Four
Ihad no idea Esther lived directly across the alley from me until I died.
Now that I know what she’s looking at when she looks out the window, I have to say, she spends a lot of time looking at my apartment.
Not that I’m any better. Now that I know it’s my apartment, I often stare at it, too—when Esther’s not standing in front of the window anyway.
Life’s fiery burn of her passing through me is not worth the risk, even if it’d be nice to look together.
Instead, I wait until Esther is working.
The closer we are, the easier it is to look away.
She sits at the table, talking to someone on her laptop.
The small pine table barely fits between her bed and the fridge, so there’s only room for one chair.
Probably in a meeting or class—it’s hard to care about who is on the other end of Esther’s overly-polite greeting.
My world has narrowed to her and only her, and the view out the window.
The purple oxalis in the window of my old apartment has been slowly going dormant as the days go by.
Even now, the butterfly leaves droop over the drying stems, highlighted by the late morning sun that peers through the gap between the neighboring apartment buildings.
I’m too dead to water it, after all. Not that I was ever great at watering it when I was alive.
There’s a reason the purple oxalis is—was—my only plant.
The dark purple leaves resonated with the inner goth girl who survived adolescence, buried deep in my heart.
The low-maintenance bulbs, that would regrow after months of not being watered, appealed to my barely-functioning disaster of adulthood.
I’ve been dead for about a month (based on how sad the plant looks; I’ve lost track several times), and it’s been the longest month of my life.
Or existence, I guess. The days fly by; I blink and Esther is turning off the light and sighing as she settles into bed.
The nights, despite my best efforts, still stretch on forever before her “good morning!” brings me back to myself.
But considering there’s still some life in the plant in the window across the alley, I can’t have been dead for too long.
“Is Lucy on PTO or something?” Esther’s soft voice asks, making me perk up at the sound of my name. “I just, like, haven’t seen her online or on campus in a while.”
“Try that again, Dr. Voigt.” Gilda’s stern voice cuts in from Esther’s laptop, and I roll my eyes at the reminder that the head of the Philosophy Department exists.
Not only exists, but insists on biweekly individual coaching sessions.
Just for Esther and I, though, not the rest of the department.
As if we don’t have doctorates of our own.
As if we haven’t been entrenched in academics for over a decade.
As if we have no accolades to speak of, when we’ve had to work harder and be infallible to get the barest recognition from Gilda herself, who only ever ridicules our shortcomings.
“We’ve discussed your executive presence in past one-on-ones. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
I turn away from the window to peer over her shoulder. Sure enough, she is on a video conference with Dr. Gilda Frederick. I should have known; Esther is wearing her nice shirt, and she’s wearing her hair down, instead of up in her usual top knot.
Esther’s sky blue button-down is somehow always crisp, despite its permanent home on the back of her chair.
She only puts it on for video calls, pulling her brown curly hair over her shoulder to hide the tattoo behind her ear, and bringing her chair in close to hide her bare legs.
Not that anyone could see more than her face and shoulders through the camera anyway, but Esther takes extra care to hide the most charming parts of her, especially when she’s chatting with Gilda.
One unexpected benefit of being dead? Getting to know everything about the woman I’ve been dreaming about since we met in January.
Not that she’s getting to know me, but that’s fine.
There wasn’t much worth knowing when I was alive.
Cash was the only person who thought I was interesting; he’s probably the reason why Esther has some lingering curiosity about her reclusive colleague who lives—used to live—across the alley from her.
Honestly, being dead isn’t all that bad.
I probably should be more upset about it than I am.
Like, I never wanted to die when I was alive, but death isn’t the worst thing.
As I tried to explain to my very concerned therapist back in the day, yearning for nonexistence isn’t really suicidal ideation (she disagreed).
Other than Esther’s constant presence—and a tragic lack of wine and reality TV—death hasn’t changed anything for me that significantly.
I was alive, and through no intention of my own, now I am not. And that’s fine.
“Sorry-” Esther starts, but Dr. Voigt interrupts her.
“Don’t apologize. Just do better.”
I should have gotten into the no-pants thing before I died.
Even in the midst of Pox restrictions, Gilda insisted everyone still dress professionally for work, but it’s not like she would have ever seen below my chest. All this time, wasted in pencil skirts, dresses, and slacks, when I could have been in undies, like Esther always is.
Now I’m stuck in this atrocious white chemise dress thing.
To be completely honest, the outfit is the worst part of being dead.
I hate wearing white. It is not my favorite color.
It ranks dead last on the list (which is topped by black, or dark purple to placate the busybodies who insist black isn’t a color).
In many cultures, white is the color of death.
Surprisingly, that’s still not enough incentive to make me want to wear it.
Growing up, white was a sign of virtue, a symbol of purity, at least according to Mom, whenever I asked for black clothes.
I wasn’t even allowed to wear red or purple.
She forced me to wear pastels, neutrals, and whites; the raciest I ever got was mint green.
Honestly, telling us that white was pure, and black was dirty, was an incredibly shitty thing for a white mom to say to her biracial kids, especially me. I took after Dad so much that people used to compliment my mom for raising her stepdaughter (Mom never corrected them).
Angel got a pass from the worst of her sermons, being the baby, the boy, and because he was “cuter,” according to Mom’s Eurocentric standards.
His sandy brown ringlets and green eyes were annoyingly cherubic, praised far more often than my black coily hair and brown eyes.
Mom hated it when I made eye contact with her.
I hated it too. Her eyes were an uncanny pale blue, almost like she had cataracts, except she saw every mistake I ever made.
Of course, if I ever called her out on the fucked up shit she said—not that I was ever brave enough—she’d get on me for disrespecting her.
She constantly browbeat godliness, cleanliness, and purity into me, especially after puberty hit.
As if I was trying to attract attention from anyone, let alone boys.
Or that I had the body she accused me of having—I was awkwardly tall and skinny my whole life, not the curvy jezebel she claimed me to be.
Still, it was hard not to internalize her many lessons about everything that was wrong with me, even if they weren’t rooted in reality. She was my mother after all. I always wondered what I did, to be so hard to love.
Shoutout to Cash and the therapist he made me see in undergrad, so I could finally understand that I wasn’t possessed, or impure, or dirty.
So I could finally understand I was beautiful, too.
That I was allowed to take pride in my appearance, even if I had a hard time unlearning everything my mom poisoned me with.
That I wasn’t unlovable, at least in principle; I never let myself risk finding out for sure.
“Why is it so quiet in here?” I turn back to Esther, desperate for an escape from my memories.
Of all the times for Esther to stop talking.
I should not be left alone with these thoughts that have veered deep into feelings territory.
There’s no ghost escapism. I can’t drown them in wine anymore. “I hate being stuck with myself.”
I can’t tell if my perception of time is dragging because Esther is anxious, or if she is actually taking forever, but Esther mulls her words for longer than necessary. For someone who talks as much as she does—even when she’s by herself—it’s unusual for it to be this silent for this long.
I just know she’s biting back another unnecessary apology.
After several weeks of haunting my unfairly hot coworker, I’ve learned she apologizes a lot.
And every time she does, her intonation rises even more than she already upspeaks.
Probably drives Gilda up the wall. Her valley girl voice drives me up the wall more often than not, and I’ve spent weeks with newfound appreciation for her soft tone.
After another second of fighting her anxious stutter that I never noticed when I was alive, Esther asks, “Is Dr. Monae out of the office? I haven’t seen her online in the past month.”
Ah, I was right! It has been a month. Part of me is pleased that I guessed correctly. There aren’t many joys in being dead, so I’m finding small thrills where I can. All I have left are my observations, most of which I forget each night, and attempting to keep time.
Thrilling existence.
I frown. I suppose I enjoy having this twisted voyeuristic view of Esther as well, to some degree.
The brightest parts of my day are usually her moments of joy.
Her good morning greetings to herself, the way she drops trou the second her front door closes behind her, the delight she finds in all of her own whims.
“I knew I should have made the summer faculty meetings mandatory.” Gilda sighs. “Have you spoken with anyone else about this?”
“No.”
“I’ll look into it. Can you keep this between us for now? The fewer people who know about this until I can figure out where she’s been, the better.” Gilda groans. “The last thing we need is fearmongering about a Pox outbreak just before school starts.”
“Did she have the Pox?” Esther asks, a note of panic in her voice.
I frown. Did I have the Pox? I don’t remember a herald patch, and the Pox would have taken much longer than a few hours to kill me. At least a week, if not longer.
“Not as far as I know. But even if she didn’t, I get enough shit from the dean and relics in our department about women being unreliable professors.” Gilda scoffs. “I already took a risk hiring a colored woman when Cassius kicked the bucket.”
“Try that again, Dr. Frederick!” I snap, glaring at the tiny video box on Esther’s laptop. Without realizing it, I’ve pulled myself from the window to look over Esther’s shoulder. “How dare you speak so callously about Cash? And ‘colored woman’? Really? Really?!”
That is something the living version of Dr. Monae would never have dared to say, especially to the head of the department. I would have thought it—hard!—but I would have just tucked the anger and resentment into my heart, along with the rest of my feelings, for the sake of professionalism.
Just like how Mom trained me.
But now that I’m dead? My filter is long gone after a month of no one hearing me.
And oh, it feels good. How did Cash work with this woman for years?
I was ready to rage quit after only a semester.
Hell, after the first interview! It was only Cash’s admiration for her, his encouragement for my career, that made me accept Gilda’s offer.
Esther seems to be upset too, only she is hiding it way more professionally than I am. She tentatively raises a finger as a squeak of protest leaves her.
“Yes, Dr. Voigt?” Gilda’s tone is dangerously cool.
“With all due respect, the preferred term is ‘woman of color’ these days. Or, in Dr. Monae’s case, Black or African American woman.
Though more importantly, I’d contend that there isn’t anything inherently risky about hiring any person of color—no more so than hiring anyone.
” For once, Esther’s tone is decisive, even if her voice is still soft.
She sounds more patient and kind than I would at the moment.
“And many people, myself included, would appreciate Dr. Berger’s untimely passing being discussed with respect. ”
“It was a figure of speech.” Gilda waves her hand. “But I am not above feedback, even from adjuncts. We live in unprecedented times, after all.”
I’m not sure which point was the “figure of speech,” but that is as much of an apology as anyone would get out of Dr. Gilda Frederick. Still seething, I murmur a quiet “thank you” to Esther, and turn back to the window to…to watch my purple oxalis slowly fade away.
As much as I try to clear my mind, the reality sinks in like a poison until I can’t think of anything else: I haven’t shown up to work in a month, and the only impact of my absence is hushed up damage control from the one coworker who noticed, and a decaying plant.
The pressure behind my eyes tightens, and I wish I could cry it away.
Instead, I remain, trapped here with nothing to do but look out the window, wondering what the point of all of this is.