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by Janet Trakin

The hermetically sealed airplane cabin felt like a hot air balloon which suspended me between my life in Los Angeles and my umbilical cord to Delray Beach, Florida. There, my mother lay in storage in the same funeral home we used for my father. I had fled South Florida like an Iraqi refugee when my mother threatened to institutionalize me ten years ago. Now, I had arrived full circle to bury her.

My stepdad greeted me at the end of the runway-not with a sign, but with a very sullen look on his face, his eyes sunken and black. He stood alone with the same aura that enveloped him when she was still alive. He uttered not a word, and hugged me silently. He grabbed my overnight bag and we walked to the car.

The sight of the Florida Marlins Championship bumper sticker brought tears to my eyes which Samuel heard. He sniffled.

“So, what time is the funeral?” I asked breaking the sepulchral silence.

“One o’clock tomorrow. Get some rest,” he advised summoning the energy to speak.

The ride home from the airport on I-95 differed dramatically from when I visited from Manhattan where I lived before moving to Florida. The destination was the same, but the players were different. Mom married Samuel three years after Dad died. Those rides were filled with joy at seeing each other and conversation about who, what, where, and why like a televised press release. We would catch up on gossip in a half hour leaving nothing more to talk about for the remainder of the trip.

“Did you call everyone?” I asked Samuel as he calmly flowed with the traffic.

“Yes. Between me and Sylvia, we’ve got the world covered. All you have to do is call your friends,” he said with an air of reassurance.

We arrived at the Paradise Villas Complex, or compound as my friend called it, and Samuel slipped the card through the machine, located on an island of palm trees. The gates slowly opened and we entered the antithesis of Oz–a land of fake lakes, speed bumps, and silvery signs. The dense shrubbery I remembered had been blown away by the 2005 hurricane season, and the roofs had been replaced by brown tile. The sun cast a pink patina on the buildings. Even the curve in the road to their villa seemed different. However, the sunset over the western part of the development provided a certain sense of reality to the situation. Some things never change, and never will, despite the vicissitudes of life.

Samuel pulled up to the driveway, and pressed the button on the windshield which magically opened the garage door. Samuel handed me my overnight bag, and I went to his study which had been my room. Picking up the phone, I confronted my past.
“Hello, Jill,” I said, my heart racing.

“Ally?!?” Jill’s voice was part scream, part exclamation.

“Yes, it’s me. Every mother’s daughter,” I sighed, twirling and staring at my lighter.

“I haven’t heard from you in ten years.” She acted like I was the guilty party.

“Hey, you were the one who drove me to suicide after we broke up. Who should call who? Anyway, remember the last time we were together?”

“Oh, yeah. How can I forget? When Pat’s aunt died and she went up north to the funeral.”

“Well, I told you that I was scared of when my mother would die. And you sat in my kitchen, with your teeth gleaming through your smile, and unwittingly said, ‘I’ll be here.’ Well, I’m taking you up on it.”

“Oh, Ally. I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

“Show up at the funeral tomorrow at 1:00 without Pat. I don’t want to see that moose. It’s at the Faithful Flowers. Near your Mom.”

“O.k. Ally? Are you all right? Do you really want me there?” Jill was pushing my buttons again as she did during out 15-month relationship. Her voice endeared itself to me, tempting me to let down my guard and get emotional.

“Jill, I still love you. I am embarrassed that after all these years I still can’t let go. But I do,” I said as the tears rolled down my cheeks.

“I love you too,” Jill replied. “I hate Pat. It was our mothers, Ally. They would not let us be together.”

“I know. It took me a while to see that but you are right. You said it when we were last together in bed. I blamed your mother. But my mother subsequently told me she would not have let me move in with you. You hate Pat, and I hate my family for being so possessive that they won’t encourage anyone for me. So, we’re all miserable. And my mother’s dead.” I changed the subject.

“Hey, just like your Dad had to be sacrificed for you to come out as a lesbian, maybe your Mom’s death will lead you to a partner.”

“To every cloud, blah, blah, blah,” I replied, my finger starting to smudge from the mechanism of the lighter. “My Mom will probably roll in that casket knowing you are there.”

“Thanks, Ally. Then I won’t come.”

“No, no. Come. I have to make more phone calls. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“O.k.”

I then retrieved Rosie’s number from my telephone book, and dialed.

“Rosie?”

“Ally. How the hell are you?” Rosie was the best lesbian lover I ever had. Ironically, she had never made it into any of my short stories or my psychic residue, for that matter, perhaps because the relationship had been so simple. We both had desperately wanted to have sex with a woman and come out of our respective closets.

“I’m in town, Rosie.”

“What’s the matter? California not treating you well? Ya movin’ back?”

“No, my Mom died, Rosie,” I said plaintively. “And I want you to come to the funeral.”

“Oh, Ally. I’m so sorry. I liked your Mom. She was a trip.”

I smiled recalling how Rosie spent the night at my parent’s house in Delray Beach modeling her outfit for my mother before we went out. “I remember our first date. You had just come from a funeral of a little girl that had been in a hit and run. It was then that I knew you did the right thing. It was then that I fell in like with you.”

“You remember that, woman? I remember the sex,” she chided.

“Of course, you do. Leave it to you,” I said. Rosie was a blue collar, salt of the earth type who prided herself in her sexuality. She plain loved sex, and wasn’t afraid to admit it. “Yeah, it was fantastic. We came at the same time. Remember?”

“Sure do. You weren’t my first. But you were one of my best,” she said in her raspy voice. I noticed myself playing with the pages of my phone book.

“Oh, Rosie. It is so good to hear your voice,” I said.

“How are you holding up? I know you were close to your Mom.”

“I’m o.k. So far. I’ve just got a sick feeling in my stomach, and I feel very empty,” I fought back the tears. “It’s good to be back in Florida, though. I haven’t met anyone in Los Angeles,” I said, my voice dropping.

“Middle age is the pits, ain’t it?”

“It certainly is. Woody Allen once said that life is about sex and death. Well, there is no life after 50. Just death. I lived life to the fullest my first 50 years. Now, for the remainder, I’ll write about it. It is the pits, indeed. Will you come to the funeral?”

“Of course.”

“I’d love to see you again.”

“Me, too. When is it?”

“Tomorrow at 1:00. Have Lani do a Mapquest for directions. I’ll e-mail you the address.”

“Thanks. I’ll see ya then.”

Samuel knocked at the door. “You o.k.? Have you talked to your friends?

“Yeah, my ex-lovers. It’s a trip down memory lane, Sam,” I said looking at the suitcase that remained unpacked.

“Well, unpack, relax, and I’ll go pick up some Chinese food for dinner. Are you hungry?” he asked me from the doorway.

“Yeah. Those friggin’ airlines don’t give you anything to eat. When is Leonard coming in from New York?”

“Your brother and his wife will be in later tonight. They are renting a car and staying in Boca Raton. They will call us when they get in, but it’ll be too late for them to come over. They will meet us at the funeral parlor tomorrow.”

I lay down in my clothes on the study’s couch, and before I could even eat dinner sleep descended upon me like a demolition ball.
Samuel and I arrived at the Faithful Flowers funeral home at 12:30 the next day. I wore my grey Elisabeth suit, the same outfit I wore at their wedding. Leonard, dressed in a Versace suit greeted us in the hallway, and his wife Sophie wore a black, matronly pants suit. The four of us sat in the reception area waiting for the mourners to arrive.

Soon, a tall woman with a short, bleached blonde butch haircut, entered and approached us. As she got closer, I recognized her as Lolly, someone who became a very close friend after Jill ditched me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her, her long black pants concealing the bony knees her shorts had always revealed.

“I thought I’d pay my respects. I saw the obituary in the Sun Sentinel,” she replied as if I should be happy to see her.

“Y’know, Lolly, not only did you use me and abuse me during our relationship, but you threw me away when I needed you most. You totally abandoned me when I was having a nervous breakdown, and threw me into a state of total despair. Get the fuck out of here. My mother would not want you here.”

My brother’s wife, Sophie, heard me. “Ally, don’t use that language here.”

“The fuck I’m not going to use that language here. She’s a bitch.”

“Calm down,” Samuel said, and his soothing voice caused me to do just that especially after watching Lolly exit the door.

The people started milling in, and I withdrew from the situation. Leonard and Samuel accepted people’s condolences graciously, as I took my seat in the main room across from the casket in the front row.

“You gave me all my inferiority complexes,” I shouted, banging on the coffin. “You were the reason I have no confidence. You would not let me live with Jill. You had me, but I never had you.” The sweat streamed down my forehead, and then the rabbi came over and put his hand on my shoulder and led me back to my seat. He spared me any words.

Before I knew it, everyone was seated, including Samuel to my left, and Leonard and Sophie to my right. The rabbi started his eulogy.

“Did you see that woman in the back with short black hair and black jeans? That’s Ally’s ex-lover.” I could hear Sylvia Curtis, my mother’s close friend, telling her husband behind me.

“Who was that woman that Ally told off?” asked Myrna Rosenfeld, their neighbor at Paradise Villas Complex. Myrna’s voice shrieked from three rows behind me.

“Leonard is wearing a Versace suit. He must be doing well,” said Rose Schwartz from down the pew.

I missed the entire eulogy but I knew from my father’s funeral that we’d get a complimentary tape of the service so I did not have to worry about missing anything. I searched the place for Jill. There she was in the back row, by herself looking radiant. I winked at her and she winked back.

From that point on, everything was a blur. Leonard got up and gave his eulogy. I watched his lips move, but I did not hear the words. Sophie sat complacently. People expressed their emotion throughout the room, both men and women crying. I also let the tears flow.

The next step in this arduous process was the receiving line, ironically similar to a wedding’s. I stood between Samuel and Leonard, saying, “Thank you” to each “I’m sorry.” My eyes searched for Jill. She stood next in line.

“I’m sorry, hon. Meet me in the bathroom,” she said like a dark-haired Mae West.

Whenever she said hon, my heart melted. After the last mourner, I headed to the bathroom. “I’ll be right back, Samuel,” I told my stepfather, and scurried to the hallway.

She leaned on the sink. I put my arms around her, and she embraced me. “Thanks for coming,” I said and put my lips on hers. Our tongues intertwined passionately like a candelabra. I ran my hand through her hair. Just as I was about to touch her in between her legs, I heard a voice.

“Hey, woman, you don’t miss a beat,” said Rosie who came out of the stall. “You guys getting back together?”

“Well?” asked Jill. “I’ve always wanted you.”

“Well, well, well. Oh, well.” Quoting George Harrison, I mocked her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she replied.

“Sure. From the ashes, riseth the phoenix.” I smiled, and we looked into each other’s eyes with Death outside the door.

About the Author
Janet Trakin is a published journalist, ghostwriter, poetess and short story writer. Her work has appeared in the Advocate, Bare Back Magazine, and Freestylevision.com. She is an ex-New Yorker who moved to Los Angeles via South Florida.

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