Putting Makeup on Dead People Read Online Free Page A

“That’s quite an impressive begonia bed you’ve got there.”
    Mom says, “Aren’t you going to ask for my phone number, too?” Then Mom and Liz both start laughing. Mom even makes that little wheezing noise she does when she finds something especially funny.
    “You must be Mrs. Parisi. I’m Liz.”
    As I watch Mom wipe her eyes and sigh, I start to feel like I’m on someone else’s date. I clear my throat. “Liz just started at Woodmont.”
    Mom cups her hand over her eyes like she’s looking off into the horizon, or staring at me and trying to figure out if it’s possible that I might have a social life. She turns to Liz. “In the middle of your senior year? Wow, that’s a big move.”
    “My parents finally retired, and Dad got an offer to be artistic director for the Dayton Ballet. Mom and Dad were both dancers with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.”
    “Really?” I can tell Mom’s impressed. “Well, come on in. Do you girls want a snack?”
    “Mom, we’re not twelve.”
    “Seventeen-year-olds also need to eat. Right, Liz? And I made lemon cookies from a new recipe I found in the Dayton Daily News .” I guess I have to cut Mom some slack; it must be as exciting for her as it is for me to have company.
    Liz follows behind Mom through the front door. “I will not turn down lemon cookies.”
    In the kitchen, Mom gets a plate from the cupboard and asks, “So how was today?”
    “We went to the funeral home in the morning,” Liz says, “for Lila Cardoza.”
    Looking past Mom, out the kitchen window, I think of Liz hugging Lila’s mom, and I think of Mom greeting everyone at Dad’s viewing.
    Liz looks from Mom to me, but maybe Mom’s thinking about Dad too, because she doesn’t say anything either. Mom uses the spatula to lift cookies off the cooling rack, and sets them on the plate. I can hear each cookie sliding off.
    “It was sad,” Liz says.
    “I’m sure,” Mom says, and turns around to bring the plate to the table. Her eyes seem hazy and vacant.
    It’s quiet in the kitchen, like we’re all back at the funeral home, and everything sounds hushed and far away, like when my ears are underwater at the pool.
    Liz licks her lips and runs her fingers through the fringe on her turquoise shawl. “Um, also, Donna and I have Spanish together. We are both muy bueno .”
    Something bright and lively in Liz’s voice pulls me back to the surface again, and Mom too. She laughs.
    And then it’s like Mom and Liz are new best friends, and I watch a little dumbfounded. I’m glad I have something good to eat—the perfectly round cookies are sweet and tart and crumbly—because I wouldn’t know what to do otherwise. Mom asks questions about the ballet, and Liz describes her dad in Swan Lake and the costumes and the lights and how her dad would pick her up when she was small and spin her like a ballerina.
    “My dad used to do that too.” Mom looks at the cookie she holds delicately in her fingers. At the moment, she seems fragile, like she’s a little girl, and it makes me nervous. She sets the cookie down and says shyly, “You know, I always wanted to be a ballerina.”
    Liz reaches over and touches Mom’s hand. “I bet you would have been a beautiful dancer.”
    My brain is on overload. This intimacy between my new friend and my mother. Mom talking about her dad, who I rarely hear about, other than that he was very athletic. Mom wanting to be a ballet dancer. Mom wanting something, period.
    “You never told me that,” I say, and it sounds angrier than I mean.
    “You hate ballet,” Mom says.
    “No I don’t.” Actually, I do, but I just met Liz, who happens to be the spawn of ballet people, and I’m not ready to alienate myself just yet.
    Mom points a finger at me. “When I took all of us to the ballet last November, you said, ‘I hate ballet. Why are you making us go?’” I guess Mom has decided that alienating me from Liz is an acceptable choice.
    Linnie passes through the kitchen.