Having been raised primarily by a conservative, elderly man, Courtney learned everything she knew about female sexuality from popular culture. Reality TV taught her that pretty was more important than smart, pop singers taught her that nothing demonstrated ownership of your sexuality more than pigtails and kneesocks, and the Internet taught her that pubic hair was a bizarre fetish enjoyed only by gross middle-aged perverts.
“Sit down,” she ordered.
Without hesitation, Ray crossed to the antediluvian sofa upholstered in a rough burlap-type material patterned with classic symbols of Americana: eagles, eagles holding arrows, the Liberty Bell, the
Mayflower,
and butter churns. Courtney didn’t know it, but there would be no better time for her to ask Ray to leave his wife. In spite of her preternatural sexuality and manipulative character, she was still too na
ï
ve to realize that if she used these two qualities in tandem, she would be invincible. Ray was just her third boyfriend (and only the second person she’d slept with). Sex to her was still something to be enjoyed instead of something to be bargained.
Kneeling on a faded blue throw pillow, she unbuckled Ray’s pants and smiled at him.
“Thank you for my birthday trip.”
“Well, you’re … very welcome. Eighteen is a big one.”
She giggled, thinking that was innuendo, and looked at his average-in-every-way penis. “Mmm, it sure is.”
Just as her lips made contact, her phone rang. “Ugh. Sorry.” With one hand she continued stroking him and grabbed her phone with the other. “Hello?”
Ray whispered, “Just let it go to voice mail.”
She shot him a look and put his penis up to her lips like an engorged index finger, “Shhh.” She mouthed, “I’m on the phone,” and winked at him. Ray put his head back and tried to pretend that this distracted hand job was the sexual smorgasbord he’d dreamed of.
“This is Courtney. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” Her voice started to break. “Oh, my God.” She stood up and turned away.
Ray leaned forward. “What’s wrong?”
She waved him off and started to cry. “When did he … go?”
Fuck,
he thought.
Marvin.
Courtney plopped down on the sofa next to a quickly softening Ray and sobbed into the phone. “But it’s my birthday!”
Genuinely sad for her, Ray put his hand on her shoulder, but she brushed it off with an exaggerated sense of drama.
“Can I do anythi—?”
“Shhhhh!” she snapped.
Still naked from the waist down and uncertain of his role, Ray started to pull up his pants, but Courtney snapped her fingers and waved at him to stop.
“Why?” he whispered, but she didn’t respond, so he sat quietly, naked and listened as Courtney made some spectacularly uninformed decisions.
She requested an autopsy even though Marvin’s body looked like a half-eaten apple on a hot sidewalk.
“He liked medical shows,” she told the presumably baffled person on the other end of the phone. “I think he would’ve enjoyed being autopsied. And can we do both an open and closed casket? Like, open for a while, and then closed if people get uncomfortable or something?”
That was followed by the even more staggering: “Is death covered by insurance?”
Thankfully, Ray heard his own phone ring from across the room and raised an eyebrow to Courtney, asking permission to answer it. To his great relief, she nodded.
Zipping up his pants, Ray pulled his phone from his pocket and saw it was Miranda.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Where are you?” She sounded panicked.
Ray’s pulse quickened. He had told so many lies to make this weekend happen, he wasn’t sure how to answer. “Oh, well, I’m … uh … I’m … just working, you know. Working. Same old. Not much. How’s the pageant?”
Miranda hadn’t yet told Ray about the fight the week before. He just assumed she and Bailey were off somewhere competing.
“Oh, well, we didn’t make it to the pageant. I’m at the hospital. My water broke about half an hour ago.”
Ray gasped so hard he almost inhaled the phone. Of all the scenarios he had anticipated, his eight-months-pregnant wife going into early labor somehow never entered his mind.
Miranda was doing her breathing. “Ray? Are you still there? Ray?!”
“Yeah!” He was suddenly unable to access the vast majority of his vocabulary. “Yes. Yes, I’m here. Yes. I’m right here. I really thought you were at a pageant this weekend. You’re not due for another four weeks!”
“Tell that to Brixton!”
Her chuckle was cut short by a sharp, intense pain similar to the one forming behind Ray’s left eye.
“Look, I really need you here, like right now. The doctor thinks this could be a quick one. I know you’re working, but how soon do you think you can get to the hospital?”
His watch read eight twenty-four. If he walked out the door with only the clothes on his back, leaving his luggage and bypassing checkout, and there was no traffic, and he didn’t stop for gas or food or to go to the bathroom, and he drove eighty-five miles an hour, he could possibly, maybe, if he was lucky, be there in five and a half hours.
He emptied his lungs with a lead-heavy sigh. “Here’s the thing … Marvin just died.”
“Oh, my goodness!”
“Yeah.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It is. It really is.”
“One life ending and a new one about to begin. It’s the circle of life.”
Ray closed his eyes and tightly pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. That’s—that’s one way to look at it.”
“How’s his granddaughter? That poor thing, she must be devastated. What’s her name?”
Ray looked at Courtney, who was off the phone and still naked. She pretended she wasn’t eavesdropping by lazily picking at a tiny scab on her belly button piercing. Her eyes were red from crying and her face was puffy. “Her name is Courtney. She’s pretty torn up.”
“I’m sure. How long will it take for the coroner to get there?”
“Hard to say. He said he’s pretty backed up. There was a … fire and an accident, car accident, I think. Separate incidents. Lots of people dead. Burned. Hard to identify.”
He lowered the phone and whisper-yelled at Courtney, “Get your stuff packed up! We have to go, like, right now!” To his amazement, she actually got up with acceptable speed, snatched her cute little panties, and ran out of the room. Ray went back to his laboring wife.
“I’ve got some paperwork I need to fill out, and I should probably stick around until the body is taken and whatnot, make sure Courtney is okay. She’s all alone now.”
Another contraction hit Miranda, “Ohhhh, that’s so sad!”
“Yeah. So … I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just keep breathing and don’t have her until I get there, okay? Don’t push! I want to be there.”
“Well, you’d better hurry up, because I want to have her tonight. I
cannot
have her tomorrow. I’m serious, okay? Not tomorrow. It can’t be tomorrow.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Be careful. And tell that little girl I’m praying for her.”
He paused. “I will.”
He heard his wife smile. “We’re going to have another little girl, Ray!”
“Yes, we are,” he said, unable to hold back a smile of his own.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. I’ll be there as soon as I possibly can.”
Still smiling, he hung up the phone and turned to see Courtney, now fully dressed staring at him, new tears filling her eyes.
“How come you never tell
me
you love me?”
Are you fucking kidding me?
He sighed. “Come here.” He took his girlfriend’s hand and wrapped her in a genuinely sincere hug. “Marvin loved you very much. Are you okay?”
“I think so. Even though I knew it was going to happen, it still hurts. He was the last of my family.”
Reflexively, Ray went into the “grieving family” spiel he’d perfected over the years.
“You know, no matter how much we try, we can never prepare ourselves enough for when death finally comes. But what I’ve learned from helping so many people cross over is that while his life down here, with us, has come to an end, I truly believe that it’s a new beginning for him. And as long as you talk about him and remember him and honor his memory, he’ll live forever.”
“Do you believe in heaven, Ray?”
“I do,” he answered without hesitation. But it was a lie. After witnessing hundreds of people suffer through unendurable pain as their bodies turned against them, Ray had given up on the concept of a benevolent God. What kind of compassionate creator would take the time to craft something as complex and awe-inspiring as the human body and then riddle it with cancer, AIDS, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, Parkinson’s, etc., etc., etc., etc.? It was the equivalent of Leonardo spending a decade completing the
Mona Lisa
, then hastily finger-painting a mustache and devil horns on her. Why would anyone choose to worship a deity that had such obvious contempt for him?
Losing his faith was difficult for Ray both personally and professionally. It had been a useful tool in consoling his patients’ families. They wanted to know that their loved ones were in heaven, with Jesus, but Ray knew they weren’t. They were just gone. Dust to dust. But he couldn’t say that. Eventually, he contacted an old choir tour friend who had become a successful preacher.
“What’s heaven like? I mean, what do you
tell
people heaven is like?”
“Well, I think heaven is like the best birthday party you ever had,” his old friend said, “but for eternity. Whatever you like to do the most, whether it’s riding horses or playing chess or square dancing or flying kites or whatever—Jesus likes it just as much as you do and He can’t wait to do it with you! He’s the best at everything!”
“Then why would I want to do anything with Him?” Ray asked. “I mean, wouldn’t He just be better than me at everything and make me feel bad about myself?”
“Oh, I’m sure He’d probably let you win every now and then,” his old friend answered with a wink in his voice.
“How would that be any fun?”
“You’d be with Jesus,” he said matter-of-factly, then turned serious. “You think the devil’s going to let you win, Ray? Because he’s not. The devil doesn’t even play fair. He cheats. That’s why we call him the devil.”
How could he argue with that?
As Courtney continued to cry, Ray pulled her closer and checked the time: eight thirty-six.
“You know,” he told her, then paused just long enough to feel the self-loathing seep into every pore of his being. “I think heaven is like the best birthday party you ever had, but for eternity. Whatever you like to do the most, ride horses or square-dance or fly kites or whatever—Jesus likes it just as much as you do and can’t wait to do it with you.”
He deserved hell.
“That’s so beautiful,” Courtney said before wiping her nose on his shirt, then snorting what was left back up into her nose. “You’re very smart, Ray.”
“That’s debatable.”
She pretended to know what he meant and smiled. “The nurse said Granddaddy left a note for you. He probably just wanted to say thank you.”
There were undoubtedly many things Marvin wanted to say to Ray, but “thank you” definitely was not one of them. “Yeah. I’m sure that’s probably it.”
One problem at a time,
he thought, and tossed the dead man’s note on the mental pile of other shit he would have to deal with later. For a moment they were both silent. It was eight forty.
“We need to go.”
“Okay.” She wiped her nose again, this time with her bare hand, and wiped it on her jeans. “Sorry about not finishing your.”—she whispered—“BJ. Can we do it another time? Granddaddy’s probably looking down to make sure I get home okay, and I’d be embarrassed if he watched me do that from heaven.”
He’s seen you do a lot worse,
Ray thought. “I think that’s very … respectful.”
“Well, he deserves it.”
Ray nodded. Eight forty-one. “We
really
need to go.”
“Uch, okay. Jesus! My grandfather just died! Let me fucking be sad about it for a minute!” Snatching her bags, Courtney stomped out of the cabin and climbed into the Jeep. Ray rolled his eyes, grabbed his suitcase, and slammed the door behind him.
The melting ice cream cake dripped off the counter into a gray puddle, while the glass of powdered Ceaseocor sat in the cupboard, forgotten like an orphan’s birthday.
“Look at me!” Miranda roared at her doctor. “Do I look like I give a good shit if my husband’s here or not?”
Her voice was used sandpaper, raspy and torn. It was just past eleven o’clock, and despite having no clue as to Ray’s whereabouts, Miranda was insisting she give birth immediately. “Get this girl out of me before midnight! Cut her out if you have to!”
While not superstitious, Miranda did believe in omens—the bumper sticker that gave Brixton her name, the pregnant police officer who took her statement (and her side) after the fight with Theresa in Knoxville—and there was no way on God’s green earth she was going to let her daughter be born on September 11.
“It would be like having your birthday on Christmas,” she said to Joan.
“Satan’s Christmas, maybe,” her mother muttered.
“Your birthday should be special, and I don’t want Brixton waking up every year, turning on the TV, and being reminded of a mass murder. That is
not
a happy birthday.”
* * *
Miranda and Ray had been married only a few months when she started to feel a little … bored. It wasn’t a question of happiness. They were both very happy, but they had settled into a routine so quickly that Miranda felt like she must have slept through the exciting part. Ray got a job at the hospital, and she worked as a receptionist for a kindly old dentist whose palsied hands shook so severely his patients often left with bigger problems than when they arrived. Bills were being paid on time, and the young couple had even managed to set some money aside for a cute little starter house that Miranda still hoped to someday leave for Thoroughbred Acres. It was all very comfortable, very pleasant, and very predictable: home by seven, dinner in front of the TV, sex, Letterman, sleep. Miranda was twenty-three.