17. We Are Gathered Here Together
We Are Gathered Here Together
Diana Rodriguez Wallach
As I live and breathe… Katie glared, shocked to see that the entire grieving family wasn’t already gathered inside the funeral home. The deluge blurred the middle-aged couple now sliding past packs of teenagers with teeth chattering in a cold more brutal than her ex’s heart.
Is that woman wearing a veil? A tiny pillbox cap with a swoop of black mesh covered the relative’s eyes as she slunk next to the reincarnation of Cary Grant, decked in a gray brimmed hat cattywampus atop his head.
A massive golf umbrella added to their concealment.
Katie’s pulse quickened. Not a single reporter had snagged a quote or a photo of the family all week.
Given the attention the case had garnered, their invisibility was downright impressive.
Yet here they were—late and in the thick of the crowd.
“Lord, give me strength, or give me bail money.” Katie peeled a platinum lock of hair from the foundation on her cheek. “Let’s go, Juan.”
The cameraman slowly shifted, a thick stream of molasses pushing through his veins and mixing with his heaping desire not to see “a Southern hick” (yeah-huh, she’d heard him) replace his beloved pals, Chaz and Natasha.
The two had been holding the chairs behind the anchor desk since the days when TVs had antennas.
But Katie hadn’t clawed herself all the way from Alabama to Indiana to Michigan to Ohio and now finally to Philadelphia (a top ten news market!) just to play second fiddle to a couple of boomers who didn’t know when to retire.
“Is that the mom or the aunt?” Katie struggled to catch the woman’s profile. The family was Puerto Rican, with a striking resemblance of curly black hair, pointy features, sharp bones, and skin paler than paste in a kindergarten class. “I think it’s the aunt.”
Katie’s foot slid, inches of rain soaking a high heel she could in no way afford to replace. In fact, if she didn’t get this promotion soon, she’d be selling hugs on a street corner. Juan lumbered behind, still piddling with his camera.
“Hey, how do you say ‘aunt’ in Spanish?” Katie asked. “Is it tía or tita?”
Juan’s underbite protruded, no words escaping.
But he’d heard her. Ever since the evening news producer told Katie he “wanted to talk about her future,” Juan had upped his incompetent act and had developed a massive case of selective hearing whenever assigned to her stories.
Katie was thirty-five years old, and Lord knows she’d paid her dues twofold, so she was not about to let some man hold her back now.
“Ms. Mendez, Ms. Mendez!” Katie rushed toward the woman and extended a microphone.
“We’re so sorry for your loss.” Katie paused a beat, then offered her gentlest smile.
“What would you like the world to know about Sabrina? Did you notice any signs of depression? Did the school do enough to intervene when the bullying was first reported?” Katie curled her questions around a Southern drawl.
The aunt stopped her march, chin twisting in her direction.
“Bless her heart”—Katie thickened her accent with an extra dose of sugar—“but Sabrina’s best friend, Naomi—she suffered a severe bullying incident earlier this year.
On social media. Did you know about that?
From what I’ve heard, there were no consequences for the teens behind it.
Now Naomi’s closest friend has taken her own life.
It’s downright tragic. Are you worried that teens in this community are in danger? ”
The aunt made sure to angle her face away from the camera, and her lips didn’t twitch, let alone speak.
If Katie had to put her hand on a Bible, she’d swear that the aunt wasn’t even breathing.
But then the woman’s skeletal fingers tightened around the elbow of the lanky man holding her umbrella.
The tall gentleman stayed mute, his muscles unnaturally still and his posture so perfect his wool overcoat fell to his knees in a line straight enough to trace. They offered nothing for a TV audience.
This week, most news reports focused on the school’s lack of action.
There must be someone to blame, you see.
And after getting a few moments alone with the ninth-grade counselor at Spring Mills High, it was clear his elevator did not go all the way up to the top floor.
But then the family didn’t bother to release a statement.
There were no pleas for justice. No tears on camera.
Not even an “in lieu of flowers…” donation request. It made Katie wonder if these people cared enough about the girl to clock a severe case of depression. Maybe it was neglect.
Katie’s microphone grazed the aunt’s cheek. “What do you have to say to other families out there? To the parents of the bullies? Or the ones doing nothing while their innocent children are being tormented? Do you wish y’all would’ve done more?”
Finally, the aunt grunted. Juan better get this on camera…
Katie leaned closer, catching a glimpse of the woman’s expression, which was madder than three shades of hell.
What color were her eyes? The veil made it hard to decipher, but Katie swore she spied a flash of crimson. It must’ve been her matte lip.
The couple turned stiffly, soundlessly, then sped toward the funeral home’s entrance, so fast you’d think their shoes had wheels; they practically floated. Teens jerked out of the way, an umbrella spoke nearly jamming a girl in the eye.
“Bye, y’all!” Katie called with an extra bit of twang. Then she lowered her voice. “Well, that family’s holding it together about as good as my first marriage.”
Katie scanned the swelling crowd. The family might not want to talk about a fifteen-year-old girl’s untimely death, but she’d bet her teeth that the teens huddled nearby would be happy to see themselves on-screen.
Katie extended her mic to the blondest girl in the pack. “Hi, honey, did you know Sabrina? Or her friend Naomi? What do you want to say about the bullying scandals that Sabrina and Naomi went through? Do you think the events are connected?”
“Omigod, be so for real right now, it’s bad enough we have to be here for this, but it’s disgusting outside!” Harper popped her glossy pink lips. Ashy-blond locks—shiny from a recent hair mask—cascaded over her shoulder with a floral whiff of hair perfume that had become her signature scent.
“Figures Sabrina would be annoying even in death,” snipped Bella, Harper’s best friend, adding a little half snort. Then Bella leaned forward from the back seat, her fakest smile pointed directly at the driver’s side. “I’m just kidding, Ms. White.”
Harper’s mom ground her teeth. Just say it, Mom: “Your friends are so obnoxious.” It was her mother’s constant refrain. Meanwhile, she talked shit at her “book club” every Saturday night over clinking wineglasses.
Their SUV slid into a spot, windshield wipers clucking.
“When I die, I hope it rains like this at my funeral. It’s giving depression in the best way,” Bella said, smoothing a hand down her low bun. She wore a string of white pearls and a black cotton sheath styled directly from a “What to wear to a funeral” fit-check online.
Harper, however, was stuck in the same black satin minidress she wore to her cousin’s bar mitzvah, because her parents were too cheap to buy her a new outfit. And there was no way Harper was going to leave the house in pleated pants and an old-lady cardigan borrowed from her mother’s closet.
“This is a sad day, girls, act like it.” Mom’s words were clipped, and her stare was glassy, but not from crying. Harper knew exactly what was in her mother’s mug at breakfast—and it wasn’t coffee.
“We’re not idiots. Chill.” Harper rolled her eyes, tucking her straightened hair into the plaid hood of her raincoat. There were TV reporters outside.
“Look, there’s Libby!” Bella patted Harper’s headrest. Three quick thuds.
Before Harper could even respond, Bella swung open her car door and screeched into a wild wind. Rain gushed in sideways as the umbrella unfurled. Then Bella darted madly toward their strawberry-haired friend, who was standing too close to Will. Again.
“I’ll be sitting with the Montgomerys. Do not embarrass me in there.” Mom pointed a French-manicured nail in Harper’s face, yanking her daughter’s attention away from her boyfriend of nearly a year. Then Mom popped a mint into her mouth. Good luck with the wine breath.
“The news is already rehashing stories about that Naomi girl.” Mom’s tone was curt. “And so help me, if that crap comes back around and our name gets dragged through the mud again… Do you have any idea what that will do to your father? He’s up for partner—”
“I know!” Harper yelped, shoving open the car door and ending the redundant lecture that forever missed the point—it was Naomi who had cheated with Harper’s boyfriend. Did everyone forget that?
If the girl couldn’t handle a picture of her tongue down someone else’s throat (like, deep throat, it was gross) going around school, then maybe she shouldn’t have done it.
All Harper did was share the image online from an anonymous account.
And zoom in on a few choice body parts. It wasn’t her fault the post went viral.
Naomi was the slut. Besides, Harper forgave Will, which was nice of her; she should get credit for that.
Rain slathered Harper’s bangs to her forehead, and she yanked her hood tighter, sprinting faster toward her ninth-grade classmates shivering beneath the funeral home’s awning.
“Let me in, let me in!” Harper dove into the crowd, her breath frosting in the December air. “Is there really a line?”
“Uh, yeah.” Bella scrunched her nose. “Apparently, having a packed funeral isn’t the flex people think it is.”
“Have you seen her page?” Libby held up her screen. “ ‘Sabrina, we’ll miss you!’ ‘We’re so sad you’re gone!’ ‘Girl, it won’t be the same without you!’ ”