“I saw you,” Grandma said. “It was the first thing you ate.”

“Do you think eating something counts if you don’t remember?” Lula asked.

No one knew what to say. And my father wasn’t going to touch it.

Lula looked down at her plate. She had a spoonful of mashed potatoes and a pea. “What’s for dessert?” she asked. “It better not be grapes.”

LULA AND I were back in my Jeep, heading for Stark Street to check out Sunflower’s funeral home. It was almost eight o’clock, and the sun was low in the sky. I’d stopped at my apartment to get a sweatshirt, and Lula had insisted we bring the lucky bottle with us.

“Uncle Pip would probably be alive today if he’d taken his bottle with him,” Lula said. “If nothing else, he could have pissed in it instead of on that wire.”

“Not likely,” I said. “I can’t get the stopper out. I think it’s glued in.”

“Let me take a look at that bottle. Maybe I can figure it out.”

I stopped for a light and pulled the bottle out of my big leather purse.

Lula worked at the stopper, but it wouldn’t budge. “You’re right,” she said. “This sucker’s in for good.” She shook the bottle close to her ear. “Don’t hear anything rattling around in it.” She held it up and looked at it in what little light was left. “Can’t see anything in it. The glass is too thick.”

I think luck is a weird thing. It’s hard to tell if you make it or if it just follows you around. And it seems to me it could just as easily be bad luck as good luck. It’s not like it’s a constant ability, like playing the piano or being able to cook a perfect omelet.

I cruised by the funeral home, and we scoped it out. There were several cars parked at the curb, and a clump of older men dressed in suits and ties stood talking by the open front door. Lights were on inside. Melon’s was having a viewing.

I pulled over and parked half a block away. “I’ll wait here, and you go look around,” I said to Lula.

“Why do you get to wait here?” Lula wanted to know. “I’m the one hates dead people. I should be the one to wait here.”

“You can’t wait here. You’re the friend of the deceased.”

“Fine, but I’m not going in alone. You’re gonna have to make yourself blend in. Just tart yourself up some, and everyone’ll think you’re a ’ho come to visit.”

I ratted my hair, put on brighter lipstick, took my sweatshirt off, and rolled my T-shirt so I had some skin showing.

“This is the best I can do,” I said.

“You’re not all that hot,” Lula said. “You’re never gonna make any money looking like that.”

“Sure I would. I’m the girl next door.”

“You don’t know much,” she said. “You gotta have a short skirt to be the girl next door and you put your hair in two ponytails.”