She and Rita hadn’t been in touch for at least six months. Always one thing or another: new brakes for the car, babysitting the grandchild, blood pressure requiring attention and, most annoying, the condo scaffolding under blue netting driving her out of the building. Similar trivial events had kept her away from her usual social activities.

And as to checking e-mail, as her friends complained, she was lax. Her excuse as that she was submerged on lists that bombarded her with 20 e-mails a day—most of which were junk—and she couldn’t figure how to get off the merry-go-round. No sooner had she deleted one intruder than another popped up.

Then in the middle of the night, during a restless bone-aching wide-awake moment she began thinking about Rita and how long it had been since they had been in touch. No one else in her life was as much fun or as lively as her old friend: the one person who never gave detailed information about her health tribulations when they met. (Years before they had agreed not to focus their get-togethers on complaints about their children’s bad behaviors or their aches and pains.) Time with Rita—lunch or a concert—was always delightful. They were both, as one of her former colleagues had said, “So far out of the box, they needed repackaging.”

Except for Rita she hadn’t kept in touch with her previous work colleagues since retiring two years earlier. Her other workmates, still in the saddle, stirred up unhappy memories of downsizing, backbiting and cutbacks. No one who still worked at the Beaker Company had time for a smile or the imagination for a wild conversation. Their faces were smeared with shock if she threw out challenging questions. “Is there life in outer space?” “Ever thought to try a séance?” “When will robots take over?”

After sending her witty “Are you dead? Or am I? E-mail to Rita, Jennifer trudged back to bed. The next morning when she checked her computer Rita, who also must have had a sleepless night, had sent back a response. “YES.” Capital letters with one of those little smiley faces Jennifer always forgot how to do.

She immediately replied, “Good, we’ll meet next week for coffee. How’s we say Thursday at the Professor and the Pigeon after my keep fit class. I got news about a new beau. A looker.” Later that morning at her aerobics class Jennifer told a woman who attended the same church as Rita about the witty e-mail.

The woman, whose name Jennifer couldn’t dredge up, recoiled, and responded with a shocked look.

“Rita is dead,” she hissed.

Jennifer knew the woman was not one for humor, so her comment was off putting. As soon as the break came she approached her.

“What do you mean, she’s dead?”

“Dead, like no long living. She died months ago.”

“No way. I got an e-mail from her yesterday.”

“Maybe something automatic.”

“It can’t be.

“Well it wasn’t from her. I was at her funeral.”

“She couldn’t be dead. Someone would have told me.”

“Everyone assumed you knew. Where were you in June?

“In Ontario, at my parents, dad’s 90th.”

“That’s when it was.”

“I can’t believe it. What did she die of?”

“A stroke.”

Jennifer wondered whether the woman had Alzheimer’s or was mixing Rita up with someone else. As soon as she got home, she checked her e-mail. There was Rita’s message, dated the day before. That night, deep breathing to relax, Jennifer scrolled over her old e-mails and there it was a notice. Posted in June was an e-mail from someone at the church, telling of Rita’s death and the time of the funeral service.

She sunk back on her chair and stared at the screen. How had she missed the news? She opened a bottle of wine—saved for an occasion—well what was this if not an occasion—turned off the lights and sat by the window watching the cars go over the Granville Street Bridge.

I should check my e-mails more often, she thought. But would it have mattered?

She couldn’t have gotten back for the funeral and Rita wouldn’t have cared. And what about the message? There must be a rationale for the reply. Maybe she had sent it to Rita a year ago? It was the sort of thing she might have said in the past. Sometimes e-mails got jumbled.

Determined to clean up her messages Jennifer plunked down in front of the computer and began moving all the junk mail to trash. Then up popped a message, in the thread to Rita: So, what about this new beau?

Hope you’ve found one of the sharper pencils in the box not another of your ‘needs work.’

She chuckled, that was one of Rita’s favorite put-downs, ‘Not the sharpest pencil in the box.’ But that didn’t prove it was Rita, other people used the expression, it wasn’t a secret code.

Jennifer checked through her contact list. Who was doing this and how were they doing it? It had to be someone who knew them both, and who had both her e-mail address and Rita’s. She didn’t know what happened to old e-mail addresses.

Up came another message. “What are you up to? Try a séance.”

They had always promised to do that, after a shared bottle or two of wine. “First one out, send back a message,” they had said.

But who else knew that? It wasn’t the sort of information she shared with the cynics in her life and in fact, she hadn’t really meant it, nor, she was certain, had Rita. And even had she meant it, in this day and age who conducted séances? Still what was there to lose?

Two weeks later, Jennifer was sitting at Amelia, the Seer’s, creaky dining room table with two other  women of a certain age and the young pink haired Amelia, “taking over the gift from her mother” as she put it.

Jennifer glanced around the room concerned that the session was on camera and her folly would be part of an on-line national chuckle by tomorrow? The other women fidgeted as the lights were lowered; the séance leader gave instructions on how to proceed and then deferred to her.

“Yes, you go first, dear,” said one of the older women.

The room was silent except for a fan from the bathroom across the hall and the comforting sound of street traffic.

“Don’t move,” Amelia cautioned the women, all now still as statues. Jennifer had told the woman Rita’s  name and when she had died so was not surprised when Amelia said, “Rita, we have your sister here.” “Friends, just friends,” Jennifer whispered.

“Rita, we have your friend Jennifer here. She wants to talk to you.”

A chilly breeze fluttered the curtains and then a raspy voice, amazing like Rita’s but as if speaking from down a long tunnel, “What about last Thursday, I waited. You were a no show.” Who was doing this and how were they doing it? Jennifer thought. They were like cockroaches that had gotten inside her computer and now were getting inside her head.

Her mind was so focused on her predicament she hardly heard the rest of the session. Next thing she knew it was over and the woman sitting on her right hand was pulling on her coat and complaining about her cousin who had refused to talk to her. “And this session didn’t come cheap.”

Jennifer hurried home, cursing the late night traffic. Probably the woman at the class had made a mistake. She’d gotten Rita mixed up with someone else. The class notice hadn’t given a last name. Next day, she went to church, and asked the minister if her friend was buried there. “Oh, there are no longer burials at the cemetery, she was cremated and is now in a drawer. I can show you where.”

Not willing to believe what she had seen, Jennifer sent off another e-mail to Rita apologizing for not going to meet her.

It was crazy, she was crazy, but she had to know.

The next day, umbrella threatened by a harsh wind, her shoes rain-soaked, Jennifer hurried to the café.

She sat in a window seat and ordered a glass of wine, “I’m waiting for a friend. I hope she can get away,” she told the waitress with a shiver.

As the time ticked by, she kept checking her watch, then her phone for a message and finally wiping the fog off the window and peering through the rainy view. It’s Rita, she cried out loud, leaping to her feet and spilling her wine into her lap. But it wasn’t. When the woman shifted her umbrella, Jennifer saw she didn’t look anything like Rita.

She smiled at the two other customers cozy in the corner and apologized to the waitress who came to wipe off the table. “Could happen to anyone,” the woman said kindly. “Must be a good friend. Long time since you saw her?”

“Yes, long time,” Jennifer said, sinking back against the bench. Her mind flip flopped between wondering what the explanation could be and fury at who was so mean spirited to play this trick.

Whatever happens she thought, this cannot end well. To the surprise of the waitress Jennifer—who was as regular as clockwork in her daily espresso ordered a second glass of wine. She was glued to her seat, afraid to leave but frightened to stay.

Either Rita is dead, she thought, and this is a trick, or I am dead. But rather than relying on these two options, perhaps she should be thinking—as the popular parlance put it—outside the box. Maybe she should be searching for a third option.

~ Melodie Corrigall

Published in Corner Bar Magazine, Volume 3, June 2018.