“How did you get here?” Charlotte asked clinically, far more calmly than she was feeling.
“I did the spell on my own,” Scarlet began, “recalling our first time, recalling you …”
It suddenly dawned on Charlotte that her recent feelings of wanting to go back again and being dissatisfied with her new so-called-life might have been a side effect of Scarlet channeling her. The memory should have been a sweet one for Charlotte, but she became panicked instead.
“If you are here,” Charlotte began, “where’s the rest of you?”
“In the hospital,” Scarlet answered sheepishly, “I guess?”
“You guess?”
“Damen tried to stop me,” Scarlet explained, “but you know how I am.”
Charlotte did indeed know how she was. She could easily picture Damen making his case and Scarlet ignoring him completely. In a flash, however, her anger passed and she found herself deeply touched by Scarlet’s willingness to risk her own life to save her sister, given their rocky relationship, and was suddenly deeply committed to saving them both.
Chapter
12
Die Young, Stay Pretty
Once you’re dead, you’re made for life.
—Jimi Hendrix
Only the good die young.
Whenever students meet their untimely demise in a horrible accident, from a random act of violence or a rare untreatable disease, they are instantly elevated by teachers, friends, and family into prized pupils, filled with promise—whether they actually were or not. They aren’t remembered as a busload of mediocre students who perished in a crash, but are magically transformed instead into upstanding honor roll students in death. We need lost lives to have meaning. It’s a comforting delusion, really. Like dead-spin. Unfortunately, you aren’t around to appreciate it.
Stuck in the discharge office, Petula and Virginia were getting to know each other, for better or worse.
“Getting older isn’t a bad thing,” Virginia leaned in and whispered.
“It’s not a good thing either,” Petula said, turning up her nose as if her dog had pooped in the kitchen. “Everything sags and shrivels.”
“A lot of people would feel lucky to grow older,” Virginia said, almost somberly. “It’s a gift.”
Petula stared right through Virginia, seething at the naiveté of the little know-it-all, but then considered that maybe she had stumbled upon a real teaching moment in her life. With the Wendys and other girls at school, she was more of an icon, a role model. She led by example. And Scarlet, well, she would never get through to her. But here was an opportunity to impart her wisdom, to imprint her philosophy on a whole new generation in her own unique way, with this little Virginia person as her messenger.
“No, it’s tragic. Youth is a gift,” Petula countered, admiring her own poppin’ fresh bod. “Just ask any old person.”
“That’s pretty narrow-minded,” Virginia fired back, showing surprising maturity. “What about wisdom?”
“I’d rather be hot than wise any day,” Petula said. “I don’t want to be one of those people who look back on the days when they were younger as their glory days.”
“Not everyone is so unhappy with themselves,” Virginia answered. “You are just projecting.”
“You don’t need to believe me,” Petula sniffed dismissively. “Just check out any supermarket tabloid survey.”
Petula consumed these things obsessively, not because she cared what others actually thought, but because they tended to reveal insecurities in them, weaknesses she could exploit.
“I’ve heard about some polls too,” Virginia responded. “Like the one where people were asked what they would do differently if they only had a few months to live.”
“And?” Petula asked, more curious than she was showing.
“Nothing,” Virginia said. “Most people wouldn’t change a thing. No Fifth Avenue shopping sprees, no cruises around the world, and no plastic surgery.”
“Not surprising,” Petula said coolly.
Virginia looked surprised and thought maybe she’d broken through just a little.
“There would be no point,” Petula instructed. “The swelling would barely be down in six months.”
Exasperation could barely describe Virginia’s mood, though she was beginning to admire Petula’s consistency.
“What about just changing who you are?” Virginia plied, taking one last shot at her argument. “On the inside.”
“The best way to change who you are,” Petula answered definitively, “is Photoshop.”
“You’re totally gonna be one of those wannabeens who roam around the mall trying to fit into child-size clothes with the logo of your favorite store sprawled across your middle-aged ass,” Virginia said with unwavering confidence.
Petula’s face went into screensaver mode to protect her from the harsh reality of the future she was picturing. She shook it off and re-engaged.
“Have you ever seen old-people feet?” Petula queried, offering up a striking visual. “Is that something you are looking forward to?”
“You should talk,” Virginia came back, glancing down at Petula’s big toe and botched pedicure.
“All I’m saying,” Petula emphasized, “is that nobody goes looking for the Fountain of Old.”
“If you base your whole life on looks, then I guess you’re right,” Virginia said snidely. “But I don’t know if I’m ready for a whole generation of grandmas with the greatest boobs ever.”
“Everyone bases their life on looks,” Petula replied. “Either you have and use them to get somewhere or you make a lot of money so you can surround yourself with beautiful people. No one wants to be ugly or old. Life is a runway.”
“Tell me about it,” Virginia mumbled.
“People would rather be envied than respected,” Petula ranted. “They want attention, for any reason, good or bad, and they’ll do anything to get it.”
“Or live through anyone to get it,” Virginia said cryptically.
“Oh, please, don’t play victim and blame your life on your evil stage Mommy,” Petula shot back unsympathetically. “That whole game is like a false pregnancy reading on a generic EPT!”
“Huh?” Virginia said, having no idea what Petula was talking about.
“When you first get the positive result, you’re upset and crying to all your friends,” Petula explained more clearly. “Then you test it again and it’s negative. You’re all relieved, but you secretly feel kind of down.”
“Don’t be shy,” Virginia said sarcastically.
“You look down on the whole pageant thing because you were pushed into it and you’re so over it now, and blah, friggin’ blah,” Petula continued, wrapping things up. “But once you were entered, the audience started to applaud, and you wanted to win, right?”
“Of course, everyone would rather win. We’re conditioned that way,” Virginia said. “It’s all about the reward.”
“And what were you being rewarded for?” Petula asked, interrupting. “Your looks. Your youth.”
“That sucks.”
“That’s life,” Petula summed up. “You’ve got to face the world as it is, not cling to the way you wish it was. Sometimes, Virginia,” she lectured, “you just have to let go.”
“Well, I still think old age is a gift,” Virginia said, refusing to back down.
“Yeah, well, that’s a gift that I hope comes with an exchange policy,” Petula quipped.
All this bickering had killed a lot of time and kept Petula and Virginia from noticing that even as their argument heated up, the room had gotten colder. Both girls felt more and more afraid but were too proud to say what they were really thinking. Something wasn’t right. Not right at all.
The two best friends had barely stopped talking since Scarlet arrived and were lying curled up in Charlotte’s top bunk, sleepover style, chitchatting and waiting for the morning to come. Maddy covered her head with a pillow but still couldn’t block out the bull s
ession entirely.
“I can’t believe what you went through to get here,” Charlotte marveled.
“I guess you could say I was dying to see you,” Scarlet punned, black humor being her favorite kind.
“You were in Dead Ed?”
“Yes, but it was a totally different class, with different kids and a different teacher,” Scarlet explained. “Nobody knew you.”
“They didn’t?” Charlotte asked, a little hurt.
“But I told them all about you.”
She smiled at Charlotte, knowing that’s what she secretly wanted to hear, and Charlotte smiled back at the fact that Scarlet knew that.
“The kids were really nice to me. I felt really badly dragging them into all this,” Scarlet confided.
“Apparently not badly enough,” Maddy interjected.
“But I couldn’t stay, obviously,” Scarlet continued, ignoring the heckling from the bunk below. “I was so afraid I was gonna get stuck there.”
“Translation,” Maddy interjected, “they kicked you out like a party crasher.”
“No,” Scarlet said. “I applied for Early Decision, and here I am.”
“Crafty,” Charlotte said, praising Scarlet’s spirit-world savvy.
“You got accepted?” Maddy asked enviously.
“Yes,” Scarlet said proudly, “I’m a graduate, just like you guys, except I’m not dead or anything.”
“And all I got was this lousy T-shirt,” Maddy mumbled.
Charlotte decided to ease the tension a little and redirected the conversation back to less controversial territory.
“What about Hawthorne?” Charlotte asked hesitantly. “Do they remember me there?”
Charlotte had that queasy feeling you get in your stomach on roller coasters. She was sure she’d be remembered, at least for a semester or something. But she prepared to hear the details of her irrelevance.
“It was weird for a while,” Scarlet explained. “Nobody wanted to admit it had really happened.”
“Better a has-been,” Charlotte interjected, “than a wannabe.”
“But then,” Scarlet paused for effect, “they put your obituary in the center of the glass case in the lobby, next to all the other distinguished alumni, class presidents, former Homecoming queens, All-State jocks, Science Fair geeks, and other loathsome creatures.”
“Coming from you,” Charlotte giggled, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Charlotte was nearly bursting at her posthumous celebrity as Scarlet went on and on about how people who never even knew her were telling her story in the most warm and familiar terms. How, in the weeks following her passing, people would break out into spontaneous group hugs in the hallways and comfort one another — like they had to survive this tragedy together. As if they never knew that someone could die before this event, which showed them that they too were mortal. There were black ribbons handed out and grief counselors hired to help the student body through mourning someone they’d never even acknowledged. She had given them all some-thing to be part of.
“Someone even found a hot roll on their school lunch tray that they said had an image of your face in it,” Scarlet laughed. “It made the school paper.”
This all should have been really uplifting for Charlotte, but rather than simply enjoying the celebration of her memory, she began to feel sad and a little bit cheated. Charlotte found herself wishing she could have been there to see it.
As their laughter subsided, a strange sadness came over Scarlet, too. She became fixated on that obituary she’d written for Charlotte and how close she and Petula might soon be to needing ones of their own. A double funeral was an increasing possibility. It was all getting more and more absurd, but less and less funny.
“This is the first time we’ve ever been together in your room,” Scarlet noted wistfully, feeling much closer to death than ever before.
“Our room,” Maddy corrected pointedly.
“Don’t worry,” Charlotte reassured with a smile. “You are just visiting.”
Scarlet loved Charlotte’s ability to put a good face on anything. She believed Charlotte and believed in her, same as always. She had to. Despite Maddy’s annoying presence, being with Charlotte took her back to a time when she was secure and everything was new and exciting. Now it was time to put that faith to the test.
“Damen is sitting in that room, waiting,” Scarlet said anxiously. “Waiting for her … for me, to come back.”
“Then you better get going,” Maddy hinted.
“Scarlet, is all this really because of Petula?” Charlotte asked. “Or Damen?”
“No, well, I don’t know, maybe,” Scarlet fudged, not really knowing the answer herself. “He hasn’t been home much since he started school, and now all of a sudden, when Petula is so sick, he pops up.”
“It does make you wonder,” Maddy intervened.
“He says it’s because he wanted to take me to Homecoming,” Scarlet explained, a bit defensively.
“Homecoming?” Charlotte mused aloud, trying hard to keep her mind from slipping into all the old delusions once again.
“We just haven’t been connecting like we used to,” Scarlet complained, seeming more vulnerable to Charlotte than she had before. “It’s like we’re in different worlds.”
Charlotte knew all about being in different worlds, firsthand. She couldn’t help but think that maybe it truly was she whom Damen had fallen for, but she immediately felt guilty for even letting the thought cross her mind. Maddy stayed quiet, gathering information and listening carefully to both girls spill their guts.
“Does he call you?” Charlotte asked curiously.
“Yes, he does, but it’s not enough, you know?”
“Does he know how you feel?”
“No. And I don’t really know how he feels,” Scarlet said, clearly frustrated.
“Love is a battlefield,” Maddy butted in, unable to restrain herself.
Damen’s sympathy for Petula was really irksome to Scarlet, and the fact that they were experiencing a growing communication breakdown was making him much harder to read. Scarlet wanted to believe her main reason for seeking Charlotte was to help Petula, not something she was especially anxious to admit, but Charlotte was on to something. Restoring Petula, saving her life, would put Damen’s focus back on Scarlet completely. That was something she was reluctant to do, especially in front of Maddy.
“Honestly,” Scarlet said unconvincingly, “I think I just want Petula back so that she can make my life hell again.”
Charlotte smiled. She could see right through Scarlet’s defense mechanisms, directly to her heart.
“This really is so weird, right?” Scarlet said, taking in her surroundings as well as the friendly face in front of her. “Me being here.”
It was weird, but totally welcome. Charlotte liked being sucked back into all the gossip at Hawthorne, even under these difficult circumstances. She hadn’t felt this good since she’d crossed over. They’d caught up almost completely without ever addressing the most obvious topic of discussion: How, exactly, was Charlotte going to help her?
Maddy, acting like the voice of reason, elbowed into the warm and fuzzy scene again.
“She’s just wasting her time here, Charlotte,” Maddy warned. “You can’t help her.”
“You don’t know that,” Charlotte replied in a surprisingly clipped tone. “Maybe she’s here for a reason. Maybe this is my reunion.”
Maddy just rolled her eyes. Charlotte knew better also but allowed herself a selfish moment under the circumstances.
“If she stays here any longer, it might be,” Maddy said, reminding her coldly that time was not on Scarlet’s side.
Scarlet was glad to see Charlotte still had the backbone she’d grown the night of the Fall Ball, but Maddy did have a point. Although there was almost nothing she’d rather do than stay and talk with Charlotte, there was still one thing that took precedence, the reason she’d come. Good point or not, however, Scarlet
was getting the distinct impression that Maddy was trying to get rid of her and that it had nothing to do with searching for Petula.
“I think she should go,” Maddy said emphatically to Charlotte, then glanced over to address Scarlet directly. “Nothing personal, Scarlet, but Petula isn’t here yet, and you don’t belong here either. Yet.”
“You said she’s in a coma?” Charlotte asked, ignoring Maddy.
“Yeah.”
“Well, if she’s not quite dead,” Charlotte considered, “maybe she’s somewhere off-campus, you know, in an intake office, like at … the hospital?”
“That’s nonsense,” Maddy decried. “Dying is not like being on deck in a kickball game.”
“Actually,” Charlotte said, “it kind of is.”
Maddy was totally perplexed, but the look of recognition on Scarlet’s face was instant. Dead Ed, the orientation film, the whole Billy and Butch/special abilities kickball metaphor thing. Funny, she thought, that Maddy wouldn’t have gotten that too. Everyone had to watch the film. Repeatedly.
“We need to get off campus,” Charlotte continued.
“Great. How?” Scarlet asked, eager to just get up and go.
“Charlotte, you can’t just head back to the living world,” Maddy warned urgently. “You have a job now, responsibilities at the phone bank.”
“You mean I might miss one of those calls I never get,” Charlotte said sarcastically, but nevertheless understanding that the consequences of venturing off into the unknown could be very dangerous. “I’m sure you can handle them for me.”
Charlotte’s annoyance at Maddy taking her call the other day at work had been festering, and this was as good a time as any for Charlotte to let her know.