Jody loves Tristen

Jill

I BURIED MY FATHER the day after my seventeenth birthday.                                                        Even the sun was cruel that morning, an obscenely bright but cold January day. The snow that smothered the cemetery glared harshly white, blinding those mourners who couldn't squeeze undre the tent that covered Dad's open grave. And the tent itself gleamed crisply, relentlessly white, so it hurt a little to look at that, too.

    Hurt a lot, actually.

  Against this inappropriately immaculate backdrop, splashes of black stood relief, like spatters of ink on fresh paper: the polished hearse that glittered at the head of the procession, the minister's perfectly ironed shirt, and the sober coats worn by my father's many friends and colleagues, who came up one by one after the service to offer Mom and me their deepest condolences.

    Maybe I saw it all in terms of color because I'm an artist. Or maybe I was just too overwhelmed to deal with anything but extremes. Maybe my grief was so raw that the whole world seemed severe and discordant and clashing.

 I don't remember a word the minister said, but he seemed to talk forever. And as the gathering began to break up, I, yesterday's birthday girl, stood there under the tent fidgeting in my own uncomfortable, new black dress and heavy wool coat, on stage like some perverse debutante at world's worst coming-out party.                                                                                                 I looked to my mother for support, for help, but her eyes seemed to yawn as vacant as Dad's waiting grave. I swear, meeting Mom's gaze was almost as painful as lookin at the snow, or the casket, or watching the endless news reprts about my father's murder.                                   Mom was disappearing, too......                                                                                               Feeling something close to panic, I searched the crowd.                                                         Who would help me now?                                                                                                   I wasn't ready to be an adult.....                                                                                         Was I really........alone?                                                                                                   Even my only friend, Allison Baker, had begged off from the funeral, protesting that she had a big civics test, which she'd already rescheduled twice because of travel for cheerleding. And, more to the point, she just "couldn't handle" seeing my poor, murdered father actually shoved in the ground.                                                                                                         I looked around for my chemistry teacher, Mr. Schmidt, whom I'd seen earlier lingering on the fringes of the mourners, looking nervous and out of place, but I couldn't find him, and as I assumed that he'd returned to school, without a word to me.                                                 Alone.                                                                                                                             I was alone.                                                                                                                     Or maybe I was worse than alone, because just when I thought things coukdn't get more awful, my classmate Ashley Goldburne emerged from the crowd, strode up, and thrust her chilly hand into mine, air-kissing my cheek. And even this gesture, which I knew Ashlry offered more out of obligation than compassion, came across like the victors's condescending acknowlegement of the vanquished. When Ashley said, "So sorry for your loss Jody," I swore it was almost like she was congratulating herself for still having parents. Like she'd bested me once more, as she had time and agai since kidnergarten.

       "Thanks," I said stupidly, like i  genuinely appreciated being worthy of pity.                               "Call me if you need anything," Ashley offered. Yet I noticed that she didn't jot down her cell number. Didn't even reach into her purse and feign looking for a pen.                                         "Thanks" I said again.                                                                                                       Why was I always acting grateful for nothing?                                                                            "Sure," Ashley said, already looking around for an escape route.

As she walked away, I watched her blond hair gleaming like a golden trophy in that too-brilliant sun, and the lonliness and des[air that had been building in me rose to a crescendo that was so powerful I wasn't quite sure how I managed to keep my knees from buckling. Not one real friend there for me...

That's when I noticed Tristen Hyde standing at the edge of the tent. He wore a very adult, tailored overcoat, unbuttoned, and I could see that he had donned a tie, too, for this occasion. He had his hands buried in his pockets, gesture that I first took as signaling discomfort, unease. I mean, what teenage guy wouldn't be uncomfortable at a funeral? And I hardly knew Tristen. It wasn't like we wer friends. He'd certainly never met my father.                                        Yet there he was, when almost nobody else had shown up for me.                                           Why? Why had he come?

When Tristen saw that i'd noticed him, he pulled his hands from his pockets, and I realized that he wasn't uneasy at all. In fact, as he walked toward me, I got the impression that he'd just been waiting, patiently, for his turn. For the right time to approach me.                                         And what a time he picked. It couldn't have been more dead on.

"It's gonna be okay," he promised as he came up to me, reaching out to take my arm, like he realized that i was folding up inside, on the verge of breaking down.                                                  I looked up at him, mutely shaking my head in the negative.                                                  No, it was not going to be okay.                                                                                          He could not promise that.                                                                                                Nobody could. Certainly not some kid from my high school, even a tall one dressed convincingly like a full-fledged man.

I shook my head more vehemently, tears welling in my eyes.                                                         "Trust me," he said sofly, his British accent soothing. He squeezed my arm harder. "I know what I'm talking about."