiniest bit, only enough to see a sliver of a pair of eyeglasses.

  “What’s the password?” a nasally voice asks.

  “C’mon, Todd, it’s Sadie. I already did the secret door knocking. You know it’s me.”

  “What’s the password?” the voice insists.

  Sadie looks up at the ceiling and sighs deeply.

  “Toddcanrunasevenminutemile,” she sputters.

  “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  “Todd. Can. Run. A. Seven. Minute. Mile.”

  The door opens fully, revealing a sweaty white guy who has the thick foggy glasses and combed-over red hair of a nerd, yet also the beefy physique of a bodybuilder. He’s wearing a vest and pants in the same color as Sadie’s dress.

  “Welcome,” he says, glancing at me.

  “What’s your deal?” I say, my eyes darting between these two uniformed freaks. “I’m not going in some closet with complete strangers. Why won’t you people tell me what’s going on?”

  “Oh, she’ll be great,” the guy whose name is apparently Todd says to Sadie, raising his eyebrows.

  “I know!”

  “Great at what?” I say, heat rushing to my face and my heart pounding in my chest. “What are you gonna do to me?”

  “C’mon, Bea. Don’t worry. I was in your . . . tennis shoes once,” she says, squinting down at my feet. “It’s all very disorienting at first, but I promise you’ll be fine,” she adds, pushing me through the door.

  I fear that behind it I’ll find some kind of cult initiation or freaky sex party or a combination of both, but there’s just a small space that looks like a neglected high school classroom with three long folding tables in a row facing a projector screen at the front. Behind the first two of the tables sits a handful of people, some in orange uniforms, others in plain clothes. Sadie leads us to the back row and we take a seat.

  Todd flicks on a dinosaur of a projector behind us and walks back to the front of the room to turn out the lights.

  “I know you newcomers probably have a lot of questions,” he says, throwing his voice too loud for the tiny room. “Save them until the end, okay? Without further ado, please enjoy this short informational film.”

  A video crackles to life on the wall. Staticky instrumental music begins to play as WELCOME ABOARD flashes onto the screen. Then there’s a montage of people in orange uniforms walking and eating and laughing all around a shinier, newer version of the airport.

  The camera cuts to one man in uniform riding down a moving walkway by himself.

  “Hello,” a vaguely familiar-looking man says.

  “My name is Todd, and I’ll be guiding you through this next chapter of your journey.”

  I look over at the wall where the Todd who answered the door and turned on this very video leans. He’s mouthing along to the words of the narrator and I realize . . . they’re the same exact person. The video looks about forty years old, but somehow Todd hasn’t aged a day.

  “If you’re watching this,” he continues on the screen, “that means you’ve been chosen out of millions of people to join a very elite team known as the Memory Experience Department.”

  He hops off the moving walkway, tripping over its almost flat edge, and continues to slowly pace through the airport.

  “It also means you are, unfortunately, dead.”

  Spit pools in my mouth like I’m about to vomit.

  You are . . . dead.

  “Excu—” I manage to garble out.

  “Save your questions for the end,” Sadie whispers, placing a hand on my arm in a way that I’m not sure is supposed to comfort me or restrain me.

  “You may be wondering, ‘Well, if I’m dead, then where the heck am I?’” Todd continues on-screen. “Well, the answer is, ‘Where aren’t you?’ And the answer to that is . . . you aren’t in Heaven.”

  My stomach feels like it’s falling through my butt, straight down to the floor, as my brain deduces where this is going.

  I’m in Hell.

  That’s what this is. I should’ve known Hell would be me trapped in a room with some egomaniac dude taking forever to explain to me that I’m in Hell.

  “But the good news is . . . you aren’t in Hell either!”

  “Then where the HELL ARE WE?” someone at the front of the room calls out.

  “Shh!” Present-day Todd places a finger to his mouth.

  “You’re in . . . the airport,” Todd from the video says, splaying his arms as the words THE AIRPORT flash across the screen, like us viewers are supposed to find this information revealing and satisfying.

  “When bad people die, they’re sent to Hell. When good people die, they’re sent to Heaven. When mostly good people who are harboring secrets, fatal mistakes, and/or emotional hang-ups die, they have a layover here at the airport on their way to Heaven.

  “Take Rod here for example,” he continues, the video cutting to footage of a man who is clearly just Todd without his glasses and wearing plain clothes exiting a plane, a look of confusion on his face.
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  “Rod was a good guy on Earth. He was committed to his job as a regional manager of a low- to mid-level audiovisual supply company and to his relationship with a human woman. Sometimes he would bag groceries for other people at the supermarket because he just felt like it. He couldn’t seem to figure out what in the world could be holding him back from moving on to Heaven.”

  Now Rod sits in a waiting area, looking bored out of his mind.

  “That’s where we, the Memory Experience Department, come in,” Todd narrates. “When each person arrives here, they’re given a number.”

  A voice calls a number over a PA system. “Rod” looks down at an orange passport in his hands and then jumps up out of his seat in exultation.

  “When their number is called from a lottery system, an attendant from our team is assigned to assist them in revisiting memories from their lifetime using advanced technology.”

  The words ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY appear on the screen.

  A smiling woman in an orange uniform waves at Rod and the shot expands to show that she is standing next to an enormous machine that looks like two hair-dryer chairs with a clunky computer in between them. Rod sits in one of the chairs and the woman lowers its plastic helmet onto his head; then she sits in the second chair and does the same to herself.

  “Through this device, which we call the Memstractor 3000, Rod and this attendant are able to screen his memories and sort through them. It is the attendant’s job to ask, well, the tough questions, and to help Rod become more honest about himself and his life on Earth. After one to thirty sessions with his Memory Experience attendant, Rod finally confronts the truth of whatever it was that was holding him back. The Memstractor is then able to detect when a neural pathway of self-realization has formed.”

  A green light begins flashing on Rod’s helmet. He and the attendant high-five.

  “Rod is free to continue his travels on to Heaven!”

  The video cuts to him boarding an airplane while the attendant robotically waves goodbye. Then it cuts back to Todd, addressing us head-on again.

  “Now, remember what I’ve said: You’re an elite group. You’re not here to confront your own memories. You’re here to confront the memories of others. You’re here to help. And when you help enough people move on to Heaven, you’ll be able to move on too.”

  He winks then turns, riding away very, very slowly on the moving walkway. The shot fades out as instrumental music plays again, then abruptly stops with a scratch.

  Present Todd flicks on the overhead lights.

  “If you have any questions,” he says, with much less enthusiasm than his on-screen self, “please direct them to the attendant who picked you up at arrivals. They will be providing you with hands-on training for your job. Now, let’s get everyone measured for uniforms.”

  He pulls a tape measure out of his pocket and stretches it between his hands.

  I gasp for air and it fills my lungs, making me feel way too present, too aware of this moment than I’d expect for being dead.

  God, I wish I’d just been sent to Hell.

  2

  They say you should “live every day like it’s your last,” but I have no idea who “they” is, other than a robot who works on a Pinterest content-making farm or the person who’s in charge of picking out the inspirational home decor sold at T.J.Maxx. So I didn’t live my last day on Earth like it was my last. I lived it like I lived every day: by just trying to get it over with.

  I woke up twenty minutes before school started, which I know sounds bad, but when you consider the starting bell rings at 7:55 a.m., I almost woke up too early. Still, that didn’t stop my showered-and-fully-dressed little sister from yelling at me, like she did every morning.

  “Get up, Bea! You’re going to make me late,” she said, standing in front of the mirror and wrapping a floral circle scarf around her neck.

  “I never make you late,” I groaned from the bottom bunk of our shared bed, most of my body submerged in the purple unicorn-print comforter that I’d outgrown a decade ago.

  “That’s exactly what you said last Thursday when you made me late.”

  “If you don’t like my driving schedule,” I said, forcing my body upright, “then take the bus! Or why don’t you get a ride with Skyler? Are you too afraid of him finding out you live on the wrong side of the tracks?”

  Emmy squinted her eyes into the mirror. My characterization of where we lived was a bit harsh, but technically correct given there was an actual regional rail line that cut through the neighborhood at the end of our street. Our school was huge, with hundreds of kids in each class. A handful of them lived in McMansions, some of them lived in normal-size split-level homes, but most of them lived in tiny houses (not to be confused with capital-T tiny houses that people buy when they decide they’re sick of having too much space) like ours, which was squat with a brown roof and brown shutters and a brown lawn. The only distinguishing part of it was the rusty pink Cadillac that sat out front, a hulking relic that belonged to my elderly neighbor, who we shared the driveway with.

  “Skyler knows where we live. I like driving to school with you. Although it would be better for the environment if all of us took the bus.”

  “Ugh, but the bus comes at 6:50!” I said, finally sitting up. “Even you couldn’t be ready by 6:50. Don’t blame climate change on my driving. Blame it on the Northwood School District and their completely fascist scheduling system.”

  “I wasn’t,” Emmy said, rolling her eyes. “But it’s important to remember how all the little choices we make every day can add up to make a big impact.”

  “You’re too good for this trash planet, Emmy,” I said, rubbing an eye booger off my face.

  She turned and smiled at me, glowing like some kind of Glossier model even though all she did was apply ChapStick.

  We looked alike, but everything about Emmy was softer. We both had dark brown hair, but while mine was bone straight and couldn’t hold a curl, hers was soft and wavy. My eyes were flat brown, while hers had a hazely sparkle. We both had heart-shaped faces, but hers looked noticeably comparable to a cartoon heart, while mine just registered as a normal face. Well, maybe not normal; I had one of those intense faces that made teachers ask me if I was “doing okay” when all I was doing was thinking about what I wanted to eat for lunch.

  “And you’re forgetting what day it is, Bea.”

  “Thursday?”

  Emmy slumped her shoulders forward and sighed.

  “Friday?” I asked. “Oh, thank god.”

  “Yes, it’s Friday, but it’s also . . .”

  She gestured vaguely to the velvet mini dress hanging on our closet door that I had helped her pick out at Forever 21 to wear to the . . .

  “Snow Ball? That’s tonight?”

  “Yes,” Emmy said through gritted teeth. “And, in case you forgot, anyone who arrives late to school today isn’t allowed to attend, so . . .”

  She motioned for me to hurry up.

  “Right! Ahh! Okay,” I said, jumping out of bed and rummaging through a pile of my clothes on the floor. “Have you seen my jeans?”

  “Which jeans?”

  “My favorite jeans! The black ones that make my butt look semi-good.”

  “Bea, please don’t freak out,” Emmy said, biting her lip, “but I think I saw Monica grab them while you were still asleep and she was in morning-cleaning panic mode.”

  I shook my dirty-underwear-filled fists toward the ceiling and groaned.

  Monica was technically my stepmom, but you would never know it by reading the bio of her pathetic, lifestyle-blogger-wannabe Instagram account (“Wife to Tommy. Mom to Grayson. Lover of candles, cookies, and cuddles. Amen. <3”). She never posted photos of me or Emmy, just our two-year-old demon half brother. Not that I’d ever want to be associated with her, online or IRL.

  “Can you j
ust wear another pair today?” Emmy pleaded. “Please, just this once—”

  “Monica!” I yelled, storming out of our room, down the short hallway, and into the kitchen. “Did you put my jeans in the wash without asking? I was going to wear them today!”

  “Of course.” She shrugged, pouring Cheerios into a bowl and setting it on Grayson’s high chair. He immediately pushed it away, showering the linoleum floor with tiny o’s. “Someone had to do your laundry. I figured it might as well be me.”

  “You know I’m perfectly capable of doing my own laundry on my own schedule,” I said, pulling open the closet where our washer and dryer sat stacked on top of each other. Inside the washer, my poor favorite jeans were pushed up against the window during the rinse cycle, like they were drowning and begging me to rescue them.

  “Gosh,” she said, cracking open her morning can of Diet Coke. “I was just trying to do one nice thing for you.”

  Monica’s “one nice thing”s are never actually nice things. It’s like, she’ll come home from Walmart with some body spray for me that smells like coconut-flavored vodka, not because she thinks I’ll like it, but because she thinks I smell and need to cover it up. The worst was when she watched some TV show on the “life-changing magic” of getting rid of crap, and then Emmy and I came home to find her digging through all of our stuff and deciding what should go to Goodwill without asking us.

  “You know what, Monica? You’re a hypocrite.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your nightgown,” I said.

  She looked down at her chest, where it said BUT FIRST, COFFEE in big bold letters.

  “You don’t even drink coffee. You just guzzle Diet Coke.”

  “So?”

  “So, you’re living a lie. Everything about you is one big lie, even your stupid nightie.”

  “Bea!” Emmy interjected as she walked into the kitchen. “We’re going to be really, really late if you don’t get dressed right now.”

  “Fine.”

  So I stalked off to my room, grabbed a sweater and my least favorite pair of jeans, and got changed, certainly not dressed for the last day of my life.