Playlist for the Dead(16)

“Jerk.” She pinched my arm, hard, reactivating the soreness from the bruising, but it made me kind of happy—she used to do that when we were younger, when I’d follow her around just to get her to pay attention to me. Negative attention from her was just as good as positive, when I was little.

“I can eat anything,” Jimmy said.

Mom sighed and went to get her wallet.

“Sausage and peppers it is,” I said, and went to call it in. We weren’t exactly kosher. Sausage and peppers was my favorite; Rachel usually lobbied for Hawaiian, but I figured she wasn’t about to fight with me in front of her new boyfriend.

After I hung up I sat at the kitchen table with Jimmy while Rachel helped Mom scrape the burned risotto off the bottom of the pot. We sat and stared at each other for a while. It felt like he was waiting for me to say something, but Rachel must have warned him that I’m not exactly the world’s best conversationalist. “Rachel says you’re into music,” he said finally.

I nodded, though I was surprised she’d told him something so positive, at least compared to what I would have imagined she’d say.

“What are you listening to these days?” he asked. I’d changed from my relish-crusted Metallica shirt into a vintage Coca-Cola T-shirt I’d found at a thrift store. “Mostly alternative stuff, am I right?”

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. Yeah, he was right, but who was he to judge me just on my clothes? Had he looked in the mirror lately? “The Ramones, right now.” It was sort of true; it was what had been on the playlist when I’d listened to it on my way home from school.

“Good stuff. I’ve been digging the Clash lately, myself. I’ll burn London Calling for you if you don’t have it already. You’ll like it.”

That was actually pretty cool of him. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Mom and Rachel came back in and started setting the table with paper plates and plastic silverware. As if we were really going to cut up our pizza. “So how’d you get into the Ramones?” Jimmy asked.

Rachel snorted. “Since when do you listen to the classic stuff?” She turned to Jimmy. “I made him listen to every album I ever bought and the only stuff of mine he ever liked was indie.”

To his credit, Jimmy didn’t change his facial expression at all. “It’s all about variety, man,” he said, and held out his fist.

What the hell. I bumped fists with Jimmy and said exactly what I was thinking. “I started listening to the Ramones because Hayden put them on his suicide-note playlist.”

The kitchen got really quiet, and I knew right away I’d gone too far.

“Sammy, now might not be the time,” Mom said finally.

“No, it’s cool, Mrs. Goldsmith,” Jimmy said. “I kinda went through something similar myself.”

“You did?” I asked, before I could help myself. I wondered if Rachel had known. Mom and I both looked over at her. Mom’s mouth was hanging open.

Rachel shrugged, but she didn’t look that surprised.

“I moved here from Chicago last summer,” Jimmy said. “I had this friend who was going through some stuff, and he offed himself. In my house, with my dad’s gun. I’m the one who found him.”

For a second I found myself thankful that Hayden had chosen the method he did. I couldn’t imagine my last memory of him involving blood. It made me nauseous just thinking about it. I looked over at Rachel again; now she looked a little shocked. I figured she’d known the basics but not the details.

“It’s why we left,” he continued. “None of us could stand to be in that house, and my mom kept saying how terrible it was to live in cities, all the awful things that happened there.”

“Kind of ironic, that you’d move here, and then . . .” My voice trailed off. I wasn’t quite ready to say it out loud.

“Yeah, that’s one word for it. It would have been a lot harder if I hadn’t already met your sister.” He smiled at Rachel, and she smiled back. I could see how into him she really was. Even Mom was starting to warm to him. “I loved Chicago—I just wanted to leave the house, not the city. It was my dad’s idea to take off for cow country.”

“Corn, not cows,” Rachel said, and squeezed his hand. I’d been tempted to say the same thing, but let’s face it, there were some cows.

“Anyway, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it back home, and I didn’t really want to talk about it here, but now that it’s been a little while I can think about it more clearly. So if you ever need to talk, you can talk to me. Maybe not now, but someday.” I wondered if my sister had put him up to it, but that would be so not like her. And he looked like he really meant it.

“That’s a very nice offer, Jimmy,” Mom said.

I could see Rachel trying not to smirk. This couldn’t have gone better if she’d scripted it herself. She looked over at me, willing me to say something.

“Okay, thanks,” I said. I was starting to like him, despite myself. Too bad he hadn’t showed up before Mr. Beaumont. Then I could have at least said I had someone else to talk to.

The doorbell rang before we could say anything else. Finally, food. It seemed like everyone was grateful to have the pizza to focus on for a while.

“Tell me about your first day back,” Mom asked, after we’d all started eating.