“Hello?” said Adam, as if expecting an answer. He frowned. “Doesn’t he need air holes?”
I laughed. “Nope. He hasn’t needed them for about a week now.”
Adam thought about this a minute before saying, “So he is dead then.”
“Yup. He’s passed on, is in a better place, has climbed the stairway to heaven, crossed over, cashed in his chips, shuffled off the mortal coil. You okay with that?”
Adam was too confused to know if he was or wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. We’d arrived.
I escorted Mr. Singh into the crematorium to get him settled in, crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s on his paperwork, and then Adam and I loaded into the hearse.
“Do we have to go back so soon?” he said.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Home.”
I gulped, trying to swallow down my disappointment. “Has staying with us been so bad?”
“No. Not at all. What I meant is I want to go look for my father’s lockbox.” He squinted at me. “What does that face you’re making mean?”
His accident had clearly affected more than his memory. “It’s called doubt. You do realize it would take an act of God to find that box, right?”
“I’m not above praying.”
“All right then, but we can’t stay long, and if there’s anyone hanging around the place, we’ll turn around and keep on driving.”
He agreed by giving me a thumbs-up and wagging it side to side, a sure sign he’d been spending too much time around Evan.
We turned onto the road that led to his house—or what used to be his house. There were no trolling news vans around, but there was someone far worse: Mr. Sal Zmira. The street was too narrow for us to make a U-turn, so I veered the car toward the curb, solidly hitting it before shifting into park to wait out Zmira. “Don’t let him see you.”
Adam ducked low in his seat. “News people?”
“No. See that guy yelling over there?”
He peeked out his window. “The one waving his middle finger in the air?”
“No, the other guy.”
“You know him?”
“Had him last year for history class. I didn’t realize he was your neighbor.”
“Neither did I,” said Adam, sounding as if he thought I meant it as a good thing. So not.
I cracked open the windows. Even from several houses away I could hear Zmira bellowing something to the driver of a tractor trailer about blocking the driveway and it being about time that rubbish heap next door was carted away. I squirmed in my seat, my arms already beginning to tingle and itch.
Hives. That’s what Zmira did to me.
Early last year I made the mistake of dozing off in his class after staying up all night assisting Dad as he put a face back together for an open casket the next morning. Did Zmira care? No. He made me explain to the whole class why I found it impossible to stay awake. I told the truth, perhaps with too much detail, and as a reward Zmira moved me to the front of the class. From then on he got his jollies by calling on me any time my head dropped. By the end of the term, the mention of his name was enough to make me break out in a rash. I dropped out shortly after that.
For the moment we were hidden by the trailer, but if we left now, he would surely see us. There was nothing more conspicuous than a big black hearse with a silk calla lily wired to the antenna, blue-velvet curtains, and vanity plates front and back that read XPIRED—Evan’s not-so-brilliant idea.
I sat up slightly to assess the situation and was just in time to see Zmira tromp back inside, his mop dog at his heels. “See,” I said as I shifted into drive. “It’s not only me. Zmira intimidates everyone.”
But Adam wasn’t listening. All of a sudden he flung open his door, leaped out of the rolling car, and sprinted up the drive toward the ruins of his old house, where a mustard-yellow, smoke-spewing bulldozer was tearing up the remnants and dumping them into the bed of a monstrous truck. The sound was deafening but not loud enough to block out Adam’s screams. “Stop! Stop!”
I put the hearse in park, cut the engine, and chased after him. “Adam, wait, come back!”
A foreman halted him at the gates, allowing me to catch up. “If you two agree to stay back, I’ll let you watch,” the man said, as if we were four-year-olds.
“You can’t clear this lot,” I yelled over the roar of the dozer. “The estate hasn’t been settled!”
“Not my problem. Just following orders.”
“Whose orders?” I pointed to Adam. “He’s the owner.” Or would be once the bureaucratic dust settled.
“Don’t know nothin’ about no new owner,” answered the foreman.
Together Adam and I watched in disbelief as the dregs of his former life tumbled into the truck bed, load after load. With each crash of concrete, dirt, and debris, Adam’s head jerked back like he was being slapped across the face. When the hauler was full, it rumbled off, belching thick diesel fumes, heading for the local landfill and most likely taking Neil Lassiter’s lockbox right along with it.
The bulldozer mounted the tractor trailer, which then backed its way down the street, its incessant beeping piercing my every nerve. Left behind were only a corner of the house’s foundation, an acre or less of dead and dying walnut trees, and a plot of weed-smothered grave markers. But somewhere buried deep beneath the far side of the ramshackle estate was the fallout shelter, unmarked but certainly not forgotten, at least not by us.
The foreman wadded up the last of the caution tape, pulled the gates closed behind him, and drove off in his pickup.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” I said. “It was a mistake.”
I strolled back to where the gravel drive met asphalt to give Adam the time and privacy he needed to mourn, or to celebrate—I’m not sure, maybe a bit of both—the obliteration of what was once his prison. He took it all in, not moving so much as an eyelid. Then, out of the blue, he plucked a length of railing from the tortured earth, reared back, and swung at the nearest gatepost, beheading its stone cap. Not even Evan could do that. He pitched a fistful of rocks over the wall, ranting in Latin. No translation needed.
I did nothing. Better he get it all out than hold it in. I knew.
Fifteen minutes later, when he was done vanquishing whatever demon had possessed him, he joined me by the hearse, his chest heaving from the effort, a faint madness still sparking in his eyes. “Better?” I asked.
“A little,” he admitted. “I think I needed that.”
“I bet you did. Feel like getting lunch?”
“Yes. I’m famished.”
“About time.”
RULE #8
YOU’RE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR GEAR.
I read the five possible questions for my college admission essay and, by process of elimination, narrowed them down to two:
1. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. (Plenty of options there.)
2. Describe a background, identity, or talent that is so meaningful, you believe your application would be incomplete without it. (Makeup artist to the dead? Too obvious?)
Last year I took a career aptitude test. The results were laughable. They suggested I’d be good at working with people. Yeah, so long as they weren’t breathing. Instead I settled on a business degree. Who knows? Maybe someday I’d have my own company specializing in cosmetics for the departed. One thing was for sure: if I attended a college near home, Dad would do everything he could to pressure me into changing my mind. But if I went away, he’d be forced to consider Evan as his replacement.
Three obstacles stood in my way. First, I had to get accepted, and it wasn’t like my grades and GED score were anything to brag about. Second, my savings fell far short of what I’d need for tuition, room, and board. Evan was lucky. His father left him a trust fund tagged for education. Third—and this was a biggie—I had to break the news to Dad.
I was still waffling between essay topics when St. Margarita’s Transport rolled up to the delivery door
out back. I unlocked the double-wide door. The mechanism, which my great-great-grandfather installed when he first opened for business, clanked and rattled like a drawbridge, reciting its own piece of our history. To my right was a dent in the wall from the time Great-Grandma Hazel pitched an urn at her cheating husband and missed. That urn was now his permanent residence. To my left was an ice chute that my aunt Agnes used to send her broken dolls down to the basement. And directly below the chute was an old wooden table where her father, my grandpa Ted, would prep the dolls before laying them to rest in a discarded cigar box. To this day we can’t dig in the garden without exhuming one of those dolls. Aunt Agnes must have had a dozen of them—a sign of better times for the family. I had never owned a doll, but I made do. When I was little, I secretly set up my father’s work cart with reception china and held tea parties with dead girls in the prep room.
No one in my family had ever truly escaped this funeral home. Their bodies may have been buried elsewhere, but slivers of their souls remained. They jabbed at me from every floorboard, lathe, and shingle of this old house, not as ghosts but as memories hammered into place. And with each prod or prick they pleaded for me to stay, to honor what they slaved so hard to preserve. But I refused to be nailed down. Unlike Adam, I would not be making any promises to my father.
The screeching halt of the delivery door cleared my thoughts, and I immediately recognized the transport driver, José. In his late twenties, built like a bear and about as hairy, and one of the few people who could pry a conversation out of me. I rolled out our sturdiest gurney. “Jo-o-sé, can you see?” I sang out.
And as usual, he responded with an “Eh, beautiful” and gave me a flirty wink. “Been a while.”
“Yeah, work’s been slow.”
“Not at EMS. Jim Sturbridge tells me they’ve got more than they can handle.”
“Figures,” I grumbled. “So did you get the house?”
“Yup, moved in and everything. Now all I have to do is pop the question to Lonnie.”
I envied Lonnie for the way José beamed when he said her name.
He pulled out the dead pan and transferred the body bag from the van to the gurney. Then he unlocked the wheels and together we escorted our newest guest inside. “Is your old man here? I’m supposed to pick up a check.” He handed me an invoice stamped PAST DUE.
I grimaced and shoved the invoice into my back pocket. “My dad had a meeting at the bank, but I’ll make sure he takes care of it today.”
Jose cleared his throat and lowered his voice as he leaned across the body bag. “Hey, I, uh, heard you guys might be a little strapped.”
“Who said that? We’re totally fine. In fact, we’re thinking of expanding.”
“You are?” He looked surprised.
“Sure. Dad’s there right now about a loan to buy a crematorium. You know, so we can be more competitive.”
“A crematorium? Didn’t know there were any up for sale.”
I felt a pinch of pride. For once I knew something José didn’t. “That’s because technically there aren’t any, but we heard Crenshaw and Madsen might be soon.”
“Well, glad to hear the rumors are wrong. Your family is our oldest customer. I’d hate to see you go.”
That made two of us. Even though I couldn’t see myself as the future funeral director, that didn’t mean I didn’t care what happened to our family’s legacy. It wasn’t about preserving history; it was about dignity for the departed and those they left behind, as well as service to the community. Lofty ideals aside, I’d hate losing everything my family had worked for to someone like Sturbridge.
I nodded toward the gurney. “So who do we have here?”
José knew the drill. “Christian Tomopolo, fifty-three, stockbroker, father of sixteen.”
“Sixteen?”
“Yup. He was on his fifth wife when he died. Literally.”
“Let me guess: heart attack.”
“Hah. You’re good.”
I didn’t hear that enough and beamed.
“His wife insisted on dressing him, which reminds me.” José reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a gold pendant along with a length of chain, and placed them in my hand. “It broke when we were bagging him.”
“I’ve never seen a medallion like this before.”
“It’s chai, the Jewish symbol for life. Kind of ironic if you think about it. His name is Christian, according to his wife he’s an atheist, and he bit the big one while wearing the Hebrew word for ‘life.’”
“Yeah, ironic.” More like tragic if you ask me. “I’ll see if I can fix it.” I signed the necessary paperwork, and José was on his way.
Mr. Tomopolo’s ride to the prep room was less than smooth sailing, but somehow I managed to leave only one small dent and a few wheel scuffs on the baseboards to mark our passing. It was a good day.
Since Dad was at the bank and Tony, our other mortician, had called in sick again, getting Christian checked in was up to me. I slipped on a pair of gloves, unzipped the body bag, and got to work listing information on an ankle band before securing it to his leg. Next I documented all his personal effects, including the necklace. His Rolex, one of those self-winding types, had to be brand-new. In the back pocket of his chinos I found a couple casino chips, a receipt from Victoria’s Secret, and a ticket to tonight’s doubleheader. Each item told his story.
Everything went into a Ziploc labeled with his name and a shelf number. “Well, Christian, can’t say you didn’t make the most of your time here on Earth.” The design for his pillow was already gelling in my head: a diamond-shaped border in gold floss.
My thoughts were interrupted by impatient pounding at the prep-room door. Irritated that whoever it was couldn’t be bothered to put in the code, I opened it.
Adam stood there with a pained expression. “A woman is at the front door.”
“That would be Mrs. Tomopolo number five. Can’t Rachel or Nana Jo talk to her?”
“Rachel left to get kitten formula?” he said, obviously unsure he got the message right. “And Jo is at yogurt.”
“That’s yoga. Well, let Mrs. Tomopolo in, give her one of those pamphlets we keep in the entry, and I’ll be right up as soon as I finish here.” I wouldn’t be right up. I figured if I stalled long enough, someone else would have to handle things.
By the time I was done tucking Christian in for his stay, I’d given him a full report on my essay dilemma, a review on the two books I’d recently read, and more than one apology for the lack of air-conditioning. I had no way of knowing if Christian Tomopolo was much of a listener in life, but he got top ratings in death.
I placed a head block into position, rolled him to the cooler to wait for Tony’s return, and then checked the hall to make sure the coast was clear before sneaking up to my room.
“Go away!” Adam was shouting. “Just go away!”
What the hell was he doing? That was no way to treat the bereaved. I ripped off my apron and raced to the parlor, where a woman dressed in an unfortunate pantsuit had him pinned against the fireplace. She had a cell phone shoved in his face. A reporter.
Adam clutched the mantle’s candelabra in one hand, waving it to ward her off, and shielded his face with his other hand, but her rapid-fire questioning was relentless. “What was life like for you? Was your father a cruel man? Did he beat you? Why didn’t you try to escape? Did you ever think to ask a neighbor for help?”
Adam’s eyes narrowed and his lips curled into a snarl, but the reporter either didn’t recognize the signs that she’d crossed a line or was ignoring them. “We did a little research. Did you know there are no records of you or your family? No birth certificates, no school records? Explain why that is. Are you part of a federal protection plan? What are you hiding?”
“Stop!” I cried, barely processing her accusations. “Who are you?”
“Mae Wu with the National Examiner,” she said, flashing a badge. “And you are?”
“Never mind who I
am. How dare you come into our home and harass him.”
“Not only a home but a place of business,” she reminded me. “I merely wanted to ask him a few questions. People have a right to know.”
“No—they—don’t. Now get out before I call the police.”
Unruffled, she lowered the phone but was obviously still recording the conversation. “Fine, but the truth will eventually come out. Someone will talk, and I’m going to be there when they do.” With a flip of her hair she turned for the door, but not before getting off one last shot. “Adam, did you have anything to do with your father’s death?”
“Get out now!” I shouted. I was about to slam the door on her skinny ass when I saw another woman stepping up to the porch. She had a fireplug figure, overplucked brows crowning weepy eyes, and a bad case of hiccups. This was Mrs. Tomopolo number five, I guessed.
“Um, please come in,” I said, awkwardly extending a shaky hand. “I’m Lily McCrae.”
She pulled a face like I’d offered her a wormy apple. Then I saw why. In all the commotion, I’d forgotten to remove my latex gloves. She had to be wondering where they’d been. Anyone would. “Excuse me,” I blustered.
Mortified, mouth dry as face powder, I retreated down the hall, snapping off the gloves and shoving them into the bathroom wastebasket until I could dispose of them properly. In the kitchen I threw back a glass of water, collected myself, and then filled a pitcher for our guest.
Traces of laughter spilled from the parlor. That couldn’t be good.
I returned to find Mrs. Tomopolo seated by the window, peering through teary eyes at one of our many florist brochures. Adam stood stiffly by her side. Confused, I poured her a glass of water.
Hiccup. “Thank you,” she said, trying to mask a giggle.
“Something funny?” I asked, shooting Adam a puzzled glance. He shrugged.
“This young man”—hiccup—“was explaining to me that every flower has its own meaning.” Hiccup, hiccup. “Some of them struck me as so amusing, considering how Christian died and all.” Her golden brown cheeks flushed a rosy russet. “What was that one you were telling me about, not the tuberose, the other one?”
Mortal Remains Page 6
