I Woke Up Dead at the Mall (12 page)

We were about to see this Boy, whoever he was. I tried to predict what he'd be like. I failed big-time. Not even close.

Bertha led us into Toys“R”Us. Really. Seriously.

“Make your case to the Boy,” Bertha said. With that, she pointed.

“This can't be right,” I whispered, though I hadn't intended that to be out loud.

Two children, a boy and a girl, were seated on the floor, playing a board game: Life. They didn't look up at us but were totally immersed in the game. The boy spun the spinner and then moved his little toy car figure along the board.

“You will learn about life, when you play the game of Life!” he sang to himself.

“You've had twins!” the girl declared. “That's expensive.”

“But they'll love me,” he replied. And then he made loud fart sounds as he put two little plastic figures into his tiny plastic car. They both seemed to enjoy his (very realistic) fart sounds.

“Is he the Boy?” Lacey loud-whispered to Bertha.

The two children looked up.

“You interrupted!” the little boy whined.

“Which is rude!” The little girl echoed the boy's tone and added a tut-tut-tut.

They sighed and pushed the game pieces aside. They were suddenly miserable, sulking with a real sense of drama. The little girl pushed the board away. “Well. Now I don't care about the game anymore.”

“You will learn about life, when you play the game of Life!” the boy sang, just as he had before.

They stood up and looked at Bertha. The girl cleared her throat noisily, and Bertha snapped to attention.

“Oh! Where are my manners?” Bertha asked of the air. “Everyone, this is the Boy.”

The two children bowed modestly. They looked to be about six years old, maybe seven. “This is Alice, Lacey, Nick, and Sarah. They're here because they wish to go back to the living and haunt them for a time.”

They looked at each of us, but before they could speak, they were distracted by the colorful, shiny objects all over the store.

“Oooh, pretty!” the girl said as some sparkly origami paper commanded her attention.

Bertha turned to us. “I've done my part. I've got you an audience with the Boy. Five minutes. If you manage to persuade them to let you haunt, well, then off you go. I'll help you get there. But.”

She looked me square in the eye. “But if they say no—and
by the by, they are inclined to say no—I must insist that you follow
my
rules and do as
I
say.”

The boy Boy was bouncing a slinky up and down like a yo-yo, until it got tangled. He dropped it and moved on to another toy.

Bertha looked at him, then at us.

“What are you waiting for? Tick-tock, tick-tock! Go to it,” she said, and backed away from us, retreating to the store entrance. The boy Boy was staring at Lacey's boobs. I wasn't sure if it was good or bad that she was wearing such a tight, revealing top.

He asked, “Why do you want to go haunting? Do you want to frighten people? Do you want to make them go poopy in their pants?” He cracked himself up with this, but the girl Boy was not amused. She shoved him a bit, and he shoved her back.

(Are these kids ADHD? Can we get them meds at the mall?)

While they fought and accused each other of bad behavior, I took a half step back and drank this all in. This is the collective wisdom of our species? This is the Boss of Me? I flashed back to Bertha explaining the Boy, way back when I first arrived. “We are children,” she'd said. Okay, yes. But I had no idea she was being
literal
.

The Boy (they) brought us all over to a toy tea party. We sat in tiny chairs, our knees jutting up uncomfortably. Everyone smiled politely. I glanced back at the store entrance, where Bertha was staring at her shoes.

Nick spoke first, of course. “So. We'd like your permission to haunt the living so that we can—”

But the girl Boy cut him off. “We don't like hauntings. We used to, but we grew up and got over it. You know how that is? The things you thought were so good and so cool when you were little don't seem so cool anymore.”

The boy Boy interrupted her, sounding a little overexcited. “Plus. Also. And. In addition. Sometimes we made mistakes. We let people go back and haunt and then they were bad. They wanted to get back at people. They wanted revenge on the human race. Did you ever see
Paranormal Activity 2
? Scary!”

Suddenly he looked at Alice. “You're angry.” Alice tried to speak but shook her head and looked down. Her face was reddening at great speed.

He looked at the girl Boy. (His sister? His other self? Whaa?) They spoke in perfect unison: “Why should we let you haunt?” They both looked at Lacey and the girl Boy spoke. “You. Go. What is your unfinished business?”

Lacey's voice was a bit shaky. “Here's the thing. My ex-boyfriend killed me, and everybody covered up for him. He totally got away with it, and somebody needs to—”

Before she could finish speaking, the boy Boy let out a singsong “Re-ve-enge!” comment to the girl Boy. And they seemed done with us already.

“Revengers always get stuck there. It's nasty!” the girl Boy agreed.

“Nuh-uh, I don't want revenge,” Lacey began, but they dismissed her with a wave of their hands (and yes, I'm pretty sure she did want revenge).

They turned to Nick. “Why should we let you haunt?”

Nick spoke gently. And if he was nervous, it absolutely
didn't show. “It isn't about revenge. You see, we were taken so suddenly, we just need to make contact. We need to know that it's okay to close the door behind us and be done with the old life so that we can move on to the new.”

I liked it. The Boy (both of them) smiled.

Nick continued. “We were young, and we just weren't ready to be gone yet.”

The boy Boy jumped up and away from Nick, calling out in a teasing, singsong voice, “No, no, no, no! Too bad, so sad, lots of people die young. I'm hungry. Do they have Twister here? Let's play.”

Maybe it wasn't ADHD, but he had some sort of issue. Before I could jump to a diagnosis, I realized that the girl Boy was studying me.

“She's pretty.” (Me? She was pointing to me?)

That must have meant that it was my turn. “My murderer is going to kill my dad. And I can't stand by and let that happen.”

The boy Boy began humming the theme to
Law & Order
. “Ch-
chung
, da da da da daaaa…”

“I can't get back at my murderer, and I'll have to live with that.” (The boy Boy sighed, bored, bored, bored.) “But now she's poisoning my dad. He doesn't deserve to die like this. I've got to save him. Whatever the cost.”

They got up and stood on either side of me, looking me down and up, down and up. The girl Boy turned and inspected Nick just as closely.

“You're different,” the boy Boy said to me. I held my breath, waiting for my avalanche of secrets to be revealed. “You're wasteful. Waste not, want not, I always say. I just wish I knew what that meant.”

“You like her,” the girl Boy said to Nick. “A lot. A lot, a lot. Didn't Bertha tell you not to fall in love here? Dummy!”

“I couldn't help it,” Nick said. “I just wish I had met her when we were alive.”

“Hmmmm,” the girl Boy replied. I could feel it. They were getting ready to say no and be done.

Then Alice spoke. “Don't leave her in the dark like this. Let her try.”

All eyes were now on Alice. Poor Alice. “You're angry,” said the girl Boy.

“I'm afraid of the dark.” The boy Boy sounded on the verge of tears just thinking about darkness.

“Me too,” the girl Boy agreed. “And I don't want to make the pretty girl sad. But she's making such a mess of things! Falling in love? Wanting to haunt?”

I looked up at the boy Boy, but he was squinting at something on the ceiling. I turned to the girl Boy and said, “Please?”

They laughed, sounding surprised and happy. They joined hands and began to skip away, away, out of the store. The girl Boy called over her shoulder to us, “You said the magic word! You may have one day back on Earth. Just one! A-haunting you shall go!”

The boy Boy echoed her song, and they were gone.

Did we just win?

Alice, Lacey, and I must have been kidding ourselves. We were going to try to sleep, knowing that we'd return to the land of the living tomorrow? Sleep was impossible. What would we do while we were there? How would I save Dad from Karen? We punctured the darkness and silence with random questions that had no answers.

Me:	Is anyone else a little bit scared?
Alice:	How could they tell I was angry?
Me:	Have they been watching Nick and me?
Lacey:	Why aren't they old and wise and stuff?
Me:	When we get there, can you guys help me save my dad?
Lacey:	Do I still get to kick Jorge's ass?
Me:	Does the Boy know the truth about God and religion and Aztec human sacrifices?
Alice:	Who looks after those two children here in the afterlife?
Me:	Where is my mother right now?
Lacey:	What happened to my dog after he died?
Alice:	Where else does the Boy go when they're not here?
Lacey:	What should I wear?
Me:	What will happen to my murderer after she dies?
Lacey:	Why can't we have more time to haunt?
Alice:	Can I go revisit the place where I died? Can I just haunt it for a little while and be there and see all of its horrible, filthy truth? Can I just go there, just be there and see if it's wreathed in evil, connected somehow to hell and damnation? Can I go there and have a good wallow? Can I?
Lacey:	Wow, Alice. Dark much? Look, just try to relax, and breakfast will be here in the morning. Okay?

A long, long silence followed. I think. I thought about Nick, looking out for his mother, protecting her one last time. And then I started wondering about Declan, walking and walking out there in the mall. What else did he know about Karen that I needed to know?

I must have finally slipped into sleep, because I was dreaming. About Declan. Seriously. Not my long-lost mother. Declan. And we were here at the mall. In the dream, he was at Ulta (his favorite store, in the absence of a Kiehl's), exfoliating with such care, you would think that he was performing open-heart surgery.

“This is a dream,” I explained.

“I sort of know that,” he said as he studied his face. “You kind of yanked me out of my mall-walking nightmare and into your dream.”

“I did?” I asked.

“You were thinking about me. You were thinking about what I know about Karen and how to save your dad.” That was true. Wow.

“Thanks.” With that, he began rinsing his face over a bright stainless-steel basin. He stopped rinsing and added, “I had no idea you were so powerful, Sarah.”

“But this is just a dream,” I explained as patiently as I could.

“So what? Even if this is just a dream, I like it way better than mall-walking. Can we stay here long enough for me to get some hydration? My skin is so dry right now.”

“Um. Sure. I guess,” I said. Should I tell him that I didn't know how to control these dreams? And that this probably wasn't real, so his dry skin issues would continue? Nope.

“Look, I know you're worried about your dad, but at least somebody cared that you died,” he said. “I thought Karen cared about me. But she didn't.”

“Same here,” I said. “What do I need to know about her if I'm going to save my dad?”

“She's really smart.” Declan patted his face dry ever so gently. “Smarter than you.”

“No. I don't accept that,” I replied.

“She already outsmarted me,” he argued. I didn't have the heart to tell him that this wasn't too challenging. “She looked me right in the eye when she was killing me. She enjoyed it. And I bet this is her idea of fun. She's probably killing your dad and enjoying every second of it. She's psychic.”

“Psycho,” I quietly corrected him. “And you're not exactly helping.”

“Yes I am,” he said as his fingers danced over his skin, applying some sort of lotion. “She knows exactly what people want to hear, and then she says it over and over again. I bet he believes everything she says. I bet he trusts her. She's going to outsmart you. Again.”

My brain started to whir with a million questions for him. I was so revved up to interrogate him, I woke myself up.

Damn.

Why were we even trying to eat breakfast? We were all studying the entrance to the food court, waiting impatiently for Bertha.

“I really wish they had a kitchen here,” Nick said, spinning a bagel around like a toy on his finger. “I miss cooking. Cooking is life.”

“
Sex
is life,” Lacey corrected him. No one argued with her. She looked around at us all and figured out something
that should have been obvious by now. “Oh wow. You're all a bunch of virgins!” Again, no one argued with her. “You've got to be kidding me! You missed out on the best thing ever! Sex is like—”

“Bertha!” Nick shouted, and it made for a truly disturbing ending to Lacey's sentence. But there was Bertha standing two feet behind Lacey. Today's ensemble: plaid. Lots and lots of plaid. Enough said.

Nick rose, and we all followed him. “I think we're ready,” he said to Bertha.

“You may think so, but I disagree.” Bertha scowled at us. “The Boy has granted your wish to haunt.
Unfortunately
. When this is all over, I do hope you'll remember this warning: be careful what you wish for, for you will surely get it.”

We gulped into a collective silence as she led us to Bed Bath & Beyond. We couldn't speak because we weren't really together. No. We were each of us caught in our own thoughts, plans, and fears, and all those unanswered questions.

Bertha didn't speak again until we were all in the elevator. I looked around at us, and we all looked so young. There was a kind of purity in the space that took me by surprise.

“You can all stay together or not. That's entirely up to you,” Bertha instructed. “But. When the time is up, the time is up. Not five more minutes, not one more minute. At this time tomorrow, I'll collect you, and you're done.”

“We'll be here,” Nick assured her.

And with that, the elevator began to move. My insides felt all carbonated and jumpy. I wanted the elevator to move faster, faster, faster!

“I'm trying to help you,” Bertha said quietly, and I think she was aiming her words at me. “You don't have to resort to taking this kind of risk.”

It seemed like the right time to say something to Bertha. (Something kind.) But just then the doors opened and there we were. In the middle of Washington Square Park, in the middle of a freakishly too-warm late spring day. It was madly, insanely, ridiculously, unbelievably, crazily, too too extremely…beautiful. So beautiful. And let's be honest here, this wasn't even New York City's prettiest park. How was this even possible?

The greens and blues were so lush and intense, I tilted my head to one side, as if the colors were physically striking me. I smelled the flowers from the flower cart, and felt the breeze, and began to lean toward it all. For a moment I truly believed that this was a trick. It had to be some kind of afterlife magic/deception from Bertha. This wasn't really home, really New York, really the world, really life among the living. It was too amazing. Too vivid. Too astounding.

Was it this wondrous when I was alive? How could I have missed it?

The living swirled and danced and griped and laughed and stomped and ate and smoked and cried around us, through us, before us. We only had one day here but stayed frozen, except for blinking, for a long, long, long time.

Nick broke the silence.

“Look,” he said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Wow,” Lacey added.

Alice didn't speak at first. She was crying softly, almost gulping at the air. “Can we stop? And savor? Please?”

I turned around and realized that Bertha was gone. I hadn't heard the elevator close behind us. She wasn't there to tell us what fools we were or to remind us that we had such a painfully brief time here. I walked slowly toward the fountain.

The sky was absurdly, unrealistically blue, and the sun seemed a bit punishing for the living, shouting out a warning that summer would be brutal. I loved it. The sparkling gray fountain was being used today as a glorious kiddie wading pool. Half-naked toddlers splashed, crawled, swam (sort of), and dunked themselves into the cool oasis.

If Nick hadn't tugged at my arm, I might have stared at them all day.

“Hey,” he said. His voice sounded sweeter here, more musical. “Look over there.” He pointed east, and I squinted at a big gray cube of a building. “See that one? On Greene Street? That's where I lived—where I spent my whole life.”

“I lived over there.” I pointed west. I turned to him and put on my best let-me-state-the-obvious face. “We were so close together, but we never met,” I said. “Not once. Not until we died. And we know that we crossed paths. We were in the same space, but how often? And why didn't we meet? Why?”

“Don't let it shake you, Sarah.” He touched my chin, tipping my face up toward his. The sun and blue sky around his face were too much for me. And then his kiss sent me into a new realm of feeling. “It's only inexplicable,” he added.

There was a musician in a straw hat playing guitar near the big arch at the north end of the park. His sound took over and
commanded our attention. He was pretty good, covering pop tunes, converting them all into soulful ballads, and it worked. A small cluster of people watched, listened, and dropped the occasional dollar into his guitar case. There was a strawberry-blond little girl in the group, who looked to be about eight or nine years old, beaming with joy. She started singing along. She was pretty good, staying on key and in rhythm. The musician smiled as he played and urged her to take a bow when the song was done.

“Elizabeth Anne!” A harried mother yanked the girl by the arm. “Stop wandering off like that!” she cried, and rushed her out of the park; the little girl's strawberry-blond hair bounced in the breeze as she started a new song. Nick broke the spell for me.

“Guys! We have to snap out of this. We have a life to save!” he said.

“And I have an ass to kick,” Lacey added.

We walked, but it felt different from normal walking. We were sort of weightless. I daydreamed that we could have jumped to a treetop. I led our ghostly parade to my front door.

“Hi, Eduardo,” I said to the doorman. (Habit.) He didn't hear us, see us, or look up from his newspaper.

“Lacey? Can you press the elevator button for us?” I asked. She was the designated mover-of-objects, after all.

“I don't think we'll need that,” Nick said. “Look.” He passed through the door to the stairs and up he went. Yes, okay. Very nice. But I lived on the seventh floor. That's a lot of climbing.

Only we didn't have to climb. We semi-floated up, tied with a lot less gravity, almost like astronauts on the moon. Sorry to be such an obvious amateur. This was my first time being dead (as far as I knew). We reached the seventh floor with the ease of an untethered balloon. And there we were.

Home. I pushed my palm against the door, and felt that itchy presence of hard reality on my skin.

I breathed in, closed my eyes, and pressed forward, enduring the overall woolly itch for just a second.