“I love peanuts.”
“Uh-huh.”
“They don’t let me have them here.” He leaned over, close enough to whisper. I could smell his breath, hot and antiseptic. “They interfere with my medication.”
“Right.”
I shifted, subtly inching farther from Medicine Man, and glanced at the door, looking for someone who might distract him or, even better, take him away. Instead, I saw a flash of dark, tousled hair. A guy passing just out of sight. He looked like Zander Dasios, who’d been leaning lazily against the wall of lockers around the corner from mine as I’d left school, an image that lingered teasingly in my subconscious. I rubbed my brow. Trouble. Liv was right. I’d asked Erin and Hannah and a few people in my classes about him, too. Casually, of course, in a learning-about-my-new-school way. I’d heard all the rumors: how many girls he’d gone through, how he’d stood up his prom date at another school, can’t be trusted, paternity tests, drugs. Everything. Still, I couldn’t get him off my mind. Even though we’d never spoken. Even though our eye contact had been only the most fleeting of looks, with me always turning away first.
I shook my head and turned back to Demetria, knowing by her stony silence that if I was going to learn anything from her, it wouldn’t be today. “It’s been nice visiting with you,” I said. “I’d like to come back in a couple days. If you don’t want me to, just say so.” I smiled at my own joke—the kind of thing that’d give Petra a laugh—but then, feeling mean, added, “Really, it helps me to come. Thanks for … listening.”
She hadn’t really listened, not “actively” as my new principal liked to call it, but you never know where even a one-sided conversation might lead.
Chapter 5
They arrived at the funeral home together, his wife, two daughters, one son, each clutching a little pack of tissues. I could tell from their faces that the Killiams had gone through plenty already.
His portrait was at the chapel entrance, James Killiam smiling broadly at his grieving family. He didn’t quite look like that anymore. I wondered if they’d puzzle over the weirdness of it throughout the wake, like Mr. Ludwig said the family always did. After we’ve sewn the lips shut, plumped up the sunken face with cotton, and lathered industrial makeup on skin now naturally gray, the dead person looked like a strange replica of himself. Maybe it was better. Not quite real might be easier to let go.
James Killiam had been a cardiac doctor at a local hospital, married for twenty-eight years, devoted father, weekends at the food bank. Mr. Nice Guy. I learned it all from his funeral program, filled with the photos and highlights of his life.
The lowlights never made it in there, of course. I learned that from Number Four, the woman who’d done three years for drug possession. We’d dressed her in long sleeves to hide the track marks. Her program only talked about how she’d loved her daughter, always remembered her parents’ birthdays. I’d found all the other stuff online, researching her just as I had each of the others I’d worked on.
If James Killiam had secrets, they weren’t newsworthy.
“Spying on the party again?”
I spun around, startled. Ryan had a way of sneaking up on you. Actually, everyone here did, their mannerisms muted from years of being unobtrusive. He smiled down at me, his deep-set green eyes creasing at the corners. Nan would have called them bedroom eyes. And they would have been on someone less wholesome. Like Zander Dasios.
I closed the supply-room door, reluctantly leaving the Killiams. Ryan had caught me peeking too often already.
“Just trying to get a read on how many are here,” I said. “So I can figure clean-up time and all, you know?”
“Uh-huh.” He smirked. Ryan thought I was nosy, which was true, though he couldn’t possibly guess the reason why.
“Shouldn’t you be out there?” I asked. His dad was the other owner, so in addition to helping with the bodies like I did, Ryan also worked in the chapel and the office. Presumably he’d take over the business someday, since Mr. Ludwig’s kids had decided to work among the living.
He shook his head. “My dad and Mr. Ludwig are doing this one.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Didn’t have any other plans,” Ryan said with a shrug. “I thought maybe they could use a hand behind the scenes. Or you could, you know, on cleanup.”
Deliberately, he bent, opening a cardboard box and stacking glove packets on a shelf. It wasn’t the first time Ryan had showed up for no reason during my shift. He was friendly but never chatty, and I couldn’t figure out if he liked me or didn’t trust me.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine, but thanks.” For nothing. I bit back frustration. He couldn’t know that he was interrupting my research.
I went back to restocking gowns, tissues, tubing, needles—the supplies of managing death.
I spent most Saturdays at Ludwig & Wilton. For my actual job, cleanup, I didn’t need to be there until the wake was over. But it only took one Saturday to realize I wouldn’t see any mourners that way. So I’d told Mr. Ludwig that Petra had weekend book club meetings at the apartment, making it impossible to study. Did he mind if I came early, maybe helped with the phone or restocking or setup, then studied in the break room before my shift? Of course he didn’t.
My school books usually sat on the faux-wood table by the fridge, unopened. Unless Ryan was on.
“I guess I’ll go in the back to study,” I told him after emptying the last box of eye caps.
Ryan nodded, continuing to work with just a glance up at me.
On my way to the break room, I saw mourners being escorted to the chapel by Mr. Wilton, Ryan’s dad. There were four different ways to access the chapel, the large room where wakes were held. It was something Mr. Ludwig was especially proud of. He’d overseen the conversion of this turn-of-the-century mansion to a state-of-the-art funeral home and had soundproof walls, soft-close doors, propping mechanisms, and multiple access points built in to eliminate distraction, his pet peeve. He’d shown me everything on my first-day tour.
“It’s like being a magician,” Ryan said when Mr. Ludwig stepped away to take a call. He’d been working in the office, its door open to the front hall. “No one wants to see the mechanics behind the tricks.”
The break room, however, does not open to the chapel. It’s stuffy and windowless with a beat-up table, six plastic chairs, and magazines like Undertaking Today and Next Steps, The Funeral Journey. I forced myself to sit there for fifteen minutes, looking at my school books without absorbing a thing, fidgety to get back to the action. When I was sure Ryan wasn’t coming to check on me, I peeked out the opposite-side door. The back hallway was empty.