Say Goodnight, Gracie

by Julie Reece Deaver

  “I guess we do. Sometimes.”

  When we got home, I took off Jimmy’s jacket, folded it, and put it into the garbage can.

  “You don’t have to, you know, Morgan,” my father said. “That’s Jimmy’s jacket, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But it reminds me of last night . . . of the accident. . . . I don’t know. I just think it would be kind of morbid to hang on to it.” And I dropped the lid onto the can.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. Long after my parents were in bed, I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling and thought: Well, he’s dead. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jimmy, thrown a hundred feet from his car. Jimmy, who died of massive head injuries. Jimmy, who never even knew my aunt was standing right there beside him in the emergency room holding his hand.

  I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat there for a few minutes, listening to my heart pound. I wasn’t stupid—I knew Jimmy was dead—but I felt like I had to talk to him. I did what I thought was the next-best thing: I went out by the garage and pulled Jimmy’s jacket out of the garbage can. When I got upstairs, I didn’t even wait for it to thaw out. I put it on, zipped it up, and got back into bed.

  In the morning I would roll it up and hide it under my mattress. For now it was all right: It was like having Jimmy’s arms wrapped around me.

  For now, that was enough.

  17

  My mother bought me a dark dress for the funeral. I didn’t try it on until right before we left for the service, which was when I discovered it was way too big for me.

  “Damn,” my mother said. “I knew I should have gotten a smaller size.”

  “I’ll have my coat on,” I said. “No one will see it.”

  “I wish you’d eat something before we leave. . . . God, I still can’t believe he’s gone—”

  “He’s not gone,” I said. “Why do people always say that? Jimmy’s not gone. He’s dead.”

  My mother looked at me. “Are you all right? I know how awful this is for you.”

  “What day is it? Monday or Tuesday?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “That play Jimmy gave me tickets for,” I said. “It’s tonight.”

  “Morgan, you’re not thinking of going into the city tonight—”

  “No,” I said. “No, of course not.” But I couldn’t stop thinking about the play, and about two seats in the tenth row at the Goodman that would be empty that night.

  I was okay for a while. I was okay during the ride downtown. It really was a beautiful day, clear and cold: a day for sledding or skating, not for burying my best and only friend. When we got downtown, we parked on one of the streets next to the church. We parked right next to my aunt’s car.

  “Did I tell you?” I said. “She’s smoking again.”

  “Who is?” my father asked.

  “Aunt Lo. She started smoking again.”

  “Well,” he said. “This is a hard time for all of us.”

  “But she’s a doctor. She should know better.”

  “Being a doctor doesn’t make death easier to cope with.”

  I hadn’t thought of it like that. To me, I was the only one affected by Jimmy’s death, but as we walked to the church, I saw the others: his first dance teacher, actors who had worked with him in those summer musicals he did. I saw his grandparents and parents. Mrs. Woolf looked absolutely destroyed.

  “I can’t go in,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?” my mother asked.

  “I’m going back to the car.”

  “Oh . . . Morgan.”

  “Jimmy wasn’t religious, and neither am I.”

  “It would mean something to Enid, your being there.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just—I don’t feel very good.” I turned around and cut across the snowy yard to the street. I was cold and sweating, and with each step I took, my vision seemed to darken and narrow. If Jimmy had been by my side, he would have whispered something funny and inappropriate about funerals. Jimmy was the person who helped me through the rough spots. Without him who would I go through life laughing with?

  The car door was locked. I figured my options: stay out in the cold or go inside to the funeral. I chose the cold.

  “This is wonderful skating weather,” I heard my father say. “When I was your age, your aunt and I spent the entire winter skating down at Lake Ellyn. She used to be quite an ice skater—did you know that?”

  I looked at the church. “I remember coming here with Jimmy once,” I said. “For Sunday school. They told us Bible stories and we had crackers and juice.”

  I felt his hand touch mine. “Morgan . . .”

  I looked at him. “I had to get out of there. I saw Mrs. Woolf and I couldn’t go in.”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Here.” He handed me the car keys. “We’ll get a ride home with Loey.”

  “I thought you came out here to talk me into going to the funeral.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” my father said. “Be careful, okay? The streets are a little icy.”

  “I know it’s wrong to ditch Jimmy’s funeral. . . . I know I’m letting Mrs. Woolf down—”

  My father gave my hand a squeeze. “Enid’s not the one you’re letting down, kiddo.”

  I didn’t want to hear him. I got in and started the car. I knew he meant I was letting myself down, but how was going to the funeral going to help me? Jimmy was dead, whether I went to the funeral or not.

  18

  I went back to school the next Monday. I got up early that morning, grabbed a cup of coffee, went upstairs to wind my hair on rollers. My mother came into the bathroom while I was putting on my makeup.

  “How long have you been up?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. A little while.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt you to take a few more days to catch up on your rest; I know you haven’t been sleeping well—”

  “I want to go back,” I said. “I just . . . I feel like if I can just get back into a routine, then maybe I’ll start feeling normal again.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you going over to Mrs. Woolf’s today?”

  “I’m taking her down to a meeting at the church.”

  “A meeting? What kind of meeting?”

  “It’s a support group for parents who’ve lost a child.”

  “Mrs. Woolf didn’t lose Jimmy,” I said. “He didn’t disappear. He died.”

  “It seems less painful to say it the other way.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But it means the same thing.”

  All the colors had drained from the earth. I walked alone to school for the first time ever, and one of the first things I saw when I walked into the building was the vice principal cleaning out Jimmy’s locker, tossing his books and things into a green Hefty bag.

  “Those things,” I said. “You’re not throwing those things out, are you?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” the vice principal said. “But we need this locker. A lot of the freshmen are sharing lockers, and this student’s not coming back—”

  “But his things,” I said. “What are you going to do with his things?”

  “Send them to his new school, I guess.”

  “His new school . . .”

  “He was transferred to a new school over the holidays.”

  “He was killed,” I said. “There was a car accident over the holidays and he was killed.”

  “Are you sure?” He took a slip of paper from his pocket and looked at it. “James Woolf?”

  “Yes. Jimmy Woolf. He was killed.”

  “You were a friend of his?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well,” he said. “I didn’t know about the accident. I am sorry.”

  “Hey,” Jody whispered at the beginning of English. “Look. Mrs. Klein got her hair cut. It makes her look about a hundred years younger, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  �
��I think she had a tint job, too.” She looked over at me. “Oh . . . hey, Morgan . . . I heard about Jimmy. . . . It’s really awful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It really is awful.”

  “Were you—you weren’t in the accident too, were you?”

  I cleared my throat. “No. It happened after he dropped me off at my acting workshop. He dropped me off, and I guess . . . I guess it happened not too long after that.”

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to—”

  “I know. It’s okay. I know.” I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. Inside, I could feel the adrenaline kick in; my heart started pounding. Pounding hard. I didn’t understand what was happening to me.

  “Morgan,” I heard Mrs. Klein say, “Morgan, are you all right? You don’t look—”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I don’t feel very good.” I stood up and walked out of class. Just like that. It was like my body had forgotten how to breathe. I knew my heart couldn’t forget how to beat, but couldn’t it stop? Jimmy’s had. I ran down the hall to the washroom and splashed cold water on my face. It didn’t help any: I actually thought I was dying.

  “Hey,” I heard Jody say. “Hey, are you all right?”

  “No,” I said. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

  “You’re too young to have a heart attack.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Do you want me to get the nurse?”

  “She’s not here on Mondays.”

  “Here,” Jody said. She opened the door to one of the stalls. “I know it’s not a chair or a couch, but at least it’s a place to sit down.” I went in and sat down on the john. My heart wasn’t pounding as hard. “You know, the nurse never does anything anyway,” Jody said. “I had this terrible headache once, and she couldn’t even give me aspirin. It’s against the law or something.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I never should have asked you about it. I’m really sorry.”

  I took a deep breath. “No, it’s okay.”

  “I know how close you and Jimmy were; I used to see you guys walking around the halls together, talking and laughing.”

  I looked up at her.

  “I guess you must really miss him,” Jody said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I really do.”

  After school I went back to Mrs. Klein’s class to retrieve my books. They were stacked neatly on a corner of her desk.

  “Are you feeling all right now?” she asked.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Jody mentioned about the boy who died—he was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sure you’re going through a very rough time right now. I want you to know how sorry I am.”

  Everyone extending their sympathies to me made me feel like I was a widow or something, and I guess in a way I was. I went to my locker and got out my jacket and boots and put them on by the Circle Drive entrance. I kept glancing down the hill at the traffic. In the back of my head I was waiting for Jimmy’s red MG to drive up the hill and pull around by the front door the way it always did, and when I realized what I was doing, I punished myself by walking all the way home in the cold with my jacket flapping open.

  “Are you crazy?” my mother said when I came up the walk. “Do you want to catch pneumonia?”

  “No, I don’t want to catch pneumonia, and yes, maybe I’m crazy.”

  “Morgan—don’t . . .”

  “How did Mrs. Woolf do at her meeting?”

  “Well, she said it helps . . . being with other people who’ve been through the same thing. . . . How was school?”

  “I don’t know.” She pushed the door wide open for me, and I ducked inside, out of the cold. “Jimmy and I didn’t have a single class together, but we saw each other during the day: between classes . . . at lunch . . . and he always brought me home after school.”

  “I know,” my mother said. “I looked out the window a few minutes ago; I half expected to see the two of you pull up in his MG.”

  I took off my jacket and shook the snow off it. “The night Jimmy was killed. What time did it happen? The accident, I mean.”

  “Why?”

  “I just . . . I need to know. What time did it happen, exactly?”

  “Uh . . . I think the police said it happened about four thirty. There were people who saw it—they called an ambulance and tried to help.”

  “Jimmy dropped me off right at four thirty,” I said. “God! A minute or two later and—” I looked at my mother. “It could have been me, too. It almost was. It could have been me.”

  “What happened to Jimmy was tragic,” my mother said. She put her hands on my shoulders and looked at me. “But I’m not sorry he dropped you off when he did.”

  My heart skipped a couple of beats. I sat down on the stairs and tried to stay calm. My mother sat down beside me and put her arm around me.

  “My God, you’re shaking,” she said. “Listen to me: It was an accident. A terrible, random accident.”

  I couldn’t talk. I sat there with my mother for a long time. I knew what she had said was true: Jimmy’s death was a random event; but that didn’t quiet my heart. Why Jimmy?

  Why not me?

  19

  My father was waiting for me out on Circle Drive the next day after school. I knew he was there even before I saw him, because I could hear one of his favorite Bach concertos blaring from the car’s tape deck. The only classical music in a sea of acid rock.

  He smiled when he saw me and opened the door. “Hop in,” he said.

  I got in and threw my books onto the backseat. “How come you’re here?” I asked.

  “Do I need a reason to pick up my favorite daughter?”

  “I have to be your favorite daughter. I’m your only daughter.”

  “A technicality. Don’t forget your seat belt.” I buckled my seat belt, and my father began easing the car down the icy hill and into the traffic on Crescent. “You got a call from that guy out at Pheasant Run this afternoon,” my father said. “What’s-his-name.”

  “Kubelsky. Ben Kubelsky.”

  “Right. He’s holding an audition in about an hour for another children’s play, and he wants you to read for him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you want to do it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. Yeah.”

  “I’ll run you out there.”

  “I don’t know how long it’ll take. You could miss a whole afternoon of painting.”

  “What makes you think I’m painting today?”

  “Look at your jeans!” My father’s jeans were covered with an entire spectrum of oil paint, a sure sign he was in the middle of a painting.

  He looked down at himself and laughed. “Okay. Maybe you should drop me off at home. I’m not dressed to go wandering around a fancy place like Pheasant Run.”

  “What are you working on now?”

  “The gallery wants me to finish my front-porch series for the opening next week.”

  “I like your front porches, but I think I like your paintings of people the best.”

  “Yeah . . . you know something? One of these days I’m going to do a group portrait of your mother, your aunt, and you. I’m going to call it The Women Who Run My Life.”

  “Very funny!”

  “Know what?” my father said. “It’s nice to see you smile.”

  He reached over and squeezed my hand.

  I dropped my father at home and drove on to Pheasant Run. I found Ben in the empty theater, setting up folding chairs around a couple of tables that had been pushed together.

  “Morgan, hi,” he said. “Right on time. Why don’t you have a seat; the rest of the gang should be here in a few minutes.”

  I sat down. I picked up a script and looked through it. “What’s the play?”

  “The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg,” Ben said. “Not exactly Shakespeare, is it? Oh, Morgan . . . before everyone else gets here . . . I want to talk to you abo
ut something.” He sat down across from me. “I almost didn’t call you about the audition. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about trying out for a play Jimmy was supposed to be in—”

  “Oh,” I said. “No . . . I want to do it.”

  “You know, I heard about it on the radio,” Ben said. “About Jimmy. Only I didn’t think it was the same James Woolf. Hell, you hear about traffic fatalities all the time, don’t you? You never think it’s going to happen to someone you know. It was a drunk driver, wasn’t it?”

  I flipped through page after page of the script. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. It was a drunk driver.”

  “God, when I think about the career that boy had ahead of him . . .”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “I know.”

  About thirty people finally showed up for the audition. Ben called two or three at a time to read for him; everyone else studied their scripts or had coffee or just got together in small groups to talk. I felt a little out of place. Besides Ben, the only other person I knew there was Robin-the-toothpick, and I just couldn’t bring myself to go over to her and hear yet another “I’m sorry he’s dead” speech. I ended up sitting off to the side of the stage in a quiet corner. I opened the script and tried to shut out everything and concentrate on what I was reading.

  “Robin!” I heard someone call. I looked up. This young guy jumped up onstage and sat down next to Robin. He had a script in his hand. “What part are you reading for?”

  “The crying princess.”

  “I’d like to try out for the male lead, but I know that guy’ll get it; he always does.”

  “What guy?”

  “The dancer . . . you know, the one who does all the musicals . . . Jimmy something.”

  “God, you didn’t hear about that?”

  “About what?”

  “He was killed right after Christmas.”

  “Shit, are you kidding?”

  “No, I’m not kidding.”

  “You sure we’re talking about the same guy? Jimmy something, right? That tall guy who does all the musicals?”

  “Yeah, Jimmy Woolf.”

  “Jesus, what happened?”

  “Killed by a drunk driver.”

  “Christ . . . maybe I have a chance at the lead after all.”