An Aquaintance

"Hey. How's it going?"

I was freezing, that's how it was going. It was cold, and dark, and drizzly, and I was late to a party that I sure as fuck wasn't going to now.

"Good, Cookie. How are you? It's been a long time."

It was surreal, not seeing each other for four years, then catching up fifty feet away from a body. A body I had found. The local police were setting up perimeters, redirecting traffic, lighting the area. We asked each other about our families, our college lives, old friends. Eventually we ran out of things to talk about.

"So, did you see what happened?"

I was in my mother's car, speeding. The town quit maintaining the streetlights since the state institution on that section of the road closed down, so it was dark, the street was wet, I thought it was a bag of trash, or a tree branch. It took me a second or two to comprehend what it was I swerved around.

"No, but I was, I dunno, the first person to drive by afterwards. Did you get caught in the traffic?"

After I stopped, checked on the man, called the police, a few cars stopped behind my own still idling in the middle of the street where I had screeched to a stop. They all got out and waited too, not sure what to do, just waiting for the cops to arrive. I didn't remember seeing her there, but I wasn't really focusing on the growing crowd.

"I drove by earlier. I was half way home, but I thought I should turn around just to check, you know?"

We waited around a while, then gave our statements to the police. Most of the crowd had gone, but my car was still in the blocked off crime scene, and the officer said I'd have to wait a while before they could let me to my car. Cookie offered to let me sit in her car out of the cold to wait. It was the same one she had in high school. The same car we sat in after Tiela's funeral our senior year.

That was five years ago - I can't remember how Tiela died, just that she was on life support for four days before her family decided to pull the plug. Cookie and I knew Tiela the way we knew each other - we weren't friends, but we were friendly; we'd had classes together, eaten lunch together a few times, but never really saw each other outside of school. But she was a classmate, and the school was small - almost the whole 12th grade class went to her wake. Cookie and I ended up in the receiving line together as it wound in and out of the old Victorian rooms of the funeral home. As we waited we talked about how we knew Tiela, little stories that we had, commenting on the pictures and scrapbooks of her that were placed throughout. Cookie hadn't been to a wake before, she was nervous.

When we got to the viewing room, people were kneeling on the bench in front of the casket in pairs, I suppose to speed it along. Tiela's family was standing next to it receiving the mourners. Her biological father, who she had just gotten back in touch with a few months ago, her grandmother, her mother. Cookie and I knelt together. We had grown up in the same church, attended the same catechism classes. I stopped believing in God around the time I stopped believing in Santa, so instead of praying I studied Tiela's face as she laid in the casket. She was wearing too much make up, her lips were sewn shut in such away that they puckered, as if waiting to be kissed. It was unsettling.
Cookie made the sign of the cross, so I did too, and we stood up and turned to Tiela's family members together. We shook hands with the adults we didn't know, gave our condolences. When Cookie got to Tiela's mother, she looked for her a second, then just turned away and walked out without saying anything.

We both hung out in the parking lot with our respective friends for a while, talking about the wake, Tiela, other things. I don't remember how I ended up sitting with Cookie in her car. We were just chatting, talking about the band that was playing on the radio, when suddenly I looked over and Cookie was crying, hard and silent at the same time. I couldn't believe it - Cookie wasn't the type to cry. I've known her forever - she was really tough; when we were little, I was sort of intimidated by her. I was shocked that she was crying. Unsure of what to do, I handed her a napkin that was on the floor of the car and rubbed her shoulder until she calmed down a little.

"I didn't know what to say. To her mom, you know?" She said. "I didn't have a problem with her dad or her grandmother, but when I looked at her mom's face I just couldn't say anything. I just had to leave."

I didn't really know what to say for a moment. "I don't think she was offended. I think she understood."

"It's just...I didn't know her that well. Did you? I mean, we weren't friends or anything, we didn't say hi to each other in the halls or anything like that. I wasn't even going to come, but Mrs. Henderson said we should." Cookie was the treasurer of our class, Mrs. Henderson, the adviser. "Not that I didn't want to pay respect, I just wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for someone who wasn't her friend to be here."

She talked for a while, about how she felt; how she'd never seen a dead person before, how it made her angry that everyone kept saying how good Tiela looked, when really she looked creepy and horrible, just lying there in the casket. How she didn't even really like Tiela all the much, how guilty, how much like a hypocrite she felt for crying over someone she didn't know well or particularly like. When she was done talking, we just sat for a while, listening to the radio. We said our goodbyes, and I got out of her car. Before I shut the door, she stopped me.

"Thanks. For listening, you know? I don't...I'm sorry I cried." She laughed a little. So did I, told her don't worry about it, and left.

I always wondered why she told all of this to me, instead of one of her friends, someone she knew better, who knew her better. But sitting in her car that night, with the floodlights from the fire truck illuminating our faces, I understood. While waiting for the police to let me near my car, I told her all the things I didn't say to my parents and friends when talking about it after - how guilty I felt for not coming along ten minutes sooner, how terrified I was that I had actually found a body, how cold he was when I touched him, that no one should ever feel that cold.

All to a girl I hadn't seen in four years.

I talked and she listened until an officer came by and told me my car was clear.

"Are you going home now?" Cookie asked.

"I'm supposed to be going to a party. I don't...what am I supposed to say? Sorry, there was a dead guy."

She smiled weakly. "Do you want me to drive you home?" I didn't. "Alright, see you around."

I got out of her car. Before I shut the door, I stopped.

"Hey, Cookie? Thanks. For listening, you know?"