Calling the police wouldn’t do any good, but I did it anyway, to appease my father. I couldn’t help it. I was a pleaser, just a really lousy one. As expected, the officer who took the report offered little hope of finding last night’s perpetrators. She delivered a well-rehearsed “Thank you for calling” and encouraged me to “Keep an eye out for anything suspicious,” as if after last night I was too clueless to figure that out on my own.
I retreated to the cold room, where a little numbness would serve me well right about then. With a firm tug on the door handle, I released the pressure seal, and the room inhaled deeply, drawing me in. A black body bag rested on a gurney in the center of the room. Another car accident, Dad had said. We saw too many of those.
I wheeled the gurney to the prep room, slipped on an apron and a fresh pair of gloves, grabbed an ankle band and pen, and, without much thought, pulled down the zipper. The bag yawned open. Staring back was what used to be the face of Shep Bramstead’s older brother, Grant.
RULE #32
DEATH IS THE ALMIGHTY LEVELER.
In the prep room, the clock struck three—one for Grant Bramstead, who flew through his windshield; two for the two-lane road that was his racetrack; and three for the brother, mother, and father he left behind.
I gathered myself and made my way to the chapel. Mourners had started to arrive to pay their respects to the grieving. Mr. and Mrs. Bramstead accepted their condolences with tempered hugs and half-hearted handshakes. Shep stood beside them, his swollen eyes safe behind dark glasses. More than once he attempted to catch my attention, but each time I found an excuse to pass someone a prayer card or to direct a mourner to a vacant seat. Half an hour later, the chapel was filled to capacity. Many of those in attendance I recognized from school or from Hayden’s party. The body heat alone made heads swoon; men tugged at neckties while women fanned flushed faces with folded memorial brochures.
Despite my loathing for the Bramstead brothers, I had done my best. I’d filled and powdered, stitched and brushed, until the young man on the gurney matched the one now occupying the memory boards surrounding the guest books. Even Dad had to admit that I’d done a decent job. It wasn’t easy. More than once I found myself wanting to go off on him for the brutal way he treated Adam the night of Hayden’s party, for all the hurt his recklessness caused his family and friends, and, yeah, for wailing on his younger brother until Shep became a shadow of his older sibling. In the end I held my tongue—a rarity for me in the presence of the deceased, but what good would it have done? It’s not like he would get a second chance to make it right.
Beside me in the vestibule, Adam fussed with the cuffs and collar of his dress shirt, like usual. He shouldn’t have been there. That morning I’d done everything to convince him to take the day off and rest, but he’d insisted on working the funeral. “Then you’d better be on your best behavior,” I’d warned. “Dad and Rachel are still fuming over the van.”
“I’ll explain that it was my fault, say I made you get behind the wheel.”
“First, that would be a lie, and you can’t lie,” I reminded him. “And second, it’s sweet of you to offer, but if they believed you, you’d probably lose your job—or worse, your freedom.”
He shrugged. “It’s only a matter of time, Lily. You said so yourself.”
It was a truth I didn’t want to hear. Never mind my feelings for him. Neil was right; Adam wasn’t ready for the world—and it certainly wasn’t ready for him—but he also couldn’t stay with us forever, not with those two men searching for him.
I watched him offer an elderly woman his arm. For a monster, he could be incredibly gentle and kind, I noted. She grinned up at him almost flirtatiously. If she only knew. But nothing about him except the deliberate way in which he blinked betrayed that he was an imposter. I knew what he was, though, and it distorted my view of everything. For instance, I knew he could crush that poor woman’s arm with a mere squeeze. His gift, though, was that he could just as easily guide her down the aisle like she was made of sugar glass.
If he suffered from his injuries, he masked it well. All the better, since Rachel and Dad were watching our every move. Today Adam had to play the part of the most conscientious employee. Today I couldn’t allow myself to shed a single tear.
Our chances of pulling off either dwindled with the arrival of Hayden Jornet.
With a flick of his wrist, Hayden made his mark in the guest book. I shoved a memorial brochure at him. No matter what Mallory said, he was a scumbag, and for her sake I was glad she’d begged off attending the service, although I missed her. From the way Evan kept glancing toward the foyer, I suspected he did, too. Funny, about absence. It has a way of putting things in perspective. Unfortunately it often comes too late.
Beyond the chapel doors, Adam leaned into Hayden’s line of sight as he handed a young woman a box of tissues. Hayden sidestepped behind a post, the fear in his eyes hard to miss.
“Yeah, you should be nervous.” I said to him. “Adam can be, how shall I put it . . . a little overprotective?”
With a nod from Father Richie, Dad lowered the volume on the sound system until the hymn, “Abide with Me,” faded into silence. I swore Hayden waited for that exact moment to make his grand entrance. He sauntered up the aisle like this was the Grammys instead of a funeral for his closest friend, then took a seat behind the Bramsteads. The service began.
Following the eulogy, people were invited forward to speak. Hayden had no qualms about stepping up to the podium. He praised Grant’s loyalty and recounted a few of his more colorful antics, making people squirm uncomfortably, before retaking his seat. I’d give Hayden this much: his voice never cracked, he never shed a tear. That explained a lot. You can’t have a conscience if you can’t feel.
At the conclusion of the service, Shep, Hayden, and two cousins shouldered the gleaming steel-blue casket and walked it down the aisle and out to the hearse, where my father waited behind the wheel, ready to guide the procession to the graveside committal service.
At last the remaining mourners shuffled from the chapel, leaving Adam and me to collect the many wreaths and bouquets for delivery to the internment site. While I wrangled a pair of gladiolus arrangements, he took the largest spray of white roses to the hearse.
Footfalls echoed behind me. Expecting Adam returning for a second load, I did an about-face. It was Shep.
“I can take those,” he said, relieving me of the glads. “Can you bring the wreath?”
“Sure.” What I really wanted was to wring his neck with it. He’d made sport of me my whole life, but this wasn’t the time nor the place for digging up past crimes. I wanted him to see that I took my family’s profession seriously, even if he didn’t. He would not see me cry, not because of anything my father preached but because he didn’t deserve my tears.
I followed him out to his truck and placed the flowers in the cab. Before I could shut the door, he stopped me. “Lily, hold up.”
I wheeled on him, certain he was about to slam me with another one of his digs and furious that he had so little respect for the dead—his brother, no less. “No, you hold up! I’ve put up with your bullying my entire life. You’ve called me names and harassed me with your childish pranks. I will not stand here and . . . and let you . . .”
Shep toed a chunk of broken sidewalk. “All I wanted to say was thank you.” He removed his tinted glasses and stared at me with bloodshot eyes, one of which still showed the greenish tinge of a fading shiner.
“What did you say?”
“I said thank you. I don’t know how you did it—how you made my brother look exactly like that photo my mom gave you. That was her favorite picture of him, you know. After the accident, his face . . .”
With that Shep crumpled to the curb, hanging his head between bent knees.
I was stunned beyond words. Never had Shep shown that he cared one spit wad for anyone but himself. Gone was the boy who pelted me with rocks and chased me up trees. Gone was the jerk w
ho couldn’t hold his liquor, who thought picking on the weak made him a big man. Gone was his brother, who’d used him as a punching bag. And nothing would bring him back.
Grant had bullied his younger brother, but of course Shep still loved him.
Adam and Rachel were waiting for me in the van. I had no idea how to handle this.
Should I go with the others and leave Shep slumped on the curb to work through his grief in private? That’s what Dad would do. Should I pat him on the back and tell him God has a plan for us all? That’s what Rachel would do. Or should I point out that the hearse had already left and he needed to pull himself together for his parents’ sake? That’s what Evan would do.
I raised a finger to Rachel, signaling I needed a minute more. Then I sat down beside Shep and offered him the clean hanky I kept at the ready. He took it but didn’t seem to know what to do with it. It became a limp flag of surrender in his lap. “I was there, you know,” he said. “At the finish line, when he lost control and plowed into that retaining wall.”
“I heard. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, and that dumbass Hayden didn’t even stick around. At the first siren, he split.”
Sounded like Hayden.
“I didn’t get it until today,” Shep continued, running his hands through his shoulder-length hair. “What you do. You’re a real artist.” That’s what Adam had once said only more eloquently. “I bet you’re the one who stitched Grant’s name into the lining on that pillow, too.”
I nodded, embarrassed that someone had noticed, especially him.
“Well, I’m glad it was you who looked after him. You’re really good at what you do. You know that?”
I was beginning to.
He tried to hand me back the hanky, but I told him to keep it. Then he scraped himself off the curb and climbed into his truck to join the procession.
“I’m confused,” said Rachel, as I took the seat beside Adam. “Isn’t that the same boy who always gave you such a hard time at school?”
“He used to be,” I said. I’m not the same girl I used to be, either. Not anymore. Too much had happened to me over the summer.
“You all right?” asked Adam, who understood more than Rachel ever could.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. Better than fine. If only Grandpa Ted were here. I would tell him I finally figured out the reason I survived that fall from the walnut tree. It wasn’t because of some fate waiting for me outside the mortuary. It wasn’t because I had something to offer the dead. It was because I had something to offer the loved ones left behind. And, of all people, it was Shep who pointed out the truth.
In a way, it was as if I’d spent my whole life resisting an arranged marriage only to discover I was in love with the groom.
Of course, realizing this now meant squat if we lost the mortuary. Somehow I needed to convince Dad not to sell. There had to be another way out of our financial crisis, but I didn’t have a clue what that could be, short of selling out Adam.
RULE #33
NO TIME LIKE MOURNING FOR DECIDING WHAT REALLY MATTERS.
Nana’s gravelly voice was at the door. “Rachel says she can give you a ride over to the high school if you still need one.”
I peeked at my tail-swishing cat clock from under the pillow. “Oh hell!” If I didn’t get going, I’d miss Mallory. She’d been ignoring my calls and texts ever since the whole beach fiasco. I figured the best time to catch her was during class registration day. I had the perfect excuse for revisiting my old school—my stack of long-overdue library books. I flung back the bedsheets, jumped in the shower for a quick rinse, and raced downstairs.
Rachel traipsed through the back door, her arms loaded with fresh-cut flowers. “You ought to smell these. That boy has such a gift with plants.”
Adam is no boy, I wanted to tell her, but she’d take it another way.
“Is he up yet?” she asked. “He might want to enroll in a couple of classes down at the city college. If he gets a move on, I can give him a ride, too. Don’t suppose he has a copy of his birth certificate in a safe-deposit box somewhere?”
I’d bet money he doesn’t even know what a birth certificate is, let alone have one.
“He left early this morning for Sal Zmira’s carrying two jugs of muddy swill,” said Nana, who was lacing up her walking shoes.
“Said something about compost tea,” added Evan.
He shouldn’t be carrying anything, I thought, not until that wound heals.
Dad shuffled into the room, newspaper tucked under his arm. “Morning. Heard about the trophy, Evan. You worked hard for that. Proud of you. Shame you didn’t get to bring it home.”
It was a jumble of gilded sunblock bottles and bicycle parts, for Christ’s sake. I shoveled yogurt into my mouth, wondering when I’d finally do something to impress my father. Never mind that while he was convalescing, devising pumpernickel recipes, and ruminating over sourdough starters, I’d been practically running things. There was no trophy for that. Lately there hadn’t even been a paycheck.
As soon as I was in the van, Rachel launched into a lecture—twentieth in the series, if I hadn’t lost count—on making the most of my time now that I had my high school equivalency diploma. She wanted me to be more like Evan—join some clubs, take up a sport, apply for scholarships. I told her I wasn’t Evan. I didn’t have his brains or his athleticism, and thanks to a less-than-stellar GED score, it would take all I had to get into a decent college. Forget scholarships.
“You know, not everyone needs a four-year college degree. Have you considered cosmetology? You could work in a salon,” she said, because in her mind, now that the mortuary was nearly out of the question, that was my best and only option.
I mentioned that, by the way, putting yourself out there is exactly how Evan got himself into that whole team-betting fiasco last year. That solicited a nasty look, and she said she liked it better when I was silent. Fine. I could do silent.
By the time we arrived, the school was packed with students picking up class schedules, locker assignments, and student IDs. This was a dumb idea. How am I ever going to find Mal in this circus?
Walking to the library, I felt so out of place, but then again, I’d always felt that way while at this school. Moving on had definitely been the best choice for me.
I returned my books, paid the hefty over-due fee, and was heading to the office to request a copy of my transcript when I spotted her outside the gym, chatting and laughing with a couple girls from last year’s cheer squad. I waved. She pretended not to see me, so I strolled over.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, like this was her arena now and I had no business intruding.
“Oh, Rachel dropped me off so I could return some books and pick up a copy of my transcript.” I said casually.
“Uh huh.” She turned back to the other girls. “Hey, give me a minute, okay?”
“Coach won’t like it if you’re late to tryouts,” warned one as they disappeared inside.
“You’re trying out for the spirit team?” Mal had never struck me as the cheerleader sort.
“I figured I’d give it a shot, try something different. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Besides epic humiliation?”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, and there are worse things, you know. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“What do you want me to do? Take up skydiving? Share drinks with strangers? Have unprotected sex? And what about the drive home the other night? I thought that was pretty adventurous.”
She grimaced at the memory. “That was reckless. There’s a difference. I’m talking about being open to meeting new people, trying new things, taking a few risks.”
I wanted to point out that I didn’t always play it safe. I’d been hanging out with goddamn Edward Scissorhands but without the sharp hardware and zippered leather. Of course, if I was being totally honest, I didn’t know that until two nights ago. “Look, I know you’re mad at me,
and I don’t blame you. I’ve been a real stick-in-the-mud.” It was another one of Rachel’s go-to clichés, but if the stick stuck, I’d use it. “So if you want me to go to more parties, the mall, whatever, with you, I’ll go. And I should never have yelled at you like that, in the car. I’m sorry. I was scared.”
“Is that why you think I’m angry? Because you bailed on a couple parties and finally got up the guts to drive faster than ten miles an hour under the speed limit?”
“Speed kills, you know.”
“Lily, that’s not the point! This is about Evan. The other night at the bonfire, I finally told him how I felt.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“No, it was disastrous. He said he couldn’t have a relationship with his stepsister’s best friend. It would be too weird. I felt like an idiot, especially after I found out you already knew how he felt. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Because you wouldn’t have listened to me.
That’s what I thought. What I said was “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Well, it would have been a lot less painful coming from you than from him.” Mallory sighed. “Lily, friends tell each other things. Personal things.”
“I told you I lied about my weight on my driver’s license application.”
“That isn’t a lie; it’s a requirement. Everybody lies about that. I’m talking, like, real stuff.”
“Like how the bronzer you’re using to enhance your cleavage is too dark for your skin tone?”
“What? Seriously?” She glanced down and hiked up the neckline of her tank top. Her face turned Peony Pink. “Yeah, like that. And like stuff about you and Adam.”
“Me and Adam?”
“Exactly. I have eyes, you know. I see how you two are—always together, all that whispering, the nervous tension. Adam practically drools when you come into a room. And you’re even worse. That thing you do with your lower lip.”
“What thing?”
She kneaded her lower lip with her upper teeth.
Mortal Remains Page 23
