Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven? (16 page)

Michael

Y
ou don’t realize how much of a hurricane someone is, until they leave. Maybe you picture their leaving, sort of like arriving at the eye of a storm, but until they are really gone, you don’t really know the full devastation.

In the weeks after Lily died, me, Pete, George, Joe, Noah, Tara, Ellie—even my parents—were the walking wounded. My department chair, Martin, the guy who’d helped Lily with her surprise party for me, was, in the end, an even better guy than I could have imagined. He hurriedly put together a family leave for me and fast-tracked a sabbatical for the following semester.

Joe had taken to dropping by—a lot. As if the paper just wasn’t fun anymore without her to argue with. He would sit in a chair in the living room, watching CNN. Noah would come in and Joe would help him with his homework. But mostly, we all seemed to flounder. It all reminded me of a day in Central Park a long time ago. One of those days you think nothing of at the time, but then later, you see it laced with meaning.

She was dating a medical student who was offered a residency in L.A. He wanted her to come with him. She could pursue her writing there just as easily as New York. She didn’t know what to do, so we went to Central Park with a blanket, bought two Italian ices and lazed in the dappled spring sunlight filtering through the trees.

I remember that it was one of those fluke days in March, when New York weather can’t decide what it’s going to do. One day it’s icy cold, the next it can be this burst of spring, warm enough to wear a T-shirt and jeans, a light jacket, and maybe even flip-flops and let your toes sink into the just awakening spring grass a bit.

She finished her cherry Italian ice and had the ruby-red lips of a little kid, complete with a red stain from dripping ice down her chin. She laid back and stared up at the tree we were under.

“So I don’t know whether to go.”

“You’re young. Life is full of possibility. You could go out there and break into screenwriting. Or get a job in the movie biz.”

“I don’t want to be a screenwriter. I want to be a newspaper writer.”

“They have newspapers out there.”

“I know. But don’t you feel like New York is a part of your heart? I can’t picture living anywhere else. I mean, from the pretzel carts to the museums, to the clubs, to just the people and the energy, it’s my home. And I don’t know if I’m in love with Kyle enough to go clear across the United States.”

I was sitting cross-legged and then unfolded my legs and rolled over on my stomach until we were almost nose to nose on the blanket. I looked at her, with those red ice stains and just shook my head. She was a piece of work. “You can always come back. That’s what my mom used to tell me when I was afraid of something—like leaving for college or even sleepaway camp when I was young. I mean, you could go to L.A. just for the experience, and if you hate it, you can come back.”

She huffed and pouted.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Obviously I said something to piss you off. What?”

“It’s just…I guess I want you to say that you don’t want me to go.”

I looked at her kind of confused. We were close friends, and we did a lot together, but I didn’t have a
best
friend, in a sense. Not since Charlie—that was his real name. My novel was true. I was Sam. Trusting anyone, totally, again seemed impossible. Or so I thought.

“Well, that would be selfish of me.”

“But you’d miss me.”

“I don’t know. I mean you have Kyle and it only makes sense that one day you’ll get married and live your own life.”

“But I always assumed you’d be part of it.”

“Well…uh…” I faltered.

“I don’t care what you say. You’d miss me.”

“I mean, I would, but this is an opportunity for you.”

“Say it, though.
You’d miss me.
”

“I…”

She stood up and twirled around, and in this ridiculous singsong voice, she started saying, “You’d miss me. You won’t admit it, but you’d miss me.”

I shook my head. She was crazy.

How could I miss such an exasperating woman?

How could I miss her so much it was like a piece of me was wrenched out of my insides?

Every day, I faced things I wanted to ask her about. So, she had known nothing about cooking—and frankly, she apparently knew nothing about how to iron. I found the household’s lone iron in the garage behind a bag of rock salt. However, was there a secret to getting Tara to pick up her room, or to explaining the mysteries of chloroplasts to Noah for his science test? This stuff she apparently did without thinking was now something entirely new.

And Gunther was depressed, so I had a depressed gaseous dog on my hands.

George, God love him, was great. We were taking it slow, which meant he stayed over on Sunday nights and did carpool duty on Monday mornings. He cooked on occasion, and he showed Tara how to use one of his old 35-millimeter cameras to take black-and-white photos. She seemed to use the pictures as a way to express her grief, because Lord knows she wasn’t talking to me. She took stark pictures, finding scenes that weren’t about death—but if you looked close, yeah. A lone bird on a telephone wire on a desolate street. A Coke can, crushed and discarded in a gutter. She talked to Justin—and she talked to Justin’s mother, a wonderful woman, albeit a bit too New-Agey for me, but maybe that was what Tara needed. Tara had even taken to wearing a crystal Justin’s mother got her on a velvet cord around her neck.

Noah…he cried a lot. I think it was an entire month before he didn’t cry himself to sleep. Baseball saved him, saved me. Something about putting those ticks in the boxes and keeping score, about playing catch, visiting the batting cages up on Route 9W, it helped us both.

I sort of assumed Pete would disappear. He didn’t have this long vested interest in the kids. But Lily, I have to say, was right about him. They hadn’t had much time together, but he loved her completely. Cancer had a way of slicing through time and bullshit. And he was a teacher after all. He loved kids. So he remained a part of our lives, and he became a real friend to me.

And then there was my father.

I still don’t know what was in that letter, but he visited us. He treated Noah and Tara like his own grandkids. Considering my sister will likely never have kids herself—too flaky—he embraced grandfatherhood.

David and Lizzie call more often. Well, David does. Once a month. He doesn’t make an effort to say he’ll come visit. He doesn’t do more than a perfunctory check-in, I suppose. And someday, if they want, the kids can go to London for a visit. They can channel their cast-off feelings into anger or into photographs, like Tara. They can figure it out.

I miss her.

I sit here and I wonder how long it will be before I have a day without this imaginary conversation in my head. I seem to know her one-liners. Know what she would say. I see something funny and want to call and tell her.

She was a hurricane who stormed into my life perched on a pair of high heels.

And when the house is really quiet, I can almost hear her mocking me, like that day in the park.

“You’ll miss me.”

Lily

I
saw them all.

At my funeral.

The funny thing is, all along I don’t think I ever really pictured going to heaven. I pictured that I would be one of those ghosts rattling around my home, because I wouldn’t be able to cut the cosmic umbilical cord. I thought my aching for them all would be so great I could never move on. And I assumed I wouldn’t
want
them to move on. Not really. I mean, yes, in some bullshit-piousness sort of way, I might have mouthed it. But I didn’t
mean
it. If they all moved on, then they would forget me.

But time has no meaning here. And I’m able to visit them, mostly at night, or when they conjure me. When Michael’s internal conversations with me get really loud in his head, next thing I know, I’m next to his desk, looking at him with his head in his hands. I know he’s wondering what to do.

It’s not easy to help them. I whisper mostly. I urge them in ways they think is their own mind, but it’s not. It’s angels. Or whatever we are. I don’t have wings. And I don’t have high heels. I don’t even have form. I just have this whisper.

It was me who told Tara to take pictures. I wander next to her as she walks the fields behind the elementary school near our house, until she feels something and she becomes fascinated by it. For that moment, as she is lining up her perfect shot, lost in a world of gray and black and white—it’s as if she
sees
the way the shadows at dusk are going to look in the photo when it’s developed—her grief leaves her. She is borne on her art to a place on the other side of grief, a valley that isn’t like the place you came from. It’s not a happy valley or a place that’s idyllic, but after a while you realize you could stay there for a while. It’s not like the valley of the shadow of death, the mourning place. It’s a resting place as you gather your strength for the future. When she gets to that valley while she’s shooting her pictures, I leave. Like magic. I’m somewhere else. In someone else’s conversation with me.

Noah calls me the most. I spend a lot of time in his room. My whispers to him aren’t about anything. You see, he’s young. And I know he’s going to be okay with Michael. He’ll always ache for me a little bit, but he’s going to grow up and find love and have his own kids. Don’t ask me how I know, it’s just some innate friggin’ internal barometer here. And when he has those kids, a part of his heart will shatter again. He won’t know why, most likely because he thinks he’s always dealt with death and not having me there. But then he’ll see bits of me in his kids and bits of him. And at the same time, he’ll know he’s okay and what a compassionate man he became because he lost me. He’ll love his kids more fiercely and harder and with more passion and with more appreciation. He’ll never be a workaholic because he doesn’t ever want to miss bedtime.

Knowing all this, I don’t whisper anything. I sing.

On earth, frankly, I was tone-deaf. All those years singing in the discos with Michael, it was a good thing the volume was up at “ear shatter” because that way no one could hear me singing “I Love the Nightlife.” But I always, in private, when my babies were little, or when they were sick, had this aimless mother’s tune. “La, la, la, la” followed by a humming. It’s not a tune anyone could hum along with—but it was always the same tune. The same exact tune, pitch, everything. And I would sing it and rock my child.

So now I sing it to him, endlessly—me, who always hated Mondays and was never on time…I have nothing but time. So I sing it and hum it over and over and over again. I don’t need to sleep here. I’m never tired. I’m never in pain. So I sing it and after a while, he gets a little smile on his face. Then I know he’s in the resting valley with Tara. And I vanish to somewhere else.

Pete…he really grieved. Some nights in his room, his face would be covered in tears. Memories of sex permeated, and the way we laughed and held each other. After a while, he moved to the valley, and after that, I saw him with Michael. Then I knew he would be okay. Some time later, I saw him with Michael and a woman who became his girlfriend. She was lovely. Nothing like me. Another teacher. But lovely. You don’t feel happiness and sadness here. It’s more like this
compassion.
You feel a loving kindness, bare of the intensities of jealousy, anger. You want only good; in fact, you can’t do anything that causes harm. So I liked his friend, and I liked how she was to Noah. She would sit next to him and read to him sometimes. One more person to help him. That was good.

Joe.

A tough nut.

More than likely, I would be someplace beautiful, next to a stream, or even basking in white light, and before I knew it, I’d be in his office, door shut and listening to him mutter to himself. He was mad at me for leaving him. Mad at the world. I realized he wasn’t going to get to the resting valley, which required a suspension of cynicism. So the best I could do was hope for a dulling of the pain and something new to distract him. When he gets here—years from now as the mean and ornery often live a long time—he’ll start to make sense of the whole process.

So one day I found myself in a young woman’s room. I had never seen her before. She had a collection of Fender guitars, a stereo system with reggae blaring and, looking over her shoulder, a way with words.

Next to her was circled an ad for an intern for the
Tribune.
Shitty pay, long hours and no pats on the back, I was certain.

So I talked to her for a week.

Do your résumé.

Send it.

Mail it.

Did you go to the post office yet?

Come on.

Come on.

Now, when he calls you for the interview, don’t kiss his ass. He hates that. Show him your spunk.

Great taste in music. How about a little Aretha?

Okay, staying focused, if he gives you a hard time, give him a little bit of a hard time back. Then grin at him to show him you’re not afraid of him and that you’ll work harder for him than anyone else he’s interviewing. Even me.

You’re meant to be there.

Next time I visited Joe, this young woman was there. Working hard. Drinking
lots
of coffee.

After that, I didn’t visit Joe that often.

Which was a good thing.

George. He didn’t really know me. Maybe a year after I left, he called to me.

“Lily…please tell me I’m doing the right thing. Please, Lord. Send me a sign.”

It was a prayer, out loud. His apartment was a mess. Boxes piled high. He had sold his restaurant and was moving to the ’burbs. Moving in. Tara was a year away from college. Noah getting taller—I could tell from pictures in frames. And George was crying. I saw contracts on the table—he was buying a small restaurant one town over from my house. But not the Upper East Side. Not the glamour. Not the same clientele. The same renown.

Now, no one ever told me that I couldn’t do ghostly things like slam doors. Unfortunately, however, I wouldn’t—without form—know how, I don’t think. But I started to wonder why I couldn’t—hypothetically. It wasn’t like there was this great heavenly orientation. And I can tell you St. Peter—Golden Gates—nope.

I thought hard. But no one had said anything.

And if they had…I was never much a rule-follower anyway.

So I looked around George’s apartment. The window to the fire escape was open. And outside was one of those pesky New York pigeons. But it was a pretty one. Plump, almost white.

Hey bird. Fly in here for me. Don’t get all freaked out. Just come in, land on the contract over here. Coo a few times. Fly out. You’re no dove of peace, but you’ll have to do.

The bird just blinked.

I coaxed some more.

In fact, the bird and I seemed to be in some sort of stand-off. The bird wasn’t coming in. But he seemed paralyzed to fly off.

The sun started to set, and finally…the bird flew in.

George looked up, startled. The bird fluttered to the dining room table and landed precisely on the contract. George didn’t move a muscle. I had to look closely to see if he was even breathing.

The bird stared at George.

George stared at the bird.

The bird cooed.

Then off it flew.

George smiled. He wiped at his face, and then he let out this whoop of a laugh.

And I was whisked away.

Frankly, I was tired of being at everyone’s beck and call. Not tired in a crabby Earth way, but it seemed like every time I was someplace so perfect and beautiful and peaceful, I was sent somewhere else.

After I had been gone a while, after George moved in, I was called to Michael. He was in a church. Whispering. I looked around. Ash Wednesday. Could tell by the grayish cross smeared on his forehead.

“I feel so lost.”

I was next to him in the pew.

Remember the time we went to the Jersey Shore and stayed at that seedy motel because we were both broke and it was all we could afford? We drove down in that piece of crap you drove—with the smashed-in taillight.

We even brought our own rotgut vodka because we knew we couldn’t afford a motel room, McDonald’s and to go out to the clubs. Remember?

We went down to the beach at night. Sat on the sand, lights from the boardwalk in back of us. And out of nowhere—and you were pretty drunk—you kissed me.

I was shocked. And I guess the vodka had gone to our heads. We were kissing. I remember you slipped a hand down to my breast. My right breast. Man, I have a memory here.

And then I pulled back and looked at you. And we both stopped. We didn’t say a word. We just stopped.

For about ten minutes, we both faced the ocean and watched the waves roll in. Jersey Shore wind whipped us. Kind of cold, even for July. Blowing sand bit my face.

We didn’t say anything. I don’t know what you were thinking. I know what I was thinking.

So I spoke, out loud, into the wind.

“You know, we’d just ruin it. Someday, this friendship is going to mean more to us than sex. More than almost anything in our lives. We’ll have a permanence that transcends boyfriends, and bad dates, and burning down apartments, and bad cooking, and bad vodka, and everything else. Because you are you, and I am me, we get to transcend it all. Isn’t that special, Michael?”

And you just smiled.

And I remember that night, later, you in your creaky twin bed with the moldy bedspread and me in mine, you told me about the assault. And you said, “Lily…you’re my best friend. You’re the first friend I’ve had since then. And right now, you’re the only friend I need.”

And then you rolled over and went to sleep.

I looked over at Michael. He was smiling. And next thing I knew I was swept away.

Time went by and I was swept to my friends and family less and less. Michael completed his novel. He made peace with the horror of his team’s betrayal. George’s new restaurant was a success. My children smiled more. I became used to my peace and my serenity here. My compassion became focused less and less on them—though I always loved them best—and more and more on the world as a whole.

Every once in a while, I crave a martini. And I’m swept back for a few minutes. There they all are talking about me around the dinner table. They look different. My kids are older. Tara’s in college. But they talk about me not in the resting valley, not in a stopping place of grief, but in a good place. So I only get to glimpse them for a minute—and it’s bittersweet, not the stabbing grief. I think it’s God’s way of letting this side know it’s okay. And letting that side still feel us until they come join us.

Bad things do happen to good people. People get cancer. They hurt each other. They say things that they wish they could take back but can’t.

And when I got here, I thought I’d have all the answers. But the funny thing is, I learned that I had the answer all along.

Just love them.

Just love them all.