Death Wish

The next time I hear from Jeannie, it’s at her funeral.

Christ, that stupid ringtone. Everyone is looking at me. Her Aunt Kristy. Aunt Kristy’s girlfriend, Denise. Her stepdad and his second wife, Denise. ‘The Denises’ are staring. Even St. Ignatius looks particularly fed up. I really wish the altar boys would stop laughing. None of this is funny.

Actually, it is funny.

After all, it’s why we set “Hold On to the Nights” as each other’s identifying ringtone in high school. What I didn’t realize then was that it would follow me for half my life. I blame 80s Night at Inter-Skate USA, the roller rink under the highway overpass. When they played it, Jeannie and I changed the word memories to mammaries and scream-sang it while clenching our fists skyward as we drifted around the rink. It was, and still is, the hardest I’ve ever laughed. It’s hard to explain why. It’s best-friend stuff.

I bolt up and then sit back down. The song is still playing.

Hold onto the mammaries!

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I send it to voicemail and (crouching and apologizing) edge out of the pew. I fall over Sister Mary Vincentius, our sixth grade teacher who is somehow still alive. Then I trip over Jeannie’s old boss, Kenny Christmas of Christmas Plastics, Inc. located in the same dismal office park where I work.

When I get to the end of the pew, I trip over the kneeler and fall into the lap of Nathan Wright and involuntarily let loose a barely-audible—but still very audible, because church—“fuck me.”

When I look up at him we telepathically agree that this particular choice of expletive is fitting, since that was certainly all I wanted him to do to me in college. Maybe I should have just come out and said it instead of putting it in that god-awful letter junior year.

No, I did not write fuck me in a letter to Nathan Wright. I was very afraid of sex until I had it for the first time…a lot later than most people. No, I wrote something far more embarrassing: that I had feelings for him. Warm, soft, expansive feelings.

We hold each other’s gaze another second too long. Then, like a spooked deer, I launch myself into the aisle and bolt up the spam-colored carpet to the back entrance.

Well that was a very nice break from all the crying, JEANNIE! I’d started to get dehydrated. Did you somehow hack into my wireless account? Did you secretly put yourself on some family plan they never told me about and now I owe months of backpay? I know things got tough when Kenny Christmas fired you for taking too many sick days for your cancer, but I’m in debt too.

I push outside and hurry down the granite steps, eyes trained on my phone. Then, I’m suddenly not on the sidewalk but in the bramble near the sidewalk. One of my heels comes loose, my dress snags, and my attempt to regain my balance is so theatrical, that I’m certain I look like a dancer in one of those beach blanket movies from the 60s—arms flailing, waist swiveling, feet staunchly planted. When I finally make my way back to the sidewalk skirting the parking lot, I slam into the grill of Jeannie’s stepdad’s RAM truck and immediately trigger its alarm.

Damn stupid bramble.

Behind me, in the distance, I hear the cu-clunk! of an exit push bar. Definitely Sister Mary Vincentius who will definitely accuse me of causing a ruckus in church. I scan the parking lot and spot Jeannie’s ancient black Hyundai with the bumper sticker: Pagans Make Better Lovers. Maybe it was handed down to her sister? I move towards it staying low, wondering if, unlike Neil, most people bother locking their cars in church parking lots. Relief rushes over me when the driver’s side door clicks open.

I sink down in the seat and watch instead as Neil plows down the steps. He stomps toward his truck, throwing up his hands and casting around suspicious looks. Calm down, Neil. Just turn it off and go back inside to grieve your step-daughter like a normal fucking person. Finally, he hits the toggle on his key ring and heads back in, shooting quick glances over his shoulder.

When he’s finally gone, I sit back up and pull out my phone to listen to the voicemail

…call us back to speak with us about this offer!

Typical.

All that and for what? Some spam, hack enterprise. Some mainframe computer in a basement in Siberia stealing the phone numbers of the deceased?

Suddenly, there’s a knock on the window and I’m so startled I throw my phone in the air. I look over to see Nathan. He waggles his finger, indicating that I should roll the window down.

“Hi?” I ask, after it slides down. A gentle rain has started, freckling his dark grey suit. He doesn’t say anything before trying the door. He brushes empty bags of potato chips and errant tampons into the footbed before settling into the seat beside me.

“Why did you ask me to roll down the window if you were just going to get in?”

“I recognized the ringtone. You’ve had it since college,” he says.

“It was just some spam call.” And, because Nathan’s presence always turns my brain into a Jello mold, I follow this up with. “Haven’t you ever seen the movie Hackers?”

Nathan opens his mouth to speak and then closes it, his brow pinching. “The movie from thirty years ago?”

“Yes.”

“You’re referencing a movie genre from the dawn of the internet where humans got computer viruses?”

“I don’t think much has changed…in terms of being vigilant. Speaking of which, I should really get going so I can go home and change my passwords.”

His eyes slide to the keyless ignition and then to my ripped tights and to my sweater dress now covered in burrs.

“You’re going to steal Jeannie’s old car to go home and change your passwords?”

“Uh huh,” I say.

He continues to stare at me and I can feel my cheeks heat. In college, I could barely be in the same room with him without having a similar physical reaction. His eyes move to my neck where I can feel hives blossoming. When I lift my hand to check, sure enough, welts.

“I fell into the bramble,” I blurt out, intending it as a defense for what is surely something only seen in dermatology textbooks. “And I lost a shoe,” I add. “So, like I said, I should get going.”

But neither of us moves. The rain starts to patter on the roof, blurring the windshield. I note that his face has done that thing—the thing that happens to all attractive men in their thirties. It’s sharper, more angular. He also clearly gets his hair professionally done now instead of just buzzing it himself. It’s swoopy and thick, the dark waves peppered with grey at his temples. Damnit, Nathan, you look like you play an architect on TV and I must get away before this rash spreads. But when I push my door open, he catches my wrist.

“My shoe,” I say, my pulse spiking.

“She called me too,” he says.

“I’m sure it’s just cycling through her contacts.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” he asks.

“Not really.”

He considers this, hand still on my wrist. “Are you going to the reception?”

I hadn’t planned on it. I was exhausted from the past few weeks. At the very end, Jeannie’s death barreled toward me like a high-speed Japanese commuter train, and I hadn’t even tried to step out of its path or consider that the impact of grief would be so bone-crushing it would take everything from me—my ability to focus, to sleep. Right now, all I want to do is go home and do something relaxing, like watch a serial killer documentary.

Eventually, he lets me go and wordlessly lifts himself out of the car. As he walks away through the rain. Great. See you when the next friend from college dies.

I pick burrs from my dress and check my makeup in the rearview mirror. When I look back toward the church, Nathan is in the bramble. After a few moments of searching, he lifts up my shoe and points to it.

“Is this it?” He calls.

The reception is across town in a stucco banquet facility on the far end of a darkened strip mall. On the other side of the cracked parking lot sits a decaying IHOP, its once winsome A-frame consumed with rashy weeds, the eaves buzzing with hornets’ nests like a Chernobyl ruin.

“Nature finds a way,” I say, looking at it as I step out of my sister’s car.

“Is that from Jurassic Park?” Corrine asks, but she’s already spit out the reference from the autopilot part of her brain. She’s not really listening, or really registering what I’m referring to—or what Jurassic Park even is.

Corrine and her husband, Mike, have a sticky, all-consuming iPad toddler. I’m patiently waiting for Grace to grow up a little more and do something other than stomp on my foot whenever she sees me or tell me I look like a witch.

It’s because you only wear black, Corrine always insists, and I (sort of) believe her.

I catch sight of Nathan getting out of his car—a silver Audi. I wish I had the nerve to follow his private account on social media. Then I would know where he lives and why he drives such a car.

Corrine empties Grace from the backseat and hands her the iPad, at which point Grace stomps violently on my foot.

“Ow,” I state, but she only giggles, puffed, star-shaped child snack products clinging to her cheeks. Corrine bends down and wipes her face with the hem of her Ann Taylor blouse. Mike is already charging toward the banquet hall, saying something into his phone about the HVAC issues.

I risk another glance at Nathan. He’s hanging back, eyes on his phone, maybe hoping to avoid Grace at close range, who is screaming the scream of toddler mania and walking erratically in front of us.

Inside, my eyes go looking for Mom and find her talking with the ‘The Denises.’ At the far end of the room, there’s a spread of steaming chafing dishes and a large, poster-sized photograph of Jeannie. Her parents gifted her professional headshots when she graduated college, and the photos always reminded me of the way Rikki Lake used to give goth teenagers makeovers by putting them in pantsuits.

I drift toward the liquor table set up in a lonely corner. I want a vodka soda, but no one has opened that bottle yet—no one wants to be the one to crack the seal, especially at a funeral. Defeated, I grab a half-empty bottle of gin and pour some into a plastic tumbler.

As I survey the attendants, I notice that no one is really grieving anymore—everyone just looks dazed and tired, the same way I feel. Ironically, all I want to do is talk to Jeannie about how mundane funerals are. With all the things our generation has rebranded, why not this?

“Honey.” I hear Mom behind me. When I turn, her gaze tracks down my dress to my ripped tights. “What was all that?” she asks, already picking burrs from my shoulder-length brown hair.

“I forgot to silence my phone,” I say, taking a gulp of gin and shuddering at its herby, toilet-cleaner taste. My eyes keep moving through the room until they land on Nathan, now talking to Matt Ronkowsky, another friend from college. “I’m going to go say hi to some friends from school,” I add, pouring more gin into my tumbler. Mom nods and rubs my back, though mostly she’s just locating more burrs to deposit in her purse.

“Ivy!” Matt says, slapping my back as I approach.

“Good to see you,” I tell him, and he pulls me into a one-armed hug. He looks the same, except now his hair is thinning. He tells me he’s been working in Boston, and when I ask where, he explains that “Dedham is technically Boston, if we’re getting technical.”

“Doing what?” Nathan clarifies.

“Office furniture,” he says nodding and with finality before turning to me. “And you?”

“I’m still in Grimchester,” I tell them. “I work for Kazoo!”

“The old search engine?” Nathan asks. “Didn’t they get bought out?”

Kazoo! Is famously one of the only search engines that didn’t accept the Google buy out. I explain that it’s just a small web hosting service now. “Mostly local businesses.” I tell them. “I do UX…that sort of thing.”

“Do you like it?” Nathan asks.

“Nope,” I say and gag on another sip of gin.

A woman approaches Matt. She is objectively gorgeous with long mermaid, chestnut colored waves and a sleek black pencil dress. “Matt,” she says through clenched teeth. They begin a whisper fight about calling someone named Dave about the transfer.

“Sorry,” Matt says to us and the woman shoots us all a weak smile and they walk to a quiet corner of the room to continue their discussion.

“Wow,” I say. “Matt’s wife is a total babe.”

Nathan clears his throat and I look back at him. My cheeks heat. I think about that stupid letter again, which I have tragically thought about on a weekly basis since writing it. I gave it to Jeannie—like a coward—to hand-deliver after I left for study abroad. I figured that if I passed it off and immediately got on a plane, I couldn’t second-guess myself, and if he didn’t feel the same, or flat-out ignored it, I’d be too busy finding myself to care.

Predictably, he did not try to contact me, and I spent the next six months living in a low brick building with a window the size of a playing card, fifteen miles outside Paris, next to a discount supermarket named Finale!.

He has never mentioned the letter. Not once during our senior year or at any of the scattered weddings since—one of which, to be fair, was his. I flick my eyes down to his hand. The wedding band is gone. Heat curls in my stomach.

“I got another call from Jeannie’s number,” Nathan says, pulling out his phone and showing it to me. I lean in to view the screen and my arm touches the fabric of his suit scattering goosebumps over my entire body.

It’s a similar voicemail transcript: This is an urgent matter. Please call us back at your earliest convenience. It’s followed by a number with a Boston area code.

“You know they just use your area code so you’ll call them back like an idiot,” I say.

Nathan looks a little hurt by this.

“Not that you’re an idiot,” I insist quickly. Jesus, Ivy.

“I still think it’s strange,” he says. “Matt didn’t get a call,” he says.

“Were they ever that close?”

“They slept together on and off all junior year.”

I shrug. “That was a long time ago. I don’t have your number and we were…friends.” He catches my eye and I dart them away to the pantsuit photo.

“I mean he’s here…at her funeral.”

“It doesn’t mean they kept in touch,” I say looking back at him.

“And I asked her sister,” he says. “Nothing.”

“I don’t think we should read too much into it,” I say.

And after all, shouldn’t we be talking about Jeannie right now? It is her funeral. I look around and catch a teenager in servile black and white sneaking a long inhale from their vape in the crook of their elbow before taking Jeannie’s grandmother’s coat at the door. I know it would horrify Jeannie to see us all trapped in this sad banquet facility that smells of disinfectant and rigatoni ribbed with dry marinara, trying to come up with nice things to say.

But Nathan doesn’t know this.

He doesn’t understand how much she would have hated her own funeral. He hasn’t seen her in years. He wasn’t making supermarket runs for pints of coffee ice cream because it could have, in fact, been her dying wish. She didn’t grip his hand and beg him not to let Neil use the pantsuit photo. So shouldn’t he at least have the manners to reminisce?

Nathan’s eyes still pool with uncertainty, and I begin to wonder if this is what all those therapists are forever going on about—grasping for something tangible—some inconsequential puzzle to solve—when things get too real.

“Look,” I say, awkwardly patting the hand gripping his beer. My eyes snag on a small, fresh-looking tattoo near his wrist: a dragon eating its own tail. Definitely divorced. “Maybe this was just her way of saying goodbye.”

“With a robo call?”

“She was always chaos incarnate.”

“No one else got a call.”

I open my mouth to argue, but then I start to realize he’s right. Something cold slips down my spine—not fear exactly, just the sense that something has shifted in a way I don’t have a name for. That’s when both our phones start buzzing again with another call from Jeannie.

“Ivy,” he says, “something’s happening.”