Pasadena (12 page)

T
he service ends without further incident. There's an awkward reception in one of the peach-and-chalk-colored event rooms at the church. Everyone loves the brownies. Parker uses Violetta like garlic at a vampire ball to ward away the crowd. Something about a nurse and a wheelchair, people keep their distance. Joey gives me a nudge. I could force the issue, try to get her alone. But I find I've lost my appetite.

When we leave the church for the long drive to the cemetery, Maggie's mother detaches herself from Edina and wraps her arms around one of mine. “No, no, you ride with us.” She tugs me down the wide flight of stairs to a waiting limousine.

“I don't want to intrude,” I say. A glance tells me Edina very much wishes she could.

“Don't be absurd. You are family,” Mrs. Kim says. I nod and tell Joey I'll see him at the grave site.

Violetta has just finished wrangling Parker into the backseat when I climb in.

“Ah. Welcome to the family, new sis,” Parker greets me.

“Mom says I can have your room,” I reply.

Mr. Kim scowls at his son, but it doesn't last long. “Now, children,” he says, “let's all get along.”

It's my turn to smile. Role playing is catching, I suppose.

We pull out into traffic behind the hearse. Through the tinted windows, I can see the blazing headlights of the cars behind us, glaring like cell phones held up at a concert, telling the world to step aside.

I look ahead to the hearse carving its way through traffic, black doors and chrome trim shining in the sun. I can just make out the top of Maggie's coffin and I wonder who feels colder, the girl inside that box, or me, trapped in my own padded crypt with her family. The AC blasts us from the front vents, drying sweat and the remnants of tears.

And I think religion got it wrong. Maybe Hell is a frozen tundra.

We ride in silence to the cemetery.

All my suspicions, my clever inquiries forgotten.

Maggie is gone and I couldn't save her. Now it's too late to try.

• • •

We bury Maggie at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, just a few blocks south of Sunset Boulevard, in the heart of Hollywood. That, at least, makes sense. The graveyard holds the likes of Douglas Fairbanks, junior and senior, Vampira, and Cecil B. DeMille. Add to that a tradition of screening old movies for crowds of hipsters and cinephiles every summer, right up against the mausoleum wall, and I feel like Maggie's getting the kind of pajama party that lasts an eternity.

I wonder whose idea it was. I raise an eyebrow at Parker, but he looks away, staring out into the gritty streets where liquor stores and discount uniform warehouses vie for immigrant dollars in a clash of languages.

The park is beautiful. An oasis in the concrete jungle. A swan pond graces a stretch of green grass, and crypts rise up like temples to forgotten gods.

Maggie gets a strip of green across the road from the screening lawn, no trees or headstones to block the view. I keep my sunglasses on, and throw a rose on Maggie's
coffin with the rest of the family. The Kims' gaggle of church friends is still droning hymns in Korean and English when I turn and walk away.

Joey finds me under the spread of a chestnut tree alongside the flat black road that winds through the park. Cars line the curb like gemstones in the sun. “How was that?” he asks.

I've convinced Mrs. Kim to let Joey drive me home. I've had enough of walking in Maggie's shoes for one day. I shake my head at Joey's question. “Let's get out of here.”

“Not just yet,” he says. I look up from the car door handle to see why. Luke Liu perches in a tree overlooking Maggie's open grave, using the limbs as a tripod. He's still taking her picture.

“Hey.”

I turn around. Edina Rodriguez is standing there, looking more than a little uncomfortable. She glances at Joey, then back to me.

“Hello” is all I can think of to say.

Joey takes a step back. If Edina has something on her mind, it's for my ears alone.

“I didn't lie to you earlier,” she says. “About the necklace. Maggie did give it to me.” I notice it's not around her neck now. She's clutching it in her right hand.

“She said I could borrow it. Asked me to hold on to it, actually, for two weeks. She knew I loved it and lent it to me. Just for a little while.” Edina is repeating herself, but I let her.

I look at the pearls in her hand, round and luminous. Her nails are bitten to the quick. “I've still got a week to go, but I don't want it anymore.” She thrusts the necklace at me.

I take it, feeling the hardness of each little pearl. They're cool to the touch. A string of perfection.

Edina's eyes are red now. She blinks. “Poor Maggie.” She looks up at me for comfort. I have none to give. “I . . . Poor Maggie,” she says again, and after a moment's hesitation, she walks away.

“What was that about?” Joey asks, rejoining me.

I show him the pearls and put them in my clutch purse. “She claims Maggie asked her to hold on to them. Maybe she just doesn't want to be Little Maggie Kim anymore. It's no fun idolizing the dead.”

Joey puts his arm around me. “Tell that to Marilyn Monroe.”

“Is he coming down?” I ask, my eyes searching the branches for Luke.

As the last mourners depart, Luke lowers his camera
and waves at us. I see him fumble for his phone. A moment later, mine vibrates with a text.

Slides in. Be right there.

• • •

“Why didn't you call us?” I ask. I've kicked off my shoes and tucked my feet under my skirt. It's a bit too tight for me to curl up in a chair comfortably, but we've come to a coffeehouse rather than someone's home and I'm still in my Sunday best.

Luke blushes, pouring sugar packets into his iced green tea. “The developer called this morning. I knew you had to get ready for the funeral and I wasn't going to be missed if I came late, so . . .” He shrugs.

“You were missed,” I say, and he blushes more deeply.

“I . . . I don't think I could have handled the service anyway.”

“You couldn't have. They had an open casket after all,” Joey tells him.

Luke pales, staring hard at the table. “How weird was that? I mean, dead people never look . . . right.”

I turn my head and try to think of something sunny. Nobody speaks. Finally I clear my throat. “So, what've you got?”

Luke pulls an envelope out of his messenger bag. “I
had these printed from the slides. I haven't looked at them yet. I figured I should wait for you guys.”

“Thanks.”

He nods and unseals the envelope. A stack of 8 x 10 black-and-white glossies slides out onto the table.

“They should be chronological by time code,” he says.

Joey and I are transfixed, the sharp photographs on the table erasing our last view of Maggie lying cold in a mahogany box.

I reach out and touch a photo. Maggie by the pool, blowing a ring of smoke. She looks so alive. The time stamp in the corner says she will be for another ninety minutes.

We sit there, letting Luke flip through image after image.

Maggie smoking, waving at him, calling him to her. Nothing we haven't seen before.

“That's when I went inside,” Luke says. “And this is when I came out.”

There are three photos left. Slow exposure. Dreamy. “I left the shutter open a long time to shoot by streetlamp,” he explains. “I wanted to capture the moment.”

The time stamp reads 10:35. 37. 40.

Three landscapes, forming a panoramic view of the yard after dark. The lamp in Maggie's pool house window
glows like a fairy light, diffuse and unreal. The bright lights along the side of the house put the narrow walkway and the recycling bins in a pool of sharp focus. The rest of the house is dark. Everyone asleep except . . .

“Huh.”

Luke sees it too. He leans forward.

“What?” Joey asks.

“There.” He taps an upstairs window, at a point of light, no bigger than a Christmas-tree bulb.

“What's that?” Joey asks.

Luke shrugs. “Cigarette, most likely. See the way it's kind of dragging across the page, streaky?”

“Moving,” Joey says with a nod. “I don't get it. Maggie never left the pool house and the Kims don't smoke.”

“Maybe one of them does,” I say. “When his nurse isn't on duty.”

“What?” Luke asks.

I smile sadly. “Don't you recognize it? That's Parker's room. ‘Resting calmly on anxiety meds by ten thirty p.m.,'” I quote Violetta's journal. “Ten minutes later, he's having a smoke. Twenty minutes after that, Maggie's dead.”

Luke is crying silently. Joey hands him a napkin. “What, you think Parker saw something?”

I uncurl my legs from beneath me. “I'm betting on it.”

• • •

Violetta lets us in. Today the AC is turned on, a chill hush that sends goose bumps up my arms and makes the house sound like it's sighing.

“The Kims are resting upstairs,” she says. “Parker and I are out back for pool therapy.” She turns, water dripping from her matronly swimsuit, despite the towel wrapped around her waist. She walks out to the pool without waiting to see what we do.

Joey and I exchange shrugs and follow her outside.

By the time we get there, Violetta is halfway down the pool steps, cradling Parker in her arms. He looks like a baby scarecrow, skinny legs curled up against Violetta's chest. His black swim trunks hit the water and cling to him, making him look even thinner. He catches sight of us and frowns.

“Returning to the scene of the crime?” I say.

“What do you want?” Parker snaps back.

“I want to know what happened to Maggie,” I say. Sometimes honesty works.

Parker pushes away from Violetta, pulling himself to sit on a middle step, legs drifting in front of him, blue water lapping against his narrow chest. “She died,” he says, squinting at me in the sunlight. I've got my shades on, as
does Joey. So I let him squint up at us, knowing he can only see his own reflection in our lenses, weak and young.

“Is that so hard to understand?” he demands. “Maggie got drunk, got high, and she died.”

“So it was an accident?” I ask, coming to crouch poolside.

He looks uncomfortable and shrugs, turning away. “How should I know?” he asks.

I reach into my purse and pull out Luke's photograph. I nod at the time stamp and point to the glowing ember. “You were, what, halfway through a cigarette? Had to open a window so your parents wouldn't smell it, right?”

“I don't smoke,” Parker says. Violetta cuts him a look.

“So, this is someone else in your room at ten thirty at night?”

“That's private,” Parker says. He looks very young.

Violetta wades over to look at the picture. “Smoking? Parker, how many times have I told you? Cigarettes will kill you.”

Parker's shoulder's hunch. “It's not a cigarette. It was medicinal.”

Joey and I exchange a look. “Medical marijuana?” I ask.

Parker shrugs and looks away.

Violetta relaxes. “That's right. That's the night we ran out of flunitrazepam and Valium.”

I feel Joey come alert beside me.

Violetta prattles on, glad to have a break in her miserable day, I imagine. She laughs. “I swear those pharm guys are getting lazy, miscounting the order like that. I had to rewrite my log and everything,” she says, shaking her head. “Sorry, Parker. You scared me for a second there. You can never be too careful with that stuff.”

Parker keeps his eyes on the water.

“All right, that's enough PT for today,” she tells him. “Do you want out?”

Parker doesn't respond.

“He just lost his sister. Talk to him,” Violetta says to me. “Parker,
mijo
, it's good to have friends.” The word falls flat in the still air, but she doesn't seem to notice. She makes sure he's settled on the steps, half in, half out of the water, and climbs out of the pool. “I'll be back,” she says, and leaves the three of us alone.

The pool filter turns on, making a tinkling whirlpool of the water. Parker stares at the light dancing off the wavelets, reflecting in rings and stars on his skin.

“You watched her die,” I say. “You gave her the drugs, then you smoked a joint and watched her die. Why?”

Parker shrugs, eyes still on the water that killed his sister. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Call for help. Get your parents!” A heat is rising in me. I push it back down. I want to understand.

“Did you know Maggie got into Brown?” Parker asks.

I take a deep breath. “I just found out.”

“Yeah,” Parker sighed. “She was going to tell you when you got back in town. Accepted a full year early. But no financial aid. Dad makes too much on paper.”

I nod but don't say anything. Joey paces the deck behind me, looking up at the sun.

“I'm due for another surgery this fall. A hundred fifty grand, only twenty percent covered by insurance. Do you know how much it costs to go to Brown?”

I sit down, feeling sick. “About as much as an underinsured brain surgery?”

“Yeah.” Parker hiccups and I see that he's crying. “What Violetta said about smoke killing me is true. The crap from all the wildfires is bad; cigarettes are worse. I started smoking because one good case of pneumonia in these shit lungs and I'd be off the surgery list, maybe even off life support.”

“That's crazy,” Joey says, not wanting to understand. But I do.

“Funerals are cheaper than treatment, Joe.”

Joey looks at me, and I feel something inside me break.
That look on his face, I know it well: a kid who never knew the world could be so ugly.

I take his hand and try to draw him down to sit beside me. He pulls away.

“A lot cheaper,” Parker says. “And Maggie knew it. She also knew it would kill my mom to lose me. But her?” He shrugs his thin shoulders. “Maybe not so much.”