The arrangement

What should I bake today? Elsy loves chocolate chip cookies with a nutella heart, but she loves a well-done apple pie with a side of vanilla ice-cream just as much. It has been a month since we last saw each other and it will be another month until we meet next time, always for a 5,33 PM tea. I am still not sure if the time is so specific for any particular reason or if she just likes to mess with me. She has always loved jokes and pranks, Elsie. Like that time, just a couple of years ago, she pretended her cat had run away and we spent the entire night driving around town under a soft rain. 

Oh God, it’s already nearly 1 PM, I better decide what to bake this time. You know what? I’ll do both, I just have to run out to the shop around the corner to get all the ingredients I need. 

“Good afternoon, Bernie. How are you?” I sort of yell to the almost deaf old man running the small, but absurdly well-stocked shop. 

“Oh hey Amy, same old. How are you?” he yells back with his raspy but somehow soothing voice caused by years of chain smoking. “Why? I might die any minute now. And anyway, I am too old to stop, I do not have the willpower anymore,” he told me once when I gently suggested he stopped smoking while helping him with some water during a cough attack. That was over ten years ago.

“All good, thanks. I will have a look around the shop to get some ingredients for a baking session and will be back with you in a bit,” I reply with a melancholic smile. The monthly tea date with Elsy has always been a bittersweet occasion: the thought of seeing her and having a chat filled me with joy, but I just wished I did not have to wait a month before seeing her again. “Just don’t think about that now, enjoy the day!” I say to myself aloud. Thankfully Bernie has a hearing problem, otherwise I might be labelled as the crazy lady talking to herself.

Right, let’s focus on what I need. I open my favourite cooking app, which to be fair I barely use, and read the ingredients needed for Elsy’s favourite cookies. I have all the basics, but I do need chocolate in pretty much all forms: bitter cocoa powder, a load of chocolate chips and a big jar of nutella. The first time I tasted these cookies was three years ago, Elsy had made a big batch for a movie night with just me and her. “Come on, just us girls with lots of junk food, chocolate and a bottle of white wine. I know it sounds like a cliche, but people do it because it’s fun,” she told me on the phone that afternoon trying to convince me to get out of the house on a stormy day. “OK, but you better bake something good for the occasion!” I replied jokingly. And she did: she told me that night that she had spent all afternoon searching for decadent chocolate cookies recipes and found a great one on a cool cooking app. The same I use to this day any time I feel like cooking something special, which it’s not very often to be honest. I loved those cookies and she loved them too, so much so that they became her favourite ones. And for Elsy cookies were a serious matter!

Good, so next it’s the apple pie. Sugar and apples, that’s what I am missing. Oh, and cinnamon of course! I also add to the now full basket a big bucket of good-quality vanilla ice-cream. Now to the till, hoping Bernie has not fallen asleep in the meantime. 

“Here you are,” he says as he sees me approaching him. I see him looking with curiosity at the items I picked as he puts them into shopping bags. “Oh, is your friend coming to visit you again? You always buy loads of baking ingredients when she comes by. I can feel there is a story behind all of this, but you still have not told me,” he tells me off gently. “Maybe one day I will, Bernie! Thanks and see you soon.” “Mmh,” he mumbles in his raspy but kind voice.

Damn it, these things are heavy. Now I wish I came with the car. Well, I guess a little walk might be good for me anyway. Less than ten minutes later, I am finally home and ready to bake. 

“It’s nearly five!” I shout speaking again to myself, with no witnesses this time, as I take the cookies out of the heaven. I cannot stop smiling as I look at the table full of different teas and sweets. And, of course, a bottle of good white wine. 

“Careful!” a voice shouts into my ear. “Elsy, you have almost given me a heart attack,” I say as I hug her while crying from happiness. 

“No, please, I do love spending time with my best friend, but it’s not time for you to join me just yet!” she replies laughing. Now my tears are a mixture of happiness and sadness. “I see you have been a good girl and remembered my favourites!” she says with her big eyes even wider from excitement. 

“Yes, of course! Let’s seat, eat, drink and catch up on our lives. Or rather on mine, given that you refuse to tell me about yours,” I tell her off jokingly.

“You know I want to, but I really can’t,” she speaks to me in a kind voice. “You know that if I only tried to, I would disappear before you could learn anything about it anyway and, on top of that, I would not be allowed to come here and meet you for tea anymore.”

“I know, I know, do not worry! Let me just clean up a little because that hug left me a little dirty,” I say laughing and trying not to think too much about the fact that her blood is all over me. I am kind of used to it now. 

“Of course, I will have a seat in the meantime. Sorry for staining all of your cushions every time I come,” she says in a tone between embarrassment and amusement. She always loved horror stories, she just did not think she would make for a great protagonist one day.

“Don’t worry! You know that I really don’t care, I will clean everything up when you will have to go at 7 PM. I am just so happy I get to see you each month,” I say honestly. “I still do not know how you managed to get this deal! Or is this a common arrangement for people who pass away before turning 40 or something?”

“You know I can’t tell you that either. But I am so happy to be here too, please tell me all about your life. How is sex going with Matt?” she says with the most beautiful smile, although her lips are purple and her face is stained with blood that never seems to dry. 

“Elsy! I have always liked the fact that you are a very direct person, but is this really the first thing you want to know? Well, no need to answer, I know you well enough to know that it is indeed the very first thing you want to know,” I laughed happily as I look at her. She is terribly pale, full of fresh blood and wounds and with the same white and beautiful silky nightgown she was wearing the night she was killed ten months ago. 

The man who drove the car told the police that she had come running out of her house in front of his car and that he had not been able to stop in time to avoid hitting her. He said it looked like she had been sleepwalking. She died on the spot. 

I guess I might never know what happened that night, but I am glad I will still be able to meet Elsy for tea every so often.