Putting Makeup on Dead People (10 page)

“Yeah.”

“And she’ll be gone for a whole month?”

“Yes. Thanks for reminding me.”

“I’m sorry. I know you’ll miss her.” Her voice is kind and gentle, at least for Linnie, and not what I was expecting.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

As I hear her walk up the steps and close the door, I roll onto my side and stare through the dark, making out the shape of the window and the blinds and the curtain. I hear the nighttime bugs clicking and chirping outside the window. What would it be like to sleep in the yellow room, no Linnie or Mom upstairs? Just me. I’m not sure I could do it even if I want to. Usually, the quiet lulls me, but right now I feel afraid, like everything’s changing so fast I can’t keep up.

O
n Friday night, Becky calls me while I’m watching a made-for-TV movie with Linnie. I take my phone out to the front porch to talk, and Becky says, “Jim’s soccer friends are having a graduation party tomorrow, out in Beavercreek. Want to come with us?”

“On your date?” It’s still getting cool in the evenings, so I pull the orange afghan from the wicker couch over my legs.

“Jim’s cousin Tim will be there. He’s cute, and he’s in college. He asked if I had any cute single friends, and I thought of you.”

I realize that if this guy’s related to Jim, he’s also related to Patty, an immediate red flag. And I realize that Patty may also be involved in this event. “Thanks, Becky, but I’m not sure. B graduates tomorrow.”

“And that’s going to take all day?”

I know no one will mind if I go out. B’s graduation is in the morning, and we’re going to lunch afterward. And of course Mom already said she’s worried that I won’t do anything while Liz is gone. I guess watching bad TV with my little sister on a Friday night doesn’t help my argument against that. Mom is still going to yoga class—a couple of nights a week now—and actually suggested tonight that we stretch together and then have “our talk.” I can’t think of anything worse, except for going to a stupid party and feeling awkward. I look for an easy out. “Um, so will Patty be going with us too?” If Patty’s coming, then B’s about to have a late-evening graduation dinner that I can’t miss.

“She’s going out with some new guy, so she can’t make it. Bummer, I know.”

So now, faced with Becky’s Patty-free invitation, I try to figure out what Liz would do. Liz, who just got on a plane to fly over the ocean at a moment’s notice.

“I know you don’t usually go out,” Becky says, “but come on—we just graduated. And I want you to be there.”

I know what Liz would do. “Okay.”

“Okay, really? Awesome! And I think you’ll really like Tim.”

Well, Becky can be excited enough for both of us. And we’ll see if cousin Tim is what I asked the universe for.

On the way to the party, I touch the long crinkly gypsy skirt Mom let me borrow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her wear it. She pulled it out of the cedar closet off of my room in the basement and said that the skirt was from her wild youth, about which I’d prefer to remain blissfully in the dark.

In the car, Becky wants to talk about us rooming together at UD. Apparently there’s some kind of form she wants to mail in, so I decide I can’t keep my secret any longer. And of course now, in Jim’s car, I’m not just telling Becky, but also Jim and Jim’s cousin Tim, who is nineteen and about to be a sophomore at UD, and who is, in fact, exceptionally cute. He’s got very light brown hair, almost blond, that hangs to his shoulders, and hazel eyes that he uses a lot for direct contact, which makes me nervous.

I hold on to the door handle—maybe I’m thinking of jumping out, rolling and bumping over gravel and concrete to make my escape. “I hate to drop this on you, Becky, but I’m not going to UD.”

“You’re not?’

“No, I applied somewhere else and got in.”

“Are you going to tell us where?” Jim says.

“Chapman.”

“I haven’t heard of that.”

Oh, come out with it, Donna
, I say to myself. Then out loud: “It’s a college of mortuary science.”

“Like funeral stuff?” Tim asks, and of course looks me right in the eyes. “Tight.”

“You’re going to be a funeral person?” Jim asks.

“Like with dead people?” Becky asks.

“Usually funerals go with dead people,” Tim says. “Sometimes I paint dead people. It’s cool.” That was a response I wasn’t expecting, and since Mom’s made her opinion of mortuary school painfully clear, it’s especially nice to hear. In addition to cute, Tim just got much more interesting.

“Tim’s an art major,” Jim says, which sounds a lot like the way he described Charlie’s parents as hippies, a sort of
I know you’d never believe it, but here’s living proof that these species do exist
. Like introducing a dog-headed lady at the circus.

“Everything is art,” Tim says, a far-off look suddenly clouding those hazel eyes. “Death is art. Life is art. Pain is art.”

“Drinking is art,” Jim says. “I hope they have beer.”

“I hope I can find a roommate I like for college.” Becky sighs.

“Hope is art,” Tim says.

I almost giggle, but realize Tim is serious, so I nod seriously with him.

* * *

An hour and a half later, Becky and Jim have disappeared, and I’m sitting next to Tim in the corner of an old basement couch, shared with two soccer players with girls on their laps. The basement smells like beer-soaked carpet. I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing that someone’s parents are not going to be pleased when they get back into town.

Tim has asked me about mortuary school and what I think about the use of color in photographs, and I realize as I tell him, how much I actually like black-and-white pictures. He’s told me all about his drawing and sculpting classes, and the most exquisite flower he’d ever seen in the Mojave Desert;
and
he has told me I’m the smartest and most fascinating girl at the party.

Also, I’m drinking a Leprechaun, a very sweet concoction of orange juice and something called Blue Maui, which looks a lot like Linnie’s recent hair experiment. And I’m wondering if this drink is about to turn me into a leprechaun, because in addition to smart and fascinating, I’m feeling pretty magical. “I think I’m a little drunk.”

“It’s okay,” Tim says. “You only graduate from high school once.”

“I hope so.”

Tim slips his arm around me. “It’s kind of crowded,” he says, glancing at the soccer players and their lap-lady friends. “You don’t mind?”

His arm feels warm and nice, like the rest of my new leprechaun self. I hope I’m not turning green. “No, I don’t mind.”

“You’re more beautiful than you know,” Tim says.

I fiddle with the silver turtle ring on my index finger.

Half an hour later, Tim rounds me up another Leprechaun and himself some more beer from the keg and then settles back next to me on the couch. He clinks our plastic cups and says, “Cheers.”

We both take a drink, and Tim says, “You’ve got some blue stuff on your lip.”

I reach up to wipe it away, but he grabs my hand, and before I know it, he’s kissing me very softly. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

“I think I got it,” he says, and smiles as he pulls back.

I touch my lips. “I think you did.”

Close to midnight, we pile into Becky’s car for the twenty-five minute trek home. Becky is Leprechaun-free, so she’s driving now, and Jim’s in the front with her.

In the backseat, Tim lies down with his head in my lap, his hand cupped right above my knee, under my long skirt. I’m feeling awfully warm, so I pull my jacket off and cover Tim with it, like Mom covers me with a blanket when I fall asleep on the couch. “Have a nice nap,” I say.

“Thanks,” he says, and pats my leg.

I close my eyes and rest my hand on the back of his neck where his hair softens and curls.

Becky puts on a CD with lots of guitar and some ethereal kind of synthesizer effect that seems to fit just perfectly with my new leprechaun identity. Jim says, “I love this one.”

I close my eyes and listen. I feel the motor rumble through me as we move faster on the highway.

And I also feel Tim reach farther up my skirt. His fingers play around on my thighs. This is new. This is, wow. He plays over my underwear and then under it. I think I should stop him, but his fingertips are soft and gentle, and I think of guitar strings and that Spanish folk music Mom plays sometimes—love songs. I am an instrument.

“I think Donna’s asleep,” Becky whispers to Jim.

“Tim too,” Jim says. “If you weren’t driving…”

Becky giggles.

Tim strums faster, and I’m floating somewhere. I clutch at the hair on the back of his neck so I don’t float away altogether.

Then he slips a finger inside of me—I’m surprised how easily it glides in—and his thumb makes circles. Now he finger paints. I feel wet, and I imagine shimmery paint where his hand slips and slides. I am a canvas.

“My parents are out with Tim’s parents,” Jim says. “They’ll be home late. You should come in when you drop us off.”

“Should I?” Becky says.

Tim brushes and strokes and dips his brush in the paint well, in and out. Oh my God, what’s happening to my body?

“I think so,” Jim says. “I think that would be a great idea.”

Tim presses his thumb, makes a firm smudge, and all of a sudden I feel like I’m swallowing something delicious on the whole outside of myself, like I’m turned inside out. With my eyes still closed, I see a kaleidoscope of red and blue and purple light. I suck in air and gasp just a little. My eyes snap open.

Tim stops pressing and stroking, rests his hand on the inside of my thigh.

Jim turns around. “Hey there, sleepyhead,” he says, smiling at me like a dad. “We’re almost at your house.”

“Okay,” I say softly, and close my eyes again. Tim squeezes my leg. I squeeze the back of his neck. I melt into the car seat.

On Sunday morning, I can’t believe Liz is gone and I have no one to talk with about what happened. After church, we go to the Golden Nugget for breakfast, and Mom says, “How was the party?”

“It was fine.” I can’t stop thinking about Tim and what happened in the car, and I wonder if he’s thinking about it too. And I take a big bite of peanut butter pancakes, hoping that Mom’s yoga training doesn’t involve reading minds.

That night, Becky calls me and says Tim called Jim and asked for my phone number. She’s very excited. “He’s totally into you.”

I wish I were already working at Brighton Brothers, because I check my phone several times every hour on Monday and Tuesday. I wish for Liz again. And no one calls but Becky asking if Tim called. I tell her he hasn’t.

On Tuesday night, sitting on the front porch and listening to crickets, I start to worry that I might have done something wrong. I’m not actually sure what I’ve done, which is another reason I wish Liz was around for consultation. I know it wasn’t sex, exactly, but I’m pretty sure this falls under that heavy-petting category we were warned against in St. Camillus sex ed.

But what I also know is that I never felt anything like that before, that it felt good, and that I’m warm now just thinking about it.

On Wednesday, Mom says she’s going out with some people from her yoga class, so not to be worried if she’s home late. “Will you be all right?”

“Mom.” I use my end-of-the-conversation voice with her and think it sounds quite convincing.

“Fine,” she says, and I notice her unusually shiny lips.

“Are you wearing lipstick to yoga?”

“A woman needs to be prepared at all times.”

“For what?” Now I’m curious.

“Life,” Mom says, and this time
she
ends the conversation, kisses my cheek, wipes away the lipstick mark she has probably left, and heads out.

An hour later I’m eating popcorn in my bedroom when my phone rings. I forget to breathe again for a minute when I realize it’s Tim, who asks if I can go out on Saturday with him to a party on campus.

I start to say yes, but then I remember the Players Lock-In. “I can’t.” I also can’t imagine how to tell him about the Players, although he may just say,
Theater is art.
Still. In search of fresh air, I wander out to the garage and through the side door outside. Pink-and-orange brush-strokes stripe across the darkening sky, and the sun has almost disappeared for the day. “I have something with my family. Could we hang out on Sunday?” I ask, hoping I don’t sound as anxious to see him as I feel.

“Why don’t you call me on Sunday and we’ll make some plans.”

“Okay.”

“You know,” he says, his voice like syrup, “I’ve been thinking about you. And our ride home from the party.”

“Have you?”

“I had a really good time.”

“Me too.”

When I get off the phone, the pink and orange have faded into a blue-gray. Inside, I close the garage door and notice size eleven work shoes in the same spot they’ve been for four years, next to the shovels and Mom’s gardening gloves. They sit side by side, laces undone and empty. What would Dad think of Tim? What would Dad think of me?

I go into the bathroom and splash my face with cold water. I feel the drops run down my forehead and cheeks.

On Saturday night, Father Bill twists shut the two locks on the gym door, slides in the bolt above them, turns around and grins at us. “Well,” he says, “six o’clock Eastern Standard. We’re locked in right on time.” Like Pontius Pilate, he mimics washing his hands.

Father Bill says we’re going to need positive attitudes all around, but I find it hard to locate mine. Our very first activity is to act like trees.

Something knots and double knots in my stomach. I’ve graduated from high school. I’m not going to a normal college like everyone else. And right now I could be on my first real date with a college guy. Instead I’m with Father Bill, who is asking us to find our centers, our bubbling hot lava cores, and to let our elms or magnolias grow from there.

Five hours, six cups of punch, and eight improv games later, Father Bill has suggested we get some sleep, get an early start in the morning. Everyone stretches out in sleeping bags, girls on one side of the gym and boys on the other, both areas designated with markered signs and masking tape. I am drifting in and out of sleep to the hum of the water fountain motor when I feel a nudge and hear “Psst.”

I look up and see a shadowy Linda, dimly lit by the red exit lights at both ends of the gym. She’s waving a bottle above me. I squint. “Is that alcohol?” I ask.

“You betcha. Jackie D,” she whispers, and swings the bottle. On our side of the gym, Keenie’s air mattress is vacant, and Leaf’s sleeping bag sprawls empty, too.

On the boys’ side, Dr. Roger, Richie, and Father Bill lie still, sacked out in their sleeping bags. I slip on my sneakers and follow Linda on tiptoes through the side gym door, propped open with a brick. At the bottom of a short flight of steps, Keenie and Leaf are sitting on two big rocks at the edge of the parking lot. Above them, the headless Saint Camillus stands on his big marble dice.