Jacqueline Chou is a native New Yorker with a master’s degree in French Literature. She is currently working on a collection of short stories.
~~~
Anya studied Lenny’s face as he lay on the metal table. She had already airbrushed his face and neck with the lightest layer of what was known in the business as “Orange Juice,” disguising his death pallor as living flesh.
Lenny was slim, but had a weak jaw and receding chin, pudding cheeks and a prominent nose. Somehow, overall, it was not an unpleasant face. Lenny’s sister Marla had told Anya that he had been a lawyer. Maybe a tax lawyer, Anya thought to herself. He looks like an accountant.
His nakedness was hidden by a sheet, but Anya had already seen him: a white body that seemingly never saw the sun, soft, skinny arms and legs, and despite his relatively young age, a rounded paunch for a stomach with a line of black hair running down the middle of it.
She looked at the two photographs that were propped up against her canisters of brushes -- one of Lenny with his glasses on, one without. Marla was still undecided as to whether Lenny should be buried with his glasses on or not.
Anya exhaled, considering the indentations on either side of Lenny’s nose bridge. She reached for the molding wax from the tray. A small bit would fill in the hollows, and then she would re-do the areas with an extra coat of the OJ.
As she leaned over him, Lenny’s eyes opened.
Anya jumped. She had been a mortician for fourteen years, and was well-versed in the relaxation of muscles that caused a deceased person’s eyes to open. Still, the phenomenon never ceased to startle her.
She gazed at Lenny’s eyes, open yet unseeing.
Charon’s obols, Anya intoned aloud.
The ritual of placing coins on the eyes of the dead crossed civilizations and eras, Anya knew. In ancient Greece, the coins -- obols -- were placed on the eyes of the dead as payment to the ferryman, Charon, for the crossing of the river Styx over to the land of the dead.
But in other civilizations, the coins were used for a different purpose. In Victorian times, the purpose of the coins placed on the eyes was to prevent them from opening.
Obols no longer. Caps with tiny metal spikes were used now, placed underneath the eyelids. Once in a very blue moon, however, the caps didn’t work and a mortician would have to resort to the failsafe.
“Okay, Lenny, you’re apparently a superglue kind of guy.” Her tone was reassuring. Anya had a gentle bedside manner -- a Florence Nightingale of the dead, so to speak.
Indentations filled and sprayed, eyes glued shut, Anya now turned her attention to Lenny’s hair. Dark hair, thick on the sides, but deeply receding on the top. He had, though, a lonely island of hair in the expanse of baldness, a hairy tuft in the midst of a shiny crown. She was grateful to see in the photos that Lenny was not one to resort to the comb-over.
Anya had an aversion to comb-overs. She despised having to re-create that look.
Hair brushed and smoothed down with a touch of pomade.
“Nice, Lenny,” she said softly, with her head tilted at him. “You look great.”
Bobby swung through the door just then. He gestured toward Lenny with his head.
“His sister is here to view him.”
Anya glanced up at the wall clock.
“She’s early. Could you tell her it’ll be 20 more minutes? Actually, make it 30. And then come back in here and help me get him dressed.”
* * *
Marla gasped.
The two women stood over Lenny, Marla squeezing Anya’s arm tightly.
“He just looks like he’s sleeping.”
Anya nodded, pleased with her handiwork. She hesitated.
“He looks great in his suit, but I’m thinking -- do you want to switch out his tie? I’m thinking a red tie would --”
“No red.”
The brusqueness of her tone took Anya aback.
“Lenny was color blind,” Marla said flatly. “He couldn’t see shades of red.”
“Ohh.”
“And greens,” she added. “Greens were an issue, too.”
Protanopia, Marla said the word in her mind.
Her eyes turned to the floor. She had been 8. Mom came to pick her up from their neighbor Junga’s house. Junga and Marla had just put a tray of oatmeal cookies in the oven when Mom had arrived, 4-year-old Lenny in tow. They had just come back from the doctor’s.
Lenny’s eyes were red and swollen. He looked all sweaty, and was sniffling.
Post-tantrum. Marla had seen him like that countless times.
“The doctor said Lenny can’t see colors,” Mom explained to Marla later that night, after Lenny was tucked away and fast asleep.
“Well, he can’t see some colors,” Mom corrected herself.
“Which colors can’t he see?” And Mom explained. And she used that clinical term. Protanopia.
“We won't ever talk about colors in front of Lenny,” Mom concluded.
It was one of the many ridiculous decrees that Mom had made when she was alive.
“We won't ever talk about colors in front of Lenny? Like, ever?”
Mom nodded. “Not ever.”
“But I can see colors!”
“Hush, Marla! You’ll wake him.”
The next day, Mom took all of Lenny’s coloring books and crayons and put them in the back of Marla’s closet. And as much as Mom had coddled and fawned over Lenny before that diagnosis, it was even worse after. Every day was about what Lenny wanted to eat, how Lenny was feeling, what Lenny wanted to watch on tv.
Was it any wonder that Marla hated him?
One time Mom went out for a quick trip to the store, Lenny had done something that set Marla off. She couldn’t even remember what it was--maybe he knocked over one of her dolls, or some other equally trivial offense.
She started yelling at him, and he went running. She didn’t know how she got the idea, but she ran to her closet, and pulled out the box of Crayola 128 crayons. Box in hand, she stormed into Lenny’s room. Lenny took one look at her face, squeezed past her and ran to the living room.
Marla chased him down. Around the sofa, and knocking him to the floor. Lenny emitted an ‘unnnnhh” as Marla sat on his chest, squeezing the air out of him. Bearing all her weight down on him, she pulled a crayon out of the box and read its label.
“BURNT SIENNA!” Marla screamed, and she waved the crayon in front of his face.
“Aaaghhh!”
Marla tossed the crayon aside, and pulled out another.
“RAZZLE DAZZLE ROSE!”
“Stop!” Lenny struggled to break free.
“ELECTRIC LIME!”
Flailing arms and legs, he tried to punch and kick her, but he was such a weakling.
“OUTRAGEOUS ORANGE!”
Screeching. And more flailing.
“SCARLET!”
“MAAAA! MOMMEEEEEE!”
As if in response to Lenny’s cry, the sound of their mother’s keys in the door announced her return.
Marla sprung up, leaving Lenny sprawled on the floor, crayons strewn about him.
“Are you alright?” Anya’s voice jolted Marla back to the present.
Marla adjusted her eyes, pulling herself out of her reverie. “Yes, I’m fine.”
She looked once again at Lenny on the metal table and forced herself to continue.
“The side of his head. I don’t want to look at it closely. No one will be able to see?”
“It’s all filled in. I promise you; there’s no sign of it. His head looks intact.”
Marla looked away. “Thank you.” She paused, then, “I’m sure you did a great job, and I appreciate it.”
“It’s what we do. You’re all ready for tomorrow then?”
Marla shook her head. “I still haven’t written the eulogy.”
Anya nodded. “It’s hard.
“Just speak from your heart.”
“Yes.” Marla clutched at her handbag. The room was starting to feel claustrophobic.
“I guess I’d better go now. Thank you again.”
“We want to make the process as easy for you as we can.”
Marla headed toward the swinging door. She stopped, just before pushing through, and turned around.
“What -- what did you use to fill in the side of his head?”
Anya hesitated.
“We use plaster.” Her tone was apologetic.
Marla nodded. Without a further word, she pushed through the door and was gone.
* * *
Just speak from the heart. The problem was that Marla didn’t know what was in her heart for her little brother. Difficult, hypersensitive Lenny. Perhaps she was being unfair. He had been on the spectrum, and he couldn’t have helped that.
What could she say about him?
28 years old, had no close friends that she knew of, had never been in a relationship. As far as she knew, he spent his time reading law articles and computer journals. His social life consisted of an online chess club, playing rounds with people he would never know or meet.
Marla sat in front of her laptop, her fingers decidedly not engaged in typing out a eulogy.
Not many people would miss him. She didn’t even know if she herself would miss him. To be sure, it would be a very small funeral: some cousins, aunts and uncles. People from Lenny’s work.
Why was she holding a funeral at all? Because Mom would have wanted it that way. And as much as Marla’s predominant feeling toward her mother was a bewildered resentment, she still felt obligated.
Come on, Marla, think of something good to say about Lenny.
She rifled through her memories of him, trying to find something. For some reason, she kept remembering Lenny when he was young.
He was five when he started kindergarten with the regular kids. One day, about a month in, Mom and Marla were waiting outside the school. Lenny came through the double metal doors, holding a couple of autumn leaves in his hand.
“Teacher gave us,” he said, showing Mom and Marla. He was holding the leaves by the stem, not wanting to break the leaf parts.
“Very pretty, Lenny!” Mom exclaimed.
Lenny carried them so carefully as they walked home.
“That one is red, Lenny. And the other one is red golden,” Marla whispered to him, as Mom walked ahead of them, looking in a shop window.
“Fall leaves turn colors, Lenny, and they’re so pretty. Reds, and oranges, and yellows. They’re beautiful.”
She was using her big-sister tone, pretending she just wanted to teach her little brother. A part of her, though, wanted him to know that he was missing something, something that other people could see. She wanted him to know he was missing beauty. And she wanted him to know he was different.
Lenny didn’t say anything. He just listened to her, and then looked back at the leaves in his hand.
He was gentle, Marla concluded. There wasn’t a mean bone in his body.
And she began to type.
* * *
Teresa reached the beginning of the receiving line, and extended her hand to the fair-skinned, dark-haired woman before her.
“I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Marla responded, grasping Teresa’s hand in return. “How did you know my brother?”
“I was his secretary.”
A beat of silence.
“Well, thank you for coming. Our family thanks you.”
Murmurs of civilities, then Teresa moved on and took a seat. As she adjusted her skirt beneath her, a pivotal memory of Lenny floated into her consciousness:
“Cornucopia.”
Teresa had been assigned to Lenny in January of last year: it was October now, so she had worked with him for over a year and a half. She had been brand new to the firm, and had no idea of Lenny’s reputation. Barth, the HR gentleman, had couched things in broad terms.
Sitting across from her at his desk, he looked down at her paperwork.
Smiling blandly, he said, “I see that you’re a self-described hard worker. That is great. We’ve got an excellent match for you here. Lenny Detweiler. Junior associate. He’s someone who really appreciates a hard worker. A worker who’s willing to put their nose to the grindstone.”
Appreciates a hard worker. “Appreciates” turned out to be more than a stretching of a phrase. It was a goddamn lie.
Teresa had worked at other law firms. She had enough experience to know that expectations and tasks could vary from attorney to attorney, but no one had ever asked her to do as much as Lenny had. Getting snacks from the cafeteria, ordering his lunch, picking it up from the lobby when it arrived. He worked late most nights, and expected her to do the same.
And his drafting, and re-drafting, and re-re-drafting. There was something OCD about it. It wasn’t normal. And he would insist that Teresa work late without warning. She never got to see Angel anymore. It got to the point where Teresa had to ask her mother to pick up Angel from school almost every day, and to make him dinner, too.
Teresa would often come around 10 p.m., long after her baby was asleep. She would eat a small dinner, collapse in bed, then wake up at 6 a.m., drop Angel off with Titi who would take him to school, and she would do the 2-hour commute all over again.
Teresa was exhausted, but she wanted to make good. She wanted to show the company that she was a good worker.
That first winter and spring were a blur. Summer came, and Teresa looked forward to a slowing down of pace, as would customarily happen at law firms. She could spend more time with Angel, and make it up to him. But work never slowed down with Lenny. He was working on several big mergers, and actually started asking Teresa to come in on weekends. And then the weather began to cool again. Fall passed, and soon it would be Christmas.
Christmas bonus. Teresa looked forward to it. Lawyers would usually give the Christmas bonus the first week of December. At her previous jobs, Teresa would get somewhere between $1500 to $2500. She couldn’t wait to have that money. Angel needed a new winter coat, and new sneakers. Also, his letter to Santa said he wanted a new bike, and a tablet. And Teresa wanted to buy her Mama a new tv. Just a small one, but good quality. Mama loved all the reality housewives shows, and watching la Santa Misa on the Catholic TV channel.
As for herself, if there was money left over after catching up on bills, maybe she could buy a new handbag.
That first week in December, in her first year of working for Leonard M. Detweiler: Monday came, and nothing. Tuesday came, and also nothing. Wednesday and Thursday followed suit.
Friday, she thought to herself, probably at the end of the day.
Midday on Friday, Teresa returned to the office with a large paper bag that held Lenny’s lunch: a plain hamburger and a baked potato. As she was passing her desk to bring Lenny his food, she spied a medium-sized box on her desk. Gold colored, with a thick red and gold ribbon.
A box of Godiva chocolates.
She placed Lenny’s bag of lunch on her chair. Next to the Godiva box was a card, unsealed. Teresa pulled out the card and read it.
“Thank you for all your hard work.”
Was that it? Teresa looked in the envelope to see if there was a check inside, and then lifted the Godiva box, to see if there was a check underneath it. Nothing.
She picked up Lenny’s bag of lunch and walked into his office. At his desk, leaning over some papers, he looked up at her.
“There’s a cornucopia on your desk.”
Teresa emitted a barely audible sound. She dropped the lunch bag on his desk and walked back out.
Then she went straight to the bathroom, locked herself into a stall, and cried.
* * *
Teresa was good. When Lenny said good, he meant that there was nothing about Teresa that made that invisible metal rod in his body go tense and send jolts of pain through his nerves.
That first secretary. Her voice had that terrible metallic quality that hurt his ears. She lasted five weeks.
The second secretary, her voice was okay but she had a terrible laugh. It was just awful, and she would laugh so frequently. Lenny couldn’t work, bracing himself for the sound of that hideous cackle.
Teresa’s voice was soft and low. It didn’t hurt his ears. It was low, but not too low that he couldn’t hear what she was saying, like that temp Barth had once assigned to him. That temp was very agitating. She didn’t last long, either.
And Teresa wore makeup, but the colors were soft. He could tell she wore lipstick, but it must’ve been some neutral shade, because it looked okay.
There had been one temp -- or was it a secretary that quit after a week? -- that wore a bad shade of lipstick. It must have been a shade of red, because to Lenny it looked like her lips were greenish-brown. And she wore that same shade of lipstick every day. It made her look like a zombie.
A grotesque talking zombie.
Lenny started to worry that she would give him nightmares at night, so he had to ask for a new secretary. Again.
And the next secretary-- or was it a temp?-- that they sent him had red-dyed hair. It looked greenish-brown to him, but not the same shade of greenish-brown as the previous secretary’s lips. No, this shade of greenish-brown was cartoonish, kind of like a cartoon villainess.
Like an evil sea queen.
Lenny found that kind of fun. She wasn’t smart, and she wouldn’t work late, but her voice and her laugh and her makeup were okay. The smell of her was okay, too. Lenny didn’t want to be picky. He wanted to try to work with her.
But the feeling had not been mutual: she quit after seven weeks. Barth from HR said that in her exit interview, the evil sea queen said that Lenny was “overly demanding and weird.”
“Not creepy,” Barth emphasized, as if it were a critical distinction. “She didn’t say ‘creepy’. She said ‘weird.’”
Lenny nodded emphatically, but his mind had already drifted off. Then Barth droned on about how HR really wanted to find Lenny a good fit, that the partners were extremely happy with his work, and impressed with his critical thinking and his understanding of the law. They could see a great future for him at the firm. . .
Barth. Why is his name Barth? Is it short for Bartholomew?
Lenny looked at the name placard that rested on Barth’s desk.
It read, “Barth Eubanks.” Not conclusive, Lenny thought to himself. A placard doesn’t necessarily carry one’s official name. Not necessarily one’s birth certificate name.
But why would anyone agree to be called Barth? It sounded too close to “barf.”
Barth had stopped speaking, and was looking at Lenny expectantly.
Did he just ask me a question?
Lenny suddenly realized he felt lonely. The loneliness was always there, but most times the loneliness was just a backdrop. In high school, the counselor had made him join the drama club. The kids in drama club didn’t like him, though, and only gave him non-speaking roles. Roles that didn’t have names, like, “guy on street.”
The art class had created scenery for one of the plays: an oversized canvas upon which they did a rudimentary painting of a city street. Lenny was supposed to stand in front of the painted bus stop sign, saying nothing, while the main actors spoke their parts. Lenny’s loneliness was like that canvas backdrop. Always present, even when he wasn’t paying attention to it. But in odd moments, he would become conscious of it. It was always there.
Lenny was so lonely.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, is there anything you can think of that would help us find a better fit for you?”
There was a pane of unbreakable glass between Lenny and the rest of the world. Lenny wasn’t sure if he was behind the glass looking out, or he was outside the glass, looking in. Maybe it didn’t matter. Either way, he was effectively alone.
“Nothing I can think of. If I can think of anything, I will tell you, Barth.”
It definitely sounded like barf.
He shook Barth’s hand. “Thank you.”
Two or three temps later, Teresa walked through the door. Gentle, with a pleasant voice. A hard worker. She didn’t even mind working late! Time chugged along, and before he knew it, almost an entire year had gone by.
In early November, HR had sent a memo to all the associates. The subject line was “Holiday Bonuses.” The email reminded the associates of the custom of giving a monetary gift to their assistant. The email included a financial table, conveying suggested amounts based on years of service.
Lenny looked at the schedule, and saw that the recommended amount for one-year secretary was $1500 to $2000. Lenny didn’t like that. In addition to his color blindness, Lenny had an additional problem with green: he didn’t like parting with it.
His eyes zeroed in on the words, “suggested monetary gift.” “Suggested” was the key word. The Christmas bonus was only a suggestion. He could get Teresa something else. Mom used to like chocolate, he remembered. Marla liked it, too.
Chocolate was a good choice.
* * *
Lenny wondered if something had happened to Teresa over the holidays. She had taken the week off from Christmas Eve until the day after New Year’s Day, and afterward she seemed different. Reserved. And she didn’t smile at him anymore.
It did not occur to him to ask her if anything was wrong.
Another thing that happened after the New Year’s: Barth called him in again.
After some pleasantries about the holidays, Barth leaned back in his chair, with the long glass windows overlooking mid-Manhattan behind him.
“Things still working out with Teresa?”
“Good, yes. Good.”
“Great. That’s great news. One thing I’d like to mention to you. Do you ask Teresa to run up to the cafeteria for you? Run out to get you lunch?”
Lenny nodded.
“It might be better to refrain from doing that. It’s not really in the job description, and some people don’t feel comfortable saying no when you ask them to do it.”
“Oh.”
That was all Lenny said. He had the beginning of a vague wonder if Teresa had gone to Barth with that complaint, but the wondering didn’t rise to the surface and express it itself as an articulated question.
“That’s all,” Barth said, leaning forward to stand up. He didn’t mention to Lenny that Teresa had come to HR in tears, telling him about the box of Godiva chocolate. Nor did he mention that the firm gave Teresa a $2000 holiday bonus from the discretionary fund.
Lenny stood up, too. “Okay.”
* * *
Lenny wasn’t sure, but he suspected that the change in Teresa made him feel sad. Months went by like that. Teresa sat at the desk outside his office as she always had, but somehow she seemed much further away. He had no idea that after the holidays, Teresa had requested a transfer, and that Barth had told her he would let her know as soon as another position became available.
Lenny didn’t know that she was just biding her time. Teresa was giving herself until June. If no position became available by June, she would start sending out her resume.
In late May, Teresa was at her desk eating lunch.
“What is that?”
Teresa looked up from her Tupperware and saw Lenny standing in his doorway, pointing at her food.
She looked down at her food, and then back at Lenny.
“You mean this?” she asked, gesturing. “You mean my lunch?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“It’s ropa vieja. And rice and beans.”
Lenny took some steps closer and leaned in to look.
“It smells good. “Is it -- is it brown?”
“Is it brown?” Teresa’s eyes and brows scrunched. “What do you mean, ‘is it brown?’ ”
Lenny pointed to the rice. “That’s white rice. That and that -- are they really brown?”
She still didn’t understand, but she pointed too. “That’s beef. Shredded beef. It’s brown. And those are beans. I guess they’re pinkish brown.”
Epiphany: “Lenny, are you color blind?”
He nodded.
She remembered the lunches she used to order and pick up for him: well-done hamburger and baked potato; tuna fish on wheat bread; pork chop and rice.
And then it clicked.
“Do you only eat brown and white foods?”
He nodded again.
He remained there, unmoving. The expression on his face was not unlike Angel’s, when he tugged on her arm to wake her early on a Saturday morning, asking for pancakes. And although Teresa was roughly the same age as Lenny, her maternal instincts kicked in.
“Would you like to try some, Lenny?”
“Please.”
Teresa stood up. “I’ll get you a plate from the pantry.”
She came back moments later, with a paper plate, plastic fork, knife and spoon. Lenny waited as Teresa scooped out half of the food from her Tupperware. She pulled the spare chair from the far wall and placed it along the short side of her desk.
“Sit. Eat with me.”
Lenny sat down, and Teresa watched as Lenny used his knife to shove shreds of beef and rice onto his fork. He brought the fork to his mouth and cautiously tasted it.
“Well?”
A happy gurgling sound came from his throat.
“It’s really good.”
“See? I’m a good cook, right?”
“Yes.”
They ate in silence, focusing on the soft, savory beef, the firm creaminess of the beans.
Then: “Lenny, I don’t understand. If you only eat brown and white food, how do you get proper nutrition? It’s not healthy.”
“I take multivitamins. They’re brown.”
And Teresa laughed. She looked right at him when she laughed, her eyes bright and soft.
And in that moment, something changed. There would always be a pane of glass between Lenny and the rest of the world. But in that moment, it wasn’t a case of Lenny looking out, or Teresa looking in.
It was just two people seeing each other.
* * *
There had been times in his life when people would ask him about his food choices. It would make him frightened and defensive. But Teresa’s questions didn’t make him feel that way.
“Can you see yellow food? How about orange?”
“If things look green, will you eat them?”
“Why don’t you wear those special glasses for color blindness? I read that they really work.”
She listened to his answers -- which were sometimes nonsensical, sometimes circular -- and would just nod. She understood that Lenny was Lenny, and she did what she could to help.
She made a game of it. Time was tight: working full time, taking care of Angel, and taking Mama to the doctor and to physical therapy. And she had started taking online courses at night to finish her bachelor’s. Still, she tried to cook for Lenny at least once a week.
Things that were brown and white.
And when the headhunter called in August, saying that he had an interesting opportunity for her, Teresa told him she was no longer looking to move. Lenny was still awkward and demanding, and unintentionally rude. And he always wanted her to work late.
But she realized she was fond of him.
And she learned to say no, when she needed to. It’s a good lesson for me, she reminded herself. I need to learn to not be a pushover.
And as annoying as Lenny could still be, he was quite sweet. Every several weeks, he would buy her a large box of Godiva chocolates. He would place a post-it on it, writing in block letters that pressed too hard into the paper:
“Thank you for the brown and white food.”
She could never tell if he was being funny, or if he was just being Lenny.
One afternoon in mid-October, Teresa popped her head into his office.
“Lenny, I’m going to take Thursday and Friday of next week off, okay?”
“Why?”
“It’s Angel’s seventh birthday! We’re going to have a party for him on Saturday, and I have tons to do to prepare.”
“Okay.”
She smiled, and popped her head back out.
Lenny didn’t like it when Teresa wasn’t there. It wasn’t just the disruption of routine that bothered him. It wasn’t just that he never knew which temp they would assign to him-- there was one that wore some strong perfume that smelled like musk. It was very disturbing. She smelled like some small furry animal that lived deep in the forest. He could smell her even if he closed his door all the way.
It was that Teresa’s presence soothed him.
Still. It was good that Teresa was having a party for her little boy.
Then one of those vague almost-thoughts that Lenny sometimes had about other people actually pushed its way to the surface:
A present for Angel.
Chocolate? Little boys liked chocolate. But Teresa had told him just last week, “No more chocolate, Lenny! Please!”
She was laughing when she said it, but he thought maybe she really meant it.
What present, then?
And then, what for Lenny was virtually unprecedented, another almost-thought surfaced in his consciousness, and became fully formed. Two in a row!
Money.
Give Teresa money to buy Angel presents. And to make a nice party.
Lenny stood up, grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. Citibank was just three blocks away.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m going to the bank.”
“Okey dokey.”
* * *
Standing in front of the ATM, Lenny stared at the “Amount” screen.
How much?
He hesitated for a moment, and then pressed the $200 button. He listened to the internal whirring of the money counter, followed by the flicking sound of the money being dispensed. Lenny pulled his card out, took the bills and started to walk away.
More. More for Teresa. And Angel.
He turned around and inserted his card into the machine once more, and withdrew another $300. As he walked to the door, he folded all the bills in half, and pushed them down into his jacket front pocket. His fingertips grazed a couple of coins that jingled at the bottom. Maybe he would give those to Angel, too. Little kids liked coins, he thought.
On that beautiful sunny day in October, Lenny Detweiler was one block away from his office building, feeling the brisk air in his nostrils and on his face.
Teresa Reyes is my friend, he thought to himself. The thought made him feel different inside. Like there was a light glowing inside him.
One might have even called it happiness.
And he walked, that new feeling and the cold air invigorating him. Almost back at the office building now. A tree planted at the midpoint of the next block caught Lenny’s eye. Its leaves were curled and dry, perhaps ready to soon fall off.
What color are the leaves, he wondered. What color are they, really?
Lenny was staring at the tree. He didn’t see the Food Emporium truck turning the corner just as he stepped off the curb for his very last time.
* * *
The funeral parlor was emptying now. Teresa had been one of the first to leave: they had already assigned her to a new attorney, and she was late returning to the office. She walked as far as the corner, but then doubled back.
The funeral director woman was there, just inside the entrance, watching the last attendants straggle out.
“I’d like to see Lenny again. Is that okay?”
“Of course. Take your time.”
Teresa walked up to the front of the room to where Lenny lay. The overhead light beamed down on his face.
“Lenny,” she said softly.
Teresa guessed that Lenny was an atheist. That was okay: Teresa had enough faith for the both of them. She wanted to believe in Heaven, and she wanted to believe that Lenny Detweiler, her quirky, vulnerable, and lonely friend was there now.
He was there, and he was marveling at the technicolor purples, reds, oranges, yellows, greens and blues of the flowers and trees, the birds and rivers and waterfalls that he never got to see when he was alive. So many colors, explosive and triumphant.
Teresa smiled at the idea of Lenny seeing all those colors.
She leaned over him, and rested her hand on his chest.
Then Teresa spoke, in a voice so soft that only the dead could hear.
“See you in the next life, my friend.”
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