The Wharfs by Evan O’Connor

The Wharfs by Evan O’Connor

Rebecca stirred on her classroom’s sofa, unable to sleep deeply in the heat. Its old, saggy cushions sunk under her weight, trapping her in a sweaty embrace. The school didn’t power the air conditioning over summer break, but she couldn’t complain; her classroom wasn’t supposed to be inhabited. If the principal wasn’t kind enough to turn a blind eye, she’d be sleeping on the streets instead. Though outside might be cooler.

Her phone buzzed, rousing her out of her doze. “We’re short today,” the text read. “Can you come in?”

Money and an air-conditioned space were appealing, but she’d been meaning to start lesson planning. She only had a month left before the school year started again in August. Rebecca drew out the decision in her mind, weighing the pros and cons, relishing the bit of control she had. She checked the weather forecast’s predicted high for today: 101℉. God. She booted up the 10-year-old PC in the classroom and reviewed how many lesson plans she had to make: Thirty-two. Damn.

Finally, she checked on what would be the deciding factor. “Hey Reggie, you working today?” she typed out. She paused, added, “Tony asked if I could come in.” She pressed the blue arrow, then sent a follow-up, “Sorry if this woke you btw.”

Her stomach fluttered as she waited for his reply, which she knew was stupid. This wasn’t some summer crush; they’d been dating for half a year now. They met before they started working together, when she stopped in as a customer. It was not a place she could afford, but she’d needed a bathroom, and Captain’s Coffee was the first cafe she saw. She remembered how she had rushed in and smiled apologetically at him.

“What’s the cheapest thing you’ve got?” she asked.

Reggie saw her shifting from foot to foot and asked, “Do you just need the toilet?” Rebecca nodded, and he said, “No worries, you can use it. The door code is 1-2-3-4.”

On her way out, he shouted to her, “Don’t forget your order!” and motioned down at an iced tea on the orders counter.

Rebecca almost kept walking, thinking he’d mistaken her for another brunette, before realizing he was hitting on her. It had been a while. Sure enough, written on an iced tea was a sticky note that read, “For reference, this is the cheapest thing we have.” Below that was his number.

Three months later, when the administrative board broke the news they wouldn’t be offering summer school due to budget cuts, Reggie had the perfect suggestion for where she should work in the meantime.

Reggie’s typing bubble popped up almost as soon as she’d sent her message. “Yep. Let’s get that bread!!” Rebecca was pretty sure that was some stupid Gen-Z term that was already years old. But she reacted to it with a bread emoji and got ready for work.

& & &

At 6am, Rebecca waited at their meeting spot on the pier. The Wharf was home to a number of music venues and bars that made it a passable nightlife destination, but this early in the morning, it hosted only herself, a few fishermen, and the seagulls; none of whom were much for conversation, so she contemplated the view in silence. The Wharf overlooked a small channel of the Potomac, its main body cut off by a peninsula that was entirely consumed by a golf course. Rebecca assumed it a fun destination if you were rich, but it was just a flat, green eyesore to her. The water in between shone with a sickly rainbow hue from the nearby yacht club.

“What’re you looking so gloomy for?”

Rebecca smiled without turning around. “We’re working today. This place is ugly. Etcetera.”

She heard Reggie stop behind her, then a pair of smooth hands covered her eyes. “Guess who?”

“Stop, you’re giving me flashbacks to high school,” she laughed. “And you’re not even doing it right, you already talked to me before you– move your hands before I throw you in the water!”

The darkness receded to show Reggie’s wide grin, looking much too pleased with himself.

“No one thinks you’re as funny as you do, you know,” Rebecca said. His grin faltered at that. “You’re getting pretty close, though. What’ve you been up to?”

He sighed. “Not much. Indeed.com, mostly.”

“Any luck?” she asked, just to be polite. He would’ve told her immediately if he scored so much as an interview.

“Nope. I think the same AI that put me out of a job is filtering out my resume.”

Rebecca made a sympathetic noise. At least she’d known she was going into an underpaid field – not as underpaid as it turned out to be, she was no angel, but still. Reggie, on the other hand, thought he’d be making the big bucks as a Computer Science major. And just a couple years ago, he might have been. Tough timing.

“Just as well,” Rebecca said. “I wouldn’t want you getting out of my league.”

“Don’t worry,” Reggie said. “When I get that Google internship, I won’t forget you. I’m pretty sure they have in-house cafes you could work at.”

“Yeah, right. As soon as this summer is over, I’m never steaming milk again.”

Reggie went silent. You’ve got a knack for saying the dumbest things, Rebecca thought. Her going back to her teaching job in the fall had been a sore subject for them. She was insistent that they would still date, but Reggie thought he was being used as a summer fling. That as soon as she went back to teaching, she’d forget all about him. The fact that they’d started dating during the school year didn’t seem to comfort him.

But didn’t some part of her want to put this entire embarrassing episode behind her? Every day she came to work, she was afraid that one of her students would walk into the cafe and recognize her. Working at Captain’s Coffee was not something she wanted to repeat next summer… which she hadn’t told Reggie yet. I’ll get around to it, she thought, but I’ve hurt his feelings enough this morning.

“This summer isn’t over yet, though,” Rebecca continued. “So let’s go… ‘get that bread?’”

Reggie laughed. “No one’s used that in ages, Rebs. You sound super old.”

She made a big huff and went off towards Captain’s Coffee. “You suck.”

“I’m just saying, I thought that, since you work with kids, you’d know that.”

“Mhm. You just forfeited your dibs on the pastry leftovers.”

“Well, hold on…”

& & &

Captain’s Coffee was a relic of an older Wharf. The neighborhood was once characterized by its iconic seafood market, which, while still technically running, had since shrunk to just a few stalls. Back in its heyday, it was a true market, and the fishermen casting their lines at the crack of dawn had a need for legal stimulants. With strong pour-over brews, Captain’s Coffee kept the Wharf awake at whatever odd hours the fishermen and market hawkers required. But in the early 2000s, the Wharf was targeted by a wave of developments to force it into becoming an extension of downtown Washington. Unfortunately for the locals, fish markets didn’t rake in the tax dollars as well as stores and restaurants. Clubs, concert venues, and bars were shoved into the area. Financially, it was a success; the Wharf became a nightlife destination over the span of just a few years, albeit an artificial one.

Nowadays, Captain’s Coffee slung the same overpriced frappuccinos and cold brews as any other cafe to stay in business. Even as it shifted its customer base from lower-middle class to higher earners and tourists, Captain’s Coffee touted its roots and carried itself with (perhaps unwarranted) pride.

That pride was carried primarily by its manager and owner, Troy. He almost let the place go several times; he had the rare privilege of owning the space his business occupied, and several offers to buy it out would have set him up for life. Troy was planning on letting a Whataburger cash him out – the sum was enough to close his mortgage and clear his only son’s tuition – when said son, poor Jake, died in a car crash. He didn’t see the point of retirement after that. Keeping the Captain’s Coffee in business became his life’s sole obsession, which had pros and cons for his employees. Rebecca was treated well in terms of pay and sick days, but she was expected to be as fanatical about the cafe as Troy was. He often referred to them as a ‘family,’ which depressed Rebecca more than it annoyed her. Likewise, accountability was strict with Troy, so Rebecca and Reggie made sure they had their aprons donned and name tags attached by 6:15am. That gave them fifteen minutes to eat yesterday’s stale pastries as breakfast before they began opening tasks. Then, at 7am sharp every morning, Captain’s Coffee opened for business.

Rebecca liked the first few customers best. They were usually the polite regulars and the occasional group of construction workers. But around 8:30, the 9-to-5 summer interns appeared. They belted out orders the price of her monthly paycheck with the anxiety of a prom proposal, and always made her read the entire grocery list back to them in fear that, God forbid, one of their bosses would get a wrong drink. Taking their orders consumed her day until lunch, when she savored her 30-minute break before she swapped to making orders.

Ordinarily, she took lunch with Reggie, but on short-staffed days like today, they had to stagger their breaks. So she sat alone in a small sideroom with her PB&J, when her coworker Liam came in with a baking sheet of sad-looking pastries.

“I haven’t seen you all day,” Rebecca said. “What’re you doing in the back?”

“Troy has me trying to come up with new recipes,” Liam pointed at the baking sheet. “He wants it to be a ‘Captain’s Coffee original recipe’, with some Asian flavor that every cafe has nowadays. You know, Ube, Taro, Matcha.” He gestured at himself. “None of those are from Vietnam, but whatever, I must know how to make it, right?”

“Oh, Liam,” she said. “I can’t believe him. That’s terrible.”

“I mean, yeah,” he shrugged. “But now I’m getting paid to mess around with different recipes all day. These, though,” he set down the baking sheet on the table in front of her, “are a bust.”

Liam was the Captain’s Coffee’s ‘pastry chef’, but, as he confided to her on several occasions, all that meant was following some simplified steps. Outside of a few dumbed-down recipes, he couldn’t bake at all. Still, what he did make usually turned out well. These did not. The sheet held rows of crumpled crust with a strange white paste oozing out them.

“What were these supposed to be?” Rebecca asked. Liam flushed. “I’m sorry. They, uh, don’t look great, but I’m sure they taste fine.”

“They were supposed to be taro croissants, but they didn’t rise. And as for how they taste… go ahead, try one.”

Rebecca picked up the one with the most filling, thinking it ought to be the sweetest, and took a tentative bite. Bitterness coated her tongue immediately, the flavor so strong she nearly spit it out. But Liam was watching her intently, so she chewed it a few times before quickly swallowing it down. Her stomach recoiled before the bite even reached it.

“That was, uh, not bad,” Rebecca said, already walking to the sink to wash the taste out of her mouth.

“You don’t have to lie,” he smiled. “I tried one already. It’s terrible.”

“You asshole,” she laughed. She froze for a second, then, to her relief, Liam laughed back.

“Sorry,” he said, “I had to have someone else try it. ‘Shared sorrow is half a sorrow.’” He picked up the tray and poured the rest into the trash. “Okay, time to try again. Troy is expecting one of these recipes to pan out by the end of today.”

“Good luck.” You’ll need it, she thought, and scooped tap water into her mouth.

& & &

“Wake up, please.”

“Mmm.” Rebecca stirred. She opened her eyes; she was still in the break room. “Did I fall asleep?”

“No. You died.”

“What?” Rebecca sat up from the floor and looked at the speaker – he’d sounded like Troy, but though he looked vaguely similar, it wasn’t him.

“You’re dead, and so now you’re here.” The man looked about her age, but his hairline was already receding, and he had deep worry lines etched into his forehead.

Rebecca opened her mouth to ask him who he was and how he got in here, then decided that wasn’t as important as getting away from this stranger who’d broken into the break room. She got up from the floor, thinking she must have passed out, and stopped cold. A girl looking just like her – no, a reflection – no, herself – was curled on the ground at her feet. She was wearing exactly what she was now, and her face was pulled into a grimace. Rebecca collapsed back onto the floor. “What is that?”

She was talking more to herself than the stranger, but he responded anyway. “I told you, you’re dead. That’s you. It’s just a mirage, see?” He waved his hand through it, and the sight of his hand sailing clean through her made Rebecca nearly throw up.

“That’s… me?”

“It was, yeah.”

She reached out to touch it, and met no resistance. The image showed a rabid foam around her mouth. “How did I die?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know. If I had to guess,” he followed her gaze to her mouth, “it looks like you were poisoned. But, in any case, you’re here.”

Rebecca was silent for a long moment. Was one of the leftover pastries more than a day old? Did someone kill her? Was Liam’s croissant just that bad? “Okay. And where do I go from here?”

“Well, that depends. I have a few questions for you.”

“Like… an interview?”

He smiled. It wasn’t unpleasant. “Yes, now you’re getting it. An interview. “

Rebecca straightened up and took a seat in the break room chair. Her fate would be decided here, right where she died? Okay, she thought, what’s my angle? She was a poor, underpaid teacher who served an underprivileged population out of the kindness of her heart–

“To start, how many years did you work at Captain’s Coffee?”

Rebecca blinked. “Oh, only a few months.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “Not very long.”

“Uh, well, no, but I’m a full-time English teacher during the school year.”

“How long have you been teaching?”

“I finished my first year in May,” she said proudly.

The man crumpled his eyebrows. She could see where his worry lines came from. “So, you only have one year of work experience?”

“Well, I graduated last year.” Rebecca’s heart was sinking.

“So, any internships, then?”

“No… the teaching program was very academically rigorous, so it didn’t leave any time for that kind of thing.”

“Any… extracurriculars?”

“Oh, yes! Knitting club, book club, ultimate frisbee–”

“Anything with a leadership position?”

“Oh… no.”

“Hmmm.” He sighed, thought for a moment, then continued, “Alright, tell me about a time you faced adversity and overcame it.”

The odd line of questioning was throwing her off. “Well, my teaching program and degree, as I mentioned, was very difficult. But–”

“Sorry, just to clarify: your English degree?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Please continue.”

Rebecca cleared her throat and continued, “It was challenging, but I graduated with latin honors.”

“Summa cum laude?”

“Um, no, just cum laude.”

He nodded. “Okay, thank you for your time, Rebecca, but that concludes this interview.”

“Wait!” she said, standing up. “That can’t be all the questions you have.”

The man cocked his head. “And why not?”

“Because… I’m so much more than just my work and school experience. Don’t you want to know about, I don’t know, how much I volunteered, or donated to charity, or something?”

“Okay. What volunteering have you done?”

“I’ve, uh, volunteered at the soup kitchen every Martin Luther King Day. And tutored kids during recess. Which is my off-time.”

“That’s great.” He nodded again, sagely. “That’s really, um, good for you. Now, if you’ll please step out…”

He motioned to the door. It looked almost the same as her break room door, plus or minus a few work memos taped to it. If this man ushered her out, she wondered, what was beyond it? Hell? Purgatory? Something worse?

There was one more trick in her toolbox. But if it failed, she was surely going to the worst afterlife this world had to offer. “I, uh…” Rebecca halfheartedly slipped off one brastrap. “I would do anything to pass this interview.”

“You would… what?” He looked at her bare shoulder, then back to her.

“You know…” She started miming the action.

He cut her off. “Stop. Please. Why would you…? You want to pass that badly?”

“Do I want to pass? Yes, obviously, I’d like to go to heaven!” He stared back at her, and she added, “Or the good place, or nirvana, or wherever ‘passing’ this interview gets me.”

“Passing this interview,” he said, “gets you your old job.”

Rebecca was speechless until a knock came at the door. “Jake, a customer is asking for the manager!”

“Just a minute!” he shouted to the door.

“Hang on,” she said. “Jake, as in Troy’s son?”

“Yep.” His pleasant smile came back. “How’s he doing, by the way? Still managing the Captain’s Coffee on the other side?”

“I…” Rebecca let out a long breath. “So you’re not a… decider of fate, or whatever?”

“What? No, I’m the owner of this cafe.”

“So what the fuck did I almost blow you for?” she shouted.

“Keep your voice down,” he hissed. “For a job? I thought you’d figured it out. I mean, you said this was an interview.” He looked in her eyes and talked slow. “When you die, you just go to the next life. Same age as when you died, same world, but it’s occupied by everyone else who died.”

Rebecca tried picturing it. “That doesn’t make any sense, we wouldn’t all fit.”

“Well, no, not all at once we wouldn’t. But we’re not immortal. This is just another life.”

“So we… we die, and then we come here, and then we die again, and then go… where?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? To another life, maybe. And maybe we don’t remember our past lives that time, or start again as a baby. Or a lizard. No one knows, just like the last life.”

Rebecca stared at the table, trying to piece it all together. Jake sighed. “This is a lot, I know. You can think it over in here. Consider it your lunch break.” He walked to the door. “As in, you’re hired.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Just checking. You seem pretty slow on the uptake.” He propped the door open and said over his shoulder, “You don’t have to take the job, but the market in this life is pretty rough. If you stay, the lunch break here is twenty minutes.” Rebecca scowled at him, and he added, “You can take thirty today, though.”

& & &

Rebecca sat alone in the break room, listening to the lunchtime rush outside. She couldn’t take her eyes off her mirage slowly disappearing on the floor. She was curled up pitifully, clutching her stomach in what must have been terrible pain. Rebecca wouldn’t know, not remembering it. And if she couldn’t remember it, who’s to say she really died? That one man?

That was why she couldn’t take her eyes off her mirage, she realized. It was proof she’d passed. In her early twenties. Having accomplished nothing but teaching a single mediocre school year to a bunch of ungrateful kids.

Is this a test? Rebecca thought. To gauge my reaction? In that case, she’d certainly failed, miserably, what with the sleeping into heaven attempt. But then, having failed, wouldn’t she be cast down into hell? Was this hell, being forced to work her shitty summer job for another lifetime? That seemed pretty mediocre for eternal damnation. No, the simplest explanation was that Jake had been telling the truth. Which meant, she thought as she looked at the clock, she had to get back to work.

Rebecca went out the break room door and found the ordinary hellscape of a retail job. There were three other people she didn’t recognize buzzing around the front, rushing to and from the espresso machine and the cashier counter, where a long line of people were waiting impatiently. They’re super short staffed, she thought, and Jake still almost didn’t hire me. Jake himself was arguing with an angry customer to the side, but quickly broke away when he caught her eye.

“Okay,” he said after taking a breath, “what did you work in your past life?”

“Front-end, mostly, but I don’t know what the system is here-”

“Perfect, you’ll fill in here. This system is the same as Troy’s, I didn’t change a thing. Just hop in.”

Jake rushed off, and she reluctantly stepped into the fray. The cashier whipped around and handed her an order receipt. “Here, one large pistachio latte.”

She took the paper and, to her own surprise, fell right into her old rhythm. A few syrups were switched around, and the fridge was in a different spot than she was used to, but everything else was more or less the same. Sliding easily back into work didn’t bring her joy, exactly, but she was glad to be busy. Turning her brain off was preferable to dwelling on the million unresolved questions that were churning in her brain – can I get my teaching job back too? do I want to? where am I sleeping tonight? She could pretend, at least until the end of the work day, that she had never died, was simply working as she always did.

That is, until Liam walked in.

Rebecca dropped her nearly finished caramel latte, and her new coworkers cussed in surprise as it splattered across the floor. “Liam, what are you doing here?”

He stared back at her, looking just as dumbfounded as she imagined she looked. “I don’t know. Jake said it looked like I was poisoned with the same thing as another employee who just arrived here. I wasn’t expecting to see you, though.”

“You guys can catch up after work,” Jake cut in as he walked by. “But right now, we’re all dying out here. Liam, I told you to go to back-end, right?”

“Yeah, but I saw Rebecca, and I…”

“Like I said, you can catch up later. Please, get moving on those pastries.”

Liam walked off in a daze. Probably about to lose himself in his work, too, Rebecca thought. Truthfully, she was almost happy to have him out of her sight. It let her continue to fantasize and forget as even more questions – who poisoned us? are more of my coworkers on their way? is Reggie okay? – attempted to fill her mind.

But there was more than enough work to distract her. She started on the backlog of orders that had accumulated in the short time she was off-task, and the roar in her head subsided to a dull buzz.

& & &

For the first time, the Captain’s Coffee closed too soon. 5 p.m. rushed to meet her, and after stretching out her closing tasks as much as possible, she watched the staff all walk off towards home. Without knowing why, or where she was going, Rebecca wandered off with them.

She hadn’t been outside yet, Rebecca realized. With the cafe being so similar, she had assumed the rest of the world would be much the same too. She wasn’t wrong. The Wharf was already crowded with early nightlifers, making their way to any number of overpriced bars. Most of her new coworkers streamed off towards the main street, but since Rebecca didn’t want to be surrounded by even more strangers, and none of her coworkers gave her a second glance, she lingered by the water instead. She walked to the edge of the pier and sat down. The water was filthy here, too, she noted. Rebecca stared into the ocean for answers. If she dove in, she wondered, would she surface back in her old life? What would really change if she did?

Then, Rebecca noticed a detail in the water that was new. In its oil sheen, there were lights. She turned to see what their reflection was from. Where the old fish market had been, there was a large complex of what looked like hawker stalls. But that couldn’t be right – the nightlife venues had clearly taken over in this world, too. Rebecca stood up and walked back down the pier towards the structures.

Before she was close enough to get a look, the smell hit her. The stench of fish was so overpowering she nearly gagged; and yet, even as she was covering her nose, she was grinning. Rebecca pressed on.

The fish market, even at this hour, was booming. It was four times the size of the market she remembered. It had sprawled outwards in a grid, the avenues between stalls lined by hazy lights. Fishmongers were shucking shellfish and weighing their catches next to vendors selling shrimp tacos to nightlifers and ordinary passerby. The former group’s patronage surprised her; while some of them wrinkled their noses and hurried off towards the clubs, a good number seemed happy to shop there. Rebecca was excited at the idea, too, until she remembered that she didn’t have any money. She had to go see Jake about that before he left the cafe. With that realization, the logistics of staying alive churned in her brain, and she started her walk back to Captain’s Coffee. But before she left, she turned around for a last glance. A thin fog had rolled in from the bay, and the shine of the market lights through the mist looked like stars to her. As the sound of the crowds reached out of that nebulous cloud, it seemed as though a galaxy were speaking to her.

& & &

The front doors were locked. Rebecca’s stomach dropped; she was hoping to stay the night inside.

She stood numbly at the doors, the magic of the evening fading as she ached with the thought of sleeping on the streets, until Liam walked up from inside. He smiled at her weakly and unlocked the doors.

“Hey, where’d you go?”

“Just down the street.”

Liam’s smile dropped, and he started to say something, then stopped. Rebecca stared at him expectantly until he added, “You can’t just wander off without telling anyone. I was worried you disappeared.”

Rebecca was surprised at his concern, and it must have shown, because Liam blushed. “We were worried, I mean. Jake was looking for you too.”

“No, don’t take it back,” Rebecca said. “Say what you mean.”

She wasn’t sure why she said it. But though Rebecca often let her thoughts slip into words, it was the first time it didn’t leave a bitter taste in her mouth.

Liam was taken aback, and for a couple seconds she thought he wasn’t going to reply. Finally, he said, “Okay. I was worried, because I’m scared and barely have any idea what’s going on and you’re the only one in that boat with me. I need you. So, please, don’t go wandering off without telling anybody. Okay?”

Rebecca smiled. “Okay.”

They stood there a moment, looking into each other’s contented faces, until Liam cleared his throat. “Jake was looking for you, though. He wanted to tell you that we could spend the night here – just tonight, though. He gave us tomorrow and the next day off to apartment hunt. And, he uh…” Liam fixed his eyes on a particularly interesting part of the floor, “… said we would probably have to room together to find an apartment in the area we could afford.”

“That’s alright with me.”

“Yeah?” His eyes returned to hers. “Alright. Great.”

They finally walked inside, and Liam said, “So, there’s really only the couch here to sleep on. But I can make do in the break room, and you can sleep here.”

“I’d rather sleep on the floor,” Rebecca chuckled. “I’ll take the break room, you sleep on the couch.”

He shrugged and sat down. “Suit yourself.” He looked around the cafe, then shook his head. “This is never going to feel normal.”

“Yes, it will. Someday.” Rebecca wasn’t sure where her newfound pensiveness was coming from. Maybe that was easier for her to say; she was more or less where she started, and had few people in her former life that were going to miss her. Reggie was one of those people, though, and the thought of him did make her heart pang. But she would live on.

“Hm. I guess we’ll see,” Liam replied.

“Mhm. Alright, goodnight.” She shuffled into the break room, starting to feel the weight of the day. If she didn’t set up some of the chair cushions into a makeshift bed soon, she really would sleep on the floor. She opened the break room door, and–

A shimmering figure was standing there.

Rebecca startled and fell down against the door. Was someone else dying? Then, selfishly, she thought, Please be Reggie. Don’t leave me here.

It was facing away from her, but it could’ve been Reggie. It was a similar height and build, though it had yet to take a definite shape, its edges still twinkling. She edged closer to him on the ground, and its details filled in as she approached. Rebecca recognized him: it was Reggie, and the realization brought her a pang of guilt. Had she manifested his death, somehow? No, that’s stupid. Whoever killed Liam and I just got to him too. But he still wasn’t changing from an apparition into a solid being. It was like a hazy, 2-D reflection from a dirty mirror. She reached and touched his leg, and her fingers slipped right through it.

Reggie jerked his leg forward and turned around. When he saw her, he leaped back. He must’ve hit the table behind him, because he came to a sudden stop, and she could hear the shatter of glass hitting the floor. Geez, it’s like he saw a ghost or something, she thought, and started laughing. That only scared him more, and he took a few steps back. “Oh my God, Rebecca, is that you?”

Her eyes widened. “You can hear me?”

“Yeah. You can hear me?” He looked around, at what she couldn’t tell. “What the hell. What the hell is this?”

“So, you’re not dead?” She hated that she sounded disappointed.

He looked down at himself to check, and Rebecca had to resist laughing again. “No, I don’t think so. But you… I’m so sorry Rebecca. Liam, too, such a stupid accident.”

She shivered. “Accident?”

“You don’t know? Well, Liam fucked up his pastries. Apparently taro is poisonous if it’s not cooked right. That’s what the hospital said. So, if you see him, tell him I say ‘fuck you.’” He paused, then continued, “Actually, don’t. I don’t want to be haunted. Is that a thing? What’s the afterlife like?”

Rebecca curled back into a ball on the ground, just as she arrived, trying to process what Reggie said. She and Liam had died because of a baking accident? Of all the ways she could have gone, of course the stupidest one took her out, she thought. Reggie saw her reaction and quickly added, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re going through and I’m just rambling.” He knelt down next to her. “I don’t know what’s ahead of you, but it’s going to be okay. You’re a good person. God, or whoever, has to know that.”

Her stomach tightened. “There is no ‘whoever!’ It’s just another life. Same age, same place, same fucking cafe. There’s barely any difference. I died, and I’m still stuck with the same shitty job!”

Liam walked through the break room door. “I heard you yelling, what’s…” He stopped. “What the hell? Reggie?”

Reggie looked at him, shocked, then scowled. “Liam, you, you… bastard! You killed yourself and Rebecca with your undercooked, shitty taro pastries.”

Liam went pale, but as Rebecca looked at Reggie’s face, she saw he wasn’t really angry. He was trying to look like it, but he was just scared and confused. “Reggie,” she said, “it’s okay. I forgive him.”

Reggie looked down at her. “You do?”

“Yeah, it was an accident.”

Liam let out a long breath. “Thanks. But… I can’t believe I…” He helped Rebecca off the floor. “I’m so, so sorry.”

A wave of mirth, unexpected but not unwelcome, swept through her. “What does it matter? Here we are, same as we ever were. I mean,” she turned to Reggie, “I’ll miss you. Really. You were so, so sweet. And cute. But, really, what does it matter?”

They all considered this for a moment, before Reggie shimmered violently. “Oh, God, I can barely see you guys,” Reggie said. “This… whatever this is, it’s fading. Um, Rebecca, I…” He stumbled for a few more syllables, before simply hugging her. And she felt it: a warmth spreading from his arms and body into her core. She hugged him back and hoped he felt the same.

When she opened her eyes, he was gone.

& & &

Rebecca and Liam sat down on the couch together, not speaking. They had walked there in a daze, but from the moment Reggie had disappeared, they both knew she couldn’t spend the night in the break room alone.

“So… you really don’t care?” Liam asked.

Rebecca thought it over. “It’s not that I don’t care, exactly. It’s just… I don’t know. It happened. You didn’t mean any harm. And now we’re here. Here and exhausted. So, scoot over.”

She laid down on the couch, and Liam scrunched himself against the armrest to make room. He said, “I can, uh, sleep in a chair, if you want.”

Rebecca pulled him down next to her. “This is fine.”

Liam raised his arms to put around her, hesitated, left them in the air. “I… Rebecca, I killed us.”

“Will you get over that already?” Rebecca said. She pulled his arms down from above, wrapped them around her, and slept as soundly as she ever had on couch cushions.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Evan O’Connor 2024