Layoverland

by Gabby Noone

  “Sure you can,” I said. “This doesn’t have to be any of his business. Your secret is safe with me. C’mon, let’s just take the rest of the day off and go home.”

  Emmy thoughtfully pursed her lips, like she might, for once, actually take me up on my proposition to cut class. But then her phone lit up again.

  “Oh god,” she said, staring at it. “It’s from the same number.”

  Then her face went completely cold. Silently, she slid her phone over to show me the message.

  Tell ur sis to back off or else I’m sending this pic to the whole school xoxo

  27

  “What’s up, Bea?” Sadie says with a brilliant smile and unsettling, unblinking eyes.

  “Nothing much,” I say. “How are . . . you?”

  “Well, I’m not in Heaven! That’s for sure!” she says, then laughs for an uncomfortably long amount of time. “Sorry for interrupting you two. The day’s almost over. Why don’t I give you guys a ride back to the airport?”

  She pushes up our helmets, both at once, making it a command more than a question.

  “Sure,” I say, glancing at Caleb.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Sadie says, reaching out her hand to him. “I’m Sadie. I feel like I know you from somewhere?”

  “Uh, yeah, I’ve seen you around,” he says.

  She pulls back her hand before he can even return the shake, and starts impatiently walking out of the hangar. I push off my helmet and gesture for Caleb to do the same.

  “What’s going on?” I whisper to Sadie once I’ve caught up to her, Caleb trailing behind me. She ignores me and gets into the driver’s seat of the golf cart.

  “Bea, why don’t you hop up here with me?” She pats the seat next to her. I’m tempted to remind her that I’m the one who drove this cart out here in the first place, but I just get in.

  Caleb sits in the back, facing the opposite direction. We’ve barely settled into our seats when Sadie speeds off.

  “So what happened?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. You tell me, Bea,” she says, hitting the gas pedal even harder. I hold tight to the dashboard.

  “What are you talking about? Sadie, did you get kicked out of Heaven?”

  “No. You can’t get kicked out of a place you’ve never been.”

  I stare at her sideways.

  “I got kicked off my flight,” she elaborates.

  “What? Why?”

  “So ‘apparently,’” she says, briefly taking her hands off the steering wheel and making air quotes, “‘I.’ ‘Didn’t.’ ‘Follow.’ ‘Protocol.’”

  “And how is that my fault?”

  “I’m not allowed to fly into Heaven until my successor has officially helped three souls move along in an efficient manner. You know, to prove that I’ve successfully trained you.”

  “I know. I did that.”

  “No! You didn’t! Apparently, the first person didn’t count because we moved her along together. She only counted for my quota, not yours.”

  “Wait, the pumpkin patch lady who killed a guy?”

  “Todd conveniently forgot to inform me of this until I was all ready to board my flight and got turned away at the last second. Then got detained by the Disciplinary Council for allegedly trying to cheat the system.”

  “So this is Todd’s fault! Not mine!”

  Sadie blinks and ignores me.

  “So now,” she continues, “this a-hole back here is your actual third assignment.”

  “You know I can hear everything you’re saying,” Caleb pipes up from the back.

  “Good!” Sadie growls. “Sorry. I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault. It’s just . . . they already cleaned my room out. They got rid of my treasures. They got rid of my glitter.”

  She hits the brake. Hard. We’re back at the airport entrance.

  “You’ve been working on his case for too long,” she says, her face serious as she turns to me as Caleb walks away. “Something is up.”

  “It’s only been a few days,” I say.

  “Yeah, but you were moving people along like rapid fire until you got to him.”

  “He’s a complex case,” I mumble, then purse my lips and look away toward the airport. “You said yourself that some people can take the whole thirty sessions to figure out what’s holding them back.”

  “If you can’t get him to move on soon, I’ll get Todd to add five hundred more souls to your queue.”

  “What? Since when does Todd get to play God? This is his fault in the first place. That’s so un—”

  “Unfair? You’ve been stuck here for about a second. Do you know what’s unfair, Beatrice? I have been dreaming of my Jacuzzi-filled mansion in the sky for decades now and I’m not going to let anything, or anyone, come between me and it ever again.”

  “Wha—”

  “In the meantime,” she silences me, “I’ll be chaperoning your sessions with Caleb from tomorrow onward. To make sure I really have sufficiently trained you. And if things aren’t going well, I’ll have to step in and help until you’re finally able to move another person along on your own.”

  “Chaperoning? You’re not my dad!”

  “You forget, Bea. I may look young, but I am very, very old! And, like, really wise.”

  I CAN’T SLEEP. I’m tossing and turning under the bedspread that likely hasn’t been washed in my lifetime. It’s too hot when I lie under it, but too cold when I lie on top. All I can think about is Sadie catching on to my plan to punish Caleb for what he did to me. Well, that’s not the only thing I can think about. Visions of Caleb watching his worst memories, looking sick and sad, dance behind my eyelids as I try to drift off.

  Since when have I ever cared about someone’s feelings so much? Let alone a someone who murdered me. And why do I keep having to remind myself of that fact every five minutes?

  I need someone to talk to who won’t judge me as harshly as I judge myself. I need a distraction.

  “Jenna,” I say aloud, a little louder than a whisper.

  “Yeah?” she answers immediately.

  “Are you awake?”

  “Yep.”

  I roll over on my left side to look at her. I can see in the glow of the floodlight outside our window that she’s lying flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, not one bit asleep.

  “What are you thinking about?” I ask.

  “My family,” she says.

  “What do you think they’re doing right now?”

  “Sleeping, I guess? I don’t know if there’s a time difference between here and Minnesota. I know this is really crazy, but I was thinking about my family going to my funeral.”

  “That’s not crazy,” I say, realizing I haven’t given much thought to my own. I hope that even if my sister hates me, she still made sure they didn’t give my corpse awful funeral home makeup. I hope I was buried with a dignified smoky eye, but I know it’s more likely I was laid to rest looking like an overgrown star of Toddlers & Tiaras.

  “It was probably such a mess,” Jenna elaborates. “I imagine my relatives brought a bunch of casseroles. All I can think about is everyone stuffing themselves with cheesy hash browns while my parents weep in the corner. But at the same time it’s, like, what I wouldn’t give to be eating some hot, delicious casserole right now, even if it meant I was at a funeral. My own funeral even.”

  I sit up in bed and turn to look at her.

  “I know it’s really awful to say,” she continues, “but what if me dying was actually kind of a relief for my family? They’ll save so much money not having to pay more hospital bills. My little sisters will probably get way more attention now as opposed to the zero attention they were getting before because I was sucking it all up. . . .”

  She cringes and a tear falls down her cheek. It makes me uncomfortable to look at. I’m not e
xactly the most nurturing, but I take a deep breath and suck it up.

  “Hey,” I say, getting out of bed and moving on top of her covers. “It’s okay.”

  I even manage to lightly touch her shoulder in a gesture of warmth. In turn, Jenna grabs on to both of my shoulders and sobs. Her snot falls onto my pajamas that are, thankfully, and mysteriously, collected and replaced once a week, like my uniforms.

  “I’m sure your family misses you so, so much,” I say awkwardly.

  “I just want to know that they’re okay,” she says between sniffles. “I’m sick of waiting here. I want to move on to Heaven already so that I can look down on them and see that they’re happy and even if they’re not happy, that they’re just . . . existing.”

  “I know how you feel,” I admit.

  “Really?” she asks. “Is there anyone you wish you could check in on?”

  “My sister,” I say without even thinking.

  “I didn’t even know you had a sister,” Jenna says, her face brightening.

  “Yeah. We were really close.”

  “I’m sure she misses you a lot.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  She frowns at me.

  “We had this really big fight before my accident,” I say. “It was the last time I ever saw her. I just never thought things would turn out like this. I always felt like what I had with my sister was the one good thing in my life. Like it kept me from ever truly spinning out of control and . . .”

  Jenna stares at me patiently. I start to feel a lump forming in my throat.

  This isn’t me. I don’t have heart-to-hearts. How do I expect Jenna to understand? She doesn’t even really know me.

  “I just wish things had gone differently,” I say finally.

  “You know, Bea,” Jenna says. “Everything happens for a reason.”

  “How can you believe that?” I ask, sitting up and shrugging her off me. “You think you and I both died for a reason? That’s just what people print on novelty coffee cups that they can sip out of while pretending to feel okay that their lives have turned out completely horrible.”

  “I don’t know,” Jenna says, her forehead puckering. “I believe it because it gives me some kind of peace. It keeps me from getting . . . mad.”

  “It’s okay to let yourself be mad sometimes, Jenna,” I say, slumping down against her pillows.

  “Yeah, but if I do that, what if I never stop being mad? What if I just snowball into this big, angry monster? I don’t want to lose who I really am just because something awful happened to me.”

  “You won’t,” I tell her. “Letting yourself feel angry doesn’t make you an angry person. It just makes you a person who’s honest with herself.”

  “Wow,” Jenna says, smiling sadly. “Thanks. That’s a really beautiful way to put it. They should be printing that on coffee cups instead.”

  She curls into my side and closes her eyes.

  “Jenna,” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “While I recognize that we’ve both made ourselves vulnerable here tonight, we are definitely not at the stage where we can comfortably share a bed.”

  28

  Of course Sadie has arrived at the departures counter before me. Knowing that Caleb moving on is the one thing separating her from Heaven, she’s probably been camped out here all night in anticipation of today’s session.

  “I just wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday,” Sadie says cheerily after greeting me. “I behaved slightly unprofessionally in front of you and your assignment. And as agents, it is our duty to behave in a professional manner at all times.”

  She lowers her head toward me conspiratorially.

  “Do you understand that? A professional manner, Beatrice,” she repeats in a hushed tone.

  “Yes?” I say, weaving my eyebrows together. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “Todd has made an observation, not an accusation, of course, that you and Caleb have been spending extra time together.”

  “Um, yeah,” I scoff. “Extra time together working. To crack this case. Todd gave me the keys for an extra session because he told me himself that management is on him to move more people along. I don’t know what you’re implying, Sadie.”

  “You’ve checked Caleb’s passport, right?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.

  My stomach drops. I swallow hard. Has she seen it?

  “Duh,” I manage to spit out. “That’s the first thing any agent should do. That’s what you taught me.”

  “So you’re familiar with the way that he died? Sometimes I find in cases where the person died in an unexpected or violent way, they have trouble conjuring up the memory of their death. It’s repressed trauma. Who wants to think about that? Yikes. And, well, when they die in a violent or unexpected way, that’s often the unresolved thing that’s holding them back. So my point is . . . have you asked Caleb to remember the day that he died yet?”

  “No,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “What? No wonder he’s not moving. That’s what we should start with today. Sound good?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “We were making such good progress yesterday. I think I should just pick up where we left off.”

  Sadie studies my face for a moment.

  “Fine,” she says. “But if it’s not working, we go with my plan. Got it?”

  I nod once.

  “Let’s make today a great one!” she says, suddenly smiling and raising her shoulders.

  The clock above the counter strikes eight. Sadie crosses her arms anxiously. At 8:02, Caleb walks up to the counter.

  “Hey, guys.” He waves.

  “Hi, Caleb! You’re late,” Sadie says, then turns to walk and motions us to follow her outside.

  “How are you this morning, Bea?” Caleb asks me as we walk to the golf cart.

  “Fine,” I say, without looking at him.

  We all get inside the golf cart and Sadie drives. There’s no small talk.

  “Take a seat,” I instruct Caleb unnecessarily once we’re inside the hangar, Sadie observing my every move.

  As I lower the helmet onto his head, he gives me a confused look. Of course he knows he should take a seat. We’ve been doing this for a while now.

  “So what is it I should remember today? The day my beloved pet fish died or what?” Caleb jokes as Sadie and I settle into our own helmets.

  “Caleb,” I say, all business. “Let’s pick up where we left off yesterday.”

  “Sure,” he says.

  “I asked you if you got into Harvard,” I remind him, switching on the Memstractor.

  “And the short answer to that question is no,” he says darkly. “I did not get in.”

  Immediately we’re inside of Caleb’s bedroom. I’m taken aback by how orderly and cozy it is. There’s a plaid throw blanket folded at the edge of the neatly made bed and a tall bookshelf filled with hundreds of books in alphabetical order. I mean, there’s even a potted plant in the corner that’s positively thriving. The room looks like it belongs to someone in his forties, not to a seventeen-year-old boy.

  Past Caleb sits at his desk, doing his homework. He’s wearing the same outfit of basketball shorts and a T-shirt that he’s wearing right now. His phone lights up with a text.

  Sadie and I both lean over his shoulder to read it.

  I note that the time display on his phone is 3:59 p.m. and the date is December 12, 2019.

  The day that we both died.

  Five and a half hours before the crash.

  “Stop!” I say to Present Caleb.

  “Is there a problem, Bea?” Sadie asks.

  “I just want to see what his texts say. For clarity and insight,” I elaborate, looking at Sadie.

  “Great technique,” she says.

 
Hi, Sweetie the text on his phone reads. It’s from his mom. Did you make it to Scrabble club?

  Nah, it got canceled this week. Didn’t Abuela tell you? They have to set up the rec room for tonight’s holiday party!

  Oh wow, did you get an invite? Maybe you can meet a girlfriend! LOL

  Thx mom smh

  I let a laugh slip from my mouth. Caleb gives me a half smile and rolls his eyes.

  “Ahem!” Sadie says. “Focus, please.”

  “Right, so . . .” he says. “That afternoon, after I got a text from my mom, is when things . . . went downhill . . .”

  Now Caleb checks his email. The only new one has the subject line: “From the Harvard University Admissions.”

  He stares at it for a moment, then finally clicks on it. I only take in the words Dear Mr. Smith, The Committee on Admissions has completed its Early Decision meetings and regrets to inform you before he slams his laptop shut. He stands, looking surprisingly calm, then proceeds to lie down on his bed and scream into his pillow.

  Next to me, Present Caleb rubs his eyes, like he’s trying to block out what he’s seeing.

  Past Caleb’s phone buzzes on his desk. He ignores it, screaming even harder into the pillow. It vibrates a few more times in a row. Finally he picks it up. A few texts flash on the screen. All from the same contact. Laura.

  ASHSJDLHGMNKFG NFSD I GOT IN WTF

  Did you get in?

  I’m assuming ur smart ass did

  Sorry for this random text, I know it’s been a min

  Ur probs already celebrating, but i’m gonna have some ppl over later if u want to join

  Caleb????

  He throws the phone onto the floor and lies down prostrate on his bed.

  Now Caleb’s memory moves as if it’s being controlled with a fast-forward button. Outside his window, daylight turns to nighttime. He finally gets up.

  Seconds later he’s in the kitchen, taking a pint of cookie dough ice cream out of the freezer and then eating it straight from the carton.

  After plowing through three fourths of the ice cream pint, Caleb decides he needs something stronger. That’s when he makes his way to the fancy mahogany liquor cabinet he’d briefly remembered a few days ago.