"You ought to read the book from end to beginning," Owen jokes. "That way, no one dies, and it's always a happy ending."
"That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard." Liz rolls her eyes and returns to her reading.
"Aren't you at all interested in who's trying to Contact you?" Owen asks. From his coat pocket, he removes a green recorked wine bottle with a sticky palimpsest where the label had once been.
Inside the bottle is a rolled-up ecru envelope. (The envelope is really more pleated than rolled, because of the thickness of the paper.) "It washed up on the wharf today," Owen says, handing the bottle to Liz. "The boys over in Earth Artifacts had to uncork it to see who it was for, but the contents of the envelope haven't been touched. When we get an MIB, we try as much as possible to preserve the person's privacy."
"What's an MIB?" Liz asks, setting her book aside to examine the bottle.
"Message in a bottle," Owen answers. "It's one of the few ways to get mail from Earth'to Elsewhere. No one knows exactly why it works, but it does."
"I've never gotten one before," Liz says.
"They're not as common as they used to be."
"Why's that?" Liz asks.
"People on Earth don't write letters so much anymore. Messages in bottles probably don't occur to them. And it's not always a sure thing."
Liz uncorks the bottle. She removes the thick envelope, which is remarkably well preserved considering its watery voyage. On the front is an address in elegant calligraphy done with a rich, black-green ink:
"Very thorough," Owen says, "but they never write Elsewhere."
"No one on Earth calls it that," Liz reminds him. She turns the envelope over. The return address is in the same calligraphy:
"That's Zooey's address," Liz says as she lifts the flap. Inside, she finds a three-paneled ecru wedding invitation and a long handwritten note. Liz slips the note into her pocket.
" 'You are invited to the wedding of Zooey Anne Brandon and Paul Scott Spencer,' " Liz reads aloud. "My best friend's getting married?"
"You mean your best friend before you met me, right?" Owen teases her.
Liz ignores him. "The wedding's the first weekend in June. That's in less than two weeks." Liz tosses the invitation aside. "She certainly took her time inviting me," Liz huffs.
"You should probably forgive her. It's pretty hard to send things here, you know? She probably sent this months ago." Owen picks up the invitation. "Good-quality paper stock."
"Isn't she too young to get married?" Liz asks. "She's my age." Liz corrects herself, "I mean, she was my age. Actually, she was a month older than me, so I guess that makes her almost twentytwo."
Owen takes out a pen and begins filling out the response card. "Will madam be bringing a guest?"
"No," Liz replies.
"What about me?" asks Owen, his eyes wide with mock offense.
"Sorry to disappoint, O," Liz says, taking the response card from him, "but I think we'd have a little trouble making travel arrangements." She carefully slips the response card and the invitation back into the envelope.
"We could watch from the OD," Owen suggests.
"I don't want to watch," Liz says.
"Then we could dive," Owen says. "From the Well, you could congratulate her and everything."
"I can't believe you're even suggesting that." Liz shakes her head. "In your line of work."
"Oh come on, Liz! Where's your sense of adventure? One last hurrah before we're too young for any more hurrahs! What do you say?"
Liz thinks for a moment before she answers. "When I died, Zooey didn't go to my funeral, so I see no need to attend her wedding."
That night in bed, Liz reads Zooey's note. She notices that Zooey's handwriting is the same as when they were both fifteen and used to pass notes in school.
Dear Liz,
It's pretty crazy for me to write you after all this time, but as you can see, I'm getting married! :) I've missed you a lot. I wonder where you are, and what you've been doing. And in case you've wondered about me, I'm in my first year of law school, here in Chicago where I live now.
So if you have the time and the inclination, and if you happen to be in Boston (we wanted Chicago, but Mom won), you should drop by the wedding. The boy's name is Paul, and he smells good, and he has nice forearms.
I know you probably won't ever get this letter (sort of feels like writing to Santa which is really bizarre considering I'm Jewish), but it was worth a shot. I already tried a psychic medium and Rabbi Singer of Congregation B'nai B'rith, where my parents still attend services back in Brookline. Incidentally, Mom and Dad say "hi." It was Paul s idea to put the invite in the bottle. I think he got it from a movie, though.
Love,
Your Best Friend on Earth (I hope),
Zooey
P.S. Fm sorry I didn't go to your funeral.
"I want to give a toast," Liz announces to Owen the next morning.
"By all means," Owen says, sitting down with his cup of coffee. "I'm all ears."
"Not now, silly," Liz replies. "I meant at Zooey's wedding. Your idea to go to the Well might not be as bad as I first thought."
"So you're saying you want to dive?" Owen's eyes light up.
"Yes, and I need you to help me with the toast. The last time I tried to communicate from the Well was a bit of a disaster," Liz says.
"That was the night you met me, I believe."
"Like I said, it was a bit of a disaster," Liz jokes.
"That isn't funny." Owen shakes his head.
Liz continues, "All the faucets in the house turned on, and "
"Beginner's mistake," Owen interrupts.
"And nobody could understand what I was saying," Liz finishes.
"And you were arrested," Owen adds.
"That, too," Liz concedes. "So how do I make it so the people at the wedding will understand me and not run from the room screaming?"
"Well, for one, you have to remember not to scream. Once you have their attention, whispering is much more effective. Screaming ghosts scare people, you know," Owen says.
"Good tip."
"And you have to pick a running water source and focus on it. And good breath control is a must,"
Owen says. "I'll come with you, of course, but only if you want me to."
"Won't you get sacked if they know you're helping me make Contact?"
Owen shrugs. "I'm head of the whole department now, and people tend to look the other way."
Liz smiles. "Then I guess it's settled." She raises her glass of orange juice. "To our dive!" she proclaims.
"To our dive!" Owen repeats, raising his cup of coffee. "I love an adventure, don't you?"
The evening of Zooey's wedding reception, Owen and Liz meet at the beach at eight o'clock. The reception starts at eight-thirty, and the dive itself should take forty minutes by Owen's calculations.
"Once we get there, you only have a little over half an hour," Owen warns her. "I've told the boys from work to pick us up at nine-thirty."
"Do you think that's long enough?" Liz worries.
"It isn't good to spend too much time down there. It is still illegal, you know."
Liz nods.
"I don't mean to be rude, but your wet suit's a bit loose in the bottom, Liz," Owen says.
"Is it?" She tugs at the stretchy fabric around her butt. "The wet suit's getting old. I haven't used it in almost six years."
"You look like you're wearing a diaper."
"Yeah, well, I guess I'm shrinking, too. I am nine, you know," Liz says.
"That's little."
"Well, I'm actually nine-six, and I would have been twentyone, so that's not the same as being plain nine," Liz says. "Besides, Owen, you're eleven. That's not much older than nine."
"I'm eleven?" Owen asks. "I certainly don't feel eleven."