“I helped Nellie.”
“Yes, you did. That was stage one, and you passed very, very well, but still you need to experience some of the things that other women experienced while they were on earth.”
“Such as?” Berni asked suspiciously. “I don’t have to become one of those athletic women, do I? Run? Climb mountains, that sort of thing?”
“No, nothing like that, just ordinary woman things.”
Berni wasn’t sure what she meant. It seemed to her she’d experienced everything a woman could while on earth. What else was there? “What are you talking about?”
Pauline stopped and looked at her, her face serious. “There’s something I think I’d better explain. There are levels to the Kitchen. Some of them are pleasant, but some of them are…not so pleasant. Level One, which you’ve been to, is to introduce you to the Kitchen and to cushion the blow of death. Level Two is…”
“Is what?” Berni asked.
“Level Two makes you very concerned about doing your job well—your earthly job, that is.”
“You mean I’m to be somebody else’s fairy godmother?” She thought a moment. “It wasn’t so bad. It was kinda fun, actually.”
“I’m glad you think so, because you must do it again—only the second time there is a bit more urgency.”
“You mean there’s a time limit?”
“No, not exactly. It’s just that most people are somewhat anxious to leave Level Two.”
The fog before them cleared, and Berni could see a sign. “Just as before,” Pauline said, “you must choose one room in which to wait.”
As they moved forward Berni could read the sign. “No,” she whispered, abruptly turning away.
Pauline caught her. “You must choose.”
“I can’t.” Berni buried her face in her hands. “They’re all too horrible. Couldn’t I just go to hell and be burned alive for eternity?”
“I’m afraid that’s the easy way out. You didn’t earn heaven while you were on earth, so now you must suffer as other women have suffered.” Pauline turned Berni around and made her look at the sign. “You must choose.”
Berni forced herself to open her eyes and look at the sign once again.
a trip across America in a sports car with three kids and a dog
backpacking and sleeping in a tent with your stepchildren
TV that runs only PBS pledge drive twenty-four hours a day
clothes shopping with a man
“Clothes shopping with a man?” Berni whispered in horror.
“It’s more horrible than you can believe,” Pauline said. “Before you leave the house he makes you tell him exactly what you want to buy, what color, what style, what fabric. In the store he folds his arms and glares at you and looks at his watch. Sometimes you have to shop with him for his own purchases. You search two hundred and seventy-one stores for exactly the pair of shoes he wants, you finally find them, and he says the stitches on the toe are one thirty-second of an inch too long.”
Berni’s face lost all color as she looked back at the sign.
5. dieting while raising three teenage daughters
6. at home with eight sick kids—or one sick husband
7. driving a car with a male passenger who keeps screaming and whimpering
8. trapped in an elevator with your husband’s ex-wife
9. a husband who retires and wants you to spend every minute with him