Elsewhere (18 page)

"Is it okay where you are?"

"It's different."

"Different how?"

"It's" she pauses "hard to explain. It's not like you think. But it's okay here. I'm okay, Alvy."

"Are you happy?" Alvy asks.

And for the second time since she came to Elsewhere, Liz pauses and considers this question. "I am," she says. "I have a lot of friends. And I have a dog called Sadie. And I see Betty. She's our grandma, the one who died. You'd like her so much. Her sense of humor is like yours. I miss you guys all the time. Oh God, Alvy, there's so much I want to talk to you about."

"I know! There's so much I want to tell you and ask you, too, but I can't remember what."

"I'm sorry about that time with the sweater."

"You aren't still thinking about that, are you?" Alvy shrugs. "Don't even mention it. It all worked out."

"I'm sorry if I got you in trouble."

"Please. Mom and Dad were total disasters after you died. Everything set them off. I know the sweater definitely helped Dad."

"I'm sorry if it's been hard for you, then. Hard because of me."

"Lizzie, the only thing that's been hard is missing my sister."

"You have such a good heart. Do you know that? You were always the best kid in the world. If I was ever annoyed at you or anything, it's just 'cause you were so much younger than me and also I was used to being an only child."

"I know that, Lizzie, and I love you, too."

Owen hears the sound of the net coming toward them. Owen whispers to Liz, "They're almost here."

"Who's with you?" Alvy asks.

"That's Owen. He's my" she pauses "boyfriend."

Alvy nods. "Cool."

"Nice to meet you, Alvy," Owen says.

"We met before, didn't we? Your voice is familiar. You were the guy who told me the right closet."

Alvy asks.

"Yup," Owen says, "that was me."

"By the way, Alvy," Liz asks, "how did you ever hear me tonight?"

"I always listen to the water. I've been listening since I was little," Alvy says. "I could never stop hoping it might be you."

At that moment, Liz feels a familiar net pulling her and Owen away from the Well.

Liz sighs. So the wedding wasn't exactly like she imagined it would be. But then, what in life is?

"Your brother is a really cool kid," Owen says on the ride back up.

"He is," Liz agrees. "All things considered, it was a nice wedding, don't you think?"

"It was," Owen agrees.

"And Zooey was beautiful," Liz adds.

Owen shrugs. "I didn't really get a good chance to look at her. All brides look about the same anyway."

Liz latches her fingers into the net. "Sometimes I wish I could get a white dress."

"You have a white dress, Liz," says Owen, "though it's more like pajamas."

"You know what I mean. A wedding dress."

The net is approaching the surface. Just as they are about to hit the cool night air, Owen turns to Liz. "I'll marry you, if you want," he says.

"I'm too young now," she replies.

"I would have married you before, but you didn't want to," he says.

"I was too young before, and we didn't know each other well enough."

"Oh," says Owen.

"Besides," says Liz, "there didn't seem to be much of a point. You had been married before, and we already knew what we were, I guess."

"Oh," says Owen, "but I would have, you know."

"I know you would have," says Liz, "and knowing you would have was nearly as good." At that moment, the net surfaces and they are lowered onto the deck of a tugboat.

"Hey, boss," a detective for the bureau asks Owen, "you want to drive back?"

Owen looks at Liz. "It's fine if you want to drive," Liz says. "I'm sleepy anyway." Liz yawns. It had been a great day, she thinks. She walks over to a pile of raincoats and lies down.

Owen watches as Liz uses one of the raincoats as a blanket. Right then, he decides to tell Liz that he wants to marry her tomorrow or next weekend or sometime really soon. "Liz," he calls out.

But the boat is too loud, and Liz can't hear him, and the subject never comes up again.

The following Monday, Curtis Jest visits Liz at the Division of Domestic Animals. It's rather unusual for Curtis to come to her work, but Liz doesn't say anything.

"How was the wedding?" Curtis asks Liz.

"About average," Liz replies, "but I enjoyed it very much. It's good to see people you haven't seen for a while."

Curtis nods.

"But all weddings are about the same, aren't they? Flowers and tuxedoes and white dresses and cake and coffee." Liz laughs. "In a way, it hardly seems worth it."

Curtis nods again. Liz looks at him. She notices that he is unusually pale.

"Curtis, what is it?"

Curtis takes a deep breath. Liz has never seen him this nervous. "That's just it, Lizzie. It does barely seem worth it, unless it happens to be your wedding."

"I don't understand."

"I've come" Curtis clears his throat "I've come to ask your permission "

"My permission? For what?"

"Stop interrupting, Liz! This is hard enough," Curtis says. "I've come to ask your permission to marry Betty."

"You want to marry Betty? My Betty?" Liz stammers.

"I've been seeing her for five years, as you know, and I was recently overcome by the utter conviction that I had to be her husband," Curtis says. "You're her closest relative, so I felt I should run it by you first."

Liz throws her arms around Curtis. "Good Lord, Curtis. Congratulations!"

"She hasn't said yes, yet," Curtis replies.

"Do you think she will?" Liz asks.

"We can only hope, my dear. We can only hope." Curtis crosses his fingers. He keeps them crossed until Betty says yes almost two days later.

The wedding is planned for the last week in August, two weeks after what would have been Liz's twenty-second birthday.

Betty asks Liz to be her maid of honor. Thandi is the other bridesmaid, and the two girls wear matching dresses in deep golden silk shantung that Betty sewed herself.

The wedding takes place in Betty's garden. At Betty's request, no flowers are harmed for the union.

Betty cries, and Curtis cries, and Owen cries, and Thandi cries, and Sadie cries, and Jen cries, and Aldous Ghent cries. But Liz doesn't cry. She's too happy to cry. Two of her favorite peopie in the world are getting married, and that doesn't happen every day After the ceremony is over, Curtis sings the song he wrote for Betty when Liz was recuperating.

Liz walks over to Thandi, who is eating an enormous piece of wedding cake.

"The first time I saw you I thought you looked like a queen," Liz says to Thandi.

"Didn't stop you from waking me up, though," Thandi replies.

"You remember that?" Liz asks. "You were barely awake at the time."

"Not much I forget, Liz. My memory's long long long." Thandi smiles, revealing two missing front teeth.

"What happened to your teeth?" Liz asks.

Thandi shrugs. "Fell out. We're not getting any older, you know."

"Isn't nine a little old to be losing your adult teeth?"

"Mine came in late the first time," Thandi replies.

Liz nods. "Getting younger is odd, isn't it?"

"Not really. Just feels like all the unimportant stuff is falling away. Like a snake shedding its skin, really." Thandi takes another bite of cake. "Being old is so heavy, really. I feel lighter every day.

Sometimes, I feel like I could fly away."

"Does it ever feel like a dream to you?" Liz asks.

"Oh no!" Thandi shakes her head. "We're not starting that again, are we?"

Liz laughs. Curtis Jest begins singing an old Machine song. "I love this song," Liz says. "I'm going to ask Owen to dance with me."

"You do that, dream girl." Thandi smiles and takes another bite of her cake.

Liz locates Owen quickly.

"I was looking for you," he says.

"Let's dance," she says, pulling Owen to the makeshift dance floor in the middle of Betty's garden.

Owen and Liz dance. From across the room, Betty holds up her champagne flute.

"Mazel tov," Liz calls to her.

"You look pretty today," Owen whispers in Liz's ear. "I like your dress."

Liz shrugs. "It's just a dress."

"Well, it's definitely better than your wet suit."

Liz laughs. She closes her eyes. She listens to the music and smells the sweet fragrances of Betty's garden. A cool wind blows Liz's bridesmaid dress against her legs, sweeping summer away.

For better or worse, this is my life, she thinks.

This is my life.

My life.

In the year Liz turns eight, Sadie becomes a puppy again.

In the months leading up to her Release, Sadie grows smaller, her fur becomes softer, her breath sweeter, her eyes clearer. She speaks less and less until she doesn't speak at all. Before her teeth fall out, she chews up several of Liz's books. Although Sadie spends most of her time napping in Betty's garden, she has strange bursts of manic activity where all she wants to do is wrestle with Paco and Jen. Both older dogs tolerate Sadie's outbursts with considerable equanimity.

In the weeks before her Release, Sadie becomes so small you can barely tell she is a puppy. She might have been a large mouse. Her eyes seal closed, and Liz has to feed her tiny drops of milk from her pinky. Sadie still seems to recognize her name when Liz says it.

On the dawn of the Release, Liz and Owen drive Sadie to the River. It is the first Release Liz has attended since her own aborted attempt six years ago.

At sunrise, a wind begins to blow. The current carries the babies faster and faster down the River, back to Earth. Liz watches Sadie in the current for as long as possible. Sadie becomes a dot, then a speck, then nothing at all.

On the drive home, Owen notices that Liz is unusually quiet. "You're sad about Sadie," he says.

Liz shakes her head. She hasn't cried and she doesn't feel particularly sad. Not that she feels happy either. In truth, she hasn't felt much of anything aside from a general tightness in her belly, as if her stomach is making a fist. "No," Liz replies, "not sad exactly."

"What is it, then?" Owen asks.

"I'm not all that sad," Liz says, "because Sadie hadn't been Sadie for a while, and I knew this would happen eventually." Liz pauses, trying to precisely articulate her feelings. "What I am is a mix of scared, happy, and excited, I think."

"All those things at once?" Owen asks.

"Yes. I'm happy and excited because it's nice to think of my friend somewhere on Earth. I like thinking of a dog, who won't be called Sadie, but will still be my Sadie all the same."

"You said scared, too."

"I worry about the people that will take care of her on Earth. I hope they'll be nice to her, and treat her with good humor and love, and brush her coat, and feed her things other than kibble, because she gets bored always eating the same thing." Liz sighs. "It's such a terribly dangerous thing being a baby when you think about it. So much can go wrong."

Owen kisses Liz gently on the forehead, "Sadie will be fine."

"You don't know that!" Liz protests. "Sadie could end up with people who keep her cooped up all day, or put cigarette butts in her coat." Liz's eyes tear at the thought.

"I know that Sadie will be fine," Owen says calmly.

"But how do you know?"

"I know," he says, "because I choose to believe it is so."

Liz rolls her eyes. "Sometimes, Owen, you can be so totally full of it."

Owen's feelings are hurt. He doesn't speak to Liz for the rest of the car ride home.

Later that night, Liz weeps for Sadie. She weeps so loudly she wakes Betty.

"Oh, doll," Betty says, "you can get another dog if you want. I know it won't be Sadie, but..."

"No," Liz replies through her tears. "I can't. I just can't."

"Are you sure?"

"I'll never have another dog," Liz says firmly, "and please don't ever, ever, ever mention it to me again."

A month later, Liz changes her mind when an aged pug named Lucy arrives in Elsewhere. At thirteen years old, Lucy had finally died peacefully in her sleep, in Liz's childhood room. (Liz's possessions had been boxed up years ago, but Lucy never stopped sleeping there.) From the shore, Liz watches Lucy, slightly arthritic and grayer in the face, waddle down the boardwalk. She waddles right up to Liz and wags her loosely curled tail three times. She cocks her head, squinting up at Liz with bulging brown eyes.

"Where've you been?" Lucy asks.

"I died," Liz answers in Canine.

"Oh right, I tried not to think about that too much. I just pretended you went to college early and didn't visit very often." Lucy nods her sweet wrinkly head. "We missed you a lot, you know. Alvy, Olivia, Arthur, and me."

"I missed you guys, too." Liz lifts Lucy up from the ground and holds the heavy little lapdog in her arms.

"You've gained weight," Liz teases.

"Only a pound or two or maybe three, no more than that," Lucy answers. "Personally, I think I look better with a little heft."

"Multum in parvo," Liz jokes. It's Latin, meaning "much in little." This is the pug motto and a favorite joke of Liz's family because of Lucy's tendency to gain weight.

"Liz," Lucy asks, squinting up at the sky, "is this upthere? Is this . . . heaven?"

"I don't know," Liz answers.

"It isn't 'down there,' is it?"

"I certainly don't think so." Liz laughs.

The dog gently sniffs the air. "Well, it smells a lot like Earth," she concludes, "only a bit saltier."

"It's good that you can speak so well now," Lucy whispers in Liz's ear. "I have so much to tell you about everything and everybody."

Liz smiles. "I can't wait."

"But first, let's get something to eat, and then take a nap. And a bath, then a nap. Then something else to eat, and maybe a walk. But then definitely something else to eat."

Liz sets Lucy on the ground, and the two walk home with Lucy chattering away.

On the same day Liz retires from the Division of Domestic Animals, a man she knows very well, but has never before met, stops by her office. The man looks different in person than he did through the binoculars. His eyes are softer, but the lines between his eyebrows are more pronounced.

"I am Amadou Bonamy." He speaks precisely, with a slight FrenchHaitian accent.

Liz takes a deep breath before answering. "I know who you are."

Amadou notices the balloons from Liz's retirement party. "You are having a celebration. I will come back," he says.

"The party is for my retirement. If you come back, you won't find me again. Please come in."

Amadou nods. "I recently died of cancer," he says. "It was lung cancer. I did not smoke, but my father did."

Liz nods.

"I have not driven a cab for many years. I finished college at night and I became a teacher."

Liz nods again.

"All these years, I have felt despair as you cannot imagine. I hit you with my cab and I did not stop."

"You called the hospital from a pay phone, right?" Liz asks.

Amadou nods. He looks down at his shoes.

"I've thought about it more than anybody, I guess. I've thought about it, and stopping probably wouldn't have made a difference anyway," Liz says, placing her hand on Amadou's arm.

There are tears in Amadou's eyes. "I kept wishing I would get caught."

"It wasn't your fault," Liz says. "I didn't look both ways."

"You must tell me honestly. Has your life been very bad here?"

Liz thinks about Amadou's question before she answers. "No. My life has been good actually."

"But you must have missed many things?"

"As I've come to see it, my life would have been either here or elsewhere anyway," Liz replies.

"Is that a joke?" Amadou asks.

"If it amuses you, it is." Liz laughs a little. "So, Amadou, may I ask you why you didn't stop that day? I've always wanted to know."

"This is no excuse, but my little boy had been very sick. The medical bills were astounding. If I had lost the cab or your parents had asked for money, I did not know what would have happened to me or my family. I was desperate. Of course, this is no excuse." Amadou shakes his head.

"Can you ever forgive me?"

"I forgave you long ago," Liz says.

"But you were so young," Amadou says. "I stole many good years from you."

"A life isn't measured in hours and minutes. It's the quality, not the length. All things considered, I've been luckier than most. Almost sixteen good years on Earth, and I've already had eight good ones here. I expect to have almost eight more before all's said and done. Nearly thirty-two years total, and that's not too shabby."

"You're seven years old now? You seem very mature."

"Well, I'm seven-eight now, and it's different than being plain seven. I would have been twentyfour, you know," Liz says. "I do feel myself getting younger some days."

"What does it feel like?" Amadou asks.

Liz thinks for a moment before she answers. "Like falling asleep one minute, like waking up the next. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I'm worried I will forget." Liz laughs. "I remember the first day I felt truly young. It was when my little brother, Alvy, turned twelve. I had turned eleven that same year."

"It must be strange," Amadou says. "This getting younger."

Liz shrugs. "You get older, you get younger, and I'm not sure the difference is as great as I once thought. Would you like a balloon for your son?"

"Thank you," Amadou replies, selecting a red one from a large bouquet of balloons that sits by Liz's desk. "How did you know my son was here?" he asks.

"I've been watching you off and on for years," Liz admits. "I know he is a good boy and I know you are a good man."