Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

• Chapter 16 •

“Honey, where have you been?” Mom demands as Chaz and I enter the church, late. This was a deliberate ploy on Chaz’s part to spare me what he’d declared to be a barbarous practice—the viewing, which had been scheduled for the hour prior to the funeral.

Unfortunately, I discover as Mom grabs my hand, they’ve kept the casket open just for me.

“Hurry,” she says, tugging urgently. “They’re about to close it.”

“Uh, that’s okay,” I say. “I’m good.”

“No, honey,” Mom says. “You, more than anyone, need the closure of seeing Gran at peace.”

“No,” I say. “I really don’t, Mom.”

But Mom evidently doesn’t believe me, because she rips me from the safety of Chaz’s protective embrace and drags me to the side of Gran’s coffin, which is at the back of the church, waiting to be wheeled to its place of honor up front. The lid is open, and Gran, looking incredibly small and frail—and completely unlike her normal self—is inside. I stare in horror.

“See?” Mom says in comforting tones, pulling me toward it. “It’s all right. They did an incredible job. She looks like she’s just sleeping.”

Gran does not look like she’s sleeping. She looks like a wax dummy. For one thing, whoever did her face put way too much rouge on her. And for another, they’ve put her in a blue dress with a collar that’s too high and lacy—something she’d never have worn in life—and clasped her hands across her chest over a rosary.

A can of Bud would have been entirely more appropriate.

“You can kiss her good-bye if you want,” Mom says to me soothingly.

I don’t want to insult anyone, but the truth is, I’d sooner kiss DJ Tippycat.

“No,” I say. “That’s okay.”

“Maggie kissed her,” Mom says, looking a little affronted.

I look around for my niece, expecting to find her huddled in a corner of the church, rocking gently and telling herself everything’s going to be all right. But she’s over by the doors trying to fill a Snapple bottle with holy water and telling her cousins it’s okay, she drinks it all the time.

“Uh,” I say to Mom. “I’m good. Really.”

I don’t care if my six-year-old niece did it before me, and I don’t care if it is Gran: No way am I kissing a dead body.

“Well,” Mom says as the funeral attendant, obviously fuming about having been kept waiting this long, takes this as his cue to lower the lid to the coffin. “I guess it’s too late now.”

But in a way, I realize, it isn’t. Also that Mom’s right. And that the half hour Chaz spent driving crazily around town, insisting we not get to the church until he was certain the casket would be closed, had been for nothing.

Because seeing Gran like this—this empty shell of a body, this statue of her former self—has given me a form of closure. It’s proven to me that the essence of Gran, what made her… well, Gran, is really and truly gone.

And when the funeral attendant snaps the casket closed, I suddenly don’t feel sad anymore. At least, not as sad. Because that isn’t my grandmother he’s shutting up inside that box. I don’t know where my grandmother is.

But she isn’t there.

And that’s a huge relief. Wherever Gran is now, I know she’s finally free.

I wish I could say the same for me.

“Let’s go,” Mom says, taking Dad’s arm and pulling him away from the wall of church bulletins, which he’s been assiduously studying this whole time (Dad’s always been powerless in the face of flyers). “Girls.” She snaps her fingers at Rose and Sarah, who are trying to gather their progeny. “It’s time.”

And like magic, Father Jim appears with a few altar boys holding candles, and then we all fall into our places behind the coffin, which is wheeled to its place of honor before the congregation, almost none of whom I recognize… except Shari, whose gaze locks with mine as Chaz leads me down the aisle. She’s standing with her parents, and at the sight of her I realize, guiltily, that I really ought to have checked my cell phone, which has been vibrating angrily all day, no doubt with messages from Shari, telling me she’s arrived.

Well, I know it now. And she knows I know. And she knows something else too, judging from the expression on her face… she knows I’ve got beard burn from making out—and more—with her ex-boyfriend.

Honestly, I can’t think about that right now. I look away from her, my cheeks on fire—and not from beard burn—and slip with Chaz into the front pew with the rest of my family as Father Jim goes up before the altar and the mass begins.

It soon becomes obvious that exactly what I feared was going to happen has happened: This isn’t a funeral for my grandmother. It’s a funeral for some woman with the same name as my grandmother.

But it could be any woman with that name. Because Father Jim didn’t know my grandmother. He didn’t know she hated tomatoes and mustard. He didn’t know she liked television dramas and AC/DC. He doesn’t know anything about Gran. She didn’t care about any of the things Father Jim is talking about. She certainly never went to church (except on Christmas Eve, to see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren perform in the nativity, and even then she kept a flask in her purse until Mom found it and confiscated it. And then she begged everyone to buy her beer afterward).

It’s not that the service isn’t nice. It is. The flowers are beautiful, and the sun slanting through the stained-glass windows in the sanctuary is lovely. Father Jim gives off an air of good-humored sincerity.

It’s just that none of this is about Gran. That reading Sarah just stood up and gave from the Gospel according to Luke? Nothing to do with Gran. At all. That nice song the choir just sang? So not something Gran would have liked.

But it won’t embarrass Rose. And I guess that should make her happy.

But it doesn’t say anything about the person whose life we’re allegedly gathered here to celebrate. It’s like the wax figure inside the coffin. It’s not Gran. Gran, like Elvis, obviously left the building a long time ago.

Which is good for Gran. But it’s not the way to memorialize her. It’s just not.

But as I look at the faces of my family around me, I can see that they’re all pleased with the way things are going. And why shouldn’t they be? This is probably the first family event we’ve ever had that Gran hasn’t ruined somehow. She wasn’t exactly the easiest person to live with… as I know only too well. As fun as she could be—how many times did she show up at my school, saying I was wanted urgently at home, only to take me to the movies in the middle of the day because some big blockbuster was opening that she wanted to see before everyone else did and spoiled the ending for her? — she could also be a huge pain in the butt. I should know… I’m the one who cleaned up after her enough.

And I’d already heard Mom and Dad talking about how they were going to turn Gran’s bedroom into a playroom for the grandkids. Which I can completely understand them wanting to do.

Still. It just seems like somebody could say something personal…

A hand settles over both of mine, which I’m clasping tightly together in my lap, and I look up to see Chaz smiling sympathetically at me, as if he’s reading my thoughts. He’s wearing a suit—the same one he’d been wearing that day outside his apartment building, when my heart had reacted so violently to seeing him. He left the baseball cap back in the hotel room. He’ll never be as handsome as Luke—at least, not in the conventional way that the rest of society thinks of as handsome. He doesn’t have Luke’s long eyelashes, and his eyes aren’t dark and sleepy-looking.

But my heart does another loop-de-loop as I look at him.

I’m gone. I know it now. I am in such deep, deep trouble.

And the worst part of it is, except for the trouble I know this is going to cause the people I care about—Shari, and of course, Luke—I don’t even mind.

Suddenly Rose is elbowing me, saying, “Your turn,” and I realize it’s time for me to take my place behind the lectern beside the altar. I slip my hands out from beneath Chaz’s and stand up, conscious of his whispered “Go, champ.”

Then I’m walking to the lectern, the sheet of paper with the words Father Jim and Mom have picked out for me to read—the Gospel according to John—printed on it crumpled in my slightly sweaty hands. I climb the steps to the lectern and mess around with the microphone until it’s the correct level, and then I look out at the sea of faces before me.

Wow. I had no idea Gran had so many friends.

Then I realize that she didn’t. These are Mom’s and Dad’s friends. I see Dr. and Mrs. Dennis, Shari and her parents, and even, way in the back, the Pennebakers, Kathy’s parents. I see my childhood dentist and, more embarrassingly, my gynecologist. Nice.

The one face I notice I don’t see is my fiancé’s.

But that’s okay. Because we’re on a break.

And I’m sleeping with his best friend, anyway.

“Um,” I say. My voice reverberates throughout the church, sounding amazingly loud. I unfold the piece of paper Mom gave me. “A reading from the holy Gospel according to John.” What’s my gynecologist doing here? I mean, it’s true she’s Mom’s gynecologist too. And maybe Rose’s and Sarah’s also, for all I know. But did she know Gran? Was she Gran’s gynecologist? Did Gran go to a gynecologist? That is totally weird. I never thought about my grandmother’s vagina before. I don’t want to be thinking about my grandmother’s vagina. Not here, at her funeral. In a church. While I’m doing a reading from the Bible.

“Jesus said to his disciples… ”

Wow, my voice sounds loud. Why am I reading about Jesus? Gran couldn’t have cared less about Jesus. I mean, if there’s any justice in the world, she’s with Jesus now, but chances are, she’s with Elvis, like Chaz said, in hell. I mean, if there is a hell. And if Elvis went there, which I’m not saying he did. Hell probably is a lot more interesting than heaven. Less boring. I bet Gran would rather be in hell.

“‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’”

I’d rather be in hell. I mean, if Elvis is there. And Shakespeare. And Einstein. And Gran. And Chaz.

“You know what?”

Oh God. Everyone is looking at me. Mom looks like she’s about to have a coronary. Oh well. She shouldn’t have asked me to do a reading. She had to have known this was going to happen.

“My heart is troubled,” I say, laying down the sheet of paper with the Gospel of John written on it. “It’s troubled because I don’t think any of this is what my grandmother would really have wanted to hear at her funeral. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very nice,” I assure Father Jim, who is looking alarmed (although I can’t help noticing that the altar boys seem delighted by this unorthodox turn of events—beneath their crisp white robes, their sneakers are filthy). “I just don’t think anything that’s been said so far actually has anything to do with my grandmother. Which is why I took the liberty of preparing an alternative reading earlier this morning.” From the pocket of the black vintage jacket I’m wearing, I pull another slip of paper, on which I’ve penned a set of lyrics. “This is from a song I know my grandmother actually did enjoy. Don’t worry—I’m not going to sing it.” I see my sisters visibly relax. “But I think it’s important that we honor the memory of those we’ve lost by actually mentioning a few things they really did enjoy… and this is something I know Gran really did like. So, Gran… this is for you. Wherever you are.”

And then, unfolding the slip of paper, I read: “‘Season ticket, on a one-way ride… ’”

I risk a brief glance up. I notice that the assembled congregation are staring at me, most with open mouths. My mother, in particular, looks stunned. Dad, however, has a slight smile on his face. It grows larger as I read this next part:

“‘Nobody’s gonna slow me down… I’m on the highway to hell.’”

Now a few more smiles have joined Dad’s. Angelo is smiling too. So is Chuck. Even Sarah has cracked a small one.

But that’s pretty much it.

Except for Chaz. Chaz is grinning broadly. And giving me a thumbs-up.

I grin back at him.

“Thank you,” I say demurely to the parishioners. And then I step down from the lectern.

“That was quite an interesting reading you gave,” my former gynecologist, Dr. Lee, says an hour later, once we’ve all returned to my parents’ house for refreshments after the funeral.

“Thanks,” I say. I’m holding a plastic plate, on which I’ve piled as many different kinds of cookies as I could find. Thanks to the number of concerned friends and neighbors who’ve dropped off baked goods in the past couple of days, this turns out to be quite a lot of cookies.

I am not sharing these cookies with others. I am eating them all myself.

“Was that the Kinks?” Dr. Lee wants to know.

“AC/DC,” I say.

“Oh, of course,” Dr. Lee says. “How silly of me.”

She drifts away, and Chaz ambles over to take her place. He’s holding a plastic plate containing two different kinds of samosas, Korean barbecue, chicken satay, and cold sesame noodles. I can tell he’s been visiting the table where my dad’s grad students have plopped down their offerings.

“How’s it going?” he wants to know.

“Great,” I say. “My gynecologist liked it.”

“That’s two,” he says.

“Two?”

“I liked it,” he says, gnawing on chicken satay.

“Oh,” I say. “Right. Dad liked it too. And Chuck and Angelo. And Sarah, I think.”

“So five,” Chaz says. “Out of two hundred. Not bad.”

“So when do you think we can get out of here?”

“I was going to ask you the exact same question.”

“Give it another fifteen minutes,” I say. “Mom hasn’t had a chance to really ream me out yet.”

“Okay. And we’re sticking around for that why?”

“To make her feel better?”

“You’re a really good daughter,” Chaz says. “Have I told you that you look hot in that skirt?”

“About twenty times.”

“You look hot in that skirt.”

“Twenty-one.”

“You’d look hotter with it off. You know what you’d look hottest in? One of those really tiny Knight’s Inn bath towels.”

“Make that ten minutes,” I say to him.

“I’ll go make sure no one’s blocked in the rental car,” he says and abandons his plastic plate.

Not ten seconds after he’s gone, Sarah and Rose corner me by the piano that all three of us loathed being forced to learn to play (and none of us succeeded in learning to play well).

“All right, spill,” Rose says. “What’s the deal with Shari’s ex? And don’t try to deny there’s something going on. You reek of cheap motel shampoo.”

“He can’t take his eyes off you” is Sarah’s more charitable contribution to the conversation.

“I don’t know,” I say to them. “Look, I don’t have time for this. I have to go get reamed out by Mom.”

“Mom’s got a migraine,” Rose says. “She’s in her room with a wet washcloth over her face. You already killed her. So just give it up. What are you going to do about that Luke guy? Isn’t he, like, Chaz’s best friend?”

“Are they going to fight over you?” Sarah wants to know. It’s been her dream since seeing West Side Story that two guys might one day fight over her.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” I say, stuffing a whole chocolate chip cookie into my mouth so that, no matter what they say next, I won’t be able to talk about it.

“Does this mean you’re not getting married in France?” Sarah wants to know. “Because I was going to take some French lessons over at the Y. But if I don’t have to, let me know. Because there are way cuter guys in the Italian class.”

“If you think Mom’s dead now,” Rose says, “wait until she finds out you’re not marrying this Luke guy. She’s already told everybody in her scrapbooking class that you’re engaged to a prince. This will totally finish her off. What AC/DC lyrics are you going to read out loud at her funeral, I wonder?”

I cannot speak, due to all the cookie in my mouth. This, I think, can only be a good thing.

“Lizzie?” I turn my head and see Shari standing there. My heart sinks. Not that I’m not happy to see her. I’m just not looking forward to what I know is about to follow.

I swallow. “Hi, Share,” I say. “How are you?”

“Oh, fine,” Shari says, eyeing my sisters with distaste. “I was wondering if I could have a word with you—alone—for a moment.”

“No problem,” I say. But of course it’s a problem. I can tell from the expression on Shari’s face that I’m not going to like whatever she’s got to say.

I follow her up the stairs to my old room—which has been turned into a guest room—nonetheless, and sink down onto my old bed, trying to avoid the accusing stares of the Madame Alexander dolls my mom’s parents sent me over the years. Jo March looks particularly disappointed in me as she glares down at me from my childhood bookshelf.

“Lizzie,” Shari says, closing the door behind her. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, keeping my gaze on my feet.

“Yes, you do,” Shari says. “Are you on those drugs my dad prescribed you? Because if you are, I want you to stop taking them. I thought they’d help, not send you into a complete break with reality. I mean, sleeping with Chaz? Have you lost your mind? What about Luke?”

Tears fill my eyes. I look up, only to find that Jo’s mom, Marmee, is staring down at me with an even more accusing look than her daughter. Why, oh, why, had Grandma and Grandpa insisted on sending me a Madame Alexander doll for every birthday and Christmas until I turned sixteen? There are just so many of them, all looking down at us.

“It’s… it’s not like that,” I say, my voice catching. “I never even took any of those pills.”

“Then what the hell is going on, Lizzie?” Shari demands. She crosses the room in a single step and sinks down on the bed beside me. “Because this isn’t like you. And don’t try to deny it’s going on, because it’s written all over both your faces—beard burn not withstanding. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve always thought you and Chaz would make a great couple. I’ll admit the whole Mae Lin thing was to make you jealous. I knew you’d never realize how great Chaz was until you saw him with another girl—a real girl, not a fembot like Valencia. I knew how he felt about you—it was totally obvious. He couldn’t talk about anything but you. It’s true you were the one thing he and I still had in common, but no guy talks about a girl that much unless he’s crazy about her. Which he all but admitted to me. You were the one I wasn’t too sure about.”

I shake my head. “What do you mean, Mae Lin was to make me jealous? What are you talking about?”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it? You were jealous, right? I couldn’t believe how you stomped over there and picked a fight with the poor guy the minute Mae Lin and Valencia went downstairs. He had no idea what was going on. Oh my God, I nearly wet my pants I was laughing so hard.”

Now I’m a little mad. Also a little stunned by Shari’s underhandedness. She’s been my best friend since forever. But I had no idea she was capable of this kind of duplicity.

“Shari,” I say. “That’s so mean. You were plotting all along to fix me up with your ex, when you knew perfectly well I’m engaged? To his best friend? And you used some poor girl from your office to do it?”

“Oh, whatever,” Shari says, making a pooh-poohing gesture. “Mae Lin’s dating a hot paramedic. She was willing to play along. But I never thought you’d actually fall into bed with the guy before breaking up with your fiancé. At your grandmother’s funeral. What are you doing? Have you completely lost it?”

I glare at her. I’m pretty sure I look every bit as accusing—and disapproving—as the Madame Alexander dolls above our heads.

“For your information,” I say, “I was not jealous of Mae Lin. And who I sleep with behind my fiancé’s back at my grandmother’s funeral is my business.”

“Well, excuse me,” Shari says, looking taken aback. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt. You or Chaz.”

“Oh,” I say, unable to keep from letting out a bitter laugh. “Now you’re worried about Chaz’s feelings?”

“Hey.” Shari narrows her eyes at me. “That’s not fair. You know I loved him.”

“Well,” I say. “So do I.”

“Do you?” Shari wants to know. “Well, then why are you still wearing Luke’s ring on your finger?”

“I have some things I still need to figure out,” I admit, uncomfortably pressing my left hand into the mattress so neither of us can see my ring finger. “I’m not saying I have all the answers just yet, Shari. I feel like I’m barely hanging on, as a matter of fact. But I know I love him, and I think I always have.”

“What about Luke?” Shari demands.

“I’m doing the best I can, okay? Luke’s in France,” I say. “I’ll wait until he gets back to figure out what’s going on—or not—between the two of us. In the meantime… well, engaged isn’t married, you know,” I add. “Or dead.” I’m a little startled to find myself parroting Gran’s words. But what more appropriate place to do it, I realize, than after her funeral.

Shari looks at me as if she were seeing me for the first time. Maybe in a way she is. She shakes her head and asks, “Did you ever look up what solipsistic means?”

“Yes,” I say indignantly. “And it’s not true. I’m not extremely preoccupied with indulging my own feelings and desires. If I were, I’d never have moved out of Luke’s Fifth Avenue apartment, much less looked twice at Chaz. He’s a poor graduate student, whereas Luke’s a rich prince, remember?”

Shari, to my relief, lets out a laugh. The Madame Alexander dolls look startled.

“That’s true,” she says. And she reaches over and takes my hand, the one with the engagement ring still on it. “Oh, Lizzie. Be careful. You’re playing with fire here.”

“Me?” I raise my eyebrows. “You’re the one who just admitted you hired a girl from your office on purpose to flirt with Chaz to try to make me jealous!”

“But I thought you’d do the right thing and break up with Luke first,” Shari cries. “Not start sleeping with Chaz during your grandmother’s funeral. Not that it isn’t a fitting tribute to her, one she’d have gotten a huge kick out of. Still. I’m just worried someone’s going to get hurt. And I’m afraid it’s going to be you.”

I squeeze her hand. “I’m a big girl now, Share,” I say. “I can take care of myself.”

But as we make our way back downstairs, I wonder if that’s really true. Can I? It’s true I’m living on my own for the first time ever. I’m supporting myself, running my own business (well, practically), and at any given time spinning a dozen plates in the air at once. If I dropped just one, the whole thing would come tumbling down in a mess like no one would believe…

So what am I doing, having this torrid affair with my fiancé’s best friend?

And it is torrid, I realize when I walk into the living room and notice him standing there waiting for me, and my heart slams into my ribs as it always seems to whenever I see him. I’m not going to escape from this unscathed. None of us are, I know.

But when Chaz lifts his head and I feel that electric shock that always seems to go through me lately when I look in his direction and his gaze meets mine, I realize I don’t care. I don’t care what’s going to happen. As long as we can be together…

For now.

For however long now lasts.