"Did you find anything?" Grandma Betty asks when she comes into the closet several minutes later. In this time, Liz has not moved.
Liz looks up but doesn't answer.
"I know how you feel," Grandma Betty says.
Yeah right, Liz thinks.
"You're thinking that I don't know how you feel, but in some ways, I do. Dying at fifty isn't as different from dying at fifteen as you might think. When you're fifty, you still have a lot of things you might like to do and a lot of things you need to take care of."
"What did you die from anyway?" Liz asks.
"Breast cancer. Your mother was pregnant with you at the time."
"I know that part."
Grandma Betty smiles a sad little smile. "So, it's nice I get to meet you now. I was beside myself with disappointment that I didn't get to meet you then. I wish we'd met under slightly different circumstances, of course." She shakes her head. "You might look pretty in this." She raises the arm of a floral print dress that is not at all like something Liz would wear.
Liz shakes her head.
"Or this?" Grandma Betty points to a cashmere sweater.
"If it's the same to you, I think I'll just wear my pajamas after all."
"I understand, and you certainly won't be the first person to go to an acclimation appointment in pajamas," Grandma Betty assures her.
"Your clothes are nice, though."
"We can buy you some other things," Grandma Betty says. "I would have bought them for you myself, but I didn't know what you would like. Clothes are a personal business, at least for me."
Liz shrugs.
"When you're ready," Grandma Betty continues, "I'll give you money. Just say the word."
But Liz can't bring herself to care what she wears anymore and decides to change the subject.
"I've been wondering what I should call you, by the way. It seems odd to call you Grandma somehow."
"How about Betty, then?"
Liz nods. "Betty."
"And what do you like to be called?" Betty asks.
"Well, Mom and Dad call me Lizzie ..." Liz corrects herself. "They used to call me Lizzie, but I think I prefer Liz now."
Betty smiles. "Liz."
"I'm really not feeling well. Would it be all right if I stayed in bed today, and we changed my acclimation appointment to tomorrow?" asks Liz. Her collarbone feels tender where the seat belt pulled against it during last night's crash, but mainly Liz doesn't feel like doing anything.
Betty shakes her head. "Sorry, doll, but everyone's got to have their acclimation appointment their first day in Elsewhere. No exceptions."
Liz leaves the closet and turns to Betty's bedroom window, which overlooks an unruly garden.
She can identify roses, lilies, lavender, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, begonias, gardenias, an apple tree, an orange tree, an olive tree, and a cherry tree. Liz wonders how so many varieties of flowers and fruits can share a single plot of land. "Is that your garden?" Liz asks.
"Yes," Betty answers.
"Mom likes to garden, too."
Betty nods. "Olivia and I used to garden together, but among other things, we never agreed about what to plant. She preferred useful plants like cabbages and carrots and peas. Me, I'm a sucker for a sweet perfume or a splash of color."
"It's pretty," Liz says, watching a monarch butterfly rest on a red hibiscus flower. "Wild, but pretty."
The butterfly flaps its wings and flies away.
"Oh, I know I should probably trim everything back and impose some order on it, but I can never bring myself to prune a rosebush or clip a bud. A flower's life is short enough as it is." Betty laughs. "My garden is a beautiful mess, I'm afraid."
"Are you sure you don't want to drive?" Betty asks on the way to Liz's meeting at the Registry. Liz shakes her head.
"You shouldn't be discouraged just because you had a minor setback."
"No," Liz says firmly. "If I'm getting younger anyway, I'm going to have to get used to being a passenger."
Betty looks at Liz in the rearview mirror. In the backseat, Liz's arms are folded across the chest of her pajama shirt.
"I'm sorry about my tour guide routine last night," Betty says.
"What do you mean?" Liz asks.
"I mean, I think I was trying too hard. I want you to like it here, and I want you to like me. But I think I just went on and on, and sounded like an idiot."
Liz shakes her head. "You were fine. I just ..." Her voice trails off. "I just don't really know you is all."
"I know," Betty says, "but I know you a bit. I've watched you most of your life from the ODs."
"What are ODs?"
"Observation Decks. They're these places where you can see all the way to Earth. For limited amounts of time, of course. Do you remember when you saw your funeral on the ship?"
"Yes," says Liz, "from the binoculars." As long as she lived (died?), she would never forget it.
"Well, they have Observation Decks set up throughout Elsewhere. They'll go over it today at your acclimation appointment."
Liz nods.
"Out of curiosity, is there anyone in particular you'd like to see?" Betty asks.
Of course, Liz misses her family. But in some ways the one person Liz misses the most is her best friend, Zooey. She wonders what Zooey's prom dress would look like. Would Zooey even go to prom now that Liz was dead? Zooey hadn't bothered to attend the funeral. If Zooey had been the one who died, Liz definitely would have gone to her funeral. Now that she thinks about it, it seems pretty rude that her own best friend had skipped out, particularly under the circumstances.
After all, if Zooey hadn't asked Liz to the mall to look for dumb prom dresses, Liz wouldn't have been hit by a taxicab. If Liz hadn't been hit by a taxicab, she wouldn't have died, and . . . Liz sighs: you could drive yourself crazy with ifs.
Suddenly, Betty gestures out the window, causing the car to swerve a little. "That's where your appointment is. It's called the Registry. I pointed it out to you yesterday, but I don't know how much attention you were paying."
Out her window, Liz sees a gargantuan, rather homely structure. The tallest building Liz has ever seen, it seems to stretch up to infinity. Despite its size, the Registry looks like a child built it: walls, stairways, and other additions jut out at improbable angles, and the construction seems improvised, almost like the makeshift forts Liz used to build with her brother. "It's sort of ugly," Liz pronounces.
"It used to be better looking," says Betty, "but the building's needs are always outpacing its size.
Architects are constantly concocting ways to expand the building, and construction workers are constantly implementing those plans. Some people say the building looks like it's growing right before your eyes."
Betty makes a left turn into the Registry parking lot. She stops the car in front of one of the building's multiple entrances. "Do you want me to walk you inside? It can get kind of confusing in there," Betty says.
"No, I'd rather go myself, if you don't mind," Liz replies.
Betty nods. "I'll pick you up around five, then. Try to have a good day, doll."
A Circle and a Line
Although Liz has arrived at the Registry fifteen minutes early, it takes her nearly twentyfive minutes to find the Office of Acclimation. The maps posted at the elevator shaft are long outdated, and no one who works at the building seems able to give proper directions. When Liz attempts to retrace her footsteps, she keeps finding new doorways that she could swear weren't there five minutes earlier.
At random (for she now believes in the power of randomness as only the suddenly deceased can), Liz decides to give one of the new doorways a try. She finds a hallway and, at the end of the hallway, another door. An unofficial-looking cardboard sign indicates that behind this door lies the temporary home of the Office of Acclimation.
Liz opens the door. Inside, she finds a busy, perfectly ordinary-looking reception area. (As Betty had said, many people are still wearing white pajamas.) I
f not for a faded, rather macabre poster hanging on the wall, Liz might have thought she was at her doctor's office. The poster depicts a smiling gray-haired woman sitting up in a mahogany coffin. Printed on the poster are the following words:
SO YOU'RE DEAD, NOW WHAT?
The Office of Acclimation is here to help.
The peevish-looking woman at the front desk reminds Liz of the poster; she, too, is faded, dated, and grim. She wears her hair in a 1960s beehive and her skin has a greenish tint. A name-plate on her desk reads yetta brown.
"Excuse me," Liz says, "I have an appointment at "
Yetta Brown clears her throat and nods her head in the direction of a bell that sits on the desk. A sign by the bell reads, please ring for assistance!!!
Liz obeys. Yetta Brown clears her throat again and plasters a broad fake smile across her face.
"Yes, how may I help you?"
"I have an appointment at eight "
Yetta's fake smile turns into a definitive frown. "Why didn't you say so? You're five minutes late for the video! Make haste, make haste, make haste!"
"I'm sorry," Liz apologizes, "I couldn't find "
Yetta interrupts Liz again. "I have no time for your apologies."
Liz dislikes being interrupted. "You shouldn't inter "
"I have no time for small talk."
Yetta deposits Liz in a dusty, darkened room with a battered VCR and TV The room, which is more like a supply closet, barely has enough space for its one chair. "I will return for you when the video is over," Yetta says. "Oh yes, enjoy the film," she adds in a perfunctory manner as she walks out the door.
Liz sits in the lone chair. The video is like the dry informational videos that Liz occasionally watched for health in ninth grade or driver's ed in tenth grade on subjects like "Sexual Education"
and "Traffic Safety."
The video begins with a talking cartoon parrot. "I'm Polly," says the parrot. "If you're watching this video, that means you're dead dead dead! Greetings and salutations, dead people!" Liz finds the animation primitive and Polly annoying.
With the detestable Polly as guide, the video covers some of what Liz and Betty have already discussed: how everyone in Elsewhere ages backward and becomes a baby, and how the babies are sent down the River when they are seven days old, back to Earth. "On Earth," Polly squawks, "man ages from the time he is born to an indeterminate point in the future, when he will die die die." The video shows a cartoon baby becoming a boy, then a man, then an old man, then dead.
"On Elsewhere," Polly continues, "a life is more finite: man dies, and ages backward until he is a baby." The cartoon old man becomes a man, then a boy, then a baby. "When man becomes a baby again, he is ready to be sent back to Earth, where the process begins again." The cartoon baby becomes a boy, becomes a man, becomes an old man. Liz imagines her life depicted on a cartoon time line. I would only make it somewhere between cartoon boy and cartoon man, she thinks. And then she wonders if boys are always boys, and if girls are always girls, and if dogs are always dogs.
The video also ventures into subject matter that Liz and Betty had not discussed in much detail.
Liz learns the proper way to state her age: your current age followed by the number of years you have been in Elsewhere. Liz's current age is fifteen-zero. She also learns that her new "birthday"
is January 4. It is a somewhat confusing calculation that involves adding the number of days past one's last birthday to the day one died.
She learns that no one new is born in Elsewhere, but no one dies either. People get sick and hurt, but with time, everyone eventually heals. Consequently, sickness isn't much of an issue here.
She learns that you are forbidden to make Contact with people on Earth ("Contact is a no-no! It's a no-no!" squawks Polly, waving his yellow beak furiously from side to side), but that you could view Earth from the Observation Decks anytime. Observation Decks, like the one on the SS Nile, aren't just for funerals. They are also located on docked boats and lighthouses scattered throughout Elsewhere. For the price of just one eternim, Liz could view whoever or whatever she wants back on Earth for five minutes. Liz decides right then to ask Betty to drive her to the nearest Observation Deck tonight.
She learns that everyone has to choose an avocation. From what Liz could tell, an avocation is basically like a job, except you are actually supposed to like doing it. Liz shakes her head at that part. How does she know what she wants to do? Not to mention, at her age, what is she even trained for?
She learns the official definition of acclimation. "Acclimation," yells Polly, "is the process by which the newly deceased become residents of Elsewhere. So welcome welcome welcome, dead people!"
She learns many, many, many other things that she is sure she will probably forget.
The end of the video deals more with metaphysical issues on Elsewhere. It talks about how human existence is like a circle and a line at the same time. It is a circle, because everything that was old would be new and everything that was new became old. It is a line because the circle stretched out indefinitely, infinitely even. People die. People are born. People die again. Each birth and death is a little circle, and the sum of all those little circles is a life and a line. During this discussion of human existence, Liz finds herself drifting off to sleep.
She wakes several minutes later to the sound of Yetta Brown admonishing her. "I hope you didn't sleep through the whole thing! Get up! Get up now!"
Liz jumps to her feet. "I'm sorry. I'm just really exhausted from dying, and "
Yetta Brown interrupts. "It doesn't matter to me; your behavior only hurts yourself." Yetta Brown sighs. "You have your meeting with your acclimation counselor, Aldous Ghent, now. Mr. Ghent is a very important man. So, you know, it wouldn't do for you to fall asleep during your meeting with him."
"I honestly don't think I missed much," Liz apologizes.
"All right. Tell me why human existence is like a circle and a line," Yetta demands.
Liz racks her brain. "It's a circle because, um . . . Earth is a sphere, which is kind of like a, um, three-dimensional circle?"
Yetta shakes her head in disgust. "Exactly as I thought!"
"Look, I'm sorry about falling asleep." Liz speaks very quickly to avoid being interrupted. "Maybe I can watch the end of the video again?"
Yetta Brown ignores Liz. "We have a lot to get done today, Ms. Hall. Things will go far more smoothly if you can manage to stay awake."
"This is Elizabeth Marie Hall, Mr. Ghent." Yetta pronounces Liz's name as if it were a particularly unpleasant word like gingivitis. Aldous Ghent looks up as Yetta and Liz enter the office.
"Thank you, Ms. Brown," Aldous calls as Yetta basically slams the door in his face. "Ah well, perhaps she didn't hear me? Yetta seems to have peculiarly bad hearing. She's always interrupting me."
Liz laughs politely.
"Hello, Elizabeth Hall. I am Aldous Ghent, your acclimation counselor. Please have a seat." He indicates that Liz should sit in the chair in front of his desk. However, that chair is entirely covered in paperwork. Indeed, all of his windowless office is shrouded in paperwork.
"Should I move these files?" Liz asks.
"Oh, please do!" Aldous smiles and then looks sadly around his cluttered office. "I have so much paperwork. I'm afraid my paperwork has paperwork."
"Maybe you need a bigger office?" Liz suggests.
"They keep promising me one. It's the thing I'm most looking forward to. Except for my hair growing back." He pats his bald pate affectionately. "I started going bald around twentyfive, so I figure I only have around thirty-six more years to wait for a full head of hair. The sad part is, we all lose most of our hair when we become babies anyway. The way I see it, I'll only have about a twentyfour-year window of hair before I lose it all over again. Ah well!" Aldous sighs.
Liz runs her fingers through her own newly grown hair.
"Last year my teeth came back in. The teething was murder! I kept my wife up all night with
my blubbering and ballyhoo." Aldous grins so that Liz can see his teeth. "I'm going to take good care of them this time around. Dentures are not good. They're worse than not good actually. Dentures, they um . . ."
"Suck?" Liz suggests.
"Dentures suck," Aldous says with a laugh. "They really do. The sound they make when you eat is just like sucking."
Aldous carefully removes a file from the bottom of a precarious pile of paperwork in the center of his desk. He opens the file and reads aloud, "You're from Bermuda where you died in a boating accident?"
"Um, that's not me," Liz says.
"Sorry." Aldous selects another file, "You're from Manhattan, and had, uh, breast cancer, is it?"
Liz shakes her head. She doesn't even have much in the way of breasts.
Aldous selects a third file. "Massachusetts? Head trauma in a bicycle accident?"
Liz nods. That's her.
"Well" Aldous shrugs "at least it was quick. Except for the coma part, but you probably don't remember that anyway."
Indeed, Liz does not. "How long was I in a coma?"
"About a week, but you were already brain-dead. Says here your poor parents had to decide to pull the plug. We, my wife Rowena and I, had to pull the plug on our son, Joseph, back on Earth.
His best friend accidentally shot him when they were playing with an old gun of mine. It was the worst day of my life. If you ever have children " Aldous stops himself.
"If I ever have children, what?"
"I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that. No one can have children on Elsewhere," Aldous says.
Liz takes a moment to absorb this information. From Al-dous's tone, she knows he thinks this news will upset her. But Liz hasn't really thought about having children.
"Do you see your son now?" Liz asks.
Aldous shakes his head. "No, he was already back on Earth by the time Ro and I got here. I would have liked to see him again, but it was not to be." Aldous blows his nose. "Allergies," he apologizes.
"What kind?" Liz asks.
"Oh," Aldous replies, "I'm allergic to sad memories. It's the worst. Would you like to see a picture of my wife, Rowena?"