I open my cosmetics bag and apply makeup to complement my latest look. Last week I covered my brown hair with a dark blue balayage. I did it all by myself and I’m really happy with how it turned out. I coordinated the color with my nails and had Lorna give me a deluxe pedicure.
Lorna is the owner of the Do or Dye, where Momma and me work five days a week, back-combing hair halfway to heaven and spraying it down with enough extreme hold to survive a cat-five hurricane. It’s okay for now, but I don’t want to work there all my life like Momma.
I find my teasing comb, lift the hair on the crown of my head with one hand, and shake a can of Helmet Head with the other. Most people make the mistake of spraying the hair directly, but the trick is to create a nice fog and let it settle.
I brush my teeth real quick, pay for my gas, then hit the road again.
Blake Shelton is on the radio and I crank it up to sing along with him and Gwen. Out of all the men singing country these days, I’d have to say that Trace Adkins still has the best voice (sorry, Blake), but Sam Hunt is smoking hot. If I ever saw him in person, I don’t know if I could control myself.
My phone dings with a text, but I can’t see it for the sun pouring through the windshield. I pull it from the holder and put it in the shade of my lap. I glance from the highway to the message, then back again.
It’s from HotGuyNate: Are you there?
I push the talk-to-text icon and say, “I’m about sixty miles away,” then tap send. The closer I get to El Paso, the more my nerves tingle and my stomach gets tight.
The text dings. I pull it up. HotGuyNate: I can’t make it.
I blink several times and read it ten more. I can’t believe it and I glance back and forth from the highway to the text. My heart drops and pounds at the same time. “Is this a joke?” I say, and tap send.
He came up with the plan to meet in El Paso and picked out the Kitty Cat Lounge. I jumped at the chance, but it wasn’t my idea.
HotGuyNate: Sorry.
Sorry? That’s it? I lied to Momma, fought with Lida, and wasted my time, effort, and gas money. Worse than all of that, a man’s let me down—again.
I raise my phone and ask, “Why?” then hit send. I blink back tears of hurt and disappointment. Why can’t anything ever work out for me?
HotGuyNate: My wife found out.
Wife? He has a wife? My phone slips from my hand and disappears between the seats. He’s married? His Tinder profile says he’s single and the only pictures are of him. Lida was right and I told her she wasn’t a good friend.
Now I’m aggravated and shove my hand between the seats. Tears burn my eyes and roll down my cheeks. I feel around and touch a corner of my phone. Momma says I have a quick temper. I say she’s right. She says I need to control it. I say not right now. I’m going to give HotGuyNate a hot piece of my mind first.
I lean toward the passenger side for a better grip on my phone, but I keep my eyes on the highway. I don’t have a lot of rules when it comes to dating. You could say I have low standards, but I do draw the line at married men. I know firsthand what cheating does to a family.
I inch my phone toward me with my fingers and peer between the seats. My daddy cheated and none of our lives were ever the same. I love him, but he was a skirt-chasing liar.
A loud scrape drowns out Blake and Gwen on the radio. The van leans sideways and I sit all the way up. Dirt and scrub hit the windshield and I slam on the brakes. More dirt. More scrub. I can’t see a thing. Everything is happening fast and my brain can’t keep up. The van tips this way and that. I’m upside down and right-side up. I’m rolling. Momma’s dashboard Jesus flies past my head. Everything goes black.
2
I always heard that when it’s your time to die, there’s a warm light that leads you straight up to heaven. You’re surrounded by so much beauty, it hurts your eyes. Your dead relatives are there and y’all fall on each other’s neck and weep. Angels sing and blow trumpets, and you’re filled with so much love that you just know you’ve landed smack-dab in heaven.
It’s not like that. At least, not for me. There’s no warm light and certainly no beauty. There’s blood everywhere and I’m assuming it’s mine. I don’t know a single soul in the room, and instead of singing angels I just hear the solid beeeep of a heart monitor. A doctor stands on a little step stool and pumps up and down on my chest with the palms of his hands. I only know that’s my body on that gurney because there’s no mistaking my blue balayage. A steady red stream runs down my arm that’s hanging off the bed and blood drips from my middle finger to a puddle on the floor.
Wait, if that’s me on the bed—who am I? Are there two of me? Am I going to die?
People rush past, tying yellow surgical scrubs behind their backs and white masks around their heads. They snap on gloves and shout to each other. Someone cuts the jeans and the “Don’t Mess with a Texas Girl” T-shirt from my body while someone wheels in one of those defibrillators like on TV. I look down, but my clothes aren’t bloody or cut.
The doctor puts two paddles on my chest and everyone backs away and lifts their faces to the flat screen above the bed. The doctor shocks my heart and my body jerks so hard I raise a hand to my chest, but I feel nothing. No jolt of pain or fluttering heartbeat, but the green line on the monitor bounces and beeps across the screen. I reckon that’s good.
No one sees me standing at the foot of the gurney, but I don’t think I’m dead. Not yet, anyway. I should be freaking out right about now, but I’m not. Mostly I’m just confused about what in the heck is going on. I figure that I’m outside my body, watching someone shove a tube down my throat. I figure I’m in a hospital emergency room, but I can’t figure out how I got here or why I’m such a mess. The last thing I remember is sitting in church and something about Momma’s dashboard Jesus.
I look around. Is my momma here, too?
My heart monitor flatlines again, filling the room with the steady beeep, and a blinding flash draws my attention to the ceiling. I look up at a bolt of brilliant lightning above me. It wavers and flickers like it’s made of pieces of shattered mirror. One of my arms lifts as some unseen force pulls the rest of me upward. I guess this is the light everyone talks about. The one that will take me to the family reunion in the sky. I am sucked through the ceiling and placed on a white circle of light. I’m by myself but I don’t feel alone. I don’t have time to sort things out in my brain before flashes of silver and blue soar past my head and the circle beneath my feet stretches in both directions and forms a path that looks like it’s been bedazzled with pink rhinestones just for me. It sparkles and glows and fills me with warmth from the inside out. At the end there’s brilliant gold light that I’m assuming leads to God, not the Wizard of Oz.
My pathway to heaven is in front of me, and my life is behind. I’m not overcome with joy like the Reverend Johnny J. preaches. I’m not angry, but I am not exactly thrilled, either. I have plans for my life. I want to get married and have children. I want to go to a RaeLynn concert and belt out “Queens Don’t” at the top of my lungs. I want to go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower and eat macarons at Ladurée.