Ashes to Ashes (16 page)

When she sits back down, she has three cups of ice cream. “Whoa, Lil. I know I'm a pig, but I can't eat all that by myself.”

“It's not just for us,” she says. Sucking in her breath, she says, “Don't be mad, but I invited Reeve to meet us here.”

“Lil,” I whine. It's one thing if Lil wants to be with Reeve, but I don't see why I should have to waste an afternoon with the kid.

“You know, I was talking about you the other day, and Reeve was like, ‘We should hang out with Kat more often! She's really cool!' ”

I snort. He never said that. Lillia can't lie for shit.

“Okay, okay, fine. He didn't say that. But here's the truth, Kat. You and Reeve are the two people I care about most in my life, besides my family.” She fixes her puppy-dog eyes on me, all beseeching. “And it's important to me that you have a good relationship with each other. I know you guys have history, and we all have history with Mary, but can't you let some of that go and start off fresh? Or, at least try to? For me? I mean, that's what Mary's probably doing. She's starting fresh somewhere, letting the past go. Don't you think?”

Oh, gawd. No wonder Lil has every guy I know eating out of the palm of her hand. This chick is impossible to say
no
to, and I'm not even a dude. She's right. I think a lot of my current Reeve disdain comes from knowing what he did to Mary.
But Lillia seems so sure that he's a good guy. Maybe I have him pegged wrong. And Mary must have found closure, or else she'd still be here.

I sink back into my chair. “Fine, but if he pisses me off, I walk.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Does he know I'm here, or did you trick him, too?”

“He knows,” she assures me.

I'm shoveling a spoonful of Moose Tracks into my mouth when Reeve walks into Scoops and ambles over to our table like he's a damn king. God, he doesn't even have to speak, and he's already annoying me. He gives Lil a kiss, and then he grins at me and says, “What up, DeBrassio.”

I nod at him. With a mouthful of ice cream I say, “ 'Sup.”

Nobody's saying anything, so Lil starts chattering about her horse, Phantom, and practicing different jumping obstacles. Personally, it's boring the shit out of me because I have no idea what any of it means, but Reeve's nodding and listening like he's actually interested. He yawns a couple of times, though, deep sleepy ones. The third time Lillia frowns at him. “Are you even listening to what I'm saying?”

“Yes.”

“Then what did I just say?” she challenges.

“You were explaining what jumping over a crossrail means.”
He demonstrates by setting up an obstacle course with the napkin dispenser and some straws. He raises his brows at her smugly. “See?” He leans in toward her and opens his mouth and says, “Ahh.”

Inwardly I groan. I don't know why I have to sit here and be a witness to their foreplay.

“You have your own ice cream,” she says. “You can feed yourself.”

“But I like yours better,” he says, and pouts.

“I'm not sharing. You don't deserve it. You were yawning the whole time I was talking, right, Kat?”

I shrug and keep eating my ice cream. I'm already plotting what excuse I'm gonna give so I can get out of here.

“Sorry, babe. I'm just tired,” he says.

“You do look kinda rough,” I say to Reeve, who frowns. With my spoon I gesture at his face. “You've got circles under your eyes.”

“I've been sleeping for shit lately,” Reeve admits, rubbing his face. “I keep having weird dreams.”

“What kind of dreams?” Now I'm interested. I love hearing about freaky dreams. “I have a book that tells you the meaning of different dreams.”

“That's so neat,” Lillia says. “Reeve, tell her about your dream and she'll interpret it.”

Reeve quickly shakes his head. “I don't remember.”

Lil licks her spoon. “What do you mean, you don't remember? You just said your dreams were weird.”

“I don't know. I don't remember them, okay?”

“God, get defensive, why don't you. I thought it'd be fun. Jeez.” She looks at me and makes a face.

I get up to go to the bathroom, and as I duck down the hallway, I hear Lillia hiss, “Can you please perk up and at least try to make an effort with her?”

I stop behind the corner to hide and listen. This sounds like it's gonna be good.

“I'm serious. Kat's my friend and it's important to me that she like you.”

Aww. That means a lot. Maybe I could try to make more of an effort too.

“Okay, okay.”

“She already has a terrible impression of you, and you're making it worse. The dream thing was the perfect in!”

Damn. He wasn't
that
bad. He just didn't want to share his bad dreams. They're probably about kinky sex stuff.

I go into the bathroom to pee. When I get back, they're still bickering. Yikes. Change of plans—I'll try harder next time. “I think I'm gonna head out,” I say.

Lillia glares at Reeve. “You made her uncomfortable.”

Reeve challenges, “DeBrassio, are you uncomfortable?”

“No—”

“See?” he says. “I've known this girl my whole life. She doesn't get uncomfortable like a normal girl.” A sly grin spreads across his face. “Hey, remember that time in sixth grade when my parents had a Labor Day barbecue? You were wearing white shorts, and I made a ketchup bomb, and it exploded all over your butt, and I told everybody you had your period?” He busts up laughing.

“Reeve!” Lillia yells.

But I'm laughing too. I remember it like it was yesterday. What was embarrassing was I didn't even have my period yet, but I didn't want people to know that.

“You didn't give a shit,” Reeve continues. “You just borrowed a pair of Tommy's soccer shorts like it was nothing. Ruined my whole prank.”

“Yeah, and I frenched him in your bed that day too,” I say, and Reeve's eyes go wide.

“For real?”

I nod.

“You ho!” he hoots.

Reeve and I both crack up so hard I'm coughing out a lung, and Lil says, “Um, that's sexist. Tommy's the ho! He hooked up with every girl on your block, even the old ones. There's such a double standard for guys and girls.”

Still laughing, I say, “Lil, quit taking it so seriously. We're just kidding around.”

“Thank you, DeBrassio,” Reeve says. “She's always ragging on me. It's nice to have somebody on my side for once.”

I point at Lillia. “You need to chill out.” Reeve starts clapping, and then I point at him. “And you need to not be so full of yourself. It's annoying. You ain't that special.” Reeve opens his mouth to protest, but I shush him. I say to Lillia, “Lil, if you want to hear embarrassing stuff from back in the day, here's something. In elementary school Reeve was too chickenshit to take a dump at school, so he used to ask to go to the nurse's office every day after lunch. We all knew where he was going. There was this one day—”

Reeve bellows, “Kat!”

Everyone in Scoops turns to look at us, and Lillia's giggling so hard she's stomping her feet. “OMG, tell me more, tell me more!”

Reeve grabs my shirt sleeve in a panic. “Please, DeBrassio, I'm begging you, do not finish that story. I swear I'll try to be less cocky!”

“All right, all right,” I say, chuckling.

From across the table Lillia mouths,
Tell me later
, and I give her a wink and a nod.

When we get out of Scoops, Lillia and Reeve walk me to my
car. As we head down Main Street, I notice the way his eyes follow her wherever she goes. When she stops at a store window, or pauses to take a pebble out of her loafer. He can't take his eyes off her. And any excuse he can get to touch her, hold her hand, put his hand on the small of her back, the guy can't get enough. It's clear he's crazy about her.

I'm still not Reeve's biggest fan, but even I have to admit he adores her. And as her friend, that's all I really give a shit about. So long as he keeps treating her the way he does, Reeve and I are good.

T
HE PROM COMMITTEE HAS ONLY
met twice since the new year. Rennie was the head of the committee. I guess I've pretty much taken over her job, but only because I'm good at making lists and keeping track of things. Rennie never wrote anything down. I was basically her secretary.

I open up my notebook, start going down the checklist, and say, “So far we've only sold twenty tickets to prom. We really need to work on outreach, you guys.”

“Actually, I'd like to address that,” Alex says from the other end of the long library table.

I'm careful not to look directly at him. “What is it, Alex?”

He looks out at the table. “It's been brought to my attention that—”

Reeve chuckles, and it makes Alex's mouth snap shut. “Sorry. You just sound like Principal Tortola.” Reeve looks at Derek and makes a smirky face, and Derek smirks back.

Alex continues as if Reeve didn't speak. “It's been brought to my attention that some people feel the price of prom is too expensive, and that some people who'd like to go can't swing it.”

“What do you mean?” Ash asks, frowning. “Who's been telling you that? Your chorus friends?”

“It's just a lot of money, when you stop and think about it. Last year tickets were, what, fifty bucks? And now they're a hundred? That's crazy.”

I speak up. “It's because Rennie changed the venue from the Water Club to that club in the city, remember?”

Derek groans. “It's gonna take us an hour to get there.”

“Plus, the point of prom is to celebrate the end of high school with the whole class,” Alex says. “I mean, twenty tickets? Half of those were bought by the people on this committee! If it's just going to be us like always, why are we even bothering?”

I press my lips together tightly. It wasn't my idea to move prom! I wanted to keep it at the Water Club so we could get nice pictures on the dock. “You guys were all sitting at this very table when Rennie brought up the idea of having
the prom off island. Not one person objected.”

“Rennie had a way of convincing people,” Alex admits.

“Oh, wait up!” Derek says. “Speaking of Rennie, Lil, do you know if our flight back from Jamaica is direct?”

I frown. “What flight?”

“For spring break.”

Alex groans. “Weren't we just talking about prom?”

I completely forgot about our spring break plans. We made those plans before Rennie's death, before everything. Rennie had found some package online through a travel agency that included airfare and hotel at an all-inclusive resort. We gave her the deposit money last summer, before school started. “Um, I don't even know if that's still happening,” I say. Everyone's staring at me, slack-jawed. “I mean, I don't know if she ever gave the second half of the deposit or what. I don't even know which website Rennie found the deal on.”

Reeve lifts his head off the table. Underneath he grabs my hand and gives it a quick squeeze.

Derek groans. “Are you serious? But you were, like, her right-hand man . . .” His voice trails off.

I bite my lip. This isn't my fault. It's not like I was in charge of the trip. Any one of us could have asked Rennie about it.

“Well, then, where'd the money go?” Ash demands.

Reeve and I exchange a look. I'm sure he's thinking what I'm
thinking. That there is a very good possibility that Rennie used that money on something else—like, say, her over-the-top New Year's Eve party—and was planning on paying it back with the cover fee she charged that night for people to get in. She'd done it before with cheerleading money. But there's no way I'm saying it now when she isn't here to defend herself. “I have no idea.”

Ash pouts, “If this trip is ruined, I don't know what we're going to do. Everything else will be booked up.” She casts a dark look in my direction. “Thanks a lot, Lillia.”

“Hey, how is this her fault?” Reeve demands. “If we lost our spot, we'll just go somewhere else.”

“How?” Derek snaps. “I don't have money to put toward a new trip. I gave Ren everything I had saved.”

Alex starts packing up his things. “Look, don't worry, guys. If we can't go to Jamaica, I bet my uncle Tim will let us take his boat.” He turns his back on Reeve and me, and to the rest of the group, he says, “He'll hire a crew to take us. They'll cook for us and everything. Trust me, it'll be better than Jamaica.”

Everyone starts talking at once, all excited, and I get up to throw away my lunch. Reeve follows me over to the trash cans. He whispers, “I have a feeling we're not going to be welcome on Tim's boat, Cho.”

“Fine by me,” I say, and I mean it. With everything that's happened this year, I really am fine to sit this one out.

I
'M IN THE FUNERAL PARLOR
in my black dress, black tights, black-patent leather Mary Janes—the same outfit I wore on my first day of school in sixth grade.

Dad puts his arm around my shoulders. “We've just got to make it through one more hour, and then we can go home.”

Confused, I peer around him and see a long line of people waiting to pay their respects. Next to us is the polished mahogany edge of a casket, its hatch propped open for mourners to take one last look.

There's music playing somewhere.

This does not mean

I don't love you

I do, that's forever

I wipe a tear from my eye. The song is “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” My mom said those lines to me over and over near the end of her life. I think the thing she feared most about dying was that she wouldn't be able to love us once she was gone. The song gave her comfort.