Putting Makeup on Dead People (11 page)

The June night air feels cool on my neck, and a full moon washes the concrete lot into a bumpy ocean. Leaf smiles at me. “Isn’t it fun to be up so late?” she asks.

“I guess.” I’m sure Tim is still awake, telling some other girl how beautiful she is.

“Just us girls.” Keenie grins at me and pulls her cardigan around her.

Linda hands me the bottle and sits on the bottom step, next to the rocks where Leaf and Keenie sit. I hesitate. This feels like high school, but not high school at all. I consider going back to bed.

“Drink up and be somebody,” Linda says.

Going back to the gym with “the boys” seems less appealing, so I take a small swig and hold out the bottle to her.

As I sit on the concrete and lean against the gym wall and a line of ivy, Richie peeks his head out of the door above us. “I hope you gals weren’t going to leave me out.”

“Of course not.” Linda pats the step next to her.

Richie climbs down the steps and sits, taking the bottle from Linda. He drinks and splashes some whiskey on his mustache. A drop dangles from the right edge of it. “Gosh that makes me loose,” Richie says. “I think I’m a little drunk.”

“Let’s tell secrets,” Keenie suggests.

“I have one,” Leaf says. “I never wanted to be a nurse.”

“Saint Camillus is the patron saint of nurses and gamblers,” Richie adds.

“I didn’t know that.” Leaf pats Richie’s knee. “Well, I’m not a nurse anymore anyway. After
he
left, I went moping into the hospital in Altoona every day. Until this other nurse I couldn’t stand at work—you know what she said to me?”

Linda shakes her head. “I sure don’t.”

“‘No one’s forcing you to be here,’” Leaf says. “That’s what she said.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means that I’m in charge. No one’s forcing me to do anything. If I want to be somewhere different, I’ve got to take myself there.” The purr of a car engine whooshes by, over the hill. “Anyway,” Leaf says, “I’m happy where I am right now.”

“But you’re alone.” I hug my knees to my chest. I know what it’s like to be left.

She looks from Linda to Keenie to Richie to me. “No I’m not.” She stands up and brings me the bottle.

I hold the bottle by its neck, wrapping my fingers around the cool glass. The moonlight makes the whiskey glow like a topaz. “Thanks,” I say.

She nods and smiles. I notice her smooth complexion and how graceful she looks leaning back against the rock, content and warm in the moonshine.

W
hen I get home on Sunday, I’m exhausted, but the thought of Tim makes my heart start beating fast and I don’t feel so sleepy anymore.

Mom is sitting in lotus position on the living room floor, listening to some kind of flute music. She smiles and opens her eyes when she hears me come in. “So, are you officially bonded?”

I nod and smile, remembering all of us dancing around in the parking lot in the middle of the night.

“Linnie’s out, so it’s just you and me for dinner tonight. She has a new
friend
. His name is Snooter.”

I sink onto the couch. “What, is he a chimpanzee or something?”

Mom almost snorts when she laughs. “More aardvark, actually.”

“I can see that.”

“You should think about getting yourself an aardvark, Donna.”

I cross my arms. “Maybe I already have one. Did you ever consider that?”

“Don’t get defensive. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“Maybe you did.”

“How would I know if you had a boyfriend? With Liz out of town, I don’t know if you’re even talking to anyone.”

“Do you think I’m a total loser? I don’t need a stupid Communications degree to talk to people. I do just fine.” I jump up. “Maybe I just don’t want to communicate with
you.
”

I walk off to the basement and slam the door at the top of the steps.

In my room, I tell myself to calm down, and lie on my bed for a minute. I close my eyes. I imagine Tim’s lips against mine and his hand soft between my legs. When I call him, he doesn’t answer, so I leave a message.

At dinner, the silence feels as thick as the mashed potatoes I scoop onto my plate. I press into the center of the scoop with the back of my spoon.

As I fill my mashed-potato cavern with thick brown gravy, I say, “I’m starting work tomorrow. At Brighton Brothers.”

Mom stands up and turns on the TV, which I know she hates during dinner.

We both turn our heads away from each other and toward the television as the weatherman reports another sunny day tomorrow.

On Monday morning, for my first day of work, I wear all black—skirt, blouse, shoes with little heels on them. When he sees me, Mr. Brighton smirks. “By the way, you are allowed to wear other colors. Nothing too flashy, but there’s not a uniform.”

“Oh,” I say.

“Don’t worry, Donna, you look just fine. Come with me.” As we head down the hallway, Mr. Brighton tells me that JB is off for his summer hiking in Colorado and should be back later this month. “He says he needs the mountains or he couldn’t keep doing this.” Mr. Brighton shrugs. “Whatever it takes for each of us.”

At the end of the hallway, Mr. Brighton has set up an office space for me, right by the back door, where he says deliveries are made. A pile of binders sits on a long desk, and next to them, a few supply catalogs and a little cactus plant with an orange bow on it. “Some reading material,” he says. “And a welcome gift from Mrs. B.” He sits down in a folding chair next to the desk.

I smile and delicately touch one of the spiky spines on the short fat plant. “Tell her thanks.”

“You can tell me yourself.” I turn and see a short lady with shoulder-length silver hair and wide hips. I also notice that she must wear at least a D-cup in bra size, which suddenly makes me feel a little prepubescent with my A’s. I make sure to look at her face and say, “Thank you, Mrs. Brighton.”

“You’re welcome, and please, Greta or Mrs. B. We’re so glad to have you. Bob hasn’t been able to stop talking about it.”

“Okay, Mrs. B. I’m glad to be here.”

“You’ve got a full day, so I’ll let you two get down to business. But make sure to come upstairs for lunch. I’ve got chicken salad.” Mrs. B. squeezes my hand and pats my cheek and walks off.

“Thanks, honey,” Mr. Brighton calls after her. “She puts raisins and walnuts in it. It’s out of this world.” He also tells me there’s a wake this afternoon and that I can help to greet people and point them in the right direction.

I’m glad he has faith in me, and I’m nervous, too. I sit down in the cushioned chair behind the desk and find it reclines back a little.

The wake is for Mitzi Baumgartner, who died at the age of ninety-three, watching her favorite soap opera and holding a whiskey sour in her hand. “This is the easy kind,” Mr. Brighton says. “It’s a good one for you to start with. Mitzi lived a full, long life. It’s much harder for the family when someone dies too soon, like they didn’t get to finish everything.”

I flinch.

“It was like that for you?”

I nod.

“Some people say everything happens for a reason; people die because God wants them to die or bring them home.”

I remember hearing that. And hating it.

“You want to know what I think?” Mr. Brighton pushes the binders out of the way and leans his elbow on the desk. “That’s a load of horseshit. People die when they die and not because God wants to take someone’s dad away from them. There’s not a reason. It just happens.” He sighs. “But I don’t say that to families.”

“Why not?”

“Most people don’t want to hear that.”

“I would’ve wanted to hear that.”

“Well, most people also don’t want to work here.”

I glance down at the coffin catalog I’m excited to page through. “I see your point.”

“Anyway, usually best not to say anything, to be polite and kind and respectful, and let people be how they are. Family and friends arrive at two.”

At 1:50, I’m standing in the front lobby, feeling nervous and unsure that I can keep down my chicken salad, even though it was, in fact, out of this world. But something happens when the first group of people comes in. I feel my feet firmly on the ground, and I nod at the three elderly women who come through the door. I hear my voice gentle and calm, directing them down the hallway to the second door on the right. It turns out I do just fine being polite and kind and respectful, all afternoon long.

On my way out that evening, Mr. Brighton shakes my hand. “Baptism by fire. You did good.” I remember how lost I felt when Dad died, and I saw how lost some of Mitzi’s children and grandchildren looked. Greeting them with kindness and showing them which way to go, even just down the hall, made me feel useful and needed. I realize that I did do good; that, strange as it seems, I sense that I belong here.

At home, I have a postcard waiting for me on the kitchen table. On the front are the greenest hills I could imagine. On the back, Liz has written,
I know people write it all the time, but I really wish you were here. Can’t wait to see you—I’ll be home the first week in July.

When I take my phone out of the black purse I borrowed from Mom, I have a message from Tim, who wants to go to a movie on Friday night.

C
ome Friday night, since Mom has decided to sit on the front porch to read, I can’t avoid telling her I’m going on a date. At first she’s all giddy and says she can go read inside, but when she finds out Tim’s in college, she insists on meeting him.

When Tim arrives, and the three of us sit on the front porch together, I feel like I might pass out. The grounded feeling I discovered all week long at Brighton Brothers seems to have crumbled away in some kind of inner seismic disruption.

Mom says, “So what are you two going to see?”

“There’s a French film playing at the Neon.”

“Oh, the one about the swimmer and the geologist. I saw it. The cinematography was breathtaking, and the dialogue was used so exquisitely—sparse but very powerful. Sit up close so you don’t miss any of the subtitles.” Mom never told me she went to see a movie, and the thought of her sitting through one not in English fits better in some alternate universe where ice cream is hot and gerbils are in charge of political parties. I didn’t think Mom had been to the movies since last winter, when she and Linnie and I went to a cheesy romantic comedy with dialogue that unfortunately was neither sparse nor powerful.

“Tight. That’s what I heard too.” Tim nods. He’s wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and some sort of embroidered vest. He looks very calm.

“Then what?” Mom asks.

“What do you mean?” Tim asks.

“Are you doing anything after the movie?”

“We’ll play it like we play it, I guess.” Tim grins.

Mom smiles too, but it’s more of a tight-lipped, I-might-suffocate-you-with-that-throw-pillow kind of smile. “What does that mean?”

“It means we don’t know yet,” I say.

“Yeah,” Tim says, laughing a little. “The night is young. And so are we.”

“And young people need their rest,” Mom says. “Bring her home right after the movie.”

“Mom, I’m in the room.”

“Bring yourself right home after the movie. And have fun.”

* * *

In line for tickets at the Neon, I apologize about our conversation with Mom.

“No biggie,” he says. “Moms will be moms.” Then he kisses me on the cheek, close to my ear, and whispers, “And we don’t have to listen to them.”

In the theater, after Tim’s picked us seats toward the back, about ten giggly older women in red hats and feather boas sit down behind us. All of a sudden it feels like a whole row of moms-gone-wild have come to chaperone us. I find myself sitting up straighter, although Tim doesn’t seem to notice.

The movie consists of extended shots of rocks and swimming pools and people with very serious faces staring at rocks and swimming pools and each other. Watching the movie consists of my constantly moving Tim’s hand out of the center of my lap and worrying that the red-hat ladies are watching. I’m trying to enjoy the warm feeling of Tim’s hand on mine when he gives up reaching for anything else, but I feel distracted.

I’m guessing I have a serious face right now, too, attempting to figure out how Mom got through this awful movie unscathed.

Sitting in our driveway with the car windows rolled down, Tim inhales through his nose and closes his eyes. He smiles.

“What?”

“The air feels warm. Dry. Like the Mojave.” He turns and looks at me. “It’s quiet there, and romantic. Kind of like it is right now.”

I watch Tim lean toward me, and I close my eyes as he kisses me. I kiss him back, and our lips feel soft against each other’s. I wonder if he can tell that my mouth feels as dry as the Mojave, and try not to worry about it. I also wonder which window Mom is standing at. I’m sure she heard Tim’s car pull up. He reaches under my T-shirt.

I grab his hand, put mine on top of it. “My mom is right inside.”

“So?”

“So, she could come out.” I wonder why messing around was so much easier in a car with two other people. Although, I guess it was three. I almost forgot the leprechaun. At this moment, I don’t feel magical, relaxed, or particularly beautiful. I feel aggravated and excited and nervous.

Under my shirt, Tim inches his hand up farther, and I let him. With his other hand, he squeezes my thigh, very gently. “So do you want me to stop?” He whispers into my ear and licks it. “Should I stop?”

“Yes.”

I think he’s surprised, and actually I am too. My tingling body does not want him to stop, but my mind does, and as per usual, I can’t access my heart for a reliable opinion. I look down at my feet and the coffee-stained Styrofoam cup peeking out from under the seat, and I think of Charlie and his stainless-steel mug. From the cup and the empty plastic soda bottles next to me, I see that Tim does not follow the one-container rule.

Now outside of my T-shirt, both of Tim’s hands rest on his jeans. I notice they look strong and smooth. And tan, like Dad’s. I think of the handmade paper in Liz’s basement. Maybe the universe did deliver him to me. I reach over and touch one of his hands. “Next time, maybe we can go somewhere else.”

“Sure,” he says, but he’s looking past me out the window at something in the darkness.

When I got out of the car, Tim said he’d call me on Saturday, but now it’s Sunday, and I still haven’t heard from him. I’m not sure if I should call him, but I want to.

Linnie spends all day out with Snooter, and when they come home, I’m sitting on the porch paging through Mom’s gardening magazine and daydreaming about Tim and his lips. Mom hears Snooter’s car and comes to the door holding one of her new yoga books. This is the first time I’ve been around when Linnie brings Snooter into the house, and from the looks of what’s approaching, this is going to be an exciting encounter.

Linnie’s long hair hangs in green-and-black stripes—a little painful on the eyes right next to Snooter’s bright red spikes. It’s like Christmas and Death had babies. The screen door bangs behind them.

“You can’t make me fix it. We did each other’s.” Linnie stands with her arms at her sides, feet planted firmly in her combat boots.

Mom holds the yoga book to her chest and looks closely at Linnie’s head. I can tell she’s doing one of her breathing exercises. She steps back, nods, and looks at Snooter. “The green looks good. Vivid. Emerald tones.”

“Excellent,” Snooter says. “Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.”

Linnie looks like she’s not sure if she should smile or not, and I understand because I don’t know either. There are lots of reactions I could have predicted from Mom, but complimenting the shade of hair was not one of them.

Snooter turns to me. “Hey, you must be the big D.”

“Or Donna is fine.”

“Right on.” Snooter’s eyelids are droopy, like he’s a little sleepy, but a happy kind of sleepy, like some sort of Seven Dwarfs blend. “You’ve got some cool chicks in your fam, Lin.”

“While you have this hair,” Mom says to Linnie, “I’d like you to wear a hat to church. We can go out and you can choose one.” Mom’s voice is very calm.

Linnie squints at Mom and then nods, with a little hint of a smile. “Okay.”

When Linnie and Snooter go inside, Mom looks at me, and both of us crack up at the same time.

“That is a look,” Mom whispers, giggling. “How did I do? I’m working on peaceful responses.”

I’m surprised Mom wants to know what I think, but I like it. And I can tell she is working on something. “Then I’d say you did fine.”

“Thanks.” She wipes her eyes and sits down across from me. “So, have you heard from Tim?”

I shake my head.

“You can do better anyway.”

“You think he’s not going to call.” My voice is sharp. I am not, apparently, working on peaceful responses. “He’s going to call.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t.”

“You didn’t have to say it.” I don’t know if I’m mad at Tim for not calling, or Mom for deciding that’s okay, or me for caring at all. For caring that he might think I’m some kind of prude, that I might have ruined my shot to have a cute college boyfriend or any boyfriend at all.

Mom inhales and exhales and pats my leg. Then she stands up and goes inside.

A few hours later, right before dinner, Tim does call, and it turns out he’s right outside. “Let’s go,” he says. “We need ice cream.”

I go out to the kitchen, where Mom’s baking potatoes and steaming broccoli. “Tim’s here,” I say. “I’m going to skip dinner.”

Before she can answer, I run out the front door.

Sitting in the front seat of Tim’s car, I feel like I just sprang myself from jail, and I giggle.

“What’s so funny?” Tim says.

“Everything,” I shout.

Tim laughs with me and drives us to Young’s Dairy, out in Yellow Springs, where it smells like farm. Once, Dad took Linnie and me here to pet the goats. Linnie was terrified and wouldn’t go near the mama goat. I was terrified too, but I did it anyway. As I touched the goat’s coarse coat and felt her shaking, I realized she could commiserate. I felt so proud of myself when Dad smiled at me and said, “That’s my girl.”

This time goats aren’t on the agenda. Tim and I sit at the benches outside Young’s, eating double-scoop cones of the best homemade ice cream in the Dayton area.

One scoop in, Tim gets a call on his cell phone. “I’ve got to take this.”

“Okay,” I say, but he’s already started to walk away.

Sitting alone on the bench, I tune in to the sounds around me—goats bleating, leaves rustling in the breeze, a woman’s laugh that sounds a lot like a cackle, and a very familiar voice. “You come here often?”

I turn and see Charlie holding his own cone and sporting a significant chocolate mustache. I smile at him and all of the sudden wonder if there’s something on my face, and how I look. I sit up and straighten my skirt. “Sometimes. You?”

“I’m here with my mom and dad. We’re heading up the road to buy corn from some guy they met, and I convinced them we needed ice cream before corn.”

“Two great tastes that go great together.”

Charlie laughs. He reaches over and touches the scalloped sleeve of my shirt. “I like this.”

Where his fingers brush my shoulder, my skin feels like it’s about two hundred degrees. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” He licks his ice cream, and I’m glad I’m already sitting down, because I’m feeling a little unstable in the knee joints.

Then behind Charlie, I see Tim heading toward us.

“I’ve got to go,” I say.

“Hello, sudden.”

“I’m, um, here on a date,” I blurt, and wish I hadn’t. I make myself stand up.

“Oh.” His eyes change, but I can’t pinpoint how. “Well, have fun.”

I smile a little and walk fast to Tim. Tim didn’t seem to care that I was talking with Charlie, because he doesn’t say anything but “Ready to go?”

I also try not to care that I was talking with Charlie as Tim and I head back into downtown Yellow Springs, with its cute little bookstores and Full of Beans Coffee House and shops with big iron dragons and purple cloths draped in window boxes.

Right past 3-D Comics, Tim takes me into this combination thrift/consignment/antique store. We split up and wander around through packed displays of scarves and knickknacks and books and old pictures. While I’m gawking at a whole set of wineglasses of the saints—each glass with a picture of a saint and a little history—I feel someone stand close behind me and a hand go over my eyes.

“I hit the mother lode,” Tim says. “Keep your eyes closed, and turn around.” When I do, he takes my hands and puts something that feels squarish into them. “Okay, take a look.”

I look down and see an ornate cherrywood box with a little cross on top and the letters rip engraved in gold.

“Open it,” he says.

Inside the box is a stack of black-and-white photographs of people, maybe from the early 1900s, all dressed up, and dead, in their coffins.

“What is this?”

Tim explains that he learned in his photography class that people used to take pictures of their dead family members, like a last shot for the photo album. He shows me the backs of the pictures, and the faint handwritten names of each person. They all share the same last name. “Black-and-white photos—your favorite, right? Do you like them?”

I gingerly touch the old pictures, looking at the close-up shot of some woman in pearls who was probably someone’s grandma. “They are totally creepy,” I say. “And I love them.”

“Good,” Tim says. “I’m getting them for you.”

Later that night, I fix myself a plate of cold chicken from the fridge and walk down the stairs to the basement smiling, still feeling giggly from my spontaneous date, and trying not to worry that I’m thinking about Tim and Charlie both.

I find Mom sitting at my desk, holding my box from Tim in one hand and the pictures in the other. She’s frowning. “Donna?”

I explain the pictures to her just how Tim explained to me, but that doesn’t make her any happier. “Honey,” she says, “we need to talk. Now.”

I look down at the chicken, which doesn’t seem so appetizing anymore. “There’s nothing wrong with me.” I point to the gift from Tim. “Those are beautiful. They’re art.”

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with you.” She looks at the pictures, puts them back into the box, and shakes her head. “You’ve gotten so far out, I don’t know where you are anymore. I don’t know how I let this happen.”

“Let what happen?”

She sets the box on the desk and looks up into my eyes. “Since your Dad died, it’s like you’ve disappeared.”

My legs feel shaky underneath me, like they might just decide to stop holding me up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Honey, it’s time for you to let your life be normal and happy. To be part of our family.” Mom stands and walks to me. She puts her hands on my shoulders and holds them tight. “I need you here with us. In the land of the living.”

I try to wriggle out of her grasp, but I can’t. I feel helpless, holding a plate of chicken and listening to the pain in Mom’s voice, watching her eyes, desperate and full, right in front of me.

“It’s not too late for you to go to UD.”

“Yes,” I say, feeling my hands tremble, like I could drop the plate at any second, “it is.” I close my eyes, willing myself to disappear, like Mom thinks I already have.

I feel her hands let go of my shoulders. I feel where her fingers were pressed into my skin.