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Authors: Martha Brockenbrough

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BOOK: Devine Intervention
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I felt fully exhausted all of a sudden. “A life like my pop's was gonna be as good as I could get — and probably not even that much on account of I could never live up to his way of doing things. Guy couldn't even stand being around me.”

“You don't really believe all that, do you? Your dad loved you.”

“Nope,” I said. “Trust me, there wasn't a lot to love. I usually made a mess of things.”

“All parents love their kids. It's a rule.”

“Maybe in your world. But in mine, no way. I was watching him once when you were taking a nap. He was at work, talking with his buddies, who were all going on about the dumb stuff their kids had done. His supervisor was all, ‘But your boy, he kind of won on that score, right? No offense or anything.'

“My dad got this look on his face, the one he used to get when I'd flask up really bad, where it looked like he was two parts shocked, three parts disappointed, and one part like he wanted to punch someone. And he said, ‘Yeah, guess so. Shoulda probably put “took him long enough” on his grave, right?' I shooped out of there real fast after that. Haven't watched him since.”

Heidi's mouth hung open a little bit, and I tried not to stare at her lips. There was something about the way the train lights hit that top part of her lip, the part where it dipped under her nose. It was the perfect shape. I'd never noticed it before. I touched that part of my own mouth, just to see if mine matched, but I couldn't tell.

Even though I don't drink earthly stuff anymore, all that talking made me wish I had something from my lobby vending machine to wash the taste of the words away, like a Sermon on the Mountain Dew, only I couldn't take Heidi with and there was no way I could leave her alone anywhere, not with Howard on the prowl.

We leaned against each other for a while, just listening to the wheels against the track. The sound was a lot bigger than what I imagined it would be when I was a kid and still allowed near Pop's model trains. It wasn't something that was just in your ears. It went all the way through you.

“So, rehab,” she said. “Don't take this the wrong way, but why haven't you gotten out? Does rehab go on forever?”

I should've expected that she'd ask that. I'd wondered it fifty or a thousand times myself, but there wasn't a good answer, so I was all, “Duh, because you would've missed me too much.”

I sort of punched her again on the arm, and that's when I realized that was the opposite of true. I would've missed her. Completely. Her face did that thing where it turned red all the way out to her ears. “What about girls in rehab?”

I cracked up again. “You've seen me, right? I have an arrow sticking out of my forehead. I've seen the kind of guy girls like. Ones like the stupid vampire doll you got Megan. I am not that kind of guy. I am the guy who hands the socket wrench to the guy who fixes the Volvo
that
guy drives.”

She got a puzzled look on her face and then she was all, “Uh, that's not what I meant.”

Chevy. Of course it wasn't. I messed with the cracked button on the cuff of my jacket. That button would always be broken, no matter what.

“Nope,” I said. “No girls in rehab. Not in our section anyway.”

“So they probably wouldn't take me, even if I had nowhere else to go,” she said. She was quiet for a while and opened her mouth a couple of times without saying anything. Then, right before I made fun of her for looking like a fish face, she dropped the bomb, a quiet one, but the words exploded all through me.

“Why didn't you tell me any of this stuff before, Jerome?”

“This stuff?”

“You know, about rehab. About the afterlife. About dying and what it was like. You just took up space in my head —”

“You never said you minded.”

“I thought you weren't
real
,” she said. “I thought I was crazy.”

I didn't know what to say to that, and the look on her face gave me a prickly feeling. It crossed my mind I could sing “Freebird” or something to remind her of some of the good parts of me being with her, but before I got a chance, her eyes went
woop!
and got all wide, and her body started to flicker again worse than it had before. She called my name and I reached for her hand. It felt all full of static like a balloon you've rubbed on your head, and I held on tighter, hoping that I wasn't hurting her.

“You're okay,” I said. I looked in her eyes, but they didn't look all that okay, and I hoped that was the kind of lie that wouldn't count against me when the end came. “Just hang on. We're going to shoop to Megan's
house. Maybe you can Commune with her, like a best friend thing.”

I didn't actually think that was gonna work, but I didn't know what else to do. Something was messed up, big-time, and I didn't know how to fix it and could only hope I wasn't gonna make it worse. The second she turned solid and warm again under my hands, I closed my eyes and took us there, hoping she'd survive the trip.

Appendix F: The Problem of Dislocated and/or Lost Souls

Although Heaven is highly organized, it is also fantastically busy. Every twelve seconds, a human dies and must be evaluated for placement in Heaven itself, in a rehabilitation program, or in one of Hell's nine rings. And this doesn't account for the activity in our wholly owned subsidiaries, Pet Heaven and General Animal Heaven, where creature souls by the billions flow in.

On occasion, a soul isn't processed quickly enough, or belongs to a toddler or small child who's unable to wait in line. On
very rare
occasions, souls split free from their vessels while the vessel still lives. This can happen when a soul is, for whatever reason, not adequately connected to its body. Any number of things can cause this: drug abuse, ennui, even an accident in which the body is revived after the soul completes its journey through the tunnel of light.

If you should happen to find a dislocated soul, it is your duty to return it to your counselor, and quickly. Without protection from an earthly body or an officially recognized heavenly dimension, a soul will dissipate into the universe and be reabsorbed, never again to manifest consciousness. Soul dissipation generally occurs within twenty-four hours of corporeal separation, depending on the resilience and capacity for desire of the soul.

Your counselor has all the knowledge necessary to (a) restore a soul to its body or (b) direct it to its proper eternal destination. Your counselor is also monitoring you at all times and will be aware if harm befalls your ward. Your counselor is not allowed to intervene, however, as the ultimate disposition of your soul depends on the benevolent exercise of your free will.
5

 

5
In other words, you're allowed to make your own mistakes, and if you do, you're going to go to Hell. Could we speak any more plainly?

Chapter 1, Subsection ii:

The Ten Commandments for the Dead

I. THOU SHALT NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT BEING DEAD.

II. THOU SHALT NOT ENGAGE IN DISCOURSE WITH THE LIVING.

III. THOU SHALT GIVE UP EARTHLY ATTACHMENTS.

IV. THOU SHALT HONOR THINE HEAVENLY ADVISORS.

V. THOU SHALT NOT COVET THE FOOD OR THE DRINK OF THE LIVING.

VI. THOU SHALT NOT LIE.

VII. THOU SHALT NOT UNDERMINE THE DIGNITY OF THE LIVING.

T
HE NEXT THING
Heidi knew, they were standing in front of Megan's house. She pressed her hands against her face, hoping to push the fog out of her head.

“Aren't you going to go in?” Jerome sounded antsy. She lowered her hands, trying to make eye contact.

“What just happened? I felt like my whole body was starting to, I don't know, vanish.”

“Really?” Jerome said. He turned her toward the front door, nudging her through it. “You looked totally fine to me. Let's go talk to Megan already.”

Heidi felt uneasy entering Megan's house without knocking. Mrs. Lin had always told her to make herself comfortable, but she might as well have been saying “Go roller-skate with a giraffe on the patio.” Heidi had wished for the power to make herself invisible more than once in her presence, especially when Mrs. Lin had her home leg-waxing kit going.

“It's just sugar and lemon juice cooked on the stove!” Mrs. Lin would say, slathering her legs in goo. “If you don't mind a little leg hair, you can eat the stuff!”

Heidi's great fear had been that someday Mrs. Lin would wax her legs and make her eat the peelings. The thought made her uncomfortable on every level, and maybe even on levels she wasn't aware she had. Heidi didn't touch her own legs all that often if she could help it. Instead, she preferred to treat her body as if it were a distant relative, one she'd acknowledge politely on holidays.

With a jolt, Heidi remembered something Mrs. Lin said about the leg waxing: “Someday, Heidi,” she grunted, ripping a strip of hairy wax from her shin, “someday, you will join in the fun of this life. I have psychic gifts and I see your soul, and it is hungry enough to eat the sugar and lemon juice, even with the hair.”

Heidi couldn't imagine ever being that hungry. Even now.

“You comin'?” Jerome said. He jerked his thumb toward Megan's room.

“How'd you know — wait — you watched me here too?”

“Rehab guardian angel. My job. But don't worry. You didn't do anything too embarrassing. Usually.”

As if. Megan's house was an epicenter of personal embarrassment, ranging from middle school kissing practice to things Heidi didn't even want to review in her own memory. Her face blazed and she put her hand over her mouth.

Jerome leaned against Megan's door. “Yeah, about that. When you do actually kiss a boy, go easy on the
ChapStick. We don't want to feel like we've been eating ham. Not that ham isn't really good —”

Something awakened inside her, buzzing her head and heating her skin. She recognized the feeling: anger, the first she'd felt of it in ages. Here she thought she'd been crazy, but instead, Jerome was watching her — judging her — even when she was doing things that were supposed to be private. The closeness she felt to him on the train evaporated.

“Shut up, Jerome. Just shut up and leave me alone with Megan.”

She stood there, momentarily stunned that she'd actually said something like that. She never told people to shut up. She hated conflict, avoiding it even more than she avoided Mrs. Lin's wackadamia-nut grooming rituals. Still, a small part of her felt free. Maybe it was something to do with being outside of her body at last.

She closed her eyes and passed through Megan's door, ignoring Jerome as he followed her into the room. Megan had fallen asleep with the light on, and her jeans and sweater lay in piles on the floor. That was unlike her. Megan was an extreme folder. She'd even bought a scored blue plastic sheet on an infomercial so she could get her T-shirts the same size for stacking, which she used religiously until she discovered a better method of folding in a Japanese video online. She'd converted all her fellow employees at the Gap to it, until she quit that job so she might dedicate herself more fully to honing her psychic abilities, something her mom was certain would get her
into college. Heidi thought it was crazy but didn't feel entitled to be particularly judgmental on that score.

“Megan?” Heidi whispered into her ear, hoping to rouse her gently.

Megan stirred and rolled onto her back. She flung one arm over her head. Her eyes were puffy, her skin raw. She'd been crying, which was oddly satisfying. Still, Heidi wanted her to wake up and she didn't, and the frustration of it made her start tearing up again in front of Jerome. She wiped her eyes hard, as though she could push the tears back inside.

“Megan!” she said, louder this time. Nothing happened.

Jerome stepped forward, licked his finger, and stuck it in Megan's ear. Then he bent and whispered something. Megan's short lashes fluttered. She opened her eyes and sat up. Her blanket, which had been pulled up to her shoulders, slipped down.

Great.
She'd gone to bed topless. One more opportunity for a Jerome privacy invasion. “Megan! Cover up!” Heidi yelled, but Megan didn't even blink.

“Heidi, relax,” Jerome said, turning to face her. “You know she wouldn't care.”

“She might not, but I do.” She stepped between Jerome and Megan, trying to block his view.

Megan stretched, yawned, and reached for her glasses as Jerome positioned himself against her desk.

“It's nothing I haven't seen before,” he said, crossing his arms. “Come on, Heidi.”

Heidi glared. “Is that something you're proud of?”

She took a step in his direction, and Jerome shied backward until he was sitting on the desk. He swallowed hard.

“You guys were funny. I once even made a game out of the things you always used to do.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a notebook, and flipped to a hand-drawn bingo card, mostly filled out, cataloging various embarrassments. “Look, this one was almost a slantwise win.”

Heidi's mouth fell open. He'd made a game of their friendship. A game! And if he'd done that with Megan when the two of them were together, what had he done with her when she was alone? A slap to the face would've felt better.

It took her a while to find her words. “How would you feel if someone spied on you?” She clenched and opened her fists, trying to do something with the energy that was pooling in her hands. “What if that was a person you thought liked you? A person you —” Her tongue stumbled. She couldn't say any more.

Jerome started to talk, but appeared to think better of it.

Megan slipped her bra on, picked up her T-shirt, and snapped out the creases before she pulled it over her head.

Jerome cleared his throat. “If I'd said anything, you'd've been embarrassed.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose. “It was better this way.”

Heidi sat cross-legged on the floor, her chin in her hands.

“I'm embarrassed now. Mortified.”

He looked up toward the ceiling, as if help might come from above, and his voice was quiet and strained. “Look,
I never showed anyone the game. I never told anyone what you did. That means it's as good as not happening. And you have to admit it's kind of funny. I even give myself bonus points when you guys do the whole pregnancy thing.”

“Only Megan does that.”

Megan had a whole stages-of-life routine, in which she'd go from being an infant to being an old woman in the span of two minutes. The part where she was pregnant was Heidi's secret favorite — Megan would put on a huge striped shirt, stuff a pillow under it, and yell “MY WATER BROKE.”

Heidi crossed her arms and gave Jerome a hard look. “The things you do when no one is watching are the true test of your character. They do matter. A lot.”

There was a long silence, broken by the sound of Megan zipping her jeans.

“I know,” he said, his voice no more than a whisper.

Heidi had a sudden urge to take his notebook from him, to take it and rip it up. She marched to the desk and grabbed at it, but he held it over her head. She moved in close and strained upward until she realized their bodies were almost touching. She stepped back. It was one thing to be next to him when he was listening to her, to what she chose to share, and trying to make her feel better. It was another thing when her life had already been opened like a can of tuna.

She lowered herself once more to the floor and looked at her feet.

“Heidi, don't get mad at me for this. Come on. I was just keeping track of you, and I had to do something to
keep quiet. I hate not hearing myself talk. I go crazy. Scooch over.”

He took a step toward Heidi, as if he planned to sit next to her, but stopped when she looked up suddenly, her eyes squinted in anger. He flopped down on Megan's bed instead.

Megan, fully dressed, sat in her chair, opened her desk drawer, and pulled out a small bottle of reddish-black nail polish. Vamp. The stuff they'd been saving for some unspecified important thing — and it had already been opened. Heidi was aghast that Megan had used it without her. As Megan painted, a tear slid down her cheek. Heidi had to press her hand against her mouth to keep from crying out.

Megan whistled air through her lips to dry each nail, and Heidi made herself look at Jerome. “Can't you help me? I want to talk to her. To say good-bye, to tell her I … I loved her before it's too late.”

He stretched out on the bed with his hands beneath his head. “I've done everything I can think of. Just let me say whatever you want to say.”

“And have her hear your voice? No, thanks. She'd think she was losing it. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.”

“I'll make it high,” he said, sitting up. “Like this.”

“Jerome, come on. That's idiotic. Aren't there instructions or anything? How'd they activate your voice when you got to rehab?”

Jerome pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don't know,” he said. “It just always worked for me. Let me do your
talking for you. It's the least I can do.” He cracked his knuckles and looked at her expectantly.

“Not in a million years.” She flicked his toes. “God, get your shoes off her blanket.”

“Come on. I'll tell her whatever you want.” He swung his feet over the edge of the bed. “Anything. Tell me what I should say.”

She looked at the ceiling. There were so many things. So many sentences that started, “Remember that time …”

But none of them seemed right, especially since they almost always ended with Heidi being a reluctant participant at best. Heidi maybe hadn't been wrong to resist Megan's wackier plans, given how
Talentpalooza!!
turned out. But it wasn't as if she died of embarrassment. She'd drowned. And Megan was right about the thing she said in the cafeteria. Now the penguin incident really did seem like no big deal, and instead of memories of a lifetime of boldness, Heidi was left with something that felt decidedly cramped. She was like the rose she'd once sketched in a middle school art class, a flower that shriveled instead of breaking free from the protective cage of leaves around its bud. No wonder Megan had gone ahead and used the nail polish. She'd been humoring Heidi all along. Their friendship was based on pity.

The weakness struck again, crashing like a wave over her, dimming the lights, prickling her soul with white-hot needles of pain. She slipped all the way to the floor. Jerome said something she couldn't quite hear. He hopped off the bed, wrapped his fingers around hers. She held on.

“Let's get out of here,” she whispered.

As the world darkened around her, Jerome's face lit up.

“I remember where it is,” he said. “But you have to promise to keep your eyes shut.”

Heidi neither knew nor cared what he was talking about. She nodded and closed her eyes. As he grabbed her other hand, the world slid away all around her.

BOOK: Devine Intervention
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