I Woke Up Dead at the Mall Read online

  Nick clapped to get our attention. “Let’s start the search in the kitchen, then the bedroom and the bathroom.”

  “Bathrooms,” I corrected him quietly.

  Lacey placed both fists on her hips. “Did you actually have your own bathroom? You would have been so easy to hate.”

  Before I could say a word, Alice said, “My family shared a filthy water closet down the hall with three other families. We’ve all had our trials. We all got ourselves killed. All right?”

  “And now”—Nick picked up the thread—“we have one day here, so let’s get to work.”

  We threw ourselves into it. Starting with the bathrooms, ending with the kitchen. Search, search, look, look. Nothing.

  “I don’t even know what we’re looking for,” I complained. “How will we know if we find it?”

  Nick shook his head. “Come on, now. Think. It won’t be marked with a skull and crossbones. It’ll be disguised, so this won’t be easy. But we’ll find it.”

  Search, search, look, look.

  The kitchen was stocked with kale, quinoa, beets, Brazil nuts, sardines, and gluten-free bran muffins. For a moment I was glad to be dead.

  “It’d be easy to hide it in the vitamin supplements,” Nick suggested as we studied the shelf of vitamins. She had the whole alphabet of stuff in stock.

  “You said something about her offering him tea at the end of the funeral,” Nick reminded me. (This boy really paid attention.) “Maybe it’s already in the tea?” He pointed to a big glass jar next to the sink. It was filled with dried green and brown tea leaves and herbs. It was labeled HEART AND SOUL TEA.

  “If this is what she’s using to poison him, it either already has the poison, or the gross taste of it disguises the poison,” Lacey reasoned (brilliantly). “This has to go.” She flicked at the jar’s side. It didn’t budge. “This thing’s a lot heavier than a Lego,” she explained. She looked a bit disappointed in herself.

  “Lacey, you can do this,” Nick urged her. “Knock this thing down.”

  We all gathered around her and watched as she flicked, pushed, nudged, and hit. For me the attention would have been paralyzing, but Lacey fed off our energy and focus. She loved it. She made contact twice, and we all heard it. She let out a small grunt as she pushed against the jar again. Again. Again. I was beginning to think that she might tell me she was giving up. But not Lacey. She smashed against the jar and it shattered into the sink.

  Lacey was a little out of breath and a lot proud.

  “Can you turn on the water? And tap that button?” I asked her. She did, and the tea went down the garbage disposal. Gone for good. Maybe it wasn’t enough to save Dad, but it was a start.

  A really, really good one.

  Where was Dad? I was waiting around for him, but I didn’t see him. Where the hell was he? And where was murderous, lying, evil Karen?

  “Maybe he’s at work?” Alice suggested.

  No way. If she began poisoning him at my funeral, he should be in pretty bad shape. And even my dad, the workaholic of all time, would be too sick for work.

  “Okay, look,” Lacey said in her take-charge voice. “We only get one day here, and no offense, but I don’t want to spend it staring at you guys and waiting for somebody to come home. I have to go. I have to find Jorge. I have a message for him.”

  There was a dark silence after that. Lacey couldn’t be heard by the living, so her message was going to be physical, I guess. I didn’t want to know the details.

  “It isn’t all about you, ya know,” Lacey added. “I got my own unfinished business and I gotta go finish it. So does Nick.”

  She was right.

  “Sarah.” Nick sounded so tentative. He was tiptoeing on thin ice with each word. “I need to check on my mom. I have no idea how she’s doing. And there’s nobody else to look after her. I have to. Really.”

  Here’s what I didn’t say: Everybody please, please stay here and help me because my unfinished business is more important than your unfinished business because mine is mine. So shut up. Sit tight. We’re going to wait for my dad and evil Karen.

  Here’s what I did say: “Thank you, guys. All of you. You’ve already been so generous, using part of your haunting time to help me. Please go and do what you have to do. We’ll all meet up in the park when it’s time to go back.” Because that’s what I absolutely had to say. It nearly killed me, except that I was dead.

  Nick did that half grin and wrapped me up in his arms. I closed my eyes, grateful that his scent translated here to the real world. It was sort of like taking some kind of meds to calm me down. (Or rev me up. Not sure.) His kiss changed my body chemistry. I was convinced that joy was now part of my DNA, thanks to Nick. His face pressed against the side of my neck.

  “I don’t get what you see in her,” Lacey said to Nick. He and I broke from our kiss with a laugh.

  I must let him go (stay). I must let him go (stay). I must let him go (stay).

  Lacey disappeared through the door, and Nick was next. He paused for a bit, and I sort of leapt to the fantasy that he might stay. (Stay!)

  “See you soon!” he called. “Be strong. You can do this!” He was gone in an instant.

  I stared at the door, not sure if I was looking for Nick to change his mind or for the door to unlock and reveal my dad.

  “Now, now. You’re not going to waste this opportunity just sitting here like a bump on a log!” said Alice.

  Alice! I had completely forgotten that she was even there. She looked rather stern. For Alice.

  “I can stay with you,” Alice explained. “After all, the people from my time are long dead. So let’s go to your father’s place of work. Perhaps he’s strong enough to be there.”

  chapter twenty-six

  no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no sign of dad

  Not at work. Not near work. Not at his favorite restaurant. Not at his doctor. And my one single solitary day here on Earth was slipping through my fingers.

  “What if we’re too late? What if he’s dead?” I asked Alice as we floated through and among the very well-dressed population of the cool downtown Manhattan scene, searching place after place. We were adrift in Tribeca.

  “He’s alive. If he were dead, you’d know,” Alice assured me. “There would be signs of it at home or at work. Death leaves a big footprint.” And that made sense to me. “He’s alive. You just don’t know where he is.”

  “What if he’s in a hospital somewhere? Which one? How would I find him?” I asked her/me. It was an impossible question.

  “Oh! Did you have a vacation home?” Alice suggested. “Could he be there?”

  “No. Dad worked all the time, so we weren’t big on vacations,” I explained. “Do you think the Boy will give me an extension? Let me have one day here while my dad’s around?”

  “No, Sarah. They won’t allow that, I’m quite sure.” She stopped talking. Her breathing was quick and shallow. She pointed west, but she couldn’t seem to manage any more words. She came out with “Oh. Ohhhhh.”

  “Alice? What is it? What’s over there?”

  “There.” She pointed to a brick and stone building that housed a chic-looking Portuguese restaurant. “That’s where.”

  “Where what?”

  She went toward it. Drawn almost (almost) against her will. And then I knew. Of course. “Is this where you died?”

  She nodded, mute. “It was a factory back then. Some of the front is the same as it was. Only some.”

  We entered the restaurant and I said gently, “Hey, Alice. Let’s get a table.”

  Alice looked at me as if I’d just expressed a completely revolutionary thought. We needed to search for my dad, we needed to save him. I knew that. But she needed to do this first. I owed it to her.

  She followed me to a table in the back. The restaurant wasn’t very busy yet. The menu was written in silver paint on an antique mirror. I couldn’t pronounce any of it. But it looked pretty. />
  Alice was working so hard to hold herself together, that much was obvious. The place was charged with electric energy that coursed through her and only her. All I could do was watch. And listen.

  “What ever became of Joe O’Hara?” I asked.

  “He died,” Alice said, her voice even and expressionless. “Bertha told me. It was his liver. His death was slow. But not painful. They have drugs for that. Alas.”

  “Did you ever meet up with him?” I asked, sort of horrified. “In the afterlife?”

  Alice shook her head. “The Boy is capricious. But not quite that cruel.”

  We watched the beautiful people around us as they studied the menu by flickering candlelight.

  “The entrance was over there.” She pointed to the left. “The stairs all the way back there. I was upstairs when it happened.” She looked up at the ceiling and stared at it for so long, I wondered if she could see through it.

  “This place isn’t evil,” she said at last. “It’s just that something bad happened here. It’s just that a very bad man was here. A long time ago.”

  She stared in silence for a while longer. There were candles flickering on every table, creating a soft, ethereal space.

  “It’s nice that the place is pretty now,” she said. “And it’s all about food. And romance. Did you ever have a beau when you were alive?”

  “No,” I answered. “That was for other people. Not for me.”

  “So. What has changed?” Alice had a small smile as she spoke.

  Alice was adding to the list of impossible questions. Yes, something had changed. Actually, everything had changed.

  Two very beautiful men were being escorted to our table. We hopped out of the seats and glided away.

  “That may be a nice restaurant, but I think I prefer the food court,” I said as we left. Back out on the sidewalk, the place lost some of its hold on Alice.

  “He lives on, you know,” she said, walking away from it. Not looking back. “Joe O’Hara. He had children. And grandchildren. And great-grandchildren. The world is full of Joe O’Haras.” She walked a bit faster. “My family died off.”

  I couldn’t keep walking. “Oh, Alice. I’m so sorry.”

  She stopped and turned to face me. Sorrow was a kind of mist all around her, melting into the dark blue of the evening light.

  “Me too.” She choked out the words, then gathered her strength. “Now. What are we doing here? We need to save your father from his evil wife.”

  My home was still empty and dark, and I thought that the cruel frustration of my plight could just possibly push me over the edge to complete insanity. Alice must have sensed it.

  “Your home overlooks the park,” she exclaimed. “We’ll go. We can watch for him there. Would you mind?”

  “Of course not. It’s your haunting too.” And it was a good idea. I could wait there for signs of his return. But truly, Alice and I could drink in all the light and sparkle of life around us. And maybe it would stop me from losing my mind.

  chapter twenty-seven

  how to kick ass

  Oh, this park.

  We sat still and watched as night fell, like it always did. The city lights decorated the world like they always did—crazy warm yellow lights from the windows around Washington Square, and insistent blue-white shop lights. No wonder it was so hard to see the stars in the city sky. Too much furious competition. I forced myself to look away. Watch for Dad. Watch for Karen.

  I smiled and chose to ignore the sizzling lump of worry in my heart. Lucky for me, I got the perfect distraction from all thoughts, worries, or concerns in the form of Lacey. She had been gone for hours, but then her voice sailed over to us.

  “Hey!” She looked absolutely triumphant. “Wait till you hear what happened to me.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I loved Lacey’s story. And she so obviously loved telling it.

  LACEY’S GUIDE TO HAUNTING THE LIVING. ESPECIALLY THE ONE WHO KILLED YOU.

  So here’s the thing: Most people are not okay with the memory of killing somebody. Unless there’s something wrong with them. But that wasn’t the case with Jorge. He pushed Lacey because he was all sad and angry and hurt and kind of drunk.

  He felt bad about it. Which was good.

  Lacey found him at school. He was getting his stuff from his locker. People walked right by him like he was invisible, but then they turned to check him out as soon as they got past him. They whispered to each other as soon as they were far enough away from him. It was hard to tell if he knew they were doing that.

  Lacey hoped that he knew, and that it upset him. A lot.

  Okay, so it sucked that Lacey’s friends didn’t hand him right over to the police. But they obviously didn’t like having a murderer in their midst. That was a start. It just wasn’t enough.

  Lacey saw her so-called friends coming down the hallway. They were three giggling little bitches who looked super-happy. The moment she saw them, her fury took over. They looked way happier than she had ever seen them when she was alive and bossing them around. Their giggles sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. How dare they giggle at all in a post-Lacey world?

  No time to think (which was an overrated activity, in Lacey’s opinion). Instead she just did what she really wanted to do: she shoved one of the girls. Hard. That spinning, whirling fury inside her was working perfectly. Girl One fell into the next, who fell into the next. It was Girl Dominoes, and it made Lacey happy.

  Girl One pulled herself together and turned on Jorge. “Watch it, asshole!”

  “What did I do?” he asked. Lacey had never noticed before how nasal his voice was. “You tripped. It wasn’t my fault.”

  Girl One came close to him and hissed her words. “Just remember. We know something that was your fault. So watch it.”

  Jorge was practically choking with fear. Lacey clapped her hands in delight. Okay yes, she would still love to send him to prison for the rest of his miserable life. But it was awesome to see him suffer like this. Would he suffer forever and ever? How great would that be?

  The girls strutted away. Lacey shouted after them, “Hey! Your butt looks flat in those jeans!” but there was no sign that anybody heard her.

  Oh well. At least Jorge looked nauseous. And Lacey noticed that he was thinner than ever before. Awesomely awesome. That should make this next part even easier.

  She followed him toward the stairwell. The perfect spot. The stairs were cruel, made of worn stone with metal edges. They had a heavy iron railing on one side and cinder block on the other. No place for a soft landing. She was summoning all her strength, all her rage. How could she have gotten so lucky? This was more perfect than anything she could have planned. (See? Thinking really is overrated.) She needed to find the right angle to shove him. Wouldn’t it be so ironic and all kinds of perfect if she broke his neck?

  He reached the top of the stairs. But instead of stepping forward, instead of lurching forward into his doom, he crumpled and collapsed. He sat on the top step and covered his face with his hands. He cried like a little girl, all high-pitched and whiny.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Lacey took a step back. His suffering looked so huge from here.

  “Yeah,” she said quietly. “You should cry. I guess you can’t help being a complete and total loser. You were born that way. Loser.”

  He just kept crying, and eventually Lacey got sick of it. She turned to leave, but then no. Not so fast. She returned to Jorge one last time. She gave him a good swift kick in the head. It lacked the fury she needed to really hurt him, but he felt something. He paused from his girly crying to rub his head in confusion.

  She crouched down next to him and said, “Don’t you ever, ever lift your hand to hurt another girl ever again, as long as you live. And the next time you’re at a roof party—if anyone ever invites you to anything ever again—stay in the living room.”

  He was staring into space, still rubbin
g the spot where she had kicked him.

  “And I hope I just gave you a huge headache,” Lacey said as she left.

  She went straight to Harry’s grave. It was adorned with a simple headstone and a spray of fresh flowers. She told him the whole story and decided that somehow he could hear her and that he thought her story was perfect. She decided he was proud of her for kicking Jorge but not killing him. She decided that he would have hugged her and kissed her and told her she was amazing.

  She felt good, like she had just eaten somebody else’s dessert. Lacey was, after all, still Lacey.

  chapter twenty-eight

  you’ll never walk alone, even if you want to

  We were not alone. Most of the time I kept my gaze on my apartment building entrance, looking up to our windows every now and then. Dark and still no change. Fine. I had nothing else to do, nothing better. I could wait. I just wished Dad would show up soon. Alive and well. And freshly divorced. I needed Nick here to reassure me. I wasn’t really good at it.

  So we three dead girls were hanging out in Washington Square Park, like you do, when I realized that some of the lingering crowd was, well, unusual.

  “Look at that guy.” I pointed to an iridescent-looking businessman. He was wandering aimlessly around the fountain, almost like the mall walkers. But he was talking to himself nonstop.

  “He’s a ghost,” Alice explained. “But then again, so are we.”

  “Look at me!” Lacey exclaimed. “I’m all bedazzled and stuff.” Sure enough, she shimmered in the night. So did I. So did Alice. So did a whole bunch of people in the park.

  “When did they get here?” I asked.

  “They were here already,” Alice said. “Before we arrived. In fact, some of them have been dead quite a long time. They’re harder to see in sunlight. But at night you can see how different they are from the living. I mean, how different we are.”

  She was right. During the day I never noticed them, as they were overpowered by all that light and life and beauty. Now they gathered around the park, like fireflies with a blue-white glow.