Denise and I both stayed out of school on Friday. I had my tea with me, and made sure I didn't miss my daily cup. By now I had breasts like little half-apples, and no longer needed padding to fill my bra. They weren't big breasts, but they were mine, and I hoped the tea would keep them growing.

My aunt had her arm around me a lot that day. I was still in shock. I'd never seen a dead person, let alone touched one. Is there any disease you can catch from touching a dead person? My skin crawled. I washed my hands a dozen times, but I could still feel that cold, clammy skin and see those open, empty eyes. I couldn't get his slack-jawed face out of my mind.

We met up with Alice and Denise at the hospital. I don't know why the ambulance had to take Mr. Bruce there at all. I mean, he was already dead! But I didn't dare say anything. An autopsy was going to be done; the police came to ask me and Alice questions, and they wrote down everything I said. Poor Alice! She looked so pale and small, and she didn't even react when the tall policeman mistook her for the high-school girl who'd found the body.

I did a lot of sighing.

The four of us stayed together. We went back to Alice's house, and helped her make phone calls. Each of us ran home briefly to get pajamas and overnight bags. While I was there, I called my mother and told her what happened. She asked me to call her back before I went to bed.

Denise and I cooked dinner while Aunt Jane helped Alice get through plans and papers. Several times Alice broke down, and once she ran from the room to sob alone in her bedroom for an hour. Aunt Jane kept plowing through, making calls, checking things off a list.

"How old was he?" I asked Denise softly.

"Fifty-three," she said. "Alice is thirty-one, like me and your aunt."

"Wow," I said.

"Yeah," Denise said. "Twenty-two years difference. She was twenty-one when they got married, so they've been together ten years. They were a nice couple too. He was never as rough and tough as he pretended to be." She smiled. "He was a big old pussycat, and he was nuts about Alice. They were crazy about each other."

"They never had kids," I observed.

"They tried. Alice had two miscarriages. Don't mention that or children, if you can help it."

"Okay," I promised.

After dinner, Denise insisted I help her clean and organize the refrigerator and freezer. I soon saw why. People kept stopping by, dropping off meals. Denise kept a list of who brought what, of which container or dish had to be returned, and she sorted the foods into fridge or freezer. "No more cooking for a while," she said.

Denise and I both stayed out of school on Friday. I spent a good part of the day cleaning the house. I had my tea with me, and made sure I didn't miss my daily cup. By now I had breasts like little half-apples, and no longer needed padding to fill my bra. They weren't big breasts, but they were mine, and I hoped the tea would keep them growing.

Alice sat or wandered around, pale as a ghost. Periodically she'd hug me and dig her head into my shoulder, soaking me with tears. I wasn't sure what to do or say. I just held her.

Aunt Jane kept finding papers that needed doing, people who needed notifying. She was constantly adding and crossing things off a big list, making phone calls. Most of the time she'd say she was Alice, so Alice didn't have to talk. At one point Jane mentioned to me (while rubbing her red eyes) that she was pushing to get as much done as possible before the weekend, when offices wouldn't be open.

For lunch, we ate some eggplant parmesan that someone had brought. The eggplant was kind of crunchy, but we ate it anyway. It didn't taste very good, but it filled us up. After lunch, Jane sent me to make some copies, buy some stamps, and send some letters. I also had to send some faxes from the copy place. I'd never done that before, so the copy guy helped me. He was tall and gangly, with long spidery fingers.

While the fax machine was making noises and doing its thing, he asked, "Skipping school today?"

"Kind of," I replied.

He nodded. "A bad girl, huh?" I realized then that he was hitting on me.

"No, I'm a good girl."

"Ah." He nodded again, with a knowing look. "And being good takes practice, right?"

I grabbed the documents. "Is this finished now?"

"Yeah," he replied. "All you have to do is pay." We walked to the cash register.

"How much is it?" I asked.

"Your phone number," he replied.

"What?"

"Your phone number," he repeated.

"Um, look," I said. "I'm way too young for you, and anyway I already have a boyfriend."

"Okay," he said. "No harm in trying. Your total for the copies and the fax is $2.16."

After I paid, he said, "When you outgrow your boyfriend, come on back. You know where to find me."

"Sleezeball," I muttered when I reached the sidewalk.

Alice stood or sat, unmoving, looking like a little lost girl. We took turns hugging her, making her tea, and listening to her talk incoherently about Donny. I tried to take her for a walk, but she cried every couple of steps, so we turned back.

Aunt Jane pulled out every document in the house and went through it, organizing Alice's affairs. I thought this was kind of pushy of Aunt Jane, but Mr. Bruce had handled all the finances, and Alice had no idea of what was what. Jane made several lists: the monthly bills, bank and other accounts, debts, insurance, everything. On Friday she had managed to get most of it changed into Alice's name, or at least got the process going. On Saturday she figured out what money Alice would be getting from insurance, pension, and so on, and she worked out a budget. I was pretty impressed.

"It's a lot of work when somebody dies!" she told me, when we were alone for a moment. "Thank God Donny kept good records!"

"Are you almost done?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I'm doing what I can now. A lot will come up in the months ahead. Plus she's got to learn how to do it herself."

The wake was set for Monday evening, and the cremation for Tuesday morning. Aunt Jane told me I'd be in school Monday, but I'd get out Tuesday. She asked if I minded staying at Alice's house for the week. "To get all these days off, I had to take some night shifts. After the funeral I won't be able to be here, but Alice isn't going to want to be alone for a while."

Of course I agreed.