Adventures in Funeral Crashing (3 page)

I usually fall asleep around ten or ten
thirty. I know the majority of people my age stay up until midnight
every night, but school wipes me out. I crash, sometimes even by
nine. My mind was too busy tonight to crash, though.

Liz O’Reilly was Ethan Ripley’s half sister.
That was crazy. I had looked at the copy of the obituary from my
dad’s daily newspaper when I got home. He likes to read the actual
paper, so we still get one. He’s old school like that.

Liz O’Reilly, 19, died Sunday. She was a
student at Laurel Community College and hoped to be a veterinarian.
She volunteered at the Palos Animal Shelter and loved all animals,
especially her rescued dog, Paws. She is survived by her mother and
stepfather, Elizabeth and James Ripley, her father Kelly O’Reilly,
her maternal grandmother Lilly Morgan, her siblings Ethan and Lilly
Ripley, and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. The wake will be
held on Wednesday from 3pm – 9 pm at Palos Funeral Home. Funeral
Thursday at 9 am.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed the name
Ripley in the list of survived by relatives. It was there, but
since he was only listed as Ethan and his sister Lilly was listed
as Lilly Ripley, I hadn’t focused enough to put two and two
together. I obviously needed to pay more attention next time to the
names of the surviving relatives. That was my lesson in this.

Regardless, I had no idea that Ethan even had
a half sister with a different last name. I hadn’t even known about
his full blood sister Lilly. Sure, I had a crush on him, but that
was only from a distance and at school. I didn’t stalk him or
anything, I mostly, just gazed and hoped. The usual crush
thing.

Poor Lilly. She must have been the little
girl that had been sitting on the front couch staring blankly at
the coffin, in the somber black dress that no child should ever
have to wear. Poor Paws, Liz’s dog – he probably didn’t even know
what had happened to his master. It was sad all around.

My black cat, Scarlett, as in the main
character from
Gone With the Wind –
Scarlett O’Hara
,
was curled up next to my feet. She liked to do that when I was
reading. I reached down and scratched her head, lovingly. She
started purring almost immediately.

“I love you,” I said and hugged her. My dad
had gotten her for me after my mother died. She was no replacement
for my mom, but Scarlett was a great cat. She loved to bat around
her toys and make me laugh. I knew she’d miss me if something
happened to me. Poor Paws.

My mind found its way back to Ethan. Wow,
Ethan’s sister had died of a drug overdose. I hadn’t even heard
about it at school and no matter what he said, some people had to
know. Then again, I tried to stay away from the gossips like Ariel
because if I got too close, they tended to gossip about me. Ariel
had already circulated too many malicious rumors about me
anyway.

I was worried about seeing Ethan in school.
Surely, he’d forget about me by the time he came back to school
after the funeral and everything, right? Right?

“You’re still up?” My dad poked his head into
my room. He had obviously fallen asleep watching television, since
his hair was all over the place and his eyes were only half open
and squinting at me, “It’s after midnight.”

I held up my book, “Just reading, dad.”

He waited for a moment, not so sure that was
it, “Everything okay?”

I smiled, trying to look reassuring. “Fine,
just reading.”

“Okay. You might want to go to sleep soon,
though, you know. School tomorrow,” he said and I heard him walk
into the bathroom and shut the door.

My dad was cool like that. Trusting me to do
the right thing and I knew I needed to go to sleep. I set
Twilight
down on my bedside table and turned out the lights.
It had been a long, crazy night. I wanted to forget about ever
running into Ethan Ripley, even if he did know who I was. I stared
at the clock and tried to will my mind into slumber, but it just
kept thinking and thinking and thinking instead.

So, despite only about two hours of solid
sleep and lots of tossing and turning, Thursday at school went by
without incident. Ethan wasn’t there to track me down at my locker
first thing in the morning or waiting outside my first period
class. Not even his friends Dave or Mike had stopped me in the
hallway, although I admit to ducking into the bathroom when I saw
them after second hour, just in case. I had worried all night for
nothing. I mean, there was the usual Ariel Walker taunting, but
that was a normal occurrence these days.

“Hey, Kait, I’m sure you have your pick of
Homecoming dates at the graveyard!” Ariel yelled at me, when I
walked by her before my fourth period Chemistry class.

I kept walking. It was best to ignore her.
Worst case, she’d yell another insult after me. Best case, she and
her friends would laugh and then move onto tormenting someone
else.

Ariel followed me, instead, and caught up to
me. I could feel her friends, Sarah and Megan, watching from a
distance. Why was it cool to torment people? I mean, weren’t we
supposed to be more grown up in high school? Why couldn’t she just
leave me alone? Wasn’t it enough that we weren’t friends
anymore?

“So, you didn’t answer me about your
Homecoming date,” Ariel taunted, as she fell into step beside
me.

It was useless to ignore her when she was
walking next to me, “Ariel, why don’t you just leave me alone?”

“Wow, you’re not ignoring me, for once.
That’s progress,” Ariel said.

“You have new bffs. Why don’t you go harass
them?” I said, wearily, trying to pick up the pace so that I could
get to my Chemistry class faster.

“Because you’re more fun,” Ariel smirked
sarcastically. “And, there’s nothing wrong with Sarah and
Megan.”

I was almost there, “Gee, thanks. Good
talking to you too. Now, byeee.”

Ariel stayed next to me, “I’m going with
Ethan Ripley to Homecoming. I’ve turned down three other guys for
him.”

My heart plummeted. Of course Ariel would get
Ethan to ask her to Homecoming. She was evil like that. I couldn’t
say anything to her comment. My heart was in my throat and blocking
all sound. Maybe Ethan would ditch her because he was grieving for
his sister. I stopped myself. No, that was mean hoping that Ethan
would feel that distraught, but I still couldn’t help wishing it,
just so he wouldn’t go to the dance with Ariel. She knew it
bothered me too. That’s why she was taking a moment to tell me. I
had told her I kinda liked him when we were still friends freshman
year. Big mistake.

“I got an amazing dress and everything.
Everyone is going to be jealous of me,” Ariel was still talking.
Why was she still following me and trying to rub it in?

We were at the doors of my Chemistry class.
She couldn’t possibly follow me in, right? I kept walking, not
pausing to find out. I lost her at the doorway. I saw her standing
awkwardly for a moment outside as I set my books on my lab table
and pretended to arrange them, all the while peeking toward the
doorway to see what had happened to her. A moment later, Ariel was
blissfully gone.

The Homecoming jibe hurt, though. I wanted to
go to Homecoming, which was in about two weeks, at the start of
October. I had no date prospects. Not even my weird nerdy Chemistry
lab partner, Kyle Jones, would have asked me to go with him.

We were equal social pariahs and yet, it
would be worse for Kyle if he asked me to go. He was a nice guy for
being weird and nerdy, though, and he definitely didn’t deserve the
torment he got either. I mean, if anything, he deserved accolades.
He was a science wiz. He won last year’s high school state science
fair and everything. He was an awesome lab partner and I liked him
as a friend, not that we ever hung out except in Chemistry. He was
just really socially awkward. Kyle mostly didn’t know how to talk
to girls. Yes, he talked to me all the time, but that was because
we were talking about Chemistry projects. Still, I knew he had a
thing for Suzie Whitsett. He’d even have a chance with her if he
talked to her. Suzie was a super quiet girl and seemed really nice.
The quiet thing alone would have made her a social outcast like me
and Kyle, but she was also really pretty, so mostly people just let
her be. She just didn’t say much.

It was funny, though, about Kyle’s crush,
because I bet Suzie would have been happy to go with Kyle to
Homecoming. I got the feeling that maybe there was something there,
but both of them were too shy to try and figure it out.

There was this one time at the beginning of
the school year that Suzie walked in a little late and walked past
our table and she actually turned and said, “Hi!” to me and Kyle,
except I could have sworn her gaze was on Kyle for a solid second.
I said, “Hi!” back, but Kyle didn’t say anything – the deer caught
in the headlights thing. Suzie never stopped to say, “Hi!” again.
She just walked to her desk. Coincidence? I’m not sure. I mean, she
is the quiet girl, but still seems like a solid maybe on a requited
crush to me. Not that Kyle was ever going to take the chance and
ask her.

Sadly, all Kyle had to do was walk by three
lab tables to do it – ask Suzie to Homecoming. I mean, Suzie just
sat there alone and read before every class or until her lab
partner showed up. This week her book was
Pride and
Prejudice
. Last week it was
Emma.
Looked like Suzie was
on a Jane Austen kick. I love the book and I’ve seen both
Pride
and Prejudice
movies. Matthew Mcfadyen was a hot Mr. Darcy, but
Collin Firth was way sexier in the miniseries.

And, back to Suzie. Kyle totally had a
chance, I thought, but he was too awkward to take it. Good times at
high school Homecoming Dances, all around, I guess. It wouldn’t be
fun if it weren’t horrifically painful.

Speaking of painful - how could Ethan have
asked Ariel to the Homecoming Dance? It was unfair. I know he’d
never have asked me, but Ariel? She was evil. I mean, not really,
but it hurt more that he had asked her, just because she was my
ex-best friend.

I had practically forgotten that I didn’t
want to run into Ethan. And, I hadn’t yet, so my luck was running
good.

“Hey, space cadet from the ninth dimension,”
Kyle said, sitting down next to me.

He was weird like that. Totally into the
sci-fi, but he was cool, “Hey, Kyle. Do the homework?”

As Kyle lamented the toughness of the third
problem (but only because he had figured out a second way to solve
it) my thoughts went right back to Ethan. I knew my luck was only
holding because Ethan was at Liz’s funeral. Surely, he wouldn’t
come to school on Friday and search me out or anything, right? I
mean, who cares if I was at his half sister’s funeral for
apparently no good reason. He’ll totally forget about it. Right?
Right?

Turned out I
didn’t have to wait until Friday to find out. On most Monday,
Thursday, and Saturday nights I worked at Palos Video Store, which
was just down the street from my house. I loved movies almost as
much as I loved books, so it was a good after school job and I
needed the money. I had been working there since the end of my
sophomore year and I actually liked it. They let me rent one DVD at
a time, unlimited, for free. So, if I wasn’t reading, I was
watching one of my free movies.

And, just because I like funerals doesn’t
mean I only watch horror. I mean, I do admit that I’m a total fan
of the horror classics (the originals because they’ve all been
remade they’re so good), like
Dawn of the Dead
,
Halloween
,
Nightmare on Elm Street
, and
Psycho
, but I also have a huge thing for chick flicks. I’m a
romantic. I mean, have you seen
Roman Holiday
or
Sixteen
Candles
or
The Notebook
? Sigh. So good.

Palos Video Store was a small store, so there
were usually only two people working. Some nights, my co-worker
would be the owner of the store, Anne, and she usually hung out in
the back unless it got really busy. Other nights, it was another
part-timer like me. Some were from my high school, some were from
our biggest rival, and there were a couple people from Laurel
Community College. My favorite co-worker, though, was Anne, even
though she was the boss. Anne tried to work a lot of shifts,
actually. The big online rental companies like Netflix were really
cutting into her profits and she was trying to save the extra money
in her budget. She never talked about it, but we all knew that the
store might be on its last legs. I felt bad for Anne, though, that
store was her life and she loved it.

Thursday night, it was Anne and I working the
store. She was in the back watching a movie. She watched at least
one a day and I was pretty sure she had seen everything in the
store, at least twice. She could quote movies like most people
could quote sports’ statistics. I was not that big of a movie buff
yet, although I tried to take a movie home after every shift and
watch it. I just couldn’t quote everything yet, but I was getting
there.

So, I was alone up front, reading the ending
of
Twilight
for the third time. It was quiet in the store.
We were closing in a half hour and most people were already at home
curled up with their latest movie rental and some popcorn. We were
only open until ten thirty, but it was usually dead the last
hour.

I heard the jangle of the video store bells
and looked up. Someone was coming in for a movie fix before we
closed for the night. As soon as he walked in, though, I knew he
wasn’t renting a movie. The last person I expected or wanted to see
had walked into the store and toward me.

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I
couldn’t help them. I was both nervous and scared and he was also
super hot.