Expiration Date

away. But you never go away. None of you do.”

“You saw me in the room that first night? When you were with DeMeo?”

“Yes. I was hoping you’d go away if I went down on him. You did.”

“What exactly do you think I am?”

“You’re a dead man.”

“But I’m not.”

“Right. Sure. You’re not dead. Maybe I’m dead. Maybe I’m a dead woman floating around a sea of living people, only I don’t know it yet. Maybe I’ve been dead since I was a kid.”

“I want to ask you about DeMeo.”

“He’s good to me.”

“What does he do up here? What kinds of experiments?”

“You mean you don’t know? I thought dead people knew everything. That’s why you come back. To taunt the living. To show us how smart you are, and how dumb the rest of us are.”

“Well, I don’t know. You can lord it over me.”

“I don’t know either. Mitchell says it’s top secret. All I know is that his patients arrive after dark, and they stay for sometimes an hour, sometimes all night. He says he works better in the dark, so he keeps the windows covered, and he unscrewed the lamps in the hallway. I’m allowed to have light in my apartment, but nowhere else. And he likes it quiet. It must be absolutely quiet at all times.”

I thought of Billy Derace, sitting in the one lit room in an otherwise dark apartment building. A twelve-year- old, being forced to stay inside and be quiet.

“I see your son sometimes, sitting outside of your apartment. Sometimes he’s crying. Sometimes he’s bleeding, Erna.”

“What are you saying?”

“You know what I’m saying.”

“You don’t understand what it’s like.”

“Try me.”

“No, I’d rather not. You’re going to disappear soon, too. Maybe you’ll leave me alone, maybe you’ll do something rude to me, but either way I’m never going to see you again. Just like the others. No guy wants a kid around that’s not his. Even Dr. DeMeo doesn’t like that he’s around. He always tells me to keep him quiet, he can’t concentrate on his work. And that little son of a bitch just doesn’t listen. He’s just like his father…”

“Your son needs you.”

More important, I need you to be there for your son.

She gestured at me with the gun as she spoke.

“No. It’s too late. There’s too much of Victor in him. He fights me on everything, no matter what I say. No matter how hard I work for him. You try talking to him. Easy for you to sit there and say your son needs you. You have no idea.”

“Who’s Victor?”

“My ex, Victor D’Arrazzio. The kid’s father. That why I pulled this out. I thought I saw him yesterday.”

“What, so you want to shoot him? You should put that back in the drawer. Take a deep breath. Go downstairs and lay down.”

“No, I don’t think I will. I’m either going to put a bullet in my head or I’m going to go out drinking. It’s the only thing that keeps the likes of you away. All of you dead people. So I’ll either ignore you or join you.”

“What dead people? I’m not dead, Erna. It’s complicated, but I assure you, I’m not dead.”

“Prove it.”

She leaned in closer. I could smell her perfume, sweet and pungent. Her lips opened slightly. She moved closer still.

“What are you doing?”

Before she could answer our lips collided. I felt her hand touching mine, our fingers interlocking. She squeezed mine.

Soon nothing made physical sense. We were in the room, we were all over the room, we were inside each other’s skin. I had no sense of where my lips or my fingers ended. No sense of where I stopped and this woman began.

Without warning, she broke our embrace, looked up at me. I pushed away.

“You think I’m dead, and you kiss me?”

“I wanted to know what death tastes like. It tastes good.”

Outside the El train cars rumbled down their tracks, vibrating the floorboards beneath our feet.

“Please put the gun away.”

“Why? What do you have to be nervous about? You’re already dead. Even if I aimed this gun straight at your head and pulled the trigger the bullet would sail right through you.”

I had nothing to say to that, mostly because I worried she was going to swing the revolver over at me and squeeze the trigger, just to test her theory. I had no idea if the bullets would sail through my head or not. I didn’t want to find out.

And then the pill wore off.

When I woke up in the present Meghan was sitting on the floor, pen in her hand and legal pad on her lap. She wasn’t writing anything. She hadn’t written anything.

She didn’t say anything.

I sat up, rubbed my eyes.

“You’re not going to believe what just happened.”

She stood up and walked across the room. She turned and half-sat on the cherrywood desk, then finally looked at me.

“Meghan?”

“I can’t believe you actually kissed that woman.”

“Oh. I’m guessing you heard all of that.”

“Your end of the conversation. But don’t change the subject, Mickey. You were making out with the mother of the guy who killed your father.”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

“What?”

“I was unconscious and nearly four decades in the past. It just kind of happened.”

“So what—were you hoping to heal your girlfriend Erna there with the magical power of your lips? Do you realize, Mickey, that if that woman’s still alive, she’s like sixty or seventy by now?”

“She said she saw other dead people. What does that mean? That other people like me are traveling back in time?”

She looked at me, again at a loss for words. This wasn’t like Meghan at all. She was the perfect friend because she had this warm, relaxed way of filling the uncomfortable spaces. Usually, I loved to listen to her talk. But not now.

“What, Meghan, what? What’s wrong?”

“There’s something else.”

“What.”

“While you were…under, asleep, whatever…you uh…”

“Spit it out.”

“You ejaculated.”

“I what? Are you sure?”

“I’m a big girl, Mickey. I’ve seen it happen from time to time. But not like it happened with you. You looked like you were either having a seizure or an orgasm.”