The Joy of Funerals, page 19
“You’ve got to give it to her,” Dean says excitedly, as if we’re both in this together. “She’d totally want to know.”
Three friends from work and two from childhood give truly touching speeches. They are well-thought-out and share different snippets of who Richard was. His brother talks for a short time, never once removing his hands from his pockets. He leans forward and speaks so close to the microphone, his voice sounds staticky and muffled. Each time he opens his mouth, he looks as if he’s going to eat the electronic piece.
After the service, everyone is invited downstairs where the blessing of the bread and catered dinner occur. I’m introduced to many of Dean’s friends, and we sit at a large, round wooden table, drink wine, and talk about Richard.
People ask about the necklace, what made Richard decide to call me, how many times we got together, did I bring it with me… I tell them I thought it would be inappropriate to give it to her now, but ask if I should mail it or mention to her today that I have it. We take a vote deciding to tell her about the gift, and rather than mail it, drop it off in a few days.
Every time Dean gets up to refill his glass or use the restroom I look for a clue—a hand on my shoulder, a thoughtful gaze—to know if he likes me. I receive none.
Hours later, only a handful of us remain. I’m one of two women surrounded by twelve men and the plan is to proceed to Live Bait, a bar six blocks away on East 23rd Street, for a final drink/toast.
We walk, a gaggle of black and gray, to the bar. A large fish and tackle box hang outside, above the doors.
Inside, it’s smoky and dark. We occupy several tables in the corner and drinks keep coming—pitchers of beer for me and the boys, a vodka tonic for his mom, and bourbon, straight, for his dad. The brother is nowhere to be found. When I ask about him, Dean tells me not to bring him up. It makes the parents too sad.
I’m glad to have worn my black skirt and matching jacket. My legs look good in it, and I seem like a fashion-conscious gal, the kind they’d want to bring home to Mom. The type to cook solid, hearty meals, but not better than hers. Someone ambitious, but not too successful. Someone smart who doesn’t outshine her beau.
I don’t know whose idea it is to take the Circle Line around Manhattan, but the last lap is at l1:00 p.m., in fifteen minutes. With Richard’s love of boats, it seems like a logical step. Suddenly, someone is on their phone reserving a block of seats, someone else is doing a head count. I hold my breath, wonder if I’ll be included. Dean’s head nods, then he turns to me.
“You in?”
“Sure.”
Dean turns back to the counter and points to me, then holds two fingers up which transforms into the thumbs-up sign.
I’m dancing inside to have been asked, and Dean holds the door for me, touches my hand a little when I go through.
We assemble as a mass and spill into the street. His parents don’t make it to the boat with us. Rather, they say their tearful good-bye on the corner.
Our twenty has become twelve.
We climb into cabs where I’m scrunched in between Dean and Paul, with Charlie on the end. Kyle is in the front. I’m almost in Dean’s lap, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Beer permeates the car. Someone belches, everyone laughs.
Our cab is last to pull into the dock. Dean and I walk up the metal plank and onto the boat, where we’re high-fived by Richard’s friends. A beer is thrust into my hand, and we stand by the bow, hugging the railing, hugging each other. Someone emerges from the other side, shaking a bottle of beer with his thumb over the neck. It sprays like champagne. Suddenly, everyone is doing it. Me, too. And Dean and I laugh. Kyle makes a toast, ending with, “May you sail safely up to heaven.” Another friend chimes in, “And catch some big fucking fish on your way there.” We hold our bottles, clink glasses, and drink.
The sea air is cold, and Dean takes off his jacket and places it around my shoulders. Whenever I shiver, he squeezes me tightly. My body feels so good next to his, my face nuzzled in the crook of his neck. He smells of beer and aftershave and wind. I feel his chin rest on top of my head and I wonder if I smell good and if my hair still has that freshly washed scent of conditioner and if I should invite him over and if he’d stay, and if we had sex, would he leave right after or wait it out, and if I could have a future with this man.
The boat docks at midnight. People hug me good-bye. Strangers I’ve spent the past five hours with now seem like close friends.
Dean and I take a cab and only one address is given, mine. I don’t know if I’ll invite him up until the last minute. The thought of sleeping alone in my bed, of coming home to a barren apartment, is overwhelming. I don’t want to lose our intensity or hear the empty promise of asking for my number and the waiting for him to keep his word.
The ride home is bumpy. I’m tired and a little seasick. Too much beer, too much food. I wonder if he’s the kind of man who’d rub my stomach when it hurt or kiss my belly if a child were inside. Would he place his hand in mine during movies? Take long baths with me, massaging my sore shoulders from being hunched over my bead table? I want to ask him this now. Almost announce how nauseous I am to see his reaction. Will he roll his eyes and push me away, joke about opening the window? Or would he slide his hand over my stomach and move it slowly back and forth? How can I expect this when I’ve only known him a quarter of a day?
Instead, I rest my head on his shoulder. Not heavily at first. I don’t put all of my weight on him until I’m sure he’s okay with this, until I’m positive he hasn’t stiffened. Then I let my head drop, weight and all. My temple thumps lightly, almost indistinguishably, against his arm. I push the envelope and put my right hand gently, softly, on his upper arm, inches away from my chin. He places a hand on my thigh. I breathe in deeply. I decide right there to ask him up. No second address needed. My eyes watch the meter jump as I listen to the cabby talking to someone, maybe his wife, as he coasts up an empty Madison Avenue.
“Do you want something to drink?” I ask, once inside my apartment.
We both stand awkwardly in my small foyer. I’ve made a beaded lampshade and it’s the only light on in the apartment, a test to see if he’ll ask about it. To see if he was listening to me earlier.
“What you got?”
“How about brandy?”
“Great.”
He stretches out on my couch while I get two snifters and an old bottle I received from my father’s client last Christmas. I sit next to him and let Dean open the brandy so he feels manly.
We take sips of liquor.
We wait.
The apartment is quiet and comfortable. I let my left heel drop first, listen to the thud it makes as it hits my carpet. The right shoe follows, and I curl my legs into myself, knees pointed toward him. He moves his hands to his neck to loosen his tie, realizes it already is, and takes it off instead. He hasn’t asked about the lamp but I slide my pantyhosed foot up his leg anyway.
When he finishes his drink he places the empty glass on my coffee table and leans into me. His mouth tastes like brandy. So does mine. He’s a good kisser, sensual without being sloppy. His tongue moves slowly, as if feeling its way around my mouth, familiarizing itself. The tip just touches my teeth. He puts a hand on my cheek, another behind my neck, then kisses my ear, my chin, my eyes. I like his hand on my face, like the way his lips feel on mine.
Later we hover in the doorframe to my bedroom, both anxious. I watch him undo his trousers as I unzip my skirt.
I wake up when my foot feels something in my bed, another foot which belongs to a body. Relief passes through me. It breaks the morning fog, almost overrides the pounding in my head. The taste of brandy is still in my mouth or is it Dean’s mouth that tastes like brandy that’s in mine?
I stare at him in my bed, his body tangled in my sheets. I watch his eyes flutter, copy his breathing, thank God he is next to me.
For the next five minutes I watch him sleep. I inch my finger over his bare shoulder that’s peeking out from the comforter. I move it down to his elbow lightly so I don’t wake him, and yet I want to talk to him. I want to see what he has to say in the morning. If we have something, anything, in common except for last night. I slide an arm under my head and memorize his features. My eyes travel up over his head and scrutinize my wall. Cracks in the paint. If he were to stay over on a regular basis I’d repaint the apartment.
I decide to make Dean breakfast, hoping that will keep him here a little longer. Fix him bacon and eggs, frozen waffles, or bagels. A hungry man’s meal worth staying an extra hour or two, maybe spend the day. Help occupy the space between morning and evening. His breathing alone fills my apartment, takes up residency.
The table is set and coffee made. The Advil is starting to work. The sizzling sound of bacon is like snakes hissing. It’s too loud and makes me a little sick, but it’s worth it. After all, I am making Dean breakfast. I am wooing him with food.
Ten minutes later, a disheveled man appears. His hair is standing up on his head, and I can tell his tongue is sticking to his mouth. His boxers are white and blue striped. He’s a little pudgy and his nipples look like mini flying saucers surrounded by bursts of hair.
He glances around the apartment as if seeing it for the first time.
“How long you been up?”
“Not long.” I extend a mug in his direction.
“I made coffee.”
He seems confused and surprised. Unsure of what he wants to do, unsure of how he got here and who this woman is standing with a plate of bacon in one hand, coffee mug in the other.
I’m wearing a cream-colored silk robe with pink petals and light green leaves on it, worn on occasions such as these that never seem to come up. I wonder if the robe or breakfast is what’s throwing him, or is it me. The pressure to stay sits on his chest like indigestion.
He reaches for the coffee, then makes the toasting sign and says thanks. The line of us toasting Richard with the bottles of beer on the boat ride appears in my mind. I wonder if he’s thinking of this, too.
Dean looks for his shirt and spots it hanging on the doorknob. He places the coffee in the exact spot the brandy snifter was hours before, and slips it on, followed by his trousers, which sit folded on the arm of my couch.
We eat silently. The food filling him, his presence filling me.
“Richard would love that I met you at a funeral. It just sucks that it was his.” He laughs a little, mouth full of waffle. “It’s the kind of thing I would have told him about. The first call I’d have made would’ve been to him. We’d have met for breakfast at some twenty-four-hour diner, still drunk or stoned from the night before.”
Suddenly, I’m someone’s story.
“He’d get a fucking kick out of this whole thing.” He’s laughing harder now, has trouble swallowing what’s left in his mouth and he reaches for the coffee. “Man, he’d have relished this.”
I nod, place my fork next to the knife. “He’d get a kick out of it.” I have an urgent need to get up, to move away from Dean.
I put my plate in the sink, turn on the water, and pretend to be busy. Dean comes up behind me and surrenders his plate.
“This was great,” he says. His tie has magically metastasized around his neck, and it will be seconds before his hand is reaching into my closet to retrieve his coat.
We stand in the hallway outside my apartment door and wait for the elevator. I’m hoping one of my neighbors will hear us talking and pop their head out to see what’s going on. See me with this man.
“I had a really nice time,” he says, fiddling with his wallet, checking to see if he has cash. For a minute, I think he’s going to take out a few twenties and shove them in my hand. “Got cab money. I’m good.” He looks up at me. “Let’s do this again.”
The elevator doors have barely opened but he’s already slipping inside. His last few words are lost in the closing of the doors. It sounds like “I’ll cold eew.”
I’ve lied to my mother about where I’m going.
She thinks I’m traveling to Nantucket for a wine-tasting expo, but instead my ticket reads Atlanta. From there, a van will pick up me and nine other people and drive us an hour to Macon, the slums of Georgia. I haven’t gone anywhere in years and this is the first time I’m traveling without visiting someone I know.
My parents think it’s a wonderful thing for me to do. Not only has my father allowed me to take time off from work, he’s offered to pay for my trip, an unprecedented decision.
My mother and I meet on neutral ground, the seventh floor of Bergdorf’s , and have tea sandwiches. It is here where she tells me how excited she is I’m taking this trip, insisting it’s good therapy. She is unaware my shrink is dead, that I am med-free, and that as much as I hate to admit it, still need her in my life. So I meet her for cucumber and egg salad sandwiches, and we drink iced tea, and I let her be excited and buy me clothing I will never wear: a red leather shirt/jacket, a jean skirt, and a teal knit sweater that zips up in the front. I allow her to make me into the daughter she’d like to have rather than the one she’s got. I want to know if this makes her happy. Almost lean over the table, motion to her as if she’s got a fallen eyelash on her cheek or a small hair out of place, and ask if she’ll still love me if I never marry. If I never give her grandchildren.
The Learning Annex has promised a “fascinating and cultural experience for anyone wanting to learn about Georgia’s history and is intrigued with historical homes and cemeteries.” We leave on Friday afternoon and return Sunday evening. The brochure says you can point to any of the 10,000 headstones in the Rose Hill Cemetery, the oldest on the East Coast, and the rambler can tell you about the person, how they died, and who their family was.
Ten of us are to meet in the boarding area at Delta. We’ve been mailed orange folders and nametags and it’s suggested we wear them out in the open so we can tell one another from the other passengers.
I’m one of the first to arrive. The folder/nametag trick works because I spot Brian immediately. I wave the folder lightly and point to my tag. He greets me with a warm smile and tells me he’s a professor at Binghamton who teaches Historical Southern Culture.
An hour later, I find myself in the window seat sitting next to Myrna and Fred Shultz, a retired couple in their sixties who do travel writing—he takes the photos, she does the text.
Sitting across from me are four married women who graduated from Tulane together. They wanted to take a quick getaway from their husbands and children and chose this because, as Barbara, the ringleader of the pack, said, “They just couldn’t look at another spa.” Behind me are two Gothic teens who haven’t said much except they’re filming this experience, hoping to have the next “Blair Witch” project. Their video cameras have been on since we boarded.
We are, at best, a motley crew.
Brian, who is seated directly in front of me, had his head in a book before takeoff so it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d gotten to sit next to him. The ring on his finger is the biggest disappointment so far.
The inn is surprisingly lovely. Old and creaky, it was built in 1812 and is one of the only homes still in its original foundation that wasn’t destroyed in the war. My room is called the Marigold and it has a canopy bed, fireplace, antique furniture, and small deck. The bathroom is comprised of marble. Two large palmetto beetles that appear to be having sex are free of charge.
On our first night, we sit in the parlor and have mint juleps and cheese puffs with artichoke mousse dip. Dinner is served on the porch, where we’re serenaded by an insect operetta. The night is sticky and balmy, the food rich and heavy, just as southerners like.
The college foursome and the male Goth sit in one row at the table. Rhoda, spirit of the earth, is on my left, leaving Brian and the retired couple on my right. The owner of the hotel, Buck, and Thomas, the rambler, sit at either head.
Thomas is a real southern boy. His sandy-blond hair is tousled; he wears a white shirt, suspenders which hold up his khakis, and brown shoes. His accent is charming but reminds me of the rooster from the cartoons. Every time I hear him say, “I reckon it’s so,” I have to stifle a laugh.
Breakfast is an exact replica of dinner. It’s as if we’ve slept in our seats, only our clothing selection has changed. Homemade cheese biscuits are waiting for us along with hot grits, scrambled eggs with bacon and sausage, and thick French toast with fresh strawberries.
The male Goth and the retired couple talk about camera equipment. Myrna only wants to do digital, Fred fears technology. The college gals push food around on their plates, each commenting how fattening everything looks. The one in the middle requests yogurt be added to tomorrow’s menu.
I had wanted to sit next to Tom, thought that arriving a few minutes early would ensure this, but his seat remains empty.
At 10:43 a.m. Tom appears with a megaphone attached to a small gray box which he carries over his shoulder.
We take a trolley car to the cemetery and stand photo-ready by the massive black gates. Tom raises the sound piece to his mouth.
“Can everyone hear me?”
We all answer, “Yes.”
“Do we really need this?”
“No.”
Tom smiles as if this is part of his routine. He puts the instrument down by the entrance, explaining that he’ll pick it up on the way out, unless a spirit wants it.
“This tour started fifteen years ago. Rose Hill was founded in 1840 and stretches sixty-five acres.” He suddenly sounds very professional. “It is home to 10,000 people, including three governors, two U.S. senators, thirty-one mayors, and eight congressmen.”
The cemetery is bright in the sun, which reveals its true weathered appearance. Even in its dilapidated state, it’s beautiful. We pass by a white wingless angel, a little stone girl in a long dress wearing ribbons in her hair, and an owl. Outdoor works of art enclosed in an open-air museum. The earth is super dry and the grass is brown and dying. Nothing lives here but red ants that suck your blood and can kill you. This is what Tom is saying, not to touch or kick the small mounds that spring up every few feet.
