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painful?”
    â€œYou have no idea.” I pulled down my sleeves and tried to ignore the burning pain from even that light friction.
    â€œSpeaking of Matt, have you heard from him lately?” Mom asked.
    This was turning out to be the million-dollar question. I shook my head.
    â€œCan’t say I’m disappointed. Matt is a boy with . . .”—she bit her lower lip—“bad intentions, I think. The more distance between you two, the better.”
    But I would never distance myself from Matt. And Mom knew it.
    You could tell by the fear in her eyes.
    While my mother supervised a wake, I ate a quick dinner of chicken soup and PB and J at the kitchen table, accidentally dotting my calculus homework with sticky purple spots of jam that I tried in vain to erase. Then I washed the dishes and waited for everyone to file out into the crisp October air, chatting amicably as they stepped into their cars and sped off.
    It was my job to clear away the coffee cups and cake crumbs afterward, to refresh the tissue boxes and wipe the bathroom sinks and run the carpet sweeper everywhere, from the Serenity to the Eternity parlors, with a stop in between to dust Paradise. Only when those duties were finished was I free to escape to the prep room.
    â€œHey, Lil!” Boo said, turning off her radio. “Perfect timing. I was just about to come upstairs and get you.”
    Boo had come straight from working in the hairsalon, so she was still in her professional clothes: a red faux-leather miniskirt, black fishnet stockings, and fabulous studded suede boots. Her blond hair had been tinted purple at the ends to match the amethyst stud in her nose. It kind of clashed with the red, but I liked that, and the
K
in
Karma
that peeked out from the cleavage of her white blouse.
    â€œI did what I could. It wasn’t easy.” Boo waved to Erin, stretched out on the steel table, her autopsy incisions neatly sewed. She was so thoroughly preserved in formaldehyde that her corpse emitted the slightly vinegary smell reminiscent of those fetal pig dissections we did in bio. It burned the insides of my nostrils.
    It was odd to see Erin this plasticized and defenseless, her newly washed red hair in a halo around her vacant face, her mouth glued into a pleasant smile. On closer examination, I noticed her inner thighs were riddled with scars, as were her waist and breasts.
    Weird.
    Boo pointed to Erin’s left hand, which was permanently positioned over her right now that the embalming fluid had hardened them in place. “As you can see, she’s in need of a manicure. I thought it only fitting that you do the honors.”
    The crimson polish was chipped and the police hadcut all her pointed nails to nubs. My arm throbbed in memory.
    â€œThink you can handle this?” Boo asked gently.
    â€œSure,” I said, getting out the blow-dryer. “Do you want to do hair or makeup?”
    Boo chose makeup—Mary Kay cosmetics, since she couldn’t stand the morticians’ gunk—while I did Erin’s hair, blowing it dry, setting it, and brushing out the copper curls. We worked silently in unison, performing an ancient ritual that Graveses have done for generations.
    When everything was sprayed into place, I brought out the polish remover, wiped off the crimson, and filed what was left of her ragged nails into blunt harmlessness. Then I painted them an insipid pink.
    Boo massaged almond-scented lotion over Erin’s skin to keep it dewy-soft. We tacked on underwear and a bra before slicing open the back and arms of a delicate white cashmere turtleneck sweater the Donohues brought to cover their daughter’s body. Then we did the same to the black skirt, pinning it to her preserved flesh so it stayed secure. Boo unclasped a string of pearls—apparently a sixteenth-birthday gift—and gently draped them around Erin’s neck. A matching pair of studs went next, and finally she was