Love Letters to the Dead Read online

  I open May’s closet and look at the sparkly shirts, the short skirts, the sweaters cut at the neck, the jeans ripped at the thighs. Her clothes are brave like she was.

  On the wall above her bed hangs a Nirvana poster, and next to it, there’s a picture of you from Stand by Me. You have a cigarette half in your mouth, cheekbones carved from stone, and baby blond hair. My sister loved you. I remember the first time we saw the movie. It was right before Mom and Dad split up, and right before May started high school. We were up late together, just the two of us, with a pile of blankets and a tin of Jiffy Pop that May made for us, and it came on TV. It was the first time either of us had seen you. You were so beautiful. But even more than that, you were somebody we felt like we recognized. In the movie, you were the one to take care of Gordie, who’d lost his older brother. You were his protector. But you had your own hurt, too. The parents and the teachers and everyone thought badly of you because of your family’s reputation. When you said, “I just wish I could go someplace where no one knows me,” May turned to me and said, “I wish I could pull him out of the screen and into our living room. He belongs with us, don’t you think?” I nodded that I did.

  By the end of the movie, May had declared that she was in love with you. She wanted to know what you were like now, so we went on Dad’s computer and May looked you up. There were all of these pictures of you, some from Stand by Me and some from when you got older. In all of them, you were vulnerable and tough at once. And then we saw that you’d died. Of a drug overdose. You were only twenty-three. It was like the world stopped. You’d been just right there, almost in the room with us. But you were no longer on this earth.

  When I think back to it, that night seems like the beginning of when everything changed. Maybe we didn’t have the words for it then, but when we found out you’d died, it’s like the first time that we saw what could happen to innocence. Finally May shut off the computer and wiped the tears from her eyes. She said you’d always be alive for her.

  Whenever we saw Stand by Me after that (we got the DVD and watched it over and over that summer), we always muted the part at the end where Gordie said that your character, Chris, got killed. We didn’t want that. The way you looked, with the light haloed around your head—you were a boy, a boy who would become a real man. We wanted to just see you there, perfect and eternal forever.

  I know May’s dead. I mean, I know it in my head, but it doesn’t seem real. I still feel like she’s here, with me somehow. Like one night she’ll crawl in through her window, back from sneaking out, and tell me about her adventure. Maybe if I can learn to be more like her, I will know how to be better at living without her.

  Yours,

  Laurel

  Dear Amelia Earhart,

  I remember when I first learned about you in social studies in middle school, I was almost jealous. I know that’s the wrong way to feel about someone who died tragically, but it wasn’t so much the dying I was jealous of. It was the flying, and the disappearing. The way you saw the earth from the air. You weren’t scared of getting lost. You just took off.

  I decided this morning that I really need even the tiniest bit of the courage that you had because I started high school almost three weeks ago, and I can’t keep sitting alone by the fence anymore. So after I looked through all of my old clothes, which are terrible no matter how much I try to pick the most inconspicuous ones, I went and opened May’s closet and looked at it, full of bright, brave things. I remembered her body filling them. She would leave in the morning with her backpack slung over her shoulder, and it seemed that everything outside of our door must have rushed forward to greet her. I took her first day outfit—a pink cashmere sweater with a Nirvana patch on it and a short pleated skirt. I put it on. I didn’t look in the mirror this time, because I knew it would scare me out of wearing it. I just paid attention to the swish of the skirt against my bare legs and thought of how May must have felt in it.

  In the car with Dad on the way to school, I could feel his eyes on me. Finally, as he pulled up to the drop-off line, he said carefully, “You look nice today.”

  I knew that he recognized the outfit was May’s. “Thanks, Dad,” I said, and nothing more. I gave him a little smile and jumped out of the car.

  Then at lunch, I walked through the cafeteria to the outdoor tables and watched everyone swirling together, looking happy, like they should all be part of the same movie. I saw Natalie from my English class with this blazing redheaded girl. They sat down at a table together in the middle of the crowd. They both had Capri Suns and no food. They looked like the sunlight had landed on purpose right in their hair. Natalie had her pigtail braids and drawn-on tattoos and wore a Batman tee shirt that was tight across her chest. The redhead had on a black ballerina skirt and a bright red scarf, with lipstick to match. They weren’t dressed like the popular girls, who look clean and cut out of a magazine. But to me, they were beautiful, like their own constellation. Like one that maybe I could belong in. They looked like girls who would have been May’s friends. They shooed off the soccer boys who swarmed around the redhead.

  I wanted to sit by them so badly I could feel it in my whole body. I started to walk toward them, thinking maybe Natalie would notice me. But I got nervous and walked back to sit down by the fence. I stood up and sat down again.

  I remembered what you said—There’s more to life than being a passenger. I thought of you soaring through the sky. I thought of May rushing out in the morning. I ran my hands over her sweater I was wearing. And I walked over. When I got close to the table, I sort of just stood there, a few feet away. They were in the middle of leaning in and trading Capri Suns, so they each got a new flavor, when they felt a body and looked up. I think they thought it would be another soccer boy, and Natalie looked annoyed at first. But her face turned nice when she recognized me. I tried so hard to think of something to say, but I couldn’t. The voices rushed around me, and I started to blank out.

  But then I heard Natalie. “Hey. You’re in my English class.”

  “Yeah.” I took my chance and sat down at the end of the bench.

  “I’m Natalie. This is Hannah.”

  “I’m Laurel.”

  Hannah looked up from her Capri Sun. “Laurel? That’s the coolest name ever.”

  Natalie started talking about the “lame-os” in our class, and I was doing my best to follow along, but really, I was so happy to be there I couldn’t focus on what she was saying.

  By the end of lunch, they’d liked my skirt and my whole outfit and asked me if I wanted to go to the state fair after school. I couldn’t believe it. I called Dad on my new cell phone that is supposed to be just for emergencies (although I can tell already that it won’t be). I said that some girls asked me to hang out after school, so not to worry if I wasn’t home yet when he got back from work, and that I’d take the bus afterward like usual. I talked fast so that he wouldn’t have time to object. I’m in algebra now, and I can’t wait for the bell to ring. The numbers on the board don’t mean a thing, because for the first time in forever, I have somewhere to go.

  Yours,

  Laurel

  Dear Amelia Earhart,

  When we got to the fair, it was good like when I was a kid and sticky like it should be—full of stands selling cowboy hats and airbrushed tee shirts and the smell of state fair food. We were all starved, and the way Natalie and Hannah said it—“I’m starved”—it was easy to say it like them. To fit in.

  When we got in line for frilly fries, Hannah started flirting with this guy in front of us. He had a white tank top, slicked-back hair, and a stare that made me think he wanted to bite her. Hannah’s red hair is straight as a board, or so she told me, but she puts it into curlers every day. Her bouncy red curls fall around her face, and her big eyes look like she’s always seeing something incredible. Her lips look like she’s half smiling at something that no one else could get.

  I was worried about not having any money and thinking I’d say I wasn’t
so hungry after all, but when we got to the front of the line, Hannah let the guy pay for us. He was making me nervous, leaning into Hannah like he was. I kept thinking that he was going to do something, but when we got our fries, she just said thanks and walked off, leaving him staring after her. I think she was showing off a little, but Natalie didn’t act impressed. She just said, “Um, hair gel much?”

  After we ate, we went over to the fence to smoke cigarettes. I’d never smoked, and I didn’t know how. I’d seen May do it before, so I tried to copy her. But I guess it was obvious. Natalie laughed so loud that she started coughing. She said, “No, like this,” and she showed me how to keep the smoke in and then suck it down my lungs. That is how you inhale. It made me really dizzy and sort of sick-feeling. By the time we were done, I was walking pretty much in zigzags.

  So when Natalie and Hannah were ready for rides, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go. There was this one, a special ride that costs extra, where they put you in a harness and pull you up, higher than any building in the city. And then they drop you, and you go flying over the whole fair. I finally told them that I’d forgotten to bring money, but Hannah said that she had some from her job and explained that she works a few nights a week as a hostess at a restaurant called Japanese Kitchen.

  “She’s so pretty,” Natalie said, smiling at her, “that they hired her even though she’s only fifteen.”

  “Shut up,” Hannah said. “It’s because they could tell I would be an excellent employee!”

  When she counted out her money, it wasn’t quite enough, but she said that if we flirted with the guy who ran the ride, he’d let us go for less. When we got to the front of the line, my heart was pounding. Part of me hoped the guy would say no, because I was honestly terrified. But Hannah did her best smile, and he agreed to give us a discount. I thought of you and how brave you were in your plane. And how you made other people around you brave, too. And suddenly, all three of us were harnessed together, and he was hoisting us up. While we were waiting to be dropped, we could see all of the tiny people in the fairgrounds. I forgot to be scared. I was thinking about how each one of them, so small from high up, was like their own island, with secret forests and hidden thoughts.

  And that’s when he dropped us! With no warning. We were flying. I couldn’t have felt more perfect. Sailing through the late afternoon sun and the smell of roasted corn and frilly fries and funnel cake, above all of the islands. So fast that when I opened my mouth, a whole world of air would come in. Next to the girls who could be my new friends.

  I thought of you, watching the earth always changing from above. The tall grass swaying. The rivers like long fingers and the fog from the sea sucking up the shore. And how, when you disappeared down there, you must have become a part of it.

  Yours,

  Laurel

  Dear Kurt Cobain,

  All weekend I had been worried that Natalie and Hannah might forget about me in school on Monday, but today in English, Natalie passed me a note that said lame-o! with an arrow pointing toward the guy sitting next to me, who was drawing naked boobs on his poem handout. I looked over at her desk and smiled to show that I got the joke. And at lunch, I saw Natalie and Hannah wave to me from their table. My heart leapt. I threw away my lunch bag with its kaiser roll in a quick toss and went to sit by them. Hannah was licking Doritos cheese off her fingers and passed me the bag.

  I tried not to look, but after a while, my eyes found Sky. I saw him see me with my new friends. I wondered if the sun landed right on me like it did on them. I imagined growing brighter and let myself look back at him a moment too long.

  Hannah caught me. “Who are you looking at?”

  I mumbled, “Nobody,” but my cheeks got hot and probably red like an unfortunate truth meter.

  Hannah insisted, “Who?! Tell me!”

  I didn’t want to risk losing my new friends, so I said, “Oh. Um, I think his name is Sky.”

  Hannah’s eyes picked him out, and she said, “Ooooh. Sky. Yeah. Mr. Mystery.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Hannah shrugged. “He’s one of those guys everyone knows of, except no one actually knows him. He somehow manages to seem popular without having, like, any actual friends yet. He transferred here this year. He’s a junior. But he’s totally hot. I’d do him.”

  Natalie hit her shoulder. “Hannah!”

  “What?” she said. “I didn’t mean I’m gonna. He’s Laurel’s.”

  I blushed again. I mumbled that he wasn’t.

  Hannah looked over her shoulder and said, “We’ll make him yours. He’s looking at you.”

  When I glanced back, he still was.

  I realized then that this could be who I am. Right there, with the cement burning my legs under the middle school jeans I’d cut off this morning, short enough that they would pass the longer-than-your-fingertips test only if I shrugged up my shoulders, and May’s silver-white shirt that shimmered in the light.

  It was as if an invisible band started playing the sound track to a new life. I heard you. I wondered if this was how May felt when she was in high school. It must have been, because it was her music. All the songs we’d listened to together, playing at once. The world she’d disappeared into was here. I looked up from my blush, away from Sky, whose eyes were still on me, and turned to Natalie and Hannah. I laughed out loud, full of the secret someone I could become. Hello, hello, hello.

  Yours,

  Laurel

  Dear Kurt,

  May’s clothes must have worked like magic, because since I started wearing them, things have been happening. I sat with Natalie and Hannah at lunch all week. Then today, Friday, I was walking down the hallway to Bio, just making my feet follow the lines of light on the floor. Suddenly I looked up, because I was about to bump into someone. It was him. Sky. I could have reached out and touched him.

  He said, “Hey. What’s up?” His voice sounded like gravel turning to grains of sugar.

  I started thinking of how to answer. I know that “What’s up?” is just something people say, but it’s a very hard thing to say anything back to. It’s like the only response is “nothing.” I didn’t want to say “nothing” because, actually, a lot was up.

  Instead I said, “I saw you the other day.” Each word felt like its own stone, falling to the bottom of a lake.

  He nodded, his head tilted a little. Like he was trying to figure out what I was.

  “I’m Laurel,” I added.

  “Sky.” He smiled.

  I was about to say I know, but thought better of it. When my eyes finally focused, I saw he was wearing a Nirvana tee shirt. This seemed perfect. So I said, “I love Kurt Cobain.”

  “Yeah? What’s your favorite album?”

  “In Utero.”

  “Right on. Everyone says Nevermind. That is, everyone who doesn’t really listen.”

  I smiled and scrambled in my head to keep the conversation going. “Yeah. I really like how he’s … how Kurt sounds like, like he’s exploding from inside.” I couldn’t actually believe I said that.

  But Sky nodded, like he knew what I was talking about. And that’s when I suddenly realized that he was looking at me like he wanted to touch me. I tugged on May’s tight orange shirt. My skin was burning. I had to get away before I broke out in flame.

  “I’m just going to Bio.”

  “’K,” Sky said. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  I nodded and walked away, my heart pounding. I told myself not to turn around. But I did. And his eyes were still on me. I felt something spark—the mystery of what he saw when he looked at me.

  In class, while Mr. Smith was talking about covalent bonding, I kept replaying it and noticing new things each time. Like the way one of Sky’s sleeves was a little bit turned up over his arm. How the hairs on his biceps were standing up. The freckle on his eyelid. I thought of what Hannah had said, about how he transferred here. I wondered from where, and I wondered if he’d ever been in love before.


  Yours,

  Laurel

  Dear Amy Winehouse,

  I remember one night after May got back from sneaking out, she came into my room and lay on my bed and whispered, “You have to hear this song!” She put her earbuds in my ear, and as she fell back against the pillow, I heard your voice for the first time. I go back to black, you sang. The swinging rhythms of the song sounded bright, but there was a hurt in your voice under its honey—although it’s not as simple as that, really. You had a way of singing that could mix together so many feelings. And I could tell that the words you sang came out of the real you. That they were true.

  It turns out my new friend Hannah loves you, too. Hannah and I have PE together eighth period, and she’s always forgetting her gym clothes. Since we went to the fair together two weeks ago, a lot of times now I pretend I forgot mine even if I didn’t so that we can walk around the track together and talk instead of playing kickball or badminton or whatever with everyone else. Hannah wants to be a singer, and sometimes when we are walking around the track, she sings your songs to me. Her favorites are “Stronger Than Me,” “You Know I’m No Good,” and, of course, “Rehab.” She likes to shout “No, no, no” and shake her red hair back and forth. The way that you didn’t want anyone controlling you, that’s part of Hannah’s spirit, too.

  Hannah acts fearless, but you can tell that underneath, she keeps secrets.

  She’s the sort of girl who guys fall in love with, but she doesn’t act like a pretty girl. She acts like she’s trying to find a way out of herself. She always has at least one boyfriend, sometimes two at once.

  Hannah told me her parents died when she was a baby, so she and her brother used to live with her aunt in Arizona. But her brother got in too many fights at his school, so the aunt sent them here to live with their grandparents.