Love Letters to the Dead(19)

Homecoming is this weekend (thank god I’ll be with Dad), but Aunt Amy saw it marked on the school calendar, so she knew it was coming up. After her lunch shift she wanted to give me a little pep talk. She said that if I was going to be attending the school dance, she wanted to remind me to use good judgment. Then she started on a lecture about not dancing too close. “Make sure you leave some room for the Holy Ghost.” You might be laughing at that, but although she tried to smile at me when she said it, I don’t think it was meant to be a joke. She reminded me of the pitfalls of sin, and then asked me if I wanted to go shopping. Even though I need a dress, I didn’t want to go with her, because she disapproves of spaghetti straps, and all good homecoming dresses have them. I knew I’d end up with a church dress that I would feel guilty for not wearing. So I told her I had homework. Then she gave me $20 to shop with, but I didn’t want to tell her that you can’t buy a dress with that much. So I took the $20, and even though I felt bad, I figured I could get Nutter Butters for pretty much the rest of the year with it.

Today at lunch before I went to buy one, I looked for Natalie and Hannah. When I saw them, Natalie was giving Hannah a single tulip. Hannah took the tulip and put it to her face as if to smell it, even though tulips don’t smell. Natalie giggled and said, “Will you go to homecoming with me, dah-ling?”

Hannah dropped the tulip on her tray. She looked at Natalie. “What do you mean?” she asked with an edge in her voice.

Natalie said, “I just think the whole thing of dances is so stupid. I thought we should have fun with it, you know, not worry about boys or anything. We can wear flapper dresses and eat at the fondue place first.” Her voice went up at the end, in a sort of hopeful way. Then she turned to me quickly and said, “Laurel will go with us, too. Sorry I didn’t bring you a flower, Laurel. I didn’t know what kind you like. I stole the tulip from my neighbor’s yard. Mr. Dickie came out and started yelling, so I had to run. He chased me down half a block before his asthma kicked in.”

I tried to laugh.

Hannah said, “Laurel is going with Evan Friedman. Remember? Anyway, Kasey’s going to take me. I talked him into it. He’s borrowing his dad’s convertible. But I guess you can come with us if you want.”

Natalie looked annoyed. “Why would he want to go to a high school dance? He’s, like, nineteen.”

Hannah gave a sly smile and said, “I told him if he came, afterward I’d give him an extra good surprise.”

I could see then that something in Natalie got crushed. The look on her face was like when you just finished making a waffle in the morning, and you got it out of the toaster, and you put on the butter and the syrup and had it cut along the lines into square inches, and you were carrying it into your room, so excited, but then you dropped it facedown on the floor. And you felt so sad about the whole thing, you didn’t even want to make another.

Natalie just said, “Okay, that’s cool. Actually, someone asked me, anyway.”

Hannah looked at her and said, “Who?”

Natalie looked down at the floor, and then back up at Hannah. Her cheeks were red. If she was angry or embarrassed, I don’t know. But it was their moment. So I mumbled something about Nutter Butters and went away.

As I was going up to get in the lunch line, I saw Sky standing there. I started to walk the other way. But I turned back and stood in line behind him. I stared at the back of his head and didn’t say anything for a while. I kept opening my mouth, but nothing came out. Finally, I said, “Hey.”

He turned around, surprised to see me. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hey,” I said again, stupidly.

“What’s up?”

I was trying to think of how to answer that question again, such a terrible question. Instead I said, “So, are you going to the dance this weekend?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“Going to the dance?”

He looked at me like, Yes, obviously.

“I don’t know, either.” Then I said, “Well, yeah, I guess I am. Someone asked me.”

Sky tensed up, I swear the muscles in his arm got the teensiest bit harder, and he said, “Who?”

“Just this guy.” It was too quiet. So I continued. “But I don’t even know if I want to go anyway. I mean, it’s like that kind of thing that’s never what it’s supposed to be, you know?”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Sky said, “Your sister was May, huh?”

I felt frozen. How did he know that? No one here has asked me about May, except Mrs. Buster. Maybe Sky had friends who went to May’s old school. He’s a junior, the same age as her. Or maybe he went there before he transferred. It wouldn’t be impossible.

“Yeah,” I finally replied.

“You look like her.”

“Really?” I felt like someone was waving sparklers inside my chest. I could feel hot stars jumping off of them. He thought I looked like her.

I never want to talk about May with any of my friends. But now, with Sky, it felt good almost, like he was part of her secret world. And he didn’t ask any questions he shouldn’t. He just said, “Yeah. You have her eyes.”

Then we were quiet again, until he said, “I don’t know if I’ll show up.”

“At the dance?”

“Yeah.”