by Jen Violi
Text copyright © 2011 by Jen Violi
All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.
ISBN 978-1-4231-5313-9
Table of Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Acknowledgments
To my father, Alfred D. Violi,
with gratitude and love.
This is for you.
prologue
I’m mixing a can of tomato soup with a can of two percent milk for dinner that no one will eat. But I have to do something, so I make soup. Linnie’s with Uncle Lou and Aunt Irene, eating the greasiest goddamn potato chips Uncle Lou said he could find. B is at a party, celebrating the end of summer with his buddies before they all leave for college. And I’m here with Mom and what’s left of Dad. I lose myself in the rhythm of stirring, and the soup almost bubbles over before I turn it off and go to get Mom.
Thin, in her white cotton pants and sweater, Mom looks like a ghost standing beside the hospital bed, a clinical invasion into my parents’ peach-and-cream-colored room.
Dad’s eyes flutter, his face two shades paler than its usual rich olive tone.
“I think he’s going, sweetie,” Mom says, so calmly that I ask, “Where?” It sounds so matter-of-fact, like he might be going to the store or out for ice cream or to meet Uncle Lou at the Kozy Korner.
As soon as I ask, I understand, and shut my mouth. Dad’s breathing gets rough, like he’s snoring, and I cross my fingers, willing him to open his eyes and laugh and say, “Fooled ya, pretty girl.”
Mom says, “Just let it happen.” And, “Say good-bye to your father.”
I can’t say anything out loud, but I speak clearly in my mind. Good-bye. I love you. Don’t go. Please, I’ll do anything, but don’t go.
Mom holds Dad’s hand, and I hold hers. I rest my hand on the upper part of Dad’s arm, close to his shoulder. “Bye.”
one
Lila Cardoza is dead and wearing my earrings. Not mine, exactly, but the same ones B’s girlfriend, Gwen, got for me three months ago at Christmas. Silver zigzags with little silver balls at the tips. I realize I was never this close to Lila when she was alive. We didn’t have any classes together, and the only interaction I can remember is handing her toilet paper under the stall in the third-floor girls’ bathroom, but even then we weren’t face-to-face.
We don’t usually start the school day at Brighton Brothers Funeral Home, and I can see the dazed look on my classmates’ faces, some of them crying (Becky) and some fidgeting (Patty), like they’d rather be anywhere else but here. It’s not normal for a seventeen-year-old to drop dead on the basketball court, and I’m pretty sure it’s even less normal for me to feel so comfortable near her coffin and corpse.
I haven’t been to Brighton Brothers since Dad’s funeral, and standing just outside the doors this morning in the cool March air, I was nervous. Now that I’m inside, I’m surprised to find it feels almost like home. Or at least how home used to feel, before Dad got sick and died.
Dad was in Viewing Room Two, but Lila’s in Viewing Room One, and there are so many flower arrangements that I tripped over tulips on the way in. Lila was going to graduate with the rest of us in a few months and had gotten a basketball scholarship, basically a full ride to some school in New Jersey. Until she had a heart attack in the middle of practice in Dayton, Ohio’s Woodmont High School gym.
Lila looks almost like Sleeping Beauty—except that she’s wearing her Woodmont Warriors jersey with the shimmery gold shield, and not a princess dress—and someone has put eyeliner and pale eye shadow over her closed lids.
Becky’s standing so close to me that I feel her shudder. Becky Bell and I have known each other since grade school. We don’t ever have much to talk about, but she’s just about the nicest person I’ve ever met, which is as good a reason as any, I guess, to be friends with someone. She whispers, “This is creepy.”
I nod like I’m agreeing, even though I’m not.
“Yeah, can we get out of here?” Patty Turner asks.
Becky’s dating Patty’s twin brother, Jim, so unfortunately that means Patty sits with us at lunch. Jim is as nice and easygoing as Becky, but I call Patty the Evil Twin in my head because I think Jim got all of the friendly genes.
Patty clicks her gum. “I don’t do funerals.”
I want to tell Patty that she’s this close to getting one of her own if she doesn’t shut up, but instead I tune her out and look at Lila, tranquil in her coffin.
At Dad’s wake three and a half years ago, the summer before I started high school, he was the only one I wanted to be near. Everyone else talked too much and hurt my ears, but Dad was stationary and silent.
My heart broke when he died, split in half and fell down into my stomach or somewhere deep and muddy, and I’m still not sure where it is now. I hear it beating sometimes in my ears, or feel its fast pulse in my neck, like I do now; but in my chest, where it should be, it mostly just feels empty.
After the funeral, I cried on our old red couch in the basement until I thought I might drown. I imagined my tears filling up the basement, and me floating away on a thick seat cushion to somewhere that didn’t hurt so much. I sat there for most of that Saturday until it got dark and I had no idea what time it was. Once it got dark, my brother B came and sat next to me, his legs crossed and folded underneath him. I think he was hoping for the same thing, but nothing happened while we sat there.
All freshman year at school, I couldn’t stand the noise—lockers closing and volleyballs bouncing on the gym floor and everyone talking about some dumb game they all had gone to. I would go inside myself and imagine sitting in the small empty place in my chest, watching everyone, with all the noise around me. And I’d imagine Dad lying still in that white coffin, his skin cold. Everything on the outside seemed to be there—his big Roman nose I still worry mine might grow into, his thin lips, the long eyelashes Mom always said she was jealous of—but frozen.
I wondered if he had gotten still on the inside, like me. I wondered where he was, and if it was heaven, if there were pearly gates or if they were actually made out of something else, like cubic zirconia. Or if it could be like Hubcap Heaven on Route 70, which I think would be a real disappointment.
From inside, I could see people staring at me, almost always not directly, and often when they thought I wasn’t looking. I guess like I’m doing now, watching Matt Capinski, one of the biggest jerks in school, squirm just outside Viewing Room One—hands in pockets, hands out of pockets, hands folded, hand cracking knuckles on other hand—in the corner. Or Liz Werner, the new girl with the coppery hair, by the stand with the visitors’ book and the little container of holy cards, hugging Mrs. Cardoza, although I’m pretty sure they just met.
I fit in better now because I’ve learned how to talk a little more and how to act like I’m happy. I’ve learned how to make noise so that I
can ignore the quiet place. But it’s like a magnet. It pulls me back in, and sometimes it does make me feel better. It’s not like the questions go away. I still wonder where Dad is now, and if I’ll ever stop hurting. I still wonder why I am the one who has to live without a father. But in my inside place, all the questions can just float around without being answered. And floating with them, somehow that’s been the only spot I feel at home. Until now.
“This is where your dad was,” Becky says, like she just discovered something. Junior funeral sleuth, Becky Bell.
What could be the right thing to say to that? Yep, you got me. Boy, I thought I was so undercover, but you must be some eagle eye. Here I was trying to pretend I was some other normal person like you, vice president of the student council and whose dad is vice president of some company with initials I can never remember. Or like Patty, who plays volleyball and who always has a boyfriend, even if it’s a different one every three months, and whose dad works in advertising. But I’m not her or you. I’m me. I’m the girl without a club and without a dad, so even though I haven’t actually forgotten, thanks for the reminder. Should I wear a name tag?
“Do you know what we do, Donna?” Becky’s eyes are kind, and her voice shakes. I’m not mad at her, and I do know what to do.
“Go up to the casket and say a prayer.” I make myself smile at her. “I’m going to get a drink of water.”
In the hallway by the water fountain and next to the long container of cone-shaped paper cups, a tall, tan man in a dark suit leans against the wall. He gives me a little smile, and I notice he’s wearing hiking boots.
“Nice outfit,” I say.
He looks down at his boots. “Thanks. I think it’s kind of sporty.” He clicks his heels together once. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
“I didn’t know her very well.” I pull out a paper cup and fill it with water. “You work here?’
He nods.
“My dad was here. Nicky Parisi. I kind of look like him.” I finish the water in one gulp.
The man studies my face and nods. “I remember him. Good natural coloring. Only needed a simple base coat.”
I crinkle my eyebrows.
“Sorry,” he says. Even though he’s as tan as Patty gets after a full summer of daily visits to Kissed by the Sun on Huffman Avenue, I can see that he’s turned red. “I don’t usually do this part, with the talking to the live people and such. I just work on the dead ones.” He glances at Bob Brighton, who I remember from Dad’s funeral and who hands a box of tissues to one of Lila’s aunts in the other room.
Crushing the paper cup into my fist, I fold my arms. “Did you put that eye shadow on Lila?”
“And the blusher.” He grins at me like Becky’s dad does at her three-year-old sister Leah when she says something grown-up.
I don’t smile back, and his grin fades. “Okay then, so what do you think?”
“Looks good. I liked the lipstick, too.”
“Joe Brighton,” the man says, and holds out his hand, smiling at me now like we’re equals.
As I shake his hand, across the way I notice two people staring at me. One is Matt and the other is Liz. What goes around comes around, I guess. Liz looks curious, but Matt’s got a smirk on his face that makes me nervous. I pull my hand back from Joe Brighton. “Nice to meet you. I better get back to my friends. The service starts soon.”
“Well, chin up, Donna P. Everyone dies.”
I’m not sure how that’s supposed to keep my chin up. And even though I’d like to talk with Joe Brighton a lot longer, I don’t want to do it in front of everyone from school.
Lila Cardoza, 17
Cause of Death: Heart attack
Surviving Immediate Family:
Mother: Carmen
Father: Sammy
Brother: Junior
Dog: Sunshine (bichon frise)
Makeup: Lavender Shimmer eye shadows, black eyeliner, Mocha lipstick, Pink Seashell blush
Clothing: Woodmont Warriors basketball jersey
Casket: Cherrywood, ivory silk lining
Special Guests in Attendance: Tiki Cardoza, founder of Cardoza’s Old Time Taqueria
Funeral Incidents:
Woodmount girls’ basketball team accompanied by members of the cheering squad perfrom Lila’s favorite cheer/chant, “Be Aggressive.”
Lila’s boyfriend, Kyle, places one yellow rose in the casket.
Dumbest thing someone says trying to be comforting: “Now she”ll be dribbling on the best court there is…God”s—Dee Taylor, Woodmont girl’ basketball assistant coach and Church of the Savior youth group leader
two
I’m sitting in my senior Spanish class, whispering to myself, “Cuerpos. Cuerpos.” I like the hard C, how the R rolls in my mouth, the punch of the P. And I like what it means. We’re supposed to be reading about new verbs, but I went to the career section of our textbook to find something I saw once when I was reading ahead. And here it is. Francisco is an agente funerario and gets many cuerpos ready for burial. I never thought of it before today, but now it seems so obvious. Bodies.
I glance around the room. At Matt, who now sits next to me in Spanish because he was causing too much trouble sitting by his friend Pete Jones. Matt has long earlobes. At Jane Slate, who talks even less than I do and has chin-length straight blond hair. At Mr. Trauth, whose back is to us while he writes new verbs on the board. His shiny bald head comes to a little point on top. I notice that Liz wraps slender fingers around a dragon-shaped pen. Of course I’ve never seen bodies like Francisco or Joe Brighton must have seen, but I like looking at people and all of their different parts. Even Matt, who’s mean to just about everybody except for Pete, but who does have really interesting earlobes.
Matt catches me looking at him and hisses, “Hey. Donna?”
I glance down quickly and draw a long spiral circle in the middle of my blank notebook page, pretending I don’t hear him.
“Pssst.” I feel Matt staring at me, and my cheeks are hot, probably getting redder than usual. That’s one of my special features—it always looks like I’m blushing. I shouldn’t have been looking around so much. I got distracted again and forgot everyone could see me too.
A wad of paper hits me on the arm, and I can’t help but look up this time.
“Hey, Morticia, have a nice conversation with the weird dude at the funeral place?” Matt looks at me like Uncle Lou’s beagle, Lucky, waiting for something. A walk, a treat, maybe?
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash and realize it’s Liz, who sits behind Matt. She reaches up and swats him swiftly on the back of his head with her spiral notebook, a lot like when Uncle Lou swats Lucky with his Sons of Italy newsletter when Lucky puts his paws on the dining room table to get closer to Aunt Irene’s meatballs.
I gasp and command myself not to laugh out loud.
“Ow.” Matt whips around to look at Liz.
The skin on Liz’s face is pale and creamy, like Snow White’s, and when she smiles at Matt and cocks her head to one side, she looks like pure innocence. She unfolds her notebook in front of her, and her copper hair falls in long thick curls like a curtain in front of her face, in stark contrast to the silk turquoise shawl wrapped around her like I’ve seen on Indian women on TV. She writes something at the left-hand top of the page with her dragon pen. Without looking up, she says, “Sorry, my hand slipped.”
Mr. Trauth turns from the board. “Mr. Capinski, do we have a problem?”
“No,” Matt mumbles, and looks down at his textbook.
“Good, then why don’t you come up to the board and help me finish these?” Mr. Trauth scans the room. “We’ve had a tough enough day already, so I hope no one else is planning any funny business? Good, then the rest of you can keep reading pages fifty and fifty-one.”
As Matt shuffles and grumbles to the front of the room, I look at Liz and whisper, “Thanks.”
She shrugs. “I’m typically a fan of talking to weird dudes.” She smil
es, and I feel like her smile is the kind that gets her an extra scoop of ice cream and cuts in line and asked out on actual dates to Mama DiSalvo’s and not on group ones to the cheap movies on Stroop Road. Or one that gets invitations from people who don’t usually offer them. Like me.
“Hey, um, you want to sit with us at lunch?”
“Oh God, yes, please,” she whispers. “I can’t take another minute explaining to the varsity cheering squad that I actually like sitting alone.”
“Well, do you? Like to sit alone, I mean?”
“Yep.” She smiles again. “Unless there’s a better option.”
“I just need to stop by my locker after class.”
“Cool beans.”
“Cool beans,” I repeat, thinking I like the sound of that, even if I wouldn’t want to eat them.
I wonder what it would be like to be Liz, starting at a brand-new place halfway through your senior year of high school. I’ve watched her sitting by herself, reading or writing or drawing with a charcoal pencil on a huge tablet with thick art paper at lunch, and honestly, it makes me jealous. It’s like a free pass to be invisible and special, which it seems like she is. But she wants to sit with me at lunch, so I’m not sure what that says.
I look back to my textbook and Francisco’s cartoon face and dark mound of wavy hair without a one out of place. He is one chipper agente funerario. It’s so funny I’ve never thought of it before, because it seems so clear and so easy now at this moment, after wondering for all of high school what the answer is; after telling lies like “teacher” or “nurse” or even once “acrobat,” in response to the big question: What are you going to be when you grow up? After listening to everyone at Woodmont talk about their plans all year long. Becky will study international business, Patty will study sports science out of town, and even Jim will study graphic design and work at his dad’s advertising firm. Good job, everyone. You’re going to do so well! And Donna, what about you? So you’ll study Communications here in Dayton? What do you plan to do with that? Oh. Well, you’ll figure it out.