Page 9 of Aftermarket Afterlife

I was standing in a short alcove that had probably been intended to hold a vending machine at one point, looking out on a wide expanse of cream tile and beige carpeting. I stepped out of the alcove, glad my “cooking breakfast for the family” clothes were also suitable for going out in public. I tend to dress like a refugee from the nineteen seventies, making me wildly old-fashioned in today’s world, while still daringly modern by my own standards; at the moment, I was in my normal combination of blue jeans and white peasant blouse, although I had thrown a brown fringed vest over the top in a fit of outdated accessorizing.

Really, my clothes weren’t as much of a concern as my hair. It was pale blonde when I died, and over the first year of my death, it bleached itself to pure bone-white. It’s still that color now. Even with the crossroads gone, the changes I always assumed came from them endured.

Fortunately, with modern hair-care techniques and dyes, a girl my apparent age with white hair doesn’t stand out the way it used to. I continued cautiously forward, trying to find the people that called me to the airport.

I was near the rental-car desks, and as I scanned the area, I caught sight of my party standing by the farthest of them. It was shabby compared to the others around it, more likely to be a local than a national chain, just based on the condition of the desk and its surroundings.

Alice was at the front of their little cluster, having apparently been declared spokesperson due to her more recent experience with this sort of thing. Thomas was right behind her, drooping a little with exhaustion, for all that he was trying to stand up straight. Sally wasn’t even trying. She was sitting on the floor, which was part of why I had initially missed them—I was looking for three people, not two people and the very top of someone’s head in the middle of a nest of suitcases.

It was sort of impressive, how quickly they had gone from no to minimal earthly possessions to each of them needing a full-sized suitcase for the trip from Vegas. Or maybe not that impressive: people who travel with at least some luggage are easier to overlook than those traveling without, and they were trying to project the appearance of a normal family group on their way to visit relatives.

I walked closer, until I could hear Alice speaking to the clerk in a low, measured tone. “We have a reservation,” she said. “Please check again.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have nothing under the name Price,” said the woman behind the desk, with a supercilious smile that nicely reflected the fact that she wasn’t even looking at her computer screen.

Alice swore under her breath and reached into her back pocket, pulling out a crumpled piece of printer paper, which she dropped between them. “Our number. Which your system confirmed. Please, look again.”

“It’s cool, Mom,” drawled Sally from her place on the floor, hitting her Mainer accent a little harder than she normally would. I stopped where I was, curious to see how this was going to play out. “She’s just a classist. Or possibly a racist, or maybe she’s managed to hit a bingo and she’s both. It’ll make for a nice online review after we call a cab.”

“What?” asked Alice.

“I beg your pardon?” said the clerk.

Sally shrugged, pushing herself to her feet. She was even shorter than Alice, who was not what I would call a tall woman, with glossy black hair that hung to her mid-back, currently tied back in a rough ponytail. Like Alice and Thomas, she looked exhausted. Unlike them, she had no visible tattoos, while almost every inch of their skins below the neck was covered in ink—and in Thomas’s case, his throat was covered as well, by a large cameo tattoo that must have hurt like nobody’s business when he gave it to himself.

“You learn to hear the tone of it,” said Sally. “There’s just this smug little twist that means ‘I’m doing this because you don’t look right to me.’ And whether you’re doing it because I’m Asian or because my folks used to be bikers doesn’t matter. It’s done either way.”

The clerk sputtered. Sally shrugged.

“Oregon was founded by white separatists who made it literally illegal for people of color to own homes or work certain jobs or marry white people,” she said. “They mostly had a hate-on for Black folk in the beginning, but they expanded it quick enough once they remembered that other colors of people they could hate existed. If I wander away, will you miraculously find my parents’ reservation?”

“It’s not— I’m not—”

“Yeah, but see, you’re not the right kind of mad. This isn’t ‘how dare you accuse me’ mad; this is ‘how did I get caught’ mad. So you are.”

The woman paled, then reached under her desk and grabbed a piece of paper from the printer she had hidden there, thrusting it at Alice. “Your contract,” she said, through gritted teeth.

“Funny, I didn’t hear the printer just now,” said Sally.

The clerk gave her a strained look, even as Alice signed the paper and handed it back.

“This is where you check her license,” said Sally.

Alice shot her a sharp look. “Now you’re just torturing the woman,” she said.

“Torturing racists is a moral obligation,” said Sally primly.

Alice laughed, and held out her license for the clerk to inspect. The woman gave it the most cursory of looks, barely long enough to verify that the information matched the contract she had clearly printed out before deciding to flex her minimal power, then nodded and handed Alice a set of keys.

“Cars are that way,” she said, indicating the door.

“Great,” said Alice. “Thanks for all your help.”

“I’m still leaving that review,” said Sally, as the group began to turn away, grabbing her suitcase.

The woman blanched. Neither Thomas nor Alice said anything, only collected their own bags and turned with her. Thomas paused, looking briefly pleased.

“Mary,” he said. “I was wondering when you were going to join us.”

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