No Dress Rehearsal Read Online Free PDF

in Brad Pitt’s bedroom if she really wanted. But she couldn’t be bothered. She wanted to stay close to the familiar. Things were difficult enough.
    Later that day, as soon as she felt up to it, she visited her mother and father. She watched her mother cry as though her heart was breaking. The guilt was terrible.
    â€œIt’s too unnatural,” her mother wept, “for a parent to bury a child.”
    Like most people, Lizzie hadn’t always seen eye-to-eye with her parents. Not that they’d been at each other’s throats either. But she realised now she could have spent more timewith them.
Should
have spent more time with them. But she had always been so busy. There was always so much to do …
    She was sorry now. Very sorry. With terrible tenderness she watched her mother. She hated the wails that were being pulled from her gut. But when she tried putting her arms around her, her mother shivered as though she was freezing.
    Later she went back to her flat and waited for Neil. He’d been running around all day with Sinead, organising the funeral.
    When he came home that night, she tried to snuggle up to him in bed. But he shook so badly that she realised that it was better not to touch him.
    The thing was, she kept forgetting she was dead. When she saw how upset Neil was by her death, she couldn’tstop thinking it was a good thing. That this was exactly what was needed to bring him to his senses. The commitment from him was as good as in the bag. Maybe they’d get married the following spring.
    Then she’d think, But hold on a minute. I’m dead. How can we get married if I’m dead?
    And then she was angry. She wasn’t finished yet. She wasn’t ready to let go of being alive. There was so much still to do. She was meant to live until she was at least seventy. And here she was, not even half that and already out of the game.
    The following day, to pass the time, she dropped in to see herself in the funeral home. She couldn’t get over her shattered skull. “
Ouch
!” she winced. “Tense, nervous headache? I bet that hurt.”
    And while she studied herself she realised something else. She’d been a nice-looking girl. While she’d been alive she’d never been happy with the way she’d looked. The usual list of complaints. Arse too big, boobs too small, hair too frizzy, ears too stickyouty. But she hadn’t known how lucky she was. Whatever about arses and hair and all the rest, at least her skull hadn’t been in twenty-seven separate pieces.
    After that she went into work. She’d always wanted to be a fly on the wall. Just so she could find out who her friends really were. But it was no good. It was impossible to find out what any of the people she had worked with really thought of her. Because they were too busy saying all the things people say about dead people. “She was a lovely girl.” “God takes the good ones young.” “At least she lived life tothe full.” “The place won’t be the same without her.”
    When it became clear that no one was going to do the dirty on her, she hid a couple of highly important files. But her heart wasn’t really in it.

CHAPTER TEN
    The morning of the funeral Lizzie popped along to the church to see herself lying in the coffin. Though her make-up was all right, she was very cross to see that she was wearing pink. “How could they?” She was raging. “Everyone knows it doesn’t suit me. I look like death.”
    Her heart lurched when Neil appeared, looking handsome and grim in a black suit. Carefully he placed a huge wreath beside the coffin. Pity he didn’t give me those flowers while Iwas alive, she thought sadly. They’re very little use to me now.
    At the very last minute, in ran Sinead. Sweet, sparky Sinead. “Sorry I’m late,” she gasped.
    Lizzie admired Sinead’s suit. It was a nice, narrow-cut black