Claudia and the Sad Good-Bye Read online

  But we were together.

  Even so, the longer we sat there, the guiltier I felt. I couldn’t help remembering the times I’d lost my temper, wished to be at an art class instead of at the hospital — and especially the time I’d thrown the magazines on Mimi’s bed.

  I was a horrible person and I knew it, even if no one else did.

  Despite what Kristy wrote in the notebook, I know she felt a little funny holding a club meeting on Friday, the day before Mimi’s funeral, but I really wanted to. Janine and I weren’t going back to school until Monday because there was too much to do at home. And with everything all out of order like that, I at least wanted to hold regular club meetings, and Mom and Dad had given their permission. I didn’t like special attention. I wanted my life to go on as usual, or, as Kristy said, as if nothing had happened. That was pretty difficult when I wasn’t going to school, so if we’d stopped our club meetings, I don’t know what I’d have done.

  Kristy was right. Our Friday meeting was quiet, like the one on Wednesday. No one called. Plus, us club members didn’t seem to know what to talk about at first. Finally, Kristy started talking about food fights and bras, trying to make us laugh (Janine was not at that meeting), and that worked for awhile.

  At ten minutes of six, Mary Anne stood up. “Come on,” she said. “I’m starved. There’s no point in sitting around here. Let’s go to my house now and order the pizzas.”

  Mary Anne had invited the club members to her house for a pizza dinner, since her dad and Dawn’s mom were going out on a date, and she had already invited Dawn over to keep her company. Besides, Mary Anne thought I might need a pizza supper with my friends on the night before Mimi’s funeral. (I think Mary Anne needed it, too. She’d been pretty teary lately. In fact, she seemed even more upset than I did. I hadn’t cried since Wednesday morning.)

  So the six of us left my house and walked across the street to Mary Anne’s dark, empty one. She turned on the porch light, unlocked the front door, turned on the inside hall light, and was greeted by Tigger, her kitten.

  Kristy told me later that she thought it must be really lonely sometimes to be Mary Anne. Was it possible, I wondered, that Mary Anne would miss Mimi even more than I would?

  “Hiya, Tiggy. Hi there, Mousekin.” (Mousekin is also Tigger. Mary Anne has about a zillion nicknames for him.) She picked Tigger up and nuzzled him under her chin. “I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you? Well, so are we. Kristy, why don’t you order the pizzas while I feed Tigger?”

  We had to have a very long conversation about what kinds of pizzas to get since we can all be picky about some foods. Dawn wouldn’t eat anything but plain or with vegetables like green peppers. No one else likes green peppers. I wanted a pizza with everything, but Jessi gagged at the thought of anchovies. Mary Anne didn’t want sausage. We did finally order two pizzas, though, and when they arrived, they were actually hot. (Pizza Express isn’t always as express as they advertise.)

  We crowded around the Spiers’ kitchen table with the open boxes of pizzas in the middle and started grabbing slices, the cheese stringing out from each slice, still attached to the pies. We didn’t bother with plates. A pile of napkins was good enough for us.

  In the middle of a big bite of pizza, Kristy began to laugh.

  “What?” said the rest of us.

  Kristy managed to swallow before she answered. “Remember the time Mimi tasted her first pizza?”

  No one seemed aghast that Kristy had brought up the subject of Mimi. In fact, it seemed sort of appropriate, especially since this was a particularly good story.

  “I do!” I cried. “That was so funny.”

  “Let’s tell Mimi stories!” exclaimed Kristy.

  “Okay,” my friends and I agreed.

  “What about the pizza?” asked Mallory.

  I looked at Kristy. “You tell,” I said. “You were there.”

  “Okay,” she replied. “Well, it was Claudia’s eighth birthday, and Mimi’s present to her was going to be a meal at a real Japanese restaurant in Stamford. She wanted to take Claudia, her family, and Mary Anne and me. Mary Anne and I were so excited. We’d never had Japanese food before. We’d barely even been in a fancy restaurant. So we got all dressed up in, like, birthday party clothes — so did you, Claud — and everyone else was dressed up, and Mimi was wearing an actual Japanese outfit —”

  “Authentic,” I said importantly.

  “You know, the kimono and the sandals and everything.”

  “We were fascinated,” Mary Anne added.

  “So,” Kristy continued, “we drive all the way to Stamford and the restaurant is closed. No one can believe it. So we begin driving around looking for other places to eat.”

  “Oh, and remember,” said Mary Anne, “we passed a Howard Johnson’s and Mr. Kishi said we could go in there to eat because he knew the manager personally, and I thought he meant he knew Howard Johnson. I was so impressed.”

  Everyone giggled at that.

  “Well,” said Kristy, “we couldn’t find a place where Claud and Mary Anne and I wanted to eat. I mean, they were all, like, French places with these frou-frou names, and it was Claud’s birthday, so when she finally said she wanted pizza, Mr. Kishi stopped at the first pizza place he saw. It was kind of sleazy — dark, with a lot of high school kids being loud — and a miniature juke box playing at every booth. But we went in anyway.”

  “And everyone stared,” I said, “because Mimi looked like she was on her way to a costume party, but we ordered two pies anyway, and Mimi ate one slice very bravely.”

  “And,” said Kristy, “as we were finally leaving that awful place where everyone had been staring at us, Mimi turned around, faced the people in the restaurant, and announced, “Best Japanese food I have ever eaten!”

  Us club members were hysterical. Jessi even dropped a whole slice of pizza on the floor.

  “Tell everyone about Russ and Peaches,” Mary Anne suddenly said to me.

  “Russ and Peaches?” repeated Dawn.

  “My aunt and uncle,” I replied.

  “Mimi had a son and she named him Russ?” said Dawn incredulously. “That just sounds so … unconventional. I mean, for Mimi…. Russ.”

  “Well, his real name is Russell,” I told her, “but he isn’t Mimi’s son. And he’s American. I mean, American American.”

  “So you’re saying Mimi named your mother’s sister Peaches?” squeaked Mallory. “That’s even wor — even more unconventional.”

  “Oh, no,” I said quickly. “My aunt has a Japanese name, but Russ started calling her Peaches and she just called him Russ, so everyone else calls them Russ and Peaches, too. Janine and I never even call them ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle.’”

  “I remember them,” said Kristy.

  “Yeah, they used to live in Stoneybrook, right?” added Mary Anne.

  I nodded. “Until I was about seven. You’ll see them at the, um — the funeral tomorrow.”

  “They were really wild,” said Kristy. “It’s hard to believe Peaches is Mimi’s daughter.”

  “It’s even harder to believe she married Russ,” I said. “Remember the time we had that huge storm?” I said to Kristy and Mary Anne. “It was practically a hurricane. It closed school, and Stoneybrook didn’t have any electricity for two days, and all the phone lines were down.”

  “Yeah. We were in, what? First grade?” asked Kristy.

  “I think so,” I replied. “Anyway, Russ wanted to make sure Mimi and our family were okay, only he couldn’t drive to our house because trees were down everywhere, and he couldn’t walk because he’d broken his ankle in a shelving accident. (Don’t ask.) So he rode over in a golf cart!”

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  “I remember another time,” I said, “when Mimi could still drive, and she was on her way to the grocery store and an ambulance pulled out in front of her, and suddenly Mimi decided she was going to be an ambulance chaser. So she puts on the speed and follows the ambulance, and whe
re do you think it goes?”

  “Where?” asked my friends.

  “To Russ and Peaches’ house! Peaches had fallen down the stairs. Mimi never chased another ambulance.”

  More giggling.

  “I also remember when we realized that Mimi couldn’t be allowed to drive anymore,” I went on. “It wasn’t so long ago. She was pulling up to an intersection and she slowed down, peered at the stoplight, glanced at Mom, and said, ‘Honey, tell me. That light — is it red or is it green?’”

  “Tell about the chicken dinner!” Mallory suddenly cried. “I like that story.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said slowly, remembering. “We were having a dinner party — Mal’s parents were there — and all the guests were seated in the dining room and Dad very proudly carries in this platter with a beautiful roast chicken on it. But he trips and the chicken slides off the platter and falls on the floor. Mom is turning beet-red, but you know what Mimi does? She just says very calmly, ‘That is all right. Bring in other chicken, son.’ Well, of course there was no other chicken, but Dad got the message. He scooped the spilled chicken back onto the platter, took it into the kitchen, fixed it up, and returned it to the dining room.”

  “Mimi saved the day!” said Jessi, grinning.

  The phone rang then and Mary Anne answered. She listened for a moment, said, “Okay, just a sec,” then cupped her hand over the receiver and whispered, “Claud, it’s for you. It’s Corrie. She called your house first and found out you were here.”

  I nodded. When I took the phone from Mary Anne, I said cheerfully to Corrie, “Hi, kid. How are you doing?”

  “Fine,” said Corrie, not sounding fine at all. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too. But I’ll see you on Sunday. Remember? We’ll be having our art class on Sunday this weekend instead of Saturday.”

  “I remember.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Staying away from our baby-sitter. Mommy and Daddy are at a party. They got this old lady to come over because they didn’t want to bother you. I don’t like the lady. Neither does Sean. She smells funny.”

  “Tell her you’re tired and that you’re going to bed,” I suggested. “Then you can just play in your room. That’s what I used to do when I didn’t like my baby-sitters.”

  “Oh, good idea!”

  Corrie and I got off the phone, and soon us sitters had to go home. Kristy told me several days later that, as we were leaving, she could feel our spirits sinking. We’d had fun telling Mimi stories. We’d remembered her the way she would have wanted to be remembered. But the next day would be the funeral, and it would not be happy or funny.

  How, Kristy wondered, how on earth would we get through Mimi’s funeral?

  I was wondering the same thing.

  Stacey and her mother decided to drive to Stoneybrook instead of taking the train. That way, they wouldn’t need anyone to pick them up at the train station, and they could go back whenever they wanted. Also, Mr. McGill likes to drive. Only he decided, at the very last minute, not to come to the funeral. I was a little hurt when I saw just Stacey and her mom get out of the car, but then I thought, Well, Mr. McGill hadn’t known Mimi very well. It wasn’t until later that Stacey told me, pretty reluctantly, that she’d heard her parents arguing the night before. She thought maybe they needed a day apart from each other. Besides, her mother has always liked Stoneybrook better than her father did. He’s happier in the city.

  Stacey said the ride to Connecticut was pretty quiet. She had a feeling her mother was thinking about her father. And Stacey was thinking about me. Plus, they were both sad about Mimi, of course.

  The McGills arrived at the cemetery right on time. Mimi’s burial was to be held before the funeral service, so the McGills just joined the long line of cars that were driving slowly through the cemetery and parking by the side of the road. I watched Stacey and her mother climb out and stretch their legs.

  All I wanted to do then was run to Stacey and hug her, but a funny thing had happened that morning.

  Our family had woken up formal.

  We began the day formally, Janine and I following all sorts of somber instructions from our parents, and we spent the rest of the morning being formal.

  When Stacey arrived, her first sight was of the plot where Mimi was to be buried. The casket was sitting next to the open grave, and Mom and Dad, Janine and I, Russ and Peaches, and a few other family members were standing nearest to the casket. Friends and neighbors were behind us. I turned my head and saw Stacey, and we looked at each other.

  But I could not run to her, and she could not come to me.

  She and her mother joined Kristy, her mother, and her older brothers Sam and Charlie, at the back of the crowd.

  The burial service began. It was quite short, but Stacey remembers much more about it than I do. All I remember is thinking, as the casket was being lowered into the ground, Mimi’s not in there. So I didn’t cry. A bunch of men were just putting a box in the ground. That was all. Then Mom made me throw a white rose into the hole. I thought, What’s the point? Mimi won’t see it. But I did it anyway (since we were being formal).

  Stacey remembers more. She remembers the minister saying some words about Mimi and then saying a blessing over the casket. And she remembers that the graveyard was silent, except for the minister, because no one was ready to cry yet. A burial is just too separate from the memory of the dead person.

  It is surreal.

  Stacey remembers the rest of the service and then everyone slowly walking back to their cars and driving to the church for the funeral.

  I don’t remember any of that. It is a blank for me. I dropped the silly flower in the hole — and then suddenly I was in the church, in the front pew with my family.

  The thing I learned about death that day is that if it’s your relative, you always get to be in front. Maybe that’s to help you feel closer to the dead person.

  Stacey also remembers the funeral service better than I do. My mom gave the eulogy, and she referred to Mimi as either “Mother” or “Mimi” throughout the whole talk, which was nice because almost everybody knew her simply as Mimi. Everyone who was at the funeral, I mean, and according to Stacey an awful lot of people were there: all the members of the Baby-sitters Club, even Logan (but not Shannon; she didn’t know Mimi), and most of their parents. Then there were people like the Newtons and the Perkinses and our next-door neighbors, the Goldmans, and of course all the rest of our relatives. (You could tell how closely related they were to Mimi by how near the front of the church they got to sit.)

  Stacey said that not many kids came to the funeral, and I think that’s okay. Little children probably wouldn’t understand what was going on, and there’s plenty of time for them to learn about death when they’re older.

  Later I wondered who had baby-sat for all those kids. Probably smelly old ladies. I guess we’re not the only baby-sitters in Stoneybrook.

  Stacey and her mom sat in a pew sort of in the middle of the church. Also in their pew were Mary Anne and her father, Dawn and her mother, Kristy and her mother, and Sam and Charlie. (Watson didn’t come because he had barely known Mimi, so he stayed at home and helped Kristy’s grandmother watch the little kids.) In the pew in front of Stacey were Mallory and her parents and Jessi and her parents. Stacey said that, much as she thought the girls in the club needed comfort then, they suddenly found that they could hardly even look at each other. Stacey was seated right next to Mary Anne, who started to cry buckets as soon as my mother began the eulogy, but she didn’t reach for Mary Anne’s hand and Mary Anne didn’t reach for hers — or for her father’s. She just cried silently and kept pulling dry tissues out of her purse and dropping wet ones back into it.

  Stacey didn’t cry. She said she felt like a stone.

  That was a very good description. It was exactly how I felt.

  And that made me feel guilty on top of everything else. All around me, my relatives were crying. Next to me, Janine, who
was wearing Mimi’s diamond earrings, was sniffling. On the other side of me, my dad even started to cry and then I almost panicked. I’d never seen him cry before. (What do you do when your father cries?) Even my mother cried a little while she was speaking.

  I felt like I just didn’t have any tears in me, but that I owed it to Mimi to cry, so I thought about how I had thrown the magazines on her bed, which did bring a few tears of shame to my eyes. I dabbed at them with a Kleenex and hoped that if Mimi could see me from somewhere, she would notice me crying, but not know why I was crying. Then I began to wonder if she’d want me to be sad in the first place. It was too confusing.

  I didn’t pay a bit of attention to any of the service. When it was over, I just stood up and filed into an anteroom, following in Janine’s formal footsteps.

  In the anteroom, our family formed a line and greeted the other mourners. At last Stacey and I could be together — for a few seconds. We hugged, and Stacey said, “See you at your house later.”

  There was going to be a reception at our house in about an hour, in just enough time for Mom and Dad, Russ and Peaches, Janine and me to finish greeting people, rush home, and set out all the food everyone had been bringing by since Wednesday. I couldn’t wait. I was hoping the formality would wear off during the reception and I could be with my friends.

  The formality did wear off. Mom and Dad let us club members go in the den with a platter of food and talk by ourselves. Logan came, too.

  But talk? At first no one knew what to say. Stacey told me weeks and weeks later that it was because everything had already been said. At first it had been, “I’m sorry,” and, “Oh, how terrible,” and, “Poor Claudia. You must feel so awful.” Then we had told our Mimi stories. What else was left to say on the subject? Was it okay not to talk about Mimi? Was it okay to tell Stacey about school or for Mary Anne to talk about Tigger?