Page 64 of Catch a Kiwi
“Respect, maybe,” I suggested.
“Ha,” Delilah said. “Do you think dead people care what kind of urn they’re in? They’redead.Those places want to rip off poor people, that’s all, make them feel ashamed for not keeping up appearances. Sometimes they even charge poor peoplemorefor the same item, because they can be shamed into it. Summer wasn’t having any. She looked right at him and said, ‘Can you put the ashes in the niche in the cardboard box?’ The guy said, ‘Of course, but we find that most family members want a more permanent repository for theirloved one’s remains,’ with this sickening little sympathetic smile.”
I’d long since stopped mopping off the benchtop and turned to look at Delilah. “What did Summer say?” I asked, even though this was, again, not my concern and possibly an invasion of her privacy.
“She told him, ‘She’d be just as dead in your copper jug as she would be in the cardboard box, and you’re sealing up the whole thing anyway. It’s not like anybody will see our shocking lack of respect. No, thanks. We’ll just do the niche and the plaque. How much is that?’ He said, ‘The niche is thirty-five hundred, and the plaque will be another three hundred, plus the internment fee, of course,’ and she said, ‘You’re kidding. Thirty-fivehundred?It’s about one square foot! That’s got to be the most expensive real estate in America. And there’s a fee for putting the box inside? How about if I come over and put it in for you?’ Andhesaid, still going for that understanding thing, but you could tell he thought she was an uncaring witch, ‘The niche requires a permanent seal, which is a job for a specialist.’ Like it wasn’t just supergluing the door shut, because I’ll bet that’s what they do. Summer just looked at him, like, incredulous. It was actually pretty funny, thinking about it later.” She ate another chip.
“Sorry I missed it,” I said. “Did he come down on the price? Didn’t realize you could bargain on a burial.”
“Not exactly. Summer stood up and said, ‘Give us a minute, please. Come with me, Delilah.’ I was crying a little because, excuse me, it was fuckingsad,but she walked out like she did just now, like she reallyhadmarried some prince instead of a soccer player tax cheat and was way too good for this. When we were out in the hallway, she asked me, ‘What do you think?’”
“And what did you think?” I asked.
“That it was a racket, that’s what. I told Summer, ‘Thereare, like, thousands and thousands of niches out there, and a few rosebushes and a teeny little bit of grass. What, you buy a lot and put up a concrete wall with some holes in it and plop a couple of bushes in the ground and then you just get to rake it in? Aunt Iona would hate that we spent thousands of dollars on this, the system ripping off working people again, but what else are we supposed to do with the ashes?’ And Summer said, ‘So what would be better? Should we just scatter her ashes instead? Where would she have wanted to be?’ And I said,‘Idon’t know. What was her favorite place? Olive Garden? The Indian casino? We can’t exactly scatter her ashes in the home décor section of Walmart.’ I was kind of laughing, and crying, too, and Summer was still in Robot Mode. She said, ‘I don’t like the idea of not knowing where she is. Not having a place for her. You can get somebody’s ashes baked into a sort of resin heart that you wear on a necklace, though. I saw it online. I guess we could scatter the rest of them for free someplace nice, out on the Olympic Peninsula, maybe, and get those necklaces, except—' And I said, ‘Oh, gross. Wearing my dead aunt. Oh, man, I can’t. That’s so disgusting.’ That finally cracked her, I guess, because we both just started to laugh. We laughed so hard, I almost peed my pants, and we were both crying, but because of the laughing instead of in an appropriate mourning way, saying things like, ‘I’d feel like she was watching me all the time. How creepy would that be?’ and ‘What, are you supposed to kiss her goodnight?’, and laughing even harder.”
I was smiling myself. Hard to avoid it. “What did you do?” I asked.
“Well, eventually, the guy stuck his head out from the Soberly Grieving Conference Room and looked pretty offended at all the staggering around laughing, except he was still trying to be Properly Sympathetic. He asked, ‘Have you been able to reach a decision?’ And Summer wiped her eyes,which of course weren’t smeared by makeup like mine, because she had Makeup Powers, and said, ‘Yes,’ and we went back inside and paid the money to put the cardboard box in the wall and got out of there. Seriously the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
She ate her final chip and said, “That’s what I mean, though. She could do things like that, even then, when you’d think she’d be, you know, battered down by life. She’s always been able to. She never curls up in bed and eats ice cream out of the carton and watches TV all day in her PJs like a normal person when something horrible happens. It’s admirable, I guess, but kind of frustrating, too, because no matter how good you get at adulting, she’s always better. I’m having a chocolate biscuit for dessert. Do you want one?”
27
A STAR AT DAWN
Summer
I pulled into the drive on Sunday night and didn’t think about this being our last night here. I’d never planned on more than a week or two, so what was the problem? Yes, it was a beautiful spot, and so peaceful, too. It had literally been shelter from the storm, and it kept feeling more like that, but it was a fantasy.
I came around the corner and there Roman was again, in his favorite spot facing the fountain with his back to the fireplace, his ankles crossed and propped on the seat of another chair and his laptop in his lap. I hesitated a second, then thought,You’ve decided. Do it,stepped forward, and asked him, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
He looked up, a frown between his brows, then shut the lid of the laptop and said, “Of course.” Politely. Distantly.
I didn’t ask myself whether this was a good idea. I sat down, my hands in my lap, my back straight, and he raised his eyebrows at me. Not making it easy, but why should he?
“I may have overreacted,” I said.
“You’re not leaving,” he said. “Better for Delilah, eh. That donut and all.”
“Yes,” I said. “We’re leaving. We’re going to live at Daisy’s. The nurse.”
His dark brows went up again. “I hadn’t anticipated that one.”
“She has that caravan. We’ll be renting it for … for a while. Maybe even some months. The truth is …” I looked down at my hands, then up at him, and his face got even more still. I wished I could tell what he was thinking. “The truth is,” I went on, “I’m tired of running, and I’m tired of hiding. And I realized that I’ve learned something from you. The way you’re always yourself. The way you say what you think. How you were able to be so forthright, meeting your father, talking about him with Matiu. Not doing what I do, shutting down, going cold, and not worrying about what people think. I thought,I’d like to be like that,and then I thought—why can’t I? So this is me doing my best to be like that. I told Daisy who I was, and she rented the caravan to me anyway. I’m going to try to get a real job, see if there’s somebody who’ll take a chance on me. I’m good at writing code, and that’s what I need.”
“What’s what you need?” He actually looked like he wanted to know.
“To be writing code again. My code is … me, but separate from me,” I tried to explain. “It has nothing to do with celebrity and nothing to do with beauty. It speaks for itself, do you see? If it’s clear, if it’s economical, if it’s well commented so somebody else can follow it, there’s a kind of … of mathematical beauty in that, and it has everything to do with my mind and nothing to do with my outsides or my trashy background. And Dunedin could be …” I looked away from him, at the purpling sky and the glimmer of the distant sea under the setting sun. “I like the South Island. It feels simpler, and I think I need simpler now. And I want to live someplace where I can see the ocean sometimes. Taking a walk, driving to the beach … I want to be able to see it. Seattle is on the coast, but I never saw the ocean, with the waves and the shoreline and all, until I was in high school. I know that’s the world’s biggest cliché, taking long walks on the beach and hearing the waves, but I … I feel like I need it now. So I’m going to try to find a job. I’m going to try to live, not just survive. I’m going to try to feel again.”
“Sounds good,” he said, but he didn’t give me more than that. Why should he, though, after everything I’d said to him?
“And,” I said, “I’ll go to your party with you, if you still want me. I owe you that much. I owe you so much more.” I had to stop and take a breath. “That’s not a sacrifice. It’s an offering. From friendship. You’ve helped me when it was the last thing you wanted to do. You’ve been a true friend to me. This is something I can do to help you, and I’d like to do it.”
“It would help me believe you,” he said, “if you weren’t sitting there like Joan of Arc about to be burnt at the stake while you announce it.”
I laughed, it was so unexpected. He grinned, and just like that, it was so much better.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll go to observe, like an anthropologist, and offer you my impressions later, the way you asked me to do before. How’s that? You know now that I’m frank enough for that. As your pretend girlfriend, even, as long as we’re both clear that it’s not real. As long as it’s OK that I’m not glamorous.”
