The After Wife (36 page)

“Mother, we’ve just found you a new gig,” Jay said to me, as she drove off. “I have the business card in my head. Ready?”

I looked up into his eyes.

“The Happy Medium,” Jay said.

“There are crazier ways to make money, I suppose.”

“Not really,” he said, putting his long, muscular arm around me, “but who gives a frock, sweetheart?”

That night, under the avocado tree, I consulted with Trish. I call her O.G., for Original Ghost. We hadn’t spoken for a while, but like old friends, we fell right back into a rhythm.

“Trish, what do you think? Am I disrespecting the dead by charging for hookups?”

“We’re dead, who cares? I don’t hear AT&T asking that question.”

“I want a real answer, before I turn this place into the Starbucks of the Netherworld.”

“Zeiguseunt,”
she said. “It is what it is. Don’t you worry your pretty little head. It’s meant to be. You worry too much, you know that?”

I smiled. “I have plenty of reasons to worry.”

She laughed, then waved and drifted away. For the first time in months, I felt something bubbling up inside me. Happiness.
Or perhaps acid reflux
.

* * *

Jay and I went to a stationery store with a sweet, sticky name in the Brentwood Country Mart to select business cards. I almost needed a stretcher to carry me out.

“Eight hundred dollars for fifty,” said the clerk with the shiny ponytail and private school education. “They’re two-ply,” she added, with a wink.

“Two-ply?” I asked. “Like toilet paper?”

“It’s the weight,” Jay whispered. “Feel the weight,” he said, as though handling a Ming vase.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I fly one-ply.”

A week later, Aimee, Chloe, and Jay presented me with a small, chocolate-colored box, tied with a light blue ribbon.

“Open it,” Jay said.

I held it in my hand. “Is it a very, very small man?”

“Open it,” Chloe said. I untied the ribbon, and lifted the top of the box. Inside were perfectly embossed business cards on the best stock.

The Happy Medium, 310/555-2354

They had a drawing of a tree on the side. My avocado tree.

“Is this … This isn’t two-ply, is it?” I asked, looking into their eager little faces.

“We just couldn’t do the one-ply,” Jay said, beaming.

“One-ply is for amateurs,” Aimee said. “You’re a professional.”

“One client does not a professional make,” I said. “I love it. Aimee, you drew the tree? It’s … breathtaking.”

“That old shrub? It’s nothing,” Aimee said. “It’s just simple, elegant, and timeless. Like us.”

“I’m elegant, Aimee’s timeless, by design, and our little Chloe is simple,” Jay said.

Spring arrived, and business was booming. Lines formed outside Casa Sugar’s front door. NoMos would try cutting to the front by
offering more cash or by displaying a sudden interest in me as a human being. However, the khaki-shorted SoMos held their ground.

“Holy dead people mother lode,” Jay said, as he’d escort a lululemon-wearing, Brazilian-blow-dried, Vuitton-and-Vicodin-addicted NoMo to the back of the line. “Dead is the new black.”

Everyone had issues with the dead—and I mean everyone.

“I have to speak to my brother. He knows where my mom has her safe-deposit box.”

“My sixth-grade teacher. She believed I could be anything. I never said goodbye to her.”

“I’ll never forget Oscar,” said a man with gray hair and a sad smile.

Because he was attractive, had a penis, and wore Italian shoes, Jay paid more attention to him than the NoMo and SoMo momsters.

“Oscar?” Jay asked.

“My childhood dog,” the man said. While waiting politely in line, he showed Jay a picture in his wallet of a Scottie.

“Do you want to get married?” Jay asked.

“Jay,” Aimee said, making her way down the line, clipboard in her hand, jotting down names, “this is not a groom pool. Keep this line moving.” She’d started waddling just recently, even though she was only about four months pregnant. I call it Method Waddling.

“This medium stuff is wiping me out,” I told Chloe, when she came out back with a glass of iced tea and lemon cookies. “I’m exhausted.”

“You have to pace yourself,” she said.

“I miss funemployment,” I said.

“Lilo just called,” Jay said, heading outside, phone in hand. “She’ll be here any minute. The place is crawling with paparazzi. If you channel Brittany Murphy, you better tell me what the hell happened to my girl.
Love her
.”

Jay had taken control of our burgeoning business, herding the grieving masses into my tiny living room and soothing their spirits with madeleines, peppermint tea, and fashion tips.

“You’ll have to start booking appointments in advance,” he said. “And by you, I mean, me. And by me, I mean commission.”

“You’ve already helped me so much,” I said. “I can’t ask you to do more.”

“You can if you’re paying me,” Jay said, “which you’re going to start doing after you pay off your taxes and mortgage payments. Which, at this point, is about a week away.”

I’d been doing so many readings, all paid in cash or check. I hadn’t kept track of the total. That was Jay’s job. All he said to me after a few days was that we were in “Kenneth Cole territory.”

We had moved up, apparently, to “Louboutin studded moccasin territory.”

“What time is it?” I asked.

Jay checked his watch, which he wore solely for fashion reasons.

“I think it’s two—”

“Is it two, or not?”

“Well, my watch is always fast. I think.”

“Didn’t that watch cost—”

“Yes,” he said. “But the more expensive the watch, the worse it tells time. Everyone knows that.”

“I’d better pick up Ellie.”

“Brandon’s got her—he’s taking her for a haircut afterward.”

“A haircut?” I asked. “But I just took her a week ago, to Supercuts.”

“Yeah,” Jay said, shaking his head. “No. That didn’t work for me. I called Andy LeCompte. He made Nicole Richie into a movie star without a movie, that’s how good he is. She’s going in at three o’clock. And we’re going to pretend that Orphan Annie bob thingie never happened.”

I shrugged my shoulders. If it takes a village, our village chief was Tim Gunn.

“Who’s next on the docket?” I asked. I put down my iced tea and rubbed my palms together. “Mama needs a new pair of Havaianas.”

Jay and Chloe exchanged a look. I knew better than to ask Jay what that meant. Chloe, on the other hand, was incapable of lying. She’d crack like a spoiled egg.

“Chloe, spill,” I said.

“That nice man Tom is here, and he wants to talk to you,” she said. “I don’t know what to tell him.”

“Nice work, Chloe,” Jay said. “Good job keeping it all together.”

“Tom’s here?” I asked. “What does he want?” I sucked in my stomach.

“He wouldn’t say,” Jay said.

“He wants to talk to his wife,” Chloe said.

“Dear God,” Jay said.

“Go get him,” I told them. “This should be interesting.”

Jay took a long look at me, appraising his subject. “No, I don’t think so. I’m going to tell him to come back another night when the light’s better. You’re a little sallow right now, I hate to tell you.”

“Jay, the man wants to speak to his dead wife,” I said. “This isn’t speed-dating.”

“Honey,” Jay said, “on the Westside, even marriage is speed-dating.”

Tom returned to Casa Sugar the next night at around 7:00. By that time, Jay had had his way with me. I was moisturized, manicured, and made-up. I looked perilously close to desirable. Jay had even managed to defrizz my hair, with product found only in
Jet
magazine ads.

“Hi,” I said to Tom, who wore a lightweight sweater and jeans. He looked handsome as ever. As I came in for a hug, I sniffed his cologne. I felt wistful. Without even realizing, I had missed him.

“You look radiant,” Tom said, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that.”

“If you mean it, you have to say it,” I joked. “It’s a sin, otherwise. Come on in.”

Tom entered the living room, and I took his hand and walked him through the house into my backyard. I motioned for him to sit across from me.

“Are you okay?” I said. “I don’t want you to be nervous.”

“I’m nervous, and frankly, you look great,” he said. “Oh, is she going to hear that?”

“Who?”

“My wife.”

I smiled. “No, don’t worry,” I said. “Give me a second. I’m getting pretty good at this, I have to say. Close your eyes, okay?”

He did. I pretended I was closing mine, too, but left one eye open. Tom looked as edible as ever. The perfect amount of scruff, and just the right dose of grief.

He was pretty much irresistible. I sighed and closed my eyes. “Patchett, right?”

“Who? Oh, yes, Patchett. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid she’ll be angry with me.”

“For what?” I opened my eyes. I wanted to hear it from him.
For your penis being the boss of you?

“Hair. I can’t do hair,” he said, opening his eyes. “I’m really trying to do my daughter Livia’s hair the way Patchett did. It never works.”

His lip trembled. He started to cry.

Of course, I did, too.

“Patchett used to comb it, braid it,” he said. “It never tangled. Never. And I can’t seem to …” He held up his hands, staring at his fingers, those instruments of betrayal.

I grabbed his hands. “I’m sure you’re doing fine, Tom,” I said. “She’s not going to be mad at you. She’ll understand. Maybe she’ll even have a tip. Something she didn’t think of telling you, before she passed.”

“Maybe?” he said plaintively.

“Hey, if anything,” I said, “
I’m
mad at John
—he’s
the one who died, right?”

Tom smiled. “Yeah, that’s right. Why’d Patchett have to do that to me? Why?”

Why not?
Trish’s voice echoed in my head.

“There are no reasons,” I said. “There’s just right now. Do I sound like a very special guest on
Oprah
?”

Tom looked at me. “I think I like it.”

I smiled. “Ready to start?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m ready. Do you think she misses me?”

“She misses you, Tom,” I said. Of that, I was sure.

I closed my eyes.

Patchett is, in a word, lovely. I smelled her before I even saw her. Her scent was like Downy fabric softener mixed with baby powder, of everything that is fresh and clean. I didn’t get that “dead” feeling from her, like I get with most of my “clientele.”

Patchett was surprised to hear from Tom. “You know,” she told me, “he’s not really one to ask for help. He keeps it all bottled up inside. I’m not even sure he cried at my funeral.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” I said.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve known Tom since college—I know he loved me. He’s just … well, he’s a banker. Does he miss me?”

“With everything he is …,” I said. “He misses you in ways he can’t even articulate. Do you miss him?”

“Oh, yes … oh, yes …,” Patchett said. “Please … my babies …”

“Tom,” I said, “Patchett wants to know how the babies are doing …”

Tom sat up straight, as though he was about to give a presentation.

“They’re great,” he said. “Livia just turned five; I mean, Patchett knows her birthday, of course. I had a party, a Dora the Explorer party—”

“He’s doing this all himself?” Patchett asked.

“All by himself,” I said, choking back more tears.

“You know what the worst part of being dead is?” Patchett asked me. “It isn’t missing my girls’ weddings or graduations. It’s the walks home from school, the car rides, looking in the rearview mirror and seeing my sleeping baby, rushing to soccer practice … having my first disagreement with Chelsea, my oldest, over something stupid, and realizing that she’s no longer my little girl …”

I thought of Ellie, who wouldn’t be little forever.
How can that be?

“Someday, someday soon … she’s going to step outside into the bigger world. The worst part is that … I’m not a part of that world. I’m not even on the sidelines. I’m so pissed at fate.”

“I thought being dead meant being free from regret,” I said. “I was so wrong.”

“Can we keep in touch?” Patchett asked. “I’m afraid it’s the only way he’ll communicate with me.”

“Of course,” I said. “I wish I could give you my card.”

“Listen,” Patchett said, “I know we just met—and you have no reason to trust me. But Tom’s a good man. He really is. I’m not saying he’s perfect. He’s a neat freak, and he says the wrong thing trying to do the right thing, but he’s willing to learn.”

“Wait—are you trying to …?”

“Set you up with my husband?” she asked. “Well … I’ve seen the women in this town. My best friend was after him two seconds after I was buried. I don’t think she even waited for the service to be over before she asked him to feel her new boobs.”

“This is a first for me, Patchett,” I said, “and thank you. I appreciate the gesture. As a mother, I know how much that means, coming from you.”

“What gesture?” Tom asked.

“Oh,” I said to her, “you might look up John Bernal. He’s my … he was my … husband. He’s the reason for my … gift, I guess.”

“Thanks,” Patchett said, “but you know, we don’t date here. It kinda sucks, because there’s a lot of really interesting dead men.”

“All the best ones are dead, huh?” I said.

I heard her warm laugh … and then, she was gone.

Tom and I sat in the backyard as Patchett faded away. I could hear his sniffling, felt his hands move over his face. NoMo was pitch-black at night—the streetlights came on only intermittently, but his emotional state was undeniable.

“Come on,” I said, my hand finding his knee, “I’ll walk you out.”

I shivered as we made our way to the front door. SaMo nights were cold, even in spring.

“Does it always have to be so cold here?” I asked. “What does Santa Monica think it is, Chicago?”

“… hates California,” Tom said, “it’s cold and it’s damp.”

“That’s why the lady is a tramp …,” I said, trying to rub the cold from my arms.

Tom put his arm around my shoulders, and hugged me on my doorstep. I hugged him back. When he kissed me, I pushed him away, gently.