Killing Kate(9)

I don’t recognize anyone until a man who is close to Devin’s and my age walks toward us. “Hi Devin, hi Jenna,” he says. He looks vaguely familiar.

“Justin!” Devin exclaims and they do the masculine thing and shake hands and simultaneously pat each other on the back in a way that would probably make me start coughing. Devin turns to me. “Jenna, do you remember Justin at all?” He gives me a look that indicates that I probably should remember. “Justin Fiero?”

The name rings a bell, and suddenly I am reminded of a moment in history. I am probably nine or ten years old, and we are playing street hockey, and everyone’s mom calls their children inside to come for dinner, except ours, of course. My memory is full of empty holes but little triggers sometimes help. Kate holds all of the missing pieces of the puzzle, but she knows what is safe for me to know and what isn’t. “Of course I do,” I say, smiling and accepting his handshake. He is a couple of inches taller than Devin with about twenty more pounds of muscle. His hair is dark brown and spiked in front and he has an earring with a green stone in it. The stone matches his eyes. I’m trying to remember what he used to look like. “It’s been a really long time.”

“I guess it’s been, what, fifteen years?” Justin asks me. “I’ve seen Devin since then but not you. What have you been up to, Jenna?”

“Um, not very much,” I confess. “In what context have you seen Devin?” It sounds like a strange question and I don’t really know another way to phrase it. Thankfully, Justin laughs at my question.

“Justin is an artist,” Devin explains. “He and I showed at the same gallery a year ago.”

“Oh,” I say, suddenly getting it. “You both probably used to deface property together with spray paint.” They both look sheepish which means I’m right. We all chuckle and then somber up, remembering where we are and how strange it seems to be laughing at a funeral. No one is looking our way, though, which is a good sign. I wonder who these people are, and decide I don’t care. A more relevant question is why Justin is here, but I assume he came for Devin and not Jack and I relax a bit in his presence. We take a seat in one of the chairs, all three of us in a row. I pull out my flask and offer it up to Devin and Justin but they refuse and so I finish the contents in one long gulp, even though it’s more than half full. I wish I could feel drunk but I’m just numb. I look at my dad who looks strangely orange and waxy. His hair is grayer than when I last saw him, which was just over five years ago. He had asked Devin and me if we could visit him in prison, and I didn’t say a word to him. Devin sat and talked to him at a table while I just stood and looked at my shoes. I recall Kate was there with me, just holding on to me tightly and it felt good to have her protecting me. “So, what do we do? Just sit here?”

“This is the viewing,” Justin tells me. “Then we drive over to Oak Hill cemetery for the actual burial.” I look at him quizzically and he shrugs. “It’s on the program.” I suddenly realize that there’s a funeral with a process and schedule going on around me. I must be drunk, I think. My head is spinning a bit. I look back at Jack and wonder if it could be possible that it wasn’t actually him and he was still alive somewhere. Probably in a bar, sitting at the end getting drunk, just like I wanted to do. I could walk into that same bar and sit on the other end and we probably could just go on drinking and not even see each other but be in the same place at the same time. The thought gives me a chill.

“I need to go outside,” I say, standing up. “Excuse me.” Both Devin and Justin stand and look concerned. I’m tired of people feeling sorry for me. “Just leave me alone,” I say to Devin.

Kate is waiting on the same bench Devin and I were sitting on before. No one is around, and I feel everything begin to bubble up inside of me and lean over and vomit everything that’s in my stomach into the bushes. I feel better, though strangely empty, and walk away a few steps. I sit down next to Kate and fish inside my purse for my cigarettes and a pack of matches and light one with shaky hands. “Justin lived on the same block as you,” she told me. “His mom used to cook Italian food by the bucket and you and Devin would go there for dinner. She was short and fat with white hair and red cheeks and always wore green shoes.”

“Okay,” I say, remembering her from Kate’s description. We sit in silence and I smile. “He used to walk me to my classes in high school sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Kate agrees. “He was nice. Kind of shy, but so were you.”