by JL Bryan
“Ms. Sutland?” Jenny asked, though the bell had tinkled loudly when she entered.
Ms. Sutland emerged from the back office, dabbing at her eyes.
“What’s happening?” Jenny asked.
“Oh, it’s the Morton girl.” Ms. Sutland brightened a little. “How’s your mom and dad?”
“They’re fine, ma’am,” Jenny said. Jenny’s mother had died at birth, but Ms. Sutland was foggy about anything outside her store. “What’s going on?”
Ms. Sutland looked around, puzzled. “What do you mean, Jenny?”
“Why is the store all packed up?”
“Oh, let’s have a nice cup of tea,” Ms. Sutland said. “I’ve only just brewed it. Have you ever been to a ladies’ tea party, Jenny?”
“I don’t think so. But why is the store all packed—”
“You just sit right here.” Ms. Sutland pulled out a chair at one of the remaining antique tables. Last time Jenny had been here, the furniture was crammed together so tight you couldn’t begin to think about actually using any of it. Now the maze of furniture had thinned out considerably.
Jenny sat, and Ms. Sutland brought out tea cups, along with sugar cubes and tongs. She returned with the tea pot, poured some for Jenny and herself, then set the pot on a quilted square of cloth.
“There.” Ms. Sutland sat across from her. She lifted the tea while the men came back with the hand truck and began loading a grandfather clock. “Isn’t this pleasant?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jenny said. “But why—”
“Your mother used to come here,” Ms. Sutland said. “Pretty girl with the blue eyes. I remember.”
“You do?” Jenny asked. “What was she like?”
“Oh, she was just the nicest little thing,” Ms. Sutland said. “Always bought something, too. Even if it was just a refrigerator magnet, salt shaker, something small.”
“Did you talk with her much?” Jenny asked.
“Some. She always had friends around her, though. Always laughing. Didn’t stay and talk like you do.”
Jenny sipped her tea, not sure what to say.
“She always said she wanted a daughter,” Ms. Sutland said. “She did say that a time or two. Looking at the cribs and children’s furniture.” Ms. Sutland nodded toward an empty corner.
“Where is everything going, Ms. Sutland?” Jenny asked.
“Oh, all of this?” Ms. Sutland waved her hand around. “Well, it’s just shameful to say how far behind I am on the rent. The Barretts are so nice about it, such lovely people, the Barretts. Don’t you think?”
“I like one or two of them,” Jenny said.
“Mrs. Barrett even shops here. The young Mrs. Barrett. Haven’t seen the old Mrs. Barrett in ten, twenty years.”
“You mean Seth’s grandmother?”
Ms. Sutland’s forehead wrinkled, and she toyed absently with her tea spoon.
“Are you…moving the store?” Jenny asked. “Where are those men taking your stuff?”
“Listen, Jenny,” Ms. Sutland said. “Have you ever used a computer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, on the computer, there is a thing called eBay,” Ms. Sutland said. “You just take a photo of whatever you’re selling, and then all kinds of people offer to buy it. Can you believe a thing like that?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Jenny said.
“So my nephew insisted on putting up some pictures of things, on the eBay computer,” Ms. Sutland said. “Some of them things I’ve had forever. And do you know that I found buyers for just about everything? Not always at a price I’d like. But then, for a few items, some people offered too much, in my opinion, but I suppose you have to take the highest bid.”
“That’s good, Ms. Sutland! So you’re not closing up the store, right? You’re sticking around?”
“Goodness, no,” Ms. Sutland said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Some terrible things happened here.” She nodded out toward the green. “Not everyone understands it. But I saw it the day after Easter. I came to open the store, and there were such horrors…” Ms. Sutland shuddered. “I shouldn’t even speak of what I saw that morning. Before sunrise, even.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jenny said.
“I called the police chief, but nobody answered, so then I called the governor’s office.”
“The state governor?”
“You would not believe how difficult it is to get the governor on the telephone,” Ms. Sutland said. “I told them I’m a citizen with an emergency, but they still made me leave a message. Can you believe that?”
“I sure can’t, Ms. Sutland.”
“Now how can I keep coming back here, every day, after seeing a thing like that? I’ve been thinking about pulling up and leaving out, anyway. None of my friends are left in this town, except the ones in the cemetery.”
“I’m your friend,” Jenny said.
“Thank you, Jenny. But I want to live by the ocean. And I want to move somewhere the people are nicer.”
Jenny laughed, but Ms. Sutland just gave her a puzzled look, as if it hadn’t been a joke at all.
“I didn’t sell any of your things on the computer.” Ms. Sutland pointed to the shelves near the front of the store, where Jenny’s pottery was displayed.
“That’s okay.”
“I mean, I didn’t put it for sale on the computer. Because, I thought, Jenny ought to put them for sale on the computer herself.”
“Okay,” Jenny said. “So I need to take everything home with me today?”
“That would probably be best,” Ms. Sutlandsaid. “I’ll have to lock up the store when I leave.”
Jenny felt like crying. Ms. Sutlandhad always been nice to Jenny, when nobody else was. Probably because she was too eccentric to notice how weird Jenny was.
“You can’t go, Ms. Sutland,” Jenny said. “This town won’t be the same if you leave.”
“The town already isn’t the same,” Ms. Sutland said. “It’s a different place now.”
Jenny drank her tea and looked out the dusty window at the town green.
Chapter Eighteen
Esmeralda studied the face of the dead man on the table. Fernando Aguilar Ortiz had lived seventy-one years, and his face was leathery from a lifetime of hot sunlight. Thick calluses covered his hands. According to the pictures provided by his family, he had a cheerful smile but a dark, serious look in his eyes.
Her job was to bring him back to life for a day.
Esmeralda glanced at the embalming room door to make sure no one was coming. Then she touched her right hand to his cold, stiff face.
Immediately, she was in the village of Rio Pequeño in Mexico, caught in a swirl of bright costumes, the sound of maracas and guitarron and vihuela, clapping hands, rhythmic voices. It was a saint’s day festival, though she wasn’t sure which one. She looked up as she held tight to the hand of an older man with a gray beard.
This was Fernando Aguilar Ortiz’s first memory.
His life unfolded around her. It had not been a very easy one. When he was a little boy, a deadly fever had swept through the village, taking several cousins, an older sister and a younger brother, and his mother.
Fernando had attended a little bit of school at the Catholic church in town, but mainly he worked for his father, who raised goats. When he was sixteen, he fell in love with a neighbor girl, Lucia, and they were married, but Lucia had not survived her first childbirth. Neither had the child.
Soon after, Fernando made his way illegally into America. He worked first on a farm, and then got a better-paying job with a landscaping company. He met another girl and married her, and they had five children. In time, he created his own landscaping company with one of his good friends and two of his sons. He had seventeen grandchildren, who gave him delight without measure.
He’d been diagnosed with cancer when he was sixty-nine. His two devoted sons and his eldest daughter came to see him over the following two years, as did five of his grandchildren. The o
thers lived too far away or were too busy, and this brought him sadness, but in his heart he forgave them.
He had died nine hours ago at the UCLA hospital, with one son at his side.
That was Fernando Aguilar Ortiz’s last memory.
Esmeralda had embalmed the body and dressed it in the coat and tie provided by his family. Now the real challenge began, using cosmetics to bring the semblance of life back to his face. The art of the mortuary cosmetics included using color to make the body appear to have a living circulatory system. Small, careful traces of red mixed in at just the right spots could bring a healthy and vital appearance to the deceased's face.
Once she had seen someone's life, Esmeralda’s understanding of the person helped guide her in making up their face and styling their hair. Maybe it was just small touches—a little shading here and there—but she did her best to subtly bring out the personality and emotional richness the deceased had possessed. The final viewing created a lasting memory image for the person's loved ones, and Esmeralda felt it was important that the families have a positive experience.
And it was much better than working with the living.
Esmeralda became absorbed in her work. On her headphones, she listened to Vivaldi. Esmeralda had not always listened to music while she worked, but in the last few weeks, she’d had a few nightmares about work. In these dreams, the embalming room stretched on forever, with mortuary tables as far as she could see, each with a body waiting for her attention. She couldn’t work fast enough—the bodies were rapidly decaying and crumbling, putting her into a panic to preserve them.
Then a young man would slowly approach her, tall and handsome, with dark, shaggy hair, and deep brown eyes that were identical to her own. He had a dazzling smile. He would touch each corpse as he passed it. At his touch, the corpse would sit up on the mortuary table and turn to look at Esmeralda.
Esmeralda cranked up the volume on her headphones and tried not to think about those dreams.
By six o'clock, Esmeralda had Mr. Ortiz looking as if he were in perfect health, just taking a siesta on a warm summer afternoon, instead of the gaunt and pale look with which he'd arrived. She hoped the family would be pleased.
Esmeralda stripped off her gloves. Mr. Ortiz was now dressed and styled for his family, and Jorge and Luis would move him into his casket for the viewing.
She straightened up the embalming room, washed her hands and rubbed them with sanitizer. She removed her smock, said goodnight to the elder of the two Mr. Garcias, and stepped outside.
Garcia y Garcia Funeral Home had operated in eastern Los Angeles for more than twenty years. Esmeralda had graduated high school two years earlier, and now she was two classes away from her Associate of Applied Science in Funeral Service degree. Technically, she was an intern at Garcia y Garcia, but since neither of the Garcia brothers really cared to do much embalming anymore, and both were impressed with how well Esmeralda prepared the bodies, she often found herself working alone.
As she walked into the parking lot, she noticed a man in dark sunglasses watching her. He sat on a motorcycle with a huge engine and some kind of gargoyle design on the side. She didn’t recognize him. He was Caucasian instead of Latino, which made him stick out in this neighborhood, where none of the signs were written in English. Strange scars dotted his face, and his hands were sheathed in black leather gloves.
He smiled at her, which made her uncomfortable. She turned her head away from him to watch the road. She would have liked to turn her back on him entirely, but that seemed a little dangerous. Esmeralda stared at the passing traffic and watched him from the corner of her eye while she waited.
She thought about going back inside, but she didn’t want to get stuck explaining how she was scared of a man in the parking lot, who was probably just an early arrival for the Ortiz viewing.
Hurry up, Esmeralda thought, watching the cars pass.
“Hi,” the man spoke behind her. She ignored him, as if she believed he was speaking to someone else. “Esmeralda,” he said.
She tensed. She turned back to give him her best “crawl away and die” look.
“I don’t know you,” she said.
“Are you sure?” The man slid off his bike. As he walked toward her, he removed his sunglasses.
When she saw his gray eyes, she heard herself draw in a sharp breath, and then she completely turned her back on him. She didn’t know what her face looked like right now, but it would be full of emotions she didn’t want him to see.
“You are Esmeralda, aren’t you?” He was walking towards her. “You have to be. You’re as beautiful as I remember.”
Esmeralda wanted to roll her eyes at him, but she would have to turn and face him to do that. And then he might see how she really felt, or how her knees had gone loose and wobbly.
“Don’t you recognize me?” he asked. He was standing just behind her now.
“Yes,” she said. She got her face under control—cool, distant—and finally turned to look at him. She flicked her eyes up and down him, trying to appear indifferent, but her heart was skipping. She didn’t even mind the weird dotting of scars on his face. “You are the devil.”
He laughed, and she liked his smile.
“Your mother said I was a fraud,” Esmeralda said.
“Foster mother,” he said. “And who cares what she thinks?”
“She was very insulting. And my mother was angry.”
“I bet your mother didn’t care once you gave her the money,” he said.
“I did not give her the money,” Esmeralda said.
He gave her a surprised look, then laughed again. “You are sneaky. That’s how I’ve always imagined you. Clever and sneaky.”
“I didn’t do it so I could keep the money.”
“Sure. You gave it all to starving orphan puppies.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Esmeralda said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
His gray eyes looked into hers. He was only inches from her now. Her heart gave a flutter.
“I’ve thought about you,” he said. “Over the years.”
“Have you?” Esmeralda asked. Of course, she’d thought about him, too. He was the first boy who had kissed her, and there had been something in his kiss, electric and powerful, that she had never again felt. Mentally, she scolded herself for feeling anything at all about him—it had only been one moment, very long ago.
He reached out a leather-gloved hand and lay it next to hers, then he wrapped his fingers around her hand. Esmeralda caught her breath. She didn’t want him to think he could just grab her up after all these years…but she didn’t exactly want him to let go of her, either. His touch made him feel more real, and less like a dream.
Then Pedro’s Acura pulled into the parking lot.
“Shit!” Esmeralda pulled her hand away and took a few steps back from him.
“What is it?” the gray-eyed boy asked. He looked at the Acura pulling into the parking place beside them, and at Pedro in the driver’s seat. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“My boyfriend,” Esmeralda said.
The gray-eyed boy didn’t bother hiding his scowl.
Pedro got out of the car and stepped between the two of them.
“Esmeralda,” Pedro said. “Let’s go.”
Esmeralda hesitated, and Pedro noticed. He looked again at the gray-eyed boy. Esmeralda knew the boy was her own age, or younger, so Pedro had to be five or six years older than him. Pedro was shorter, but much bulkier.
“Who are you?” Pedro took a step toward him.
“I’m Tommy,” the boy said.
“Tommy. That’s cute, man. Maybe when you grow up, they’ll call you Tom. Or Thomas, no?”
“I hate Thomas,” Tommy said.
“Okay, Tommy,” Pedro said. “My name is Pedro Ortega Hernandez. And I want to know why the hell you’re talking to my girlfriend.”
“Pedro,” Esmeralda said. “It was nothing. Let’s go.”
“I was not talkin
g to you, Esmeralda. You get in the car.” Pedro glared up at Tommy. “You. Why are you talking to her at her job? Why you trying to grab her hand?”
“I wanted to,” Tommy said. He didn’t look very scared by Pedro, but he had never seen Pedro angry.
“Well, I don’t want you to.” Pedro thumped Tommy in the chest. “I see you near her again, you’ll have to hire old Mr. Garcia to bury you. You understand?”
“Okay.” Tommy held up his hands defensively, but he was smirking. “Take her on home.”
“I’ll take her where the fuck I want to take her.”
“It’s been nice meeting you, Pedro,” Tommy said.
Pedro glared up at him a moment longer, then stalked back to his car. “Get in,” he said to Esmeralda.
Esmeralda looked at Tommy again, and he just folded his arms and winked at her.
“Get in the fucking car!” Pedro yelled.
Tommy didn’t say anything, so Esmeralda got in the fucking car.
Pedro drove in silence for a couple of miles.
As they passed the grocery store near her neighborhood, Esmeralda said, “I need to stop by la tienda for a couple things—”
“Who was he?” Pedro snapped.
“He was nobody.”
“It’s so good to know,” he said, “While I’m building houses for my uncle, and studying law at night, and fixing your mother’s plumbing because her landlord is lazy—it’s so good to know you’re out there making new friends.”
“He’s just someone I knew when I was a kid.”
“First he’s nobody, then he’s an old friend?”
“It’s not like that—”
“Then tell me what it’s like.”
“You missed the grocery store.”
“You can walk.” Pedro lit a Camel as he turned into Esmeralda’s apartment complex. “Or use your mother’s car.”
“I wish you wouldn’t smoke so much.”
“Good. Because I was hoping to take a little more shit from you today.” Pedro stopped in front of her apartment, but he left the engine running and didn’t park. “Maybe tomorrow your friend with the motorcycle can take you home from work.”
