Love Letters to the Dead(56)

And then I found this shirt. It’s lavender crushed velvet. I felt like you were with me as I rubbed the fabric against my cheek and remembered how I love the way the new clothes in the mall smell sweet and pressed. Like very clean sugar. I tried it on and I felt prettier than I’ve felt since I had on May’s dress at homecoming.

Tomorrow for Easter, I’ll wear my scratchy white dress and we’ll go to Aunt Amy’s church, where they sing things like “Our God Is an Awesome God.” And then on Monday, I’ll wear my new shirt to school.

Amy, you were all over the covers of tabloids and stuff, doing what you did. And how the world is now, how we follow everyone and try to see everything, it changes the story. It makes your life into someone else’s version of you. And that’s not fair. Because your life didn’t belong to us. What you gave us was your music. And I am grateful for it.

Yours,

Laurel




Dear Amy Winehouse,

Something terrible happened today. I wore my new lavender crushed velvet shirt to school, and in English, I saw that Mrs. Buster had on the exact same shirt. Mrs. Buster is not a young, pretty, hip teacher. She’s old and she has bug eyes and ironed-out hair. It seemed impossible. I’d gotten the shirt at a cool store. A store for teenagers. Why would Mrs. Buster shop there? But her shirt was exactly the same, right down to the smooth gray shell buttons that I’d loved. That I’d been running my fingers over all morning. I know everyone noticed. My face was red all through class.

After the bell rang, Mrs. Buster tried to talk to me. “Laurel!” she called as I was walking out.

I turned around, barely.

“Nice shirt.” She smiled.

She knew that our same shirts were not a good thing for me, so there was no reason to smile about it. I did not smile back.

“Laurel, how are you doing?” She said it the way she does, like a question that might as well be a loaded gun.

“Fine,” I said. Though I wanted to tell her I wasn’t doing well at all, if she must know. I also wanted to ask her what the hell she was doing ruining my life shopping at Wet Seal.

Instead, I mumbled, “I’m late,” and ran out the door.

I knew I’d have to see her again in chorus, because she co-teaches it with Mr. Janoff. And Sky’s in chorus. When I got the shirt, secretly I had hoped that Sky would notice me in it and see who I could be. Maybe he’d feel a pang of regret over losing me. Now that clearly would not work. So I ditched. My grade in chorus is going to pretty much suck, between my mumble-singing and skipping class a couple of times. But at that moment, I didn’t care. Tristan always ditches eighth period to get stoned, so I told him I wanted to come.

“Oh, the shirt thing?” he asked. Clearly everyone knew by then.

I just gave him a look. With Tristan, I never have to say anything if I don’t want to. He always gets it.

“Well, in a who-wore-it-better poll, you’d smoke her. You look really pretty.”

That was kind, and it made me laugh a little as I followed him out through the alley and down to the edge of the arroyo. It was still filled with shiny dry leaves leftover from winter that glinted below the budding trees.

I’d actually never smoked pot, so I think Tristan thought I was just going along to sit with him. But when he pulled out his pipe, I said, “I want some.”

He raised his eyebrows at me, but he passed it over.

Before I started to try to figure out how it worked, I said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Hit me.”

“Do you think it’s true, what you said about being saved? Do you think Sky found someone better at saving him? Like Francesca? Maybe I just couldn’t do it. And maybe she can. Maybe he’s happier now. Like really happy.”

“You’re too good for him, Buttercup. You deserve a better man. As for her, she couldn’t save a ladybug from a rainstorm if you gave her a fifty-foot umbrella.”

“But what about my sister? Why couldn’t I save her?” My voice wavered, and I could feel myself tilt inside. Maybe outside, too. I never say things like that out loud.

Tristan paused for a minute and got very serious. But not quiet the way most people get about these things. He looked at me and said, “I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“What I told you about saving people isn’t true. You might think it is, because you might want someone else to save you, or you might want to save someone so badly. But no one else can save you, not really. Not from yourself,” he said. “You fall asleep in the foothills, and the wolf comes down from the mountains. And you hope someone will wake you up. Or chase it off. Or shoot it dead. But when you realize that the wolf is inside you, that’s when you know. You can’t run from it. And no one who loves you can kill the wolf, because it’s part of you. They see your face on it. And they won’t fire the shot.”

A long moment passed with me looking at him. I knew what wolf he was talking about. I feel its teeth all the time. And I understood, too, that even though Tristan seems tough, he is afraid, like me, that there is something inside of him that could eat him alive.

Then he said, “Laurel, you couldn’t have saved your sister. But, love, you’ve got to save yourself. Do that for me, okay? Because you are worth it.”

No one had ever said that to me before.