Love Letters to the Dead

Natalie was Vincent van Gogh, which meant she taped a bandage over her ear to make it look like it was cut off and splattered paint all over her clothes. Hannah was Little Bo Peep, which meant she braided her hair in pigtails and wore a tight blue dress. Hannah’s boyfriend, Kasey, was a sheep, because she made the costume for him. He looked pretty funny with his little fuzzy cotton ears and his neck and shoulders that are so big they blend into each other. When we walked in tonight, to the house that he shares with four other guys, Hannah jumped on him, and he picked her up. He called Hannah “Jailbait” as a nickname, like “How’s my little Jailbait?” which made his friends laugh. Hannah laughed, too, although Natalie did not.

Some other people at the party dressed up as characters from Candy Land—Queen Frostine, Princess Lolly, and Lord Licorice. I thought this was the coolest. Kasey and his friends knew how to throw a party right. Even though their house is pretty dirty, it wasn’t just the typical college guy party with a keg of beer. For Halloween, they’d made it special. There were bowls of M&M’s everywhere, and hot chocolate that was spiked. I kept looking around for Sky, wondering if he’d come, wondering if one of the people behind the masks across the room was him, but when I checked the way they walked, none of them were right. I decided I needed to distract myself from looking for him, so I went bobbing for apples. May and I used to fill up a washtub and put apples in it and practice, any time of year. I was always great at it, even when I still had my baby teeth.

I started bobbing, and the boy dressed as Lord Licorice bobbed down next to me. The top of his feathered hat kept bumping my aviator cap. And sometimes, when we’d look up at the same time, his dark eyes seemed like they were trying to make holes in me. I would let them burn until the holes got too deep, and then I’d put my head down again. When I finally got an apple and came up triumphantly, Lord Licorice was still bobbing, and I saw Sky standing there, right above me. I had the apple in my mouth when he said hi.

Normally I would have felt embarrassed or maybe guilty that I was bobbing for apples next to Lord Licorice, but I was feeling very brave dressed as you, and very cool. So I put down my pilot glasses as I took a bite out of the apple in my mouth.

I said, “Let’s go flying.” I guess at that point I might have been a little bit drunk, too.

Sky said, “The ceiling might get in our way.”

So I took his hand and pulled him out the front door. And then I started running. Sky stopped following near the edge of the yard, but I ran down the street with my arms out like wings, laughing. I didn’t care. I was happy. By the time I got to the end of the block and onto the next one, I was above the earth. I could see the treetops, I swear. I could see the streets crisscrossing. The houses were like toys, and pretty soon the whole earth had become a map.

When I finally landed, Sky was standing there, waiting for me at the edge of the yard, which just a moment ago was only a tiny square. I forgot to mention that Sky was dressed as a zombie rocker, which just meant he looked cool in his leather jacket, like he usually does, and had drawn some crisscrosses on his face with what looked like black marker.

“How was the flight?” he asked.

“You should have come,” I said, out of breath. “I almost made it around the world.”

“Who was that pirate boy in there?”

“He wasn’t a pirate, he was Lord Licorice. Didn’t you ever play Candy Land?”

“It looked like he thought you were the candy.” His voice sounded disapproving, in a way that I liked. It meant that he was protective of me, or maybe that he wanted me to himself.

I could feel myself blush, and I hoped he couldn’t see in the dark. I fidgeted with my aviator cap. “We were just bobbing for apples.” I put my aviator glasses on over my eyes. “Anyway, you’re the one who doesn’t want to be my boyfriend.”

“How do you know?”

I shrugged. “You’re not like that.”

“What if you’re wrong? What if I am?”

“You are?”

There was a moment of quiet. “Well, I am now.”

“So am I,” I said softly, and I fell into him so he’d catch me, a swoony kind of fall where you don’t hold your body up, and I laughed. He lifted the glasses back off my face, and we kissed, and I felt his cold hands slip under my shirt, onto my stomach. I felt his hands warmer on my back, and I felt his lips on my neck, and I felt like I’d landed in my body for the first time. Against his hands, it was something new to me. Sky made me feel clean, a first-snow kind of clean that covered everything. I remembered how it was being above the trees, which were making a good sound, a rustling sound, a leaves-turned-brown-and-ready-to-fall sound. “Listen,” I said.

Yours,

Laurel




Dear River Phoenix,