Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira Read Free Book Online Page A

every cube into a quarter. Aunt Amy was asking for more ice for her iced tea. And then she started doing her Mister Ed impression and asking me, “How does Mister Ed go? Show me.” She wanted me to make my hands like horse hoofs on the table and a horse noise with my lips. Like we did when I was a kid. I’ve seen how her face falls when I say no, or how she keeps on insisting. So I swallowed and did the horse lips. Just then I looked across the room and I saw this guy Teddy from my history class with his parents, I guess. He’s one of the popular soccer boys. My face turned hot, and I prayed he hadn’t seen me pretending to clip-clop on the table.
    I’m nervous, because I am going to sneak out for the first time tonight. Tristan and Kristen are coming to pick me up at midnight. Tristan nicknamed me Buttercup. They adopted me and Natalie and Hannah, and they are especially nice to me, because I am the quietest and I love to listen to their education. When they asked us what we were going to do this weekend, Natalie and Hannah said they were going to spend the night at Hannah’s outside of town. I told them how I couldn’t go because I am kinda trapped at my aunt’s house. So Kristen and Tristan offered to break me out to hang out with them.
    I explained living with Aunt Amy part-time by saying that my mom is on some sort of big retreat-type thing. I know that it’s strange that I haven’t talked to any of them about May, but it’s like I have a chance now to forget the bad stuff. To be someone else, someone like her. If I’d gone to Sandia, everyone would be watching me, wanting an answer. But at West Mesa, her identity is my secret. Besides Mrs. Buster, if anyone happened to read the story in the paper all those months ago, or heard of it, they don’t say anything about it. More likely, they didn’t pay attention, or forgot.
    Yours,
Laurel

    Dear Janis Joplin,
    I just got home from my first night sneaking out. The window was stuck, but I got it open. Luckily for me, it’s the old push-up kind that’s easy to get in and out of. I can hear Aunt Amy snoring a little, so I’m safe. There were no parties tonight, so we went to Garcia’s Drive-In, which is open all night, and I ordered cherry limeade, and Tristan ordered ten taquitos, and they smoked pot in the car, and Kristen put you on the stereo.
    This was the first time that I’d seen people smoke pot, and also the first time I’d heard you sing. Your voice whispered into me, exploding slowly. And Kristen sang along, her eyes closed and the neon lights broken by the window on her cheeks.
    I got nervous that she or Tristan would pass me the pipe, and I wasn’t sure what I would do. I was studying them in case I needed to know the right way to use it.
    But when Tristan leaned into the backseat, Kristen took it out of his hand and said, “Don’t corrupt her.”
    Tristan said, “What? It’s part of her education, right, babe?”
    Kristen hit him on the shoulder and said, “Let’s keep it musical.”
    Tristan looked at me and shrugged and said, “Sorry, Buttercup. Can’t cross the missus.”
    But I think that I might have gotten kind of high from them smoking it in the car, anyway. Because the way you and Kristen sang “Summertime,” it felt like I was so far inside of the song. There was nothing else around. You made me feel what summertime really is. Underneath what’s bright, you knew the hot dark rasp of it. The other thing is, it was like a goodbye, and I could feel that, too. It’s fall now. September’s nearly over.
    And then what happened is this. I asked them, trying to sound real casual about it, if they knew Sky. Since I ran into him in the hallway that day, I’ve been hoping for it to happen again, but it hasn’t yet. He did wave to me at lunch the other day, when he caught me looking at him. I thought Kristen and Tristan might know something about him. I tried to sound like I was asking for no reason. But of course my cheeks burned