the Heavenly Council. Follow me, please.”
A tiny whisper of hope flickered in Sterling ’s being. Maybe, just maybe, he still had a chance. Bracing himself, he stood up and followed the angel to the door of the chamber. The angel, his face and voice full of sympathy, whispered, “Good luck,” as he opened the door and pushed Sterling inside.
The room was not large. It was bathed in a soft, exquisite light, the likes of which Sterling had never experienced. The floor-to-ceiling window gave an awesome view of the heavenly gates and he realized the light was reflecting off them.
Four men and four women were seated at a long table, facing him. From the halos shining around their heads, he realized immediately that they were all saints, even though he didn’t recognize them from the stained-glass windows in cathedrals he had visited while on vacation. The outfits they were wearing varied from biblical robes to twentieth-century dress. With the instinctive knowledge that was now part of him, Sterling understood that they were wearing the typical garb of the periods in which they had lived. The man at the far end, a grave-faced monk, opened the proceedings.
“Sit down, Sterling. We’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
Sterling took the seat, acutely aware that all eyes were fixed on him.
One of the women, dressed in an elegant red velvet gown and wearing a tiara, said in a cultured voice, “You had an easy life, didn’t you, Sterling?”
Looks like you did too, Sterling thought, but held his tongue. He nodded meekly. “Yes, ma’am.”
The monk looked at him sternly. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Her majesty did great good for her subjects.”
My God, they can read my thoughts, Sterling realized, and he began to tremble.
“But you never went out of your way for anybody,” the queen continued.
“You were a fair-weather friend,” said a man in shepherd’s garb, seated second from the right.
“Passive-aggressive,” declared a young matador, who was picking a thread off the end of his red cape.
“What does that mean?” Sterling asked, frightened.
“Oh, sorry. That earthly expression came into use after your time. It’s a very popular one now, believe me.”
“Covers a multitude of sins,” muttered a beautiful woman who reminded Sterling of the pictures he’d seen of Pocahontas.
“Aggressive?” Sterling said. “I never lost my temper. Ever.”
“Passive-aggressive is something different. You hurt people by
“You were self-absorbed,” a sweet-faced nun on the end said. “You were a good estate lawyer, tidying up little problems for the ultrarich, but you never lent your expertise to the poor unfortunate who was unfairly losing his home or the lease on his store. What’s worse, you actually considered helping out once in a while and then decided not to get involved.” She shook her head. “You were too much of a good-time Charlie.”
“The kind who jumped into the first lifeboat when the ship was going down,” a saint in the uniform of a British admiral snapped. “A cad, by George. Why, you never once helped an old lady cross the street.”
“I never once spotted an old lady who needed help!”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” they said in unison. “You were too smug and self-absorbed to really notice what was going on around you.”
“I’m sorry,” Sterling said humbly. “I thought I was a pretty nice guy. I never meant to hurt anybody. Is there anything I can do now to make it up?”
The members of the council looked at each other.
“How bad could I have been?” Sterling cried. He pointed toward the waiting room. “In all this time I’ve talked to a lot of the souls who have passed through there. None of them were saints! And by the way, I saw someone who cheated on his income tax go straight to heaven. You must have missed him!”
They all laughed. “You’re absolutely right. We were on a coffee break. But on the other hand, he donated a lot of that money to charity.”
“What about his golf game?” Sterling asked eagerly. “I never once cheated the way he did. And I got hit in the head by a golf ball. As I was dying, I forgave the guy who did it. Not everyone would be that nice.”
They stared at him as his mind filled with images of all the times in his life when he’d let people down. Annie. He was too selfish to marry her, but he always let her keep hoping because he didn’t want to lose her. After he died, it was too late for her to have the family she always wanted. And now she was in heaven. He had to see her again.
Sterling felt wretched. He had to know his fate. “What are you telling me?” he asked. “Will I ever get to heaven?”
“Funny you should ask,” the monk replied. “We’ve discussed your case, and we’ve decided that you seem to be the appropriate candidate for an experiment we’ve been weighing for some time.”
Sterling ’s ears pricked up. All was not lost.
“I love experiments,” he said enthusiastically. “I’m your boy. Try me. When do we start?” He realized he was starting to sound like a jerk.
“ Sterling, be quiet and listen. You are being sent back to earth. It is your job to recognize someone with a problem and help that person solve it.”
“Sent back to earth!” Sterling was dumbfounded.
The eight heads nodded in unison.
“How long will I stay?”
“As long as it takes to solve the problem.”
“Does that mean if I do a good job I’ll be allowed to enter heaven? I’d love to be there for Christmas.”
They all looked amused. “Not so fast,” the monk said. “In the jargon of the day, you have a lot of frequent flier miles to earn before you achieve permanent residence inside those holy gates. However, if you complete your first mission to our satisfaction by Christmas Eve, you will be entitled to a visitor’s pass for twenty- four hours.”
Sterling ’s heart sank a little. Oh well, he thought. Every long journey begins with one small step.
“You’d do well to remember that,” the queen cautioned.
Sterling blinked. He’d have to remember they were mind readers. “How will I know the person I’m supposed to help?” he asked.
“That’s part of the point of this experiment. You have to learn to recognize people’s needs and do something about them,” a young black woman wearing a nurse’s uniform told him.
“Will I have any help? I mean, anyone I can talk to if I’m not sure what to do? I’ll do anything to get the job done properly, you understand.”
I’m babbling again, he thought.
“You are free at any time to request a consultation with us,” the admiral assured him.
“When do I start?”
The monk pressed a button on the council table. “Right now.”
Sterling felt a trap door open beneath him. In an instant he was hurtling past the stars, around the moon, through the clouds, and then suddenly whisking past a tall, brilliantly lit Christmas tree. His feet touched the earth.
“My God,” Sterling breathed. “I’m in Rockefeller Center.”
Marissa’s dark hair cascaded around her shoulders as she twirled around the rink in Rockefeller Center. She had started taking ice-skating lessons when she was three. Now that she was seven,
