“You can’t do that!” Cindy had regained some spunk, even if it was just the pique of a woman whose sorority sister had just puked on her new blouse. “Those are mine.”
She tried to take them back, and might have succeeded (death does terrible things to your muscle tone) except at that point, the orange juice that Melanie had drunk poured down her leg, embarrassing them both. It wasn’t pee, she wanted to explain, it was just orange juice and maybe a little embalming fluid, but there was no way to gracefully recover from such an event, no matter what finishing school you had attended, so neither tried. They just stared at each other for a long uncomfortable moment. Melanie dropped the key ring.
With an exaggerated shudder, Cindy scooped up the keys and drove off. In Melanie’s Mercedes. In her Mercedes!
“You bitch!” Melanie screamed at the car as it squealed away. Only dead a few days and Brandon was letting his secretary drive her Mercedes? He’d better offer her several karats of apology for that.
Melanie let herself in the house and went straight to the bar. She poured herself a drink, and then another. She accidentally spilled some vermouth on her blouse, so she decided to change out of her grave outfit and have a shower. She had a really beautiful shower, she decided. The whole house was beautiful, really, and her clothing had been tastefully selected. She’d taken it for granted while she was alive, but now that she was dead, the luxury of organic cotton towels and travertine underfoot actually meant something to her. Maybe it wasn’t a living-dead thing, maybe it was just relief that she was finally home, where she was supposed to be.
She did her Pilates video workout and her nightly skin care regimen, then went to bed, only to find that she couldn’t sleep.
She turned on the television.
The next day, she skipped the Pilates workout.
Melanie found the remote and sat on the leather couch, putting her feet on a stack of magazines that she’d finally have time to read. The TiVo had four solid days’ worth of programming on it, which for once sounded encouraging rather than daunting. She’d hardly had time for it before—she’d had too many hair and manicure and personal trainer appointments—but now that she was dead, there seemed little point.
Besides, after all she’d been through, she deserved a little “me” time.
The calendar on the fridge said her husband would be home in three days, but it was closer to five. By that time, she’d grown decidedly squishy, and not just around the eyes. Her fingers shrank at the tips, giving her a claw-like appearance that begged for an acrylic fill. The flesh on her thighs sagged, detaching from the bones. She thought about the liposuction she’d gotten, and tsked silently.
Melanie watched QVC, drank everything in the liquor cabinet, and felt her body decompose. Really, Brandon was being insensitive; he could have at least called. She emailed him, then emailed her mom and her sister, just to say hi, back from the dead, what’s up with you?
She was lonely. She wanted comfort and companionship so desperately that she’d already decided not to be bitchy, to let the appearance of the blonde bimbo (who looked like a younger version of herself, she decided) just pass over. She could always argue about it later, and anyway, she’d always suspected that Brandon led a double life. She had had her lovers; why should he be any different?
The key rattled, and Brandon opened the kitchen door.
“Dear God,” Brandon said, garment bag dangling off his shoulder and laptop case in his hand. “What’s that horrible smell?”
“That’s not very nice,” said Melanie, feeling hurt. She had endured a lot in the past few days, and while she considered herself thick-skinned, Brandon’s complete lack of empathy pissed her off. “Here I am, risen from the grave, even if not exactly fresh any more, and all you can do is complain that I’m a corpse? What did you expect?”
“Melanie?” Brandon said, his voice half wonderment and half horror. The garment bag slipped from his hands. He turned and vomited in the sink.
If Melanie’s tear ducts had been still functional, she probably would have cried. Really, why did he have to be so dramatic?
She stood, leaving a puddle of formaldehyde-tainted liquor and various body fluids on the couch. (She didn’t feel guilty; it was only from IKEA.) She meant to seductively slink into the kitchen, one hand coquettishly outlining her cleavage, but she couldn’t manage more than a shuffle. It was a wonder her tongue still worked, when you came to think about it.
“What were you doing, planning a business trip right after you raised me from the dead? Didn’t you think you might need to be here for me?”
Brandon made strangled gurgling noises. He pressed himself against the granite-topped island, hands splayed out as though he were Vanna White and the under-counter wine case a lovely vowel.
It was an awkward pose, Melanie decided. Actually this whole situation was awkward. “Brandon…”
“God, no, please no…”
She gave him her best pout. That pout had gotten her emeralds before, but now it seemed broken. She sighed. “So, what now? Why did you raise me from the dead?”
“No, no, no…” he moaned.
She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Hello!” She was the one who had died, what right did he have to act like his life was turned upside down? He had always been a firm, take-charge kind of guy. An alpha male, he called himself. He dominated in tennis, took no prisoners when he negotiated a deal, and drove like an asshole on the freeway. And yet here he was, bawling like a scared little boy.
“Brandon!” she tried again, and when that didn’t work, she slapped him.
It wasn’t much of a slap, but as soon as her flesh touched his face, Brandon’s eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out, smacking his head against the counter and then the floor, his hands squeaking uselessly down the front of the dishwasher.
She sighed, and put her hands on her hips. Useless. Completely useless. And he obviously wasn’t the person who had raised her. She nudged him with her foot, but he wasn’t faking.
Melanie found her purse and her cell phone. She took his keys out of his pocket. She was going to take the z4, but she felt a little bad about slapping him, so she took the Audi instead. And even though he’d never liked the upholstery color, she put a plastic bag over the driver’s seat, because the half case of Rémy she’d drunk wasn’t preserving her as alcohol was supposed to. It seemed to be turning her insides into a slurry of decay.
At this rate, she’d be nothing but a skeleton before the month was out.
Melanie got behind the wheel of the Audi and took off, hoping that some innate psychic sense would take her to the person that brought her back from the grave.
It didn’t. She took out her cell phone and dialed 411.
“Hello, can you give me the name of a necromancer?” she asked the operator.
“I’m sorry, we don’t have that listing.”
“Try surrounding cities, anything in Los Angeles County,” Melanie said. She’d never heard of someone looking up necromancers in the yellow pages, but there were apparently a lot of things she’d never heard of which existed.
“Sorry, ma’am. Nothing.”
“How about ‘witch-doctor’?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, we don’t have that—” The phone flew out of her hand and her already damaged face smacked the steering wheel.
Melanie touched her face, and her hand came away sticky. Steam rose from the front of her car, the hood crumpled into an M. Great, that was just what she needed, to rear-end someone. The little Geo Metro ahead of her had also been crumpled, its frame bent around the base of the tire.