‘So what’s Philip’s family doing here?’
‘The father has some job, but I’m not sure where. The mother’s white. She’s a substitute teacher. Her family’s not too far away, I don’t think. It probably has something to do with that.’
‘Have you ever spoken to them?’
Stella ignored the question and stood up so abruptly, the glider swung violently back. She glared at me, her face sprouting thousands of new wrinkles. ‘Get up.’
I cautiously stood. She took my hands and started swinging them around. Then she started bending her knees and knocking her hips back and forth. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Don’t you hear Elvis?’ she demanded.
I stared at her. She pointed to her temple. ‘It’s here. It’s inside of you, too. I know it is. Dance with me.’
‘I don’t think we should dance at a…a wake,’ I whispered, peeking inside. My father was still talking to the Lizard. I didn’t see Steven. Maybe he’d slipped out back, yelling at some black people he’d mistaken for terrorists. There was a dead person I was related to inside the house.
‘You’re way too young to be so miserable,’ Stella scolded, still dancing. ‘You’re too much like Ruth. She hated Elvis, you know. Thought he was obscene. And look where that got her!’ She pointed through the funeral home door toward the coffin, her movements growing more pronounced. If she swung her back end a few inches to the left, she’d take out one of the potted plants. ‘Come on,’ she urged.
I moved my hands and bent my knees. I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone, mostly Steven, was watching. ‘No looking!’ Stella said. ‘Shut your eyes!’
So I shut my eyes. I heard ‘Rock Around the Clock’, a song that was always playing at Claire’s Galaxy Diner. Stella made little grunts to punctuate each hip gyration. I couldn’t help but laugh.
My father appeared in the doorway. ‘Summer?’
I stopped. ‘Oh. Hi.’
‘You want to come up and see your grandma?’
I hesitated. Stella stopped dancing and immediately lit another cigarette. Her face was flushed and there was a crooked fuchsia smile on her lips.
I followed my father through the long, rose-carpeted hall again, this time to the edge of the casket, which was all ivory, like a birthday cake. No one was standing at it, so I couldn’t avoid seeing the person lying inside. There was the jut of her chin and the gummy slope of her profile. Her hair was very white. And then-so weird-a white satin blanket covered her from her waist down to her feet, like she was tucked into bed. The casket was lined, too, like a jewelry box. There was even a little pillow for her head.
I looked at her face last. She didn’t look like the woman in the pictures. The corners of her mouth turned down, her eyes were shut, and her skin was waxy. She looked more like a doll-an old-person doll-than a real human. I realized that all of the things just below our surfaces-blood vessels, twitchy muscles, layers of skin, cells; the things that were alive-were the things that made us look real.
All the floral arrangements around my grandmother seemed to have crept in closer, protective. When everyone left, when Lizard crept home for the night, my grandmother would still be lying here with all these flowers around her like guard dogs. What had my father murmured to her, when it was his turn to stand at her head? Had he explained what was going on inside of him? What he’d done to the snow globe? Did he say he was separated?
One of the flower arrangements spelled out the word Mom. I picked up the little card that was wedged into the bottom of the first M. It was stupid, giving cards at a funeral-it wasn’t like the dead person could read them. When I opened it, it said, Your loving son, Richard Davis.
I considered taking my grandmother’s hands, like Stella took mine, and swinging them back and forth. I didn’t want to be morose. I didn’t want to recoil from everything. Maybe my grandmother didn’t want to, either. But when I reached out, her hand was way too cold and solid and heavy. I dropped it and turned around fast, my heart pounding hard.
9
That night, I stared at the way the light shifted on the flowered wallpaper, making each flower look like a macabre nipple. As I climbed out of bed, something moved on the floor beneath me. It was the unnamed dog, the one my father picked up on the street. The Smitty dog. I had forgotten about her, since she’d spent all of her time outside with the other dogs. I wasn’t sure how she’d gotten in-I wasn’t even sure dogs were allowed in the house.