(Dancers; they are frozen in midstep, feathered headdresses in midbob. They could be Cheyenne or Sioux instead of…)
Where the hell is Tannu Tuva?
“Lissa!” The radio snicked off.
She came fully awake.
Ken smiled at her. “Welcome to the land of the living. Where were you?”
Lissa stretched and yawned. “At a photo exhibit… What? What’s that look?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just… nothing.” He scurried downstairs.
He left before she did and so she sat, vagrant, over breakfast, nursing a second cup of coffee. She was rinsing her cup and regretting the loss of the Pascale interview when the phone rang. She was both surprised and smug when the other woman’s new-age-gentle voice came over the line.
“Ms. Shaw, I’ve thought this over and—and I do want to talk to you.”
Lissa made an immediate appointment, hurrying to gather her notebook and scramble out the door. She had backed down the driveway and turned the car when she caught sight of the Rathman’s house. Slung between their mimosa trees, toilet paper fluttered festively in the breeze. Several rolls of the stuff littered the lawn.
Her mind did a double-take. Oh, God, I’ve started sleepwalking! She groaned. Which meant she might have wandered out into the street in nothing but an oversized T-shirt. She hoped she had only gone as far as her bedroom window.
Behind her, someone honked. She unstuck herself and drove to Tiburon.
The first thing she noticed about Julie Pascale was the vulnerable expression in her large brown eyes. The second thing she noticed was that, in crisp linen pants and a silk shirt, she did not look the least bit New Age-y. The third thing she noticed was that she walked with a cane. It was the result, Lissa learned, of the same experience that had gifted her with the NDE—in this case a near-drowning.
The story was typical in its major points: There was a great Light which the subject was drawn toward (“I was drawn to It on a—a raft of love. It was the Beloved. Just that.”), other souls who milled about between heaven and Earth (“They were so confused… so lost. They didn’t know where they were.”), deceased relatives about whom she learned volumes at a touch (“I’d never met my grandfather before, but now, I felt I’d always known him.”) It was, perhaps, atypical in the angel’s-eye view of Earth Julie described—a view that encompassed all people, in all ages, working their way toward ever-advancing levels of unity. Yet, typically, she was nearly touching the Light when she was sent back to Earth/Life in the company of what she described as “two souls.” (“They had the most amazing sense of humor.”)
According to Julie, she came upon herself in the Emergency Room at UC Davis. (“I was on a gurney, and a doctor—a heart specialist named White—had been giving me injections of adrenaline. He pronounced me dead and started to walk away when my GP—Dr. Harris—came in and asked what he was doing. He said, ‘I’ve done all I can.’ And Dr. Harris said, ‘Like hell you have.’ ”)
Dr. Harris pounded on her chest and gave her further injections. (“I wanted to shout at him to stop. But he couldn’t hear me.”)
Forty-five minutes after she had drowned, twenty minutes after the heart specialist had pronounced her dead, Julie Pascale came back to conscious life.
“It was like being sucked down a drain,” she said.
Lissa shook off the chill of a dream memory and readied her questions.
LS: I would think, after forty-five minutes of death, you’d have sustained some brain damage.
JP: I did. I had to learn to write again and speak in coherent sentences. The left side of my body is still weak. Poor Dr. Harris. When he came into my hospital room later and found me crying, I’m sure he expected some thanks or praise. Instead, I showered him with incoherent abuse. I wondered how he could dare bring me back. I almost hated him for it.
LS: What you say you saw in the ER—how close is it to what other people recall?
JP: You mean, how close is it to what really happened? Ask my psychologist. Ask Dr. Harris. There was a nurse, too—a Mrs. Yamaguchi. I have their signed statements, of course, but you might want to talk to them directly.
LS: Your psychiatrist—do you still see him?
JP: Her, and she’s a psychologist. Yes, I still see her from time to time. As a friend, not as a patient. I have copies of her statements as well, if you’d like to see them.
LS: You were very thorough.
JP: No, Dr. Genoa was.
LS: Dr. Genoa? Petra Genoa, the parapsychologist?
JP: I don’t think she considers herself that. She certainly didn’t when I met her in the hospital. I had a terrible time convincing her what happened to me really happened. I’ll never forget her parting volley the day I was released. “Take my advice,” she said, “don’t mention this NDE stuff to anyone else. Don’t talk about it; don’t even think about it. People will think you’re crazy, documentation notwithstanding.” She was right, of course.
LS: But you didn’t take her advice.
JP: No. I couldn’t not think about it. It changed my life. I had to talk about it and wonder at it and pray about it. And I had to use it to help other people.
LS: How so?
JP: I work for a Youth Hotline. We deal with drug abuse, domestic violence, suicide prevention—any and all self-destructive behavior. I try to use my experience to keep other young people from ending their lives prematurely.
LS: I find that contradictory. If you know what it’s going to be like in the next world, if you find it so wonderful, why would you want to keep others from experiencing it? In fact, why didn’t you contrive to return there yourself?
JP: I learned many things through my experience, Ms. Shaw. One of them was that the next world isn’t wonderful for everyone. Those spiritually confused souls were just that. They were unprepared for death—for life in that… realm. I also learned that life really is sacred. It’s sacred to the Beloved, and therefore, it’s sacred to me. The key word is “prematurely.” I want to go Home, but I’ll wait till I’m called.
Listening to the playback, Lissa chuckled. What marvelous furnishings decorate the houses of the true believer. A “raft of love”—she made a note to call it the “love boat”; God in the persona of the Cosmic Lover; disembodied spirits who cracked jokes. Cosmic comedy. As if the homely details could make it real.
Ken stared at the invitation in his hand as if he expected it to sprout fangs and bite him. In a sense, it had done just that; the graceful script contained a quartet of verbal teeth: Photographic Exhibition, Amsted Gallery.
“Think you two can make it?”
He looked up into the eager face of his editorial assistant, Terri Mendez.
“I hate to be pushy, but, well, Naomi is my cousin and I guess I’m proud of her. She does wonderful work.”
“I’ll, um, I’ll talk to Lissa. I’m not sure what our plans are that weekend.” Lie. He knew exactly what their plans were—nothing. He’d change that, he decided. A romantic weekend up the coast was easy enough to arrange. Lissa need never see the invitation.
Guilt poked him in the forebrain. Lissa was an adult. An adult who hated, above all things, to have decisions made for her. That, and the realization that he was granting too much credence to something he had every reason to be skeptical of, kept him from throwing the invitation away. It made him lose track of it until he got home, unloaded his briefcase, spread his papers out on the sofa and heard Lissa’s voice say, “Oh, what’s this?”