1 Straight to Hell (8 page)

He didn’t take my hand, though I wished he would.  Instead, he said, “Ms. Straight?”

And there it was: the killer British accent.  Dear gods, I thought.  I’m ready to go up in flames
.
  I dabbed at my sweating forehead and nodded.

“I’m Mr. Darcy.”

Have I mentioned that I am a huge Jane Austin fan?  Or that I’ve worn out at least three copies of
Pride and Prejudice
?  Or that I’m head-over-heels in love with Fitzwilliam Darcy?  And, finally, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, on heaven or earth that I want more than to bear that fictional man’s children?

He waited, clearly expecting a reply, but all I could do was utter a strangled, “Okay.”

“Miss Spry sent me.”

At first I wondered who the hell Miss Spry was, then I remembered.  Oh right, Miss Spry.  The woman who had told me that I was not only dead, but a succubus to boot.  It wasn’t that I’d forgotten so much as I’d shoved the entire episode aside in order to think about it later.

He was still looking at me with those doleful, brown eyes.  “May we speak outside for a moment?”

Could he
speak with
me?  He could not only talk to me, he could take me to dinner.  He could drive me to his place.  He could soil me like a tissue if he wanted.   Without a thought to the other people in the room, I floated behind Mr. Darcy like I’d suddenly left the real world for a place where dreams came true.

Once outside, I realized how dark it had become.  And cold.  I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered.  Mr. Darcy carried a coat over one arm, but he never offered it to me.  Somehow, this intentional slight only made me want him more.

No judging me, okay?  Besides, you weren’t there, so you have no idea how it was.

“Miss Spry has a task for you,” he said once we were clear of the doors.  “Tomorrow morning.”

“A task?  What kind of task?”  I pictured picking up her dry cleaning or running to the pharmacy.

He looked annoyed.  “I don’t know.  It isn’t our job to ask questions.  Just be ready to leave at 10:00 tomorrow morning.”  He turned and started walking away.

That snapped me out of my daze.  “Hey, wait up!”  I chased after him.  “Be ready how?  Where?”

He looked over his shoulder.  “Just be ready.  Wear something appropriate.”

I ran to catch up, tottering on the high heels Jasmine had picked out for me earlier in the day.  “Appropriate for what?”

“Your occupation.”

Occupation?  Was he talking about the stretchy slacks and semi-dressy t-shirt that I generally wore when substitute teaching?  But the hard look in his eyes said otherwise, and suddenly I felt very stupid.  Of course he didn’t mean that.  He meant dress like a succubus.  Like a slut.  My bowels felt liquidy.  “I can’t do that.”  I knew I was whining, but I couldn’t help it.  “I could never go through with something like that.”

His eyes were like knives.  “You don’t have a choice.  It’s what we do.”  He turned away, walked a few more steps and disappeared like smoke into the night.

What
we
do?  What do you mean
we
, I wondered.  Then it struck me.  The smoldering gaze, the instant attraction.  He was a male version of what I was.  An incubus.  No wonder I’d wanted to get naked with him in the backseat of my car.  Was that what I looked like now?  Irresistibly sexy?  I started to have a little sympathy for Harold the undertaker.

I might have felt proud of my new sexual attractiveness if not for the looming threat of tomorrow’s ‘task’.  The idea of hooking up with a complete stranger made me queasy.  I didn’t care what Miss Spry or Mr. Darcy said, I simply couldn’t do it.

But the final blow came when I re-entered the funeral home.  Miss Spry expected me at ten o’clock the following morning.

The same time as my mother’s funeral.

The next morning, when I walked into the kitchen, three pairs of eyes opened wide and three jaws dropped.

“Holy shit, Auntie Lil.”  Ariel was the first to speak.  “Did you mug a hooker last night and steal her clothes?”

Eleven going on thirty.  That’s my niece.

“My eyes are watering,” Jasmine said.  “Where on
earth
did you find a tank top in lime green?”

Your closet
, I thought.

Grace tipped her head, considering.  “I kinda like it.  I think the silver boots are really cool.”

“You’re not going to the funeral like that.  Right?”  Jasmine couldn’t stop staring.  I thought she was beginning to remember the tank top.  And the much-too-short black skirt.  And the bangles.

“You totally should,” Ariel said and laughed.  “Can you imagine?”

I put down the purse and poured myself a cup of coffee.  “Yes, I fully intend to go to the funeral in this.” And then I delivered the line that I’d conceived of when I was getting dressed.  “It’s what Carrie would have wanted.”

Three pairs of eyebrows went up, and three heads nodded appreciatively.  Because, yes, it was exactly what my mother would have wanted.

“Then I’m changing my clothes,” Ariel said and, before I could stop her, she’d ran back upstairs to peel off the new black dress I’d bought her.

Grace looked up at me with hopeful eyes.  “Can I wear my purple, sparkly shoes?  The ones with the curly, pointed toes?”  These were from last year’s Halloween costume, when she’d wanted to be a genie.

“Sure, why not,” I said.  Delighted, Grace ran off to find them.

Jasmine looked at me over the top of her coffee mug.  “You look like shit.”

I felt like shit.  I’d hoped the outrageous clothing would draw attention from away from my pale face and the dark pits beneath my eyes.  Peeking in the mirror earlier, I’d seen a ghoul looking back.  Which was no surprise since I’d spent the entire night in the bathroom, hunched over the toilet.  There hadn’t been much to get sick on – I’d hardly eaten the day before – but every time I pictured what I was supposed to be doing at ten o’clock this morning, the dry heaves had taken over.

I can’t do this, I thought once more.  I simply cannot sleep with a strange man.  But then as my sweet, little Grace ran into the room, proudly displaying her purple genie shoes, I knew there was no way I was backing out of this.  Not if it meant that Miss Spry would keep me locked in hell, thereby leaving Grace motherless.

“You look beautiful, Sweetie.”  I hugged Grace tightly, squeezing my eyes shut to keep the tears at bay.  “And I’m fine,” I told Jasmine.  “Really.”

But inside, I was dying.

To help quell my anxiety, I popped a nearly expired Ativan, the last of my stash back from the days when I could use my health plan to pay for my visits to Dr. Feelgood or steal drugs from friends with well-stocked medicine cabinets.  But a half-an-hour later, I was still so wired that when Grace slammed the car door, I jumped a mile and shouted at her to be more careful.

“Geez, chill out, Lil,” Jasmine said, glaring at me and hugging my tearful daughter.

We met with the minister in the basement chapel of the funeral home.  His name was Reverend Someone-or-Other, and he preached, or presided or whatever it was that ministers do, at my father’s Presbyterian church.  At first, Jas had offered the services of Tommy, but – to his credit – Tommy had declined.  He told me that he would lead the funeral if I really wanted him to, but he’d rather someone with real credentials do the job.  So my father, knowing my hatred of all things religious, had intervened on my behalf and asked the good reverend to conduct his ex-wife’s funeral.  No one but a man of God would willingly fall on such a grenade, and I felt a small amount of warmth for him.

But as he took out his Bible and began reading a few verses, I grew increasingly uncomfortable, wondering if Miss Spry was watching.  Here I was, a newly-minted demon, sitting in a chapel, and listening to a man of God read from the Holy Book.  Surely, that wouldn’t make Miss Spry very happy.  In fact, it would probably piss her off.  So when the minister prayed, I bowed my head for my father’s sake, but I kept my eyes open, trying to prove to Miss Spry that I was still on her side.

The prayer droned on until, suddenly, one of the minister’s sentences caught my attention.  “Lord, we don’t know what awaits us on the other side of death, but we do know your presence will follow us there.”

God’s presence would follow us after death?  My head jerked up.  “What about if we go to hell?”

I hadn’t meant to speak out loud, but the minister remained unfazed.  He opened his eyes and smiled at me.  He was about my father’s age, tanned, and still athletic looking.  From what Simon had told me, the two of them played a lot of golf together.  “Are you worried about your mother, Lilith?”

“Sort of,” I said.  But, mostly, I was wondering about me.  If God was so amazing and omnipresent, why hadn’t he bothered to rescue me from Miss Spry?  In fact, why had he let Sarah Goodswain make her deal in the first place?  Or allowed the Mathers to arrest her for being a witch when she’d done nothing wrong?

“Some people would disagree with me,” the minister said, “but I tend to believe the concept of hell is overrated.  God is interested in redeeming souls, not damning them.”

“And what if a soul is beyond redemption,” I asked.  “I mean, what if they’ve done something really, really awful?”

“No one is beyond the reach of God’s grace.”

Clearly, this man had never met Miss Spry.

My father was looking at me with such concern that I decided the best thing to do was shut up and let the minister move on.  I closed my eyes and bowed my head as a signal for him to continue, and when he did, I sneaked a look at my watch.  It was now 9:46.  Time was creeping closer.  Though I did what I could to prevent myself from imagining what lay in store for me, my mind was like a St. Bernard puppy on a leash – tugging me here and there against my will. I saw my own naked body lying under the sweating, grunting body of a strange man.  I saw tangled sheets and a dim room and swore I smelled that nauseating, dirty seaside smell of sex.  My stomach lurched.

At nine fifty-five, as we were about to enter the small chapel, Simon took me aside.  “Lilly, you look terrible.”  He took a perfectly white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped my sweating face.  “Maybe I should take you to the hospital.”

“I’m fine, Dad.  I just need a drink of water.”

“Are you sure?  Your complexion is positively gray.”  He put his hand to my forehead.

“I swear I’m all right.”  I held myself as still as I could, trying not to tremble.  “I’m going to stand here a minute, but if I don’t come in, start the service, okay?”

He frowned a little.  “Should we try and postpone it for a while so you can be there?”

I shook my head.  “Please, Dad.  Just go ahead with the service.”

He nodded, kissed the top of my head, and went to sit next to Evelyn.  I headed down the hallway.

I didn’t make it to the drinking fountain before my vision swam.  A moment later, I was back in Miss Spry’s study.

“Dear gods, what is she wearing?”

I put my hands on Miss Spry’s desk in order to steady myself.  A cool breeze came through the open French doors, drying my sweat.  My queasy stomach settled.  Even the dormant Ativan kicked in, mercifully dulling my terror.

“Who told her to dress like
this
?  She looks like an old whore who’s about to turn a trick in the bus station restroom.”

I’d been going for a high-class hooker look.  Like a sophisticated lady who might be found in the cocktail bar of a really nice, downtown hotel.  So the comment about the bus station stung.  “No one told me how to dress,” I said.  I turned to face the unknown speaker.