I Woke Up Dead at the Mall (11 page)

I was alone with Nick. Finally. Sort of. We sat downstairs in the swirl of the living, who scowled, laughed, shouted, and whispered as they bought more things. It offered a kind of privacy for us. After all, everyone would have seen and heard us upstairs. It was getting kind of easy to tune out the bustle around us if I just focused on Nick.

“Nick, when I went back for my Thornton Wilder Day, something happened,” I began.

“Same here,” he said. “I saw you. Alive.”

I froze.

“We were both about fourteen. We were in Washington Square Park. Living me almost slammed into you with my sled, but you dodged me and kept walking. But it was you, definitely you.” He grinned. “I feel like I'd know you anywhere, any age.”

“I saw you too,” I answered breathlessly. “You were applying for a job at Think Coffee. Living me was studying at the next table.”

“I remember that interview. I didn't get the job,” he said. “But anyway, isn't it great?”

“It's weird how you can see any situation as good, great, or just plain nice,” I said, not sure if that was a compliment or a complaint.

Nick laughed. “It's weird how you can worry about every corner of the universe.”

“But, Nick, think about it: What if we had met when we were alive? What if we could have changed things so that you didn't get shot and I didn't get poisoned? What if Dad never met Karen?”

“What if, what if, what if and die.” Nick laughed some more. “We didn't meet. We died.
Then
we met.” He framed my face with his hands. “And here we are.” He kissed me. I breathed him in and felt the weight of his body against mine. I could get lost in kissing Nick. It took all my strength to stop.

“I have to go back,” I said at last. “I have to save my dad.”

“And I'll help you. But how?” he asked.

“I have to sing to him. And I think it might help. I just don't know how to get through to him.”

“Maybe we can help each other,” Nick suggested. “My mom was so heavily medicated at my funeral, she was completely out of it. I'd give anything to see if she's actually okay.”

A mom had her three kids posing for a picture with the big mall star in the background. That happened a lot, and I would never have noticed it except for one thing. We were in the path of the picture. (Dead. Not visible. No problem.)

But the mom lowered her camera and looked right at Nick. She saw him. Not me. Him. We all knew it.

“What?” she whispered. “Who?” She shook her head and
swallowed hard. “Kids! Let's take the picture somewhere else.” They groaned and trudged off after her. “Come on!” she shouted, running/walking away from us. “Move it!”

“She saw you,” I said.

“She saw me,” Nick echoed.

We went to the Lego store because Lacey bellowed for us to get there
now!
She even got Alice to come downstairs, which was quite an achievement. Lacey's face looked clean and clear after her good cry over Harry. Ever since her funeral, she had abandoned the diamonds and Oscar-worthy gowns. Instead she dressed in tight leopard prints, very low-cut. She was half human, half cat.

“Come here!” Lacey shouted over the kids, and led us to a store employee wearing an official Lego vest and name badge. He was about halfway through building a massive dinosaur sculpture in Legos. He had a small table where he had sorted his Legos by size and color.

“Watch and be amazed,” Lacey said. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, like she was about to do downward-facing dog. When she opened her eyes, she leaned close to the table and flicked one of the Legos to the floor.

The guy building the sculpture grunted in frustration as he picked up his lost Lego.

“What the hell?” he said to himself as he checked the table's sturdiness. “Is this thing broken?”

Lacey glowed with pride. “I've been doing this all day. All I have to do is think really hard about how much I miss
Harry or how much I hate Jorge and all my ex-friends and—” She flicked another Lego to the floor. “Yessss!” She was victorious.

“Oh my God! I hate my job!”
the Lego guy shouted to the ceiling.
“I hate my life!”

Lacey snort-laughed. “The living guy hates his
life
. I love it!”

But the parents in the store didn't seem to like this outburst. Oh well. Alice didn't like it either. “Lacey!” she whispered. “What if you get caught? What could happen to you?”

“Wow!” Nick said. And that was the understatement of all time. Lacey could move things. She could touch the real world. A little bit.

“Didn't Bertha ever explain any of this?” Alice whispered, as if the angry Lego guy could hear her.

“Explain what?” Nick asked. “Come on, Alice. Bertha doesn't like to talk about stuff she doesn't like to talk about. So you explain it. Okay?”

“Oh dear. Bertha does hate all this. But here goes.” Alice took a deep breath. “The dead usually get some kind of ability for haunting. I can be heard. Harry, as you know, could be seen. Lacey can move things.”

“And I think somebody just saw me,” Nick offered. He looked at me, nudging me to speak up, so I did.

“People can hear me,” I said, and it felt like a great unburdening.

“So what? I can move stuff.” Lacey sounded triumphant, like she had the best gift of all.

“Just because you
can
doesn't mean that you
should
,” Alice said firmly.

“Please. No living people can see me. Bertha's not here.” And then she leaned in toward Alice, lowering her voice. “And you're not gonna tell. Are you?” Right there I could see Lacey as she was when she was alive. She took no prisoners.

“But what if the Boy sees you?” Alice reasoned. “He might be here. You don't know. You never know.”

“Please.” Lacey sounded so confident. She closed her eyes to concentrate extra-hard, summoning the strength or the power or whatever it was. “Harry moved on too soon!” Lacey said to herself. “He's about to be a cute bald baby!” And she flicked another Lego to the floor.

The Lego guy pulled off his Lego vest, ripped off his name badge, and walked out of the store. I think he quit.

“I can move things! I have superpowers!” Lacey crowed.

Alice looked absolutely panicked. “Everyone, please, please. We've got to get out of here. We can't be doing this. Not among the living. This is so much more than dangerous!”

“Sarah!” Nick took me by the shoulders. “This is the answer you've been looking for.”

Did you ever have one of those moments when the thoughts tumble in your head like elaborate dominoes? The neurons snap and fire so quickly, they don't have time to show up as words. My brain did that, and then these words came out of my mouth:

“Lacey. Will you help me? Please?”

She arched one eyebrow and smiled. She oozed power and seemed to be feeling magnanimous about it.

“What do you need?” she asked. Clearly she enjoyed this kind of moment.

“You can save my father's life.”

I wasn't exactly sure how we would do it, but I was sure that Nick was sure. It took him a whole two minutes to put the plan together, step by step. It sounded solid, and I felt aglow with hope.

We waited until the stores were closed. And if we hadn't encountered mall-walking Declan, Alice might have come with us. We all stood still and offered a respectful moment of silence as he trudged past us, unseeing and unhearing but handsome as ever. I silently apologized for all the times I'd laughed at him, even though he didn't know I was doing it. I knew. But the sight of him must have brought up horrible memories for Alice.

“That way lies madness,” Alice pleaded with me. “Please don't try this insane plan. Don't interfere with the living. The Boy will be furious. Not to mention Bertha.”

“Oh, Alice. If I don't try, if I don't do absolutely everything in my power to save my dad, then I'll end up like Declan. How can I move on if I know I've left him in danger?”

She looked at her feet.

“You don't have to come with us,” Nick conceded. “But please don't tell Bertha, okay?”

Alice nodded, and the three of us descended to the lowest level of the mall, the land of the living. We slipped through the walls of the first store we saw—the Apple Store, which was staring down the Microsoft Store right across from it. We were stepping into the middle of a feud, I thought.

The store was bright and shiny, even in the dark. I liked it better without the Geniuses. I scanned the merchandise, all of which was useless to us dead people.

“First order of business: we need a land line,” Nick said, and we all began to search in silence among the shiny toys in the store. “Found it!” Nick shouted so loudly, I sort of jumped. He found a big, fancy phone with a mass of buttons and lights right behind the sales counter. Perfect.

“We can call your dad first, because he might die and all”—Lacey pointed a finger right in my face—“but then we call Jorge and scare the shit out of him.” She held a script she had scrawled for me to shout into the phone at her murderer. Okay. This was the price I had to pay, and I would gladly pay it.

“I'll say whatever you want me to say to him,” I assured her. From her grin, I knew that the message on that paper must be pretty awful. Lacey turned her attention to Nick.

“It's your plan. You should get a call too,” she declared. “It just seems fair.”

“I want to know that my mom is okay,” he began. But Lacey cut him off.

“So we'll call her and see how she's doing. Like we're taking a survey or something.” Nick looked pretty uneasy with
that idea. Would she really feel better after a call from a dead stranger?

“Okay. Here we go.” Lacey stared down at the phone, not moving.

“Lacey, I want you to think about Harry,” I said. “He's gone. And he's never coming back.”

“Oh, just shut up,” she grunted. “I got this. Just make sure you can do what you said you could do.”

With that, she closed her eyes and went somewhere deep inside herself. It looked as if a dark cloud had passed over her and only her. And when she was ready, she pressed the Speaker button. A dial tone sang its one-note song. We changed up the tune as I fed Lacey my dad's phone number, digit by digit: 2 1 2….

She was visibly tired by the time she was done dialing, but the song ended with the grand finale of a phone ringing. This was it. It clicked.

“Hello?” Dad's voice sounded so far away and so very sweet.

“Dad? Dad?” My hands were shaking so hard I couldn't focus on the sheet of paper I was holding. Nick put his hand over mine and steadied the paper. He kissed my forehead and said, “Sing.”

“Hello?” Dad repeated, sounding even farther away. It is nearly impossible to sing when your throat is collapsing with salt and tears.

Turn your face to me

Turn your gaze and see

All the pain surrounding you

“Who is this?” Dad shouted. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

I tried to sing some more, but I just couldn't. I felt incredibly stupid. Maybe Mom was wrong. Maybe I misunderstood Mom.
Maybe Mom was just a dream
. Maybe the song was too confusing.

“Dad! Karen is trying to poison you! Get out of there!”
My voice was so loud, so shrill, I wondered if anyone could even understand my words.

“Who is this?” said a female voice. It was Karen. I gasped and had no words. In the background I thought I heard Dad. Weeping.

“My husband is ill. Don't call us again,” Karen commanded in a voice made of stone.
Click
. All of the breath in me escaped into the emptiness of that sound.

Nick framed my face with his hands, looking deep into my eyes. “Time to try again.” I couldn't even speak. Really? Again?

“Hell yes,” he said. “Come on, you can't give up this easily. I won't let you!”

So I turned to Lacey and asked, “Please? One more time?”

Her second effort was easier (thank you, redial), but then the phone just rang and rang. No voice mail. No reply. Did Karen disconnect the phone? My lifeline to Dad was severed. I was having trouble breathing, focusing, being.

“I'll come up with a plan B,” Nick said.

“That was plan B,” I answered.

I wanted to fall apart, but Lacey wasn't letting me off the hook. “Jorge,” she said. She dialed the number with furious intensity. Jorge picked up on the very first ring. My eyes were
blurry with tears, but I managed to read what Lacey had on the page:

“You're a killer and you're going to burn in hell and nobody likes you.” There was more, but he let out a cry and hung up. Lacey looked disappointed.

“You didn't get to the best part of the speech,” she complained. “Where I really get nasty with him.”

We rode the escalator in silence. I didn't want to use my energy for anything other than working with Nick on plan C. But as we neared the top, I noticed something a bit odd about the mall walkers. Bertha was moving among them. She was talking to each of them, one by one, in a sweet, soft voice. So that's what she did at night.

As soon as we stepped onto the floor, Bertha saw us. She marched over like a drill sergeant, ready to have us drop and give her twenty.

“What, what, what, what,
what
were you doing?” she asked. She folded her arms and tapped her toes.

“Take a pill, Bertha,” Lacey said casually. “We were just shopping, just hanging out. What's your problem?” Years of practice had made her into a cool liar. But Bertha had even more practice dealing with liars and seeing right through them. Literally.

“Were you interfering with the living? Sarah? Is this about your father?” she asked.

I could have played along with Lacey's lie, but no. I wouldn't. I didn't want to lie about something as important as
this, especially as I saw Alice creeping toward us. She waited silently behind Bertha.

“Yes, I was trying to save my dad.”

“It was my idea,” Nick volunteered. He stood a little closer, and we were magnetically connected. I could do or say anything now.

“But I didn't save him. Yet. And now I'm tired, so if you're going to punish me, can it wait until tomorrow?” Okay, Bertha looked like she was not expecting quite that much truth from us. (Honesty is the best weapon.)

“Do you intend to try this sort of stunt again?” Bertha asked. “Tell the truth.”

I looked at Nick before I spoke, and that was all it took to unlock all my secrets. I couldn't lie to him, or in front of him. I wouldn't be that girl.

“Yes, absolutely!” I declared. I felt like I was drunk, operating with severely impaired judgment. I couldn't stop telling the truth. Nick's eyes sparkled in my direction, and I had no filter.

“I won't repeat this exact stunt because, hello,
it didn't work
. I need to come up with a whole
new
stunt. See, here's the thing, Bertha. I'm going to save him, and you're not going to stop me. In fact, you're going to help me. I don't know how yet, but you're going to.
I will save my dad
. Because I owe him. And I'm not going to be able to move on until I know that he's safe.”

That sort of made sense to Bertha, so maybe I should have stopped there. But I didn't. I linked my arm through Nick's and felt him tighten his hold on me. “And yes, I'm crazy about Nick. And I want to help him make sure his mom is okay. He
deserves that. And if Lacey wants to yell at the guy who killed her, I say let her yell. Let her yell a lot. I'll help her too, if I can.”

Bertha's eyes were larger than life. There might have been smoke coming from her ears as her brain burned out just a little.

Lacey broke the silence when she giggled and said, “You're the shit, you know that?”

“Yes, she is,” Nick said as he kissed me. But then he looked around at the group of us and decided once again to take the lead. “Bertha? We need to go back to the living. We need to haunt. It's the only way.”

Bertha looked ready to pass out.

Nick was about to say more, but then Alice spoke up in her small, still voice. “He's right.”

Bertha spun around and focused on Alice, lowering her voice. “The Boy would never allow any of them to go back, to haunt. You of all people must know that. This is madness.”

“Maybe so,” Alice conceded. “But it's the only way. Can you arrange an audience with the Boy?” She looked up at Bertha and spoke in a different voice. She sounded sharp and determined. “Now, please.”