“Dad? Where are you calling from?” I wish Gareth would have brought more coffee to this little picnic of ours. Or maybe eight or ten shots of espresso. More caffeine would definitely improve my ability to handle this situation.
“I’m at Edna’s,” he says.
I shove the phone hard against my face. “At Grandma’s? You’re back from Africa? What’s wrong?”
Pause.
“Didn’t your mother call you?” he asks.
“Mom?” I snort. “Are you serious? I haven’t gotten so much as a Christmas card from Mom in two years.”
Pause.
“Chad Tate is dead.”
Pause.
“So?” I ask in a heated tone. My blood pressure is rising. The situation dawns on me. Something’s happened to Chad Tate, and Mom went running to Dad. Like she wants to press rewind on the men in her life.
Pause.
“So?” my dad repeats in that stern tone he used when I was five and wouldn’t eat my broccoli. “So there’s going to be a service next Thursday. I’ll email you your plane ticket and then we can figure out—”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Pause.
“Well, I guess if you’d prefer to make your own reservations, then—”
“I’m not coming.”
“Cookie. Your mother’s quite upset, she needs us to—”
“She needs a lot of things, Dad. If you want to help her, good luck with that.” I press the red end-call button on my phone. Let him spend some time wishing I would call for a change.
It feels strangely empowering.
I get up and pace around the park, kicking at the corners of our picnic blanket, muttering, “The nerve of him. The nerve of him,” over and over.
I’m not even sure which him I mean.
There’s Chad Tate, who’s managed to die on a schedule that both deprives me of reaching the high point of my life and looking down on him and puts pressure on me to feel pity for my mother.
There’s my dad, who didn’t step foot on this continent for my sixteenth birthday or my high school graduation, but returned the instant Mom called him.
There’s God. Everything is really his fault anyway. He could have given me Mike and Carol Brady as parents, but instead I got the disappearing doctor and the supermodel who shows up just long enough to make me feel like shit.
Screw them.
Screw.
Them.
Gareth leads me back to the train. I pay very little attention to how we get home. I keep thinking screw them, screw them over and over. We arrive at the penthouse, where Gareth spends half an hour rubbing his chin and trying to get a coherent set of facts from me. Right then, there is no fashion impresario. Only a good guy from Montana. When he understands what’s going on, he puts his arm around me and guides me to the sofa. He turns on the TV. ESPN is covering Chad Tate’s death.
The New York Giants’ publicist deserves an Academy Award.
She gets on TV and acts shocked. “We’re deeply saddened at the loss of one of the NFL’s all-time greats.” She manages to say this with a doleful expression.
I guess after he corralled me into having coffee with him, Chad Tate did end up in Vegas, where he got bombed and wandered into traffic. Trolls on the internet have a field day. “Ex–NY Giant Chad Tate stumbles out of nightclub and tackles minivan,” one blogger posts. “NFL Hall of Famer Chad Tate learns bar is out of Pabst Blue Ribbon and rushes Las Vegas Boulevard,” writes another.
They show the poor lady who hit him. She’s got tears squirting out her eyes, and she wrings her hands and keeps saying, “I couldn’t stop in time.”
I want to tell her it’s not her fault. That Chad Tate is, or was, a useless asshat. That when you spend half your time drunk off your ass, accidents are bound to happen.
They put Mom on TV. She’s in a tasteful, black Calvin Klein sheath dress and a strand of pearls. She cries and whines, but her emotions don’t impact her waterproof mascara and airbrush foundation.
“You sure about this?” Gareth asks. “About not going to the funeral? You know, Chad Tate’s not gonna die twice.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Once’ll have to be enough.”
There’s just one problem.
God gave me one person on whom I can’t wish a plague of locusts.
Grandma.
She calls about nine New York time. “I expect you know why I’m callin’.”
I do.
“Girl, I suppose there ain’t no love lost between you and your momma and, yes, you’re entitled to be disappointed at the hand you’ve been dealt. But there are times in life when we have a duty to do right, to stand with family even if we don’t wanna, even if they haven’t stood by us. You need to be at the service on Thursday. Not for Martin or your momma or even me. You need to be there for yourself. Because you’re a person who’ll rise to the occasion and do the right thing.”
I’m not sure Grandma is right on that one.
Still, I decide to go to the service.
For all the wrong reasons.
I tell myself, and Gareth, that I have to go for Grandma. He arranges for his plane to take us to Phoenix. I’m surprised at the automatic nature of his behavior. I’m going home. And he’s going with me. If the idea of meeting my father bothers him, it doesn’t show.
Early Thursday morning, Gareth has them fly us to the Mesa Gateway airport, which is a few miles south of Grandma’s house. Off the plane, the air is warm and familiar. Technically, the air is what we would consider freezing in Phoenix—around fifty degrees. But I’ve spent the last month in snowy New York, and shedding my thick Gareth Miller overcoat makes me feel like a snake leaving behind an old skin.
Chad Tate wasn’t Catholic, so they can’t have his funeral at the church. I doubt he had much faith in anything. Possibly money. Or football.
They set things up at Morton’s Mortuary, sort of the Walmart of funeral homes. It’s on one end of Main Street nestled between a hair salon and the music store. The front is covered in an artificial kind of vine that might have been sculpted by gardeners who were fired from Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. I tell the limo driver to drop us off in the back. Back there, I see one guy unloading a hearse and another offloading a truck full of tubas. Gareth squints and adjusts his jacket. He’s not used to the rear entrance.
Morton’s has packages ranging from the “Take Those Ashes and Get Out of Here” variety to the pomp and circumstance of Princess Diana’s procession to Althorp. Chad Tate’s funeral is more like the first option. It takes place in one of the small rooms, and Gareth and I are two of a dozen or so people scattered among padded beige chairs. Everything in the whole place is the color of partially digested butterscotch candies. I steer us to a seat in the back.
I recognize most of the people in the room. There’s Grandma up by Mom in the front row. Mom’s sobbing into an expensive handkerchief while Grandma pats her back. Dad’s on Mom’s other side, facing front and staring straight ahead.
The only thing I can think is this:
What the hell happened to all Dad’s hair?
It used to be black and thick and mowed by clippers in a perfect line right above his collar. But now? Well, now I can see his scalp through a round patch on the back of his head, and the gray hairs, growing like stiff weeds, are choking out the black ones.
Shit. Dad is old.
Cue terrible organ music, and a man comes to stand at a podium. He’s tall and gaunt and grim and looks like, well, an undertaker. I wonder if the appearance is a job requirement. Or if being the steward of death would transform anyone into the austere figure at the front of the room.
“We are gathered in this place of mourning in loving memory of...”
The man has to check the sheet lying on the podium before going on.
“Chad Wesley Tate, who merged with the infinite on...”
I elbow Gareth. “Chad Tate merged with oncoming traffic.”
He bites his lower lip and fights off a laugh.
I get an irritated look from my dad.
Gareth has never seemed more out of place to me. He’s there in a cheap seat. He can’t even pronounce Mesa correctly. He says the town’s name with a posh affect. Mess-uh. That’s where he is with his perfectly tailored bespoke suit, his gelled-up hair, his trendy day-old stubble. He’s a Twitter meme waiting to happen. An online “Caption This” contest in the making.
“Life is too short. It can end at any time.”
I hadn’t noticed him before, but there he is in the second row with his parents. It figures they’d show up here. They’d never miss an opportunity to be seen doing their duty, and Mrs. Weston works in sports PR and knew Chad.
Tommy’s glaring. Not at me. At Gareth.
He’s trimmed his hair short and is wearing the gray suit I made for him.
Back when we were still friends.
“You’re gonna get us both in trouble,” Gareth whispers into my ear.
“While heartache is as much a part of life as happiness, while for every laugh we shed a tear, today we can take comfort in our memories of...”
Mr. Undertaker has to check his paperwork again. How hard is it to remember Chad Tate’s name?
“...Chad. We can recall those moments we treasured. Remember his love, his compassion and his strength...”
Dad puts his arm around Mom and pats her shoulder.
And that’s it. Anger explodes inside me and overtakes my brain.
They can somehow pull it together to be there for each other. But never for me. I stumble out of the tiny room in what could best be described as a blind rage.
I hear the door snap shut with a quiet click and find Gareth is standing next to me.
“Ah, poor Chad Tate,” he says.
I shrug. “I have to use the bathroom.”
Inside the bathroom, there are plaques and framed quotes that say things like, “Your life is a blessing. Your memory is a treasure,” and, “Those we love live forever in our hearts.” I sit in the stall for a little while thinking that maybe if I stay on the toilet, my obligation to be at this funeral will pass.
The bathroom door slams. I’m sure, without peeking out of my stall, that it’s Grandma.
I come out and start to say something, but she puts her hand in the air. “Comin’ late. Leavin’ early. You might think you’re sendin’ a message to your momma just now. But I raised you. What you’re doin’ is reflectin’ on me, girl. And I brought you up better than this.”
My shame fills up the tiny bathroom. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I’m sorry. But he deserved—”
Grandma gets mad. Madder than I’ve seen her in years. She braces herself on the bathroom counter, rolling her arthritic ankle.
Man. I’m really a shit sometimes.
“Good Lord,” she says. “People don’t get what they deserve. In life or death. You of all people ought to know that. And there ain’t nobody, in as far as I know, that’s gone and made you judge and jury of the human race. A life’s been lost. You didn’t like the man. Well, I didn’t much care for him neither. We still gotta be decent, Cookie. That ain’t optional.”
I nod and mumble, “Sorry,” again.
When we return to the hall, Tommy’s left the service too. I’m stunned by the sight of him talking to Gareth. “I know who you are,” Tommy says. “I’ve heard all about you.”
Gareth stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Wish I could say the same, friend. I’m sorry to report that I don’t have the slightest damn idea who you are.”
“I’m her best friend,” Tommy says.
Stepping closer to Tommy, Gareth hunches his shoulders forward. “Her? Are you referring to Cookie now?”
“You’re no good for her,” Tommy says.
“Well, now, you’ve got a bit of a pocket advantage here, son. See, ’cause Cookie’s never said word one about you.”
This is true. I’ve been trying to forget Tommy and run away from what happened.
I’m not sure what really gets to Tommy. The fact that I don’t talk about him, or Gareth’s casual dismissal. He puts his hands on the lapels of Gareth’s black jacket and shoves hard. Gareth tumbles back into the chair, whacking his head on the wall behind him, leaving a depression in the textured cream stucco.
There’s a brawl.
I can barely make sense of what’s happening and can’t bring myself to intervene.
Tommy and Gareth travel down the hallway toward Morton’s lobby, taking swings, knocking each other into the walls. Glass breaks, and there’s a scraping noise as the pictures hanging on the stucco swing from side to side.
Growing up on a working ranch has left Gareth better prepared for situations such as these. He gets Tommy pinned to the ground. I’m trying to pull him off and am saying, “Gareth! Gareth. Come on,” when there’s another figure in the foyer.
“What the hell is going on here?”
It’s my dad.
Here’s the thing about doctors. They like to complain about how there’s no money in medicine anymore. How the good old days of guaranteed six-figure incomes and Friday golf games are gone. But being a doctor is one of the few remaining professions that still confers instant authority. Like army generals, they get to write orders that have to be followed. And believe me, they know it. In almost any situation, a doctor can and will assume the leadership position.
That’s what happens here. My dad uses the booming voice he’s developed barking out instructions to nurses and orderlies. “Stop this behavior at once.”
Gareth releases Tommy. There are sheepish looks and red faces.
Dad ignores Tommy. And me.
He’s dressed in a brand-new Men’s Warehouse dark gray suit with too-long pants pooling around his ankles. He rounds on Gareth. “Care to explain what’s going on, sir?”
I step in front of Gareth. “Why don’t you ask me, Dad?” I say.
Dad turns to face me. He’s looking at me like he never has before. In a strangled voice, he says, “Cookie. Hello. You are...you look...lovely. Just like your mother.”