Elsewhere (9 page)

The dog nods. "Would you mind scratching under my collar on the back of my neck? I can't reach there with my paws."

Liz obliges.

"Thank you. That feels much better." The dog snorts with pleasure. "So, you said you were lonely and you hate it here?"

Liz nods again.

"My advice to you is to stop being lonely and to stop hating it here. That always works for me,"

says the dog. "Oh, and be happy! It's easier to be happy than to be sad. Being sad takes a lot of work. It's exhausting."

A woman calls the dog from across the park: "ARNOLD!"

"Gotta go! That's my two-legger calling me!" The dog hops off the bench. "See you around!"

"See you," says Liz, but the dog is already gone.

Following the prom, Liz gives up watching Zooey or anyone else from school. Now she watches only her immediate family.

One night just as the OD is about to close, Liz asks Esther, "How do the binoculars even work?"

Esther makes a face. "You should know that by now. You put in your coin and then "

Liz interrupts. "I meant, how do they really work? I spend pretty much every waking hour here and I don't know a thing about them."

"Like any binoculars, I suppose. A series of convex lenses in two cylindrical tubes combine to form one image "

Liz interrupts again. "Yes, I know that part. I learned all that in, like, fifth grade."

"Seems like you know everything, Liz, so I don't see why you're bothering me."

Liz ignores Esther. "But Earth is so far, and these binoculars don't even seem particularly powerful. How could you possibly see all the way back to Earth?"

"Maybe that's the thing. Maybe Earth's not far at all."

Liz snorts. "That's a pretty thought, Esther."

"It is, isn't it?" Esther smiles. "I think of it like a tree, because every tree is really two trees. There's the tree with the branches that everyone sees, and then there's the upside-down root tree, growing the opposite way. So Earth is the branches, growing up to the sky, and Elsewhere is the roots, growing down in opposing but perfect symmetry. The branches don't think much about the roots, and maybe the roots don't think much about the branches, but all the time, they're connected by the trunk, you know? Even though it seems far from the roots to the branches, it isn't. You're always connected, you just don't think about "

"Esther!" Liz interrupts a third time. "But how do the binoculars work? How do they know what I want to see?"

"It's a secret," Esther replies. "I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you."

"That isn't at all funny." Liz starts to walk away.

"All right, Lizzie, I'll tell you. Come really close, and I'll whisper it in your ear."

Liz obeys.

"Ask me again," Esther says, "and say please."

"Esther, how do the binoculars work, please?"

Esther leans in toward Liz's ear and whispers, "It's" she pauses "magic." Esther laughs.

"I don't know why I even bother talking to you."

"You don't have any friends and you're profoundly lonely."

"Thanks." Liz storms out of the OD.

"See you tomorrow, Liz," Esther calls cheerily.

August 12, the day that would have been Liz's sixteenth birthday on Earth, arrives. Like every other day, Liz spends this one at the ODs.

"Lizzie would have been sixteen today," her mother says to her father.

"I know," he says.

"Do you think they'll ever find the man who did it?"

"I don't know," he answers. "I hope so," he adds.

"It was a cab!" Liz yells at the binoculars. "AN OLD YELLOW TAXICAB WITH A FOURLEAFCLOVER

AIR FRESHENER HANGING FROM THE REARVIEW MIRROR!"

"They can't hear you," a grandmotherly type tells Liz.

"I know that," Liz snaps. "Shush!"

"Why didn't he stop?" Liz's mother asks her father.

"I don't know. At least he called 911 from the pay phone, not that it mattered anyway."

"He still should have stopped." Liz's mother starts to cry. "I mean, you hit a fifteen-year-old kid, you stop, right? That's what a decent person does, right?"

"I don't know, Olivia. I used to think so," Liz's father says.

"And I refuse to believe no one saw anything! I mean someone must have seen; someone must know; someone must "

Liz's time runs out, and the lenses click shut. She doesn't move. She just stares into the closed lenses and lets her mind go black.

Liz is furious to learn that she was the victim of a hit-and-run. Whoever hit me should pay, she thinks. Whoever hit me should go to prison for a very long time, she thinks. At that moment, Liz resolves to find the cabbie and then to somehow find a way to tell her parents. She pops an eternim in the slot and begins to scour the Greater Boston area for old yellow taxicabs with fourleafclover air fresheners hanging from their rearview mirrors.

Liz systematically searches for the lucky cab (her name for it) by watching the parking lots and the dispatchers of all the cab companies that service the area near the Cambridgeside Galleria.

Although there are only four cab companies that drive this area, it still takes her an entire week and over five hundred eternims to locate the lucky cab. Liz raises the additional eternims by asking Betty for clothes money. Betty is happy to oblige her and doesn't ask too many questions.

She just crosses her fingers and hopes Liz is coming out of her funk.

The cabbie's license says his name is Amadou Bonamy. He drives cab number 512 for the Three Aces Cab Company. She recognizes the cab immediately. It has the fourleaf-clover air freshener and it is older than Alvy, maybe older than Liz, too. Looking at the car, Liz is surprised that it even withstood the impact of her body.

The day after Liz locates the cab, she watches its driver. Amadou Bonamy is tall with black curly hair. His skin is the color of a coconut shell. His wife is pregnant. He takes classes at Boston University at night. He always helps people with their luggage when he drives them to the airport.

He never purposely takes the long route, even when the people he's driving are from out of town.

He doesn't speed much, Liz notes. He seems to obey traffic laws religiously, Liz further notes.

Despite his car's dilapidated condition, he takes good care of it, vacuuming the seats each day.

He tells dumb jokes to his passengers. He listens to National Public Radio. He buys bread at the same place Liz's mother buys bread. He has a son at the same school as Liz's brother. He Liz pushes the binoculars away. She realizes she doesn't want to know this much about Amadou Bonamy. Amadou Bonamy is a murderer. He is my murderer, she thinks. He needs to pay. Like her mother had said, it isn't right to hit people with dirty old cabs, and then leave them to die in the street. Liz's pulse races. She needs to find a way to tell her parents about Amadou Bonamy. She stands up and walks out of the Observation Deck, feeling flush with purpose and more alive than she has felt in some time.

On her way out of the building, Liz passes Esther.

"Glad to see you leaving while it's still daylight out for once," Esther says.

"Yeah." Liz stops. "Esther," she says, "you wouldn't know how to make Contact with the living, would you?"

"Contact?" says Esther. "Why in the world do you want to know about that? Contact's for damned fools. Nothing good's ever come out of talking to the living. Nothing but hurt and bother. And goodness knows, we've all got enough of that already."

Liz sighs. Given Esther's response, Liz knows she can't ask just anyone about Contact. Not Betty, who is worried enough about Liz already. Or Thandi, who is probably angry at her for not returning her calls. Or Aldous Ghent, who would never in a million years help Liz make Contact.

Only one person might help her, and that was Curtis Jest. Unfortunately, Liz hadn't seen him since the day of their funerals back on the Nile.

Early on, several news stories had run on Elsewhere about Curtis's death. Because Curtis was a rock star and celebrity, people were interested in his arrival. The funny thing was, most of the people on Elsewhere hadn't even heard his music. Curtis was popular among people of Liz's generation, and there were relatively few people from Liz's generation on Elsewhere. So interest declined quickly. By Liz's birthday, Curtis Jest had faded into total obscurity.

Liz decides to brave calling Thandi, who now works at a television station as an announcer. She reads the names of upcoming arrivals to Elsewhere so that people know to go to the Elsewhere pier to greet them. Liz thinks Thandi might have news of Curtis Jest's whereabouts.

"Why do you want to talk to him?" Thandi asks. Her voice is hostile.

"He happens to be a very interesting person," Liz says.

"They say he became a fisherman," Thandi says. "You'll probably find him down at the docks."

A fisherman? she thinks. Fishing seems so ordinary. It doesn't make any sense. "Why would Curtis Jest be a fisherman?" Liz asks.

"Beats me. Maybe he likes to fish?" Thandi suggests.

"But there are musicians on Elsewhere. Why wouldn't Curtis want to be a musician?"

Thandi sighs. "He already did that once, Liz. And it obviously didn't make him very happy."

Liz remembers those long marks and bruises on his arms. She isn't sure she will ever forget them. Still, it seems entirely wrong for Curtis to be anything other than a musician. Maybe she will ask him about that when she goes to see him.

"Thanks for the information," Liz says.

"You're welcome," Thandi replies. "But you know, Elizabeth, it isn't right that you don't return a person's call for months and months, and when you finally get it in your head to call, you're only asking about someone else. No apology. Not even a single 'How you doing, Thandi?' "

"I'm sorry, Thandi. How are you?" Liz asks. Despite appearances, Liz does feel guilty that she's ignored Thandi.

"Fine," Thandi answers.

"It hasn't been the best time for me," Liz apologizes.

"You think it's easy for me? You think it's easy for any of us?" Thandi hangs up on Liz.

Liz takes the bus down to the Elsewhere docks. Sure enough, she spots Curtis right away, fishing pole in one hand, cup of coffee in the other. He's wearing a faded red plaid shirt, and his formerly pale skin has a golden hue. His blue hair is almost completely grown out, but his blue eyes remain as vivid as ever. Liz doesn't know if Curtis will remember her. Luckily, he smiles as soon as he sees her.

"Hello, Lizzie," Curtis says. "How's the afterlife treating you?" He pours Liz a cup of coffee from a red thermos. He indicates that she should sit next to him on the dock.

"I wanted to ask you a question," Liz says.

"That sounds serious." Curtis sits up straighter. "I shall do my best to answer you, Lizzie."

"You were honest with me before, back on the boat," Liz says.

"They say a man should always be as honest as he can."

Liz lowers her voice. "I need to make Contact with someone. Can you help me?"

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Liz is prepared for this question and is armed with several appropriate lies. "I'm not obsessed or anything. I like it here, Curtis. I just have one thing back on Earth that needs taking care of."

"What is it?" Curtis asks.

"It's something about my death." Liz hesitates a moment before telling Curtis the whole story of the hit-and-run cabbie.

After she finishes, Curtis is silent for a moment. Then he says, "I don't know why you thought I would know about this."

"You seem like a person who knows things," says Liz. "Besides, there's no one else I can ask."

Curtis smiles. "I have heard that there are two ways to communicate with the living. One, you can try to find a ship back to Earth, although I doubt this would be a very practical solution for you. It takes a long time to get there and, from what I hear, tends to pervert the reverse-aging process.

Plus, you don't exactly want to be a ghost, now, do you?"

Liz shakes her head, remembering how she contemplated that very thing on the day she arrived in Elsewhere. "What's the second way?"

"I have heard of a place, about a mile out to sea and several miles deep. Apparently, this is the deepest place in the ocean. People call it the Well."

Liz remembers Aldous Ghent mentioning the Well on her first day in Elsewhere. She also remembers him saying that going there was forbidden. "I think I've heard of it," she says.

"Supposedly, if you can reach the bottom of this place, a difficult task indeed, you will find a window where you can penetrate to Earth."

"How is that different from the ODs?" Liz asks.

"The binoculars only go one way. At the Well, they say the living can sense you, see you, hear you."

"Then I can talk to them?"

"Yes, that's what I've heard," says Curtis, "but it will be difficult for them to understand you. Your voice is obscured from being underwater. You need good equipment to make the dive, and even then you should be a good swimmer."

Liz sips her coffee, contemplating what Curtis has told her. She is a strong swimmer. Last summer she and her mother had even gotten scuba certification together on Cape Cod. Could that have only been a year ago? Liz wonders.

"I'm not sure that I've done the right thing in telling you this information, but you probably would have found out from someone else anyway. I'm afraid I've never been very good at knowing the right thing to do. Or at least knowing it and doing it."

"Thank you," Liz says.

"Be careful," Curtis says. He surprises Liz by hugging her. "I must ask you, are you sure you should be doing this? Maybe it would be best to leave well enough alone."

"I have to do this, Curtis. I don't have any choice."

"Lizzie, my love, there's always a choice."

Liz doesn't want to argue with Curtis, especially after he's been so nice to her, but she can't help herself. "I didn't choose to die," she says, "so in that instance, there was no choice."

"No, of course you didn't," Curtis says. "I suppose I meant there's always a choice in situations where one has a choice, if that makes any sense."

"Not really," Liz says.

"Well, I shall have to work on my philosophy and get back to you, Lizzie. I find there's much time for philosophizing when one fishes for a living."

Liz nods. As she walks away from the dock, she realizes she forgot to ask Curtis why he had become a fisherman in the first place.