The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried

DINO

I DON’T WANT TO BE here. Spending the afternoon collecting trash on the beach isn’t how I wanted to spend one, or any, of my summer days. I could be sleeping or working at a job that pays me or reading or smack-talking some random kid while I kick his butt at Paradox Legion online. Instead, I’m here. At the beach. Picking up beer cans and candy wrappers and ignoring the occasional used condom because there’s no way I’m touching that. Not even wearing gloves.

Dear People:

If you have sex on the beach, throw away your own goddamn condoms.

Sincerely,

Sick of Picking Up Your Rubbers

Hey, Dino!

I look up.

Smile! Rafi Merza snaps a picture of me with his phone, and I’m not fast enough to give him the finger.

Jerk.

Rafi shrugs and wraps his arm around my waist and slaps a kiss on my cheek. His carefully cultivated stubble scrubs my skin. Everything about Rafi is intentional and precise. His thick black hair swooped up and back to give it the illusion of messiness, his pink tank top to highlight his thick arms, the board shorts he thinks make his ass look good. He’s right; they do. It’s showing off. If I looked like Rafi, I’d want to flaunt it too. Thankfully there’s an underlying insecurity to his vanity that keeps it from slipping across the border into narcissism.

You okay?

I’m fine, I say. People need to worry about themselves. I point down the beach at Dafne and Jamal, who’re poking at a gelatinous mass in the sand. I hope they know jellyfish can still sting even when they’re dead.

They’ll find out one way or another. Rafi has a hint of an accent that sounds vaguely British with weird New England undertones, which makes sense since his dad’s from Boston and his mom’s from Pakistan by way of London.

And I’ll keep my phone out just in case, I say.

To call the paramedics?

To record them getting stung.

Rafi pulls away from me. Sure, because there’s nothing funnier than someone else’s pain.

They’re playing with a jellyfish, not a live grenade.

He nudges me and I catch my reflection in his sunglasses. My enormous bobble head and long nose and I don’t even know what the hell’s going on with my hair. No one dragged you out here—

You showed up at my house at dawn with coffee and doughnuts, I say. You know I can’t resist doughnuts.

Rafi tries to take my hand, but I shake free. I get that today’s difficult for you, Dino—

Please don’t.

I’m here for you. Rafi raises his shades, giving me the amber-eyed puppy dog stare that snared me from across an Apple store a year ago. If you want, we can take off and go somewhere to talk.

Looking across the beach and then into Rafi’s eyes makes the offer so tempting that I go so far as to open my mouth to say yes. But then I don’t. July Cooper is dead. Talking won’t change it. I kick the wet sand, sending a clod flying toward the water. Besides, we weren’t even friends.

Rafi leans his forehead against mine. He’s a little shorter than me, so I have to bend down a bit. I’m your friend, right?

Of course you are.

And so are they. He doesn’t have to motion to them for me to know he’s talking about everyone else who’s out here with us on a summer day cleaning the beach. The kids from the community center: Kandis and Jamal and Charlie and Dafne and Leon. They’re your family.

I’ve got a family, I say.

Rafi kisses me softly. His lips barely graze mine, and still I flinch from the public display, but if Rafi notices, he doesn’t mention it. That’s the family you were born into. We’re the family you chose.

There’s a moment where I feel like Rafi expects me to say something or that there’s something he’s trying to say. It charges the air between us like we’re the two poles of a Jacob’s ladder. But either I imagined it or the moment passes, because Rafi steps away and starts walking down the shore, linking his first finger through mine and pulling me along with him.

The sun beats on us as we keep working to clean the beach. It’s an impossible task but still worthwhile. My arms and legs are pink, and I have to stop to apply more sunscreen. I try to convince Rafi to put some on too, but he claims it defeats the purpose of summer. I’m kind of jealous of the way Rafi’s skin turns a rich brown in the sun rather than a crispy red like mine.

Don’t forget about the party tonight, Rafi says as he rubs sunscreen into my back.

What party?

It’s not actually a party. The gang, pizza, pool, movies. Nothing too exciting.

My whole body tenses, and Rafi must feel it because he stops rubbing. You don’t have to come. I thought it’d be better than sitting home alone.

The funeral’s tomorrow, so I should probably—

I get it—

It’s not that I don’t want to see you—

Of course, of course.

This time there’s no electricity in the silence. No expectation. Instead, it’s a void. A chasm growing wider with each passing second. I know I should throw Rafi a line before the distance between us expands too far, but I don’t know what to say.

My offer stands, Rafi says.

I sigh heavily without meaning to. If I change my mind about the party—

Not the party. The funeral. If you want me to go with you, I will.

You don’t have to.

Have you ever seen me in my black suit? he asks. I look like James Bond. But, you know, browner.

I can’t help laughing because it’s impossible to tell whether Rafi’s bragging or begging for compliments. While the thought of you doing your best sexy secret agent impersonation is tempting, I think I need to go to the funeral alone.

Rafi squeezes my shoulders and says, Yeah, okay, before finishing with the sunscreen. Funerals are awful, especially if you don’t know the person who’s died, but I can’t help feeling like Rafi’s disappointed.

Come on, I say. I probably need to get home soon. I pull Rafi the way he pulled me earlier, but instead of following, he digs his feet into the sand. His lips are turned down, and he’s looking at the ground instead of at my face.

I covertly glance around to make sure no one’s watching, and then I brush his cheek with my thumb and kiss him. Fine. I’ll consider coming tonight.

Rafi’s face brightens immediately. He goes from pouty lips to dimples and smiles in under a second. Really?

Maybe, I say.

Maybe closer to yes or maybe closer to no?

This time when I kiss him, I don’t care if we’ve got an audience. Maybe if you agree to go with me to Kennedy Space Center before the end of the summer, I’ll think real hard about making an appearance.

Rafi turns up his nose. "But I went there in middle school, and it’s so boring."

Compromise is the price you pay for being my boyfriend.

Fine. Rafi rolls his eyes dramatically. But this relationship is getting pretty expensive.

You’re rich. You can afford it. I grab his hand. Now, let’s get out of here before I change my mind.

DINO

I’M SITTING AT THE KITCHEN table trying to eat dinner when my mom stomps into the room and twirls. Think this is okay for dinner with the Kangs tonight? She’s wearing a black dress with a fitted corset top that accentuates her curvy hips, black fishnet stockings, and combat boots, and she even straightened her platinum blond hair for the occasion. Both of her arms are covered in tattoos depicting scenes from her favorite comic books.

Are you taking them to a club in the 1990s?

Smartass. My mom’s basically goth Peter Pan, but I admire her devotion to the Church of Monochromism.

Kidding. You look nice.

Mom smiles and kisses the top of my head. What’re you doing?

I hold up my spoon. Eating dinner.

Cereal is not dinner.

Then I’m eating a meal that’s not dinner but will take the place of dinner tonight.

"You were supposed to get your dad’s sense of humor and my sense of fashion, not the reverse."

I glance at my outfit. I’d showered and changed into a T-shirt and jean shorts when I got home from the beach. Are you criticizing my style?

Mom pats my cheek. Kid, the way you dress isn’t style in the same way that cereal isn’t dinner.

Ouch, I say. This coming from the woman who believes that all clothes, shoes, and makeup should come in one and only one color.

Hey! I have a blue dress up there. Mom taps her chin. Somewhere. I’m hoping she’s going to disappear the way she came, but she pulls out a chair and sits across from me. How you holding up?

I’d be better if people would stop asking me that.

July was your best friend.

Was, I say. But she’s been dead to me for a year, so can you drop it? My left fist starts trembling, and I have to drop my spoon because I didn’t realize I was gripping it so tightly. These last few days it feels like everyone’s waiting for me to melt down, and I’m starting to think they’re not going to leave me alone until I do. But, no. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of doing the thing they presume is inevitable. I’m fine.

Mom watches me for a moment and then nods. After . . . everything’s done, I could use your help in the office. We’ve got Mr. Alire out there now, and Mrs. Lunievicz is being transported over tomorrow.

I already have a summer job.

Bussing tables at a diner isn’t a job.

My eyebrows dip as I frown. I spend a set amount of time at a place performing tasks dictated to me by a supervisor in exchange for an established wage. I pause and look up. Sounds like the definition of a job to me.

Mom’s hands explode with motion as she speaks. You’re wasting your talent!

It’s my talent to waste.

When it comes to preparing bodies, I’m good, and Dee’s even better, but you could be van Gogh! There are few things that get my mom’s cold, black heart beating. Concrete Blonde popping up on shuffle, a sale on black boots, a new Anne Rice novel, and talking about my potential.

Van Gogh was considered a failure and a madman who ultimately took his own life. I’d hardly call him an appropriate role model.

Why can’t you be more like your sister? Mom says.

Speaking of perfect offspring, Delilah waltzes through the kitchen door. She got my mom’s hourglass figure and my dad’s sunny disposition. She’s the optimal genetic mix of our parents. I wish I could hate her for it but . . . Oh, who am I kidding? I totally hate her for it.

Because then I wouldn’t be me, I say to Mom, ignoring Dee for the moment. And aren’t you the one who drilled into us the importance of owning and loving who we are? Well this is me. I eat cereal for dinner, I dress like a slob, and I plan to waste my summer cleaning strangers’ dirty tables.

Mom clenches her jaw as she slowly stands. She hugs Delilah and says, I’m going to check on your father. We’ll leave in an hour.

Dee nods. When Mom is gone, she strips off her white coat, tosses it over the back of the chair, and takes Mom’s place at the table. Do I want to know what that was about?

It takes a few seconds for my body to relax and my muscles to unclench. I’m wasting my potential, blah, blah, blah; I’m a disappointment, etcetera. I roll my eyes.

You’re not a disappointment. Dee frowns, but it’s not a natural expression for her. My sister glided out of the birth canal on a rainbow, armed with an angelic smile that bestows blessings upon anyone fortunate enough to glimpse it. You wanna talk?

I swear to God if one more person asks me if I’m okay or if I need to talk or if I’m upset about July, I’m going to burn this house to the ground.

Mental note, Dee says. Hide the lighters.

I was a Boy Scout; I don’t need a lighter. I get up, dump the rest of my dinner down the drain, and rinse my bowl in the sink. I flip on the garbage disposal and use the grinding hum to re-center myself and come up with a way to steer the conversation away from my mental state. You nervous about Mom and Dad meeting Theo’s parents? I ask when I return to my seat.

Delilah groans and scrubs her face with her hands. The Kangs are awesome. It’s our parents I’m worried about.

Ten bucks Dad brings up skin slippage before the entrées.

I’ll murder him if he does. Dee’s eyes narrow and her lips pucker. She doesn’t get angry often, but I’m familiar with the signs. I consider warning Mom to keep the sharp knives away from my sister, but nah. If Dee stabs them, it’ll be because they deserve it. Do you remember what Dad told you the first time you asked him why people have to die?

I frown, trying to recall it. No.

She clears her throat and says, ‘Death is as normal as digestion. People move through life the way food moves through our bodies. Their natural usefulness is extracted along the way to help enrich the world, and when they have nothing left to give, they’re eliminated. Much like our bodies would clog up with excrement if we didn’t defecate, the world would do the same if we didn’t die.’ Her impression of our father is scarily accurate.

I bust up laughing, which infects Dee, and once she gets started, it turns into a storm of snorting and donkey hee-haws that causes me to completely lose it until we must sound to Mom and Dad upstairs like we’re torturing farm animals. I clutch my side as I stand to get a paper towel to dab the tears from my eyes.

How did either of us turn out so normal? Delilah asks. Her cheeks are flush with joy where I just look splotchy.

Who says we did? You’re a fusion of their weirdest parts, and I have no idea what I’m doing with my life.

Delilah reaches across the table and rests her hand on mine. You’ll figure it out, Dino. You always do. She smiles. And if you don’t want to work here, don’t.

"It’s DeLuca and Son’s," I say.

Names can be changed.

I sigh. It’s going to be weird not having you in the house once you’re married.

I won’t be far, Delilah says. We’re planning to tell the parents at dinner, but Theo and I closed on a house last week that’s only twenty minutes from here.

Great, I say. Now I’ll never get rid of you.

Probably not.

So you’re really marrying Theo, huh? The Wedding has ruled our lives for the last six months. Not a day goes by when there isn’t something that needs to be decided or tasted or fitted. But Theo’s a cool guy, and he loves my sister, which proves that there really is someone for everyone, even overachieving perfectionists who spend their days with the dead.

Delilah leans back in her chair. That’s what the invitations say.

I thought they said you were marrying Thea?

Those were the old invitations.

Thea’s going to be disappointed.

She’ll move on. Dee glances at the time on the microwave. And I should be doing the same. Can’t show up to dinner smelling like corpses.

I fidget with my thumbs. How do you know you’re in love with Theo?

Delilah freezes for a moment, narrows her eyes. Is this about Rafi? Are you in love with him?

I shake my head. Just curious.

She relaxes, but there’s a second where I think she’s not going to answer. It was a stupid question anyway. But then she says, You know how I used to keep that map on my wall with the thumbtacks in each place I wanted to visit?

Yeah?

When I couldn’t sleep, I’d stare at the map and imagine the adventures I’d go on. Backpacking through Bangkok, watching the stars from Iceland, eating noodles in Shanghai. But in those fantasies, I was alone.

That’s because you didn’t have any friends.

Delilah slaps my arm. I had friends!

Dad doesn’t count.

Jerk. Dee shakes her head at me. Anyway. Theo and I had been dating for a couple of years, and I was in bed and couldn’t sleep, so I started thinking about that map and the places I wanted to go. Only, this time I wasn’t alone on my journeys. Theo was with me. He’d slipped into my life, and now I can’t imagine my life without him.

Gross. I mime puking onto the floor and even make the gagging sounds to go with it.

Delilah stands for real this time. Love’s only gross when you’re not in it.

DINO

PEOPLE, LIKE CATS, ARE OBSESSED with boxes. Cats are content to squeeze their own furry asses into boxes clearly too small for them, whereas humans take sadistic pleasure in trying to shove one another into boxes. Slut boxes and Bitch boxes and Nerd boxes and Thug boxes. He was such a nice white boys often get to pick their own luxury boxes, unless they don’t fit sexuality or gender norms, in which case they’re crammed into Fag boxes and tossed out with the Trash boxes.

We claim this type of forced categorization provides us the ability to define our place in the world, and that, paradoxically, it’s what’s on the inside that truly counts. But once we stuff someone into a box, what’s on the inside no longer matters. The boxes that are supposed to help us understand one another ultimately wedge us further apart. Even worse is that we rage against the artificial divisions the boxes create, claim that we’re more complex and complicated than how we’re defined by others, and then turn around and stuff the next person we meet into one and tape the lid shut.

And then, as if the indignity of life isn’t enough, when a person dies, we cram what’s left of them into one final box for eternity.

I thought I knew everything there was to know about July Cooper and that she’d known all there was to know about me. We’d spent more than half of our seventeen years on earth together, spreading the contents of who we were across Palm Shores, marveling at the complexities of one another. Then in one moment, I swept her up, crammed her into a box, closed it, and wrote Ex–Best Friend on the outside. And she did the same to me.

But boxes are meant to be unpacked. They’re not intended to be filled and shut and stuffed into a dark corner to rot. If someone had asked me a month ago how I felt about July Cooper, I would have told them I didn’t care, but now that she’s gone, I want to unpack her. To unpack us and the myriad crap we stuffed into each other’s boxes. I can’t, though, and that’s my fault. But I can see her one last time.

As soon as Mom and Dad and Dee leave to meet the Kangs for dinner, I walk across the lawn to the office and let myself into the prep room. I never go through the showroom unless I have no other choice.

Most people believe the preparation room is the creepiest part