Page 27 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

“Close the door on your way out.”

Giving up for now, I make my way back downstairs for my keys and purse. Even though I don’t have extra money to burn, I go to the mall, or at least what’s left of it. Seeing the pathetic, largely useless two-story building that had, at one time, been bustling and is now basically a half-empty husk, fills me with something similar to camaraderie.

I test out lotions at Bath & Body Works because it reminds me of when I was a kid. Of when my worst day was going to school with a perm in sixth grade because I’d been desperate for curly hair, and Seth Abrams told me I looked like a poodle. I try on shoes I’ll never buy and admire jewelry I’ll never afford because my bank account is barely surviving at this point.

I go into the bookstore and treat myself to a leisurely walk around each and every stack. I used to have time to read books, real ones with old, dog-eared pages from the secondhand bookstore down the street from my apartment in the city. Now, reading is a luxury. Like my time.

Whenever I have a few hours to myself, I usually watch the Game Show Network. I don’t have the brain power to open a book, let alone use reading comprehension skills to follow along with words on a page. I’m too mentally exhausted to read, but I find myself pulling different books off the shelf in the self-help section. They all deal with death. When I read the backs, most of them are general volumes on meditation or the mechanics of grief. There are books directed at children losing their parents, parents losing a child, the loss of a husband or wife, even one about the passing of a best friend. No siblings, though.

I wonder why I can’t find one written about the death of a sibling, and I consider how people view siblings. We don’t pick our brothers and sisters, and yet they’re our first friends. We can hate and love each other in the same breath, be adversaries and accomplices. Sibling bonds are certainly complicated, and it seems someone should have a book navigating the grief of losing one. Or, at the very least, acknowledging it.

Then again, maybe I’m the only one who can’t get it together. If there were such a need, someone would have filled it already. I’d assume.

I leave the store without purchasing any books and consider going for a walk in the park to clear my head, but it’s still a little too cold out for me, so I sit in my car debating where to go next. Not much to do on a Saturday afternoon. By habit, I lift my phone to scroll my social media apps then think twice and, instead, open my text thread with Vince, finally taking the plunge to let him know.

What are you doing? I type.

Hello to you too.

What are you doing right now?

I’m fine. How are you? he replies, and I groan even though he can’t hear me.

OMG. You’re like my brother, I message, thinking of how Ray had always wanted me to text him like we were having a conversation in person. Weirdo.

Great minds. he responds.

I have the day off, and I’m by myself.

And you’re texting me because you need a friend? He adds a thinking-face emoji, but it doesn’t take the sting out of the situation. I do need a friend.

Could you hear the desperation in my texts?

A smidge.

I sigh and sip of my coffee, not wanting to be that person. I don’t want to be stuck in a hole, unable to dig out. I want out; I just don’t know where to find a shovel.

Want to hang out? he asks, and I’m happy he does so I don’t have to.

Yeah.

Meet me at the Turf in an hour.

I agree without even searching where or what the Turf is until after I’ve started my car. Turns out the Turf is a batting cage.

Does he really think I’m the type of woman to go to a batting cage?

I so obviously am not. And yet, I drive there anyway, fooling myself into believing I’m going solely because I need a friend—any friend—and not because it’s Vince who will be there.

I wait on a blue plastic chair next to the door of the Turf for Vince to show up. The walls are covered in posters of who I assume are professional baseball players, along with a few pictures of little league teams full of the kids’ smiling faces. This is exactly the type of place my brother probably frequented, and sadness overpowers me. I pick up a Sports Illustrated to take my mind off him. The article about some college basketball coach doesn’t do it, but Vince finally strolling in does.

“Hey, Cass,” he says like he’s been speaking my name every day for the last decade, and I’m unsure of how to greet him. Although, he doesn’t have the same problem and opens his arms for a hug.

I hesitate for a moment, and he smiles. That one little lift of his lips on the left side has me wrapping my arms around his torso before I’ve even consciously thought it. I haven’t seen him in almost a month, and we’re barely acquaintances. But the way he folds me into him with one arm banded around my waist and the other around my shoulder so his hand can cup my neck, and his head bent down low enough that I can hear him breathing… It’s intimate. I lean my chin against the indent of his collarbone, the perfect spot, and he tightens his hold, pushing a breath out of my lungs. He’s squeezing the life out of me.

Or into me, I’m not sure.

“Can I help you guys?”

---