Elsewhere(39)

Consequently, when Owen speaks through the Well, only one faucet comes on at Liz's old house.

"Hello," says Owen.

Alvy sighs. "You've got the wrong house. The only dead person I know is my sister, Lizzie."

"I know Liz, too."

"Yeah," says Alvy, "if you see her, tell her I'm mad. I didn't find anything in the closet, and I got in big trouble."

"You were in the wrong closet," says Owen. "It's under the floorboards in Liz'scloset."

Alvy sets down his glass. "Say, who are you anyway?"

"I guess you could say I'm a friend of Liz's. She's sorry she got you in trouble, by the way."

"Well, tell her I miss her," Alvy says. "She was a pretty good sister, most of the time. Oh, and tell her Happy Thanksgiving, too."

Liz's father enters the kitchen. He turns off the faucet. "Why did you leave this running again?"

Liz's father asks Alvy.

"It just came on by itself," Alvy replies. "And Dad? Please don't get mad, but I have to show you something in Liz's closet."

Owen stays to watch Alvy lead Liz's father up the stairs. He watches as Alvy opens a loose floorboard on the left side. He watches Alvy pull out a foil-wrapped box with a card on the front that reads, to dad.

When Owen surfaces an hour later, his colleagues from the bureau are waiting for him.

"I just thought you'd like to know he got the sweater." Owen stands awkwardly in front of Liz's desk at work the night before Thanksgiving. Although Thanksgiving isn't an official holiday in Elsewhere, many Americans still celebrate it anyway.

"You went to the Well for me?"

"Your brother . . . Alvy, is it?"

Liz nods.

"Alvy says 'Happy Thanksgiving.' " Owen turns to leave.

"Wait." Liz grabs Owen's arm. "Wait a minute, you can't just go!" Liz pulls Owen into a hug.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," Owen says gruffly.

"Did he like the sweater?" Liz asks.

"He loved it. It matched his eyes just like you said it would." As Owen says this, he realizes the sweater matched Liz's eyes also.

Liz sits down in her desk chair. "I really don't know how to thank you."

"It's just part of my job."

"It's part of your job to give my dad a sweater?"

"Well, not technically," Owen admits.

"What else did Alvy say?"

"He said you were a good sister. Actually, he said you were a good sister most of the time."

Liz laughs and grabs Owen by the hand. "Come to Thanksgiving dinner at my house. Well, it's Betty's house and my house. Betty's my grandmother."

"I ..." Owen looks away.

"Of course," Liz says, "this late, you probably have other plans."

Owen thinks a moment. He never has other plans. He typically eschews holidays like Thanksgiving, holidays spent among other people's loved ones. Even after ten years, making other plans somehow feels like betraying Emily. Normally, Owen eats alone at a diner with a holiday special. "It's a strange thing about Thanksgiving," Owen says finally. "I mean, why do so many of us still celebrate it over here anyway? Is it just habit? Are we just doing it because we always have?"

"Listen, you don't have to come if "

Owen interrupts her. "And people barely think about the whole Pilgrims-and-Indians thing over there, and it really has absolutely nothing to do with anything over here. And yet right around Thanksgiving, despite myself, I always get that Thanksgiving feeling and want to make amends and eat pie. It's conditioned in me. Why is that?"

"I know what you mean. This last September, I still wanted to buy school supplies even though I don't go to school anymore," Liz says. "Although, it's a little different with Thanksgiving. I think it's just something you can do to be like the people back home. Or to be close to the people back home. You eat pie because you know they're eating pie."

Owen nods. All this talk of pie has suddenly put Owen in the mood for just that. "So," he says casually, "what time should I get there?"

Thanksgiving

I hope you don't mind, but I've invited another person," Liz announces to Betty that night. Liz has already invited Aldous Ghent and his wife, Rowena; Thandi, her cousin Shelly, and Paco the Chihuahua; and several of her advisees at the DDA. She had also invited Curtis Jest, but he declined on the grounds that he was an Englishman and found the holiday "rather maudlin"

anyway.

"The more the merrier," says Betty. On Earth, Betty had been fond of holidays, and her fondness only intensified in the afterlife. "Who is it?" Betty asks.

"Owen Welles."

"You don't mean that awful boy who gave you all the trouble at the Well?" Betty asks. Liz's "episode with the law" (as Betty calls it) is a continuing sore spot for Betty.

"That's the one," Liz replies.

"I thought you didn't like him," Betty says, raising her left eyebrow.

"I don't, not really. But he did me a favor, and I got caught up in the moment." Liz sighs. "The truth is, Betty, I didn't imagine that he'd say yes. And then I was stuck, because I couldn't exactly uninvite him, now could I?"