Not Another Bad Date

Prologue

Devon Hamilton-Zemaitis was a beautiful woman. Being dead didn’t change that.

On a dreary Friday afternoon, beneath a steel gray sky, everyone inside the Grace Baptist Church on Thirty-first and Elm agreed that Devon made a fine-looking corpse. Even in death, she was everything her mother had raised her to be: gorgeous, stylish, and envied. She lay in perfect repose within the pale pink satin of her mahogany casket. The muted lights shone in her ash blond hair and caressed her smooth face, made flawless from years of strict skin-care regimes and Botox. Subtle tattooing lined her eyes and shaded her lips and Oscar Seinger, of Seinger and Sons Funeral Home, had done an excellent job concealing the gash on the left side of her forehead and the dent in her skull.

As her friends and fellow members of the Junior League filed past her casket, they wept delicate tears into monogrammed handkerchiefs and secretly thanked the Lord that it had been Devon, and not one of them, who’d run the stop sign at Vine and Sixth and t-boned a Wilson Brothers garbage truck.

A garbage truck, Meme Sanders thought as she stared down at her friend since first grade. That wasn’t a very dignified end to one’s life, but leave it to Devon to go out looking good in her Chanel bouclé tweed and Mikimoto pearls.

A garbage truck. Genevieve Brooks dabbed at the corner of her eye and hid a slight smile behind her handkerchief. On the same day that Devon had voted to keep Lee Ann Wilson out of the Junior League, a Wilson Brothers garbage truck had taken out Devon. Genevieve wondered if anyone but her appreciated that particularly delicious twist of irony. Of course Devon looked beautiful, Genevieve acknowledged as she gazed down at the woman she’d known since her first Little Miss Sparkle Pageant. Devon would not have been caught dead looking-well, dead-and Genevieve wondered if Devon wore the matching two-toned Chanel pumps or if people really were buried without shoes.

A garbage truck. Cecilia Blackworth Hamilton Taylor Marks-Davis wept into the lapels of her latest husband’s Brooks Brothers suit. Her baby girl had been killed by a garbage truck. How horrifying. Only thirty-two and now gone. What a waste of a beautiful woman and a beautiful life. At least that husband of hers had seen to it that she looked good, although really, the white bouclé was so last-season.

Cecilia glanced over her shoulder at her son-in-law and granddaughter. The poor girl clung to her daddy and buried her face in his tailored black suit. Cecilia had never liked Zachary Zemaitis. Had never understood why Devon had been so set on having him. Lord knew he was handsome, but he was just so…male. With his big arms and shoulders and chest, and Cecilia had always been uncomfortable around men with hundred-proof testosterone flowing through their veins.

A garbage truck. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Zach Zemaitis sat in the front pew with his arm around his ten-year-old daughter. Devon would have hated that, and wherever she was, Zach was sure his wife was raising hell…

“…A garbage truck,” Devon Hamilton-Zemaitis complained to the dead guy behind her in line. He was bad-mannered enough to roll his eyes.

“Lady, we all have problems,” he said. From what Devon could see, the man’s biggest problem was that his family had buried him in a cheap suit. Probably JC Penney.

Devon shuddered delicately. At least Zach had sent her to heaven in her Chanel and her best pearls. Although the bouclé was so last-season, and she was missing her matching two-toned pumps. She looked down at her bare feet, covered by white wispy clouds. She hoped to God Zach didn’t donate her things to the Junior League auction, or it was likely Genevieve Brooks would end up with the Chanel pumps. Genevieve had been jealous of Devon since their first Little Miss Sparkle Pageant, and Devon hated the thought of Genevieve forcing her big bony feet inside those beautiful shoes.

Without taking a step, Devon moved forward in line. It was an odd sensation, moving about as if she stood on some invisible conveyor belt. But then, being dead was odd. One moment she’d been speeding home to have it out with Zach, and the next she’d been sucked up by a white light and landed in a place without walls or substance. She thought maybe she’d been in line for an hour, maybe two, but that couldn’t be right. On a subconscious level, she knew there’d been a funeral, and she had been buried in her white suit. Four or five days must have passed since the accident, but how was that possible?

She thought of her little girl and got a weird feeling in her chest. It wasn’t really an ache, like when she’d been alive. It was more like a nice warm tingle that was filled with love and longing. What would become of her poor little Tiffany? Zach was a good father, when he was home. Which wasn’t often, and a girl needed her mother.

She moved once more and stood before a towering white desk in front of a pair of massive golden gates. “Finally,” she said through a sigh.

“Devon Zemaitis,” the man behind the desk spoke without opening his mouth or looking up from the scroll before him.

“Devon Hamilton-Zemaitis,” she corrected him.

He finally glanced up, and the white wispy clouds reflected in his blue eyes. Without expression he waved a hand, and an older woman appeared. She wore a severe bun and a lavender suit with gold buttons.

“Mrs. Highbanger?”

“Highbarger,” her sixth-grade teacher corrected.

“When did you die?”

“Five years ago in man’s time, but one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

Devon felt like she was in school again listening to Mrs. Highbarger rattle on about fractions. “Huh?”

“God does not mark the days as man on Earth.”

“Oh.” She guessed that explained why it felt like she’d been dead about an hour. “So are you here to take me to heaven?” she asked, all prepared for her meeting with God. She had a few things she wanted to ask him. Important things, like why he’d allowed catastrophes like cellulite, bunions, and bad hair to exist. Then she’d want God to answer some of life’s biggest mysteries, like who shot J.F.K. and-

“Not quite,” Mrs. Highbarger interrupted Devon’s running list of God Q and A.

“What?” She was sure she hadn’t heard right. “I’m going to heaven now. Right?”

“While on Earth, you did not earn your place in heaven.”

“Is this a joke?”

Instead of answering, Mrs. Highbarger moved without moving, and Devon was pulled along behind her.

“I earned plenty! I raised more money than anyone else in the Junior League. My benefits were always the most fabulous.”

“You only helped others to help yourself, to get your picture on the society page and to lord it over your friends.”

Who cares, Devon thought.

“God cares,” her old teacher answered.

“You can read my thoughts?”

“Yes.”

Crap.

Exactly.

They moved downward as if on an invisible escalator, and Devon felt her first hint of panic. “I’m not going to hell? Like with Satan and a burning pit of fire?”

“No.” Mrs. Highbarger shuddered. “You’re going someplace in between, where everyone’s version of hell is different.”

Devon thought of Genevieve Brooks reading the minutes of Junior League meetings and felt a stab to her brain. Listening to Genevieve for eternity would be hell.

“Because God is a loving God, you will be given a chance to earn your way up.”

That was a relief, and Devon began to feel a bit optimistic. She’d earned a place on the University of Texas cheerleading squad. Compared to that, this was going to be a breeze. “How?”

“You start by righting those you have wronged.”

Devon thought hard. She was a good person. Practically perfect. “I’ve never wronged anyone.”

Mrs. Highbarger looked over her shoulder at Devon and a memory floated in front of her face. A memory of blond curly hair, turquoise-colored eyes, and unicorns. “Oh.” With a swipe of her hand she waved away the memory. “She was all wrong for him. He didn’t love her. Not really. He loved me. I did both of them a favor. She’s probably married with a bunch of weird kids.”

“She never found love again.”

Devon figured God wanted her to feel bad about that, but she didn’t. That girl had almost stolen Zach, and everyone knew that Zach belonged to Devon. The girl had been out of her league and gotten exactly what she deserved.

They continued downward, and Devon’s optimism popped like a soap bubble. “What do I have to do?”

“Make it right.”

“Like give her three wishes?” They reached the bottom of wherever they were going and stood in the middle of slightly darker clouds.

“More like a gift.” Mrs. Highbarger held up one finger. “You get one chance to make it right. If you don’t mess it up, you move to the next level closer to heaven, where you will receive one more chance and so forth.”

So she had to make things right with what’s her-name with the curly hair. The girl she’d hated since grade school. That really did bite. Hard.

“You don’t have an eternity,” the old teacher warned. “If she finds someone to love before you’ve fixed the past, your chance of moving up is over.”

Devon smiled and thought of the perfect gift. “There,” she said, as Mrs. Highbarger shook her head.

“You just don’t learn.” The teacher took a step back through sliding glass doors that suddenly appeared. The doors whooshed closed, and the gray mist formed solid walls, and for one terrifying moment, Devon thought she might be in some sort of prison. Her skin tingled, and she looked down at herself as her beautiful Chanel suit wafted and shimmered and turned into a horrible gray sweat suit with Tweety on the front. “Where am I?” she called out, as Mrs. Highbarger was swallowed up by the mist.

She turned and gazed at rows of shopping carts and endless sales signs. A little old lady in a pink housecoat and a blue smock with a yellow smiley face stood before her.

“Welcome to Walmart.”