The first thing that hit Holly was the smell. She took in a lungful of air and tried to untangle the different bouquets around her. Ah, that was the aroma of fragrant roses drifting past her. Yes, and there was the tang of perfume and aftershave mingling in the air, and then there was…the disgusting smell of male body odor. Ewh.
“Come on Vince, what do you say?”
Holly blinked and realized she was surrounded by a group of computer geeks from the Baker Colwell technical department. And judging by the stench, they seemed to prefer to bath in old sweaty gym socks rather than in water.
She tried to work out why she was feeling so disorientated when one of them started to hit her on the arm. If they kept that up then they would be getting a squirt of pepper spray that they wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Where was her pepper spray, anyway? But before she could look for it, another one started to speak.
“If we want to get this consolidation project finished by tonight, we’d better head off.”
Since Holly had no idea what a consolidation project was, she stared at him blankly before glancing around in an attempt to figure out what was going on. The first things she caught sight of were all the gravestones in the background. Perhaps it was a Halloween party? That would explain why the guys in front of her were so badly dressed.
“Well, Vince?” The tallest of the guys shot her a questioning look. “Are you coming or what?”
Yeah, right, Holly snorted. As if she’d hang out with them. And why were they calling her Vince?
“Just leave him here, man,” another one said. “He can catch up with us later.”
Holly winced as four sets of hands thumped her on the back by way of goodbye before a small glimmer of something ridiculous forced its way into her brain. In fact it was beyond ridiculous. Beyond crazy. Beyond anything. Except it wouldn’t go away so she looked down at her shoes for confirmation.
Her feet—once a nice size seven—were now about a ten and they were covered in a pair of black Doc Martens.
She stretched out her hands and almost screamed. They were so big and…How disgusting! Was that grease on them? Then she touched her chest as the familiar feel of her heartbeat rapped out a tattoo. She’d forgotten how loud it could be. As for the fact her boobs were no longer there, well she was going to totally ignore that because surely no good could come from it.
Instead she sucked in a lungful of air and tried to digest everything. She was dead and had come back to earth as Vince Murphy. It wasn’t great news.
All around her people were milling about in groups, but after the relatively silent surroundings of Level One, Holly found their voices loud and grating, and could finally start to appreciate why her constant commentary had been driving people crazy.
She was just about to look for some peace and quiet when she caught sight of Gemma walking straight towards her.
Thank goodness for a familiar face. Especially since it helped jog Holly’s memory of why she was back down on earth. She had a job to do and she didn’t have much time to do it in.
“Gem,” Holly squeaked as she stuck out her arms and launched herself in her friend’s direction. “Oh my God, I’m so pleased to see you, you won’t—”
“Are you insane?” Gemma demanded with the drop-dead stare she’d spent all of last summer perfecting.
“Of course not.” Holly wrinkled her nose as she dropped her arms back down to her side. “It’s just I’ve been dying to—”
“Make a pass at me just seconds after Holly’s coffin has been lowered into the ground?” Gemma interrupted with a stamp of her foot. “Honestly, what is it with you technicians? I just can’t believe you would try something like this today.”
“What?” Holly started to say, but before she could even finish her sentence, Gemma turned on her heels and headed toward the graveyard gates.
Holly hurried after her, but as the weight of the Doc Martens combined with the length of her muscular legs hit her, she suddenly remembered what had triggered Gemma’s apparent visit to Crazyville.
She was Vince.
Well, no, she was Holly. But to the outside world she was definitely Vince.
What a nightmare. And what was the point of this whole manual purging if she couldn’t even convince her best friend who she was? It just seemed to be yet another example of a celestial screw up. Well, Holly had worked under bad management before when she’d done a summer internship in her first year of college and she’d quickly learnt the only way to succeed was to just get on with it as best you could.
She pushed her way through the crowd of mourners. Ah, there she was, over by that strange looking mausoleum…talking to Todd.
For a moment Holly’s heart skipped a beat as her eyes feasted on how divine he was: all rippling muscles and square jaw. He was wearing the chocolate brown suit he’d bought for his sister’s wedding last month and the white linen shirt he had underneath looked cool and crisp against his olive skin.
Sometimes Holly had to pinch herself at how lucky she was. Not only was Todd gorgeous but he was going places. Everyone knew that if you got promoted to Senior Account Manager on fourth floor then you could virtually rubber stamp yourself a six-figure salary by the time you were thirty. And Todd, at twenty-four, was the youngest employee at Baker Colwell to be so promoted. Brains and a hot body. What was there not to love?
Then Holly realized he was looking at her so she started to make her way toward them.
“Gemma. Todd. I know that this is going to sound—”
“Save it,” Todd cut her off. “We may work together but we’re not friends. As for trying it on with someone at a funeral, well that’s just—”
“Todd, you don’t understand,” Holly started to explain. “I know Gemma thought I was trying to…well whatever…but the thing is, it’s a bit more complicated, and—”
“That’s where you’re wrong, buddy,” he growled. “So just get lost, okay.”
For a moment Holly just stared. This situation was intolerable.
All she wanted to do was tell him how sorry she was about their fight. That it was stupid and completely her fault, and, if he happened to have the ring in his pocket, perhaps she could just try it once for size? But instead she was in the unbearable position of standing right in front of the love of her life, unable to explain anything.
“Well?” He glared and Holly accepted there was no use trying to talk to him in this mood. Besides, she’d just caught sight of her stepmother over by a beech tree and it dawned on her just how totally unprepared she was for this whole situation.
“Fine.” She raised a reluctant hand. “I didn’t come to cause a scene so I’ll get going.”
“Good. Make sure you do.”
Holly turned and headed away from where her body was buried. Finding out that her boyfriend wouldn’t give her the time of day really was the icing on what was turning into a very crappy day.
Holly tapped her fingers impatiently. She had spent the last of Vince’s cash on a hamburger and fries. Funny—after almost two weeks of not eating, she thought this would taste better. Then she had headed back to her old apartment only to discover her roommates were all out (no doubt at her funeral) and the spare key was no longer hidden under a brick near the trashcans. Next time she died and came back to earth, she really must remember to bring her door keys with her.
This whole situation was beyond annoying. How was she going to get anything sorted if no one would even speak to her? She did some more finger tapping and tried not to hyperventilate. Now was not a good time for a panic attack. Well, actually it was a very good time, but she was just going to have to ignore it. She was up against a deadline; everything else would have to wait.
She’d walked around for a while before finally accepting that no magic answer was going to appear in front of her, and so she’d been forced to make a decision.
Before she died, the two most important people in her life were Todd and Gemma and while she longed to speak to her fiancé, she realized it might be best to let him cool down a bit. Which was why she was now sitting on a bench underneath the huge sycamore tree outside Gemma’s apartment.
Surely, her friend couldn’t be too much longer. Holly hadn’t quite sorted out the finer details of how she was going to convince her of the truth, but she was sure she would figure something out.
They’d been friends ever since they’d both turned up the first day of the Baker Colwell Graduate Training program wearing identical black stilettos complete with little bow detailing. They had so much in common, there was no way Gemma wouldn’t recognize who she was now. Or at least eventually.
Ten minutes later her friend turned the corner and came into sight. She was limping slightly, probably thanks to her new shoes, but apart from that she looked exactly the same as she had thirteen days ago. Well perhaps she was a bit more pissed off than she had been back then…
“What the hell are you doing here?” Gemma demanded as she put her hands on her hips and glared. “You know there’s a strict company policy on stalking.”
“What?” Holly started to say before remembering that she couldn’t be distracted. She was on a mission here and needed to concentrate. “I mean, I’ll tell you why I’m here. And…well…I don’t really have much time and there’s not an easy way to say it so I’ll just spit it out. I’m Holly.”
Gemma let out a bark of laughter. “Jeez, what is wrong with you? Have you been drinking? I mean I know funerals make people a bit weird, but this is going over the Richter scale. It’s not funny.”
Boy, she could say that again. Holly took a deep breath. “Gem, it’s true. It’s me. I know it sounds crazy. Ridiculous even, but the Cliff’s Notes version is that I’ve been sent down from heaven for two days in someone else’s body.”
“You’re damn right it sounds ridiculous.” Gemma folded her arms and glared.
Yep, it was really going well. “Okay, so why don’t you ask me any question you want?” Holly licked her lips and tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. “Something only I…I mean something only Holly would know the answer to, and then you’ll see.”
“I’ll see you getting arrested,” her friend retorted.
Oh crap. Holly winced. So much for her brilliant plan. Perhaps if she’d ordered a tuna salad instead of the hamburger, she would’ve thought of something better? Fish was meant to be brain food wasn’t it?
“I mean it.” Gemma fumbled around in her purse, presumably for her cell phone.
“Your last serious boyfriend was Gavin Rivers but you broke up with him at Christmas because he had been cheating on you,” Holly blurted out in a rush.
Gemma lowered her hand and stared. “Who told you that?”
“You did.”
“Yeah right, because I tell you technicians about all my dates.”
“No, you tell Holly Evans about all your dates. What about the fact you have a secret crush on Simon Trimmer, and when he accidentally touched your leg in the staff canteen last week you sent me a text message to tell me how hot he was? You have high hopes he’s going to ask you on a date any day now.”
“Oh my God. So you’re the creep who stole Holly’s cell phone the day after she died and now you think it’s funny to have read her text messages. Well I can tell you something for nothing Vince Murphy: You’re one sick guy.”
“No.” Holly scowled in frustration. “Of course I…wait…someone stole my cell phone? Oh man, I hope they didn’t see the photo of us lifting up our shirts after we’d drunk that bottle of wine, because I looked so fat in that. How embarrassing.”
Gemma’s mouth fell open and she widened her eyes. “Okay, so now you’re starting to freak me out. I deleted all those photos before the cell phone was stolen. So if you did steal it then there’s no way you’d know about them.”
“Unless I was Holly.”
Gemma narrowed her pale blue eyes and folded her arms tightly around her waist. “Fine, so if you really are Holly, you won’t mind answering a few questions then.”
“Shoot.”
“Do I prefer George Clooney or Brad Pitt?”
“Trick question because you don’t rate either of them; your heart always has and always will belong to David Boreanaz.”
“What’s my favorite color?” Gemma demanded in a firm voice.
“Green because you think it suits your hair, but to be honest I’ve always thought blue looked better on you. Especially that Gap blouse that you like to wear with your True Religion jeans.”
Gemma started to look a little less comfortable. “A-and what was the name of the concert Holly and I went to see last November?”
Holly felt a lump formed in her throat. “We went to see U2 and you still have the ticket stubs at the back of your drawer along with the pressed flower your very first boyfriend gave you. It was a yellow rose.”
“H-holly? Gemma said in a whisper. “But, I don’t—”
“Me either,” Holly finished off. “None of this makes any sense at all. Especially the waking-up-dead bit. But it really is me.” Holly could feel the tears pouring down her face.
“But how can this be happening?” Gemma said in a shell-shocked voice. “I mean I saw you in the coffin; how could you now be—”
“That’s because heaven is complicated. It has even more rules than a Baker Colwell Staff Incentive Fun Day, and it’s twice as boring. But the thing is I still have some earthly issues to get sorted out and until I can do that, they won’t let me move up through the levels.”
“Heaven? Levels? I think I’m struggling here.” Gemma shot her a bewildered look as she dropped down onto the bench next to Holly. “I mean I want to believe you, but—”
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Holly finished off with a sigh. “Tell me about it. And you haven’t even heard the rest of it yet…”
“So let me get this straight, you’ve been put into therapy and given a two day pass back to earth?” Gemma said several minutes later once Holly had explained it as best she could.
“I guess you could say that.”
Gemma shook her head. “The whole thing is extraordinary. I mean who knew that heaven was such a bureaucracy?”
“Yes, they certainly keep all this body-swapping business quiet.” Holly snorted.
“It does take a bit of getting used to,” Gemma agreed before suddenly hitting her forehead in annoyance. “I feel so bad that I didn’t believe you sooner.”
Holly sniffed. “I probably wouldn’t have believed it either, but at least you know now. That’s all that matters.”
“Er, I’m afraid that’s not exactly true.” Gemma winced as she searched for her cell phone and frantically started to stab in a number. “You see when I saw you sitting outside my apartment I panicked a bit.”
“It’s okay,” Holly tried to reassure her. “I’m honestly not mad.”
“No, but Todd sure was. You see as soon as I saw you I thought you must be stalking me, which is why I called him. He should be here any minute,” Gemma said miserably. “And he didn’t sound happy.”
Of course he didn’t. Holly groaned. On a day like this, it made complete sense