Love Letters to the Dead (8 page)

Yours,
Laurel

Dear Amy Winehouse,

In a way you were like the singers from the sixties, like Janis and Jim, and from the nineties, like Kurt, because your fearlessness seemed like it came from a different time. When your first album was released, you still looked innocent, a pretty girl who said she thought she was ugly. But by the time your second album came out, it’s like you’d invented a new person to be. You would step onstage in your little dress, sipping a drink, with your big beehive hairdo and Cleopatra eyeliner, and sing with a voice that poured out of your tiny body. You wore your clothes like armor, but in your songs you opened all the way up. You were willing to expose yourself without caring what anyone thought. I wish I was more like that.

You were always wild, even as a kid. You got kicked out of your theater school in London when you were sixteen because you pierced your nose and because you didn’t “apply yourself.” Hannah told me this. She doesn’t really apply herself, either, even though the teachers are always telling her how she’s so bright.

Today, instead of forgetting our gym clothes, Hannah suggested ditching PE altogether. She said that Natalie would ditch her last class, too, and Natalie’s mom would be at work until late, so we could go get some booze and drink it at her house. I was worried about getting drunk in the daytime, but I called Dad anyway and said, “I’m going to Natalie’s house to study after school, so I might be home a little late, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, and then he paused. “I’m proud of you, Laurel. It’s not easy, what you’ve been through, and you’re out there living your life.”

He sounded like he meant it, and it was more than he’d said about anything in a long time. My stomach sank with guilt. I wondered what he would think if he knew what we were really doing.

I swallowed. “Thanks, Dad,” I said, and hung up as quickly as I could.

On our way to the store, Hannah sang “Valerie,” because that’s Natalie’s favorite of your songs. Hannah said that you had the best style of anyone, and then Natalie said that you had tattoos of pin-up girls, and Hannah said that she thought you even had affairs with a few, but she added, “Amy wasn’t a lesbian, she said, at least not without a little Sambuca.” Then she laughed. I wondered if this is what Hannah thought about herself.

When we got to Safeway, the pounding rain was sticking the bright leaves to the sidewalk. The way to do it, Hannah explained, is you just stand outside the door, trying to look pretty. And when a guy walks by, you stare at him in that way. You give him the money, and when he comes out and asks what you are up to, you take the bottle and run. You feel the whole rush of it. Natalie said Hannah is best at this, and that the guys always come when she looks. But Hannah made me try. Eventually a guy with a black ponytail and jeans with a patch that said
XTC
came over. He looked like a rocker left over from twenty years ago. I got my eyes ready, and he noticed me and said hi. I guess the key is to act like maybe he’ll get something in return for the favor. That’s what Hannah told me. It made me nervous, but I tried not to show it.

Then, when we were standing outside the door waiting for him to come back, I saw Janey, my old friend from elementary and middle school, walk up.
Oh no,
I thought. My heart started racing. She was holding hands with this cute soccer boy wearing a Sandia uniform. Her hair was perfect and pushed back by a headband, her skirt just the right amount of short with matching tights and rain boots. I wondered what she was doing here. Janey isn’t the type for ditching, I thought, but then I realized that by now the school day must have been over. I tried to turn away so she wouldn’t see me, but unfortunately it was too late. Janey’s eyes fell on me and froze.

“Hey,” I mumbled.

She glanced back at the guy she was with, and I wondered if she was embarrassed to be talking to me. “Hey, Laurel.” She paused for a moment, and I hoped that she would just go inside. But she walked up closer and touched my arm, the way you would if you were a doctor who had to tell someone they were dying. “How are you?”

“Um, I’m fine.”

She pursed her lips into a sad smile. “I miss you,” she said.

“Yeah, you too.”

I was about to ask her what she was doing when the XTC guy came out of the store with a bottle of Jim Beam. I knew I had to grab the bottle and run. So just as Janey gave me a freaked-out look, I said to her and the XTC guy both, “We gotta go,” and I grabbed the bottle and ran as hard as I could, Natalie and Hannah chasing behind me.

When we got far enough away that we slowed down to catch our breath, Hannah asked, “Who was that?”

“Oh,” I said, “just a girl I used to know. From middle school.”

I didn’t tell them that Janey and I had spent the night at each other’s houses every weekend when we were kids, or that we used to put on
Wizard of Oz
performances with May and charge our parents quarters to see them. I didn’t tell them that the last time I’d seen Janey was at May’s memorial six months ago, or that over the summer she’d called and left messages a couple of times to see if I wanted to spend the night. I didn’t tell them that I never called back. Because I didn’t know how to explain that after May died, all I wanted was to disappear. That my sister was the only person I could disappear into.

Suddenly I wanted to let it all come spilling out, but when I thought of saying May’s name, I froze up. If I tried to tell them, they’d want to know what happened, and I wouldn’t know what to say. They’d feel bad for me, and when you are guilty, there is nothing worse than pity. It just makes you feel guiltier.

There was something between me and the world right then. I saw it like a big sheet of glass, too thick to break through. I could make new friends, but they could never know me, not really, because they could never know my sister, the person I loved most in the world. And they could never know what I’d done. I would have to be okay standing on the other side of something too big to break through.

So I did my best to forget about Janey and to laugh with Natalie and Hannah when we got back to Natalie’s and opened our bottle of Jim Beam. In all of the excitement, I forgot to specify that we wanted something with fruit flavor in it. Straight whiskey, it turns out, is not so good, so we had to mix it up with apple cider.

Apple cider reminds me of when we would go apple picking in the fall with Mom and Dad. May and I always wanted to get to the apples we couldn’t reach. High up, they were shiny and spotless and best. We would run ahead of Mom and Dad, and when no one was looking, we’d hide in between the rows of trees and climb up. Once I fell and skinned my knee. But I didn’t cry. I let it bleed under my leggings so no one would know the secret and make us stop. After the apple picking, we’d get cinnamon doughnuts and apple cider, hot.

I wanted my whiskey cider hot, so I put it in the microwave. It smelled like memories mixed with fire. It didn’t taste that good, but Natalie and Hannah and I drank it anyway, and took off our shirts and ran around the backyard twirling in the rain. We fell down laughing.

I ended up lying there a long time, just looking at the rain falling and trying to pick out each separate drop. They started coming so fast. I thought of Janey and how during sleepovers at my house we’d stay up late and eat root beer float bars and ask May to paint our nails. I looked down at my hands, the purple polish now chipped down to the shapes of foreign continents. I thought about how in middle school, after I started going out with May, Janey and I had fewer and fewer sleepovers. It got harder to be around her, because I didn’t know how to tell her about the nights at the movies, and the guys, and how it made me want to slip out of my skin.

All of a sudden, I didn’t want to be alone. The rain was blurry, and I was scared of something I couldn’t see, but it felt close enough to breathe on me. And I got worried that somehow the XTC guy at the store that we ran away from would come back and find me.

So I went inside and found Natalie and Hannah in the bedroom. They were kissing again. Or more like making out, really. Their shirts were still off and their wet hair was stuck to their heads. When I opened the door, they didn’t notice for a minute. Hannah saw me first. She jumped off Natalie and started laughing.

Natalie said, “We were just cold. We were trying to get warm.”

“Come on, you can, too,” Hannah said.

“That’s okay,” I said, and closed the door.

I don’t think they worried as much, because last time I didn’t tell anyone. They probably kept kissing. I went to the den, and I found where the heat comes out of the floor and fell asleep next to it until it was time to go home.

Maybe Hannah wants to kiss Natalie even without any booze, but she can’t admit it. Hannah says that Natalie knows her better than anyone in the world. She says they are soul mates. But I think maybe Natalie loves her as more than a soul mate. I wonder if Hannah loves her like that, too, and if there’s a reason she’s too scared to say.

Yours,
Laurel

Dear Kurt,

When I was in English today, I looked up from my test to see Mrs. Buster staring at me with her big eyes, bugged out like I make her sad. After the bell rang, she said, “Laurel, can I talk to you for a minute?”

I thought,
Oh no, not again.
I walked up to her desk and didn’t look up and hoped she wouldn’t pretend to know anything about my sister or ask what’s wrong with me. She ran her fingers through her ironed-flat blond hair and paused for a moment. Then she said, “You never did turn in your letter assignment, even after I gave you an extension.” It felt weird that Mrs. Buster was bringing this up. I mean, that was nearly a month and a half ago. Why did she care?

“I know,” I said. I worried that somehow she could see through me. “I’m still working on it.”

“I normally wouldn’t accept something this late, but I’d like to see you finish it. I think that it’s important for you…” And with that she trailed off. I guess she didn’t want to say
since your sister died
. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t understand. She wouldn’t. This is our world. And she can’t have it. But instead of saying any of that, I nodded and left.

Then I went to my locker, and I was looking at the picture of you I have hanging inside of it, when I noticed something else. A homecoming invitation. It was cut from red construction paper into the shape of a rough heart. Like a kindergartner had done it for a valentine. For one hopeful moment, I thought that it could have been from Sky. But it wasn’t.
Will you go to homecoming with me?
it said.
Evan F.
I felt queasy.

I’ve only talked to Evan Friedman once before. He’s a popular boy, one of the most popular in the freshman class. His face is very pale, and honestly, it kind of looks like an albino monkey. But that makes him sound ugly, and he’s not. Also, he’s very good at sports and skateboarding and school, like everything in the world is easy for him. We are in algebra together. A couple of weeks ago, I turned around to ask him to borrow a pencil, because my lead had broken off. His hand was sort of down his pants. My eyes went there, and then darted back up. My throat got dry, but I had to say something so he didn’t think I was just looking. So I just stuttered out my original question. “Do you have an extra pencil?” He took the one off his desk and put it in my hand. After that, I caught him looking at me more than once.

Why was he asking me? I am nothing like his ex-girlfriend, Britt, who is blond with cherry-kissed lips and bubbly like cream soda. I wondered if it was just because I looked at his crotch that time or what.

Secretly I had been hoping that Sky would ask me. I’ve been looking for him since we went on our drive, one week and a day ago. But he hasn’t been at lunch. I saw him only once, walking in the hall with some other junior guys and a girl who had dyed-black hair that matched her tall black boots. She was laughing and touching his arm. Sky looked up as he passed by and saw my eyes on him. He held them for just a moment before tilting his head up in greeting. I must have pretty much seemed like a freak, just staring.