Page 79 of Aftertaste

“So… there’s something I should explain.”

“Uh-oh.” Rio crossed his arms. “We the kitchen for a show or something? One of them dinner theaters?”

“Not exactly. You superstitious at all?”

“I’m Mexicano. I spice in the form of a cross.”

“Right. You might wanna sit down.”

IT WAS EASY,telling Rio. He nodded, laughed, a sort ofif-you-say-soexpression on his face, as if Kostya were explaining some new way of roasting pork, plausible but unorthodox. Unlike Frankie, who had no trouble believing in aftertastes but no personal experience with ghosts, Rio had welcomed spirits back before; he did it every year. Early November, everyone he knew was all-in on Día de Muertos, prepping sugar skulls and mezcal and tamales and tortillas,flores de cempasúchiland copal, the whole family gathering, cooking, remembering, visiting together, the Living with the Dead.

While he’d never actuallyseena ghost, Rio often felt the spirits of his loved ones.

“Don’t act like you invented it,” he told Kostya. “Fantasmascome back for my food, too.”

“I just hope my cooking’s as good as yours. If not, let’s keep the place open till the checks clear.”

When he told Rio the salary, his eyes went wide.

“Shit,” he said. “That’s for real. You sure it’s cooking we’re doing?”

“That’s what they keep telling me.”

||

THE SECOND TIMEI died, it was by choice.

It took me months to find a safe way back.

Brink, the place was called. A death club.

Death clubs are maybe the city’s best-kept secret. Fleeting as a dream. Just two or three in existence, though even that’s impossible to confirm. They arrive in the dark, usually someplace dead or dying. Are gone again by morning. Never in the same place twice.

The night I went, Brink was in the Meatpacking, inside the corpse of a trendy Asian fusion spot. The elaborate décor—opulent settees, ornamental lanterns, spiral stairs, and painted silk screens—had all been co-opted, defaced, draped in shrouds and moss and black-flame candles until the space reanimated from an expired clubstaurant into some sort of deathless in-between. Not a party, exactly. More like the ghost of one.

Around midnight, palanquins appeared, carried by beautiful women and men. They were dressed like djinn—midnight scarves obscuring their mouths; thick, teardrop liner emphasizing their eyes. They really romanced the hell out of dying.

Psychopomps, a stranger beside me whispered to another.

They wound their way through the room like shadows, taking guests bythe hand, leading them back to their deathbeds. When I was selected, I didn’t feel fear or hesitation, only want, the draw to death like leaning in for a kiss.

The mattress smelled like velvet, the pillows like dust. My psychopomp rolled up my sleeve. I let her plunge a syringe into my vein without even asking what was in it.

Was anyone ever so naïve, so brazen? So sure they could die and come right back?

When the poison took hold, the room went still. Fog gathered at the edges of my eyes. The psychopomp leaned close and whispered in my ear, her breath a feather.

Follow the sound of my voice.

I’m coming, Ev, I whispered back.

Then she counted down from ten, and I died for the second time.

It was different than before. I didn’t watch the life leave my eyes. I didn’t wake to Everleigh’s voice. I just passed over. Through.

The veil between the Living and the Dead drew me in, guided my spirit, deposited me before the welcoming glow of—I shit you not—an In-N-Out Burger.

Turns out the Afterlife? Where you go when you die? It’s a Food Hall.

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