Suzanne Beecher

Dear Reader,

I pulled an all-nighter last night. Not the kind that my friends and I used to boast about: "Hey, we were up all night working on that new project--drinking coffee, eating chocolate ding-dongs; the creative ideas were flowing. You should have been there." 

Nope, nothing to boast about here this morning. I spent my all-nighter trying to get to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes and snuggled up to my cushy feather pillow, full color, action-packed clips--movie clips, moments from my own life--went rolling by in my head. Unfortunately, it wasn't a make-you-feel-good Disney script. The story was more the Stephen King thriller/horror kind. Experiences that I'm not proud of, miserable times, sad memories and fear of worrying about failures yet to come were on a continual loop and it wouldn't stop and I couldn't get to sleep. About 3:30, when I was sick and tired of the movies, I decided to switch on the television. If you ever need to know the complete overnight schedule for TV Land or Nick at Night, I'm your gal. Just call me. 

Business marketing ideas must definitely be in my blood, because even though I was miserable, and periodically thinking this must be the big one (a big anxiety attack), I was formulating ideas about how somebody could turn my misery into a business. Infomercial marketers really should expand their thinking. They're missing a desperate consumer need. In my sleepless state of paranoia, I would have gladly turned over my credit card to a television shrink if she could have guaranteed I'd be sleeping in an hour. 

Talk about a captive, needy, audience. I can see it now..."Nighttime therapy--Worries keeping you up? Talk to your own personal shrink. Guaranteed to get you to sleep or your money back. No questions asked. Call in your credit card number or scan the QR code at the bottom of your screen, your credit card will be instantly processed and then simply switch your TV to your own 'live' infomercial channel, and a doctor will be waiting for you. Talk with an expert until you fall asleep." And just think of all the marketing add-ons. Apps of nature or ocean sounds, sleep masks, free samples from the nighttime drug companies. Refer a friend and get 50% off your next session. The first 30 callers will also get...boy I hope I sleep tonight. 

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends. 

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@firstlookbookclub.com

P. S. This week we're giving away 10 copies of the book The Elsewhere Express: A Novel by Samantha Soto Yambao. Click here to enter for your chance to win. 

"Where do I board the Elsewhere Express?"

—Frequently Asked Questions, THE ELSEWHERE EXPRESS, Passenger Handbook

Raya

It had been ten years to the day since Raya had sat by Jace's hospital bed, holding his bandaged hand. (She no longer went by the name Hiraya, but it was still the name printed on her first-year medical school ID.) She had squeezed her brother's fingers harder than she should have, convinced that if she held on to him tightly enough, he would stay. Their parents stood at the foot of his bed, unable to speak or cry. They had braced themselves for the cruel twists of his disease but failed to foresee that what would actually leave their teenage son brain-dead would be a drunk driver in a red pickup, a few blocks away from their home. This, however, was only half of the truth of what had happened that night.

The other half hung above Raya's head, hovering in the hospital room's arctic air, a secret only she could know.

Raya kept her eyes on Jace's bandaged face, aware of how every breath the blinking machines forced inside him extracted every drop of meaning from her bones. She ground her guilt between her teeth, counting down the last moments she could call herself "Hi-raya." She did not care to be reminded of what she had become: She was now a wasted wish. A pile of useless spare parts. She had had one purpose. And now he was gone.

She clung to Jace's hand more tightly than she had held on to anything before. Mary Beth had been right about the strength of her grip.

Tonight, as she rushed to catch her train home, Raya used that grip to clutch the straps of the overstuffed bag swinging from her shoulder. The blue tote was made from ocean trash and shimmered like the sea. Raya was not too proud to admit that she envied the bag: The plastic bottles it used to be had been given a second chance to be new.

At twenty-five, Raya swore her bones creaked as loudly as the steps to her sixth-floor walk-up apartment. She didn't have to be a doctor to know that her diet of candy bars, sour gummies, and energy drinks did not do her any favors. But if living off simple sugars and caffeine was what it took to stay awake for the next four years of medical school, diabetes, osteoporosis, and renal failure would just have to sit in the waiting room and flip through old magazines until she could see them.

A man ran into her bag and scampered away. Raya apologized when she had meant to swear. Saying sorry and smiling were default responses that came with living on autopilot. They had their uses but sometimes left her mouth coated in ash. Raya grimaced and took a quick inventory of her belongings. A dented laptop, a dog-eared textbook, a binder containing her anatomy notes, and a purple notebook peeked through an assortment of ultra-processed snacks that had no business being called food.

As far as she could tell, nothing was missing. Her upcycled bag still strained to carry a downcycled dream. Raya conceded that she was never going to be half the doctor her brother would have been, but holding on to half of a dream was better than letting go of a dead one.

Raya transferred the tote to her other shoulder even if it didn't make a difference—invisible loads were at least twice as heavy as any that you could see. She slipped the bag off and then returned it to its bruised home. Her skin welcomed it back with a silent sigh. Old pain trained the body to miss it. Over time, flesh forgot the difference between what it had learned to tolerate and what gave it relief. Wind blew through the subway tunnel, whipping Raya's newly dyed lavender hair. She slipped a hair tie off her wrist and secured her hair in a messy ponytail. The electric-blue elastic had matched her previous hair color but clashed with the pale purple. She made a mental note to replace it. Though she never colored her hair the same shade twice, she could not bring herself to throw any of her old hair ties out. The rainbow of retired elastics in her drawer grew each year, always a few days before Jace's death anniversary. Raya insisted that it was a coincidence just as staunchly as she denied that changing her appearance was the only way she could stand looking in the mirror. But today, despite her new hair, she took pains to avoid her reflection. The lavender only reminded her of Claire, a cadaver who shared her hair color.

Claire was not the corpse's real name. Following protocol, the bodies donated to Raya's gross anatomy class were anonymous. Naming her group's cadaver had not been Raya's idea, but she didn't care enough to object. Dissecting a dead body for the first time was just another item on her to-do list, no different from doing the laundry or organizing her notes. Numbness was the sole perk of living in the hollow of someone else's life and Raya took full advantage of it. It came in handy in class when it steadied her fingers as she unzipped the black body bag containing Claire.

Hollow eyes. Ashen skin. Purple hair. The elderly woman's cadaver was as cold and lifeless as the rest of the laboratory's equipment. Raya groaned in her head when her groupmates decided that thanking the corpse before dissecting it was the right thing to do. No one else seemed to notice that the body on the stainless steel table couldn't hear them. Nothing lived inside it anymore. Perhaps, Raya thought as she stared down at the dead body, only husks saw other husks for the empty shells that they were.

'Thank you, Claire.' The name's single syllable rolled off Raya's tongue without ceremony. Raya regarded the cadaver, shifting her weight on her feet. Its face remained just as sunken, stiff, and gray as it was before its christening. Giving it a name had changed nothing.

Then everything was churning inside Raya all at once.

A breath hissed between Raya's teeth as sharp as the truth that lodged behind her tonsils like a fish bone. She coughed twice but couldn't spit it out, and so she forced herself to swallow the reality whole: Names weren't spells cast on those given them, they be-witched those who said them out loud. While Raya's eyes still saw a dead body, her mind could not stop seeing the woman who had lived.

(continued on Tuesday)

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