Second Helpings (36 page)

BINGO! Gladdie howled, her voice reverberating throughout the restaurant. We were victorious.

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April 30th

Dear Hope,

Im going to have to put in about fifty years of indentured servitude to my parents to pay off our last phone call, but Im not quite done venting yet.

Marcuss latest intrusion is about as surprising as a cardboard box of devil heads at the Osbournes. He just cannot stop mucking up my life. He intentionally told Gladdie about Columbia (something he wasnt even supposed to know about) in the hopes that she, in her uncensored, double-stroked senility, would spill the news and cause much parental pain and suffering. It didnt quite work out that waymy parental pain and suffering came via an alternate routebut that doesnt make his inability to stay out of my life any less infuriating.

I dont know how you expect me to believe that its his way of showing he cares. No offense, but thats easy for you to say because youre not here to see what hes REALLY like. Hes the GAME MASTER, Hope. Hes an EVIL GENIUS who messes with my mind and my life because he has NOTHING BETTER TO DO now that hes (allegedly) living a life of chastity and temperance. Thank God theres only two months of school left, because I really dont know how much more of this I can take.

I have to ask you this on paper because Im a wuss and couldnt bring myself to ask you on the phone: Why dont you hate Marcus? Dont you hate him for doing everything Heath did, but living to tell about it? Dont you hate him because hes still here and your brother is gone?

Heres the thing thats keeping me awake: If you dont hate Marcus, then its difficult, if not impossible, for me to make a case against him. And where does that leave me?

Bafflingly yours, J.

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the second

I saw her just four days ago. Alive.

And now shes dead.

Gladdie died the dream death, in her sleep, at ninety-one. Yet that doesnt make it any easier for me to accept that shes gone.

Grandmothers die. Matthew and Heath and other brothers who are too young to die, die.

Read todays obituaries: A college girl playing beach volleyball on a cloudless spring day gets struck by lightning in front of all her teammates and dies. A thirty-six-year-old nonsmoking father of four gets lung cancer and dies. A seventy-five-year-old retired police officer gets hit by a drunk driver and dies.

Everybody dies, eventually. Were all doomed, and I dont like it. I dont want to die.

You might think thats an obvious thing to say, but the truth is, I didnt always have this aversion to death. Not that I was suicidal or anything, but if I died, I thought, I wouldnt be that upset about it. Not that Id have any conscious thoughts about the matter, because Id be dead.

But I really dont want to die. Not now, when I finally feel like Im so close to escaping Pineville and finally living my real life in New York, the life Ive been waiting for so long to live.

Then I remember: Thousands of innocent people whose only mistake was showing up for work early on a September morning died.

No one in my family has ever been religious. I always saw religion as a kind of a crutch, something people used to make themselves feel better about their own mortality. I dont blame anyone for doing this in fact, I wish I were able to buy into it all. But I cant. I wish I believed in the afterlife. I wish I believed that Gladdie was up there on a white puffy cloud, her husband at her side, entertaining all the angels with her stories.

But I dont believe that. I dont believe in anything. I believe that when youre dead, youre dead. And sometimes, as Gladdie prophetically pointed out to me the last time I saw her, sometimes youre dead even when youre alive.

Why is it that the place I fear the most is the only place that can set me free?

It doesnt make any sense.

Four days ago, Gladdie was laughing, joking, playing games. Today shes in a coffin. This also makes no sense to me. Maybe I should find comfort in the utter absurdity of life and death. I cant outwit something that only plays by one rule: It will win in the end. No matter which way I choose to move, death will always come out the victor, so I should just try to enjoy the game of life as Im playing it. Isnt that the point Gladdie was trying to make while she was alive?

I think it would make Gladdie happy to know that Ive learned something from her passing. She was a firm believer in better late than never. I just wish I believed that Ill get a chance to thank her someday.

the third

What is wrong with me? I am the most fucked-up granddaughter in the history of procreation.

My grandmothers wake was today. I know I should write about how much she meant to me, but I cant. Something even bigger than death happened to me today.

Before I go any further, let me try to explain my state of mind.

Wakes are horrible, horrible customs.

In theory, I guess I can understand why some people would want to get a look at the deceased one last time, but not when she didnt look anything like the Gladdie we knew and loved. Her face was waxy, and yet too pale and powdery at the same time. Her makeup was applied perfectly, which is to say, her eyebrows werent drawn on crooked and her lipstick didnt smudge beyond her lip line, so she didnt look like her usual nutty self. And they had her hands folded politely across her lap which is something she would never do when she was alive. Whoever dressed her didnt put on one of her signature crocheted berets. The more I looked at this coffin version of Gladdie, the more upset I got.

The only people who mourned properly were my dad and Moe. Both of them sat in the front row, not really talking to anyone, deep within their own thoughts, their own memories of this woman they both loved in their own ways.

Everyone else was so chatty about everything but the reason why we were there. My mother was flitting around the funeral home like it was a goddamn cocktail party, telling second cousins and great-aunts how lovely it was to see them again so soon after the baby shower, albeit for such a sad occasion.

But it was Bethany who really stole the show. Mourners lined up to pat her baby fat. Its tragic that she will never get to meet my firstborn, Bethany said over and over again, making Gladdies death more about herself than about Gladdie. It really was sickening.

When I finally couldnt stand it anymore, I headed to the only place I could be alone for a few minutes, the bathroom. I had my hand on the doorknob when someone grabbed my other hand and followed me inside. I didnt even have to turn around to know who it was.

Im so sorry.

Again, stronger and clearer.

Im so sorry, Jessica. I

It was Marcus. At a loss for words.

I know, I murmured.

Gladdie was classic, he said. A real original.

I know.

I liked her immensely.

I know.

Im really going to miss her.

I was all I could get out before I turned into a blubbery blob.

Marcus put his arms around me, and I buried my face into his chest and sobbed. I breathed in deep to take him in, his scent, which evokes burning leaves in late fall.

When I exhaled, I shot a snot rocket all over his blue-and-white polka-dot tie.

Oh, Christ! I groaned when I realized what Id done. Im a disgusting mess.

Its cool. Marcus laughed, and stroked my hair. Its an old tie, remember?

I did remember. It was the same one he was wearing the first time we spoke in the Caddie, when this whole thing between us, whatever it was, or is, began. I knew he had worn it on purpose.

He pulled me tighter, closer than wed ever been.

Marcus, I said.

Jessica, he replied.

And

And.

Jesus Christ.

Without knowing who started what, our mouths methis and mine, oursmoist and messy and perfect.

As we kissed, it was as if I were returning to somewhere safe. We kissed, and it was like coming home after a long, grueling odyssey. Marcus and I kissed, and kissed, and kissed, and I never wanted to leave this familiar place again.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

I de-suctioned myself from Marcus, to whom I was so forcefully vacuum-attached that I swear we made a lovely, lid-off-the-Tupperware air-sucking belch.

Is there someone in there?

Bethany!

Holy shit! I whispered.

Jessie, is that you in there? my sister asked.

Marcus had my lip gloss all over his chin, as though hed spent the morning sucking on a greasy pork chop.

Its not nice to keep a woman whos nine months pregnant and has a full bladder waiting!

I looked in the mirror.

Holy shit! I whispered again.

My face was all red and raw with razor burn. And was that ?

Oh, shit! Shit! Shit! You gave me a hickey! I mouthed, pointing to the grape-colored map of Florida hed left behind on my neck.

He shrugged, smiling, still holding my hand.

Pound pound pound.

Jessie! I am going to explode if you dont get out of there this instant!

Just a second! I called out nervously to my sister.

I dont have a second! whined Bethany.

What are we going to do? I mouthed to Marcus.

We are going to walk out that door, he said out loud, so anyone on the other side of the door could hear him.

Jessie is there someone in there with you?

No!

And before I could stop him, before I could devise a plan that involved him busting a hole in the ceiling and crawling through the air-conditioning shaft to safety, before I could even turn up the collar on my shirt eighties-style to hide my goddamn hickey, Marcus opened the door and said, Shes a terrible liar, isnt she?

My sister was so stunned that she temporarily forgot that her bladder was about to burst.

She thinks shes such a great liar, Marcus continued, but shes really terrible at it.

I swear, I dont know why Bethanys water didnt break right then and there with the shock of it all.

Weve occupied the lavatory long enough, Marcus said. Please, let us get out of your way.

And Marcus, leading me by the hand, cleared a path to the toilet.

And Bethanystill unable to confront the fact that her little sister was getting it on with this lanky stranger in the bathroom of the funeral home that was hosting her dead grandmothers wakelumbered past us and shut the door.

That went well, Marcus said, smiling so bright that his eyes twinkled and crinkled in the corners.

I dont know what made me angrier, the fact that he had tricked me into hooking up with him, or that he was being so blase about it after the fact. I mean, I usually dont believe in God and the devil, but at that moment, my agnosticism was replaced by the certainty that when my time came, I should be buried in flame-retardant underwear, because I was surely spending all eternity in hell.

Go.

Jessica

Just go , I growled.

He blinked once. Twice. Three times.

I mean it! I snapped. GO!

His smile fell, his eyes got murky, and very un-Marcus-like, he slunk away without another word.

Did I mention that his mouth was as soft, succulent, and sweet as a slice of mango? And that I cant stop licking my lips, hoping for one last taste?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

the fourth

I am a skank.

I had shown up unannounced at Bridgets house at nine A.M. to spill the whole sordid story. And this is the conclusion I had come to.

How are you a skank?

I made out with someone Im supposed to hate at my grandmothers wake. That makes me a heartless skank.

I was laying facedown on her flowery bedspread, my arms shielding the morning sunlight, in agony.

You were, like, under emotional duress, she said. You werent thinking straight.

My eyes were shut so tight that I could see psychedelic floral patterns swirling across the retinal blackness.

I dont even know his middle name.

Bridget didnt respond.

Did you hear me? I dont even know his middle name .

This seemed very significant to me.

So? Like, what does that matter?

I made out with him at my grandmothers wake, I replied. I should at least know his middle name.