Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,264

down the Flemings’ driveway to meet him, and he held me. I never figured we were close, but that moment helped me more than all the others. Holding him, I thought of Jack but also of Rourke and Rob, of their friendship, and I hoped in my heart that everything had been done for Jack that could have been done, but nonetheless I knew otherwise—and I started to cry.

Alongside Dr. Lewis is his wife, Micah, with Jim Peterson, from their band, and our old music teacher, Toby Parker. Dan’s babysitter, Bitsy, is wearing turquoise beads the size of golf balls. Dad and Marilyn are also on the left, back by the screened porch with Denny and Jeff and Denny’s mother, Elaine. Behind them, all the people standing. Mom’s friends take up two and a half rows on the right—Lowie and David; her handicapped friend, Lewis; Nargis; and several people I don’t recognize. Powell is there too, but separate. He’s standing at the end of the aisle in case he has to catch me.

I see teachers—Mr. McGintee and Principal Laughlin and Mrs. Kennedy and tons of people from high school—Alice Lee, Min Kessler, Marty Koch. Ray Trent and Mike Reynolds are there, and so is Dave Meese, who once borrowed fifty dollars from Jack and probably still owes it to him. Rocky Santiago and his wife, Laurie, who swam with dolphins on their honeymoon, are next to LizBeth Bennett, who worked at the movie house, who is standing with Rick Ruddle, the Outward Bound counselor from Portland. I never met Rick, but I know him from hiking pictures. Funerals are bizarre—Dino, one of the brothers from the pizza place who was always antagonizing Jack, is sitting next to Jack’s cousin, Monroe Fortesque. Monroe attended Phillips Academy in Andover, then Princeton. Jack called him “the Preppy Hangman.” I am horrified on Jack’s behalf to see Monroe there, all muggy and serious. Though Monroe is Jack’s relative, he is one of those types of relatives you never imagine when you are conceiving your own funeral. If Jack had thought in advance about the Preppy Hangman being invited, he probably would have looked down the barrel of the gun and said, Jesus, it’s enough to make a guy want to think about living.

I didn’t tell Mark about the service, so he is absent. But Alicia is there, standing in back. I smile at her, then I adjust the microphone so I can be heard. I want my voice to go far.

“The Teton Mountains are in northwest Wyoming. The highest peak there is 13,766 feet. I’ve never been to the Tetons, but I know the average annual temperature at night and the average rainfall in May because Jack wrote it all down on the leg of my favorite jeans. Every time I washed the jeans, he would rewrite everything. I’ve never been to Yosemite either, but I know there are granite domes that look like hooded monks and sequoia groves that stand like clusters of elephant legs. There are boreal forests in Wrangell–Saint Elias National Park in Alaska, and carpets of wildflowers on the banks of Lake Clark in Anchorage, and petroglyphs of bighorn rams near the Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.

“Jack buried a picture of me in the ancient Blackfoot hunting grounds on the Continental Divide in West Glacier, Montana, and also a silver fork I had as a baby with my name etched on it. He said it would keep my spirit safe. He drew a map for me to find the spot, in case I’m ever out that way.

“Elvis Presley’s ‘One Night with You’ was originally recorded in 1956 as ‘One Night of Sin’ by Smiley Lewis, the best rhythm and blues man New Orleans has ever seen. Jack never forgave Elvis for not giving Lewis credit. If you dared to suggest that it wasn’t Elvis’s fault, that in general he helped to popularize black music, Jack would say, ‘Bullshit. He should have done all the originals as B-sides.’

“Besides Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five,’ Trois Gymnopedies, Number 2 was Jack’s favorite piece to play on piano. It was written by Eric Satie in 1888 as an accompaniment to athletes. Jack’s favorite year in music history was 1959. In 1959, Miles Davis recorded ‘Kind of Blue’ with Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson did a version of Cole Porter’s ‘In the Still of the Night,’ which we would listen to whenever there was snow. If you happen to find a copy of that song,