Heavy footsteps
clomped up the stairs, and Justin burst in, fingers curling around the door
jamb. “What? What’s wrong?” he huffed and puffed.
Eyes open again,
Isabelle clucked her tongue. “You’re out of shape, binky. You should be down
there jogging with the other flabs.”
“And you should
still be at the hospital with the other clichéd actresses,” he retorted.
She grinned at
him. “Touché.” Friends for too many years, they never took offense at the mild
insults. “Be a good boy now, Justin. Go away and take your hubby with you. My
head hurts, and I want to curl up and feel sorry for myself for a while.”
His face
contorted with concern, and all sarcasm fled. “You need anything, sweetie?”
Yeah, a
do-over on my life
. She
bit back the thought and shook her head. “Just some sleep. And Justin?”
He leaned into
the room. “Yeah?”
“Thanks. You,
too, Tony. I don’t know where I’d be without you guys.”
Brushing his
fingers against his lips, he blew her a kiss. “Love you, baby.”
“I love you,
too.” She closed her eyes and relaxed against the pillow, in search of
oblivion.
We invade
their dreams.
Sean stared at
the image on his clipboard. In another time and place, Isabelle slept,
dreamless and peaceful, a slight smile on her lips. What the hell was he
supposed to do with her?
“For shit’s
sake,” Xavia muttered as she sashayed past his desk. “This isn’t rocket
science. Just find a way to give her hope. Show her chocolate and coffee
waterfalls, rose petal rain, or fireworks that spell her name. Use her love for
her friends, if you have to. Whatever it takes to get the job done.” Without
giving him a chance to reply, she left the office through a rear door.
“Helpful,” he
replied to the closing door. “Thanks.”
Confusion
muddled his thinking, and he glanced around the room. Every other probation
offer sat engrossed in his own caseload.
Sean took a deep
breath. Okay. He could do this. With his gaze focused on the image of the
sleeping woman on his board, he projected his thoughts into her mind.
“Hey, Belle,” he
said, using the nickname he’d heard both Tony and Justin use.
“Mmm…?” She
rolled over, eyes still closed, but expression engaged—as if he sat at her
bedside and talked to her while she lingered in that place between sleep and
awareness.
And we’re
off. Now what?
How
should he play this? Concerned friend? She already had Justin and Tony in those
roles. Disappointed parental figure? He supposed he could let her take the
lead. See how she reacted to his intrusion. In the meantime, he might as well
go straight to the heart of the matter. “I want you to listen to me, okay?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Closing his
eyes, he focused on Isabelle in her bed in the beach house. “You can’t kill
yourself. Trust me when I tell you, suicide isn’t the answer.”
The sound of
gulls squawking forced his eyes open. Don’t ask him how it happened, but he
found himself, dressed in a short-sleeved Hawaiian style shirt in blue and
white, with lightweight khaki pants, sitting on a park bench near a sugar sand
beach. Sea air danced on his tongue, the sun warmed his face, and the whoosh of
the waves whispered in his ears. His senses went into overload. Even when he
was a bounty hunter, he’d never experienced such realism.
Her dream. He’d
landed in Isabelle’s dream.
She sat beside
him in a jungle print maxi dress with vivid green fronds and red bougainvillea
splashed across the fabric. A wide-brimmed straw hat with dark green ribbon
around the crown shielded her delicate skin from the brutal sun. The scent of
her skin—warm, powdery, with an undercurrent of coconut—tickled his nostrils.
She sighed and
leaned closer to him, and he would’ve sworn he was made of flesh and bone when
she snuggled against him. “You have no idea what I’m facing.”
“Yeah, I do.” He
ran a finger over the inside of her wrist and felt her pulse jump beneath his
touch. How was this possible? He’d gone from a vaporous form at a desk in the
Afterlife to solid human in Malibu, simply by closing his eyes. “And I promise
to stay with you ‘til the end. Anytime you need me, call me, and I’ll come to
you.”
“Can you take
the tumor away?”
Regret stung
him, and he hesitated, scrambling to say something appropriate. Nothing came to
mind.
She smirked.
“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.”
“The truth is, I
don’t know. I’m new at this. But if there’s any way I can, I promise I will.”
“Great.” Sarcasm
dripped from her pink glossy lips. “Figures I get the rookie. I’ve been getting
the shitty end of the stick since I was born. I suppose I should be used to it
by now.” She tilted her head back and inhaled deeply. “Life sucks.”
“Yeah,” he
agreed. “But death sucks more.”
“Ya think?”
“I
know
.”
“How’d you die,
Sean?”
Her use of his
name startled him, but no more so than the fact she knew he was dead. Why
didn’t the idea freak her out? What kind of dreams did she normally have that
discussing suicide with a dead man garnered so little reaction?
“Well?” she
prompted. “What is it, some big international secret? How’d you die?”
He mimed the gun
in his mouth and made an explosion sound.
Her honey brown
eyes widened. “Wow.”
“Don’t be
impressed. It wasn’t my best moment.”
“I
am
impressed. It took a lot of guts to do that.”
“It takes more
guts to stay alive and ride out the bad times.” He squeezed her fingers.
“That’s why I don’t want to see you make my mistake.”
She shrugged.
“My situation is probably a lot different than yours. I mean, it’s not like if
I hang in there, things are going to get better for me.”
“You don’t know
that. Anything can happen. They might find a way to stop the malignancy from
spreading any farther.”
“Yeah, right.”
Her doubts sharpened the soft sea breeze. “And Joss Whedon’s gonna call me to
star in his new movie.”
He cocked his
head. “Joss who?”
“How long have
you been dead?” She quirked an eyebrow at him, a look of speculation on her
face.
“I don’t really
know,” he admitted with a frown. “Time doesn’t exist on the other side. But I
committed suicide in the Earth year, 1982.”
“I was in
preschool back then.”
And didn’t that
make him feel ancient?
Pushing up the
brim of her hat, she tilted her head to scrutinize him from a new angle. “How
come I can’t see where you…?” Pink roses bloomed in her cheeks as she
hesitated. “…you know.” She mimed the pistol in her mouth and even made the
same explosion sound he had.
“Ah.” Despite
the shame, he smiled. “It’s umm…complicated.”
“So…what? I’m an
idiot? I think I’m handling everything pretty good so far, don’t you? I mean,
I’m sitting here talking to a dead guy. A guy who’s been dead for decades. I
bet you never even saw an iPod, did you? Or a cell phone?”
“An…eye-pod?
What’s that?”
She giggled, a
sound that warmed his human insides. That, in itself, confused the hell out of
him. “I rest my case.”
A seagull
swooped and landed near their feet, beady eye glaring with undisguised umbrage.
Sean waved his arms, and the winged scavenger took flight to perch on the rail
separating the boardwalk from the sandy beach below. Weird. In his bounty
hunting days, only other phantoms could see him. Oh, sure he could make a cat
raise its fur or a dog growl, but birds, like humans, never noticed him.
“You didn’t
answer my question,” she said, refocusing his attention. “How come you look so
normal?”
“It’s a perk in
the Afterlife. You can manipulate your features to look the way you looked in
your prime of life on Earth, no matter what age you were and what condition
your body was in when you died.”
“Cool. I guess
that means everyone’s pretty good-looking, huh? Like a Beverly Hills for the
dead. No crooked noses or too many freckles or freaky scars, huh?”
Only one soul he
knew bore scars in the Afterlife: Jodie. Her scars, a souvenir from burns she’d
suffered in her earthly childhood, had given her courage when she faltered or
lost faith in herself. Luc—perfectionist to the max—never understood her
obsession with keeping her flaws when she could so easily erase them. One of
their misunderstandings that eventually led to their mutual destruction...
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh?” He jerked
his head in her direction.
“You got all
stiff and angry just now. Why?”
“Just thinking
about someone I lost.”
“Oh.” She stood,
allowing her skirt to slink down her slender form. “I should wake up now, or I
won’t fall asleep tonight.” As she strode away, she craned her neck to frown at
him over her shoulder. “Will I see you again?”
“If it’s okay
with you, yes.”
“Good. Tonight,
let’s go out to dinner. You buy.”
She tossed him a
saucy wink, and he laughed. The swish of her hips as she walked away
rejuvenated parts of his anatomy he thought long-dead. Maybe this Probation gig
wouldn’t be so bad after all. Yeah, sure, his boss had a bug up her ass, but if
working with Isabelle meant spending time listening to her laugh and feeling
her touch, the positives far outweighed the negatives.
When he blinked,
he sat at his cubicle in the Afterlife, the clipboard displaying a grinning
Isabelle as she rolled over in the Barbie bed. Stretching her arms wide, she
woke.
~~~~
Isabelle stared
up at the silken canopy. What a weird-ass dream. Probably some leftover side
effect from the thirty barbiturates she’d swallowed.
Flipping off the
covers, she clucked her tongue. She did like the dress she wore in the dream.
She wondered if she could find its twin in real life. Maybe, as long as she had
to stay here anyway, she’d haunt a few local boutiques. See if she could buy a
dress like that one.
Thinking about
haunting reminded her of that man. Sean. Too bad
he
wasn’t real. She
could use someone like him around her these days. Someone who didn’t judge her,
but showed his concern with every word, and his strength in every touch. Her
phantom conscience. Pinocchio had Jiminy Cricket; she had a dead guy with
soulful eyes named Sean.
Outside her
balcony, the salmon-colored sun sank into the Pacific. Sunset.
Jeez, she’d been
out cold for a good three hours! How had that happened? Did the sea air and
nautical decor give her some kind of peace after all? Something else she had
trouble finding in smoggy L.A.? Because she couldn’t remember the last time
she’d slept so well.
In the silence
of her room, her stomach’s sudden gurgle blared a fanfare, and she placed a
palm flat against her abdomen. Bubbles fluttered through her flesh. No pain
now. She was hungry. Go figure. Who would’ve thought, with all the abuse she’d
suffered at the hospital, she’d regain her appetite after a nap? Too bad she
couldn’t count on Sean to make good on his promise to buy dinner. That was the
problem with dreams and dead people. Both were totally unreliable.
Finding her robe
on the chair in the corner, she slipped her arms into the satin sleeves and
wrapped herself in sleek comfort. She headed out of the bedroom and downstairs,
reaching the first landing before Tony spotted her.
“What are you
doing out of bed?” He stood on the first floor, fists planted on his beefy
hips, a frown etched on his scruffy face.
“I’m hungry.”
The frown
flipped to a hopeful grin. “You are? Really? That’s great.” He leaned into the
hall that led to the kitchen area. “You hear that, Justin? Our girl is hungry.”
“Dinner will be
ready in ten minutes,” Justin called out. “I’ll bring you up a tray.”
“I’d rather
rejoin the living, if that’s okay with you,” she called back as she descended
to the first floor.
“Good for you.”
Tony winked at her. When she reached him, he pulled her into a bear hug and
whispered, “I threw out my Marlboros, too.”
She squeezed his
waist. “Good for
you
. And Justin.”
“We’ll see.”
Releasing her, he crossed his fingers. “So long as I have you to keep me
honest.” He flipped his hand to raise a solo pinky. “Secrets for life. Solemn
oath?”
Secrets for
life. Her heart cracked. How quickly would he reach for a cigarette when he
learned her body lay cold and lifeless? She shivered.
Tony cuddled her
close again. “You sure you’re strong enough to be down here?”
“Uh-huh. I need
distraction,” she admitted. “If I stay upstairs with nothing but my own stupid
thoughts…” No need for him to know where those thoughts might lead.
“Fair enough.”
He drew her forward. “Come sit in the den. You can watch television while you
eat. God knows, the idiot box always distracts me.”
She allowed him to
lead her into the rear of the house where amber light spilled from patina-aged
torchiere lamps decorated with Cupids. If her bedroom was the Barbie beach
house, this den, with ornate antique furniture, pumpkin-striped wallpaper, and
the sting of mothballs from the corner closet screamed, “Grandma’s bordello.”
While she settled on the lumpy, satin-covered lounge chair, Tony picked up the
remote control from a marble-topped round table and clicked the power button.
The big-screen television, incongruous among the gilt and mahogany, sang to
life, smearing a rainbow of pastel colors over the patterned walls. The
familiar jingle for an entertainment news show erupted from the ceiling-mounted
speakers, and Tony flicked the channel away.
“No.” She held
up a hand. “Go back.”
“No,” Justin
shouted. She turned to see him in the doorway, a tray filled with
sterling-lidded dishes in his hands. His frown plunged the room’s temperature
to arctic levels. “I won’t have that poison in this house.”