Love Letters to the Dead (27 page)

I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said.

The guys kept bugging and trying to convince me. Evan said, “Come on, it’s a party.”

Then I heard one of the college guys whisper, “That’s her sister.” I shouldn’t have done it, but that’s when I grabbed the pill and took it, whatever it was, washing it down with the beer.

Soon after, I wasn’t feeling too great. Everything was starting to get fuzzy. Evan was putting his hands on me, on my back and stuff.

He whispered in my ear, “Let’s go somewhere.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I have to find my friends.” So I walked inside, and Evan followed me. As we were trying to make our way through the party, I kept asking, “Where are Natalie and Hannah?” I kept looking at the faces going by, looking for their faces.

I was really dizzy, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I was walking really slowly. Evan kept saying, “Let’s go.”

I said, “Wait,” because I thought maybe I really would throw up. The whole party was dizzy, so many people, too many, all heavy, all sweaty. Finally I found the bathroom, and I guess there was a line, but I skipped it and opened the door, because I was about to be sick. Then I saw them there—Natalie and Hannah.

They were kissing like they couldn’t get close enough. Like they wished they didn’t have bodies to keep them apart. I caught Hannah’s eye before I closed the bathroom door quickly, to hide them. But it was too late. People had started talking. Some guys were already pounding on the door. “Hey, ladies, open up! I want to join the fun!” I walked away, feeling sicker than before. The room was spinning. Finally Evan found me again and I said, “I don’t feel good.”

He said, “It’s okay, come in here. Lie down.”

So I did, because I didn’t know what else to do. The room we went in was dark, with bunk beds, like May and I had when we were kids. I wanted to lie on the top bunk. May always got the top. I told Evan I wanted the top, but he put me on the bottom. I kept saying, “I don’t feel good,” and he kept saying, “It’s okay,” and rubbing me all over. When I tried to sit up, he pushed me back. I was swimming through the thickest fog. Everything that was happening seemed already to have happened before. He was rubbing everywhere, under my clothes. Under my skirt. What he was doing felt all wrong. I said no, but he wouldn’t listen. All I could hear was my heartbeat and the cars outside. Evan kept doing what he was doing, and the cars got so loud, as if I were lying down on the highway. And I thought May would come in one of those cars. She would pick me up and take me away. We were going to the ocean. We were going to drive all the way there together. The waves would come and wash us over and over.

Then I started to hear it, “Heart-Shaped Box.” It seemed as if they were playing it somewhere in the party, but no, maybe you were singing just for me. I couldn’t tell. But I could hear your voice, full of anger.
Hey, wait …
It woke me up. It’s like you were screaming from inside of me. I pushed Evan as hard as I could, harder than I knew I could, and he fell against the other side of the bed. He looked stunned and put his hand on his head, which had hit the wall.

That’s when Sky came in. He was with Francesca.

When he saw me there, he stepped toward the bed. He said, “Laurel, what’s going on?”

“I don’t feel good” is what I said.

Sky told Evan, “Get the fuck outta here before I kick your teeth in.” I’ve never seen him so mad. Evan got out, fast. Francesca lingered, but Sky turned to her and said, “Could you leave us alone for a minute?”

“Whatever,” she said. “I don’t need this shit.” And she left.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I want to go on the top bunk.”

“You should go home. Where are your friends?”

I started to panic, because I remembered Natalie and Hannah and how I opened the door so that everyone saw them.

“They were kissing.” I tried to fix my skirt, which was pushed up and tangled around my shirt. I was so ashamed that Sky was seeing me this way.

“Come on. I’ll take you home,” he said.

When we walked out, there was a fight. Kasey was screaming at Natalie, “Get out!”

Natalie looked at Hannah with these wild scared eyes, but Hannah’s eyes were down. She whispered, “Come on, Kasey. She’s just a girl. It doesn’t count.”

Hannah was almost hidden behind him. I wanted to help them, but Sky wouldn’t let me stop. When I wouldn’t walk, he picked me up. The worst part was when we passed Jason standing in a corner. I saw what Hannah didn’t want to see. His face was red and his veins were popping out. He was worse than angry.

Once we were in the car, I didn’t look at Sky. I looked out the window at the treetops. I wanted to say something to make everything that was bad get better. But I couldn’t think of a single thing. I guess Sky couldn’t, either. So I closed my eyes until we got home.

I felt the car stop and heard the engine purring in stillness outside my house. I sat there, feeling so sick. Finally I said, “Sorry.” And I reached for the handle.

“Did you do drugs or something?”

“I took some pill they gave me.” They weren’t caffeine pills, I realized now. Maybe I always knew.

“Why did you do that?”

I looked at him. “I don’t know,” I said.

I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to go back to the fall and the night when I was dressed as Amelia and I could fly over everything. I wanted his hands to burn on me and make me new again. To erase everything else. Everything that was wrong and bad and dirty.

I put my lips near his mouth. Then I put them closer.

“You’re messed up right now,” he said.

He was right. I was too messed up, in every way. “I know,” I said. “It’s not supposed to be like this. We were supposed to be in love.”

“Do you ever think that for one second you could forget about how it’s supposed to be and just deal with the way it is?”

“You don’t understand. She wasn’t supposed to leave me. She was supposed to love me.” I started to cry.

“Who? Your sister?”

I nodded. I tried to erase what I was feeling. I tried to get rid of the anger that seared me. I was sobbing now. I opened the car door. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I have to go.”

His engine idled as he waited for me to crawl in through the window. And then I heard his car pull away. I felt sick with regret. I wanted him to come back. I wanted to tell him everything.

Yours,
Laurel

Dear Kurt,

May and I are going to go to the movies. She just got her driver’s license, from Roadrunner Driving School, where they don’t much care if you pass the test or not. The teacher just puts you on the highway to go somewhere to buy him fireworks. This is what May told me, but she didn’t tell Mom and Dad. So Dad decided that she could drive me to the movies. It’s his week with us. She and Dad get in a fight first, because May is wearing this lace-up shirt. Dad must think she is too pretty, because he says she should change out of it. He says she gives people the wrong idea when she dresses that way. He never usually says things like that. He usually lets her do what she wants. May cries, and I do, too, because this is our night together and I don’t want Dad to ruin it. Finally Dad says softly, “Just change your clothes, May. And you can go.”

May and I used to always do everything together, before she left for high school. But now I am thirteen, a for-real teenager. And now we are going to be friends again. In my head, I am begging May to do what Dad said so we can still go to the movies in her car together.

Finally May says, “Okay.” And she goes to her room and puts on a giant sweatshirt. A Christmas one with puffy reindeer on it. It looks funny with the kitten heels she still has on. She wipes away the tears and she says, “Can we go now?”

“Go ahead,” my dad says.

We are going to see
Aladdin
at the dollar theater. Lots of times they play old Disney movies there, which May and I still love. We are in the old Camry with May’s pink beads hanging from the mirror. As soon as we are down the block, May pulls off her sweatshirt. She fixes the mascara smudged from crying and grins at me. I am wearing the shirt that I love, the one that I’ve had since fifth grade, with a picture of a rain forest and rain forest animals that snap on and off. I hope that it’s cool to wear again, the way that Rainbow Brite and the Smurfs are. I wonder now if I should have worn something else. But my hair is clean, and I can smell the sweet green apple shampoo. I think that the night is not ruined after all.

It’s the end of November, but we roll down the windows anyway and blast the heater, and May turns up the music. She sings along to “Heart-Shaped Box,” and then she looks at me and asks, “Do you like it?” I nod that I do.

She kisses my forehead. She says, “I am going to meet Paul at the movie, is that okay? You can’t tell Dad, or Mom, either.”

I nod. I am a little sad that it won’t be just me and May, but the most important thing is that she let me in.

When we stop at the light before the movie theater, she tucks her hair behind her ears, and then ruffles it up, and then tucks it again. And then she puts on lipstick.

She turns to me. Her lips look grown-up, like the ones she cuts out of her magazines for collages, but her face is soft. She says, “Do I look okay?” I say she looks beautiful. I haven’t ever seen anyone look like that before. Not even her.

When we get there, only a couple of people are left in the ticket line, and there is Paul with another man standing off to the side. Paul has on the same plaid shirt he wore the only other time I’ve seen him, at Fallfest. He looks a little cleaner than the other guy, who has jeans with holes and a shirt that says
BACK IN MY DAY, WE HAD NINE PLANETS
. When May sees Paul, she waves a little wave. She walks up slowly, her hair swinging behind her. I follow. When we get close, they don’t touch, but from her look, I can tell they will.

I am playing with the frog snap on my shirt. I am snapping it on and off.

May talks in a grown-up voice and says, “Laurel, you remember Paul, and this is his friend Billy.”

Paul says, “Hey, kid,” which is what Carl and Mark, the neighbor boys, call me, and ruffles my hair. I don’t want him to.

May says, “Paul and I are going to go somewhere, okay? Billy will take you to the movie.”

I don’t want to go see
Aladdin
with Billy, whose hair is long and dirty. I want to go with May. But I say, “Okay.”

May says to Paul, “He’ll take good care of her?”

And Paul says, “Of course he will.”

May looks at Billy and says, “You will?”

“You bet.”

May sounds very in charge when she tells him, “You are going to take her to
Aladdin
. Don’t try to sneak her into something R-rated.” He says he won’t, but I start to feel like maybe he will. I am still snapping the frog on and off my shirt, on and off. The frog is my favorite. I am looking down at the shadows of the trees on the sidewalk.

May gives Billy Dad’s ten dollars. She tells Billy that we love Sour Patch Kids. She makes him promise to get me some. And then May kisses me on the head and says have fun, and she says, “I’ll be back right after the movie’s over.” And she walks off with Paul. I watch the car leave, taking May away, and I don’t want it to go.

Billy says, “So what do you want to do?” My throat gets dry. I squeeze the frog in my hands. I try to swallow. I mean to ask if we are going to the movie, but I don’t know if I say it out loud or not. I find the cherry Jolly Rancher in my pocket that I’d saved from the Village Inn where we had dinner that night. I start sucking on it, but somehow my mouth is still just as dry.

Billy says, “Do you talk?”

I shrug.

He says he forgot something in his car. He says come on. So I follow him over the long stretch of blacktop. The world is dizzy, like something happened to the earth under my feet. We get to a car at the edge of everything. He opens the door. He says get in. I don’t want to. I just stand there. My mouth is really dry still. He says it again: “Get in.” He sounds angry this time. It scares me, so I do what he says. He leans really close to me. I can feel his breath, which smells like something too sweet and wrong and hot and, now that I think of it, I guess maybe like booze.

The sky is dark already, and I wish that it wasn’t. Billy says that he can tell I’m too old for a kid’s movie. He asks if I want to go somewhere instead. “Ice cream?” he asks. I shake my head no. “Have it your way,” he says, but he drives off anyway, and then he parks in an empty lot nearby.

The next thing I remember is that his hand is in my rain forest shirt. Underneath, I mean. I swallow the Jolly Rancher whole, and it hurts stuck in my throat, so I think I can’t breathe. The frog is unsnapped, I remember, because I remember it in my hand, the plastic of it, and I remember thinking about the frog and wishing I could put it back on my shirt, because that is its home. Only now I never can. I would never be able to wear that shirt another time, and it wouldn’t be safe for the frog. He would always be lost.

I try not to think of Billy’s hand or where it is, so I just focus on trying to breathe. His hair is greasy, and his body is long. Too long. He tells me I am pretty.