“Oh yeah…You’re dead, sweetie. I’m sorry.” She rubs my shoulder gamely.
“What? No…I…Is this a dream?”
I urge my brain to wake itself up. This is the oddest dream I’ve ever had, and I once dreamed I ran a struggling hair salon with Tramp fromLady and the Tramp.
“You choked, remember?” the chatty woman tells me. “On a microwave burger? Theyarereal meat, by the way. One hundred percent beef, or as I like to call it,bœuf. I recently started learning French in between client arrivals. Not that I’m bored or anything. Not really. Could things pick up a little around here?” She shrugs a smooth, tanned shoulder, mouth bunching up to the side. “Sure. But better a steady trickle of Deads than an ambush, I guess.”
Deads?
My gut spirals as I suddenly remember what happened in my apartment. The choking. I press a hand to my throat and start gasping for air.
“Oh, it’s okay. You’re totally fine,” the woman soothes, crouching back down so that she’s eye level with me. “All corporeal physical ailments are eliminated as soon as you arrive here. But the emotional transition period from living to not living can be…tricky. That’s where I come in. I’m Merritt, twenty-eight years old—always will be—and my absolute favourite things are curry and romance novels, the hotter the better on both accounts. I’m your assigned Afterlife Therapist.”
She shoves out her hand to shake mine and I notice that she’s wearing a different statement ring on every finger. One of them is a vintage-looking diamond rose, another is thick black enamel with a skull and crossbones dotted out in rubies. Onher thumb is a silver band that readsHalf Agony/Half Hope. It’s like she dipped her digits in a lost property box and didn’t much care what came out. I can only stare, so she picks my limp hand up from where it dangles off the armrest and yanks it so enthusiastically that I sort of wobble back and forth in the chair.
“It’s my job to make sure you get settled in, don’t freak out too much, answer any questions you may have, etc. etc. I will be your main point of contact going forward. Sound good?Oui?”
No. No it does not sound good at all.Non.
“I’m amazing at my job, don’t worry,” Merritt continues breezily. “I started at Evermore—that’s what we call it here—about six months after I died. I’m now the youngest woman to be made a full Afterlife Therapist. Most of the other therapists are old cronies in their sixties and seventies, but I guess I just showed a natural affinity for the role. Plus I’m ambitious as fuck.”
“Help,” I whisper.
“The other therapists don’t like it one bit—a hot young woman making waves. They steal all the incoming Deads away before I can get my hands on them.” She looks down at her feet for a second, which I notice are shoeless, toenails painted Coca-Cola red. “I could run circles around everyone here if I was just given a fair chance,” she mutters grimly. “Anyway, I won’t bore you with all that. The point is that two of those old gobshites are on vacation right now, so they didn’t get a chance to steal you! You’re my first arrival in a whole week! Yay for me. Boo-hoo for you, obviously. But for me? Brilliant.”
I watch dumbly as Merritt marches towards a door on the opposite side of the room, a flick of her forefinger indicating that I should follow her.
“Where…where are we going?” I ask, my entire body now trembling so much that the words come out with a vibrato so rapid I sound like Jessie J.
“My office, of course. I can’t conduct the enrolment here in the lobby, can I? What if another Dead arrives while you’re in the middle of answering an intimate question? Awkward. If there’s one thing people always said about me back on Earth, it was that I was a very professional person. Privacy first. Don’t fret. I’ve got you, babe.” She sings the last bit in a Cher voice.
Merritt opens up the door, and I’m somewhat comforted to discover that it leads to a very nice, relatively normal-looking office. There are candles everywhere, the flames a warm shimmering pink colour. In the middle of the room stands a glass desk, covered with knickknacks, including three totally thriving plants, a waving Japanese lucky cat, and a desk tidy which is empty because the pens it’s supposed to be holding are scattered haphazardly across the desk. On the far wall, there’s a floor-to-ceiling bookcase absolutely stuffed with books, their spines all the colours of the rainbow. Every single one seems to be a romance novel. Titles likeThe Proposal,A Match Made in Devon,andThe Bride Test.Merritt sees me looking and selects one of them—a pretty cloth-covered hardback ofPersuasionby Jane Austen. She presses it to her chest and closes her eyes blissfully, like she’s cuddling a puppy. “You can totally borrow anything you like,” she says, sliding the book back onto the shelf and dancing her fingers lovingly across the surrounding spines.
“Um, thanks.”
Merritt sniffs the air, exhaling audibly. “Roses and black currants. My signature scent.” She points to a flickering white candle on a little wooden table. “Gorgeous, right? We have aDiptyque store at Evermore.C’est magnifique. Ooh, we must find you a signature scent too. I bet you’re a honeysuckle girl, am I right? Prone to introspection, sensitive heart but with a rich inner world. Plenty of passion bubbling beneath the surface.”
I blink. What the fuck is happening right now? What is this place?
Merritt throws me a benevolent smile. “Okay. I can see you’re perturbed, which…absolutely. This situation is batshit, I know. When I first arrived here, I literally spewed. Why don’t you take a seat, rest your bones a moment.”
She indicates a white leather spinny chair in front of her desk and then, before I can rest, bones or otherwise, she claps her hands decisively.
“Right! Excellent. Okay.” She plucks a clipboard from her desk and scans the paper atop it. “First question is…Would you like to see your life flash before your eyes?”
“Ex-excuse me?” My teeth have started to chatter.
“Isaid,would you like to see your life flash before your eyes? We never used to offer the service, but of course Hollywood gave humans the impression that they got to see their lives pass before their eyes when they expire. And while I love me a well-trodden trope, that one is simply not based in reality. We had a few complaints from disgruntled Deads on arrival, so now we offer it, if you want it. Totally up to you, no presh.”
I feel cold. Why is it so cold? I spot a furry blanket draped on one of the other chairs. I grab it and wrap it tightly around my shoulders, bunching it beneath my chin.
“So…do you want it or not?” Merritt repeats, fingernail tapping on the back of the clipboard.
“Uh…um…” I bleat, fingering the corner of the blanket. “Can I go home now?”
Merritt sighs lightly. “Shall we just say yes about the life-flashing-before-your-eyes bit? This is the only chance you’ll get to see it. If I don’t show you now and you change your mind later, then you’ll probably be in a mood with me, and that’s no way for us to start an everlasting friendship.”
I watch open-mouthed as Merritt disappears into a closet before wheeling out a white metal trolley, on which there is a big grey nineties TV and a DVD player. “It doesn’t last for too long,” she says. “We show what we feel are the most relevant clips, otherwise it would be a massive snoozefest, and while technically we have eternity at our disposal, nobody’s got time for that kind of navel-gazing. Like, what’s done is done, you know?”
