I said with a snort. No messages to loved ones left behind. No solving his murder. No hunting down some memento he’d left for his children in a place where no one in his right mind would ever think to look. These situations had all the creamy goodness of piece of cake without the added calories.
He started toward me then. I didn’t get up, didn’t think I could manage it—the coffee had yet to kick in—but he didn’t seem to mind. I noticed as he stepped forward that he wore a ragged pair of jeans and his sneakers had been painted with Magic Marker.
“Wait,” he said, pausing midstride.
No.
He scratched his head, a completely unconscious act from his previous life. “Can you get messages to people?”
Damn. The bane of my existence. “Um, no. Sorry. Have you tried Western Union?”
“Seriously?” he asked, not buying it for a minute. And it was on sale, even.
I sighed and tossed an arm over my forehead to show how much I didn’t want to be his messenger, then peeked out from under my lashes. He stood there, waiting, unimpressed.
“Fine,” I said, giving in. “I’ll type a note or something.”
“You don’t have to do that. Just go to Super Dog right down the street and talk to a girl named Jenny. Tell her Ronald said to bite me.”
I scanned his clown getup, the reds and yellows of his hoodie. “Your name is Ronald?”
With a grin, he said, “The irony is not lost on me, I promise.” He stepped through before I could question him on the bite me part of his comment.
When people crossed, I could see their lives. I could tell if they’d been happy, what their favorite color was, the names of their pets growing up. It was a ritual I’d learned to savor. I let my lids drift shut and waited. He smelled like grease paint and iodine and coconut shampoo. He’d been in the hospital, waiting for a heart transplant. While there, he decided to make himself useful, so he dressed up like a different clown every day and visited the kids in pediatrics. Each day he’d have a new name, something funny like Rodeo Ron or Captain Boxer Shorts, and each day they had to guess what it was from his voiceless clues. He couldn’t talk well near the end, and while gesturing was difficult and left him exhausted, he felt it was better than freaking out the kids with his gravelly voice. He died just hours before a heart had been found. Despite my original assumption, he’d never smoked a day in his life.
And he loved a girl named Jenny who smelled like baby oil and sold hot dogs to put herself through college. Jenny would be the part of this whole grim reaper gig I hated most. The people-left-behind part. I could feel their hearts contract with grief. I could feel their lungs fight for air. I could feel the sting of tears behind their eyes at losing someone they loved, someone they were sure they couldn’t live without.
I sucked in a sharp breath and pulled myself back to the present. Ronald was a cool guy. I’d have to look him up when my time was up, see how his eternity was going. I sank farther into the sofa cushions and took a long draw of coffee, absorbing the caffeine, letting it spark and reawaken my brain cells.
Glancing at my Looney Tunes wall clock, I bit back the despair I felt at finding it was only 3:35. I had hours to go before dawn. It was easier to stay awake during the day. Night was so calm and relaxing. But I couldn’t let myself fall under. I’d managed to dodge sleep like it was an ex-boyfriend with herpes for almost two weeks straight. And when I didn’t, I paid the price.
The mere thought of that price gave me unwanted butterflies in my nether regions. I pushed it from my mind as heat from the sultry night wafted around me like a heavy vapor, seeping into my skin, suffocating any thoughts of comfort. Utterly annoyed, I sat up, pushed a dampened strand of hair out of my face, and headed to the bathroom, hoping a splash of cool water would help and wondering how the heck the night got so sultry. It was freaking November. Maybe global warming had amped up its game. Or a solar flare had pushed through the magnetosphere and was cooking us all alive. That would suck.