Becoming Death (16 page)

It took me five minutes to get to Clarissa’s apartment and another five minutes to convince her doorman to let me inside.

I knocked on her door. “It’s me,” I called from the hallway.

The door clicked and swung open slowly. Clarissa stood behind it hunched over, her chin drooping against her neck.

“Hey,” I said

She didn’t greet me. She closed her eyes tightly and made her way to the couch. She leaned into the sofa like it had arms to comfort her and cradled her stomach.

I sat down at the other end and faced her. “You seemed really upset on the phone.”

She blinked her puffy eyes at me and stared blankly into the middle distance.

“Clarissa, you’re freaking me out. What happened?”

She cried against her palm. “I was so stupid.”

I reached across the distance to squeeze her hand. “Did you make a mistake? Did you take the wrong person or something?”

She shook her head. She pushed a book towards me. I instantly recognized it as our grim reaper handbook. I picked it up at the open page and read:

Female reapers should avoid sexual intercourse within twenty-four hours of soul extraction, as there is an increased risk of pregnancy. Birth control medication will be ineffective during this time and the likelihood of conception increases to ninety-five percent. Please use caution.

My eyes shot up at her. “You’re pregnant?”

She hid behind her auburn hair. “I’m so stupid, Madison. I had an affair with my boss. He’s a married man. He promised he’d leave his wife for me. But now I’m having his baby and he’s not leaving her.”

“He said that?” I asked, wishing I had his address so I could teach him a lesson with a baseball bat.

She leaned her head into her hand. “Yeah, then he fired me.

I covered my mouth with my hand. I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d never seen my sister like this before.

“I can’t raise a baby on my own with no job. I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m not ready. This is not in my five year plan.”

I scooted closer and hugged her. “This isn’t the end of the world. You need to stay positive. This a good thing.”

“How? My life is falling apart.” She pulled away.

I held her arm. “It’s not falling apart, it’s changing. You’re changing. You’re going to be a mother. I have no doubt in my mind you’ll get a new job in a few days and be able to raise that baby on your own.”

She stood up, taking some uncertain steps away. “You don’t understand the pressure I’m under. I was the only woman in my office. Want to know why? Because this is what happens to women. They get themselves pregnant and then people think we can’t do our jobs anymore. No one will hire me—I’m a risk now. I had a plan, career goals that were within my reach, and now my dreams are over.”

“That is bull. I know you too well to think for even a second that you’d give up that easily. Yes, there may be jerks in the world that think women are inferior, but you’ll prove them wrong. You always have. You work hard and want it more than the rest. Why shouldn’t your dreams include a great career and a family?”

“I just don’t know if I’m ready to be responsible for someone else,” she said.

“I don’t think anyone ever is.”

Clarissa looked down at her stomach, massaging it with her hand. “You promise to babysit?”

“Yes.” I jumped up from the sofa and hugged her. “I’m going to be the coolest aunt ever.”

When I arrived home from Clarissa’s apartment I was pleased to find Aaron doing the dishes in the kitchen.

“Hey,” I said. I stood behind him and wrapped arms around his chest to cuddle him. Aaron turned his head to look at me and I leaned forwards with my arms still around him to touch his lips to mine.

“Nice day at work?” he asked, giving me a final kiss on the cheek.

I let him go and leaned against the counter next to him. “It was okay. Not everything I expected, but okay,” I said, trying to pass off today as normal. I hoped Cindy’s death wouldn’t be in the six o’clock news.

“How did they die?” Aaron asked me, glancing at my figure-hugging dress and high heels while he cleaned a plate

“Their neck was broken by a coffin lid,” I blurted out loud. Luckily Aaron didn’t seem to notice.

He shuddered. “As deaths go, that has got to suck.”

“Yeah, well, there was a lot of people there, so they must have been loved.” My mind drifted back to Derek crying at the sight of Cindy’s dead body.

“I stopped by Clarissa’s on the way home. I probably shouldn’t tell you until my mom knows, but she’s pregnant.”

His eyes widened. “Really? I thought she was a workaholic?”

“She’s decided she can have both a career and a family,” I said.

“Good for her.” Aaron leaned forwards. “I’m glad you had a good day because I’ve spent the day thinking about you. I couldn’t wait to see you again.”

I hooked my fingers into his belt loop and pulled him close. “What did you think about?”

“That’s my little secret, but I bet you could guess.”

I tapped a finger against my cheek. “I don’t know. You always were a bit of a pervert, so it could be anything.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you one thing.”

“I’m all ears,” I said, loving how natural it felt to flirt with my best friend.

“Kissing my way down your stomach kept coming to mind,” he said, moistening his lips.

I subconsciously ran my fingers over my stomach before placing them on his shoulder. “I thought about your shoulders.” I moved behind him and massaged his back.

Aaron closed his eyes. He dropped the plate he was holding back into the sink. “Careful, or you’ll make me break something.”

I leaned my head on his shoulder and began to kiss his neck. Aaron pulled away and flipped around. He placed his hands, still soapy from the water, in my hair and yanked me forwards. We kissed like it was the only way we could breath. After a few moments he broke the kiss and just held my face, staring into my eyes.

I blushed. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“Just give me this moment,” he said as he ran his thumb over my cheek. “This won’t be new forever.”

After a minute he pulled away and returned to the dishes. “I think we should go out to dinner tonight, to celebrate your new job and to have our first official date. Does that sound alright?” Aaron looked over his shoulder at me.

I wrapped my arms around his back. “Yeah, okay, let’s do it. But I’ll need to change, you got me all wet.”

“Hmm… that was one of the other things I pictured you saying.”

“Aaron, you’re horrible.”

“I’m a guy.” He dumped out the dishwater and wiped his hands on a towel. “By all means, go change. I’ll think of somewhere special to take you.”

We pulled into Bread, Sauce and Cheese. I looked over at Aaron. “This is perfect.”

After he parked, Aaron ran around the car to open my door. As he took my hand, I could tell he had a lot invested in tonight, but then again so did I. I wanted our first real date as a couple to go well. As we waited for a table, I took in the atmosphere. Music played out of an old fashioned jukebox with records and the booths looked like they were straight out a fifties diner. The popular kids in high school had always avoided it because it was tacky, but this had always been our place. We’d come here nearly every Friday night after school to gossip, eat greasy food and drink root beer floats. Although we’d grown up a bit, it was still my favorite place in town. Aaron had chosen well.

Aaron led me to our usual booth tucked away at the back, next to the foosball table. “I wonder if they have anything new.” He scanned through the menu quickly. “The steak melt looks good.”

The specials got less interesting when I realized Aaron was staring at me again. “Seriously, stop it. I’m not even pretty.”

“You’re not looking at yourself. If you were, you’d stare too.”

“You’re just blinded by lust and hormones,” I said.

“Well duh, but we may as well enjoy this honeymoon period while it lasts,” he noted.

“Thanks for bringing me here. It feels great to be in my favorite place with a hot guy.”

“Don’t get too used to it. I’ve got you now. I’m planning to let myself go at any minute. Lose my hair and gain about twenty pounds.” He patted his stomach. “Double order of onion rings it is.”

“Don’t you dare,” I said.

“It’s all down hill from here. Better get used to it,” he said.

“You always did fill me with such confidence.”

“Here, I got you this.” He pushed another plastic vending machine capsule towards me. “I was going to give this to you at the bowling alley the other day but I chickened out.”

“Another expensive present? To what do I owe the honor?”

“It was the first one I got. I thought you might like it better.”

I popped open the top and pulled out another piece of jewelry. This one a necklace with a simple red heart. I ran my finger over the flat surface.

“I won your heart and now I wanted you to have mine.”

“You nerd,” I said, placing the necklace around my neck.

“Well that would make you a super nerd, cause you’re dating me.”

I smirked.

A waitress with curly gray hair glided over to our table on roller skates. “Evening, kids, what can I get you?” she asked.

“Do you want our usual?” Aaron asked me.

“If you can remember it,” I said.

“Large cheese pizza with pineapple on one side and bacon on the other; and two root beer floats?” he confirmed the order to the waitress.

“And we’re officially back in school. All we need is some J-pop or a bad reality show playing on my phone .”

“I don't think I could revive my New Jersey accent.”

“Seriously, this place hasn’t changed. Why did we ever stop coming here? The food is good, the booths are comfortable, there's free wifi and it’s cheap—what else did we need?”

“I disagree. If this was high school, we wouldn’t be on a date,” he noted. “I think prom was the last time we came here. We were dating other people. I dated Alice and you had a couple of dates with Billy and Greg. I never felt right bringing Alice here because it was our place.”

“I never came here with Billy. He never took me anywhere but his car or his parents’ basement,” I said with a gag. “As for Greg, we only went to museums and concerts. I swear the guy never ate.”

Aaron reached his hand across the table and touched my fingers. “Let’s start coming here again. It would be good for us to have a place, even if it’s a greasy old pizza place.”

“Sounds alright to me,” I told him, fiddling with my new necklace.

Aaron flagged down the waitress. “Can we get our order to go?”

I titled my head at him. “I thought you wanted to eat here?”

“I was thinking about it and realized I could be at home with you in bed eating pizza. Which would you chose?”

I chuckled to myself. “Alright. We’ll go home and eat pizza in bed, but if we’re eating, no making out until we are done.”

“I can live with that,” Aaron said.

The week after Cindy’s death was frantic at Happy Mourners’. Due the short staffing, I was called in to take over all of Cindy’s clients. I didn’t have the flare for drama she had been famous for, but I did my best and it seemed to be good enough. There were a few tense moments during an open casket scene for an eighty-year-old man, who had hired me to be his widow, but even Derek had agreed it was a big ask for my first week.