Something Right Behind Her (25 page)

The
teeth-chattering thing at the funeral, by the way, wasn’t like something that
could go unnoticed - I sat in the church with my teeth chattering the whole
time, and I really believe most of the people on our side of the church could
hear me. And, I was shaking. I never fainted, though. But, actually, Dad did
kind of hold me up during the standing parts. I never saw that coming. I really
thought I would handle it better, since I was pretty ok at the goodbye thing
except for the fainting.

I didn’t really
break down into hysterical sobs or anything, though, until Douglas read this
biblical thing. I think he chose it himself, because it didn’t seem like a
regular thing that they would say when someone died. It actually made me
remember what I liked about Douglas. He really did understand Eve. I think that
was why he was always such a player. He understood girls, and when you sense
that about a guy, it’s pretty damn attractive. This is what Douglas read:

They will give
life to your spirit and grace to your throat.

Then, you will
go your way safely and not injure your feet.

When you lie
down, you will be unafraid.

What I could
hardly bear about that were the throat and feet parts. Eve was someone who
wanted grace for her throat. And who wouldn’t be reassured by the idea that
your feet wouldn’t hurt? God, if death made your feet ache on top of everything
else that’d be a lot to handle. Being unafraid, though, I was sure, was pure
Doug, the reason he’d chosen the verse. That was what Doug wanted most, I knew
in that instant. He would have wanted Eve to die unafraid. Her fear would have
been beyond his capacity to withstand.

I didn’t go to
the cemetery, because my parents didn’t think I’d make it, since I was still
getting over what turned out to be a pretty intense flu. They helped me over to
the O’Mearas to say goodbye, and that it was a nice funeral and the O’Mearas
seemed relieved that my parents weren’t bringing me to the cemetery.

When we got
home, Mom made me lie down on the couch in the den and shut my eyes. I was
still in the black sweater-dress that she bought me for the funeral. I even
kept my tights and boots on. I just lay there for about an hour. Milly sat next
to me and read her book, and I just cried for a while - silent tears. I kept
thinking about that day back in the fall, at the beach. I thought about how,
even then, with her legs pretty much paralyzed, and her neck beginning to
weaken, Eve didn’t accept that she was dying. She thought if the ocean could be
so full of life, just a few feet off the Jersey coast, then she could be full
of life too. But I knew starting really with that day that she was never coming
back. I knew she’d never be there for me again.

Finally, I fell
asleep there on the couch with little Milly sitting by my feet reading her
book, and I was so glad she was there, and that she was Milly, and she was so
quiet.

Since I was
still feeling pretty sick, and I’d had the pregnancy scare, Mom took me to her
OBGYN, who told me I was fine, and that everything was normal. This made me
want to laugh, because I had no idea what that was anymore. I told her that
after all this I was swearing off sex. She laughed and said that might be a
good idea for the time being, but that, eventually, I would want a more
effective means of birth control than just condoms, since they did sometimes
break, leading to the kind of scare I’d had. That made me think of Carlos
again, who I hadn’t really been thinking about much since my week of calamities
began.

I had e-mailed
Carlos about Eve dying and he’d sent a really nice message back. Carlos, it
turned out, had a past. Carlos’ uncle had been killed when Carlos was ten and
Carlos had seen the whole thing. It was a case of mistaken-identity. The uncle
had been taking Carlos and his cousin to a Yankee game, and Carlos’ uncle was
shot while they were all just standing there waiting for the bus. Carlos said
that’s why he thought he was the kind of guy who never took anything for
granted. I sent him a message back that I wasn’t at that stage yet, where you
can tell how the whole deal is going to affect you, and maybe even change you
for the better. I didn’t mention that mostly, so far, the experience had taught
me that I am someone who deals with fucked up things by making things more
fucked up. But maybe that’s not true, or maybe it won’t be true in the long
run.

Later the next
week, I met George in the parking lot and we took a ride down to the Milltown
Trestle. That’s an old railroad trestle that guys sometimes jump off of into
the reservoir. The water is barely six feet deep, so it is all about not
smashing your head on some rock or something. It was pretty, though, with the
ice still floating in the running water. George wanted to smoke, but I told him
I was still feeling kind of bad. Then I told him about the pregnancy scare. He
got real quiet.

“I guess the
fact you waited until now to say anything should tell me something?” He said.
He looked sad, like he might even start to cry.

I said I didn’t
think I was in the right state of mind for a relationship, and he nodded.

“I get you,” he
said.

“I’m sorry,
George,” I said, and I was. Sorry how I’d used him to get over Doug. Sorry I
was still messing with his head. At least I was trying to clean up the mess I’d
made.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

After about a
month, people at school stopped talking about the funeral. At first, my nervous
breakdown made me the object of a lot of concern. My friends all tried to get
me to try out for the play to get my mind off things, and I finally did go out
for a small part. Some of the teachers even asked me how I was. There was also
a grief counselor guy named Craig who came around and met with people who were
close to Eve, which turned out to be a larger group than I’d imagined, since
Sharon and Gayle and a bunch of other girls who hadn’t been that good friends
with Eve were acting pretty pathetic, which I thought was just a lot of
grief-jacking. I didn’t bother pointing it out though. I figured if grief was
something they wanted, they should have it.

Craig was really
pretty nice and knew all about the MPC and all that, but he seemed more skeptical
of those sorts of books than Randy was. “The thing is,” Craig said when I met
with him, “you can use these catchphrases to help you think straight, but you
can’t skip out on grief. It’s something you have to go through, and not just
read about.” When I told Mom and Dad about him they said it was ok with them if
I wanted to stop going to Randy and just see Craig.

What did happen
that gave me something to be
thankful
for and
invested
in is Carlos
e-mailed me that he is coming back to the states in June. He decided to blow
off going to hotel school at Cornell. Instead, he’s going to go to Columbia, so
he’ll be right in the city, a train ride away. He said he is going to start
taking classes this summer.

My plan for the
summer is to get a job down on the shore - something easy like selling ice
cream or checking beach badges. Maybe Carlos will be able to come down and hang
for a while. Mom and Dad said that would be fine with them.

In the meantime,
I have play practice and regular school days. I still wish sometimes I had a
friend who was as easy to be around, as much fun and as trustworthy as Eve was.
It seems like, at least temporarily, I have Mom and Dad and Milly on my side,
and that will have to do. I have Carlos out there in the “hopes and dreams”
category, but not like as in a dream-guy. Sometimes I look at his pics on
Facebook and I think that is one goofy-looking guy, because, really, he has a
very toothy smile. And his ears stick out. And, he’s pretty scrawny. He’s a
good writer, though, and I’m not afraid to tell him what’s on my mind. Also, I
know he likes to hold hands, or at least he held mine a lot that week in the
D.R. And right now, I’d like someone just to walk around with, and maybe hold
my hand.

Sometimes, I
still feel like all this stuff that happened over the last year is lurking out
there - kind of just behind me - as if the past were, literally, hanging out
there behind my back. Sometimes I get a little scared, like something bad is
going to happen to me, or to someone I’m close to. I guess after something like
that happens once, it’s pretty easy to think it will happen again. I guess
that’s why there are all these books about how to deal with shit. Because
there’s all these people out there, like me, who feel like there might be something
lurking out there, making her feel just a bit unsteady, something she can’t
see, but she can feel - something right behind her.

At least, for
now, I can be thankful there is nothing looming over me. And I no longer have
dreams about Eve that scare me. In fact, when I think of her now, I can picture
her as her old, beautiful self.

She had a wide
smile, with one small dimple on the right side that you had to know was there
to see it. She had broad shoulders, and threw her head back whenever she
laughed. She could eat half a pizza in a single sitting. She liked things that
made her look too grown up, like red dresses, and silky pajamas, and her hair
in a high bun.

I told all these things to Craig, the grief
counselor, when he asked me one time how I wanted to remember Eve. I also told
him I wasn’t afraid I’d forget her. Then I asked Craig didn’t he think our
memories of people became a part of who we were? And he said, even better, we
can sometimes take them with us into who we will become.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Alice Tasman at JVNLA for
her constant support and early enthusiasm, to Daniel Hollander for his
encouragement in all matters literary, to Writer’s Bloq for their innovative
approach and amazing editorial input.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Claire Hollander is a graduate of
Brown’s MFA Program, a middle school teacher, and the author of two books of
poetry. Her nonfiction has appeared in
The
New York Times Sunday Review
.
Something
Right Behind Her
is her first novel. She currently lives in New York City with
her husband and three daughters.

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