Xmas Spirit (15 page)

Things were becoming clearer to him. Petula sidled up seductively.

“Just like old times, huh?” Pam observed.

“Damen, sweetheart, somebody needs to take the fall.”

“It’s not going to be me!” Damen said.

“Yes, it is.” Wendy A. shrugged apologetically. “See, we used
your
computer.”

Damen’s face drooped.

“You set me up.”

“Out of love,” Petula cooed sweetly.

“For who?” Damen said, disgusted.

“Who else? Me.”

“We’ve even designed a special set of
VOTE PETULA
handcuffs for you,” Wendy Thomas said, proudly handing him the restraints emblazoned with the slogan and a smiley-face icon. “I knew you’d appreciate us taking advantage of all the media scrutiny that is sure to come our way.”

“You’re welcome,” Wendy A. said.

Damen just glared, too numb even to register anger or disappointment.

“You know how important this whole public service thing is to me,” Petula rationalized. “I’ve put off having a family and everything. I need deniability.”

“So this is why you asked me to freeze my sperm last week?”

“Listen, once I’m elected to Senate, I will immediately announce my presidential bid,” Petula explained. “You will definitely be out of prison in plenty of time to still be my First Lady.”

“The sympathy vote will be a huge fund-raising tool,” Wendy A. advised.

“Single mom, wife of a convicted felon, presidential
candidate,” Wendy T. theorized. “It’s so meta. The press won’t be able to resist.”

“What about me? My reputation? My life?”

“The public is very forgiving,” Wendy A. added.

“Besides, redemption stories poll really well,” Wendy T. confirmed. “We checked.”

“President?” Charlotte whispered.

“It’s the Petulapocalypse,” Pam said, and winced.

“I’ve seen enough.”

“No, you haven’t,” Pam warned, spiriting Charlotte away again as tiny gold stars fell around them, enveloping them.

Charlotte looked behind her and found herself on the edge of a craggy cliff, looking out at an endless sea. Pam called her attention to a lone house, set into the side of a hill, without a neighbor in view. A single light, the star atop a Christmas tree, was visible in a darkened room through the panoramic windows.

“Peaceful,” Charlotte observed.

“And desolate,” Pam added.

Charlotte and Pam came in for a closer look as sheets of noise emanating from the house shredded the serenity. Scarlet, seated on a long, black, carved-wood eighteenth-century couch, strummed away at her electric guitar, improvising a mournful noise-pop rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

“Can I talk to her?”

Pam just shook her head no.

“I knew it,” Charlotte said, admiring the girl and her surroundings. “She made it! Look at this place!”

“Yes,” Pam said. “Look at it.”

Apart from some music awards that lined the shelves and platinum albums hung on the walls, there was nothing. No personal photographs of friends or family, no phone ringing, no Christmas cards scattered around, no gifts beneath the tree. Just Scarlet and her guitar on the couch.

“From now on our troubles will be miles away.”

Scarlet sang, and Charlotte joined in. Pam’s piccolo accompanied them.

“Another lonely Christmas,” Scarlet said, reaching for a nearly empty wineglass standing on the coffee table in front of her, raising it in a toast, and bringing it to her lips.

“Depressing,” Pam said.

“I don’t get it,” Charlotte said. “She’s got everything. Beauty.
Talent. Fame. Money.”

“Everything but friends. Everything but love,” Pam replied. “Those were the things
you
brought her.”

“Did I?”

Pam was silent.

“I’m tired,” Charlotte said. “Can I go home now?”

“We have just one more stop.”

The glimmering Pacific coast sunset gave way to the chilly New England night.

“The cemetery? Why here?” Charlotte wondered aloud. “What about my future?”

“This
is
your future,” Pam said, “At least it should be.”

Charlotte walked by headstone after headstone, the grim trek sparking a memory.

“Did you know that Scarlet raised money and had the most beautiful monument made for me?” Charlotte said. “It was right over—”

“Not anymore,” Pam interrupted.

The space where her beautiful bust once stood was empty. Charlotte resisted the thoughts flooding her brain.

“It
was
my future. I’m not dead.”

“True, but
they
are,” Pam said.

The wind blew furiously and the fallen leaves took flight, branches from the trees began to tremble.

Charlotte gasped as headstones from row after row of Dead Ed kids grew to the height of the trees and surrounded her.
JERRY. SALLY. MIKE. DJ. VIOLET. KIM. SUZY. MARY. COCO. RITA. BIANCA. GARY. PRUE. VIRGINIA
 . . . and finally,
ERIC
. All their names and dates of birth and death were carved deeply into the cold gray snow-covered marble slabs.

“Remember them?”

Charlotte didn’t answer.

“Well, they remember you, Charlotte,” Pam continued.

She conjured a vision of Dead Ed for Charlotte as the headstones transformed into figures of her classmates, seated, grim-faced, and suffering their personal torments, classroom full, all except for a single seat at the back.

“Why are they crying?”

“There is no hope for them. No one to ease the pain of a shortened life.”

“What are they waiting for?” Charlotte asked.

“For someone to fill the seat. To make their deaths more bearable. To help them cross over.”

Pam could clearly see that Charlotte was moved.

“Things don’t have to end up this way. For Damen, for Scarlet, for them. There is still time to change. The choice is yours.”

Pam was hoping she’d gotten through, but Charlotte was still clinging stubbornly to life.

“What about their choice? Why is all this up to me? Why do I have to sacrifice my life to help them?”

“You made a decision for them.”

“I made a wish for
myself
.”

“In the end, we are all tied together, Charlotte. You need to move on with your death!”

“Well then, as the preacher says, till death do us part,” Charlotte griped. “I guess this is where we go our separate ways.”

Pam was out of visions and ideas. All she had left was an emotional plea.

“Don’t you remember that first day in the intake office? How afraid you were, alone. And who was there for you? I was. Through all of it, Charlotte. How could you forget all that?”

Charlotte was rifling through her mental file as Pam spoke. She seemed to be trying to attach Pam’s words to her own recollections. Unsuccessfully.

“Teen Alzheimer’s?”

Pam wasn’t in a joking mood.

“Don’t you care about us? Isn’t there any part of you that misses us? That loves us?”

“So, is this a trip to the future or a guilt trip?” Charlotte asked. “I thought ghosts were supposed to be scary, not whiny.”

“What about Eric?”

His name had a ring of familiarity to it. Charlotte tensed up and then went suddenly blank.

“There are other fish in the sea.”

“You are breaking my heart, Charlotte,” Pam whispered. “If I could still cry, I’d never stop.”

“I’m sorry.” Charlotte paused, reaching tentatively for the shadow and struggling to recall her name. “Pam?”

“Me too.”

“Don’t be sad. You’re immortal now, right? No more pain, no more suffering. Just an eternity of . . .”

“Yeah, that’s right. Just an eternity.”

“Take care,” Charlotte said sympathetically. “If it makes sense to say that to someone who’s already dead.”

“You too, Charlotte,” Pam replied, glittering stars falling all around her one last time before she disappeared into them. “Remember the future.”

12
Slay Ride

Season’s Needings

At Christmas, we often dream of things we really want but not the things we need. Love, respect, and understanding can easily take second place to the latest gadget or gemstone, leaving us richer in things but not in spirit. Is it a little piece or a little peace that we are truly after? As we put our lists together, it might be worthwhile to take a closer look at what we put at the top.

Petula arrived at the funeral home early.
She wasn’t used to being the first on the scene, but she felt obliged, it being Christmas Eve and, more important, it pretty much being a fund-raiser in her honor. She loved secrets, except ones that were kept from her, and she took a certain amount of pride in having dug this one out of Damen, and now she even was early enough to have some input on the event itself.

Petula spied an employee salting and shoveling the sidewalks near the front entrance and approached him.

“Who runs this meat locker?”

The man pointed up the sidewalk at the front door and the red-suited figure standing in it.

“Is there a golf cart or limo or something that can drive me there?” Petula ordered.

“It’s just a few yards, miss.” The man shrugged.

“Can’t you put your jacket down or something for me to walk on?” Petula complained. “These heels cost a fortune, and I won’t be able to return them if the soles are ruined.”

The man took off his threadbare parka in the freezing cold and laid it down, dragging it along a few feet at a time for Petula to step upon as she made the brief journey. Petula was moved by the act of fealty and felt it required some sort of acknowledgment on her part.

“Well, José Feliciano, or whatever you people say to each other at Christmas.”

“You mean Feliz Navidad?”

“Rude! I was just trying to be nice. I don’t speak Spanish.”

“Neither do I,” he said, returning to his chores.

Exasperated, Petula trudged off to vent at the showroom Santa. In the cold dusk, all Mr. Wormsmoth could discern was a determined figure, silhouetted by billows of swirling breath rising on the frigid breeze, coming closer and closer, like an angry fairy-tale dragon from some ancient Norse legend. A glamorous one, no less. Sharp nails, big teeth, and a long mane of hair coming right for him.

“Welcome, miss. I’m Wormsmoth. Can I help you?”

“Is this where my Christmas party will be?” she puffed.

“Party?” he said, confused, reaching out his hand. “You mean burial.”

Petula recoiled at his suggestion.

“Oh no, you have me confused with The Wendys.”

“Well, you all look the same to me,” he said. “It’s just my line of work, you understand. You tend not to look too closely
at the face. No offense.”

“None taken,” she said. “I don’t let very many people look at me directly either.”

“Speaking of which,” he said. “Would you like to see the caskets?”

“A sneak preview? Love it.”

Wormsmoth escorted her into a viewing room where sat two life-sized, oblong boxes, constructed completely of glass. The casket bottoms were each fitted with a frilly liner and pillow, which looked like it should get more points for style than comfort.

“You should call your line of coffins Fashionably Late,” Petula suggested as she walked over to the first coffin and gently stepped along the perimeter, her fingers sliding along the edge. This was her childhood fantasy, sans the death part of course. To be seen, displayed, presented like some sort of sleeping beauty was a fate devoutly to be wished. Still, the primary purpose for these coffins was inescapable. As rapidly as it had turned her on, it turned her off. She imagined herself pickled, floating in a jar, bloated, and then shriveled and nasty-looking for all to see forever. A lab experiment gone awry.