Page 12

Natalie

Among the beautiful pictures

That hang on Memory’s wall .

Is one of a dim old forest ,

That seemeth best of all .

Chills rise on Natalie’s back as she listens to the rabbi read a poem. She can’t seem to take her eyes off the coffin at the front of the room. It’s a closed casket. It would have to be, wouldn’t it?

The thought makes her shiver.

She hadn’t lied. Well, not exactly. She’s here to support her mom, but she’s also curious. Although she hadn’t counted on the strangeness of sitting in the same room with his body.

Do they still put makeup on corpses that were shot in the face?

What does it say about her that she thinks about these things?

But even without the bullet hole in his head, this ritual would be eerie. A shell of a person, lying in a box—and all these people sitting politely in front of him.

Moving only her eyes, she surveys the mourners in the room. Friends of the dead man, carefully dressed. Rows and rows of them, with sad expressions on all their faces.

She needed to see this for herself. As if she might understand him a little better—this jerk who made her mother cry. And her mom is not a crier.

Natalie can’t say the same for the woman who came at the last minute and perched on the end of the bench. Her eyes are red, and there’s a nervous energy radiating from her body. Natalie can feel it from two seats away.

She sneaks another glance down the bench. The woman is older than her mom and skinny. Like, bony . Her hands are clasped together, the grip so tight that Natalie almost expects to hear the bones snap. She looks like she’s climbing out of her skin.

A relative, maybe. There’s a strong resemblance between her and the dead guy. Her hair is mousier, but she has the same cold blue eyes.

It’s a little creepy. But so was Tim, and Natalie would know. Her mom thinks Natalie never met Tim. But they did meet. Twice.

The first time was on a Saturday morning after she’d stayed the night at Tessa’s. She came home early, because Tessa decided to go to the boys’ lacrosse game in Augusta, and Natalie didn’t want to waste half a Saturday on it. Lacrosse players are so full of themselves.

But when she’d popped through the front door of her house, he was there. Just sitting in the center of the sofa like he owned the place. Scrolling through his phone. She’d dropped her backpack and kind of stared at him for a second.

Then she noticed the sound of the shower running upstairs, and when she realized the implication, a wave of distaste ran through her body. At least Tim was fully dressed, thank God.

She was swallowing her shock and getting ready to grudgingly introduce herself when she noticed what he was doing.

He was easing her mother’s phone onto the coffee table and picking up his own.

It was her mom’s phone he’d been scrolling.

Her mouth fell open in shock. Skipping right past the introductions, she’d snapped at him, “What were you doing ?”

“Just looking at our photos together,” he’d said easily. Like she was the crazy one. “I take it you’re Natalie?” He’d given her a friendly smile.

Her face went hot, and anger rose like a wave.

That’s also when the shower shut off upstairs.

She did not want her mom to arrive downstairs, hair still wet, trying to pretend this wasn’t weird.

Later, Natalie would feel dumb about running, but she didn’t stop to think. She grabbed her backpack off the floor and walked back out the front door again. She sat at the coffee shop for two whole hours until her mom started texting with nagging questions, and so she knew the guy was gone.

When she got home again, there was no evidence he’d ever been there. No extra coffee mug on the counter. Nothing. Mom had erased him from the house. But not from Natalie’s mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d casually set her mom’s phone down. As if that wasn’t creepy as fuck.

Then her mother didn’t mention it. And if Tim had told her mom about their awkward encounter, her mother would have brought it up for sure. Probably in the car, where her mom usually broke out the most awkward conversations, using that faked casual voice. It’s time for a friendly chat with my teenager .

But nope. No chat. Tim hadn’t said a thing about meeting Natalie.

Natalie wasn’t sure what to do about all of it. Wasn’t she supposed to warn her mother? Because if Natalie was dating a guy who looked through her phone, she’d want someone to tell her.

But God, Natalie did not want to be the one to break the news to her mom. Hey, Mom, your first boyfriend in my entire life is a controlling creep. Sorry .

Days passed and still the meeting with Tim never came up. This seemed to prove Natalie’s point. If Tim were a good man, he’d have mentioned it. So, I met your psycho daughter and I think she got the wrong idea about me .

Or something.

Natalie didn’t know what to do, so she asked two friends. Tessa said she should just tell her mother everything. The other one said not to worry, because the trash usually takes itself out.

It didn’t. But then it did, and her mother started crying in the bathroom.

Natalie waited a whole day after the breakup before asking what happened with Tim. Her mother had said that he’d ended things. “But it’s fine,” she’d said with her puffy red eyes. “It wasn’t serious.”

Natalie expected to feel relief, but instead she felt more rage. Because her mother was feeling rejected by a loser .

She still hasn’t told her mother about the phone, because it doesn’t matter anymore, right? And she didn’t tell her about the second time she and Tim met. Same reason.

Instead, she did that thing where you rehearse what you’ll say if you ever run into the guy again. Hey, dude. You made my mother stress-eat the Ben & Jerry’s . I hope your dick falls off .

Mom didn’t mention him again, but Natalie could tell she wasn’t over it. Her mom started using that FriendFinder app in an unhealthy way—watching Tim live his bougie life, ordering oysters at Eventide or whatever.

Her mom thinks Natalie doesn’t know how often she opens that app. That’s why Natalie sometimes leaves her phone at Tessa’s when they go out.

Except now they’re here together at Tim’s funeral , and Natalie is all mixed-up inside. She knows that she had a small part in the way things ended for them, but God, he wasn’t supposed to die .

It’s not her fault, though. It’s really not.

A wasplike buzz emanates from her crossbody bag, sending a zing up her spine. A new message on her phone. Possibly from him . Her other secret.

There are different kinds of secrets. There are the kind that hurt like a hole in your stomach. Tim was one of those. But there are also secrets that sparkle.

Her fingers itch to unzip the bag and peer at her phone. But no way. Not at a funeral, and not with her mother sitting pressed up against her on the bench.

It can wait. It should wait. Even when she reads his messages immediately, she makes herself wait to answer them. She needs to play it cool.

There’s someone new at the podium now—a friend of Tim’s. He’s telling stories from their childhood. “Tim was a nerd, but a nerd who still liked to get into trouble. He had a deeply curious mind, and he used it to prank the teachers at our middle school.”

There’s a misty chuckle.

“One time he noticed that our science teacher often stared into a desk drawer during class. Tim decided that the teacher didn’t really know anything about science, and he was hiding his lecture notes in there so nobody would be the wiser.”

The crowd chuckles again, including Natalie, who’s mostly just relieved that he’s trying to be funny.

“So Tim planned a sting operation. We hung back in the classroom when the teacher stepped out at lunchtime. That drawer was unlocked, and we opened it. But there were no notes inside. Instead, we found our very first Playboy magazine.”

There’s a sudden burst of loud laughter. Like a thunderclap.

“We learned some very exciting science that day.”

The room practically shakes.

“But, wait, there’s more. The teacher came back into the room when we were still there, paging through the magazine. We got caught red-handed.”

“Oh jeez,” Natalie whispers, and her mother gives her a gentle smile.

“I was about to pee myself. I was picturing the phone call home to my mother. ‘Your son read a dirty magazine.’ But Tim coolly handed it over, saying that he didn’t suppose the teacher wanted to take this up with the principal, did he?”

More laughter.

But, see? Natalie privately scoffs. Tim was a slippery fuck. Who blackmails their middle school teacher?

“This is probably the first time Tim’s parents are hearing this story. The teacher did the smart thing and let us off the hook. And he never looked into that drawer again. So that’s my experience of being friends with Tim—he was thoughtful, and yet always pushed the limit. I will miss him for the rest of my life.”

Natalie’s mom makes a sad face.

This is the weirdest mother-daughter outing ever.

The service closes with another song. The hot guy with the guitar begins strumming gently, and the tune turns into “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong.

Natalie is fine until he starts singing about green trees and roses. He has a good voice, and she can feel it resonate behind her breastbone. Sadness starts to creep through her chest, making her eyes hot.

The pallbearers line up beside the coffin. There are about a million roses on top. The men bend down and slowly lift it onto their shoulders. With grief on their faces, they carry it out the side door.

Tim departs from his funeral, feet-first. Everyone in the room is openly weeping. Natalie is not made of stone. Tim was only a little older than her mom.

And maybe he really was only looking at their selfies on her mom’s phone. Maybe.

The singer really rocks the chorus. And when he gets to that line about babies crying, Natalie’s throat closes up, and she has to concentrate really hard on not crying.

Mom pulls a tissue out of her purse and dabs at her own eyes.

The woman on the other side of Mom is in rough shape, sobbing so hard her whole body is shaking. Yet it’s almost completely silent. She has a paper napkin pressed to both eyes at once, and the thing is already shredded.

Digging into her purse, her mother finds a tissue and passes it to the sobbing woman.

She takes it with a jerky nod. Then she suddenly jumps to her feet. Whirling around, she pushes the door open and bolts from the room. Natalie gets a narrow glimpse of her literally running through the foyer before the door closes again.

Meanwhile, everyone else begins to stand up and follow the casket out the double doors at the opposite end of the room.

Natalie does the math. She and her mom are in back. They’ll be stuck here for hours.

The guitar player keeps strumming for several more minutes, until he eventually gives up. The line moves so slowly that she can barely see outside. There’s a lawn. Some people—probably Tim’s family—have formed a receiving line.

Natalie will be legal to drink before they ever make it to the front of this line. “Do we have to stay?”

“Well, I do,” her mother says.

“Okay,” she grumbles. “Whatever.”

Mom gives her a soft, patient look that she knows she doesn’t deserve.

Because she’s a liar, and her mom can never find out.