An Agent's Inbox #5

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for LIFE AFTER LILIES, a women’s fiction manuscript complete at 70,000 words.

Dee Adams never gave second chances much thought…until she became a time-traveling dead woman.

Before she landed on cancer’s hit list, Dee was a commitment-challenged artist who wished her designs lived on gallery walls rather than cereal boxes. Also, she wished her best friends didn’t have to carry on without her, that her ex hadn’t moved on (with someone better), that she’d done more with her nearly 40 years, and that the (d***) cancer had picked someone else.

But for Dee, death is only the beginning. Forced into a play by play of her former life, she quickly learns things are not always as they seem. As she travels between her past and the present she’s no longer a part of, the life she knew begins to unravel: there are dark secrets buried inside her lifelong friendships; she’s shocked by her parents’ betrayal with her one true love; she never should have trusted that medicine woman’s prediction; and she can only blame herself for life's bitter disappointments. With regrets building, friendships failing, and no way to fix any of it from her posthumous perch, she’s left to wonder: Is it ever too late for second chances?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
K.B.


LIFE AFTER LILIES

Lilies. I wasn’t sure I could forgive my mother for this.

I can’t believe she ordered the d*** lilies.

The most unoriginal funeral flower and they were everywhere: on my coffin, in bouquets at each pew and in a giant wreath that encircled a practically life-sized photo of me with a closed-mouth smile. I didn’t remember the photo being taken and as I peered more closely, I had to admit it looked nothing like me. Aside from the crow’s feet that had appeared the day I turned thirty-five. Was that only five years ago? How depressing this was how I would be remembered: two-dimensional and toothless, immortalized in a lily life preserver.

As best as I could figure, I’d been dead about four days. Breast cancer. I’d been disappointed the grim reaper wasn’t arriving thanks to something more exotic, or at least harder to pronounce. Like lieyosarcoma or malignant meningioma. And I was so over the token ribbons plastered on everything from workout socks to concrete trucks. Pastel pink had no business in battle.

I had no clue where I’d been for the last four days, or what came next. But it didn’t matter. I knew my funeral was merely a stopover. I was as dead as those lilies would be by tomorrow, once the oasis dried up.

The flowers’ sickly sweet smell was getting to me, making it hard to think about anything else. Could I ever use a nap, I thought. Being dead was exhausting.