Putting Makeup on Dead People (12 page)

When I open my eyes, she’s still standing there, staring at me. “I don’t know what to do, Donna. What do I do?”

I stare back at her. “Leave me alone,” I say, and then louder, “Leave me alone,” until I’m yelling it and until she does and I’m standing by myself with a plate of chicken I can’t even think about eating and a box full of dead people I don’t know.

On Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, it’s a relief to escape to Brighton Brothers for work. Home feels like a library, but significantly more hostile and with a lot fewer books. Mom and I say nothing to each other, and when I’m at home, I stay in my room as much as I can.

On Wednesday night, when Tim’s name pops up in the window of my phone, I answer quickly, eager and hopeful for another adventure with him, away from here.

“You’ll never believe where I am,” he says.

“The Mojave Desert?” I hope he thinks I’m as funny as I do.

“Yeah, how’d you guess?” Tim sounds more surprised than playful.

“You talk about it all the time,” I start to explain. “Wait a minute, are you really in the Mojave Desert?”

“Totally.”

“Are you coming back?”

“Yeah.” Tim sounds far away, and I guess, literally, he is.

“Do you know when?” I hope he doesn’t notice that my voice is shaking.

“When it’s time. And who knows? Donna, the desert is a fickle mistress.”

I have no idea what that means, and I’m pretty sure that Tim doesn’t either. Actual pieces of information I discover are as follows: He must again find the most beautiful flower; the desert is hotter than he remembers, and so is his old friend Tina, who hopped into the car at the last minute. Tim tells me I should seize the moment while he’s gone. I wonder if that’s because he’s found someone else he wants to seize.

I feel confused and abandoned. I take out the orange candle Liz gave me and set it on a dish on my desk. When I light it, I smell the olive oil and realize my fingers have oil on them too. I rub the oil into my hands and watch the flame dance and jump like it’s reaching for something it can’t quite grasp.

The next day, Mr. Brighton asks if I’d like to sit in during an arrangement conference. I agree, if he thinks it’s okay. He tells me that the same rules apply as when greeting the family and friends during the wake: Be polite, kind, respectful. And let him do the talking.

Two sisters, Mrs. Jane LaRue and Mrs. Carla Banniker, will come in for the conference, to set up the wake and services for their father, Jake Dixon, who was eighty-seven. His body is being embalmed in Florida and then sent up here, where he lived most of his life. Mr. Brighton knows the sisters; he did the services for their mother two years ago. They came in with Jake for the arrangements then. After that, Jake moved south.

Later that morning, Mr. Brighton and I walk Mrs. LaRue and Mrs. Banniker into his office. I guess they are in their sixties. Mrs. Banniker is plump and short like Mrs. B, and Mrs. LaRue is short and rail-thin, but from the basic shapes of their faces and the sound of their voices, it’s clear they’re sisters.

Mr. Brighton introduces me as his assistant, Ms. Parisi. I nod and smile, just a little, as we sit down at a round table in the corner of the office.

“Oh, God, Janie,” Mrs. Banniker says, staring at me. “She looks just like those pictures of Mom when she was young.” She starts to cry. “Both of them now. It’s just us.”

“I know, honey,” Mrs. LaRue says, and smiles at me. “Our mother was a beautiful woman. This is a compliment.”

I want to ask if Jake ever left their mother to go to the Mojave Desert on the spur of the moment, but I figure that doesn’t fall under the category of polite. So instead I say, “Thank you.”

“Bob, do you still have Mom’s paperwork? Because we’d like the same arrangements, if that’s possible. They were two peas in a pod.”

Mr. Brighton nods and pulls out a folder from his binder.

Mrs. Banniker starts to cry again, and says, “I’m sorry,” between sobs. “He was our daddy.”

Mr. Brighton slides a box of tissues toward her.

“You don’t have to apologize,” I say. In her plump adult face, I see the shadows of a young girl, and I put my hand on her arm. “It just hurts.” I’m surprised at how easily the words come and that they’re just right, that I know exactly how to touch her arm and not say anything else.

Mrs. Banniker’s breathing gets easier. She wipes her eyes and blows her nose.

At the door on the way out, Mrs. Banniker shakes Mr. Brighton’s hand and then mine. “Thank you both. So much.”

Through the front window, Mr. Brighton and I watch them drive away. “You’ve got a knack, assistant.”

I let myself smile just a little, sensing that I brought at least a little comfort to Jake Dixon’s daughters. I’ve finally found something that fits me, something I’m good at. It’s strange but true. I know my way around a funeral. I’m a natural.

Friday is the Fourth of July, and I’m off work. Late that afternoon, I tell Mom it’s been a long week at the funeral home and maybe I’ll meet her later at the barbecue B is having at his new apartment, which will eventually be B and Gwen’s apartment. I lie and say I might bring Tim after we go to another party that night. Mom says, “Donna, please be careful.”

I want to tell her that I am actually several states and a whole desert away from danger, but instead I nod.

Mom stares at me as if she’d like to say other things, but I force myself not to look at her, and I will her not to say anything. My willpower takes a minute to work, but finally Mom picks up the bowl of potato salad she’s made and walks away.

As I cozy up in front of the TV, my phone rings, and it’s Liz. I’ve never been so excited to hear from anyone in my life.

She just got home after an eight-hour plane trip and sounds like she’s ready to run a marathon. “I’ve got a plan for us—a Celtic Adventure,” she says. “I just need a couple of weeks to get ready.”

“And maybe unpack?” I laugh, and so does she.

She won’t tell me any more details about our adventure. I want to tell her about Mom, but what would I say? My Mom thinks I’m some kind of crazy person and doesn’t understand the one thing I’ve found that brings me satisfaction? I don’t want to say that out loud, and I’m not sure I could without crying my eyes out. So I unleash other floodgates and tell her about Tim, about working at Brighton Brothers. About Tim skipping town.

“Wow, D, a college guy? When he gets back, I need to meet him.”

For a second I get nervous about that thought. While Liz was gone, I started to feel like I might be a little beautiful myself. But what if Tim likes Liz better? It’s not hard to imagine, because it’s not hard to imagine Liz up and driving to the Mojave. “Yeah, I’m sure we can set something up.”

The next day, Liz picks me up and we go to the new Italian restaurant in the Oregon District. Liz orders us a tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad, with the olive oil drizzled on top and the kind of wet mozzarella they have at the Italian grocery. The food tastes better than any food I’ve eaten in the last month, and my iced tea seems sweeter and colder than anything I’ve drunk.

I just feel giddy to have my friend back, and also a little nervous because she seems to have gotten even cooler while she was away. She wears her hair in a low ponytail, and she has on a white tank top and a short jeans skirt. Of course Liz makes something so simple look elegant, but it’s her new bracelet I can’t stop looking at. All the way down her forearm, a silver snake coils, its head jutting out just over her wrist.

“I bought her at a country fair,” Liz says, and pets the snake. “Her name is Sassy.” Liz holds out the
S
sounds and giggles.

“She’s beautiful.” I look down at the tiny silver turtle on my index finger and think that snake could make short work of this critter.

“Well, I’m glad you like her,” Liz says, “because I got something at the fair for you too.”

From her purple bag she pulls out a big square brown box, tied with a white string. Inside the box is a huge silver turtle necklace, and this turtle is about three times the size of the snake head on Liz’s wrist. “I thought it would go with your ring,” she says. “It can be your power amulet. The lady who made her says she has Mother Earth medicine.”

I pull the turtle out, and it almost fills the palm of my hand. She looks powerful, and I remember the sea turtle from the aquarium. “She needs a name, too.”

“Terra,” Liz says. “Not like Tara, but T-E-R-R-A, like the earth.”

“Terra,” I repeat, and slip the chain over my head. Terra rests right between my breasts and looks up at me with big silver eyes. “What medicine does your snake have?”

“Transformation. I can keep changing into whatever I want.”

Of course Liz just keeps shedding her skin and becoming something more beautiful each time. I look down at Terra. And me? I just stay close to the dirt and keep moving along. Slowly, slowly, slowly.

T
wo weeks later, it’s time for our Celtic Adventure. In the dark woods, I follow Liz, white T-shirt flashing against shadowy clusters of oak and maple trees. “So this is where the magic happens,” I say in a seedy car-salesman kind of way.

I’m trying to make myself feel better and less freaked out about being in the forest close to midnight on a Saturday. And I remind myself how good it is to have Liz back home.

“No,” Liz says. “Yes, of course, magic is everywhere. But no. Come on.” She keeps walking.

As my tennis shoes crackle over pine needles and twigs, a cool breeze tickles my ears. I wish I’d worn a sweatshirt. It was hot and muggy all day in Dayton, but now just forty minutes away, out in John Bryan State Park, the tree cover and the streams make for some cooler weather. My skin tingles, and my ears attune to each insect click and each flap of restless bird wings. Everything around me pulses, alive.

Liz stops in a clearing circled by tall fir trees, moonlight casting long pine shadows. She takes off her long sundress, just like that, and underneath, she isn’t wearing anything but mules and socks with lightning bolts on them.

“Dude,” I say. “Um, you’re naked.”

She kicks off the mules and pulls off her socks. “Skyclad,” she says, as though I should know exactly what that means; as though I should keep up. In that way that makes it hard to disagree. But now she’s naked, so it’s more complicated.

Liz stretches out her arms, palms up, closes her eyes, and tilts back her head. Her hair falls in beautiful curls, shiny like liquid pennies in the moonlight, all the way down her back. Her body is thin and white. She breathes deeply.

I realize I’ve stopped breathing. “I think I’m ready to go.”

Without moving, she says, “Shut up and take off your jeans.”

“But I’m cold already.”

Liz lowers her head and arms. She points at me with her index finger. I try not to notice, but her nipples are also pointing at me. “Don’t you want to live? Don’t you want to know yourself? You’re not having any life experiences.”

For Liz, that’s not the case. On her trip, she wrote an article called “Ireland for the Young Adventurer.” She visited castles and pubs and the coast and little towns and farms. Young adventurer, that’s her.

As for me, the only guy I’ve ever dated has escaped to the Mojave Desert, and I’m getting ready to head into another week at Brighton Brothers’ Funeral Home, a mere ten minute drive from the house where I live, where I’ve lived all eighteen years of my life—attempting to convince myself that I don’t need to leave Dayton to have a life, that mortuary college makes sense for me. That it’s practical to go to Chapman and start working at Brighton Brothers. The thought makes me feel safe. And boring. Liz is right: safe isn’t life experience, I think, looking at my naked friend in the moonlight.

“Fine.” I slowly take off my long-sleeved shirt and jeans. But I leave on my bra and panties and socks. I don’t even know myself that well. “Sorry. PG-13 is as much as I can live right now.”

“Good enough,” she says.

I’m wearing Terra; I figured tonight would be a good night for a power amulet. She’s cool against my skin. I take my hair out of its ponytail and wish it went past my shoulders, like Liz’s. At least I’m not as white as Liz; my skin is still darker even where the sun—or moon—doesn’t usually shine. I ask, “So what’s next?” My heart starts to beat faster. This is different than lighting candles in Liz’s basement with her mom upstairs. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to do a ritual.

Liz clears her throat. “I have a confession.”

“What is it?” I cross my arms over my chest, tuck my hands into my armpits for warmth.

“I don’t actually know…” she says, glancing at me like a guilty four-year-old, “what I’m doing.”

“Holy shit.” I’m irritated and relieved at the same time.

“I mean, I know I want to experience a Wiccan ritual.” She walks to one of the fir trees at the edge of the clearing, runs her fingertips over the bark.

“Don’t you need Witches for that?”

She presses her palm into the trunk of the tree. “Yes,” she says, “you do.”

Now I know what’s coming. A breeze snakes over my shoulders and makes me shiver. “Liz.”

“I’m just saying that one of us here knows a Witch.”

I shift my weight from foot to foot. “You didn’t meet any Witches in Ireland.”

“Nope. But I tried. I met a juggler and someone who swallows fire. Just no Witches.”

“Didn’t you read that book? You must be practically an expert now.”

“I know a little.”

“Good,” I say. “Like what?”

Liz leans her back against the tree. That has to be scratchy. “Well, everything you do comes back to you in threes, and, um, you’re not supposed to manipulate anyone.”

“Right.” I drop my arms, exposing my almost naked self to Liz. “So what are you doing right now?”

“Kind of manipulating you, I guess.”

“I am happy for you to learn anything, but not for you to take me into the woods and get me naked for no good reason.”

“But I do have a good reason. And she’s just a phone call away.” Liz steps away from the tree. “Besides, aren’t you having fun?” She spins with her arms stretched out, giggling.

“Honestly?”

She stops spinning and nods. “Yes.”

“No.” I cross my arms and press them against my chest. “This is officially no fun.”

Now in the clearing, she looks a little sad, and Liz without steam depresses me. Despite the red alerts from my brain, a wave of compassion pushes me to speak. “Maybe we could use a little guidance.”

“Do you mean it?”

“She’s not Celtic, you know,” I offer. But I’ve already opened Pandora’s Box, and I’m going to have to call my aunt, whom I haven’t seen in four years.

“Oh, wow,” Liz says. “I could, I mean,
we
could learn a lot from her.”

I pull on my jeans and do up the belt. I’m not that much bigger than Liz, but I’m tired of comparing our naked legs. And July or not, I’m cold. “I’m not sure she’ll even want to talk to me.”

“It’s not like you two ever had a fight.” Liz stretches her arms out again. “And Witches are supposed to be open, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ll really call her?”

“On Monday. I promise.”

“Whoopee!” Liz yells, and wraps her arms around me for a hug.

“Whoopee.” I tentatively pat her bare back with my hands. “Now, please, put on your dress.”

On Monday morning at seven thirty, Mom pours boiling water into her favorite floral teapot. She’s in her long blue housecoat, and she has morning-Mom hair—half frizzed out, half pillow smashed.

“Good morning,” she says, and these words, like any we’ve exchanged in the last month, rest like land mines between us. So if one of us steps just slightly forward or back, we could set off a horrible explosion. “Are you hungry?”

“Not even close.” I sit down at the kitchen table and rub my eyes. I haven’t wanted to ask all weekend, and I still don’t, but I remember Liz’s whoopee face. And things feel so rotten with Mom, I doubt they could get any worse. “I need Aunt Selena’s phone number.”

Mom sets the kettle on the stove. She puts the tea bag tin back in the cupboard.

“Did you hear me?”

“What for?”

“Well, usually I like people to hear me when I talk to them.”

“You know what I mean. Why do you want her number?”

“I have a question for her.”

“You can ask me.” She takes down the bright red mug Linnie made in ceramics. “I probably know your dad’s family better than she does.”

“It’s not about Dad’s family.” I go to the fridge and push the English muffins out of the way to get the orange juice. Bent over behind the door, I say, “It’s Witch stuff.”

“Oh.” Mom leans against the counter and looks at me. I notice her eyes are puffy and tired. “I’m sorry, honey, but no. I just don’t feel comfortable.”

I pour myself a glass of juice. “Are you worried she’s going to try and convert me?”

“Don’t be flip, Donna Marie,” she says. “You know I think Selena is involved in dangerous things.”

“Mom, Witchcraft doesn’t have anything to do with the devil,” I say. “I learned it in my rituals class.”

“So now you’re an expert,” Mom says. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Is that the peaceful response?”

“Maybe it’s too early for the peaceful response.” Mom pushes a piece of cinnamon bread into the toaster.

I push the conversation, probably also into some kind of toaster. “Yoga’s not very Catholic either.”

“Yoga has nothing to do with this.”

“Everything has something to do with everything else.” I realize this is true as I say it out loud.

Mom’s blue eyes are icy. “I said I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

And now I don’t want to talk about it anymore either. “Thanks for nothing,” I say. “I’ve got to get ready for work.”

I stomp downstairs. I’m awake now, and angry. And I was wrong. Things could get worse, and in fact they just did. In my room I decide I don’t need Mom’s permission to call my own aunt, to call Dad’s sister. As soon as I hear Mom get in the shower, I take a pen and paper and go to the big box in the closet where I know she keeps Dad’s things.

When I open it, I smell him, and it almost takes my breath away. A bottle of his Woodsman cologne stands in the corner of the box, and the whole thing smells like Dad on Sundays. Underneath his favorite tie and a plastic bag with his wedding ring, I see his little black notebook, and beneath that, his address book. I take the address book and find Selena’s name, in his writing, and copy the number down. Then I slip the lid back on the box and the box back in the closet. I hold the number next to my chest and close my eyes. “I know you understand,” I whisper.

* * *

When I get to work, JB is back from the mountains and has a three-foot stack of back-filing and sorting ready for me.

“Great,” I say.

He glances apologetically at the pile of paper. “I’m not so much the business in this business. In case you couldn’t tell.”

“I really don’t mind. I could use some filing today.”

“Thanks, kid,” he says. “I’ll come check in later. And I’ll be down in the prep room if you need me. Little Sal Laterno was in a bar fight that didn’t end so well for him or his face. So I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

I am actually delighted to have the pile of papers and an excuse to avoid calling Aunt Selena. I touch the pocket of my khaki skirt, and the paper where I’ve copied down her number crinkles under the fabric, still there. Of course, now that I have the number, I find that I’m starting to feel nervous, and I wonder if it really is a good idea to get in touch with my aunt.

A few hours later, I think of calling Liz and telling her that I couldn’t get the number. Or that Aunt Selena turned herself into something, like a hamster, and can’t be reached. As I prepare for a deceptive phone call, I see a long box full of flowers come in through the back door—I’m assuming for the Laterno viewing tonight—and the box is followed by the hands holding it up, attached to a tall, sandy-haired guy with long earlobes. Matt Capinski.

He makes eye contact with me and tilts his head to the side. “What are you doing here?”

I straighten the now-one-foot stack of papers in front of me and hold on to the sides. “I work here.”

“Why?” The way Matt’s looking at me, it seems like he’d be perfectly content to stand there and harass me all day.

I try to stay calm, and look around for potential weapons on my desk in case I have to defend myself. All I’ve got is a ballpoint pen, a small cactus, and lots of ways to give him some really nasty paper cuts. “It’s like an internship. I’m starting mortuary school in the fall.”

“You work here?” he asks, in the same way one might say,
You really wanted that mayonnaise on your ice cream?

Then I realize I’ve got another weapon. Flower power. “Well, what are you doing here, with gladiolas?”

“My mom runs Forever Flowers.” He kind of mumbles this. “But I’m leaving for Michigan U next month to study something normal.”

“Nothing’s more normal than death.” I shrug. “For instance, you’ll die one day.”

Matt doesn’t seem so comfortable standing in front of me anymore. He sets down the box and pulls out a receipt. “Sign this.”

When Matt leaves, I look at the purply-blue gladiolas and hope they don’t look too much like the bruises on Sal’s face. Then I look at my phone and think how to best phrase the lie to Liz. Just then my phone rings.

“Hey,” Liz says. “Did you call her?”

I pull the paper out of my pocket. “No.”

“You’re still going to, right?”

“My mom thinks she’s dangerous.”

“Of course she does.” Liz laughs. “She’s probably saying a novena for you right now.”

“Probably.”

“Do you think she’s dangerous?”

“No,” I say, and realize I’m lying. Something inside me hesitates and is afraid, but I can’t say that to Liz. “Actually, I was just about to call her. We’ve been busy this morning.” I guess I’m on a one-lie limit. Shit.

“Nice,” Liz says. “Let me know when you do.”

After I hang up, I trace the phone number with a pen. I sit up straight and smooth out my skirt. I imagine it can only be my amazing personal power that compels me to pick up the phone and dial.

“Hello?” A soft, rich voice.

“Hi, Aunt Selena? This is Donna. Your niece.”

“Donna? Well, hi. What a—oh, I’m so glad you called.”

She sounds genuinely glad, and I relax a little. “I actually have a favor to ask.”