Once in Every Life

Then she noticed that her feet were dangling in the air.

She gasped. There was no floor beneath her, no walls around her. She was sitting in a black chair in the middle

JO

of a black void with a thousand stars twinkling all around her. Alone.

She was dreaming, she realized suddenly. Dreaming she was sitting in a chair in the middle of space, dreaming she could hear, dreaming? "Tess?"

There it was again, that scratchy boilermaker-and-tobacco-fed voice, coming at Tess from the nothingness around her. Surely if she were going to dream a voice, it wouldn't sound like that. "Y-Yes?" she said, for lack of something better. "I'm Carol. Your guide. Do you have any questions before we begin?"

Tess started to say, "Begin what?" then changed her mind to the more obvious question. "Where am I?"

There was a long pause before the voice said cautiously, "You don't remember?" "Remember what?" "The ... bus."

Tess stopped breathing. Memory hurled her back onto that rain-slicked Seattle street. She remembered the acrid, stinking smell of burning rubber, the driver's horrified expression through the dirty windshield. Sounds she couldn't possibly have heard battered her with hurricane force: squealing brakes, a honking horn, her own strangled sound of terror.

She'd been hit by the bus. She glanced around. Maybe this wasn't a dream after all. Maybe it was ... the other side. "Am I dead?" There was a sigh of relief. "Yep." Tess shivered and hugged herself. "Oh." "Now that that's settled, let's get on with it," Carol said matter-of-factly. "This here's the theater of second chances. Your life on earth?the first one?it was sort of ..." Carol's scratchy voice trailed off.

11

"Fine."

"Yes, precisely. But 'fine' isn't good enough. God, in His infinite wisdom, makes sure everyone gets one happy life before they move on. So, hon, you get another chance."

"I don't understand."

"It's simple. Your first life was so-so. Now you get to choose another. I studied your history very closely, and I think I know the problem. Your childhood in the foster care system left something to be desired. What you need is someone special and a family of your own. I've chosen a dozen suitable candidates. Each one needs you as much as you need him. All you have to do is push the button when one of them strikes your fancy."

Tess smiled wryly. "Sort of a 'Dating Game' for the dead? What's next?'Bowling for Celestial Dollars'?"

"Hey, that's good! But?oh, shh. The show is starting. Just push the button when it feels right. I'll do the rest."

A single red button appeared on the chair's stark black arm. Pale red light throbbed against the dark fabric. "It's a dream, right?" Tess said to the voice. "I'm sedated now and in surgery. Am I right?"

"Shh. Watch."

The stars sprayed out in front of Tess slowly melded together, becoming a huge white rectangle wreathed in jet black nothingness. A screen.

She leaned forward. Even though she knew it was a dream, she couldn't help feeling a quick rush of suspense. Her fingers curled nervously around the tufted armrest.

A dot of color appeared in the exact center of the white screen. It started small, no larger than a nickel. For a heartbeat it quivered, silent and alone. Then whaml it exploded into a full-color picture of a man in a gray flannel suit waving for a cab.

He was an attractive man. Young. Obviously affluent.

12

Tess settled deeper in her chair. Her finger moved toward the button, but she didn't push. Instead, she studied him with the critical, detail-sensitive eyes of a woman used to relying on sight for her impressions of the world. The man was clutching an Italian leather briefcase as if it contained the plans for a nuclear bomb. Or, more likely, a summer house in the Hamptons. His hair was precisely combed, maybe even moussed. There were no laugh lines around his eyes. No earring marred his conservative image. His tie was a regimental blue stripe, his shirt plain white.

Her finger eased off the button.

The scene switched to a snowy hillside. A man in faded blue jeans and knee-length duster was shoving hay into a long wooden feeding bin. Breath billowed in white clouds from his mouth. Behind him was a whitewashed, porched farmhouse that looked a hundred years old.

Tess let the cowboy pass. Someone else could ride the range.

Next came a man playing volleyball on the beach. His body was well muscled, browned to tanning bed perfection. Pale blond hair clung to his sweaty face as he spiked the winning shot. Several women on the sidelines cheered loudly, and he gave each of them a playboy wink. Tess winced. Yuck.

The stud was replaced by a knight in shining armor. Literally. He moved woodenly, clanging with every step across the stone floor, muttering words in a language Tess couldn't understand. The scene looked exactly like a production of Macbeth she'd once seen at a theater for the deaf in Boston.