The Ups and Downs of Being Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

of cake, eh Robert?” Sam said as he jogged up to him.
“Now let’s get back on.”
    Because no one was waiting at the stop, the next bus didn’t
slow. Maggie and Robert stood out in the street, so that when the bus drove
through them, they would automatically be on board. Sam stayed on the sidewalk,
intending to finesse a side entry.
    The bus passed through Maggie and Robert. As the seats
whizzed by, Robert watched Sam calmly step in from the side. But then the bus
kept right on going and Robert found himself outside the back of the bus. He
scowled as he watched it drive away.
    Sam and Maggie slipped out to join him in the street.
    “Don’t worry,” Maggie said. “We couldn’t do it the first
time either.”
    “It’s kind of like those moving sidewalks at the airport,”
Sam explained. “It takes a little practice to get on and off.”
    After Robert mastered boarding, and staying on a bus, they
moved on to high-rise buildings.
    “I prefer to do things the same way I did when I was alive,”
Maggie told Robert as they walked into the lobby of a ten-story office
building. “So I ride the bus, I take the elevator if I can. It gives me a sense
of normalcy.”
    “The problem is we can’t punch the elevator buttons,” Sam
said. “So depending on your level of patience, it’s usually easier to slip
through the elevator doors.”
    “Or if you know where you’re going, you can go in and out
the window,” Maggie said.
    A man in a nicely tailored suit waited at the elevator.
Robert scanned the tapered lines of the jacket, the professional tie, the
expensive shoes – probably Bruno Magli. Dressing like that for work was all
over for Robert. There would be no more crisp white shirts, no pouring over
ties, or buffing shoes. He was really going to miss slipping into a
newly-tailored jacket for the first time, and inspecting the lines in front of
the three-way mirror.
    Who knew what men would be wearing when he came back in
seventy-five years. Dear God, he hoped it wasn’t some one-piece leotard, or a
shapeless white robe.
    The man at the elevator paged through e-mails on his
i-Phone. Robert totally understood how moments in time, even thirty seconds
waiting for an elevator, were never wasted on idleness.
    “Why so glum, Robert?” Maggie asked. “Does he remind you of
your former life?”
    “He sure does,” Robert said. “I spent nearly every waking
hour on my business. Marketing, strategy meetings, business trips. What will I
do now?”
    “Don’t worry,” Sam reassured him. “There’s so much to do,
you’ll never miss your job.”
    “I doubt that,” Robert said.
    Panic washed over Robert again. Seventy-five years, maybe a
hundred years of waiting, with nothing to do. No planes to catch, no conference
calls. It felt like he’d been sentenced to life in prison.

CHAPTER FOUR

 
 
    “I need a drink,” Robert moaned.
    “Come on,” Maggie coaxed. “You’re taking this all wrong.”
    “No, I’m not,” he said. “The only thing I’ve truly enjoyed
about my life was my business.”
    “That doesn’t say much about your family,” Maggie scolded.
    Slumping his shoulders, Robert stared at the numbers above
the elevator light up as the car descended.
    “I just want to find the nearest bar and drink myself into a
stupor.”
    “Getting sloshed never solved any problems.”
    Funny, that was the very same thing he’d told Amanda, the
next time their paths crossed.
    It was nearly a year after Sherry McClintock’s post party.
Robert had flown the red-eye into LaGuardia, and was nearly dozing in the
backseat of a cab when the driver growled. Robert glanced out the window to see
Amanda strut into some bar in Midtown. How pathetic, the way his heart had
strained like a dog on a leash, wanting just to be near the woman. He’d thought
of her a million times, even flipped through magazines on the off chance she
might be in an advertisement. But he’d never been able to track her down. And
then there she