Putting Makeup on Dead People (15 page)

“That’s true,” she says. “But still.”

We both laugh, and for a second it feels like relief, like everything could be okay. I want to enjoy the laughter, but I know that sooner or later, there are things we’ll need to talk about, even if both of us would rather not.

Mom takes a large round Tupperware container out of the bag on my desk. “I thought I should bring you some back-to-school muffins. They’re strawberry-walnut.”

“So am I,” I say.

Mom looks at me and smiles, as one does at the insane. “Okay, honey.”

She sets the container on my desk and pulls a large Ziploc bag out of her purse. In it, she has paper napkins, plastic knives, and several restaurant packets of Sweet Dream butter.

Mom turns to me. “Your Dad would be so proud of you,” she says.

My eyes fill, just like that. “Thanks, Mom,” I say. “I needed that.”

She pulls her purse straps farther up onto her shoulder, tugs at a piece of hair at the nape of her neck. “You know,” she starts, and looks like she might be sick. Or hurt.

“What?” I take a step toward her.

She shakes off whatever malaise had appeared… mostly. “I’m proud of you too.” For a second, we look at each other, her blue eyes into my brown.

Now I nod at her.

Before I say anything, Mom hugs me and pats my face.

I follow her down the steps and through the lobby of Brighton Brothers. She turns and hugs me hard and tight and kisses me on the cheek. I have the feeling that I’m falling into a deep cavern without a bottom. She walks fast, and I watch her fiddle with her car keys on the way out the door.

Up in my room, I sit on the bed and stare at my desk, at all of the provisions Mom left there. Back-to-school muffins.

Back to school. I go to the sink and fill my water glass.

When I go to the container, I notice there’s an envelope taped on the top of it. Inside is a check from Mom. In the bottom left corner she’s written
For Donna’s Tuition
. The falling feeling returns, and I hold on to the edge of the desk and take a breath.

I set out one of the paper napkins and smooth the creases. I rig it with a packet of butter, a knife, and a muffin. I don’t have to go to Mrs. B’s kitchen or search the meager supplies I have in my chest of drawers. Everything I need sits right there on that table. Mom left it all there for me.

E
ven though I’ve been working at a funeral home all summer, and even though I live there now, my first day at Chapman feels big. I take the card from Aunt Selena with me in my backpack. Sitting in the auditorium with the new class, I remind myself that this is my destiny. After a brief orientation meeting, it’s time for Embalming I, my first class of the day. Outside the student center, the sun shines steady from a cloudless sky; it feels like some tropical island, without the beach part. All Chapman’s got is a goldfish pond.

There are fifty of us, so we’ll be split into two groups for classes. I go with twenty-five of my classmates to the science building and settle into a chair in the middle of the room. The air-conditioning must be below forty degrees, because it’s freezing. My body feels confused, and I wish I’d brought a sweater to go over my short-sleeved shirt.

Our instructor, Ned Troutman, runs the biggest funeral home in Cincinnati, and the centerpiece of his tan face is a long pointed nose. He wears jeans and black cowboy boots, and it’s easier to imagine him rounding up cattle on a sunny ranch than draining pale bodies in a sterile prep room. He tells us that
embalming
comes from the Greek “en” for
into
and “balsamon,” for
dried sap or resins
. Unlike the Egyptian method of drying out bodies, embalming meant introducing preservative resins into the body.

I can’t help think, Dead body, I’d like you to meet preservative resins. Preservative resins, dead body. Can I get either of you a cocktail? I almost make myself laugh out loud, but I bite my tongue, choosing not to be the problem student on my first day. Suddenly I have a memory of being at a Christmas concert at St. Camillus when I was seven, and the lady singing the Ave Maria was so high-pitched and off-key that it was painful. B was on the end of the pew, and then Linnie, Mom, Dad, and me. I heard Dad make a noise, and saw that he was shaking. With a closer look, I realized he was shaking because he was laughing so hard. Mom shot him the evil eye, and me too, so I wouldn’t get any ideas.

Of course, then, I couldn’t help it; so I started laughing too. Still laughing, Dad glanced at me and held up a finger to his lips. He put his arm around me, and we both lowered our heads and shook and laughed in silence together as the Ave Maria went on. The woman sitting next to me—in a white sweatshirt with a three-D crocheted Christmas tree jutting out the front of her stomach—seemed so enraptured that she didn’t notice.

When it was over, Dad and I clapped with everyone else, tears running down our faces. When the woman next to me turned, sincere tears shining on her cheeks, and said, “I know—it gets me every time,” Dad and I had to leave to get drinks of water and laugh out loud in the back of the church.

Thinking of Dad makes me somber pretty quickly, so I remain a good student for Mr. Troutman and learn about sticking tubes in arteries and how embalming is good because it allows family and friends to view the body without the disturbing effects of decomposition. Mr. Troutman ends the class by saying our role is a sacred one. “We do what others can’t,” he says, “so that others can grieve in the way they need to.”

When he says this, I find myself sitting up straighter. I like the idea of having a sacred role. I’ve never had one before.

The next Saturday, Liz invites everyone from our Woodmont lunch table over to her house. She’s making lunch for us and wants to say good-bye before she leaves for Pittsburgh the next day to start CMU. I think it will be nice to see Charlie, but I don’t have any desire to see anyone else.

Liz has decided on a Middle Eastern menu, and I get there early to help. As I set out pita bread and hummus and falafel and some kind of yogurty dip with cucumbers, under a big umbrella table on the back patio, I ask her why she’s doing this.

“It’s sort of like a ritual,” she says. “I want to say goodbye and thank you to this part of my life, so I can make room for the next one.”

Once everyone arrives, I feel like I’m floating outside myself, watching. Charlie looks taller and more muscular. He comes over and gives me a big hug. “It’s good to see you,” he says, with a low voice, just loud enough for me to hear. I like Charlie’s arms around me, and his smell, something musky. When I step away from him I have goose bumps all over both arms. I feel like I must be blushing and hope no one notices.

Charlie says he’s picked the environmental law track in his program at UD, that he wants to work toward the biggest change he possibly can. As he explains the program and his goals, he sounds so articulate and clear. I’m impressed.

“You rock,” Liz says to him, and I nod, which I hope he knows is my way of saying I agree.

Jim and Becky look the same, and Patty looks like she’s been lying out in the sun every day.

“I hate to tell you this,” Jim says to me, “but you’ve got a really big turtle around your neck.”

Becky punches Jim in the arm. “I think she knows that.”

Jim rubs his arm. “I was being funny.”

Becky shrugs a little. “Oh.”

Liz invites us all to sit down, and pours us each some Lebanese tea, which is sweet and has pine nuts floating in it.

“So, I hear you’re dating cousin Tim.” Patty sips some of her tea, and I have a flash of her as a hyper-tan, scaly old woman living alone in some big house, drinking a daiquiri and shouting at her pool boy because he’s the only one around.

“Kind of,” I say.

“What does that mean?” Charlie says, and I see something bright in his eyes.

“Well, he’s out of town right now.”

“But he’ll be back!” Becky smiles at me like a mom. “And Jim and I introduced them. How cool is that?”

“I also hear,” Patty says, “that you’re living in that creepy funeral home. With dead people right below you. Doesn’t that freak you out?”

I think about it for a minute and realize I’ve actually been sleeping really well at Brighton Brothers. “No.”

Patty looks dubious, but I just shrug.

“Well anyway,
I’d
be freaked out,” she says, and turns to Liz. “So, are you all packed?” Patty leaves for Cleveland on Monday, and she and Liz decide to compare decorating notes after lunch.

When we finish eating, Becky pulls a little stack of laminated pictures out of her purse. “I made one for each of us, and it has all of our contact info on the back, so we can keep in touch.” The picture is of us at graduation, in our less-than-flattering orange robes. Everyone is looking at the camera smiling, but Charlie and I are turned slightly toward each other, which makes my face get hot. I set the card on the table picture-side down, and take a long drink of iced tea. On the back of the picture, Becky’s put all of our e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

I’m not sure what to do with this. Liz’s is the only number I really want, and I have it already. It’s not like I’m going to be calling Patty to see if she’s found someone new to torture in Cleveland.

“Thanks so much,” Liz says. “That’s really thoughtful.”

Becky smiles and blushes. She shrugs. “It wasn’t hard to do.”

Liz brings out some sweet pastries for desert. She sets them on the table and stays standing. She holds up her glass. “I want to say thank you to each of you for making a place for me in your school and teaching me something important.”

Looking at Liz, I feel like she’s on some kind of other plane of existence than the rest of us. She seems so self-assured and easy in her skin, and we’re all paying rapt attention to her.

“Becky, you have taught me about kindness.” She looks Becky in the eyes, and then turns to Jim. “Jim, you’ve taught me about laughter. Patty, you’ve taught me about confidence. Charlie, you’ve given me a bigger worldview. And Donna, you’ve taught me about transformation.” She looks at me, and I realize I’ve scrunched up my forehead. “It’s true, D.” She nods at me. “Thank you all. Cheers.”

We hold up our glasses and clink them together. Becky has tears in her eyes, and if I’m not mistaken, Patty does too. Jim may actually be blushing. And Charlie looks serene. And handsome. “Thanks, Liz,” he says. “That’s really special.”

I nod, and I’m confused. I’d never thought about these people as teachers, but what she said about them makes sense. Still, transformation is snake power, and Liz has that all on her own, without me. I can’t imagine what she’s learned from me about that.

After everyone but me has left, I want to ask Liz what she meant, but I feel like I should know already, so I don’t. Also, Liz looks like she might cry. She says, “Don’t forget about me.”

“Are you kidding?” I hug her and pull back, but she doesn’t look like she’s kidding. “It’s not possible,” I say. “I’m already counting the days until you come back to visit.”

Driving away, I think it’s much more likely that Liz will get swept up into her fabulous life at college in a different town and not think very often at all about her friend back in Dayton, Ohio. Through my open windows, the air feels thick, like it does when summer’s almost over and the fruit gets too ripe and falls off the trees.

Two weeks later, Mom calls to see if I’m free on Friday. She’s making dinner.

“Special occasion?” I say, joking. Every night of my life, without fail, Mom has made dinner.

“No,” Mom says, but she sounds like she’s lying. I can’t help but think of that night in Yellow Springs and Mom holding hands with Yoga Man, and I do my best to push the image out of my mind. Maybe he was just comforting her, a strictly teacher-student kind of counseling moment. Purely platonic. I know Dad was Mom’s only one; there’s no place for someone else. I heard her say so.

In the afternoon, I’m rocking on the hammock out behind Brighton Brothers, and the sun feels like a warm blanket. My body wants to take a nap, and my mind fights between concentrating on my Embalming I book and worrying about Mom. Just as my body is about to claim the victory, Tim calls. “So I’m back. What are you doing?”

“Napping. Studying. Wondering what my mom’s up to.” I’m surprised at how nonchalant I sound, but I’m too preoccupied to feel nervous about talking to him.

Tim says, “Maybe I can distract you.”

I agree to go over to his house on campus, and that night we head up to his room on the second floor. It’s a little dusty and smoky from some incense he’s got burning by the window, and the only light comes from a little adjustable desk lamp. On the floor, a huge mattress sprawls, covered by dark green sheets and some kind of woven blanket. I don’t see a chair anywhere, not even at the desk, which leaves the mattress as the only place to sit. So when Tim squats down on it, so do I.

His face is dark and tan from his trip, and, well, sexy. Sitting this close to him, in his room, I feel my heartbeat accelerate in my neck.

Like he knows, he reaches over and touches the spot where my pulse is pumping, rests his hand there. “I like your hair up.”

My ponytail brushes against the back of my neck.

“I missed you,” he says.

“Really?” It seems like life has turned upside down since the last time I saw him, like life has filled up football fields of space between us since that night at the soccer party. And even though my heart beats fast, I realize I feel different. I realize that I don’t care quite as much whether he likes me or not, that I’m not all that nervous, and I laugh just a little.

“Something funny?”

“Life,” I say. I decide I can wax philosophical too. “You. Me. Life.”

He looks at me like he realizes I’m different too. “Lay back,” he says, and I do.

He lies next to me and runs his hand down the front of me, all the way to the edge of my denim skirt at my knees. Then he runs it back up and leaves his hand right between my breasts. I realize I’m not wearing my Terra necklace, and I feel vulnerable.

Then he climbs on top of me, and as he lowers his body onto mine, I feel him hard, through my skirt, through my underwear. He kisses me, and I wrap my arms around his back and clutch at his T-shirt.

As he kisses me and rubs his body against mine, I feel myself getting wet between my legs. He sits up and slides back. He reaches up under my skirt with both hands and grabs the sides of my underwear. I feel his fingernails scratch lightly against the sides of my legs, as he pulls my underwear all the way down and off. He tosses them, and they land in a little navy blue pile next to his backpack. Standing up, he unzips his shorts and pulls them down and off. When he pulls off his boxer shorts, red cotton, I see his penis hard and pointing at me. I can’t help but stare. This is a body part I’m not used to seeing, and I feel myself getting even wetter. And all of a sudden, I’m nervous again. I wonder if he has condoms like Liz told me I should use.

Tim kneels down and climbs on top of me again. He rubs himself against my skirt while he kisses my neck, and I close my eyes and let out a soft moan. I feel like some kind of animal and hope I don’t sound stupid. Tim starts to push up my skirt, and suddenly a cacophony of voices goes off in my head. The first one is mine:
Really, Donna, with this guy?
Then Mom saying that sex goes with marriage, and Father Dean telling our eighth grade class that our bodies are our temples. And last but not least, the bearded God shaking his head and saying,
I told you the rules.
None of these voices are particularly sexy, and all of them are exceptionally distracting.

All I can do at this moment is say the word they’re all saying now—the word that’s echoing in my head. “Stop.”

“Stop?”

“Yes, please.” My voice sounds small and weak to me.

Tim lifts up off of me and rolls onto his side. “Are you okay?”

“I just can’t right now.”

“That’s cool,” he says, and I wonder if anything’s not cool with Tim. “Hey, I’ll be right back.” He pulls on his boxers and leaves me alone.

I grab my underwear and shove it in my purse. I don’t actually trust that Tim has cleaned his room any time recently. I redo my ponytail and stand up. A few minutes later, Tim returns, a look of bliss on his face. “Took care of business,” he says. “It’s all good.”

I’m not sure of the appropriate response to that, so instead I say, “I think I’m gonna head home.”