As Dead As It Gets

That was my in.

“Like—the kind of flowers?”

“Flowers, music, the casket, the format of the service, the location…”

“But are people specific about that stuff? If I said I want daisies, you would give me daisies?” Or if I said yellow roses…?

“Provided your parents were supportive, there’s no reason why we wouldn’t.”

“What if people don’t have preferences about things?”

“That happens quite a lot. We’re often left to make certain decisions if the family isn’t feeling up to it. Usually, the more sudden and unexpected a death, the less the family is prepared to come up with specific answers. So we go with our tried-and-true standbys.”

“Sudden, like…when kids die?”

He frowned and sat forward.

“Easy, Nancy Drew,” Lydia said. “You’re spooking him.”

“Can you give me an example of your standbys?” I asked. “If a person came in and didn’t have any preferences or whatever?”

“Well,” he said, “in the mid-range, you’d have a solid pine casket, lined, with a split lid; some classical music, which we provide—”

“And the flowers?”

“Our standby flowers are yellow roses,” he said.

Bingo.

“Do yellow roses mean, like, death?”

That actually got me a smile. “No. Yellow roses symbolize joy and friendship. But we’ve always used them. They were a favorite of my mother’s. It’s just preference. Bergen and Sons uses a lot of lilies. Victor Campos likes white roses.”

I was guessing Bergen and Sons and Victor Campos were other funeral homes. “Kind of a signature,” I said.

He shrugged. “You could call it that.”

Yellow roses were their standby. Their default. That meant this ghost could be anyone.

“That sucks,” Lydia said. “My mom was too sad to even pick flowers? I would have picked black roses.”

I glanced at her to make sure she was okay. She just seemed bummed, so I turned back to Mr. Henry-Gordon.

“Do you do funerals for young people?” I asked. “People my age?”

“Of course.” He gave me a sympathetic look, like he was about to deliver some pretty bad news. “Death can come for any of us, no matter how old or young we are.”

“Ugh, he’s creepy,” Lydia said, perking up a little. “Do you think he saw me naked? I hope not.”

I stared down at my notebook, trying to ignore her and focus. “So you’ve done a lot of funerals for teenagers?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me roughly how many…in the past three years, maybe?”

He leaned toward the computer and tapped a few buttons.

I tried to catch Lydia’s eye, to get her to go around and look at the screen. But she was staring at the family portrait on the wall behind the desk. So I faked a coughing fit, stood up, and waved my hand through her body.

“God! Keep your hands to yourself!” she said, jerking away. “I’m already traumatized from being dragged here, and—”

I gave Mr. Henry-Gordon a meaningful look.

“Oh,” she said. She walked around the desk and leaned over his shoulder.

“It looks like, in the past three years, we’ve done twelve services for teenagers.”

“I can’t read them,” Lydia said. “He’s scrolling too fast.”

“Um, wow,” I said. “Do you mind telling me how many were girls and how many were boys?”

He started clicking through again, more slowly.

“Okay.” Lydia leaned over his shoulder. “Boy, boy, Claudine, Rachel, boy, Laina, boy, Qui

“Seven girls and five boys,” Mr. Henry-Gordon said.

“Were they all sudden deaths?”

“I’m sorry, Alexis A

“Yeah, whatever,” Lydia said. “My screen says ‘aneurysm.’ If you can get him to scroll back, I’ll tell you what they all say.”

I only had one chance left. “Of course,” I said. “I definitely understand. But could you tell me if any of them were—”

The woman who’d been on the phone knocked on the door and opened it. She cast a suspicious glance at my white hair, then looked at Mr. Henry-Gordon. “Your five o’clock is here.”

He stood up. “I hope I’ve helped you some. I think it’s a very interesting topic for a paper. If you’d like to take my card, you could e-mail me a copy when it’s finished.”

“You bet,” I said, slipping the card into my pocket.

“SO WE DON’T KNOW ANYTHING NEW,” Lydia said. She was perched on the back of the toilet, watching me brush my teeth.

“Yes, we do,” I said, dribbling toothpaste down my chin. I leaned over to spit. “We know the names of the other girls who have had their funerals there.”

“What good does that do for us?”

“We look up those girls and find the one that looks like the ghost I keep seeing.”

Lydia reached down and absently spun the toilet paper roll. “But why does the ghost seem to be obsessed with you? Do you think this town house is haunted?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “According to Mimi, that dress was two years old. This neighborhood is newer than that.”

Lydia glanced up. “Unless…maybe she died here before construction started. Or during it?”

“Hm,” I said. “That’s worth looking into.”

“Alexis?” It was my mother’s voice. “Who are you talking to?”

“I’m on the phone!” I called.

“In the bathroom?” Mom asked. There was a longish pause. “Well, okay.”

Lydia cackled, so I grabbed my hairbrush and swung it lightly through her head. She recoiled, pressing her hands against her ears. “Not cool.”

She followed me into my bedroom and sat on my dresser while I pulled the covers back and got ready for bed. I looked up at her, wondering why she was still around. Before, she’d never stayed longer than an hour or two, but today she’d been hanging out all afternoon. And from the looks of things, she pla

I tried to keep my voice light. “So what is this—a slumber party?”

“Ha,” she said. “You wish you could have people as cool as me at your parties.”

I almost pointed out that she didn’t fall into the “people” category anymore, but I bit my tongue. No point in hurting her feelings. And then I realized—why should I care if she slept in my room? It was a billion times better than waking up to the superghost.

“All right, suit yourself.” I climbed under the covers and turned off the light.

A few minutes later, I still hadn’t fallen asleep. I was huddled under the blankets, covered all the way up to my eyes. I didn’t want any more rose petals brushing against my face.

I lifted the blankets away from my mouth. “Lydia?” I whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Nothing.” I flopped over and shut my eyes.

When I woke up in the morning, she was curled up asleep, hovering a foot above my dresser.

Lydia rode to school with me and split off once we got there, talking about some classes she wanted to sit in on. Apparently being dead can get a little dull, because Lydia hadn’t exactly been academically minded when she was alive, and now she was all over the curriculum.

I actually thought it was a pretty decent idea. Maybe she’d learn something useful.

After that afternoon’s yearbook meeting (twelve minutes long, for the record), I went to the parking lot and sat in my car, expecting her to show up. After waiting for ten minutes, I went home and gave the empty house a brief once-over, looking for her. She was nowhere to be found.

Well, no big deal. It’s not like you’re dying—no pun intended—to hang out with Lydia Small, I told myself.

As I pulled my phone out of my bag to charge it, I saw that I’d missed a call from Jared. I went into the kitchen and called him back from the landline, turning on the speakerphone and setting it on the counter while I made myself a snack.