Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones

“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 me pushing 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.”