and as he approached, he saw that Kara was dressed in a white long-sleeve shirt with some sort of ruffles happening on the front and a dark skirt with black stockings. They’d put flowers in her hands too, as if she were an aging flower girl for the dead. She was the picture of someone who had once made a marvelous quilt, not someone who had gone for two years without owning a fork. (What can a fork do that a spoon can’t? Honestly?) Brad stopped within a few feet of the casket. This wasn’t the way he’d imagined her, even dead—her lips folded into a nothing sort of expression, a false complacency in her relaxed cheeks and brow. As he stood staring at her, Kara’s tiny nose divided in two. Or maybe he made his eyes do that, as a test.
He had only been seated for two minutes when he spotted Margot. She walked into the room by herself and was laughing through her nose, amused by some private joke. So typical. She looked all grown up, a little plump, but undeniably herself. They only had time to exchange a few words before the organ started to play, so Brad invited her to sit beside him, and he was glad to have a friend from the past close by.
A mass of people moved in from the lobby, and Brad checked his watch. It was just a minute before four o’clock. Kara had never done anything on time in her life, but apparently it wasn’t too late for a first. A minute later, the pastor entered the room. Then everyone stood for the family: a few older relatives, followed by Kara’s mother, Lucy Ann, who refused to stop looking like a woman in her forties. Her hair was dyed in the honey brown/blond family, and she kept it short now, in a bob. Beside her was stepdad Randy, who was greyer and stockier, followed by Kara’s ten-year-old half-brothers, the twins, born just as Kara was moving to New York. They were blond with bowl-cut hair, and wore matching navy suits. Then, after a gap, came Kara’s sister, Gwen, wearing small oval glasses, her hair tied behind her in a dark knot. And God, somehow it hadn’t occurred to Brad that the little girl who was seven or eight the last time he saw her would be so much older now. Or that she might resemble Kara.
Once everyone was seated, the pastor began with generic words of faith and sorrow, then went on to remark on the recklessness of youth, the unexpected paths people’s lives take, and “the dangers our children can welcome all too readily.” What followed was an invitation for anyone in the room—Kara’s family and friends, her neighbors and loved ones, anyone—to step forward and accept Christ and his teachings. Right then and there.
Brad turned to Margot, who shrugged. “Eh, I’m not in the mood,” she said.
Margot was the only other person Brad knew in college whose parents sent a box of Matzo every year for Passover. She never ate it, of course; neither did he. Junior year he gift-wrapped his and gave it to Margot. The next year she added a bow and gave it back. “It comes ‘pre-stale,’ so it’s just as good as the day it was made,” she said. Kara got a kick out of the fact that she knew two of the only Jews in North Carolina. Why does your Sabbath have to start on Friday night? It seems like such poor planning. We schedule ours for Sunday morning—that way we can sleep right through it.
No one chose this particular moment in the funeral service to embrace the teachings of Jesus Christ, so the pastor continued, inviting up the first speaker. It was a high school musical theater teacher and friend of the family. From Brad’s seat near the back, he had a tough time keeping the teacher’s head from doubling. He had to look straight ahead and really concentrate, and even then, if the teacher turned his head or shifted his body, he’d split.
The teacher said things that made Brad laugh and tear up a little, as did Kara’s stepfather. The pastor had said her stepfather was representing the family, so it seemed like he would be the final speaker, but then after he returned to his seat, the pastor announced that one more person had asked to say a few words. “Would Steve Donegan please come up to the lectern?”
The name was new to Brad, and he watched as Steve rose from the line of seats across the aisle and strolled up to the front of the room. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with rust-colored hair that was slicked back behind his ears and continued down his neck in what looked like a mullet. He wore a mustache and goatee, and his skin had a red, leathery tint to match. He was clearly older than Brad and Kara, somewhere in his late forties. His brown twill sport coat had what looked like a grease stain on the elbow. “Who’s that?” Brad whispered.
“Roommate,” Margot replied.
“Ah.” Brad nodded. Kara tended to go through roommates quickly, given her habit of eating other people’s food and letting months go by without paying or procuring rent. Before she lived with Brad, and later when she first moved to New York, her housing situations would emerge during crisis: She was being evicted, and another actor or waiter or singer or chain-smoker who was Kara’s dearest, sweetest friend of the moment gave her a place to crash. It was only a matter of time before she’d taken over the bathroom with scented shampoos and candles and handmade soaps. Shortly thereafter, another crisis arose, and someone new had to be charmed into letting her move in.
At the lectern, Steve paused to extract a wrinkled sheet of notebook paper from inside his jacket. Then he clicked on a microphone that the others hadn’t used, dropped his notes, mumbled, “Shit,” which was amplified, then, “Oh, shit, sorry.” Then he shook his head, took a breath, and began to speak.
“I didn’t know Kara for that long,” Steve announced in a New York accent that pressed against the walls of the room. “I can’t tell stories from when she was a teenager,” he continued, pausing for some sort of effect. “I’m not from the South. This is my first time to North Carolina. But we have one thing in common: Kara.”
Brad lowered his eyes to his hand, and with a little effort, saw only five fingers. He could discern their outlines clearly, follow the lines on each knuckle.
“Kara and I lived together almost a year,” Steve continued into the microphone. “I feel real lucky I got to know her. She could be funny, she could be bossy, she could be a real pain in the you know what. But she was a great person, as all you know, or you wouldn’t be here. And I know she didn’t have a chance to tell you all this, but she and I were going to get married.”
Brad’s right hand had ten fingers now. He looked up at Steve’s heads.
“I gave her a ring”—he paused and swallowed—“just a week ago. I can’t believe she was only able to show it to you like this.” Steve gestured toward the casket, and Brad turned to Margot. He hadn’t noticed a ring. Margot shook her head, her lips apart and eyes half-squinting.
“It happened real fast between us,” Steve continued. “I know she was looking forward to introducing me to Lucy Ann and Randy, who seem like great parents, and to all of you guys. I just wish we’d have been able to meet at, you know, a funner event.”
A “funner event”? Brad wished he could see Lucy Ann and Randy’s faces.
“I know this is a sad time for everybody, and I know a lot of you knew Kara a lot longer than me. But I want to thank you for being so welcoming to me. I know Kara would’ve appreciated it.”
The silence after Steve spoke was pungent with surprise. Nose-blowing and whispering were kept to a minimum. Brad watched Steve walk back to his seat. The man didn’t make eye contact with anyone. He fumbled with his notes, shoved them back into his jacket. He wasn’t wearing a tie, and orange chest hairs protruded from the top of his shirt. He didn’t look like an actor, or sound like one. He looked like someone who might’ve delivered pizza for too many years, or worked at an old video store renting out porn. He could’ve been Kara’s trashy uncle, an uncle she would have made fun of behind his back. Or in front of his face. How on earth had she ended up with him?
He
