by Kim Purcell
“I didn’t mean it,” you said, reaching for me. “Come here. I’m a dumbass.”
My voice cracked. “If you ever say that again, I will break up with you.”
“I won’t. Come on.” You patted the bed, like it was no big deal, but I could see you were holding your breath, the dimple in your face held rigid.
I forgave you, climbed on the bed, rested my ear on your warm, firm chest, breathed in your sweet smell, and blew out with my pursed lips. The tiny patch of black hairs on your chest waved in the breeze. I told myself you’d never do it. But maybe you did. Maybe you did.
10:10 AM Saturday, the fake funeral
The next morning, all I can do is think of Raffa. If you really did it. If you really swam out into the rapids. She’s going to be devastated. I want to write her something. Just as you would have done if you were here right now. I find a paper and a pen, and sit down at the coffee table, and write.
Dear Raffa,
I want you to know how much Chris loves you. He’s told me so many times how amazing he thinks you are. He talks about you all the time. Every day, he tells me how cool it is having a sister. He loves your stories; they always crack him up. And he’s always telling me some funny thing you did. Like how you hid under his bed and scared the bejeezus out of him. He laughed about that one. You’re real good at making him laugh. Every day, he sells me on how cool it is to have a sister. We don’t know what happened yet, but one thing I know is how much he loves you.
xoxo, Jessie
I fold the letter into an airplane, head outside, and walk to your brown duplex. I can’t stand Raffa being so mad at me. She’s got a right to be mad, I know that, but I hope this helps her.
I pull open the screen door. My hand wraps around the knocker. I ignore the bell. It doesn’t work. I know this and so many other things about you—how can you be gone for good?
I’m about to knock, but then, from inside, I hear Raffa yelling. I’ve never heard her yelling before. I’ve never even heard her talk back. But right now, she’s screaming at your mom, “I’m not going to his fake funeral!”
“You will go if I say you’re going,” your mom says.
What are they fighting about? Did Raffa say funeral?
“Why are you giving up on him?” Raffa yells.
“Don’t speak to your mother like that.” It’s your dad. He’s speaking calmly. “We are having the funeral on Sunday. Unless Chris comes home. End of story.”
Your funeral is on Sunday. Oh no.
I bring the knocker down three times.
Inside it’s silent.
Then there are footsteps. Your mom opens the door. The smell of chocolate and bacon reaches toward me. She stares at me. Her makeup isn’t on today. Her hair isn’t done. No pearls. She’s wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. I didn’t even know your mom owned sweatpants.
She touches my swollen cheek and clucks her tongue. She knows what happened. Her hand drops.
“I guess you heard that,” she says.
“You’re having his funeral?” I ask.
“I was going to tell you,” she says. “I talked to the elders and it’s time. It’ll be on Sunday.”
“But we haven’t found him.” I cannot say your body. “He might have just taken off. We still don’t know. It’s not—”
She rests a soft hand on my arm. “I know.” The edges of her mouth turn down and her whole face sags.
Most moms know. That’s what I hear. Moms are supposed to know.
I look down at my feet. Can’t barely talk. “I have something for Raffa.”
“She’s in the kitchen,” she says.
I slide off my flip-flops and follow your mom into the kitchen, where a timer is beeping. The counters are covered with casserole dishes.
Raffa and your dad are sitting at the table, eating eggs and bacon. Your mom turns off the timer and takes some chocolate bread out of the oven. Raffa chews on the edge of a piece of bacon she’s holding in her hand. She’s not looking at me.
“Raffa?” I say. “I wrote this for you.” I hold the airplane out to her.
Her beautiful brown eyes open in surprise. She doesn’t move. The airplane shakes in the air. I’m about to drop my hand, but finally she takes it.
I can’t watch her read it in case she doesn’t like it. I’m not a real good writer. It was hard to figure out what to say, and I knew I could never write it like you do, but I wanted to do something. So I turn to your mom. “Can I go look in his room?”
“You go ahead.”
I walk slowly out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and up the stairs. It feels like this might be my last time in this house.
When I open your bedroom door, your sweet body fragrance hits me. Do you know that smell is important for falling in love? There have been studies. I don’t like your stinky foot smell or the smell of you after a long workout, but this you-smell, in your natural state, it’s like honey. It permeates the room. How do your mom and sister not sit in your room all the time and breathe you in?
“Chris?” I whisper.
I stare at your blue curtains. Chris, if you’re dead, move your curtains. I look for any little movement. They are as still as curtains can be. It doesn’t prove anything except that if ghosts can move curtains, you’re not here.
If you’re dead, I don’t blame you. If I were a spirit, I sure as hell wouldn’t hang out in my bedroom. I’d fly through the air like a bird and then I’d flip in and out of the river and I’d circle the Earth and go to the Taj Mahal, maybe freak out worshippers, and I’d definitely open and close drawers in people’s kitchens. Johnson’s kitchen. Ha. That would be awesome. Please, if you are a ghost, please do that for me.
Oh god, I’m crying now. Please don’t be a ghost.
I step out of your room, creep down the stairs. I don’t feel like I belong here anymore. My hand wraps around the cold door handle to outside.
“Wait!” There are fast barefooted steps running down the hall toward me and when I turn around, Raffa is throwing her arms around me. I grip her skinny body so tight, it hurts.
4:10 PM Saturday, graduation
I’m standing in a long line by the auditorium, trying to avoid looking at people, so they don’t give me their “sympathy” stares. I keep looking at the peach walls instead, and holy crap, they are disgusting. It’s like people picked their noses and wiped it all over the wall. Never noticed that before.
I don’t know if I can do this. Not without you.
My partner is Samuel Donaldson. He’s a nice enough guy, but I’ve never seen him before. Our graduating class is only four hundred. You’d think I’d have met him before now. Do you know him? Scrawny guy, glasses, bump in his nose. We’ve said maybe five words to each other in the line. Poor guy to be stuck with me, the girl with the possibly dead boyfriend, who looks like she’s in mourning.
Dad gave me a carnation corsage this morning. He showed up, grinning, smelling of Cheetos with that flower in a box. I hate carnations. You know that.
I’m wearing a black grad dress. It was supposed to be a sexy surprise. When I picked it out, I thought it would be perfect. Mom said, “But black is so dreary.” I said she was wrong, but it turns out she was right. It looked sexy before I lost ten pounds. You would have loved it. Now it looks like a black mourning dress that I borrowed from an old aunt.
Josh put the announcement for the memorial service on the website. So if you’re somewhere following your disappearance, now you know. You can come and surprise the shit out of everyone.
My big goal of the day is not to cry, but that damn Billie Holiday song keeps running through my head. Take my lips, I want to lose them. Take my arms, I’ll never use them. It’s funny which songs seep into my head at different times. Like, why “All of Me,” why now?
In the auditorium, I can hear Principal Pesh calling names. The grads go through the double doors in pairs. Parents are cheering in there even though everyone is supposed to wait until the end.
The
line circles around at the end of the hallway. Samuel and I are one of the last couples. Josh and Becky are going in soon. They’re walking toward me on the other side of the hall. They got partnered together. I never thought about how close their last names are. Josh looks real nice, dressed in a black suit. He gives me a thumbs-up, and I smile at him to reassure him that I’m not about to go all bat-shit crazy. Even though I am.
The reasonable part of me knows you’re probably dead. The other part of me is still hoping.
Chris? Now would be a good time to show up.
I gaze down the hall and imagine you holding my lily corsage, dancing toward me. Snapping your fingers. Swaying in that stiff way of yours. In my mind, I run toward you, push people out of the way, grab you, kiss your lips, and wrap one leg around your hip, try to dirty dance with you right here in the hall. You’re laughing. Then, the lights dim and Marvin Gaye is playing and we aren’t really dancing. More like, I’m reaching my hands under your blue suit jacket, running my fingers along your pressed white shirt, feeling your muscles through the thin fabric, and then, I can’t stop myself; I rip your shirt open. Buttons fly through the air, ricochet above people’s heads. I touch your bare chest, run my fingers over your small nipples, your understated six-pack. I press my nose into your neck and breathe in. You smell so good, sweet like your bedroom.
Then, it’s like a record screeches. My imagination stops. I’m here in this hall that smells of sweat and perfume and a faint remnant of bleach. We are moving forward like zombies. Samuel Donaldson shuffles along beside me. Every now and then he gives me an awkward glance, like he wants to say something.
If you really did come, poor Samuel Donaldson would have to find another partner because they wouldn’t be able to pry my fingers off your arm. I’d have to walk down the aisle and graduate with you. (I’d let you put your shirt back on.)
Tamara is sashaying toward me in her pink, cotton-candy dress. Her partner is a guy from band, big curly hair, glasses. I heard her parents paid for the insurance deductible for the damage to Johnson’s dealership and Johnson’s dad didn’t press charges.
She’s staring at me, kind of mean, like she’s planning to say some horrible thing. I always feel like I’ve got to ready myself for the attack. Pull out my blades. Send them slicing through the air toward her, so she doesn’t slice me first.
You told me Martin Luther King Jr. said to love the person, not the behavior. You said violence begets violence, and even yelling is a form of violence. I asked you if you thought love begets love and you said you did, and then you kissed me like a crazy man.
Okay, fine, I will beget love. But I’m not doing any kissing. And I don’t have a paper airplane for her.
I take in a shaky breath. “Tamara?”
She pinches the side of her cotton candy dress. “What?”
What do you say in a situation like this? I forgive you? Good luck? I settle on my old favorite. “Take care.”
She blinks at me. And then says, “Thanks.”
“Congratulations.” This time, it feels real, like I care.
She squints at me. “Yeah, you too.”
Then she walks past. And you know? I kind of feel better, like maybe you were right. Maybe love begets love too. Not that I love her. I mean, let’s be real. But, like, if you did come back, I could handle being in the same room as her.
Steph circles around the end of the hall and then glides toward me. Her wavy brown hair is down, and she’s wearing a deep green strapless dress. Looks real classy. Glowing.
She steps out of line and gives me one of her power hugs, which nearly does me right in. I guess maybe she sees that I’m missing you. “You okay?” she whispers in my ear.
People are watching us.
I sniff and nod real fast. “Oh my god.” I run my forefinger to wipe away tears. “I wish he were here.”
She squeezes my bare arm. “Think of shit in a toilet.”
I let out a half laugh, half cry. “I thought you were supposed to think of people in their underwear.”
She shrugs. “It’s not sad. It’s not scary. It’s just gross.” Her line is moving and people are waiting. She returns to her line, and a few minutes later, she’s walking through the double doors into the auditorium.
Soon it’s my turn. Mrs. Lousteau says my name to confirm it’s me and not some other mourning imposter in black, and I hold the inside of Samuel Donaldson’s elbow, and we walk through the double doors. Even though it’s dark in the auditorium, I see Dad’s shiny bald head and Mom next to him, on the aisle. She’s hard to miss—her butt is bulging over the seat in her large yellow nylon dress, but for once, I’m not embarrassed that every kid has walked past that. At least she’s here. She actually made it out of the house.
She can’t turn her head all the way, but she’s turning some, in anticipation. A murmur spreads through the crowd and the whispers follow me.
I picture shit in a toilet. It does not help. I want to turn around and run back through those doors. Samuel Donaldson squeezes my hand with the inside of his elbow; he must sense me getting ready to flee. His puny bicep muscle presses against my hand, and I miss you with a sharpness that cuts me.
You were supposed to be here! Just in the nick of time, you were going to arrive and we were going to walk down the aisle like we were getting married.
Tears roll down my face. With my free hand, I try to save my makeup. Samuel guides me to the stairs by the stage. I’m wiping my face with my hand that I should be using to hold my dress.
On the second step, I trip on the fabric and fall straight toward the stairs. Samuel can’t do a damn thing to stop it. My body crashes onto the steps. There are gasps. Yes, people, I am DRAMATIC entertainment.
I’m on the stairs. Some survival instinct must have kicked in because I got my hand under me and did not smash my face. The shock of it makes me stop crying. I stare at the dirty step and see a brightly colored Pop Rock. Does Josh have them in his mouth? Is that how he’s graduating with you?
Poor Samuel Donaldson is tugging at my arm, trying to pull me up. Slowly, I stand. People clap. It’s a rising wave of cheering, as if I scored a touchdown, even though nobody should clap in this situation.
I make it to the stage, shake Principal Pesh’s hand, feel pats on my back from somebody, probably the assistant principal. Then the rolled diploma is in my hand and I’m sitting down in the bottom row, in front of Steph. She went to the rehearsal on Wednesday and told me she’d be right behind me.
Samuel Donaldson sits down. “Are you okay?” he whispers. It’s sweet because he’s so shy, it must have been hard for him to say.
I nod, wiping my eyes with my forefingers. I don’t know why I care if I look like a mess, but I do.
“Sorry I let you fall,” he whispers, his voice clogging up with phlegm. He coughs. I look at him. His face is red.
“Not your fault.” I sniff.
Steph bends forward, kisses my cheek, and passes me a tissue, which I use to wipe under my eyes to clean up the mascara. She must have tucked the tissue in her bra for me when we were getting ready.
I’m grateful for her. That’s one. I’m grateful my mom is here. That’s two. I’m grateful that I didn’t smash my face. That’s three. I did it. You’d be so proud.
After the eighteen people behind me make their way up to my row, everyone is allowed to clap.
“Thank you,” Principal Pesh says. “Tim Pinochet will now come up and give his valedictorian speech.”
Tim edges past people in the back row, pulls index cards out of the pocket of his suit, and walks toward the podium.
He stands there, and for a moment, he doesn’t say anything. “I have a speech,” he says, holding up some index cards. “But I—” His voice breaks, he sniffs, and he hangs his head down. We all wait for him to continue. My eyes pool with tears. Everyone is blurry. “It’s been a tough week. I read this speech to my friend Chris. He laughed.” Silence again.
You told me it was hilarious. T
im is trying to pull it together. He holds up the cards and shakes them. “But he couldn’t make it here today, so I’m not going to do this speech now. Instead I want to tell you a story about Chris. Last year, I was feeling real down. My grandpa died. He was the chief of the local Lummi tribe. A real amazing man. He taught me everything I know about art; I taught him how to use his iPhone.” He lets out a bark of a laugh. “Chris met him a bunch of times, he liked hanging out with him. Talking. My grandpa looked forward to it.”
I remember how you said he had a really cool grandpa.
“And then, when my grandpa died last summer, Chris came over to my house every day. I didn’t much want to go anywhere. But he gave me this little book of photos he took of my grandpa—I still look at it all the time—and then he just played video games with me. For weeks. Because that was what I needed.” He sucks his lip trying to hold it together and finally goes on, “He was the kind of guy who always knew what you needed.” A long pause. “Let’s do something good, guys. Let’s do it for Chris.”
My eyes are bleeding tears. Steph is rubbing my back.
Principal Pesh steps back to the mic and clears his throat. “Thanks, Tim. I think we’re all missing Chris today. An incredible athlete, a 4.0 student, an all-round kind and respectful kid, he disappeared while going for a run along the river a week ago. He’d accepted a full-ride baseball scholarship at North Carolina State University. I have his diploma here.” He holds up the rolled document, shakes it, like he’s going to sell it to the highest bidder. I gaze over the heads of all the parents. The back doors crack open. My heart leaps. Maybe you’re here!
The principal leans forward into the mic. “His mother, Rosemary Kirk, is here to accept his diploma on his behalf.”
The door swings open. But your mom does not walk through the doors. Instead the French teacher, Mrs. Lousteau, strides down the aisle, waving her hands, like, No, she’s not your mom. Um, yes, we know that. She goes up the stairs to the stage and hands Principal Pesh a note.