Free The Learners: A Novel (No Series) by Chip Kidd Page A

I mean, how hard is that to figure out? It only—oh. Oh God.
    AREA WOMAN, 25, FOUND DEAD
    Carbon Monoxide
Poisoning Suspected.
    GUILFORD.—The body of a twenty-five-year-old female identified as Himillsy Dodd, daughter of Wesley and Sandra Dodd, was discovered unconscious at the wheel of her 1960 Corvair convertible in the garage of her parents’ home at 302 Cobblefield Lane Friday evening. Officials believe she started the engine at approximately six o’clock and was overcome by fumes before she could raise the garage’s door. Attempts to revive her proved unsuccessful. Miss Dodd was pronounced dead at New Haven Hospital at 8:41 pm. Services are to be held at Christ Episcopal Church, 11 am. Saturday.
    No. No no no no no. A traffic accident. Jesus. She did get the story wrong.
    Just not wrong enough.
    This was impossible. There was no sign, none. I would have picked it up, I would have, I would have. I replayed our lunch together, over and over. There was melancholy, yes, but that was standard for her. She promised she would see me again. You don’t say you’re going to see someone again soon, you don’t promise it, and then do this. It’s not right it’s not right.
    Not if I see you first.
    The floor. It was slowly rising, taking up my legs, my body, my arms, my head. My useless brain. Take me up. Take it all. My unused ten percent.

    I’d never been to a funeral before. Well, once. For Grandma, the only living grandparent I’d ever known—Dad’s mom, widowed for decades—a sweet and generous woman who looked like an older version of Dad in a wig. Died in her sleep at eighty-five. I was fourteen. The service was, naturally, a serious, head-bowed affair; but it wasn’t as if everyone was wailing like banshees. The talk was a veritable orgy of reassurance. She lived a good, long life. What a wonderful family she left. Gone to her reward. She’s with Iden again, God bless. Do you have a map to the reception? During the homily, my peripheral vision caught Dad’s eyes discreetly leaking, his hands slowly wrestling each other to a draw. I stared straight ahead at the cross of lilies. Afterward, at the Young Republican’s Club, there was punch and cookies. And stingers.
    But I suspected this funeral, in Guilford, was going to be something else entirely. I had no idea.
    After a short struggle with myself over whether or not to go, I then gave in: I just had to. It was my last chance to…to what? See her? No. Too late. But—and I know how this sounds—it would be…Oh God…the last thing we’d ever do together.

    On Saturday morning I stepped with no little uncertainty from the bus onto the sidewalk adjoining the Guilford green, a large expanse of lawn and trees which could have been a life-size version of a New England town for a Lionel train set. A wilting August day, already 85 in the shade, and my navy wool suit clung to me like moss. I took a deep lungful of the wet velvet air, as the cicadas in the massive corridors of elms swelled it thick with their modulated, invisible electricity.
    And then I noticed the cars. Lincolns, Cadillacs, Studebakers, a Packard, a Mercury, a smart little MGA, a Corvette convertible. All lining the green and dotted with white mums, like ivory buttons on blazer sleeves. A sick feeling bloomed in me. This is real. This is really happening. These cars are here and they have flowers taped onto them because Himillsy is dead. I gulped another heavy breath, caught my balance.
    Formally dressed couples struggled out of identical Ford woody station wagons, slowly, from either the weight of the occasion or the heat or both. Sunglasses and ebony wing tips, black linen shifts, pillbox hats with veils, elbow gloves, obsidian patent leather purses the size and shape of bricks suspended from spaghetti straps. I joined their wordless caravan, trying to convince myself I belonged among them. Absurd. The cozy Grover’s Corners perfection of the buildings surrounding the park—Dowden’s