Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
The nerves melted away. The song was easy, comfortable, and I slipped into it as though it were an old t-shirt. As I sang, a couple toward the back held their hands in the air and started swaying together, and soon all the people around them joined in, and the swaying spread and spread until it seemed as though the whole cemetery was one big wave of arms and bodies. A weird tingling spread through my chest. This was nothing like being perched up in the chapel balcony.
For the final verse, I turned toward Mick’s grandmother as she dropped the last of the roses. Instead of belting it out as I usually did, I brought it down and kept it pianissimo, soft.
When we've been here ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise than when we’d first begun.
As the last flower fell, the old woman straightened and turned toward me, her eyes brimming with tears. For a moment it was just the two of us. Everyone else faded into the scenery, like so many tombstones and trees. I watched as the first tear fell to her cheek, and then, just as quickly, the moment ended.
The crowd erupted in hoots and applause. Startled, I glanced over at Lana, who smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.
Dad placed his hand on my back. “That was lovely, Mel,” he said. “Thank you.”
I made my way over to Lana, who gave me a huge hug. “That was so cool,” she said. I felt her body tense. “Uh, oh. Incoming.”
I turned and followed her gaze.
Oh, no. Mick’s grandmother was walking toward us.
I braced myself. What had I done? I had no business locking eyes with her like that, not out here with no balcony railing to separate us, no side door for me to escape through.
My chest grew tight, and I heard a tinny ringing in my ears as she drew closer. I tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t. Oh, please, God. Not again. Don’t let me pass out in front of all these people. I bit my lip, hard. As long as I could feel pain, at least knew I was conscious.
I grabbed Lana’s hand and squeezed. This was it. I’d broken my own rule and now I was about to pay. Only just before Mrs. Nolan reached me, my mother stepped between us. “Excuse me, Ruth, I wanted to remind you that Martin’s service doesn’t end at the cemetery. Please know that I am available if you ever want to talk.” Mercifully, the elderly woman stopped and gave my mom a long hug.
Lana and I exchanged a glance and then set off through the crowd toward the parking lot. The hearse had tinted windows. If we could make it there without Mick’s grandmother spotting us, we could hide in it.
As we ran down the hill and past the cemetery office, Andrea Little from Channel 4 came skittering toward us. “Excuse me, dear. I need to get your name.”
When neither of us answered, she called after us. “You, with the black dress. What’s your name?”
“Melanie,” I shouted over my shoulder. “Melanie Martin.”
I didn’t know why she wanted my name, and at that moment, I didn’t care. All I wanted was to get into the hearse and away from the crowd.
Finally I made it to the car, but as I reached for the door, my left heel snapped. Shoot. These shoes were practically new. I reached down and slipped them off, struggling briefly with the straps. As I straightened, something on the other side of the cemetery caught my eye. There, barely visible through the trees, was a sleek black limo with shiny chrome wheels.
CHAPTER THREE
“Well, if it isn’t Melody.” Pete Sanderson peered at me over his sheet music as I walked into chorus Monday afternoon.
“Very funny.” I climbed onto the stool next to him. “At least I know you’re kidding. I’m pretty sure most of these kids think that’s really my name.”
“The power of YouTube,” Pete said.
Over the weekend, Channel 4 had run an eight-second clip of me singing as part of their coverage of Mick’s funeral, and by now it seemed as though half the school had seen it. The good news: The sunlight hit me just right, so you could totally see the highlights in my dark brown hair. The bad news: They screwed up my name.
“It’s ridiculous,” I said. “Hannah Massey even called me Melody. I mean, really? After sitting behind me in homeroom for three years, she hasn’t picked up on the fact that my name is Melanie?”
Pete shrugged. “Yeah, well, Hannah Massey isn’t exactly in the running for class valedictorian.”
That was true. Hannah got by on her Homecoming-princess face, hair and body.
“So why didn’t you come to the funeral?” I asked. “It was nice. And huge. The most people we’ve ever had.” I pulled out my phone and showed him a shot of the crowd from the balcony. “The place was packed.”
I scrolled to the next photo, a full shot of Lana in her miniskirt, and a blush crossed Pete’s red-freckled face. I smiled. Pete was tall and skinny, with light reddish-brown hair sticking out at odd angles. He tended to be awkward and nervous around girls, but especially around Lana. The two of them were my best friends in the world, they would make an awesome couple, and they would probably never hook up. Lana was into the bad-boy type. And while Pete was funny, smart, and had a tenor voice that could melt a polar icecap, he was not bad. At all.
I found a shot of the band and pointed out Mick’s keyboard, front and center with the urn on top. “You should have heard ‘Altogether Blue,’” I said. “Gave me the chills. Gave everyone the chills. You know that part toward the end where it goes, ‘Altogether you, altogether new, when the haze clears away, it’s—”
I stopped. Pete’s face was a total blank.
“You don’t know ‘Altogether Blue’?”
He shook his head.
I sighed. “Well, they played ‘Medium Well,’ too. At the very end.”
Still blank.
“No way.” I said. “You don’t know ‘Medium Well’? I thought everyone and his grandmother knew that song.”
Then again, if there were one person in the world who wouldn’t know it, it would be Pete. Unless it was classical, jazz, or maybe some obscure indie jam band, he wasn’t interested.
“No,” he said. “I don’t know ‘Medium Well’ or any other Slime songs.”
“Grime,” I corrected him.
“Slime, Grime, whatever. Why do you and Lana go so crazy over these pop bands?”
“The Grime isn’t just a pop band. They’re talented musicians. Artists. Plus, they’re really hot.”
Pete laughed. “Finally, the truth. So how did you end up singing? I thought you’d said the band was taking care of all the music for the service.”
I shrugged. “Must have been some kind of mix up, because they never showed up at the grave site.” I didn’t tell him about seeing the limo in the cemetery. I hadn’t told anyone about that. Not my dad. Not even Lana. “Anyway, it was … crazy. And kind of cool.” I closed my eyes and remembered the feeling I’d had as the crowd swayed before me, everyone caught up in the song and the moment.
“Hey, Mel, cool vid.” Sophomore Sadie Landon interrupted my reverie. Her eyeliner was painted on so thick she looked like a perpetually surprised lemur. “I especially liked that old mausoleum in the background. The one with the cracked stone near the top. Very Buffy.”
“Um. Thanks.” It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Most kids at Edison thought of me as a bit of a freak. They were wary of me, as though my very presence might bring on their untimely demise. But then there were the Sadie Landons of the school—goths, emos and vampire wannabes who thought it would be cool to live in a funeral home. I hated to break it to them, but death wasn’t some sort of romantic fantasy. It was real, it was permanent and it usually wasn’t pretty.
“Yeah, look who’s a big star,” chimed in Maria Lopez, our lead soprano. “Miss ‘I Sing for Dead People.’” A few of Maria’s protégés tittered.
To my relief, our chorus instructor, Ms. Jensen, breezed into th
e room at that moment, fingers snapping. “Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. All State is in six weeks and we have a long way to go to get ready.”
As I scurried over to the alto section, a nervous tension filled the air. Ms. Jensen was going to announce the solos today. I’d auditioned to sing “The New Moon,” a choral adaptation of a Sara Teasdale poem about a woman who was near despair but who salvaged a feeling of hope when she saw the sliver of a new moon in the sky. The song had a timeless, ethereal quality.
Ms. Jensen stood at the front of the room sorting through a thick stack of papers. If she was trying to build the suspense, it was working. Finally, she looked up and smiled. “This week’s tryouts were impressive. I had some difficult decisions to make, but I have selected two students for solos.”
Only two? I held my breath.
“Pete Sanderson will perform a full solo: Josh Groban’s ‘Awake.’”
No surprise there. Pete was our best shot at winning All State.
After what had to be the longest pause known to mankind, Ms. Jensen turned toward me. “And Melanie Martin, you will sing a partial solo, from the third verse of ‘The New Moon.’” She picked up a sheet and read: “A wisp of beauty all alone / In a world as hard and gray as stone.”
I forced a smile. Two lines? That was it? I’d had a full solo at last year’s All State. Even as a freshman I’d sung a whole verse. I looked down at my hands. I should be grateful. After all, I was the only girl with a solo. Still, somehow this felt like a demotion.
We ran through the entire concert once. We sounded horrible, but that was one of the things I loved about chorus. In six weeks, we’d go from twenty-seven clashing, pitchy voices to one full, awesome sound.
Afterward, Pete gave me a ride home. “We suck,” he said as we pulled away from the school.
“Pretty much. Except for your solo. Dude, that song is perfect for you.”
“Thanks. Yours, too. Ms. J really knows what she’s doing. It’s like the whole song came together at that point.”
I shrugged. “I guess. Unless you blinked.”
“Come on. That song is proof that it’s not how many lines you have, it’s what you do with them. It sounded so dark and ominous with all our voices, and then to have you come in and lighten it up with those two lines … It was powerful.”
“Whatever.” I had to admit, they were cool lines. They were infused with an odd mixture of melancholy and hope, like so many of the funeral songs I performed. Still, I was a junior. After this year, I’d have only one other All State concert in my future. One more chance to make my mark.
“Think of it this way: You have more solo lines than Maria Lopez.”
I grinned. I hated to admit it, but that did make me feel better. I rolled down the window and stuck out my hand, pressing my palm against the rush of the cool March air. All my life, all I’d wanted to do was sing. I loved the way songs combined words with music to transform both into something different, something deeper and more powerful. Something that could make people smile, or cry, or feel nostalgic. Something that stuck in their heads and they could remember forever.
As Pete pulled into the funeral home parking lot, a familiar flash of green, purple and black caught my eye. A Grime bumper sticker? I wasn’t used to seeing those here. After all, most of my Dad’s clients were about fifty years older than the typical fan.
Whose car was that? What if it was Zed’s? My heart began to race. He could be inside right now, wrapping up some final details with my dad or maybe picking up something the band had left behind.
I thanked Pete for the ride, jumped out and darted up the funeral home steps. I paused. Dad wouldn’t want me walking around the funeral home like this, wearing jeans and a hoodie, but if I went up to the apartment to change, I might miss my chance. Whoever owned that car might leave before I got back. I dropped my backpack on the front porch and opened the door. This could be my second chance to see Zed, and I was determined to make the most of it. Please, please, please let him be here.
CHAPTER FOUR
The smell of lilies hit me right away. Ugh. I hated it when families went lily-crazy. They were gorgeous, but they stunk up the place. I’d once read that our sense of smell is tied more closely to our memories than any of the other five senses. The smell of a certain type of food or cologne can transport us immediately back to a moment from our past. Funerals gave people a chance to create one final memory of the person who died. Why would anyone screw that up with this sickening-sweet stench?
Dawn was on the phone. I could tell by her soft murmur that it was an at-need call, somebody who had just lost someone. She glanced up from the front desk and gave me a brief wave. Other than the soothing lilt of her voice and the gurgle of a small fountain bubbling near the entrance, the place was quiet.
I headed down the hall, passing the chapel. A sign on the door announced the service being held tonight for Mildred Jackson. Dad was nowhere to be seen. He was probably in the prep room, getting Mildred ready.
As I continued past the visitation room and the arrangements office toward the back of the building, I heard the muffled sound of my mother’s voice coming through her office door.
Who was in there with her? Was it Zed? Somehow I couldn’t imagine him coming here for grief counseling. Then again, even though Zed was two years younger than Mick, they were supposedly really close.
My hands began to sweat. What should I do? This was so unfair. This could be my big chance to meet him, but what if he came out in tears?
I sat down on a lavender velvet settee outside the office. If Zed was in there, I’d better think of something to say when he came out. Dad always taught me to simply say, “Sorry for your loss.” But that seemed so ordinary, so … forgettable. I needed something he would remember. Maybe a lyric from one of their songs? “He’ll never come back, but that don’t mean he’s gone,” the line on Mick’s vault. No, that would sound totally fan girl.
The voices inside the office stopped. I held my breath and listened. Was Zed crying? I crept up to the door and leaned my ear against it. My heart stopped as I heard my mother’s voice directly on the other side. “I’ll be right back with that paperwork.”
I took two quick steps backward as the door opened. Mom’s expression registered somewhere between startled and confused, but she recovered quickly. “Melanie, I’m so glad you’re here.” She moved aside and motioned me into the room. “I have someone I want you to meet. Or maybe I should say, someone who wants to meet you.”
What? Zed wanted to meet me? My heart raced. Why? What should I say? As my eyes adjusted to the soft lighting in the office, someone stood and turned toward me. Only it wasn’t Zed, it was Mick’s grandmother.
I froze. In an instant, I was back in the cemetery with her advancing toward me. The tightness in my chest and the ringing in my ears returned as if on cue.
“You remember Ruth Nolan.” Mom placed her hand on my arm and watched me warily. “We were just talking about the song you sang at the burial ceremony.”
Mrs. Nolan stepped forward, took my hand and held it gently in both of hers. If she noticed how clammy it was, she didn’t let on. “I wanted to thank you,” she said. Her voice cracked slightly and her eyes grew misty. “You have such a lovely voice, and ‘Amazing Grace’ is one of my favorite hymns. Michael always liked that one, too.”
“Michael?”
Mrs. Nolan cocked her head. “Yes. My grandson?”
“Oh, right.” Of course. Mick. The ringing grew louder. I was going to screw this up. Royally.
Mom led me to a chair, eased me down into it, and turned to go. “I’ll be right back,” she assured us, closing the door behind her.
“Did you know him?” Mrs. Nolan asked as she sat down next to me.
I gripped the arm of my chair. “Um, no. I mean, I knew who he was, of course, but I’d never met him.”
“Ah, well, he was a wonderful boy. I’ll bet you never knew this about him: He loved to garden.” This was surrea
l. Mrs. Nolan was acting as though we were two friends sipping iced lattes at Starbucks. At least it meant she was unaware of the freak-out session going on inside me.
I nodded slowly. “Garden? Really? That’s nice.” Not brilliant conversation, but it was all I could manage. If Mom didn’t take too long, maybe I’d get through this without doing too much damage.
“Yes,” Mrs. Nolan answered. “Garden. Ever since he was a little boy. It started out as a fascination with the snails that invaded my pumpkin patch one year, but eventually, Michael really took to it. For eight years in a row he entered the county fair for the largest squash. Won lots of red and yellow ribbons, and finally took blue a few years ago.” She beamed at the memory.
I’d never even realized Fairfax had county fairs. I always thought those were a Midwestern thing. I tried to imagine Mick, with all his tattoos and piercings, listening to gospel hymns and weeding gardens and accepting a blue ribbon for Biggest Squash.
“Of course, he’d gotten into some trouble in the last couple of years.” Mrs. Nolan continued, her voice falling to a near whisper. “You probably know all about that. Those horrible tabloids. I don’t understand why they couldn’t leave him alone. He was a kid. He needed help.”
Mick’s trips in and out of rehab were well documented when “Medium Well” hit the charts. The press hadn’t run anything recently, but that must have been because The Grime had fallen off their radar, not because Mick was clean.
Mrs. Nolan sat silently. I had the feeling she wanted me to say something, but what? I was horrible at this, nothing like Mom or Dad. At least my breathing had returned to normal, and the ringing in my ears was so faint I barely noticed it now. I loosened my grip on the arms of the chair.
The Funeral Singer Page 2