The Ups and Downs of Being Dead (4 page)

Maggie drifted up the aisle until she came to a woman
holding a large shopping bag on her lap. Planting her feet apart, Maggie rubbed
her hands together, then flexed her fingers like she was about to play the
piano. She placed both her palms on the woman’s cheeks and actually let them
sink into her skin. For a few seconds, her hands worked the woman’s face like
she was kneading bread dough. Then she jerked away. The woman’s cheek twitched.

“Presto!” Maggie bowed at the waist.

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam said. “How do we know she wouldn’t have
twitched anyway?”

“That was kind of impressive,” Robert said.

As she sat back down, Maggie gave Sam a triumphant smirk.
“Who hasn’t caught a sudden movement out of the corner of their eye, and
credited it to a reflection or a shadow? And what about that itch between your
shoulder blades that you just can’t reach to scratch? Maybe it’s someone you
knew trying to get your attention.”

Once the bus reached the heart of the city, Maggie stood.
“Let’s practice some maneuvers, shall we?”

Sam got to his feet, gave a tiny wave with his fingers, and
simply vanished through the back of the bus.

Robert gasped. “What happened?”

“Oh, he’s just showing off.” Maggie motioned for Robert to
position himself in front of the back doors on the bus. Once he was in place,
Maggie told him to get off.

“Aren’t we going to wait for the driver to stop?”

“You can’t always depend on the bus or cab or train to stop
where you’re going. So you just get off when you want.”

Robert stared at the narrow bus doors. “Just pass through.”

“That’s right.”

He balked.

“Oh, what?” Maggie chuckled, “Are you afraid you might
scrape a knee, or get hit by a car?”

The niggling comment grated on Robert. He wondered if her
husband Joe really planned on coming back.

Unwilling to be intimidated, Robert closed his eyes and
charged forward. From behind, he heard the bus rumble away. He opened his eyes
and found himself floating above the street.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Maggie said.

“Piece of cake, eh Robert?” Sam said as he jogged up to him.
“Now let’s get back on.”

Because no one was waiting at the stop, the next bus didn’t
slow. Maggie and Robert stood out in the street, so that when the bus drove
through them, they would automatically be on board. Sam stayed on the sidewalk,
intending to finesse a side entry.

The bus passed through Maggie and Robert. As the seats
whizzed by, Robert watched Sam calmly step in from the side. But then the bus
kept right on going and Robert found himself outside the back of the bus. He
scowled as he watched it drive away.

Sam and Maggie slipped out to join him in the street.

“Don’t worry,” Maggie said. “We couldn’t do it the first
time either.”

“It’s kind of like those moving sidewalks at the airport,”
Sam explained. “It takes a little practice to get on and off.”

After Robert mastered boarding, and staying on a bus, they
moved on to high-rise buildings.

“I prefer to do things the same way I did when I was alive,”
Maggie told Robert as they walked into the lobby of a ten-story office
building. “So I ride the bus, I take the elevator if I can. It gives me a sense
of normalcy.”

“The problem is we can’t punch the elevator buttons,” Sam
said. “So depending on your level of patience, it’s usually easier to slip
through the elevator doors.”

“Or if you know where you’re going, you can go in and out
the window,” Maggie said.

A man in a nicely tailored suit waited at the elevator.
Robert scanned the tapered lines of the jacket, the professional tie, the
expensive shoes – probably Bruno Magli. Dressing like that for work was all
over for Robert. There would be no more crisp white shirts, no pouring over
ties, or buffing shoes. He was really going to miss slipping into a
newly-tailored jacket for the first time, and inspecting the lines in front of
the three-way mirror.

Who knew what men would be wearing when he came back in
seventy-five years. Dear God, he hoped it wasn’t some one-piece leotard, or a
shapeless white robe.

The man at the elevator paged through e-mails on his
i-Phone. Robert totally understood how moments in time, even thirty seconds
waiting for an elevator, were never wasted on idleness.

“Why so glum, Robert?” Maggie asked. “Does he remind you of
your former life?”

“He sure does,” Robert said. “I spent nearly every waking
hour on my business. Marketing, strategy meetings, business trips. What will I
do now?”

“Don’t worry,” Sam reassured him. “There’s so much to do,
you’ll never miss your job.”

“I doubt that,” Robert said.

Panic washed over Robert again. Seventy-five years, maybe a
hundred years of waiting, with nothing to do. No planes to catch, no conference
calls. It felt like he’d been sentenced to life in prison.

“I need a drink,” Robert moaned.

“Come on,” Maggie coaxed. “You’re taking this all wrong.”

“No, I’m not,” he said. “The only thing I’ve truly enjoyed
about my life was my business.”

“That doesn’t say much about your family,” Maggie scolded.

Slumping his shoulders, Robert stared at the numbers above
the elevator light up as the car descended.

“I just want to find the nearest bar and drink myself into a
stupor.”

“Getting sloshed never solved any problems.”

Funny, that was the very same thing he’d told Amanda, the
next time their paths crossed.

It was nearly a year after Sherry McClintock’s post party.
Robert had flown the red-eye into LaGuardia, and was nearly dozing in the
backseat of a cab when the driver growled. Robert glanced out the window to see
Amanda strut into some bar in Midtown. How pathetic, the way his heart had
strained like a dog on a leash, wanting just to be near the woman. He’d thought
of her a million times, even flipped through magazines on the off chance she
might be in an advertisement. But he’d never been able to track her down. And
then there she was. He’d swiveled around to get another look at her through the
back window of the cab.

He pounded the driver’s headrest and told him to stop, but
as soon as the cab drove away, Robert had second thoughts. Surely, Amanda was
meeting someone – a boyfriend? Other models? What if they all ridiculed him? He
tortured himself with worst-case scenarios, including a drink tossed in his
face, before he finally yanked the door open and walked in.

The bar wasn’t at all what he’d expected, no glitzy lights
or loud disco music. It’s only purpose was catering to drinkers, with a long
bar along one side and booths down the other. There wasn’t even a jukebox, just
a radio playing quietly beside the cash register.

That late at night, most of the barflies were slumped over
their drinks. A boozer near the front door slid off his stool and shuffled
toward Amanda, who was perched on her own stool midway down the bar. The guy
slowed when he got closer, but before he could even open his mouth, she
snapped, “Get the fuck away from me.”

She hadn’t even turned to see who it was. And she hadn’t
glanced hopefully toward the door when Robert walked in.

So maybe she wasn’t meeting anyone. More confused than
confident, Robert took a stool three seats away from her, noting the shot glass
clutched in her fingers. She tossed back the amber liquid like she was in a
drinking contest. Before the booze had time to hit her belly, she was signaling
for another.

Once the bartender refilled her glass, he sauntered down to
where Robert sat staring. Without taking his eyes off the woman, Robert ordered
a Dewar’s on the rocks. The smirk on the bartender’s face challenged Robert to
get farther than a “fuck you” from the bitch.

He downed half his drink for courage, then braced an elbow
on the bar and turned.

“You know,” he said, “this might not be the best place for a
lady to be seen drinking like that. Someone might get the wrong idea.”

Why had he thought she might find him gallant, or charming?

She stared straight ahead, checking him out in the filmy
mirror behind the booze bottles. When she spoke, it was a loud, bust-your-balls
brashness that everyone in the bar could hear.

“Why do men think they can start up a conversation with a
woman they’ve never met just because they’re in a bar?”

Robert kept his voice low and calm. “Actually, we have met.
Amanda Litrell – right?” He swirled his scotch across the ice cubes before
taking another sip. “I was at Sherry McClintock’s after-show party.”

The party certainly hadn’t been the social event of the
season. With her short-lived career as fashion designer in the toilet, Sherry
McClintock had scuttled off to Europe to fade into oblivion. But fade, she did
not. Instead, she fell in with a jet-setting crowd on the Riviera, met the emir
of some Middle Eastern country, and became the wife of one of the richest men
in the world. They were undoubtedly the most sought-after guests at the most
upscale events worldwide. And suddenly, people who boasted that they had
attended her one and only show were semi-celebrities.

With a slow turn of her head, Amanda looked down the bar at
Robert, her eyes in a lazy half-mast. One eyebrow cocked up. Did she think he
was lying?

Her voice dropped to conversational level. “And who are
you?”

“Robert Malone.” He gripped his glass, preparing for a
second humiliation. “I own the Audrey’s chain.”

As expected, she snorted, rather unladylike, and shot her
next Cuervo. “The king of cheap knock-offs. And what are you doing in New
York?” The tequila caught up with her and she wobbled on her stool. “Trolling
for more fashion ideas to rip off?”

Robert stood, stretching his chest up and out. Do or die
time. “Why don’t we move to a table where you’ll be more comfortable while you
insult me?”

Would she call him a gnome again? Was that when he’d get the
drink in the face? Actually, she didn’t have a drink at the moment. He hid his
fear behind a slight smile.

“How did you ever come up with a name like Audrey’s anyway?”
She staggered off her bar stool. “Seems like Robert’s Discount Mart would have
been more appropriate.”

She careened across the aisle and tumbled into a booth. Ever
the gentleman, he blocked the view of her voluptuous bottom as she struggled to
right herself.

“My mother adored Audrey Hepburn,” Robert said once he slid
into the booth across from her. “Unfortunately, the stores in our small town
didn’t offer the kind of fashions my mother wanted. Neither did the Sears
catalog.”

Amanda sneered. “Maybe the pages with the good stuff were in
the outhouse.”

Robert leaned back and relaxed. The woman was a viper, no
doubt about it, but he realized her insults were meant to hide her own insecurities.
He took a moment to drink in the gold lame camisole with the cowl neckline that
displayed her magnificent breasts; the flecks of purple in her cloisonné
bracelet that complimented her fuchsia mini-skirt; her blond hair pulled into a
tangled twist like she’d just been wrangling in the back seat of a car.

“So, tell me,” Robert said. “When you headed out this
evening in that divine creation, were you intent on castrating the first man
you saw, or is this a spur-of-the-moment thing just for me?”

“Are you always this sleazy?”

Robert laughed. “Why am I sleazy? Because I think you’re
gorgeous?”

“No, because you’re trying so hard to pick me up. You sound
like every other barfly.”

“Actually, I’m too busy, and too tired, to spend time
hanging out in bars.” He turned to the bartender who was gaping at them as he
rubbed circles on the bar with a rag. “Coffee?”

The guy nodded and gave Robert a lurid wink. Thank God
Amanda missed it.

“Then what are you doing here?” she asked.

Robert leaned forward and folded his hands on the table.
“The truth? I was on my way to my hotel when I saw you. And I couldn’t believe
my good fortune at running across you again. I guess I’m a glutton for
punishment.”

The bartender set two cups of coffee down, then pulled his
bar rag out of his apron and took a swipe at the table, hoping to catch some of
the conversation. Amanda did not oblige. She sat staring into her mug until he
left. Then she raised her head and Robert saw big tears pooling in her eyes.

“You remembered me from a year ago?” she whispered.

“Are you kidding? How could any man forget you?”

A renegade tear broke free and she quickly sopped it up with
the corner of her cocktail napkin. Then she clenched her jaw. “Stop being nice
to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I just got treated like a piece of shit, and I’m
not in the mood for some twerp like you trying to put the moves on me.”

Robert blew the steam off his coffee before he took a sip.
“What happened?”

Her lips clamped tight to keep from trembling as she
searched Robert’s face. What could she possibly be afraid of? That he might
mock her?

She inhaled deeply and blew out the breath. “I couldn’t get
into Studio 54.”

“What’s that? A talent agency?”

The laugh she blurted out turned into a sob. “Where have you
been? It’s like the hottest disco in Manhattan. In the
world
.”

“Ah.” He nodded as if he understood. “And you didn’t have a
reservation.”

Again with the look of horror, the bitter attempt at a
laugh. “You are such a moron. There’s no such thing as reservations. You wait
in line for hours, and if the cretin at the door thinks he can hook up with you
later in the bathrooms, he’ll let you in.”

“But you weren’t sending those kind of vibes…”

“He let my friends Christy and Angela in. Then he clipped
that fucking velvet rope shut right in front of me. Excluded me but not my
friends!”