I'll Love You When You're More Like Me (20 page)

I stood beside Charlie, waiting for him to get off the phone, holding my watch under his nose to remind him the services were due to begin at twelve thirty.

“I don't have anything against you, personally, Deke,” Charlie was saying. “The Sigh funeral flowers came from Pittman Florists, that's all.”

I whispered, “It's twelve forty. I have to be back by one.”

“I don't know who'll get the order for the Fabray flowers,” said Charlie. “I leave that up to the bereaved. . . . See you around, buddy.”

Then Charlie hung up. “I'll be a son of BEAMS,” he said, “Deke actually begged me to remember we were old friends.”

In the chapel, Charlie and I helped the mourners to their seats, and then before Reverend Monroe began the eulogy and prayers, Charlie made a little speech about the Sighs' importance to Seaville. He stood at the lectern and talked to the gathering as though he's been doing it all his life. One old lady even clapped when Charlie finished.

Reverend Monroe took me aside at the end of the service, while Charlie went up to close the casket. The mourners filed out to the waiting limousines, and the pallbearers stood in readiness just outside the chapel door.

“What a blessing Charlie's going to be to your father,” said Reverend Monroe. “Are you accompanying us to the
cemetery, Wally?”

“I have to go back to school,” I said. “Charlie will handle it.”

“He certainly will!” said Reverend Monroe enthusiastically.

At a signal from Charlie, the pallbearers filed in to lift the coffin.

It was then that we heard it, a sudden, incredible, inhuman sound, an eerie moaning going higher and higher: Arrrrrrrrrrrrr-ow, Arrrrrrrrrrrrr-ow!

The pallbearers jumped back.

Reverend Monroe and I rushed into the chapel.

Charlie opened the coffin and Gorilla leaped out and rushed past us with her hair standing up and her tail flagging.

“Shall we proceed?” Charlie asked everyone.

My first glimpse of Lauralei Rabinowitz, on my first day of my last year at Seaville High, came after last class. She was walking by herself out the front door, and I caught up with her. It was a fine fall afternoon with the leaves turning and drifting down lazily from the trees, and Lauralei Rabinowitz looked down at me with a sweet smile.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi, Wally.”

“Where's Maury?”

“Maury who?” she said, tossing back her long, soft, black hair, grinning into my eyes.

“
Oh
,” I said.

“Yes, oh,” she said. “That's
fini, chéri.
”

I felt a sudden, lovely glow, as though maybe this new
school year was going to be the best one, and it was senior year, too: the last, the best.

“How have
you
been, Wally?” she said in her breathless tone.

“Just great,” I said. “Have you heard the news about me?”

“What's the news about you?” she said, hooking her arm in mine, brushing against me while we went down the winding walk from school.

“I'm not going to be an undertaker,” I said.

“Marvelous!” she said. “Super! . . . Now if you were two feet taller and your name was Witherstein, you'd be perfect!”

Well, as my Uncle Albert is fond of saying, you can't win them all.

T
HE
E
ND

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