The Next Thing I Knew (Heavenly) Read Free Page A

turned toward us.  She tugged Dad's shirtsleeve and they rushed over to us.  Mom looked younger, more vibrant than I remembered.  Her copper skin glowed, her black hair gleamed in the white light, and her brown eyes were large and liquid.  She wore her favorite red sari with gold embroidering.
    My mom was looking pretty hot for someone her age.
    Dad looked like a kid again, blue eyes sparkling and his dirty blonde hair now clean and golden.  My parents looked radiantly happy.  Kyle's parents, on the other hand, looked wary and frazzled.  George's usual scowl had deepened, and Margaret's stern gaze locked onto Kyle in an instant.  I was surprised to see my parents in their company.  Despite the fact Kyle was like the older brother I never had, my parents had never gotten along with his folks very well.  They'd tried, but Dad was a book worm, a professor, and loved to talk literature.  Mom did upscale interior design and ate mostly vegetarian Indian food.  Nasty stuff, by the way.
    George worshipped NASCAR, worked as a mechanic, and redefined the word "redneck".  He usually chugged down a case of cheap beer before lunch on the weekends.  Margaret was a southern belle who thought she was a hot little Georgia peach.  I thought she looked like a withered pear with the sun-damaged skin tone of a rhinoceros.  Needless to say I never let Kyle know those wicked opinions of mine.  I wondered if either of his parents had learned to fly yet.  The thought of George and Margaret flying almost short-circuited my brain from the improbability factor.
    I flew into Dad's arms.  He picked me up and swung me around.
    "How's my baby girl?"
    "Mostly dead, Dad."
    He laughed, but I noticed a twinge of sadness in his eyes.  I hugged Mom after he put me down.  She still smelled of flowers and her hair felt like fine silk on my cheeks.
    George shook Kyle's hand.  "Hey, boy.  Good to see you alive and kickin'."
    Margaret somehow still had makeup caked on her face highlighted by her signature powder-blue eye shadow and glossy red lipstick.  She smooched Kyle on the cheeks.  "We've been worried sick about you two," Margaret said.  "Just sick."
    "Nothing can hurt us now," Kyle said, wiping his cheeks and smearing the lipstick his mom had left.
    Margaret started crying.  Her tears washed enough eyeliner down her face to form an environmental hazard.  "We thought you didn't make it here."
    "Oh."  Kyle gave his mom another hug.  "Well here I am."
    "I'd give my left eye for a damned beer," George said.
    What he really needed was a damned clue.  We weren't in Kansas anymore even if the afterlife looked just like it.  "Where have you guys been?" I asked.
    "We went home," Mom said.  "We mourned our babies and ourselves until we realized that what was done was done."
    "I went home right after everyone died.  I didn't see you there."
    Dad rested his arm around Mom's shoulders, his fair skin a stark contrast to her brown tone.  "We didn't go right away.  We looked everywhere here for you and Robby.  We found him a little while ago eating dirt with some other kids, if you can believe it."
    "Them kids is happy as pigs in shit," George said as a swarm of tykes whooshed by overhead in a cyclone of squeals.
    Eating dirt, eh?  Kids could fly and yet they still took pleasure in such little things.  I envied that.  "He's enjoying himself for sure."
    Dad watched the kids for a minute then looked back at me.  "After a while, we started looking everywhere on Earth you might have gone.  The school, the mall, Kyle's house."
    "They ran into us there," Margaret said.  "You'd think Kyle might have the sense to go home and wait for us."
    "I did go, Mom," Kyle said.  "But I didn't want to sit around watching our corpses putrefy."
    "We've been exploring, learning what we can," I said.
    Kyle studied his parents expectantly.  "What now?  We've been in the afterlife long enough for whoever's in charge to tell us what's going on."
    "I don't