Driving With Dead People

by Monica Holloway

  “Are you going to be in my class?” I asked.

  “I guess so,” she said.

  “I’m Monica. Remember me?” She looked vague. “We rode in the hay wagon.”

  Julie nodded.

  Waving off Jamie, I turned to her. “This’ll be a piece of cake. Let’s go in.”

  Jamie walked back downstairs and I put my arm around Julie’s waist, as if she were one of the senior citizens down at Marigold Manor nursing home, and guided her into the classroom.

  “Well, hello, girls,” a sweet voice called out. I turned and saw something I had only seen about three times in my entire life: a black woman. Mrs. Eaton, my new fourth-grade teacher, was black. Her hair was the same length all over and curled under just below her ears. She wore her navy sweater around her shoulders like an elegant cape that was clasped just below her neck with a stylish red stickpin. She was beautiful.

  “I’m Monica and this is Julie Kilner,” I said. “She’s new.”

  “Are you from Bloomfield School?” Mrs. Eaton asked.

  “There’s not school there anymore,” Julie said.

  Mason County was closing many of the smaller county schools and consolidating them into one. It turned out there were three new kids from Bloomfield School in my class.

  Mrs. Eaton showed us to our seats. Julie sat in the third row because her last name started with a K, but I was back and toward the middle because of the P in Peterson.

  Two weeks later Mrs. Jenkins, the music teacher, told our class we’d be dancing to “Meet Me in St. Louis” for the fall music festival. There weren’t enough boys to partner all the girls, so Mrs. Jenkins pointed to me and said, “You’re a boy.”

  I was furious as I stood there in my pleated skirt and white knee socks. Do I look like a boy? I wanted to know. It had to be my crappy short haircut that doomed me.

  My partner turned out to be Julie Kilner because I was tall and she was short. We spent our time at rehearsal talking and laughing instead of dancing.

  Julie was becoming my very best friend.

  At the open house that fall Dad actually showed up. But when Mrs. Eaton came over to talk to him, he started stammering instead of speaking. That’s when I remembered Dad hated black people. I had forgotten that Mrs. Eaton was black.

  As we were walking back toward the car, I heard Dad say, “I didn’t know the coons were going to be there.” He laughed.

  “Don’t start, Glen,” Mom said.

  “What did I say?” he asked, grinning. I wasn’t even sure.

  “Let it go,” Mom said.

  “What, the nigger in there? I just didn’t know I was paying taxes for a nigger to teach my kid, that’s all.” Mom shook her head and glanced at me. My mouth flopped open in shock, and a wave of fury swept over me.

  I never wanted him near Mrs. Eaton again. I worried she knew Dad hated her. I worried she would think I was the same.

  One Saturday afternoon Mom took Granda to JC Penney’s to buy a new nightgown.

  At around five o’clock our local radio station reported a tornado had been spotted on the ground. As soon as Dad heard the news and checked the falling barometer on the dining room wall, he shoved our reluctant hind ends into the station wagon and drove seventy miles an hour toward Flora Meyer’s farm.

  “That’s where they’re brewin’,” Dad said excitedly to no one in particular.

  “Great,” I said, making Jamie laugh.

  “You’re gonna love this,” Dad said, flipping on his movie camera as he drove. He glanced at our pale faces in the rearview mirror and smiled. He knew we were petrified, which made him positively giddy.

  I couldn’t figure out which was more worrisome, seeing a real tornado or Dad losing control of the station wagon, hitting a phone pole, and ejecting us out into Curly Tillison’s cornfield.

  In the backseat Jamie was sitting by the window, then me, then Becky, and JoAnn by the other window.

  The four of us figured it was only a matter of time before we met death by car or by weather. Maybe today it would be both. If there were such a thing as death by humiliation, we would have been dead already.

  Jamie looked over at us and mouthed, “Holy shit,” but he was smiling.

  “We’re dead,” I mouthed back, making a slashing gesture across my throat. I was only half-kidding.

  Becky elbowed me. I pointed to her and rolled my eyes at Jamie. JoAnn faced the window, silent.

  As if it weren’t harrowing enough, Dad rolled down his window and stuck his head out, preparing to film as we sped down the narrow country road.

  “I see one. Look right over there,” he crowed. “I knew it. I knew it!” He pointed with the hand that was supposed to be guiding the steering wheel. We swerved, but he managed to maneuver the car back onto the road.

  I craned my neck to see what he was pointing to, and there in the western sky were four tornados dipping up and down. They were skinny and black, winding against the sunset. I grabbed Becky’s and JoAnn’s knees. “I see them,” I said, holding my breath.

  “Four at once!” Dad yelled back to us. “We hit the jackpot!” He whipped the car into a tight U-turn and came to a stop facing the other direction.

  “You gotta get out and see this,” he said. “You might never have another chance.” He bolted out of the car.

  Our stomachs were still getting over the U-turn as we opened our doors and grudgingly stepped out. I was starting to get mad now. We were at the mercy of a crazy man.

  Dad’s face looked completely different: open, hopeful. Here was a chance for us to be a part of his life, to have him include us, yet none of us could even speak. We stood by a barbed wire fence, watching the tornados heading straight for us.

  “Oh shit! It flattened something. Did you see the debris?” Dad said, one eye squeezed shut, the other pressed against the viewfinder of the camera.

  When he didn’t hear a response, he looked over at our stunned, angry faces. “You bunch of cowards,” he said. “You don’t think this is exciting?” he asked.

  No one answered. Dad shook his head and looked back toward the west. His face didn’t look open or hopeful anymore. He swung around. “Get in the car. Hurry. Get in the car. It’s changed directions.”

  All five of us climbed over one another trying to scramble back into the station wagon. When Dad made it into the driver’s seat, he turned the key and stepped on the gas without making sure we were all inside. Jamie’s door wasn’t even closed yet.

  On the way back he drove just as fast, the movie camera, which was now turned off, bouncing across the passenger seat.

  We skidded into our driveway and the four of us kids bailed out, running toward the basement stairs. Dad stayed in the car. As we made it down into the basement, I heard him hit the gas and squeal away.

  We all reacted differently to our volatile home life. Jamie played sports, JoAnn dreamed of “77,” Becky pretended everything was fine, and I continued to tell lies.

  Wearing my red-white-and-blue poncho with the white fringe around the edges, I sat cross-legged on the playground at school, playing jacks. My mom had permed my hair over the weekend and it bounced in shrunken ringlets around my face while I dropped the ball, swooped up jacks, and talked in a low, secretive voice. The other fourth-grade girls were huddled around listening. Leslie Hathaway, the only fourth grader with red hair, asked questions.

  “How do you know she wants to kill you?”

  “Because she gives me clues while she’s directing the choir.” I bounced the ball and grabbed the last two jacks.

  “Like what?”

  “Like Tuesday when we were practicing in the auditorium for the concert, she pointed at me and mouthed, ‘You’re next.’”

  “No way. Mrs. Jenkins?”

  “Wait and see.” I shook the jacks in my closed palms and watched them scatter.

  “When?”

  “In the middle of the winter concert, when no one can hear the shot or know where it’s coming from.”

&
nbsp; “She’s going to shoot you?”

  “Yes.” I rolled my eyes and scooped up more jacks.

  “That’s crazy. Why would Mrs. Jenkins want to shoot you?”

  “I don’t know. She’s been interested in me for a long time.” I bounced the ball.

  “Do you know which part of the concert?”

  “While we’re singing ‘Embraceable You.’”

  “That’s a spooky song.”

  “Exactly.”

  The bell rang, signaling the end of recess.

  The winter concert came and went without a single shot fired. I was annoyed that no one was surprised. Wasn’t anyone taking me seriously?

  One Wednesday night in early spring, the phone rang and it was Julie’s mom, Joan Kilner. I heard my mom say, “Yes, that would be fine. I’ll pick Monica up on Saturday.” Julie’s mom had invited me to spend the night.

  It would be my first overnight and it would be at Julie Kilner’s mortuary/house. Would there be beds or coffins? Would there be wilted flowers in their house left over from funerals? Would someone die in the night, causing all of us to wake up and get busy?

  I was bouncing off the walls. I would need a sleeping bag, I figured, and some new pajamas. Mom figured I didn’t need either.

  Friday I climbed onto the bus with Mom’s square green suitcase packed with my yellow pajamas, my toothbrush, a pair of panties, socks, jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, a brush, and my macramé belt. Kyle Whitmore was curious.

  “Are you running away from home?” he asked in his dry voice.

  “No, I’m spending the night at Julie Kilner’s,” I informed him. I was so much older than him now, even though he was a whole year older than I was. “I’m going home with her right after school, so I won’t be on the bus tonight.” Kyle looked at me blankly. I flipped my nonexistent ponytail and hopped up the stairs of the bus. I couldn’t wait to get to Julie’s house. This day was going to last forever.

  When school finally ended, I walked beside Julie and was surprised when we climbed onto a school bus. The mortuary was within walking distance of school.

  As we rolled past St. Mary church, Julie said, “I have two friends that go there.”

  My head jerked up; maybe she’d known Sarah Keeler. I would remember to ask her later.

  I looked out the window. The bus rolled right past Kilner and Sons Mortuary and headed out of town.

  “Don’t you live in Elk Grove?” I asked in a panic. After all, the mortuary looked just like a house.

  “Yeah, but out by the bowling alley.” She was brushing her hair. Julie carried a brush, Dr Pepper–flavored ChapStick, and pencils with her name on them in a plastic navy purse. No store ever had things with my name on them. Monica was a weird name, a goofy name. I didn’t even know where Mom got it.

  All I wanted to be was normal—like a “Jill” or a “Laura” or, and this was the best, a “Julie.”

  When we turned down Julie’s road, I noticed she lived in the wealthy part of town. I fiddled with my backpack.

  The outside of Julie’s house was beautiful: a modern one-story with beige stone on the outside. The entryway was large and trimmed in black, and when we walked in, there was an elegant living room with fancy couches and glass end tables. To the right was a kitchen that opened up into a large family room with a stone fireplace. I realized my family didn’t have as much as other families. I started feeling less confident.

  Julie said I could put my suitcase in her room, so we headed downstairs to the basement, which was fully remodeled.

  There was a large pool table and a sauna, which I had never heard of. It smelled like Granda’s cedar chest. Julie explained, “You sit in there with your clothes off and sweat.” I hoped we wouldn’t be doing that.

  Julie took me into her room, which had been built especially for her and was separated from the rest of the basement by a brown paneled wall and a beige louvered door.

  When we walked in, the first thing I noticed was a toilet sitting right by her dresser. It had a green fuzzy toilet seat cover, which matched her green bedspread and the “This Is Horse Country” rug lying on the floor beside it. There was a tall wooden bunk bed against the wall, and I hoped Julie would let me sleep on top.

  I put my suitcase down by her bed, and that’s when it hit me—I was a bed wetter. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I wet the bed every single night.

  I hadn’t put this into the equation when Julie had asked me to spend the night, and Mom hadn’t mentioned it at all. I panicked, until I thought of the only solution; I would stay up all night and I would even sit on that toilet, out in the open, if I needed to. Now I would have to sleep on the bottom bunk so I could get up and pee.

  Julie nudged my arm. “Let’s grab a snack.”

  Her mom offered us a taco pizza she had ordered from the local Pizza Palace. I rarely had pizza from a restaurant, and who’d ever heard of a taco pizza? It turned out to be a regular pizza except instead of sauce it was covered in refried beans, chicken, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and tortilla chips. We sat down at the kitchen table and Joan opened bottles of Cokes for us. We didn’t have Cokes at my house.

  Dave came in the back door and joined us. He was wearing tan pants, a white oxford cloth shirt, and a dark brown sweater vest. He looked like the dad from Dennis the Menace.

  “You’ve grown a little since the barbecue,” he said, reaching for a piece of pizza. “You’re going to be tall like your dad,” he said. My dad wasn’t tall, and I didn’t want Dad in the conversation.

  “I look like my great-aunt Lillian,” I countered, even though I’d never met her. But that’s what Mom always said.

  We ate pizza and laughed about school. Dave asked questions about my family.

  “How’s your grandma Mildred?” he asked. That was Granda’s formal name.

  “She’s pretty good,” I said, “but she has to have surgery at the Allensburg Clinic for piles.” I didn’t know what piles were, but Dave nodded.

  “And your mom?” he asked.

  “My mom?” I wondered. Why would Dave care about my mom?

  “We went to high school together,” Dave said.

  “WHAT?” I said, louder than I meant to. It occurred to me quickly that Mom had made the biggest mistake of my life by not marrying Dave Kilner. I could have had a toilet in my bedroom. I could have owned a mortuary.

  “Your mom and I were in school together,” he repeated.

  “I didn’t know that,” I said. Now I was flustered. Even though she bought clothes and furniture at fancy stores in Cincinnati and drove a black Oldsmobile Cutlass, it was clear to me now that my mom had no taste whatsoever.

  At that exact moment I knocked over my Coke and flooded my own plate with soda. I sat completely still, waiting for Dave to erupt in fury. Instead, he said, “Whoa, looks like you need another plate.” He stood up and walked it to the counter.

  I was ashamed and worried. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. Now they would never ask me back.

  “This happens around here at least once a day,” Dave said. Tears fell anyway.

  Joan leaned over, smiling, her hand patting the center of my back. “Monica, don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.”

  It was a big deal at my house. I once saw Dad knock Jamie off a stool with the back of his hand when he accidentally spilled milk on the table.

  Dave placed a clean plate in front of me and walked to the family room to pick up the newspaper. I resisted the urge to wipe my runny nose on the cloth napkin in my lap. I hadn’t even wiped my mouth on it for fear of staining it.

  “Are you okay?” Joan asked.

  “Yes, definitely,” I said, sniffing, and Joan got up to join Dave in the family room. As soon as she walked away, I took a swipe at my nose with the napkin. I had to. Snot was really starting to drip.

  Julie and I were finishing our pizza when I looked at her and quietly said, “We could have been sisters, you know. My mom almost married
your dad.”

  “What?” she said between bites.

  “My mom and your dad went to school together. We could have been sisters,” I reiterated. Julie looked at me blankly. Clearly she hadn’t been paying attention.

  Later that night we were in the basement playing The Dating Game when Dave came downstairs. I couldn’t imagine what he was still doing home.

  “Are you having fun?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I’m making popcorn if you girls want to come up in a minute.”

  “Okay,” Julie answered.

  Why was Dave hanging around?

  We went upstairs for popcorn in our pajamas and then sat on the couch for a movie. Dave sat down too. I had a crush on him, but he was starting to get on my nerves.

  Finally, Julie and I went downstairs to brush our teeth for bed. There was a deep white plastic sink down there beside a shower that sat right out in the open with just a thin blue curtain around it. That’s when I finally got the courage to ask about Sarah Keeler.

  “Did you know that girl, Sarah, who was killed on her bike?” I asked. “She was at your dad’s funeral home.”

  “Sure,” she said, toothpaste foaming around her mouth. “She died right out there,” Julie said, casually pointing her toothbrush toward the front of her house.

  “What? Are you kidding me? She was killed by your house?”

  “Yeah.” Julie tapped her toothbrush on the sink. “We used to play together. She lived right over there.” She pointed in the same direction. “Lowell, who lives above the mortuary, pronounced her dead. But Dad embalmed her.”

  I couldn’t think of which questions to ask first. I started with, “Did you see it happen?”

  “No.” Julie offered me a green terry cloth towel. I took it and wiped my mouth off.

  “So you guys were friends?” I asked.

  “I told you, she lived in the neighborhood.” Julie began combing her hair.

  “Did she spend the night here?”

  “No.”