Elsewhere(12)

The route to Grandma Betty's house is simple enough, and aside from the occasional direction, the ride is silent. Although she has plenty to say, Grandma Betty doesn't want to distract Liz from her driving. Liz isn't in the mood for conversation anyway and she lets her mind wander. Of course, a wandering mind is not always advisable for the recently deceased and is nearly never advisable for the beginning driver.

Liz thinks about why it took her so long to figure out she was dead. Other people, like Curtis and Thandi, seemed to realize immediately, or soon thereafter. She feels like a real dunce. At school, Liz always prided herself on being a person who caught on quickly, a fast learner. But here was concrete evidence that she is not as fast as she thinks.

"Elizabeth, darling," says Grandma Betty, "you may want to slow down a bit."

"Fine," says Liz, glancing at the speedometer, which reads seventy-five miles per hour. She didn't realize she was driving so fast and eases up a bit on the gas pedal.

How can I be dead? Liz wonders to herself. Aren't I too young to be dead? When dead people are her age, they're usually little kids with cancer or some equally horrible and abstract disease. Dead little kids get free trips and meet world-famous pop stars. She wonders if a cruise and Curtis Jest counted.

When Liz was a freshman, two seniors had been killed drinking and driving just before the prom.

The school had given them full-page, full-color tributes in the yearbook. Liz wonders if she will receive such a tribute. Unless her parents pay for it, she doubts it. Both boys had been on the football team, which had won the Massachusetts state championship that year. Liz did not play football, was only a sophomore, and had died by herself. (People always find dying in groups more tragic.) She steps on the gas pedal a little harder.

"Elizabeth," says Grandma Betty, "the house is the next exit. I suggest slowing down and easing the car into the right lane."

Without a glance in the rearview mirror, Liz moves into the right lane. She cuts off a black sports car and has to speed up to keep the car from crashing into her back end.

"Elizabeth, did you see that car?" asks Grandma Betty.

"It's under control," says Liz tightly. So what if I'm a bad driver? Liz thinks to herself. What difference does it make anyway? It's not like I'm going to get myself killed. You can't get deader than dead, can you?

"This is the exit. Are you sure you're all right to drive?"

"I'm fine," says Liz. Without slowing down, she maneuvers the car awkwardly toward the exit.

"You might want to slow down; the exit can be somewhat tricky to "

"I'm fine!" Liz yells.

"WATCH OUT!"

At that moment, Liz drives the car into the exit's concrete retaining wall. The car is a heavy old beast and makes an impressive noise upon contact.

"Are you hurt?" asks Grandma Betty.

Liz doesn't answer. Staring at the old car's front end, Liz can't help but laugh. The car has sustained almost no damage. A single dent, that's all. A miracle, thinks Liz bitterly. If only people were as sturdy as cars.

"Elizabeth, are you all right?" asks Grandma Betty.

"No," Liz answers. "I'm dead, or haven't you heard?"

"I meant, are you hurt?"

Liz strokes the remains of the stitches over her ear. She wonders who she should see about removing the stitches. She had stitches once before (a rollerskating accident at age nine, her most serious injury until recently) and she knows that wounds don't fully heal until stitches are removed. All at once, Liz doesn't want to have the stitches removed. She finds this tiny piece of string strangely comforting. It is her last piece of Earth and the only evidence that she was ever there at all.

"Are you hurt?" Grandma Betty repeats the question, looking at Liz with concern.

"What difference would it make?"

"Well," says Grandma Betty, "if you were hurt, I would take you to a healing center."

"People get hurt here?"

"Yes, although everything eventually heals when one ages backward."

"So nothing matters here, does it? I mean, nothing counts. Everything is just erased. We're all getting younger and stupider, and that's it." Liz wants to cry, but not in front of Betty, whom she doesn't even know.

"You could look at things that way, I suppose. But in my opinion, that would be a very boring and limited point of view. I would hope you haven't embraced such a bleak outlook before you've even been here a day." Cupping Liz's chin in her hand, Grandma Betty turns Liz's head so that she can see directly into her eyes. "Were you trying to kill us back there?"

"Could I?"

Grandma Betty shakes her head. "No, darling, but you certainly wouldn't have been the first person to try."

"I don't want to live here," she yells. "I don't want to be here!" Despite herself, the tears start up again.

"I know, doll, I know," Grandma Betty says. She pulls Liz into an embrace and begins to stroke Liz's hair.

"My mother strokes my hair that way," Liz says as she pulls away. She knows Grandma Betty meant to be comforting, but it only felt creepy like her mother was touching her from beyond the grave.

Grandma Betty sighs and opens the passenger-side door. "I'll drive the rest of the way home,"