Always and Forever (33 page)

Mrs. Delaney gently shushed Jory’s senseless babbling, smoothing her palm over Jory’s hair and down her cheek. “I’m so sorry, baby. So sorry.”

“Don’t leave me alone.”

“I won’t, Jory. I’m right here. For as long as you want.”

Without warning, a wail started deep within Jory’s soul and rose, until it ripped its way out her mouth. Her whole body began to tremble and she would have crumbled, except that her mother wrapped her arms around her and supported her. Mrs. Delaney stroked Jory’s hair and crooned nonsensical things, as a mother would to a child, rocking her, comforting her, while Jory wept for hours into the night.

Melissa Austin was buried on a glorious day in March that looked like a greeting card colored in bright crayons. The sky gleamed sapphire blue and the sun was a fiery yellow. The breeze smelled of flowers and new grass. Lincoln High School closed at noon and the senior class, and even some juniors and sophomores, came to bury their classmate, who, according to the student newspaper, had “died too young.”

The cortege of automobiles wound its way through the streets of Tampa in a slow, steady crawl to the cemetery. Jory inched along in the snaking line, alone in her convertible. Her parents had driven too, and they were somewhere behind in traffic. It meant a lot to her that they had come. But she’d driven by herself because despite her mother’s kindness and understanding, today she could not share her grief with anyone.

Jory surmised that grief had an anesthetic quality to it. She had functioned in a normal capacity during the few days following Melissa’s death, without remembering exactly how she’d made it through. She’d eaten and slept, and talked to her parents and made phone calls to friends. But she’d
felt numb, detached, as if she were moving through mist in a dream.

Now she had time to think, and the previous days came back in bits and pieces. She recalled weeping with Mrs. Austin in the kitchen, the friendly yellow kitchen she’d all but grown up in since fifth grade.

“She doesn’t hurt anymore,” Mrs. Austin said. “In some ways, knowing that makes it easier for me.”

Jory wanted to shout, “It’s a lousy price to pay to never hurt again,” but instead she plucked at a tissue in her fist and said, “Melissa was the bravest person I ever knew.”

“It’s hard to believe she’ll never come through that door again.”

“I know.”

“That she’ll never call me up and ask, ‘Mom, what do you want me to start for supper?’ ”

“I know,” Jory said, and she and Mrs. Austin held each other and cried.

Later, Jory had gone to Melissa’s bedroom, but she lost her courage and shut the door quickly, staring at it so long that her knees locked. She had avoided Michael, who looked to have aged ten years. He wore dark glasses, even inside the house, and he never once spoke to her until the day of the viewing at the funeral home.

Jory had been the first one there aside from the immediate family, but she couldn’t bring herself to walk over to the open casket. The notion of seeing Melissa’s body terrified her, yet she knew she
couldn’t leave without telling her best friend goodbye.

Struggling to keep her composure, Jory watched Michael approach the coffin and, as he knelt down her courage returned. Timidly she went forward and knelt next to him. Her hands were clammy and her throat ached with unshed tears, but she forced herself to look at Melissa who rested on a bed of white satin. “Crazy, isn’t it?” Michael said. “She had to die in order to be beautiful again.”

Jory nodded, awestruck. Melissa
was
beautiful, dressed in white eyelet, her hair—the wig Jory had given her—framing her flawless face. She was no longer bloated, and the sores and lesions were smoothed away. Jory said, “Death gave her back what life took away. She looks like a princess.” Then she asked Michael, “Does your father know? Was there any way to let him know?”

Michael’s eyes never strayed from his sister’s face. “He left years ago and if Mom has an address for him, she never told me. But I wouldn’t want him here. Why should he share her death, when he never shared her life?”

Jory allowed herself one final lingering look at her friend, then she stepped aside and watched others file past. Ric came. She recognized his sharp features and shaggy brown hair immediately. He was with a girl Jory didn’t know. Michael’s friends came too. People she recognized from the balloon club, and the guy who’d asked Jory to drive Michael home on the night of the party in the woods.

Kids from school came. Jory caught snatches of their conversations.

“It’s awful, so awful.”

“Poor Melissa. Why did this have to happen to her?”

“She had everything to live for. It’s not fair.”

“I thought she was getting better, then just after Christmas, bam! Back to the hospital.”

“I’m glad I gave blood. It makes me feel I helped in some small way.”

Many of the girls wept and for some reason it irritated Jory, for they hadn’t known Melissa half as well as she, and she was taking great pride in staying dry-eyed throughout the evening. She refused to cry in front of them. Melissa would have wanted her to keep it together, because Jory had a reputation for smiling, for always having a happy-go-lucky attitude. It was the least she could do for Melissa. The very least.

Lyle came, of course. She saw him across the room, walking past the casket, tall and lean, his amber eyes downcast and serious. He was dressed in a dark brown suit and there were streaks of blond in his hair from being outdoors a lot.

Lyle stepped away and glanced up. Jory tried to look down to avoid meeting his eyes, but she was too late. Lyle nodded, acknowledging her, and their estrangement reared between them like a wall. She had avoided him for weeks, ever since the night of the party when they’d fought. She turned quickly to scan the masses of funeral bouquets. Seeing him had suddenly made her throat tighten
and tears threaten. Jory clenched her teeth, dug her nails into her palms.
This is stupid
, she told herself. How could she make it through this terrible evening without shedding a tear, then almost lose it because she’d looked into Lyle Vargas’s eyes? It made no sense.

She had slipped away right after seeing Lyle and gone home. Now, as the endless line of cars filed through the gates of the cemetery, Jory remembered how confused she’d felt that night of the viewing. And she couldn’t call Melissa and ask, “What’s the matter with me? Why am I acting so dopey?”

The graveside area was crowded with people overflowing from under a canvas canopy, where a minister waited and Melissa’s few relatives sat stiffly in chairs. Michael wore a black suit and dark glasses. His expression was stony and he held his mother’s hand without moving. Jory’s heart ached. The minister spoke of heaven and how Melissa was already there. Jory glanced away, toward the section of the cemetery where she’d brought Melissa last winter to see Rachael’s grave. She wondered if Melissa was playing with the little girl.

The minister read some Bible verses. Jory tried to concentrate on the words but couldn’t. He said, “And I will turn your mourning into joy,” and the idea was so ludicrous to Jory that she almost laughed out loud. The minister’s voice seemed to be coming from far away and Jory felt a lightness in her head. Her vision blurred and the ground tilted.

She felt an arm around her waist as she sagged.
Her legs collapsed, beyond her control. A guy’s voice said, “Come with me. You’d better sit down.”

She allowed him to lead her away from the service toward the line of parked cars. Her breath was coming in short gasps and she felt sick to her stomach, cold and clammy. A car door opened and hands guided her into the cool interior of a large gray automobile. “Lean back against the seat,” his voice said.

Shakily, she obeyed, but her breathing was erratic. “W-why can’t … I catch … my … breath?”

“You’re hyperventilating. Put your head between your knees. Your brain needs oxygen. Relax.” He dipped her head forward, all the while holding her hand. “You almost fainted. You were as white as a sheet, but your color’s better already.”

Jory did as she was told. In a few minutes, her head began to clear and her breathing slowed. She sat up and confronted her white knight.
Lyle
. Words of thanks died on her lips as Jory felt extreme embarrassment. “I think I’m all right now,” she mumbled. “I need to get back. I’m missing the service.”

Lyle held her shoulder-gently, restraining her. “Not so fast, or it’ll happen all over again.”

Jory felt woozy and realized he was right. She dropped back onto the car seat and closed her eyes. The car was cool and quiet, and she welcomed the relief from the sun. She kept her eyes closed, still embarrassed. Finally, she said, “Thanks for the rescue.”

Lyle explained, “I happened to glance over and you looked so pale I thought, ‘Jory’s going down.’ So I moved next to you as fast as I could. I don’t think too many people noticed.”

She hoped not. Jory felt utterly ridiculous and foolish. “I’ve never fainted in my life.”

“You’ve been under a lot of stress. Sometimes it comes out in odd ways and at inconvenient times.”

“You’ll make a great doctor, Lyle.” It came out sarcastically and she saw him flinch.

He gazed out the car window. “The service is over.”

An incredible sadness filled Jory. “I missed the minister’s final words.” Her tone was flat. “About how happy we’ll all be someday.”

“Come on,” Lyle said. “I’ll take you to your car.”

She let him help her out because her legs were still wobbly. She leaned on the car door. “I can make it,” she told him.

“You shouldn’t drive.”

“I can drive fine. Stop treating me like an invalid.”

“Are you all right, Jory?” It was Michael.

Instinctively, she leaned toward him. “I’m all right,” she said. Lyle’s eyes darted between Michael and Jory. He stepped aside.

“Mom saw you almost faint and she was worried.”

“Lyle rescued me.”

Lyle and Michael exchanged nods. Michael
adjusted his dark glasses. “Mom wants you to come back to the house for the afternoon. Everybody on the block sent food and we have enough for all the relatives and their relatives too.”

Jory agreed. She wanted to be with the Austins. It made Melissa seem closer, more tangible. “I’ll be there soon. Let me tell my parents.”

Michael walked away and Lyle turned his attention to Jory. “If you ever want to talk, Jory, call me.”

“I don’t want to talk. All I want to do is forget.”

“Well, you take care. I’ll … uh … see you next week in school.”

Jory looked at him, and a deep, dark despair welled inside her, making her throat ache. “Melissa would have been eighteen-years old next month. We were planning to go register to vote.”

“Goodbye, Jory,” Lyle said.

She watched him, unblinking, as he walked away. She gripped her arms tightly to her chest and allowed her gaze to drift to the canopy and to the coffin waiting to be lowered into the ground. Baskets of flowers and wreaths stood vigil around the pale blue casket and spilled over in lush abundance, reminding Jory more of a garden than of a funeral. Their colorful, velvet petals fluttered in the breeze—jonquils and daffodils, daisies and iris, pansies, black-eyed Susans, tulips, lilies, and exotic birds of paradise. “A thousand pretty petals,” Jory said under her breath. “With nothing to do but die.”