by Jen Violi
Abigail Chen, 42
Cause of Death: Heroin overdose
Surviving Immediate Family:
Twin sister: Libby
Makeup: Ocher/Ivory covering cream blend
Clothing: Long-sleeved navy cashmere sweater to cover track marks, one half heart locket (sister Libby wears other half)
Casket: Oak, lavender cotton lining
Strangest thing someone says in the hallway:“Do you guys have any snacks?”—Teenage cousin, while texting on his cell phone.
seventeen
Examining the three-tiered Simple Elegance wedding cake at Bella’s Bakery, I can’t help but think how the champagne icing looks like the nude cosmetic JB will probably have me order in bulk from the Coffin Cosmetics catalogue.
“I don’t actually like that one,” Gwen says to B. “What if we served fruit cups? That seems more simple and elegant to me.”
I look to Mom, knowing instantly she won’t like that. Indeed, a frown pushes her red-lipsticked lips downward. I used to use her lipstick for my Halloween makeup, but it never worked so well for me. In red lipstick I become some sort of cross between a burlesque dancer and a circus clown, but Mom and her pale skin make the red glamorous.
And recently she’s been wearing a lot more of it. Now she crosses her arms. “Gwen, you have to have cake at your wedding.”
I’m unsettled because something about Mom looks different, and it’s not just the lipstick. Maybe it’s her iron will to make sure Gwen doesn’t make any fruit cup wedding decisions. She points to the Simple Elegance. “It’s traditional.”
I shrug. “So is a bris, but she’s not having one of those.”
“Is losing foreskin comparable to eating cake?” B asks, leaning against one of the glass pastry cases.
Gwen giggles.
“You know what?” Mom takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, opens them, and smiles without showing teeth. More than some other subjects, when it comes to weddings, Mom has some very specific ideas. So I’m ready for the reprimand, the lecture on the merits of cake-centric weddings, like the perfect wedding she and Dad had, and the tactlessness of mentioning circumcision in a bakery. Instead she says, “I think you should have whatever you want. Fruit cups, Oreos, whatever.”
I squint at Mom and cross my arms. I know she’s been practicing the peaceful response, but this seems over the top. “And you really wouldn’t care?”
“No,” she says, and to my surprise, she almost seems to mean it.
“Excellent.” B eyes the espresso bar behind the register. “I’m going to get coffee. Anyone want some?”
“I could use some herbal tea,” Gwen says with even more perkiness than usual. I can tell she’s jumping at the opportunity for escape.
I ignore them and take a step closer to Mom. “Okay, I need to ask: Did you get abducted by aliens?”
“No.” Mom grins like she has a secret, and that makes me nervous.
“Then why are you being so weird?”
B looks at me, then at Mom. He rolls his eyes. “Guess the two of us will get beverages for ourselves,” he says a little loudly. “We’ll be over there.”
Mom wanders away from me in the other direction, toward a tower of cream puffs surrounded by miniature chocolate ghosts. Behind the ghosts are chocolate gravestones and chocolate Happy Halloweens. It’s still September, so Halloween decorations seem a little premature.
Gazing dreamily at the ghosts, Mom rubs her fingers over the blue beads on her bracelet; one I’ve never seen before. I step next to her and point at her wrist. “What is that?”
“Do you like it?”
“Where’d you get it?”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you about my”—she clears her throat—“new friend.”
“Your new friend.”
She nods.
“Are you going to tell me anything else?”
“It’s a man.” The image of the long-haired Egyptian god-man from Full of Beans pops into my head.
This is it, I think. It’s not like I didn’t know this was coming. “Mom, is he your boyfriend?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” she says, and I think she’s actually sounding coy.
Holding extra-large paper cups, B and Gwen join us. “I got a cappuccino.” With milk foam smudged above his lip, B grins.
“Mom got a boyfriend.”
“I know, and I think it’s great.” He smiles bigger and foamier.
“Shut up and wipe your face,” I say.
“Well, it is.”
Gwen looks a little like everyone is speaking German and she doesn’t quite understand what’s happening. Or maybe like she does speak German but is doing her best to pretend she doesn’t. She takes the napkin from under her cup and wipes away B’s milk mustache.
“We’ll see what’s great once I actually know about it.” I notice that one of the chocolate ghosts is missing a white icing eye. I know how he must feel. “Apparently everyone but me got the memo.”
“And you wonder why.” B shakes his head and uses a flavor of voice I’d call condescending with a hint of disdain. “Look how you’re handling this.”
“I’m handling it just fine.” I turn to Mom. “Is this the coffee-shop guy?”
Mom nods.
What’s his name?”
“Roger.”
My head feels like it might explode. My mother—who has long loved spending Saturday evenings with warm milk and the History Channel—out gallivanting around with some yoga guy named Roger. My mother the widow who said she’d only had one love. My dad. “That guy did not look like a Roger. Are you sure that’s his name?”
Mom looks at me like I’m a little slow. “Yes. I’m sure.”
B looks at me in a similar way. “Why are you so upset? Unless I’m mistaken, this is good news.”
“I’m not upset.” I notice that my hands are shaking, and put them in the pockets of my raincoat. In theory, I know B is right: I should be excited for my mom. I make myself smile. “So, Roger. What’s he like?”
I know I sound like a robot, but this seems to work for Mom. She grins her secret grin again. “Maybe you’ll find out tonight.”
“We’re having dinner at our house tonight.”
“Well, he’s coming.”
“To our family dinner?” Now I sound like a person again, an angry one.
“I can invite someone to dinner. In case you forgot, I’m a part of this family.” Mom narrows her eyes, and her face flushes. “I produced this family.”
“Is Roger a part of this family?” Suddenly I’m feeling kind of claustrophobic. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I say more quietly, “I have to get back to work.”
She reaches out and touches my arm with her hand, the one connected to the blue bracelet. “You’re coming tonight?”
I glance up at her but not for long. “I guess so.”
As I walk off, I hear B say, “She’ll be there, Mom, don’t worry.” I know he’s saying it to me too.
After ten long, silent minutes of air-conditioned Lark time on the wet Dayton streets, I pull into the Brighton Brothers lot. I roll down the windows and turn off the car. The last throes of summer air push in wet and hot. I pull out my phone and almost call Liz, but then I have this idea that I’ll call Tim, and that he’ll come right over and hug me. Or do something with me that I’m not supposed to do.
When he answers, the whole story floods out of my mouth before I can stop myself—stupid cakes and fruit cups and Mom and some dude named Roger.
“Heavy.” Tim laughs a little, like he’s nervous.
I laugh too, because I don’t know what else to do.
“Dude, what’s up? You’re totally spazzing out.”
“I know.” I watch a few drops tentatively hit the windshield. The half-clear blue and half-cloudy gray sky can’t seem to make a choice. I decide that September is turning out to be a confused month for all of us.
“You know,” he says, using his philosopher voice, “things change. Ch
ange is life.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Maybe you just need a reminder.”
“She didn’t tell me she met someone.” Some raindrops sprinkle in through the window. I roll it almost all the way up and watch it cloud with steam. I close my eyes and whisper, “She said Dad was it for her.”
“People change their minds.”
“Yeah, but would you do it?” I hear my voice getting louder again. “Would you just forget about the love of your life for the first hot yoga teacher that came along?” I sound angry.
“Shit, Donna, I don’t know.” The tone of his voice tells me I may have found something Tim’s not cool with—this conversation. “You could skip dinner tonight. We could go hear that Irish punk band at Canal Street.” He’s ready for us to move on.
But I’m not. “I don’t think you get this.”
“No, I don’t think I do.” He sounds exasperated.
I feel desperate. And panicky. I think about chocolate ghosts and weird dates and my brother’s wedding. Something so permanent, but with no guarantee to really last.
It didn’t for my parents. I have that feeling of falling again, and I don’t know what else to do right now but be honest. “I’m just having a really hard time.”
I don’t know what else to say, and I guess Tim doesn’t either.
After a minute, he says, “Listen, I’ve got to go. I have class in ten minutes.”
“Okay, I’ve got to get back to work.”
“I’ll call you later.”
Once we get off the phone, I remember it’s Friday, and Tim told me he doesn’t have class on Fridays.
Inside, Mr. Brighton is talking on the phone and tugging at his white mustache. He nods at me with a serious face, and if I didn’t know he plays dolls with Delia and drinks iced mochas with whipped cream and a bendy straw every day, I’d be intimidated. I head down the main hallway and take the short flight of back steps to the prep room. Descending straight into hell, I think, for treating my Mom like shit.
I wait outside the prep room and look in through the glass door.
On one of the stainless steel tables is a body that must belong to Rory Mahoney, who died yesterday at age sixty-five. Mr. Brighton has already taken Rory out of the disaster pouch, and his body lies stretched out in a white cotton hospital gown with a pastel peach geometric pattern.
This man had a wedding, I think. I know because his wife Nora will be here in two hours for her arrangement conference. How long did they have? And was it long enough? I know I don’t need to be all freaked out while I observe my first embalming, so I go to that familiar place in my chest, where it’s quiet and I can focus. The Dead Zone, I think, that’s a good name for it.
After a few minutes I hear someone coming down the steps. “ How was lunch?” Mr. Brighton asks.
“Okay.” I follow him into the prep room, and we put on coats from the hooks on the back of the door. He holds out the box of gloves to me. Sliding on the gloves, I wonder what it would be like to be a surgeon, to work with a live body. And I know it wouldn’t have the stillness that’s here, with the dead.
Once we’re all covered up, Mr. Brighton says, “Come on over and have a look.”
I breathe in and notice a slight sharp odor. I fight to relax the furrows in my forehead.
“You’ll get used to the smell. Just part of it. Are you doing all right?”
I nod.
Mr. Brighton says, “You can do this part. Gently close his eyes and mouth.”
Rory Mahoney’s skin feels cold through my gloves. For a second, I look into his green eyes. When I close them and his mouth, I feel his skin cold and hard through my gloves.
Mr. Brighton removes the hospital gown, turns the water to a low stream on the table, and gets to work. He explains everything to me as he goes, and his voice is calm. As he injects embalming fluid into Rory’s carotid artery, I wonder why being here with this body seems easier than meeting Mom’s new boyfriend tonight.
Mr. Brighton massages Rory’s arms and hands as pink fluid seeps into him and blood drains out from his jugular in deep red streams and clots down along his body and into the stainless steel sink at his feet. Fluid goes in. Fluid goes out. I can’t see a stream of Rory’s intangible parts—how smart or funny he was. And I believe they haven’t gone away.
Like the intangible pieces of Dad still with me and still with Mom. But what happens to those invisibles when another warm, blood-pumping body named Roger steps into that space? Change is life, Tim said. Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
After almost two gallons of embalming fluid, it’s time to sew up Rory’s neck. With an S-shaped needle, Mr. Brighton closes the spots he opened. He makes it look easy. I find my hands twitching slightly, trying to mimic his movements.
After poking a new opening in Rory’s stomach, Mr. Brighton pulls out the organ juice and puts in the cavity fluid. When he’s done, he seals Rory’s stomach with a single button that’ll be hidden under the smooth line of buttons on the suit Nora Mahoney gave us to dress Rory in tomorrow.
Rory’s suit is navy, and without wanting to, I imagine Tim in this spot, in a navy suit. Which is yet another reason I will never be normal. I close my eyes, say a prayer, take a deep breath, and blink my eyes until the image dissolves.
Mr. Brighton rinses off Rory’s body, and I recognize that he’s doing his best to get Rory Mahoney ready for his last big day, while Gwen and B are planning their first big day together. While Mom seems to have forgotten about hers.
When Mr. Brighton finishes, we head up to his office. “So what did you think?” he asks.
“It was fascinating.”
“It’s a pretty amazing thing.”
Mr. Brighton’s phone rings, and when he answers he sounds so serious that I excuse myself.
A few minutes later, Mr. Brighton comes to my desk, and the color’s gone from his face. Delia’s in the emergency room and he doesn’t know exactly what happened, but he has to go. He asks if I’ll greet Nora Mahoney and start going through the checklist with her and to please extend his apologies and say he’ll be back as soon as possible.
“Sure,” I say, and feel like my face has turned a little white, too. I’m worried about Delia and worried about meeting with someone by myself.
“I trust you.”
I nod. “You should go. I’ll be fine.”
I go up to the yellow room and take the arrangement binder with me to review the checklist. A half an hour later, after I’ve practiced the questions, washed my face, and given myself a pep talk, I head downstairs.
With a lit cigarette extending from a holder between her lips, a woman perches on the arm of one the big lobby chairs. She wears a long white raincoat over a silky brown dress, and taps the pointed toe of one of her elegant brown-and-white spectators. Bobbed silver hair frames her made-up face, and I think she looks like a gracefully aged Hollywood starlet. “I know I’m not supposed to smoke in here, but you look like you could use a hit, too.” She takes a puff and watches me.
She’s right. I could use a hit of something, but I don’t think that’s appropriate. I offer a smile that I hope says, Thank you, I would, but clearly I’m a professional.
“Fine, I’ll get rid of it. Just don’t tell on me.” She steps outside and returns a few seconds later sans cigarette.
“Okay. Mrs. Mahoney?”
“The one and only.” She looks from my toes to my head and shakes her head. “If you don’t mind my saying, you look awful. Maybe you should get a different job.”
I’m used to dazed and weepy, which is how most people have walked in here in the last few months. But this I am not expecting. Since I have no idea how to respond, I pull out an old industry standard Mr. Brighton uses. “Let’s go into the sitting room.”
I’m guessing she’s right about my looking awful, because that’s exactly how I feel—tired and in need of narcotics. As she chooses a cream-colored armchair in the sitting room, I h
ope Delia’s okay and that Mr. Brighton will be back soon.
Situated on one end of the blue sofa catty-corner from her chair, I explain Mr. Brighton’s emergency. I say, “So I’m happy to answer any questions, if I can. Do you, um, have any?” I open the brown leather binder on my lap to Mr. Mahoney’s page.
“I’ve got a million of them.” Nora Mahoney winks. “Here’s one: what’d you do today?” She reaches for her pack of menthols and then pushes it back into her purse. She smiles. “And call me Nora.”
“Okay, Nora,” I say slowly. “Don’t you want to talk about the arrangements?”
She looks at me like, What the hell do you think? I see her holding her face together, shoulders crunched up toward her neck. If I were her, I probably would want a change of subject too.
Part of me knows that talking about the arrangements is not what Nora needs at this moment. She just needs a break. And since I have a fresh assortment of distractions available, I say, “Tasted cakes for my brother’s wedding, fought with this guy I’m dating, and found out my mom has a secret boyfriend. And my brother’s fiancée doesn’t even like cake. She wants to have fruit cups.”
Nora’s shoulders relax a little. “Well, you’ve got to have a cake. They’re traditional.”
“Oh.” I’m not in the mood for another argument about wedding cake or anything else. And I certainly don’t want to debate with this lady who’s just lost her husband. I look down at the open binder and feel guilty for talking about myself. “I could help you pick some nice holy cards.”
She leans back in the chair. “Tell me everything about the wedding. I’m sure Fruit Cup’s got a real winner planned.”
I make my voice as gentle as I can. “We really are here for you.”
“I don’t care about any of it,” she says sharply, and closes her eyes. “I just want it done. You pick it all. Tell Mr. Brighton the medium price for everything—Rory loved averages.” The edge of her voice softens into a sigh. “Now a good fight—that’s what I love. Would you tell me about yours?” I can hear the please without her saying it. I know what it’s like to need distraction.
“Average it is.” I make a note for myself on Rory Mahoney’s paperwork to have Mr. Brighton put together a medium-priced profile. “I told him about my mom’s new boyfriend, and he didn’t get why I was upset. I think I freaked him out. And he lied to me so he could get off the phone.”