I splashed my face with water, gargled, rubbed the plaque off my teeth with a paper towel. When I got back to my seat, I took a swig of gin, swished it around in my mouth and spit it back into the bottle. The train slowed again. I picked up my things, cradling the unwieldy bouquet in my arms like a baby. The roses were pristine and scentless. I touched them to see if they were real. They were.
* * *
? ? ?
FARMINGDALE WAS AN UGLY, flat, gray landscape spiked with telephone poles. In the distance, I could see rows of long, two-story buildings covered in beige aluminum siding, bare trees shaking in the wind, a silo maybe, a dark plume of smoke from some unseen source rising up into the pale wide gray sky. People bundled in coats and scarves and hats shuffled across a small ice-covered plaza toward minivans and cheap sedans whose running engines filled the small parking lot with a fog of exhaust. An enormous white Lincoln Continental pulled up alongside the curb and flashed its headlights.
It was Reva. She lowered the power window of the passenger seat and waved to me. I considered ignoring her and turning back across the tracks to catch the next train back to the city. She honked. I walked out to the road and got into the car. The interior was all burgundy leather and fake wood. It smelled like cigars and cherry air freshener. Reva’s lap was filled with crumpled tissues.
“New coat? Is it real?” she asked, sniffling.
“A Christmas present,” I mumbled. I shoved the shopping bag down between my feet and lay the bouquet across my lap. “To myself.”
“This is my uncle’s car,” Reva said. “I can’t believe you made it. I almost didn’t believe you on the phone last night.”
“You didn’t believe what on the phone?”
“I’m just happy you got here.” She had the radio on classical music.
“The funeral is today,” I said, affirming what I was loath to believe. I really didn’t want to go, but I was stuck now. I turned the music down.
“I just thought you’d be late, or sleep through the day or something. No offense. But here you are!” She patted my knee. “Pretty flowers. My mom would have loved them.”
I slumped back in my seat. “I don’t feel very well, Reva.”
“You look nice,” she said, eying the coat again.
“I brought an outfit to change into,” I said, kicking the shopping bag. “Something black.”
“You can borrow whatever you want,” said Reva. “Makeup, whatever.” She turned and smiled falsely, petted my hand with hers. She looked awful. Her cheeks were swollen, her eyes red, her skin waxy. She’d looked like that when she used to throw up all the time. Senior year, she’d even popped blood vessels in her eyes, so for weeks she’d worn dark glasses around campus. She kept them off at home in our dorm. It was hard to look at her.
She started driving.
“Isn’t the snow so beautiful? It’s peaceful here, right? Away from the city? It really puts things in perspective. You know . . . life?” Reva looked at me for a reaction, but I gave none. She was going to be annoying, I could tell. She’d expect me to say comforting things, to put an arm around her shoulders while she sobbed at the funeral. I was trapped. The day would be hell. I would suffer. I felt I might not survive. I needed a dark, quiet room, my videos, my bed, my pills. I hadn’t been this far from home in many months. I was frightened.
“Can we stop for coffee?”
“There’s coffee at the house,” Reva said.
I truly hated her in that moment, watching her navigating the icy roads, craning her neck to see over the dash from the sunken seat of the car. Then she gave a litany of everything that she’d been up to—cleaning the house, calling relatives and friends, making arrangements with the funeral home.
“My dad decided to cremate,” she said. “He couldn’t even wait until after the funeral. It seems so cruel. And it’s not even Jewish. He was just trying to save money.” Her cheeks sagged as she frowned. Her eyes filled with tears. It always impressed me how predictable Reva was—she was like a character in a movie. Every emotional gesture was always right on cue. “My mom is in this cheap little wooden box now,” she whined. “It’s only this big.” She took her hands off the wheel to show me the dimensions, voguing. “They wanted us to buy this huge brass urn. They try to take advantage of you every step of the way, I swear. It’s so disgusting. But my dad is so cheap. I told him I’m going to dump her ashes out in the ocean and he said that was undignified. What? How is the ocean undignified? What’s more dignified than the ocean? The mantel over the fireplace? A cabinet in the kitchen?” She choked a bit on her own indignation, then turned to me softly. “I thought maybe you could come with me and we could drive down to Massapequa and do it and have lunch some time. Like next weekend, if you have time. Or any day, really. Maybe when it gets warmer. At least when it’s not snowing. What did you do with your mom?” she asked.