The Kiss: An Anthology About Love and Other Close Encounters(98)
Years ago, she’d been the one who rubbed garlic powder all over the roast and made the gravy, but now she was a vegetarian. Well, she’d eat chicken if it was free range and fish if it was certified Ocean Wise. But other than that, no meat. Despite her stepfather’s insistence, this no-meat policy wasn’t simply an ongoing attempt to piss him off, but rather the result of recently viewing a bunch of documentaries that had really grossed Luci and her friends out. That it pissed off her stepdad was a bonus.
Anyway, the card shop carried cool gift things, including great recycled-paper bags and pencils. Her latest sparkly pink pencil had a fluffy hair poof attached to the end where the eraser usually was. Luci had done her nails during study period today in sparkly pink to match this pretty pencil. But then she’d worn her wristwatch wrist warmers — hand knitted on request by her grandmother — to add an ironic touch to the ensemble. She liked that none of the sewn-on watches — there were three different faces on each warmer — displayed the same time.
Currently the shop was dead, as it usually was on Thursday nights. Luci had her fifteen-minute break, along with a fruit-and-nut chocolate bar and a root beer — her latest favorite combo — before the owner went home for the evening at six. She didn’t mind closing by herself. She liked the responsibility and the bits of organization that came with the task.
As she paused to assess the wording of the love note — she was attempting to personalize the famous Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem with her own list — a woman wearing Lululemon as a style choice, not just workout clothing, rushed into the store. She was laden with multiple packages and carrying a large bouquet of white lilies. At a quick glance, based on logos and thicknesses, Luci estimated the woman was carrying close to eight hundred and eighty dollars in her paper bags. She stopped midstore and looked about frantically.
“I need … I must have a card for a funeral. Or not a funeral … a prefuneral. A card for the actual event of a death,” the woman said.
Now, the store was pretty simply laid out and the woman hadn’t even taken a moment to look around, but Luci — dutifully — glanced up from her note and gestured to a bank of cards about halfway back along the western wall.
“Bereavement cards. Past the thank-yous, but before the birthdays,” she said. The woman bustled farther into the shop, following her instructions.
As she returned to adding more hearts to her note, Luci recognized the woman as Vanessa, a vague friend of her mother’s. Probably from a Zumba class.
Vanessa spared a couple of seconds to peer at the indicated section, but hesitated to pick out a card. Luci was always amazed at how people made a big deal out of such simple things. She had long ago decided it was because everyone wanted to feel more important than they actually were. They therefore infused their card selection with that performance pressure. Even thus personally forewarned, she waited until Vanessa actually spoke before offering to help.
“But … but which one is the most popular one?”
Luci abandoned her note with a bit of a sigh, but she was actually always happy to help pick out cards.
Crossing around the counter and deeper into the store, she reached by Vanessa’s elbow and picked out a light blue card from the wall. Vanessa opened and read the proffered sample.
Unable are the loved to die, for love is mortality.
“Emily Dickinson,” Luci said, offering this enlightenment with a satisfied sigh.
Vanessa thought about the sentiment for as long as she could stand to — about seven seconds, Luci judged — and then distractedly fanned herself with the card.
“I just don’t know … What do you say to a mother whose son has just committed suicide? ‘So sorry you weren’t paying attention?’ Oh, that’s awful of me … never mind.” Vanessa pressed the card back into Luci’s hands and exited the store in a rush very similar to how she entered.
Luci carefully replaced the card in the rack, then straightened a few others before she returned to the desk and her note.
Her phone, neatly, but unobtrusively tucked beside the cash register, vibrated. Luci ignored it. She carefully rerolled the note, which was now as long as her arm, back into its tight tube and tucked it beside the phone. As she did so, she glanced down at the screen and noted that she’d now missed ten calls and had twenty texts waiting.
The thing was, she knew exactly why everyone wanted to check in with her all of a sudden, but she wasn’t much interested in actually talking to anyone. She wasn’t interested in the confirmation. And she certainly wasn’t interested in the daunting task ahead of her now. A task that was too much to ask of anyone, even her. Not that he’d actually asked.
He had — obviously and always — left her a note.
Luci wasn’t going to get away with ignoring everyone and their condolences for very long. She was lucky that Vanessa hadn’t seemed to recognize her. Though it was part of a much larger metropolitan sprawl, West Vancouver was ultimately a small — even incestuous — municipality. There was only one high school worth going to at all.
She had a feeling someone would be picking her up from work. Someone else would be making sure she got to school and through the day okay tomorrow. Actually, someone was probably going to suggest she skip Friday’s classes all together.
But she knew better. She knew what was really going on — or at least what he’d hoped was going to happen. And she had her own plan. Or at least the beginning of one.