Say the Word

by Jeannine Garsee

  Five minutes later we sit in a rigid row: LeeLee, me, Dad, Aunt Colleen, Uncle Dieter, and Nonny. Poppy, hunkered in his wheelchair, gets planted in the aisle. I sense a flash of Dad’s ire, and instantly see why: Fran, Arye, and Schmule just wandered in.

  “Well, well. Watch the roof cave in.” Aunt Colleen fires orbital daggers over her shoulder.

  Uncle Dieter hushes her, and Nonny says at the same time, “They’re not hurtin’ anyone, Colleen.”

  “All of you hush.” Dad gives me a significant poke, although I’m the only one who kept my mouth shut. Then, rethinking this, he rests an arm around my shoulders.

  “It’s not too laaate to run back to the caaar,” LeeLee sings in my ear.

  I wish.

  Sit, stand, kneel, pray . . . I could do this in my sleep. I have to force myself not to doodle on my program as I listen to Father Bernacki. You can tell he never met Mom in his life; his droning, generic words could apply to anyone. As he wraps it up in obvious relief, I notice a growing commotion—and then Schmule’s voice rises from the back of the sanctuary. “No, I want to! Why can’t I?”

  Father Bernacki squints out over rapidly swiveling heads. “Ma’am?”

  Fran, flushed, half rises from the pew. She swipes for Schmule, missing him by an inch. Schmule rushes down the aisle, dodges Poppy’s chair, and runs up the steps to Father Bernacki’s podium. God must have hit the master pause button of the universe; aside from Dad’s rapidly crunching jaw, nobody else moves. Even Poppy’s rhythmically bobbing chin halts for the moment.

  “I have something to say,” Schmule announces, glancing anxiously at Father Bernacki. Father B. smiles, adjusts the microphone, and smoothly steps back. “My name is Schmule Goodman—” He jumps back in horror as his voice thunders through the speakers. Recomposed, he adds, “I want to say some stuff about my mom.”

  LeeLee whacks me with her knee. I know what she’s thinking: why does Schmule want to talk about Fran at my mother’s funeral?

  “I loved my mom a lot,” Schmule begins. “And so, when my other mom asked me why I loved her so much, I started to think about all the things that made me really love her. So I guess this is gonna be, like, a whatchamacallit, a eulogy?”

  “Other” mom? This isn’t about Fran at all. Oh, God! If there’s anyone here who doesn’t know about my mom, they’re about to find out—and Dad’s going to spaz!

  Don’t blame Schmule, Shawna. You’re the only one who ever kept me a secret.

  Not true, Mom. You moved two states away. If you were so proud of being gay, why didn’t you hang around?

  How twisted must you be to carry on a conversation with your dead lesbian mother in a Catholic church? I pick up the missal and thumb pointlessly through the pages.

  “I loved my mom because she was the smartest person I know. When I asked her a question she always knew the answer. If she didn’t know the answer, she’d make me look it up. And if I couldn’t find it, she’d say, well, it must not be important.”

  That’s Mom, all right.

  “I loved my mom because she liked poetry. She used to read it to me all the time. I liked listening to her read. I really miss her voice.”

  Funny how I’m still hearing it. ..

  “I also loved her ’cause she liked to take pictures. Sometimes she’d follow me around all day with her camera. Once when I was little, she took a picture of me crying. That really made me mad, so I told her to throw it out. I’m like, ‘Quit taking pictures of me, it gets on my nerves.’” Schmule pauses. “But then she said that someday I’ll grow up, and that if she didn’t take my picture now she’d forget what I look like. She said she wanted to keep, like, pieces of me. I said she already had lots of pictures, so she should throw that one away. I didn’t want people to see me crying like that.”

  He stops again. The church stays silent except for the relentless tapping of Aunt Colleen’s pointy-toed pump on the padded kneeler.

  “But Mom said she wanted all of my pieces. Not just the good ones. She said that when I grow up I won’t be able to cry like that anymore, that men don’t cry. And even if they do, they never let anybody see ’em. She wanted to keep that picture so that when she’s an old, old lady she can look back and remember what I looked like that day.”

  LeeLee reaches for my hand. Dad removes his arm from my shoulder so he can play, irately, with the band of his watch. Aunt Colleen’s shoe tap-tap-taps. I blink, and one tear splats on the missal.

  “After that, I let her take pictures of me whenever she wanted. But then she died last week and nobody expected it . . . so now she’ll never know what I’m going to look like when I’m grown. I’m sad because she’ll never be that old, old lady and I won’t be able to take care of her like she took care of me. I keep thinking of all this stuff I’d like to tell her, but now it’s too late. That’s kinda the worst thing of all, not telling her stuff.”

  His breath shudders into the microphone. The shoe tapping stops. I hear Poppy snore.

  “So now when I grow up, I’ll think about all the stuff she’ll never know about me. That’ll make me miss her even more, so then I probably will cry. Even if I’m, like, forty or something.” Another ragged breath, and then he finishes so softly I have to strain to hear him: “I think she was wrong. I won’t even care if anybody sees me.”

  21

  After the service I endure condolence hugs from people I never met in my life. Melanie and Danielle take off as soon as they can, not that I blame them. If it were the other way around, I’d run back to school, too. There’s not much you can say when your friend’s mother drops over dead. At least they showed up, unlike Susan the Bitch Connolly.

  All I can think about is the sangria waiting in the car. But just as I’m about to grab LeeLee, a cluster of women walk in—three neatly dressed in somber-colored pantsuits, but two others with very short haircuts and masculine clothes—followed by a group of, well, sort of swishy guys, one with a lavender scarf around his neck.

  As I nudge LeeLee, I hear somebody ask behind us, “Do you believe that?” and another person add in a hushed tone, “What a bunch of freaks.”

  “Who are they?” LeeLee whispers.

  “Friends of Fran, I guess.” I see a few people gawking openly at a hefty woman with tattoos crawling up both arms. Others studiously turn away while most, I’m happy to say, pay no attention to her at all. “Omigod. What a dyke.”

  LeeLee narrows her eyes at me. “Nice. You sound just like your aunt.”

  Heat flames across my scalp. It does sound like something Aunt Colleen would say, and I have no idea what possessed me to say it. And friends of Fran, I realize, means friends of my mother as well.

  I hear Mom again: Yes, Shawna, gay friends of your gay mom. What did you think? That all my friends were straight?

  I shake my head. She sounds so close, so real. Can this be the first sign of a nervous breakdown?

  Quickly I turn to seek out Dad’s reaction to the newcomers—and bump into Arye.

  “Hi,” he grunts.

  “Oh, you must be Arye!” LeeLee ogles his yarmulke. “Shawna told me all about you.”

  Arye’s nostrils flare. “No kidding?”

  I squeak, “Where’s your mom?” Arye jerks his head, and I see Fran and Schmule making a beeline toward her friends. “How’s she doing?”

  “Why don’t you go ask her?” Not quite sarcastic. But damn close.

  LeeLee flies into his face. “Hell-oo? Are we not at a funeral? Isn’t there, like, some kind of decorum here? Do you have to be such a, such a—?”

  “Putz?” Arye suggests.

  “Yeah. Putz.” She spouts the P in a very unladylike fashion.

  Perfect Shawna stares at Fran, knowing she should take the initiative to welcome her and thank her for coming. When Fran notices, though, she turns away.

  Evil Shawna thinks, fine, be a bitch. I’ll never lay eyes on you again.

  Leaving Arye and LeeLee nose to nose, I slip out a side door. Uncle Dieter,
indulging in a cigarette, jumps guiltily. Here he’s been telling us all he quit three months ago. “Oh, you are so-o busted!”

  Red-faced, he taps an ash. “Don’t ever pick one of these up.

  You’ll be a slave to it your whole life.” I don’t mention that I’m headed out for a drink myself.

  “I don’t get it,” I burst out. “This funeral. Everything. Why did Dad do it? To get back at Fran?”

  “Is that what you think?” I flick my hand, and Uncle Dieter adds thoughtfully, “Well, you might be right. To have a Catholic mass when he knows your mom was trying to convert to Judaism. Plus the embalming, the viewing. Jews do none of that, you know.”

  No, I didn’t know. My only Jewish friend is Melanie, who’s about as kosher as a cheeseburger. “How do you know so much about Jewish customs?”

  Uncle Dieter scratches his buzz-cut head. I love how his eyes twinkle when he smiles. “I’m an old, learned man, Shawnie. I like to think I know it all.” He takes one last drag and grinds the butt under his heel. “Honestly? I don’t think he did it just to piss off Fran. I think he did it for you. For closure, you know? And maybe some guilt thrown in, too.” Before I can zero in on this, he adds, “Plus, he did love her at one time.”

  “You’d never know it the way he talks about her,” I remind him.

  “Well, he did. You know how they say ‘opposites’ attract? Your mom and dad, they’re the classic example. The thing with your mom was, yeah, she was flaky. But she was a strong woman. Strong, and stubborn, and very talented. When her career took off, your dad had a problem with that. He wanted her home. He waited a long time for you, and didn’t want you raised by a nanny. It didn’t sit well with him, and . . . well, you know how he gets when things don’t go his way.”

  Tell me about it.

  Uncle Dieter steps away as I mull this over. Self-consciously, he shakes out his suit coat. “Here, take a whiff. Do I smell like tobacco?”

  I sniff. “You reek. Aunt Colleen’s gonna kill you.”

  “I’m used to it, kiddo.”

  He holds open the door. Reluctantly I go back inside because I can’t think of a good excuse to run to my car. LeeLee’s gabbing with someone I don’t know, a girl in camo-patterned pants, skimpy tank top, and a long red sweater. Nice outfit for a funeral—not. Animated, LeeLee chatters so intently she doesn’t even see me.

  Fran and her gay pals stir in a tiny clique, avoiding the Black Death otherwise known as my father. I can hear snatches of conversation from other milling guests:

  “Did you know Penny was gay?”

  “Who was that boy?”

  “Poor John. How humiliating for him.”

  “His daughter seems to be holding up pretty well . . .”

  Suddenly, I can’t stand it. I can’t stand people talking about us. Worse, I can’t stand the realization that I’ve let all Aunt Colleen’s anti-gay blather over the years rub off on me so well. I mean, LeeLee and I share a table in art with Jonas Dunn. He’s gay, he doesn’t care who knows it, and I’ve never had such nasty thoughts about him. If he’d shown up today in a lavender scarf, I’d hug him to death.

  So what’s different about this?

  I don’t know. I only know I have to get out of here.

  22

  I pop the cork and raise the wine bottle to my lips, being especially careful not to spill a drop on my dress. I nearly choke to death when the passenger-side door swings open and Arye slides in without an invitation.

  “What’re you doing?” I howl.

  “I needed a break, too.”

  “Can’t you break somewhere else? I’m kind of busy right now.”

  He squints at the more-than-half-empty wine bottle. “That any good?”

  “I’m saving the rest for LeeLee—my friend?—who should be here any second.”

  “Good luck. She’s busy with Tovah.”

  “Who’s Tovah? That chick in the camo pants?”

  “Yeah. You know that guy with the purple scarf, and the guy who’s with him? Tovah’s their daughter.”

  “Gimme a break. They don’t let gay guys adopt little girls.”

  Arye stares.

  “What?” I ask loudly.

  “I was gonna ask you if you grew up in a cave. Then I remembered you grew up in O-hi-o, so I guess it’s not your fault you’re so ignorant.”

  “Ha, ha.” He snatches the bottle away, and I warn, “Better not. It’s not kosher. I’d hate to see you go to hell.”

  “Jews don’t believe in hell.” Arye closes his wicked grin around the spout.

  “Seriously? So, what’s to stop you, then, from acting like an ass-hole?”

  Arye splutters sangria on his pants. “You don’t know much about Jews, do you?”

  “Probably as much as you know about Catholics.” But I’m smiling again for the second time today. Is it the wine? Or the fact that Arye’s not treating me like a leper for a change? Or maybe he is and I’m too buzzed to tell the difference.

  We polish off the wine, and I hide the bottle under the seat, where it clanks against number two. “So what’ll your dad do,” Arye asks, “if he catches you drinking out here?”

  “I hope not to find out.” But I glance around anyway. “I’d better get back. People will think I’m antisocial.”

  “So what? Jeez, it’s your mom’s funeral. Maybe you don’t feel like mingling.”

  “It doesn’t matter how I feel. I’m kind of the hostess here, and—”

  Arye hoots. “Hostess? You think this is a party?”

  “No! But she’s my mom, right? I should be in there talking to people. Not sitting around out here getting drunk with you.” I grab my keys, jump out, and wobble back to the church.

  Arye doesn’t follow. I hope he doesn’t find that second bottle.

  23

  “Did you see Arye?” Fran asks me at the door. It’s the first time she’s spoken to me since the day I walked out of her house.

  Tipsy, I fib, “I thought he was right behind me.”

  “Well, we have to leave. We’re flying back home tonight.”

  The wine has mellowed me. Perfect Shawna returns. “Don’t you want to stay for lunch?” Then I picture the food downstairs: cheese cubes, pepperoni, and iced shrimp cocktail, all stacked on the same table, undoubtedly touching in some way.

  “Thank you, Shawna. But I don’t think we’d be welcome.” Fran nods to Arye, who saunters up behind me. “Are you ready?”

  “Been ready,” he says significantly.

  Fran wraps a wooden arm briefly around my shoulder. “Take care now.” Off she heads toward her rented car. No “keep in touch.” No “call me sometime.” With Mom gone, I guess she has no reason to pretend.

  The boys lag behind. Arye offers me a piece of paper—his e-mail address with his name spelled backward: EyraG. Ooh, clever. “E-mail me one of these days, okay?”

  Shocked, and yes, suspicious, I tuck it away. “Thanks.”

  Arye trudges after Fran. I reach out to smooth Schmule’s long, light brown curls. “Hey, I liked what you said about my mom. I meant to tell you that.”

  Schmule digs a shy toe into the asphalt. “Well, um, she was my mom, too, ya know.” And he dashes off after his brother.

  24

  All the way home LeeLee blabs nonstop about Tovah. “Shawna, she’s a blast! You know how you meet someone for the first time and you just kinda click? We could’ve talked for hours. I can’t believe how much we have in common!”

  I keep stern eyes on the road as she raves on: Tovah’s a freshman at NYU. Tovah’s majoring in journalism, which is LeeLee’s dream. Tovah’s parents were killed in a Jerusalem bombing, and she was sent to the U.S. to be adopted by her uncle Will, and Uncle Will’s partner, Leo.

  Smart. Funny. Gorgeous. Unique. One more gushy adjective out of LeeLee and I swear I will scream. Astonished at this roaring surge of jealousy, I force myself to remember that this is LeeLee, not Susan—that she won’t dump me for Tovah the way Susan dumped me for P
aige Berry. Besides, Tovah lives in New York and only flew in for the funeral.

  Hopefully she’ll fly back out ASAP.

  “Hello?” LeeLee knocks on the dash. “You still there?”

  I snarl back, “It’s not like you’re giving me a chance to talk.”

  “Ouch. Sor-ry.”

  Why am I jealous that LeeLee made a friend?

  Maybe because today, of all days, I wanted LeeLee to myself. I want her to hang around and make me laugh even though I should be crying my eyes out, missing my mom.

  “You coming to school tomorrow?” LeeLee asks as I halt the car at her driveway.

  “Might as well. I already missed two days.”

  Back home in my blessedly empty house, I lug my sweet, lonely Charles upstairs and curl up with him on my bed. I try to focus on Mom, to remember the “good times”—that’s what Father Bernacki stressed in his sermon.

  It’s too damn bad I can’t think of a single one.

  Charles burrows his snout into my armpit. My thoughts drift back to LeeLee, and I wonder again why I feel so jealous, so abandoned. Is this what happens when you only have one best friend? You depend on them so much, you’re afraid they’ll disappear?

  25

  “Hey, Gallagher!” Devon Connolly tugs my hair as I drag myself toward first-period Anatomy and Physiology. “What’re you doing back? Don’t you get a vacation when someone dies?”

  LeeLee smacks him. “Moron! Do you own a single manner?”

  I’m barely insulted by his inane remark because, omigod, Devon touched my hair! Okay, he yanked it. But my scalp tingles deliciously.

  Devon plunges ahead of us, and LeeLee grimaces at my dazed expression. “Just tell me, please, what do you see in that pendejo? He’s related to Susan, remember? They shared a womb, for God’s sake.”