Aldous shrugs. "A house?"
"I don't need a house. I live with Betty," Liz answers. "What is the point of going to work if I don't really need the eternims anyway?"
"You go to work," Aldous pauses, "because you like it. That's why we call it an avocation."
"Oh, I see."
"You do like your work, don't you, Elizabeth?"
"No," Liz answers after a moment's reflection, "I love it."
It had been just over a month since Liz began her avocation. In that time, she had become known as one of the best counselors at the Division of Domestic Animals. She was in that rare and enviable situation: she excelled at her work, and she loved doing it. Work helped the rest of her first summer in Elsewhere pass quickly. Work took her mind off the fact that she was dead.
She worked long hours, and what little time was left, she spent with Betty, Sadie, or Thandi. (Liz apologized to Thandi not long after she started at the DDA, and was quickly forgiven.) Liz tried not to think about her mother or her father or her old life on Earth. For the most part, she was successful.
Liz even convinced Thandi to adopt the confused Chihuahua Paco. Initially, Thandi was skeptical.
"You sure it's a dog? Looks more like a little rat to me."
Paco was skeptical, too. "I don't mean to be rude," he said, "but why aren't you Pete?"
"I'm Thandi. You can think of me as New Pete."
"Oh," said Paco thoughtfully, "I think I finally understand. You're saying Petedied. Is that it?"
Paco had drowned in a kiddie pool, which he had apparently forgotten again.
"Sure, you can think of it that way if it suits you." Thandi patted Paco gingerly on the head.
Many nights after work, the two girls walk Paco and Sadie in the park near Liz's house. On one of those evenings, Liz asks Thandi, "Are you happy?"
"No point in being sad, Liz." Thandi shrugs. "The weather's nice here, and I like being on TV."
"Do you remember when I thought everything was a dream?" Liz asks. "I can't believe I ever thought that, because now it seems like everything on Earth, everything that came before ... It sometimes seems like that was the dream."
Thandi nods.
"Sometimes," Liz says, "I wonder if this is all there is. Just our jobs, walking the dogs, and that's it."
"What's wrong with this?" Thandi asks.
"It's just, don't you ever long for a bit of adventure, Thandi? A bit of romance?"
"Wasn't dying enough of an adventure for you, Liz?" Thandi shakes her head. "Personally, I've had just about all the adventure I can take."
"Yes," Liz answers finally, "I suppose you're right."
"I think you're already on an adventure, and you don't even know it," Thandi says.
And yet one thing tugs at Liz's mind. Liz's father's forty-fifth birthday is the week after next.
Several months before his birthday, Liz had been in the Lord & Taylor's Men's Department with Zooey. While Zooey had been comparing silk boxer shorts to buy for her boyfriend John on Valentine's Day (tiny glow-in-the dark cupids? Pairs of polar bears locked in perpetual kisses?), Liz had spotted a sea green cashmere sweater that was the exact color of her father's eyes. The sweater cost $150, but it was absolutely perfect. Liz had the money saved from several months of babysitting. The logic part of her brain had begun to protest. It's nowhere near your father's birthday, it said. It's a bit extravagant, it insisted. Maybe you could get Mom to pay for it, it taunted. Liz had ignored the voice. She knew if she didn't buy the sweater right then, it probably wouldn't be there when she went back for it. (It had never occurred to Liz that shemight not be there.) Besides, she hadn't wanted her mother to buy it; she had wanted to buy it herself. There was something more honest about it that way. She had taken a deep breath, plunked the money on the counter, and bought the sweater. As soon as she got home from the mall, she had wrapped the sweater and written out a card. She had hidden the package in the narrow space underneath a loose floorboard in her closet, where she was quite confident no one would ever find it.
Of all the things that could be bothering Liz, the thought that her father might never receive the sweater irrationally torments her. Her father would never know that she would spend $150 of her own moneyon him. Her father might move from their house never finding her gift, never knowing that Liz had loved him enough to buy him the perfect sea green sweater. It would remain hidden, eventually attracting moths and deteriorating into unidentifiable shreds of perfect sea green cashmere. A sweater that beautiful, Liz thinks, is not meant for such a tragic end.
She knows that Contact is illegal, yet she refuses to believe that getting one insignificant sweater to her father could really cause that much trouble. If anything, she is sure it will facilitate her father in the grieving process.
And so for the second time, Liz decides to dive to the Well. She already has the equipment, and this time she actually has a good reason. Besides, life is better with a little adventure.
Liz arrives at the beach at sunset. The dive to the Well is the most ambitious one Liz has ever attempted. She doesn't know exactly how deep it will be or what she'll find when she gets to the lowest point. Liz pushes those concerns to the back of her mind. She checks the gauge on her Infinity Tank one last time and begins to swim.
The deeper Liz dives, the darker the water becomes. All around her, she senses the presence of other people. Presumably, they are also going to the Well. Occasionally, she discerns indistinct shapes or odd rustlings, lending her descent an eerie, almost haunted feeling.
Finally, Liz reaches the Well. It is the saddest, quietest place she has ever been. It looks like an open drain at the bottom of a sink. Intense light pours out of the opening. Liz peers over the edge, into the light. She can see her house on Carroll Drive. The house appears faded, like a watercolor painting left in the sun. In the kitchen, Liz's family is just sitting down to dinner.
Liz speaks into the Well. Her voice sounds garbled from being underwater. She knows she has to choose her words carefully, if she is to be understood. "THIS IS LIZ. LOOK UNDER THE
CLOSET FLOORBOARDS. THIS IS LIZ. LOOK UNDER THE CLOSET FLOORBOARDS."
At Liz's old house, all the faucets simultaneously turn on: every shower and every sink, the dishwasher, even the toilet gurgles. Liz's family looks at one another, perplexed. Lucy barks insistently. "That's odd," Liz's mother says, getting up to turn off the kitchen sink.
"Must be something wrong with the plumbing," Liz's father adds before going to turn off the shower and the bathroom sink.
Only Alvy remains at the table. He hears the faintest high-pitched something coming from the faucets, though he isn't able to identify what it is. From the Well, Liz watches him push his hair back behind his ears. His hair is so long, Liz thinks. Why hasn't anyone cut his hair?
Having turned off all the faucets, Liz's mother and father return to the table. About five seconds later, the water starts up all over again.
"Well, I'll be damned," Liz's father says, standing to turn off the water for the second time.
Liz's mother is about to stand when suddenly Alvy pushes his chair away from the table. "STOP!"