cer said. He was embarrassed for Mr. Harvey in his patched-up car, but I saw him jot the license plate down.
"I didn't mean to scare anyone."
Mr. Harvey was a pro, but in that moment I didn't care. With each section of road he covered, I focused on Lindsey inside reading her textbooks, on the facts jumping up from the pages and into her brain, on how smart she was and how whole. At Temple she had decided to be a therapist. And I thought of the mix of air that was our front yard, which was daylight, a queasy mother and a cop--it was a convergence of luck that had kept my sister safe so far. Every day a question mark.
Ruth did not tell Ray what had happened. She promised herself she would write it in her journal first. When they crossed the road back to the car, Ray saw something violet in the scrub halfway up a high dirt berm that had been dumped there by a construction crew.
"That's periwinkle," he said to Ruth. "I'm going to clip some for my mom."
"Cool, take your time," Ruth said.
Ray ducked into the underbrush by the driver's side and climbed up to the periwinkle while Ruth stood by the car. Ray wasn't thinking of me anymore. He was thinking of his mother's smiles. The surest way to get them was to find her wildflowers like this, to bring them home to her and watch her as she pressed them, first opening their petals flat against the black and white of dictionaries or reference books. Ray walked to the top of the berm and disappeared over the side in hopes of finding more.
It was only then that I felt a prickle along my spine, when I saw his body suddenly vanish on the other side. I heard Holiday, his fear lodged low and deep in his throat, and realized it could not have been Lindsey for whom he had whined. Mr. Harvey crested the top of Eels Rod Pike and saw the sinkhole and the orange pylons that matched his car. He had dumped a body there. He remembered his mother's amber pendant, and how when she had handed it to him it was still warm.
Ruth saw the women stuffed in the car in blood-colored gowns. She began walking toward them. On that same road where I had been buried, Mr. Harvey passed by Ruth. All she could see were the women. Then: blackout.
That was the moment I fell to Earth.
TWENTY-TWO
Ruth collapsing into the road. Of this I was aware. Mr. Harvey sailing away unwatched, unloved, unbidden--this I lost.
Helplessly I tipped, my balance gone. I fell through the open doorway of the gazebo, across the lawn and out past the farthest boundary of the heaven I had lived in all these years.
I heard Ray screaming in the air above me, his voice shouting in an arc of sound. "Ruth, are you okay?" And then he reached her and grabbed on.
"Ruth, Ruth," he yelled. "What happened?"
And I was in Ruth's eyes and I was looking up. I could feel the arch of her back against the pavement, and scrapes inside her clothes where flesh had been torn away by the gravel's sharp edges. I felt every sensation--the warmth of the sun, the smell of the asphalt--but I could not see Ruth.
I heard Ruth's lungs bubbling, a giddiness there in her stomach, but air still filling her lungs. Then tension stretching out the body. Her body. Ray above, his eyes--gray, pulsing, looking up and down the road hopelessly for help that was not coming. He had not seen the car but had come through the scrub delighted, carrying a bouquet of wildflowers for his mother, and there was Ruth, lying in the road.
Ruth pushed up against her skin, wanting out. She was fighting to leave and I was inside now, struggling with her. I willed her back, willed that divine impossible, but she wanted out. There was nothing and no one that could keep her down. Flying. I watched as I had so many times from heaven, but this time it was a blur beside me. It was lust and rage yearning upward.
"Ruth," Ray said. "Can you hear me, Ruth?"
Right before she closed her eyes and all the lights went out and the world was frantic, I looked into Ray Singh's gray eyes, at his dark skin, at his lips I had once kissed. Then, like a hand unclasping from a tight lock, Ruth passed by him.
Ray's eyes bid me forward while the watching streamed out of me and gave way to a pitiful desire. To be alive again on this Earth. Not to watch from above but to be--the sweetest thing--beside.
Somewhere in the blue blue Inbetween I had seen her--Ruth streaking by me as I fell to Earth. But she was no shadow of a human form, no ghost. She was a smart girl breaking all the rules.
And I was in her body.
I heard a voice calling me from heaven. It was Franny's. She ran toward the gazebo, calling my name. Holiday was barking so loud that his voice would catch and round in the base of his throat with no break. Then, suddenly, Franny and Holiday were gone and all was silent. I felt something holding me down, and I felt a hand in mine. My ears were like oceans in which what I had known, voices, faces, facts, began to drown. I opened my eyes for the first time since I had died and saw gray eyes looking back at me. I was still as I came to realize that the marvelous weight weighing me down was the weight of the human body.
I tried to speak.
"Don't," Ray said. "What happened?"
I died, I wanted to tell him. How do you say, "I died and now I'm back among the living"?
Ray had kneeled down. Scattered around him and on top of me were the flowers he'd been gathering for Ruana. I could pick out their bright elliptical shapes against Ruth's dark clothes. And then Ray leaned his ear to my chest to listen to me breathing. He placed a finger on the inside of my wrist to check my pulse.
"Did you faint?" he asked when these checked out.
I nodded. I knew I would not be granted this grace on Earth forever, that Ruth's wish was only temporary.
"I think I'm fine," I tried, but my voice was too faint, too far away, and Ray did not hear me. My eyes locked on to his then, opening as wide as I could make them. Something urged me to lift up. I thought I was floating back to heaven, returning, but I was trying to stand up.
"Ruth," Ray said. "Don't move if you feel weak. I can carry you to the car."
I smiled at him, one-thousand-watted. "I'm okay," I said.
Tentatively, watching me carefully, he released my arm but continued to hold on to my other hand. He went with me as I stood, and the wildflowers fell to the pavement. In heaven, women were throwing rose petals as they saw Ruth Connors.
I watched his beautiful face break into a stunned smile. "So you're all right," he said. Cautious, he came close enough to kiss me, but he told me he was checking my pupils to see if they were equal in size.
I was feeling the weight of Ruth's body, both the luscious bounce of breasts and thighs but also an awesome responsibility. I was a soul back on Earth. AWOL a little while from heaven, I had been given a gift. By force of will I stood as straight as I could.
"Ruth?"
I tried to get used to the name. "Yes," I said.
"You've changed," he said. "Something's changed."
We stood near the center of the road, but this was my moment. I wanted so much to tell him, but what could I say then? "I'm Susie, I have only a little time." I was too afraid.
"Kiss me," I said instead.
"What?"
"Don't you want to?" I reached my hands up to his face and felt the light stubble of a beard that had not been there eight years ago.
"What's happened to you?" he said, bewildered.
"Sometimes cats fall ten flights out of the windows of highrises and land on their feet. You only believe it because you've seen it in print."
Ray stared at me, mystified. He leaned his head down and our lips touched, tender. At the roots I felt his cool lips deep down inside me. Another kiss, precious package, stolen gift. His eyes were so close to me I saw the green flecks in the gray.
I took his hand, and we walked back to the car in silence. I was aware that he dragged behind, stretching my arm out behind me as we held hands and scanning Ruth's body to make sure she was walking fine.
He opened the door of the passenger side, and I slid into the seat and placed my feet on the carpeted floor. When he came around to his side and ducked inside he looked hard at me once more.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
He kissed me lightly again, on the lips. What I had wanted for so long. The moment slowed down, and I drank it in. The brush of his lips, the slight stubble of his beard as it grazed me, and the sound of the kiss--the small smack of suction as our lips parted after the pushing together and then the more brutal breaking away. It reverberated, this sound, down the long tunnel of loneliness and making do with watching the touch and caress of others on Earth. I had never been touched like this. I had only been hurt by hands past all tenderness. But spreading out into my heaven after death had been a moonbeam that swirled and blinked on and off--Ray Singh's kiss. Somehow Ruth knew this.
My head throbbed then, with the thought of it, with me hiding inside Ruth in every way but this--that when Ray kissed me or as our hands met it was my desire, not Ruth's, it was mepushing out at the edges of her skin. I could see Holly. She was laughing, her head tilted back, and then I heard Holiday howling plaintively, for I was back where we had both once lived.
"Where do you want to go?" Ray asked.
And it was such a wide question, the answer so vast. I knew I did not want to chase after Mr. Harvey. I looked at Ray and knew why I was there. To take back a piece of heaven I had never known.
"Hal Heckler's bike shop," I stated firmly.
"What?"
"You asked," I said.
"Ruth?"
"Yes?"
"Can I kiss you again?"
"Yes," I said, my face flushing.
He leaned over as the engine warmed and our lips met once more and there she was, Ruth, lecturing a group of old men in berets and black turtlenecks while they held glowing lighters in the air and called her name in a rhythmic chant.
Ray sat back and looked at me. "What is it?" he asked.
"When you kiss me I see heaven," I said.
"What does it look like?"
"It's different for everyone."
"I want details," he said, smiling. "Facts."
"Make love to me," I said, "and I'll tell you."
"Who are you?" he asked, but I could tell he didn't know what he was asking yet.
"The car is warmed up," I said.
His hand grabbed the shiny chrome stick on the side of the steering wheel and then we drove--normal as day--a boy and a girl together. The sun caught the broken mica in the old patched pavement as he made the U-turn.
We drove down to the bottom of Flat Road, and I pointed to the dirt path on the other side of Eels Rod Pike, which led up to a place where we could cross the railroad tracks.
"They'll have to change this soon," Ray said as he shot across the gravel and up onto the dirt path. The railroad stretched to Harrisburg in one direction and Philadelphia in the other, and all along it buildings were being razed and old families were moving out and industrial tenants in.
"Will you stay here," I asked, "after you're done with school?"
"No one does," Ray said. "You know that."
I was almost blinded by it, this choice; the idea that if I'd remained on Earth I could have left this place to claim another, that I could go anywhere I wanted to. And I wondered then, was it the same in heaven as on Earth? What I'd been missing was a wanderlust that came from letting go?
We drove onto the slim patch of cleared earth that ran along either side of Hal's bike shop. Ray stopped and braked the car.
"Why here?" Ray asked.
"Remember," I said, "we're exploring."
I led him around to the back of the shop and reached up over the doorjamb until I felt the hidden key.
"How do you know about that?"
"I've watched hundreds of people hide keys," I said. "It doesn't take a genius to guess."
Inside it was as I remembered it, the smell of bike grease heavy in the air.
I said, "I think I need to shower. Why not make yourself at home?"
I walked past the bed and turned on the light switch on the cord--all the tiny white lights above Hal's bed glittered then, the only light save the dusty light coming from the small back window.
"Where are you going?" Ray asked. "How do you know about this place?" His voice had a frantic sound it hadn't just a moment before.
"Give me just a little time, Ray," I said. "Then I'll explain."
I walked into the small bathroom but kept the door slightly ajar. As I took Ruth's clothes off and waited for the hot water to heat up, I hoped that Ruth could see me, could see her body as I saw it, its perfect living beauty.
It was damp and musty in the bathroom, and the tub was stained from years of having anything but water poured down its drain. I stepped up into the old claw-foot tub and stood under the water. Even at the hottest I could make it, I still felt cold. I called Ray's name. I begged him to step inside the room.
"I can see you through the curtain," he said, averting his eyes.
"It's okay," I said. "I like it. Take your clothes off and join me."
"Susie," he said, "you know I'm not like that."
My heart seized up. "What did you say?" I asked. I focused my eyes on his through the white translucent liner Hal kept for a curtain--he was a dark shape with a hundred small pinpoints of light surrounding him.
"I said I'm not that kind."
"You called me Susie."
There was silence, and then a moment later he drew back the curtain, being careful to look only at my face.
"Susie?"
"Join me," I said, my eyes welling up. "Please, join me."
I closed my eyes and waited. I put my head under the water and felt the heat of it prickling my cheeks and neck, my breasts and stomach and groin. Then I heard him fumbling, heard his belt buckle hit the cold cement floor and his pockets lose their change.
I had the same sense of anticipation then as I sometimes had as a child when I lay down in the back seat and closed my eyes while my parents drove, sure we would be home when the car stopped, that they would lift me up and carry me inside. It was an anticipation born of trust.
Ray drew back the curtain. I turned to face him and opened my eyes. I felt a marvelous draft on the inside of my thighs.
"It's okay," I said.
He stepped slowly into the tub. At first he did not touch me, but then, tentatively, he traced a small scar along my side. We watched together as his finger moved down the ribbony wound.
"Ruth's volleyball incident, nineteen seventy-five," I said. I shivered again.
"You're not Ruth," he said, his face full of wonder.
I took the hand that had reached the end of the cut and placed it under my left breast.
"I've watched you both for years," I said. "I want you to make love to me."
His lips parted to speak, but what was on his lips now was too strange to say out loud. He brushed my nipple with his thumb, and I pulled his head toward me. We kissed. The water came down between our bodies and wet the sparse hair along his chest and stomach. I kissed him because I wanted to see Ruth and I wanted to see Holly and I wanted to know if they could see me. In the shower I could cry and Ray could kiss my tears, never knowing exactly why I shed them.
I touched every part of him and held it in my hands. I cupped his elbow in my palm. I dragged his pubic hair out straight between my fingers. I held that part of him that Mr. Harvey had forced inside me. Inside my head I said the word gentle,and then I said the word man.
"Ray?"
"I don't know what to call you."
"Susie."
I put my fingers up to his lips to stop his questioning. "Remember the note you wrote me? Remember how you called yourself the Moor?"
For a moment we both stood there, and I watched the water bead along his shoulders, then slip and fall.
Without saying anything further, he lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around him. He turned out of the path of the water to use the edge of the tub for support. When he was inside of me, I grabbed his face in my hands and kissed him as hard as I could.
After a full minute, he pulled away. "Tell me what it looks like."
"Sometimes it looks like the high school did," I said, breathless. "I never got to go there, but in my heaven I can make a bonfire in the classrooms or run up and down the halls yelling as loud as I want. But it doesn't always look like that. It can look like Nova Scotia, or Tangiers, or Tibet. It looks like anything you've ever dreamed."
"Is Ruth there?"
"Ruth is doing spoken word, but she'll come back."
"Can you see yourself there?"
"I'm here right now," I said.
"But you'll be gone soon."
I would not lie. I bowed my head. "I think so, Ray. Yes."
We made love then. We made love in the shower and in the bedroom and under the lights and fake glow-in-the-dark stars. While he rested, I kissed him across the line of his backbone and blessed each knot of muscle, each mole and blemish.
"Don't go," he said, and his eyes, those shining gems, shut and I could feel the shallow breath of sleep from him.
"My name is Susie," I whispered, "last name Salmon, like the fish." I leaned my head down to rest on his chest and sleep beside him.
When I opened my eyes, the window across from us was dark red and I could feel that there was not much time left. Outside, the world I had watched for so long was living and breathing on the same earth I now was. But I knew I would not go out. I had taken this time to fall in love instead--in love with the sort of helplessness I had not felt in death--the helplessness of being alive, the dark bright pity of being human--feeling as you went, groping in corners and opening your arms to light--all of it part of navigating the unknown.
Ruth's body was weakening. I leaned on one arm and watched Ray sleeping. I knew that I was going soon.
When his eyes opened a short while later, I looked at him and traced the edge of his face with my fingers.
"Do you ever think about the dead, Ray?"
He blinked his eyes and looked at me.
"I'm in med school."
"I don't mean cadavers, or diseases, or collapsed organs, I mean what Ruth talks about. I mean us."
"Sometimes I do," he said. "I've always wondered."
"We're here, you know," I said. "All the time. You can talk to us and think about us. It doesn't have to be sad or scary."
"Can I touch you again?" He shook the sheets from his legs to sit up.
It was then that I saw something at the end of Hal's bed. It was cloudy and still. I tr