Kate shook her head at the voice. “I must be cracking up. Like that would ever be an option.” And then—despite the fact that she’d found her boyfriend with her best friend, that her dog had disappeared, her apartment was broken into—despite it all, Kate laughed to herself.
I’m not kidding. Lesbians have more fun.
CHAPTER FOUR
“SHE’S CUTE WHEN SHE smiles,” Julian said to Gus. He leaned closer, as if inspecting a specimen under glass. “She has dimples.”
“Hmm?” Gus was looking at a file that had materialized out of nowhere. They were still standing in her messy apartment, though they had moved to the small galley kitchen—typical by Manhattan standards with an Easy-Bake-size oven and a refrigerator shorter than Julian’s shoulder.
“I said she’s cute. What are you looking at?”
“This?” Gus waved the file folder, and it disappeared. “Nothing. Case files.”
“Shouldn’t I look them over or something, if I’m going to be some sort of celestial social worker?”
“Afraid not. The Boss believes in intuition. In the power of connection.”
“What kind of New Age bullshit is that?”
“She’s afraid of self-fulfilling prophesies. They’re the worst prophecies of all, you know.”
“Slow down, Gus. You may be used to this Neither Here Nor There lingo, but it’s all new to me. I’m still getting used to being…away from my body.”
“Well, the Boss has been frequently misquoted by prophets. A lot of them, I have to tell you, were cuckoo.” Gus twirled a finger round and round by his temple.
“And of all the crazy prophets,” Gus continued, “self-fulfilling ones drive Her the craziest. If you read Kate’s case…Let’s suppose it said she was depressed.”
“I’d get her to pop a Prozac.”
“Precisely. Then you would assume it to be so—that she was depressed. And let’s say it said she was destined to live the rest of her life alone and lonely. Well, you’d hardly work to get her a new trustworthy boyfriend, would you now? No, you’d see the case file, assume it was her fate, and it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy for poor Kate. You’d tell her it was useless to look for love again. But if instead you knew nothing about her story and had to intuit it and learn it fresh, then, frankly, anything could happen—and in this world it often does.”
“So in other words, your Boss doesn’t believe in predestination.”
Gus’s eyes opened wide. “Who knew you were aware of such a word? Your SAT scores give no indication of that sort of vocabulary.”
“I was stoned when I took them. All right, Gus, so what do I do?” Julian looked at Kate crying and inexplicably wanted to give her a hug, which he knew was futile since she couldn’t see or feel him. Not to mention he wasn’t the hugging type.
“Don’t know, my boy. Up to you to figure it out. Well…I’m off.”
“Hold it!” Julian grabbed Gus’s arm. “You’re off? You’re God damn off?”
“You wouldn’t damn Her if you knew what’s good for you.”
“But you can’t leave me here. You can’t possibly leave me here, Gus!” Julian heard the panic in his own voice.
“But I have other cases.”
“Well, before you traipse off to the next friggin’ coma, what if I need you? I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know anything, but that this chick has had a really bad day.”
“I’ll check in from time to time.”
“But—”
“Julian, the Boss wouldn’t have entrusted Kate to you if She thought you couldn’t handle it. She is all-knowing. You’ll be fine.”
“No, I won’t be fine. You tell this Boss of yours I am not happy.”
Gus laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Well, that attitude may get you a hot table and a complimentary bottle of vodka at the latest restaurant in the Hamptons, and it may even get you a shag with a porn star, but that ‘famous DJ’ attitude of yours doesn’t do anything for the Boss. She really hates star trips. If you only knew what awaited a certain Hollywood starlet unless she shapes up.”
“Star trips? You call not wanting to be left alone as a disembodied voice in some strange girl’s apartment, having no idea what the hell to do a star trip?”
“Julian, my dear young man, you may not like this, but it’s your job, and for now, it is simply what you have to do.”
“And what if I don’t? What if I just leave and go wander around the city? Go hang out with some other…spirits? Go get drunk? I don’t know. What if I just don’t?”
Gus removed his monocle. He sighed. He took out the neat little polka-dotted pocket square that he had tucked into his suit and unfolded it, cleaned his monocle, put it back on, refolded his pocket square precisely and returned it to his pocket.
“Well?” Julian asked impatiently.
Gus clasped his hands together. “I didn’t want to have to get…tough with you. But I’m afraid you just aren’t getting it. There are two outcomes if you die. Go up. Go down. That’s it, my young man. Your score sheet with the Boss doesn’t have very much on the Good Side. However, there is much on the bad side. An endless array of crimes and misdemeanors, so to speak.”
“What do you mean? A score sheet?”
“Heavenly Accounting. It’s a huge department. More employees there than almost anywhere. A lot of CPAs end up working there. All the anal-retentives do also. The Heavenly Accounting department does very meticulous work. You have a file, just as Kate does. Just as I do. The filing system alone is one of the most magnificent works of organizational genius ever invented, thanks to Luca Pacioli.”
“Who?”
“A friend of da Vinci. The father of modern-day double-entry accounting. Your file, Julian, has very, very, very few entries on the good side. I even had Pacioli himself double-check it. If you look at it as an accounting system, your good side is in arrears. In the red. Your bad side…one of the thickest on record.”
“Gimme a break. What about someone like Hitler?”
“Was there any doubt as to which direction he would go?”
“No. I suppose not.”
“Julian, if you accomplish this, if you do what you are asked, and do it well, it will erase a tremendous amount on your bad side. It won’t balance your books, so to speak, but…if you don’t, I’m afraid it will reflect badly with the Boss. Now, I can’t force you to do anything. That’s what free will is. You have free will, even in Neither Here Nor There. But as your Guide, I am urging you to consider what I am saying very carefully.”
Julian stared at Gus. He had never, until today, thought about death. That wasn’t entirely true. He had thought about it a couple of times after he drove while drunk and woke up the next day unsure of how he got home. He had a couple of times when he knew he had shot up too much heroin. When he mixed too many drugs. He had thought about it and brushed the thought away. Death was far away. Far away. Beyond that, he hadn’t thought of going anywhere when he died. Not Heaven. Not Hell. He didn’t believe in either. He thought when you died, you became worm meat. Nothing more. Nothing less. But now, faced with actually going to Hell?
“All right. So that’s it? I just hang out here. With her. The crying chick.”
“Yes, and