Jody Weiner, writer & attorney

A LIFE AFTER DEATH
by Jody Weiner
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            Bobby Russo's wife died. Cancer took Valerie. It was stage four, undetected, incurable and swift. Departing for eternity at age forty-eight was way too soon by any measure. Bobby and Valerie were just ten days shy of twenty-two years together. Well, together hadn't been continuous; they were both young and stubborn when they'd met, resulting in times apart. Over the last decade and a half, though, they'd evolved in concert as husband and wife. Faithfulness and sacrifice on Bobby's part. While Valerie had whipped him into shape, assuming control of their agenda and leading them on a path of culture and causes. Indeed their life had often overwhelmed Bobby, a budding programmer at Little Chip Industries, when Valerie found him and cleaned him up for the snooties.

            Valerie had been exotically tailored, talented, and off-white privileged. Her Chilean father had established the finest men's wear chain in the Midwest and, against all odds, had wooed her debutante mother back in WASPY Grand Rapids, Michigan. Valerie had long since moved out west and made her own mark, literally, having created her eponymous line of unisex tunics. She had also raised tons of money for arts and education non-profits, often stepping up into board leadership positions. The outpouring of sadness over her death, and expressions gratitude for all she'd given to the community, deeply touched Bobby. Yet, he couldn't help thinking that Valerie's continual state of stress had facilitated if not gestated the deadly cancer cells in her pancreas. And truth is, if you asked around, folks would say Valerie could often be a “first-class bitch.” When Bobby returned home from the funeral and walked into the kitchen, quite unconsciously, the first thing he did was throw out the "Cling Wrap."

            Bobby remained in a zombie-like state for weeks, wandering around aimlessly, going into the market they’d frequented to search for Valerie in the aisles, selecting random items, only to put the basket down and leave without buying anything. He'd pick up an IN-N-OUT burger or Chinese food and carry it back to their -- no, to his -- big empty Edwardian on Russian Hill. Bobby tried working from home but the Gen Z turds under his supervision were obviously conspiring offline; if he didn't get them in the same room together soon he could lose control of the project, or worse, be rendered irrelevant. At some point Bobby's interest in his own apps waned, and he eventually stopped competing. He also stopped crying every night and cursing the godless, cruel, never-ending noise of the world ripping apart his wounded soul. Five stages or seven? Bobby lamented, drifting toward acceptance, beginning to realize that he no longer needed Valerie to tell him what to do.

           Things began turning around about the same time Bobby confirmed that he was financially secure. Valerie's brother, Coleman, a lawyer in Oakland, had set up their family trust and she’d left everything to Bobby, including her apparel business, which Coleman continued to run. Bobby informed friends and family that for the near future he was stepping away from coding and his other creative visual media projects, and he withdrew to his lonely house overlooking San Francisco Bay. He walked the hills and the diverse neighborhoods every day, trying to uncover something in his life he'd always longed to do, now untethered from Valerie's short leash.

           Bobby's dark curly hair, cheery round face and compact frame made a reasonably handsome package. Yet, his self-image had long since been co-opted during their marriage, leaving him unaware and disinterested in how desirable he'd become to singles around him when Valerie died. At first, he was able to dissuade the do-gooders who brought briskets, pies and oysters, along with their tips on all manner of health supplements and financial investments. Bobby’s mindset eventually changed for an attractive young woman who regularly walked her wire-haired terrier to the neighborhood park and with whom he occasionally exchanged pleasantries.

           "Angie" stopped him on the sidewalk to say that she’d read about Valerie's passing and realized he was the woman's husband. After obtaining his address, Angie left flowers with a lovely note at his door, and Bobby called to thank her. They agreed to meet at the cafe where Angie often sat outside with "Kirk" as Bobby passed by during his afternoon walk.

            "Hi, Kirk," Bobby said, approaching her usually friendly dog, who'd risen from under the round metal table to greet him. “Are you Spartacus?” he added, cleverly, he thought, scratching under Kirk’s chin, while he sat across from her, shaded under an umbrella.

            "What do you mean?" Angie asked blankly.

            "You know. `I'm Spartacus!’ . . . Kirk Douglas?

            "Oh . . . Sorry. I didn't get it. He's dead, right?"

            Angie Lee was long and lithe with flawless skin and silky raven hair, professionally cropped to accent her perfectly proportioned nose and sparkling brown eyes. In her short jean jacket and black yoga pants, with see-through vents along the legs, Angie could've been coming from a Peloton photo shoot. Although they frequently encountered each other, Bobby knew the dog's name long before he'd learned hers.

           "He died at a hundred and three with a career well into his nineties," Bobby said. "Playing all those morally ambiguous leading men of the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties, the Kirk Douglas movie star persona has become a historical reference for the white male culture of the day.”

            “Really?” Angie replied, expressionless, either interested or bored as hell and trying to be polite.

            “Most people don't know Kirk Douglas played Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on Broadway; and he bought the film rights for his son, Michael, who produced the Oscar-winning movie with Louise Fletcher and Jack Nicholson."

            "I'm sorry, Bobby. I didn't mean to be insensitive."

            "I shouldn't be going off about Kirk Douglas. I didn't know the guy."

            "I like older men."

            She said it in a way that made the hair on the back of his head stand up. "I saw him once, though," Bobby blathered on, "being hoisted out of a limo into a wheelchair in front of the Westchester Hilton. He was probably a hundred by then. He waved at me while they rolled him by on the way into the lobby."

            "Are you in the film business?"

            "It’s awkward saying this, but since my wife died I've been flooded with offers and ideas, yet I haven't been able to focus on anything beyond today. Sometimes I actually see myself traveling, maybe exporting my latest medical application -- or finishing a documentary about Valerie; then the visions pass as quickly as they came."

            "Wow. I get it," Angie empathized, scratching the side of her nose with a manicured index finger. "I don't know what it's like losing your spouse. My twin brother died ten years ago and, truthfully, I'm often adrift, living one day at a time, besieged with choices."

            "What's your solution?"

            "I meditate; I guess, stewing in whatever mess I'm in until a purpose emerges . . . Then I move ahead and make my choice."

            "Wow to you. You're one smart cookie."

            "You mean like a fortune cookie? Is that a racist joke?"

            "No . . . Hold on. I didn't mean . . . "

            "Relax, Bobby. I'm just fucking with you."

            They walked down to Fisherman's Wharf and stopped to watch the multitude of sea lions inexplicably congregating on the same group of floating docks, covering a large swatch of prime commercial harbor along Pier 39, since the days immediately following the 1989 earthquake. Standing at the railing of the concrete pier, looking on amongst the friendly flock of tourists and gulls, Angie's temperamental terrier was silently humble in the face of this entangled pod of barking smelly dogs with flippers, sunning themselves, dipping into the water, occasionally shoving a space-hogging neighbor into the drink.

           Angie, though, seemed to open up, describing her extended stay in her parents' guest house near the park at the top of the hill. It wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds. She explained that her family occupied the rear cottage of a large home owned by crazy rich white folks, for whom Angie’s parents had managed their household since she was fourteen. Angie traveled back and forth to her condo in Miami, where she worked for cruise ship lines sailing the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. Because her father was in his seventies and beginning to fail, she was spending more time here helping her mother take care of him and manage the owners' household affairs, all to keep her parents employed and living on the property.

            While strolling along the wharf to the iconic Alioto's converted garage selling live Dungeness crab in large tanks, they picked up a two-pounder, cracked, and Angie prepared it in his kitchen with garlic and ginger in the well-worn wok that he and Valerie had purchased long ago in Chinatown. The evening was uncharacteristically warm, so they ate on the tiled deck off the dining room as the sinking sun spread its burnt orange wave across the Golden Gate. The scent of jasmine floated in while the daffodils shone neon bright. Everything was fresh and delicious to him, as though his senses were awakening from a deep slumber.

           When they carried the dishes into the kitchen, they stopped in the doorway, looked at each other and he knew they would embrace as soon as their arms were free. Their languid kiss aroused him and he suddenly felt guilty of cheating on Valerie. It was the first time he'd been alone in the house with another woman since she’d passed. Besides Gina, Valerie’s publicist and personal assistant, who has looked after both of them for years.

           Angie and Bobby brought dessert into the living room. They sat on the couch sipping Armagnac from snifters and exchanging bites of the chocolate torte they’d also picked up earlier at the wharf. They ended up slow-dancing in the oak-paneled parlor, corny, swaying together, holding each other around, and Bobby walked her to the rear gate of her parents’ cottage. He kissed her goodnight and invited her to dinner the next evening at a North Beach trattoria; and the next at another neighborhood eatery. Following each meal they wandered along Columbus Avenue, stopped for an espresso, and Bobby returned Angie to her parents’ gate.

           Angie seemed to know what pleased him, as if what he wanted had instinctively directed her. Finally, during their third restaurant meal in three nights, in the middle of the marvelous risotto with shrimp, she asked him if he was gay. So he paid the check, they went back to his house and directly into the bedroom, where they partook of each other with pleasurable abandon throughout the night. Bobby was transported to a time and place free and far away from his deceased wife.

           Bobby had reason to believe Angie was sated, too, considering they slipped into semi-regular afternoon park encounters that turned into dinner and love-making sessions at his place, often occurring under Kirk's disapproving gaze. Still, and on the other paw, they all grew closer. Angie talked about having worked for a Manhattan design agency. “A brand leads,” she said, like a mantra, “while a label follows you around.”

           Then Bobby told her about his newest application that translates voice audio into animated sign language for the hearing impaired. And Angie promptly came up with a plan to market “Sign Waves” on cruises, which she predicted they would eventually license to ship lines all over the world. Bobby couldn’t get enough of Angie. They were becoming happily inseparable, even briefly evoking a scenario in his mind whereby Angie would move to his place once Valerie’s one year memorial was in the rear view mirror.

           One day, out of the blue, Angie declared she could no longer put off returning to her job and tending to her condo. She abruptly decided to return to Miami and essentially disappeared from Bobby’s life, sailing around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. At first, they Skyped and e-mailed nearly every day, keeping informed, acting hopeful, plotting ways to peddle Sign Waves to her bosses. Too often, though, their communication was spotty, hampered by the time difference, and it began tapering off; as one, two, and then three months passed. Bobby was beside himself without Angie’s smiling eyes penetrating his soul, or her warm smooth body he longed for in his bed. Just when he’d turned the corner, she’d left him, too. And yet, having learned to let Valerie go, Bobby convinced himself that Angie needed to play out her own dreams before coming back to him. It was difficult living up to his credo. Unable to work and lamenting being alone, he missed Angie more than ever and ended up confiding in Gina on the day she happened to approach him about whether he really needed her services any longer.

           Gina had helped Bobby take over the bookkeeping and coordinate the many tentacles of Valerie’s business empire with her brother, Coleman. None of Bobby’s creative projects had advanced, in particular the documentary about Valerie, and Gina had run out of reasons to submit a bill. Having met Angie twice at the house, Gina admitted to feeling a twinge of jealousy the first time she saw Angie standing at the kitchen island sink and realized who she was.

            Gina has never had designs on Bobby. She was attractive, dark-eyed, sharp-elbowed, and recently divorced from a short marriage that still went on too long. Gina wasn’t looking, having gained the wisdom to wait for the one who gladly thinks of her first. She’d worked miracles for Valerie when her fashion line had launched, and as the business grew Gina’s role in the family operation blossomed right alongside. Especially after the non-profits came calling and Bobby became increasingly involved with Valerie in the event producing. Gina and Bobby have kept it professional over the years, and she was thrown by his sudden admission to her of unrequited love for Angie.

           “What’s your opinion?” he asked her at the end of his intense rambling history of their relationship. “Should I continue thinking Angie’s coming back anytime soon?”

           “Whoa. You’re asking me what to do?” Gina was standing at the same island sink where she’d first spotted Angie, wondering if that jealous moment hadn’t been intuition, after all, and he was somehow offering himself to her. “I think you should follow your heart,” she said. “It’s not the end of the world is it?”

           “It’s too disappointing to think about.”

           “She’ll come back when she’s ready and you ought to get on with your own life until she does.”

           "You’re right, Gina. I need to stop feeling sorry for myself.” She’d clearly gotten through, as he felt freedom wash over him like a tsunami, and before Bobby could stop himself he blurted out, “Would it be wrong if we hooked up?”

           Within the following week, Bobby returned to working on his team’s newest app and arranged to meet with the enthusiastic filmmaker who’d been shooting events and interviews over the course of Valerie's career. Gina and Bobby agreed to keep further collaborations outside the sheets and, expressing mutual relief, they resumed exchanging business e-mails about renewed interest in the documentary. Bobby was genuinely alive in the moment. Motivated, he was in charge of his destiny. The future was indeed conceivable again. Late winter rains had receded, chased away by the early rising sun, luring the fragrant buds and wild herbs out of their potted earth shells on his patio.

           When Angie called he felt an adrenaline jolt. The world had just turned. He managed to remain cool. She’d landed in Miami and they could be together in eight days, after the AC coils in her condo were cleaned and she’d met with Eduardo, a potential Sign Waves investor from Cartagena. Bobby started preparing for Angie’s return, having all the rooms deep cleaned, and together with Gina they disposed of Valerie’s leftover personal grooming and wardrobe items that hadn’t already been donated or enshrined in fashion museums. Angie declined his offer to meet her at the airport, as she had to visit her dog and her parents first. The next morning, Bobby answered the front door and his heart soared at the sight of her.

           Angie was tanned and fashionably springtime, her wide smile and sparkling eyes said enough to let her in. More than four months had gone by and Bobby didn’t want to be apart again. They embraced for the longest time, intermittently kissing and hugging, until they stood back, taking each other in anew.

           “You could use a haircut,” Angie tenderly offered.

           “I’ve been growing it in protest.”

           “I think I’m flattered?”

           “I’ll cut it.”

           “I smell bacon,” Angie said, changing the subject. They crossed the foyer into the dining room, where he’d laid out a brunch platter with pastries and fruit.

           “I’m making omelets,” Bobby called out, as they continued walking to the kitchen. “Want some fresh coffee?”

           He folded over the congealing egg and cheese concoction in the simmering pan while she poured a cup and sat at the breakfast table in the bright hallway nook. “I really missed you,” Bobby said, turning off the stove and joining her. “Tell me everything about your . . . trip.”

           “Don’t you mean about my other life?”

           “Don’t tell me anything you don’t want me to hear. I know I don’t want you to go away again.”

           Angie read him loud and clear. She brought her clothes and things over from her parents’, and he gave her Valerie’s office across the hall to work in. The next week she brought Kirk and his canine things, and they all lived happily thereafter, it seemed, easily returning to the rhythm of their relationship, spending their nights together and even those days when he wasn’t working on some project. Angie was busy too, having said she was determined to bring Sign Waves to market, she’d penciled in costs of production, licensing, sales and distribution, and followed up with Eduardo, the ex-cruise line owner from Columbia interested in investing.

           On day seventy-one of their cohabitation, Angie excitedly found Bobby on the patio, watering the bougainvillea. “Eduardo just offered us two million dollars for twenty percent of Sign Waves! I’ve been working on the business plan; we’d have to put up at least a hundred and fifty thousand to actually start the company and justify our eighty percent.” While this wasn’t exactly news to Bobby, it was a significant amount of cash to entrust with her. Not that Angie would steal it from him, he thought; he just wasn’t entirely convinced she knew what she was doing. His heart was open and he didn’t ponder long.

           “I love you,” he told her. “Of course, set up the account and I’ll fund it.”

           When Bobby woke up on day eighty-six, unfortunately, Angie and Kirk were gone. Angie too had not pondered long before literally cleaning out the account and taking off for parts unknown. Eduardo was apparently in on the plan, as Bobby discovered too late that he was a murky individual with three passports who’d never owned even the tiniest piece of a cruise line. Nor did Sign Waves seem to be a registered company, anywhere, having no clients or agreements to license the technology.

           “Well, shame on me,” Bobby wryly declared, once he’d finally absorbed the mental shellacking. For he’d spent a lot more time after the fact, wondering how badly he’d misread her predatory nature than on whether to give her the money in the first place.

           In the end, though, Bobby decided to track her down, still believing the benefits were running with the costs. A couple days after he realized Angie was not coming back, he rang her parents’ doorbell and, receiving no response, he returned the following two days. Finally, early on the third morning, Bobby stationed himself across the street until, sure enough, Angie’s father came shuffling down the cottage path with Kirk on a leash. The dog recognized Bobby first and pulled the old man out to the sidewalk, where Bobby rubbed and scratched the pooch; Kirk was clearly happier to see him than her father was.

           “Hello, Mr. Lee. How’s Alma doing?”

           “Her sciatica’s bad so I gotta walk the damn dog.”

           “I guess you don’t where your daughter went?”

           “Angie only say she need to get away. I think she have a job.”

            “What about her brother? Will he know where she is?”

            “What are you saying? Angie doesn’t have a brother.”

           “Oh . . . ”

           “I hope you don’t give her any money.”

           “Oh . . . ”

           “You know, you should take this dog. Please.”

           “Thanks; I’d love to keep Kirk . . . We’ll wait for Angie to come home together.”

           Angie Lee could never have fathomed the depth of Bobby’s love for her. She sometimes lived off rich, grieving and divorced men who took care of her, or were sufficiently enamored to give her whatever she asked for. Eventually, they gave up and moved on, never making a fuss over how much it had cost them. Angie had been searching the local obituaries for potential playmates when she’d connected Valerie and Bobby in the first place. How sad it was that Angie came closer to falling in love with him than anyone else she’d ended up fleecing and leaving. Bobby was generous and considerate. He made her feel comfortable in her own skin for the first time in years, as she’d long ago blocked out memories of her loveless childhood. Ever since she happened to be born a girl, her parents had been detached; their toxic mixture of denial and denigration bordered on neglect, clearly having fed her rebellion. Angie had decided early on that to succeed she must never care for anyone more than herself. This unbreakable rule has resulted in remarkably enriching adventures, surprisingly little loneliness, and few repercussions.

           Until this very moment in the Ritz Carlton Hotel casino on the tranquil island of Aruba, when Angie looked up from her seat at the blackjack table and her face suddenly went pale. She felt a wave of terror pass over her, seeing Bobby on the other side of the velvet-lined room walking toward her.

           Bobby had easily found Angie. Possessing the online access codes to her various cruise line work schedules, he determined that she’d signed on to a charter ending on Aruba and flew in ahead of her. He watched her disembark two days ago at the main port near Oranjestad, followed Angie to the hotel, took his own room and discreetly waited around the lobby for her to emerge. Not knowing what to do, or how exactly to reproach her, Bobby laid low formulating his plan. Maybe he hoped she’d lead him to Eduardo or some kind of closure between them. After a day and a half of spying on her, while she simply enjoyed some solitary sunning on Palm Beach, lounging beside the pool and a massage at the spa, Bobby began feeling a little creepy. Lurking about without purpose, he needed to choose how and when to end this. He couldn’t decide whether to choke her into unconsciousness, watching her laughing eyes bulge out of her head, or to sneak up from behind and slice her throat with a serrated knife? As he strode through the casino across the garish paisley carpet toward his lovely Angie, literally within his grasp was a snub-nosed 38 in his blazer pocket that he’d easily procured yesterday outside the island flea market. This was clearly not the time or place, he conceded to himself, calmly walking around the semi-circular baize-covered table to greet her openly stunned face with a wide smile.

           “Hello, Angie.” Bobby cavalierly reached for her as she jumped off the chair and embraced him, tentatively, not knowing what to expect. “What a surprise finding you here,” he continued. “You look terrific.”

           “Wow. You just blew my mind, Bobby. What are you doing here?”

           “Can we take a walk on the beach?” He nervously fingered the revolver inside his jacket pocket. “And please pick up any chips that came from our money.”

           “Uh . . . Sure. How long are you staying?”

           They navigated away from the casino through the windowless passageways lined with expensive retail boutiques, eventually exiting near the palm-lined pool under a rich orange and lavender late afternoon sky. As Bobby led Angie toward the manicured white sand, she realized that he already knew where he was going and that her fear was far from foolish fancy, after all.

           “Have you been following me?”

           “Did you steal from me?”

           “Eduardo pulled out at the last minute. . . . Anyway, do we have a contract that says I have to ask you about investing our business funds?”

           Standing on the edge of the clear green Caribbean, Bobby inhaled the mild coconut-scented breeze, normally sanctifying this idyllic tropical paradise, sensing instead a palette of uncertainty. Where peaceful escape for romance and adventure once flourished, essentially unchanged for centuries, love was rapidly descending into despair.

           “Are you kidding?” Bobby was resolute. “I was really hoping you’d offer to return the money so I could forgive you for running away again.”

           “I’m flattered you came all this way to bring me back. Please do us both a favor and go home.”

           Bobby pulled the revolver from his jacket and took a couple steps back, wanting to look into Angie’s eyes when he pulled the trigger. He couldn’t tell if she ever saw the gun, as he immediately heard a loud pop come from behind her, confusing him; until Angie’s body suddenly lunged forward and fell next to him between the deck tiles and the lawn at the edge of the pool area. Bobby looked disbelievingly at the still cool 38 in his hand. Then he bent down to check on Angie the final time. He heard something rushing in his direction, looked up and saw Eduardo smiling at him. Following a moment of eternal reflection, Bobby smiled back.

           Together they carried Angie’s body over to one of the canvas deck lounges, left her inconspicuously sleeping under an umbrella and made their way out across the hotel lawn, escaping onto the public beach.

          “She owed me a lot more money than she owed you,” Eduardo offered, as they strode along the tranquil shore, watching the mighty sea swallow the sun. “Let’s have a drink. We’ll call it even.”

©2025 All rights reserved Jody Weiner

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