The Lighter Side of Life and Death

by C. K. Kelly Martin

  The idea that my relationship with Colette hinges on Brianna’s ability to keep a secret eclipses both of them but I can still feel Ari questions burning a hole in my brain. It sounds like Colette’s friend Leslie knows him fairly well (enough to barrel downstairs to say hello when she thought I was him) and you don’t leave a prescription in just anyone’s bathroom. How long have they been hooking up and is it still happening?

  I might be kidding myself if I think I can force myself to stop caring about what they are to each other. The further I get into this, the more it seems to matter. I cringe just thinking Ari’s name. The situation with Colette is complicated enough without him and I have to wonder, why am I doing this to myself when there are countless other hot girls in Glenashton? I have at least three untried phone numbers crumpled up in various pockets.

  Is it possible that I could be imagining the whole Colette Fournier addiction? That I just like the idea of being a junkie? It’s a comforting thought, that I’m the root of all this drama. I don’t have a problem with being the center of my own universe. The opposite is what scares me.

  So I’ve got the TV booming and my mind racing and I’m doing what I can to convince myself that at the core I’m okay with everything but the noise is too much, even for me. I turn down the volume and then the phone rings, as if to make up for it. Chris Cipolla talks into my ear and his voice sounds like part of my past, in the best, most uncomplicated way.

  “You still interested in working at JB?” Chris wants to know. “Letitia quit this morning. She’s moving to Montreal with her boyfriend. Anyway, there’s a spot open and Darlene wants to talk to you around five if you still want the job.” Darlene is his manager. Chris says she’s an okay boss, as long as you have a good attitude and no visible tattoos or piercings, which she apparently considers unhygienic.

  “I still want the job,” I confirm. “I’ll be there at five.” It looks like money’s one issue I can strike from my list. Now if there was only a way I could keep Brianna quiet and get Colette to ditch Ari, I’d really be on to something. “Thanks.”

  Chris wishes me luck and hangs up and I turn off the TV and head upstairs to get ready for my interview with Darlene. This battle’s still raging in my mind, asking me what I really want for myself, but in the meantime I’m changing my clothes and remembering that night I spent fondling Colette’s Lunatic Fringe T-shirt. I can’t stop thinking about her. Ari’s invisible presence in her life and the headache our secret status has become almost make me wish I could, but it’s impossible. I can conjure exactly how Colette tastes anytime I want. Or the way she coughs when she comes or her special sleepy smile in the middle of the night, one hand melting into my chest. How do you purge those details from your mind when they’re swimming along with you every second of the day?

  I don’t have time to work it all out now. I down a glass of water fresh out of the kitchen tap, check the time and calculate how long it will take me to walk down to JB. The way I figure it I have another twenty minutes to spare. All of a sudden I glimpse a clump of black fur out of the corner of my eye. I spin around and stare at Billy curled up under the kitchen table. He looks peaceful but I don’t need another claw tearing through my hand to convince me otherwise. I got the message last time. The thing is, he’s not moving.

  I don’t mean that he’s quiet or still. I mean he’s completely motionless. He’s fourteen years old, for God’s sake; he could be dead. I step tentatively towards the table, expecting him to scurry away or screech out a sinister meow.

  Billy stays coiled up, as passive as I’ve ever seen him. I get down on my knees and stretch out my arm but I know he’s gone before I touch him. My fingers stroke his fur for the first time. I’ve never touched anything dead before but I don’t feel sad. I don’t feel anything much about it.

  The big problem here is that I’m running out of time. I can’t leave him as he is and let Nina and the kids discover him later but I don’t have time to bury him in the backyard. What else do you do with dead animals?

  I phone the local humane society and the answering machine picks up on the third ring. The message quotes an emergency number but Billy’s emergency is over with. I just need to find out how to clean up the mess, hopefully in under ten minutes. My next call’s to Jamie, because he used to have a dog, and he tells me that Nina’s vet will dispose of the remains. Of course, I don’t know who Nina’s vet is and this isn’t the kind of news I want to break over the phone.

  In the end I pick up Billy, lay him in one of Nina’s old moving boxes and carry his makeshift coffin into the garage. Then I call my dad at work and explain about my interview and finding Billy dead under the kitchen table. Dad’s subdued over the phone. “Brianna loves that cat,” he says. “She’ll be so upset.”

  “I know.” A brief spasm of sympathy grips me. “I have to go. I’ll be late for my interview.”

  “You go,” Dad tells me. “I’ll get in touch with Nina and let her know what happened.”

  “Okay.” There goes my sympathy button again. You’d think I slaughtered the damn cat. Haven’t I done the best I can here? “I’ll see you later.”

  “Good luck with the interview,” Dad tells me.

  “Thanks.” Somehow, even though I know it’s stupid, I can’t shake the feeling that I don’t deserve it.

  twenty

  Billy’s crossed my path enough times to give me permanent bad luck but the interview unfolds textbook perfect. After about two minutes I can tell Darlene likes me and after another twenty we’re discussing a training schedule. Chris gives me a thumbs-up from the counter when I leave. I smile back and celebrate by buying homemade gelato from the ice cream place across the street.

  Colette must be late leaving work because I bump into her out on the sidewalk, coffee in her right hand. Between Billy dying and my impromptu interview the possibility of running into her didn’t occur to me. There’s so much to talk about that I don’t know what to say first.

  “Mason,” she says, her eyes scanning cautiously around before holding on mine. “How’re you today?” It’s a weird way to greet someone you slept with the night before. I want to fling my arms around her, bury my fingers in her hair and smell her skin.

  “Not bad.” I smile despite her lukewarm reaction to running into me in the street. I can’t help but be happy to see her, especially after our last couple of nights together. “I just landed a job at The Java Bean. I’ll be serving your coffee from now on.”

  It’s meant to be good news but Colette shields her eyes from the sun and pulls her head abruptly back. “I didn’t know you were looking for a job,” she says sharply.

  “It’s almost summer,” I remind her, smile dying on my lips. She has such a capacity to make me feel like shit and I don’t even think she realizes it. I was going to call her later and ask about dropping by her place tomorrow night. I need to warn her about Brianna but before that I want to explain how amazing our last few nights together have been. It’s nothing I haven’t said before but the next time I say it needs to be different. I have to confess. I’m not just having a good time with her; it means more than that.

  If I was smart I’d keep both of the above a secret. I guess I don’t know how to feel the way I do about Colette and be smart about it. Something inside me’s sure she deserves the truth, even if she doesn’t want to hear it.

  “We need to talk,” I tell her. “Can I call you later?” I’m not about to suggest going back to her place now. She was unhappy enough with my job offer.

  “Leslie’s coming over tonight,” she says. “We’re planning a road trip to Florida next month and we’re trying to work out the details.” She never mentioned the trip before. Maybe that’s something else Ari was first to hear. My confidence level’s plummeted in the last sixty seconds. I’m right about those days in between. Just because Colette and I slept together doesn’t mean Ari’s out of the picture. “We can talk tomorrow.” She ventures a restrained smile. “Call me around nine?”

&nbs
p; “Sure.” I comb my fingers swiftly through my hair. It’s starting to get long at the back. Last night she couldn’t stop playing with it. “You know this job doesn’t have anything to do with you. It was the summer plan all along.”

  Colette clasps her hands in front of her and stands ballerina straight. Her legs are bare under a floral skirt that comes down well past her knees and she’s wearing this purple beaded bracelet thing on her wrist. I picture the silky thong she’s wearing under all those flowers. If we were down in her apartment I could hike up her skirt and slide my fingers inside the silk. We could do it against the wall, still wearing our clothes.

  Colette blinks in slow motion as she stares at me. A hint of her perfume wafts through the air between us and it occurs to me that this is the closest I’m going to get to her today. “It’s fine, Mason,” she says. “Don’t worry.”

  But she does worry me. All that stuff about the other phone numbers is bullshit. I don’t want to call any other girls.

  “I should go,” she says hastily. “Congratulations on the new job.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Suddenly I don’t give a shit about JB. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” It’s official; I’m a hardcore junkie. I want to kiss her so much that every cell in my body is straining towards hers, singing like an army of crickets.

  “Terrific,” she says, charging off towards the parking lot.

  I swallow a spoonful of melting gelato and watch her go. This could be the beginning of the end and I’m powerless to do anything about it. Maybe I should take my chances with Brianna after all. Just because she’s bitchy doesn’t mean she can’t keep a secret. The two things are completely unrelated.

  I consider that on the way home but when I walk through the front door my thoughts skid back to Billy in the garage. Dad and Burke are in the kitchen toasting cheese sandwiches and I stand beside Burke and say, “I’m really sorry about your cat.”

  Burke stares silently up at me and Dad says, “Nina and Brianna took it to the vet.”

  “Him,” I correct.

  “Of course.” Dad flips the sandwiches over with a spatula. “Him. Anyway, they’re going to grab something on the way home, so we thought we’d have a boys’ dinner tonight.” He points at me with the spatula. “Which includes you, of course. Can I interest you in a cheese sandwich?”

  “I’m more in a tuna melt mood,” I say, pulling out a can. “Anyone else?”

  “Sure,” Dad says, trying to sound cheerful. “I can put away two sandwiches.”

  I glance automatically down at Burke, who is warily eyeing the tuna. “Do you like tuna fish, Burke?”

  “Sometimes,” he says cautiously. “Can I see it?” I open the can and hold it under his chin. He peeks inside and takes a huge sniff, like he’s trying to clear his sinuses.

  “What’s the verdict?” I ask, relieved that he doesn’t seem too bad off and that the hard job of telling him about Billy’s been handled by someone else.

  Burke shakes his head and pulls at his shorts. “It looks weird and lumpy,” he announces.

  I hold it under my own nose and inhale, trying to understand what he finds objectionable. This would’ve been Billy’s favorite meal. It’s funny to think we had anything in common, but honestly, I could eat tuna just about any minute of the day, even first thing in the morning.

  “That’s okay, Burke,” Dad says, raising his fist to his mouth to cover his lingering cough. “You can just have the cheese.”

  So we fry up a bunch of sandwiches and eat them at the kitchen table with a side of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips. Burke finishes his sandwich first. He sits there swinging his legs under the chair and staring hungrily at my tuna melt. “Do you wanna try?” I ask. “You can have some of mine.”

  “Okay,” Burke says.

  I pass him my sandwich and he takes an ant-sized bite and chews thoughtfully. Then he tears off a second, humongous chunk with his front teeth and breaks into a grin. “I like it,” he declares.

  “Have it,” I tell him. “I can make another one.” The frying pan’s still on the stove and I toss on another sandwich and tell the two of them about my new job at JB. Dad congratulates me and I say thanks and that if I seem jumpy from now on it’s due to caffeine overconsumption.

  In the middle of that Nina and Brianna come home. Brianna’s in flip-flops and she shuffles into the kitchen with raccoon eyes, gaping at our sandwiches.

  “I’m sorry about Billy,” I say gently.

  Nina drapes one arm around Brianna, squeezing her shoulder. “We had him a long time,” she says. “We were lucky.”

  I stare at the new white skin on the back of my hand and silently disagree. A pit bull would’ve been friendlier.

  “You put him in that box,” Brianna says, looking over at me.

  At first I don’t know what she’s getting at. “He was under the table,” I explain. “He was already gone when I got here.”

  “You could’ve stayed with him,” she argues. “He’s not a piece of garbage to put in your garage.” This morning’s shock of blue eye shadow is gone and she rubs her messy black-lined eyes and talks into her fist. “Just because he’s not yours doesn’t mean he doesn’t matter.”

  “I know that.” I’ve never seen her like this. She’s taking Billy’s death even harder than I expected, but what surprises me most is that somehow she’s turned this into my fault. “I had an interview. Otherwise I would’ve stayed. I don’t know who your vet is. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You did the right thing,” Nina assures me. “She’s just upset.” Nina strokes Brianna’s hair and kisses her head and for the briefest second there I actually miss my mother. Not even my mother but the idea of a mother.

  “An interview with Colette,” Brianna says mockingly. “That kind of interview?”

  My shoulders twitch as I glare at her, hands shaking with anger. My secret didn’t last a day. She shot me down the first chance she got.

  Dad and Nina swap perplexed looks, but Brianna’s eyes stay fixed on mine. “That’s enough, Brianna,” Nina commands. “This isn’t Mason’s fault. What happened to Billy is no excuse for you to act like this.”

  “I’m not acting like anything.” Brianna’s red-rimmed eyes glower at me. “Do you think he would’ve done that if it was his cat?”

  “You just can’t keep your mouth shut, can you?” I say bitterly, my mouth gritty.

  “Keep my mouth shut about what exactly?” She pokes her bottom lip out at me and I can’t believe how much I can hate someone I hardly know.

  “Brianna, I could’ve wrapped your frigging cat in a burial shroud—it wouldn’t make any difference to you.” The cat’s just an easy excuse. She never intended to keep her mouth shut. Taking a sledgehammer to my gut is all in a day’s work. “You’re just one fucked-up girl. I’ve tried to be nice to you, you know? Did you even notice that?” I don’t give her a chance to answer. “Then the second I need you to do one thing for me you throw it back in my face like that.” I snap my fingers and frown down at my sizzling tuna melt. I shove it with the spatula and snap, “And it’s not going to bring your cat back either. You’re doing it for nothing.” Everyone’s gawking at me, clueless and shocked, and I turn my back to them and study my sandwich, my jaw vibrating and my blood humming under my skin.

  “This isn’t one of your finer moments, Mason,” Dad says from across the kitchen. And here I was expecting thunderous applause. Thank you, Dad. Thanks, audience. It’s been a blast. “Would you just pick up that sandwich and go, please?”

  “Where?” I say numbly.

  “How about upstairs?” His face is white and his voice is coated in sarcasm. I’ve embarrassed him in front of his new family.

  I leave the sandwich sizzling in the pan and brush by Brianna. She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t need to. She’s done enough damage for one day.

  Dad comes up to talk to me thirty minutes later. He sits on the edge of my bed and says, “I don’t ever want to hear you talk to Brianna
like that again—no matter what comes out of her mouth. Do you understand?” I fold my arms silently in front of me, anger simmering just below the surface, and listen to him say, “I thought we cleared this up last time. What happened?”

  “You saw what happened. She just blamed me for Billy dying. She twists everything around and treats people like shit. I’m not going to apologize for anything. If she can’t act like a normal human being with me she can’t expect me to act like one with her.”

  “I know she has issues,” Dad concedes. “And Nina’s talked to her about that—and will speak to her about it again—but I can’t have you escalating the problems, Mason. You know how she feels about that cat. Have some empathy.” I don’t give a shit about his analysis. I’m waiting, I’m just waiting for him to say Colette’s name. Brianna must’ve told him and Nina the rest of the story by now. I’m doomed. “I’d like you to come downstairs with me and talk to her.”

  “I’m not apologizing,” I maintain. I’ll spontaneously combust if we don’t get to this in another two seconds; I’ve had enough. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Colette?” Her name on my lips makes me shiver.

  “I don’t know who that is.” Dad’s eyes bear down on me. “Is it supposed to be a secret?”

  “It was.” He honestly doesn’t know. I can tell by the way he’s looking at me. “Andrea’s friend from the shower, Colette Fournier.”

  “What about her?” he asks.

  I crunch my fingers into fists. “Do you remember her?” I must be feeling destructive. There’s no other explanation.

  “Sure,” Dad says, frowning. “I remember her.”

  “We’ve been seeing each other.” I stare him in the face, waiting for a reaction.