“AND then I decided to get my shoes back and here I am. Honey, can you let go of me for a minute?”

Jess had been clutching my hand with both of hers the entire time I told her what had happened, and reluctantly let go. I flexed it to get the feeling back.

“I can’t believe it,” she kept saying, shaking her head so hard it gave me a headache to watch. “I just can’t believe it.”

We were on our knees in the Ant’s walk-in closet. I was carefully inspecting my shoes for scuffs and putting them inside the skirt of my stepmother’s fourteen-hundred-dollar ball gown (what forty-five-year-old woman needs a ball gown?). My father and stepmother were hiding in the living room, too afraid to come back and talk to me, to find out what happened. I could smell their fear and unease—it was like burning plastic—and while not having to face them any longer was a relief, I felt bad all the same.

And what was up with all the smelling? Suddenly I was Super Sniffer. I mean, since when did emotions have scents? But now I was effortlessly relying on my nose as much as my eyes and ears. I was the Undead Bloodhound! It was weird, but cool.

“I just can’t believe it,” Jess said again.

“You can’t believe it? Try waking up dead and attempting to grasp the situation. It’s taken me almost two days to get used to the idea. Or at least to start to get used to the idea. And I’m not even sure how it happened, or what I’m supposed to—”

“I don’t give a shit,” Jessica said. “You’re alive—sort of—walking and talking, anyway, and that’s all I care about.” She threw her arms around me again. She weighed about ninety pounds and it was like being grabbed by a bundle of sticks. “Liz, I’m so happy you’re here! Today was the worst day of my whole life!”

“What a coincidence!” I cried, and we both got the giggles. I added, “And don’t call me Liz, you know I hate it.”

“Or you’ll suck my blood?”

“I’m trying to put that off,” I admitted, but couldn’t help but dart a glance at her long, ebony neck. “The thought of it makes me want to yark. Repeatedly. Besides, I hate dark meat.”

That earned me a sharp poke. I needled Jess whenever I could, because it was a best friend’s privilege and also because she was grossly prejudiced. She thought all whites were greedy and treacherous, with the possible exception of yours truly. Admittedly, this could sometimes be a hard case to argue against.

When we met in seventh grade, her first words to me were, “Drop dead twice, you privileged whitemeat schmuck.” The fact that she was saying this while clutching a Gucci bag didn’t seem to be relevant. My response (“Go cry in a bag of money, sweetie.”) startled her into becoming my friend. That’s how I made most of my friends: the element of surprise.

“Now that you’re undead,” Jessica went on, “I expect you to stop repressing me and others of my racial persuasion,” which was as big a laugh as I’d had that day. Jessica was about as repressed as Tipper Gore.

“Noted.”

“Are you being driven insane with the unholy urge to feed?” she asked in a “would you like cream with that?” tone of voice.

I couldn’t help grinning. “Not insane, but I’m super, super thirsty. Like, jump out of bed and work out for an hour thirsty. Dancing at the club all night thirsty. I woke up that way and it’s pretty constant.”

“Well, stay the hell away…I’d hate to have to pepper spray my best friend.”

“Right. After throwing myself off the roof, getting run over by a garbage truck, electrocuting myself, drinking bleach, and committing a double homicide and felonious assault, I sure wouldn’t want to be pepper-sprayed.”

She smiled. “You’re unkillable now. Good. I don’t need another phone call like I got last week. And it sounded like those two asswipes got what was coming to them, messing with a mom and her kid in the middle of the night.”

“I’m trying not to think about it,” I said guiltily.

“I’m just saying, you don’t have anything to feel bad about.”

“Believe it or not, my new status as vigilante-murderess is the least of my problems. Now, how long have I been dead? What’s been going on? I can’t ask them,” I said, jerking my head toward the living room. “He’s in shock and she’s useless. More worried about losing the cruise deposit than my untimely demise.”

Jessica’s eyes went all narrow and squinty, but she didn’t say anything. What was the point? She’d known the Ant as long as I had. “Well,” she began slowly, folding her legs beneath her and clasping her fingers together. She looked like a black praying mantis. “Your dad called me Thursday night. I reacted to the news of your death by calling him a fucking honky liar and slamming the phone down. FYI, I’ve never called anyone a honky in my life; it’s so twentieth century. Then I burst into tears. Also very twentieth century. This lasted about eight hours. I talked to Officer Stud—”

“Nick Berry?”

“He called to ask about funeral information. I guess he found out about the accident because he’s a cop and all. He was at the funeral,” she added slyly. She’d been teasing me about my nonexistent affair for months.

“Oooh, details, who else?”

“Umm…most of the gang from work. And John.”

“Eww, the guy who picks his nose and wipes it on the walls of his cube?”

“The same. Don’t worry, I kept a close eye on Booger Boy. And your former boss was there! He lays you off, you die, and the colossal prick had the nerve to be all sad-eyed at your funeral. And ask me if I knew where you’d kept the phone number for the copy machine repair guy, and if I knew if you’d taken care of the Carroll shipment before you died.”

I burst out laughing.

“Of course, there wasn’t actually a funeral…they lost your body!” Jessica was warming to her subject; her eyes had a frightening sparkle. “Picture it: We’re all standing around, waiting for things to get started, making small talk with people we absolutely hate—”

“The mind reels.”

“—and the head mortician guy comes in and tells us there’s been ‘a slight problem.’ Which I thought was weird until I walked into this house and got a look at what weird really was. And speaking of weird, weren’t you embalmed? I mean, did it just not affect you, or did your folks cheap out and skip that step, or what?”

“You’re asking me? How the hell should I know?” I barely suppressed a shudder. The thought of liposuction creeped me out, to say nothing of tubing and embalming fluid. A riddle I was in no hurry to solve, and that was a fact. “Why are you here, anyway? Not that I mind, because you probably saved me from wringing the Ant’s neck. But you hate my parents. Don’t tell me—you bought up their mortgage from the bank and came over to foreclose on them.”

“I wish. Thanks for the idea, though, maybe I’ll do that next weekend.”

“Jessica…”

“I got a look at Mrs. Taylor’s footgear at the funeral is all. I knew those weren’t her Pradas. So I figured I’d come over and try to get them back.”

“It’s so stupid,” I complained. “She’s a whole size smaller than me! They don’t even fit her, and she wants them anyway.”

“Trash,” Jessica said with a shrug. “Who can fathom?”

I smiled at her. She looked like an Egyptian queen, and fought for her friends like a cobra. She positively despised my father and his wife, but braved Hell House the day of my funeral to get my shoes back. “Oh, Jess…why? I was dead, for all you knew. I didn’t need them anymore.”

“Well, I did,” she said tartly. Which was a lie; Jessica has feet like Magic Johnson. “Besides, it wasn’t right. That jerk had to have swiped your dad’s keys, snuck into your house, and stole! I knew you wouldn’t have wanted her to have them. I figured I’d donate them to the Foot.”

I nodded. In her spare time (which was to say, fifty hours a week), Jessica ran The Right Foot. The Foot gave interviewing tips, advice, résumé assistance, and hand-me-down suits and accessories to disadvantaged women to use for job interviews.

“Awesome idea, and bless your heart for thinking of it.” I bundled the rest of my shoes into the ball gown, making a sack out of the dress and slinging it over my shoulder like a vampiric Santa. “Of course, there’ll be none of that now that I’m back from the dead. If I ever needed fabulous shoes, it’s now. Let’s book.”

I scooped up Antonia’s jewelry box, stopped in the kitchen, and handed the sack of shoes to Jess, who looked on with wide-eyed interest as I dumped the Ant’s jewelry into the blender, clapped the top on, and hit “liquefy.”

The grinding, jarring, and screeching brought her on the run. My father went to hide in his den, comforted by his proximity to old whiskey and new porn.

After a few seconds, during which we all stared at the mightily vibrating blender, I let the whirling blades groan to a halt. I could hear the Ant grinding her teeth, but she didn’t say a single word. Just stared at me with equal parts hate and fear.

I liked that just fine.

“Listen carefully, Ant. Pretend—oh, pretend your life depends on it! Don’t you ever go into my home again without permission. Touch my things again, whether I’m dead or not, and I’ll kick your ass up into your shoulder blades.” I said this perfectly pleasantly while I yanked the handle off the fridge and handed it to her. “Got it? Super. See you at Easter.”

We left. The sight of Antonia O’Neill Taylor shrinking back from me as I passed her was one I’ll treasure forever.