“And you don’t want me to be disappointed.”
“Right.”
“I won’t be,” I said, knowing full well that I would—devastated might be more accurate—if I didn’t get what I needed from Demetria. But I told Petra what she wanted to hear. “I get it that Demetria’s case is different from my mother’s, but …” I shrugged. “You know, sometimes when I’m there, I think about my mom spending the last four years of her life at the Barrow Center without many visitors, maybe thinking no one cared or wondering why Nan or I never came. Even if I’m not learning about my mom from Demetria, I feel like it’s still helping. Like maybe I’m making up for the things I wasn’t able to do for my mother, in some kind of roundabout karmic way. You know?”
Petra smiled cautiously. “Okay. I just want to be sure you’re not pinning too much on learning what your mom was like by visiting this girl. From what I can see, there’s about as much that’s different about her and your mom as there is that’s the same.”
“Right. Don’t worry, Petra. It’s all good.”
As long as one of the similarities was the one I was looking for.
I had no luck with Demetria the next day, though. I felt like we were in reverse, actually, unable to even get her to make eye contact. Patience, I kept telling myself, remembering Petra’s warning.
Between her and Jackson Kennit and exhaustion, I’d been a virtual ghost in the hallways at Franklin Parris High.
“Where the hell have you been, Renfield?” Liv demanded when she finally caught up with me by my locker on Thursday.
“What do you mean?” I looked up at her innocently, but it felt so fake I quickly busied myself rearranging my books.
“It’s like you’ve been avoiding me.” Liv turned her head, sniffing her armpit. “Do I smell bad?”
I smiled. “No, Liv. Sorry. I’ve been busy this week, extra hours at work and stuff.”
“Uh-huh. Dead people are better company than I am, huh?”
“Yeah, something like that.” I had been ducking out, spending lunch in the library and purposely taking paths through school that would keep me away from Liv, Hannah, and Erin. And Zander. They were all too much of a distraction. Jackson Kennit had been a bleak reminder that I needed to focus on what I’d come here for: finding answers.
“Well,” Liv said, “I’d been hoping you’d share some of that expertise with me yesterday, but you were MIA so I went without you.”
“Went where?”
“To the funeral.”
For a second, I thought she was talking about Jackson Kennit’s funeral, which the obituary had said was on Wednesday. Yesterday. I’d considered going. It would have been the right move researchwise, but I wasn’t ready to face his people. It was one thing to study mourners at Ludwig & Wilton and try to figure out how things might be different for them, but doing that with the family of someone I saw the mark on and decided to let die? Way too close. I couldn’t go there yet. Not on my first one.
But I still had no idea what Liv was talking about. “Whose funeral?”
She looked at me like I had two heads. “Where have you been, Cass? Really. If I hadn’t seen you practically running down the hall away from me yesterday, I’d say you’d been cutting classes. Nick Altos’s dad died Sunday. His funeral was yesterday. We all went. You know Nick—quiet? From my art class? We talked to him at the mall that night …” She shook her head. “You were probably too wrapped up playing touchy-feely with Zander Dasios.”
But I did remember, the guy from Loserville. My heart sank, thinking of the photo by the bedside. The boy with dark hair. Like Nick’s. “What was his name?” I asked faintly.
“Who? His dad?”
I nodded.
“Jack Kennit. Jackson, actually. Kind of a cool name, right?”
Oh shit.
“Renfield? You okay? For someone who works around dead people, you look a little freaked out.”
Way more than a little. “They have different names.”
“Who?” Liv frowned. “Nick and his dad? Yeah. It’s called divorce. Happens a lot these days.”
“Uh-huh,” I said dully. “So what happened?” I knew already, of course, but I let Liv rattle on about the accident, his drug history, and everything else, giving me time to get it together.
At the end of her explanation, I asked what I needed—and dreaded—to know. “How’s Nick?”
“A total wreck. How would you be?” Liv shifted her weight, glancing down the hallway. “He was back in school today. I’m not sure I would have been.”
“No,” I said. “Me neither.”
Nick Altos’s dad. It could only be worse if it were someone like Liv or Tasha. I wondered how often Nick had seen his father, what they’d done or said to each other the last time.
I had a feeling I’d find out soon enough. I didn’t want to do it like this: hear the regrets of someone I knew and ask the questions about how life might have changed if only I’d made a different decision. But I had to, like it or not.
Chapter 10
Liv had wanted me to come over and help with her Lit paper, but I begged off.
“You sure I don’t smell?” she’d asked, mock sniffing her armpit again.
I smiled, not quite able to pull it off. “Positive, Liv.” I shrugged. “Can’t keep the dead waiting.” We made plans to go job hunting the next afternoon instead. I gave her the application for The Diner, feeling nauseated just looking at it. When I picked it up, Nick’s dad was still alive. Sitting in a booth. Drinking coffee. Now he was as dead as whoever I’d be working on at the funeral home.
Mr. Ludwig already had the body on the table by the time I scrubbed up and came in.
“Feeling better?” he asked without looking up. I saw him delicately slide an arterial tube into the woman’s neck. The carotid artery was the injection point for chemicals that flowed through the body, pushing its natural fluids out the jugular vein that ran alongside it. My first embalming had been a fast and repulsive lesson on the circulatory system.
“Yes, thanks,” I answered, trying to be totally cool with the blue-gray hue of the woman’s skin, which hung limp as the sheet draped over her lower half. I wondered if I’d ever get used to this. Embalming was the absolute worst part of mortuary work. I could’ve told Mr. Ludwig I didn’t want to do it—I think he knew it was a struggle for me—but I wasn’t a quitter so I gutted it out. No pun intended.