So Glad to Meet You

by Lisa Super

  Every response was a question. There was no winning this game.

  “It was fun. But this isn’t fun. I guess it needs to stop. If you want it to.”

  “Oh. You won’t be my boyfriend, but I still have to do the breaking up part?”

  Katrina grew smarter with each question. Oliver ached with sadness. Good things always looked better when they were putting their clothes back on and disappearing from his life.

  “That’s not what I want, but it sounds like what you want,” he said, crossing his arms.

  “Are you putting words in my mouth?” She threw her arms down to her sides. Her disdain for Oliver was so great that she couldn’t even wear her arms the same way as his.

  The argument ran a few laps, always ending in the same place, with Oliver thinking he was crossing the finish line and Katrina feeling stuck in the starting blocks. Ultimately, the race came to a close with Katrina cursing Oliver down the hallway, out the front door, and into the fall night air while she searched not-so-silently for her car. Neighbors came to their windows to see the shimmering blue wreck in the streetlights.

  Oliver was deleting her contact info from his phone when it rang. A familiar number glowed in the darkness.

  “Hello?”

  A shivering voice growled out of the phone. “You picked me up. I need a ride home.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I mean, about the car. I totally forgot—”

  “Just take me home!”

  He hung up, pulled on his pants in two hops, zipped his hoodie, and followed the trail of blue sequins out to his car.

  • • •

  The trauma from the night carried over into the next day. Oliver’s mind overflowed and emptied at the same time. Little aftershocks rolled through every surface he sat upon—his bed, the sofa in front of the TV, even at the dining room table. When his parents arrived home in the early evening, the ground stabilized. Oliver basked in the normalcy of his dad’s pestering about college applications and his future.

  Oliver’s parents owned a furniture store, Pagano and Sons, three generations strong. The name was a dark cloud hanging over the fourth generation. At times, Oliver wished they would change the name to Pagano and Son, if only to acknowledge the burden of being the only son in a family business with “Sons” in the name.

  The Pagano furniture business was a successful endeavor. Oliver’s grandfather and father had expanded the standalone store to several chains. Every time his parents entered a restaurant, they buzzed about how great the chairs were and brainstormed about how they could mass-produce a cheaper knockoff, all before the hostess had taken their name. This shared interest bound them together, through everything. The furniture business was the reason Oliver’s family remained intact, kept their sanity after losing Jason. Oliver wanted to express his gratitude by dedicating his life’s work to Pagano and Sons, but he had zero passion for furniture. More problematic, he didn’t have a better alternative. Oliver had no idea what he was passionate about, couldn’t picture himself doing anything day in and day out for decades. Thinking about it made his head throb, and he blamed the dangling “s” on the end of “Sons.”

  Fortunately, his parents had agreed to pay his college tuition no matter where he went and what he studied, as long as his grades were strong and he graduated in five years. The plan was to go somewhere out of state where no one knew him as the only heir to a small furniture empire and figure out his life.

  That night, Oliver filled out a college application at the dining room table. Jason’s empty chair was a distraction.

  “Full ride!” His mom reads a piece of paper and rips open another envelope.

  Jason sits back in his chair, his parents tower over him.

  “We are pleased to inform you…” His dad laughs and drops his piece of paper on a growing pile.

  “Another full ride!” His mother claps.

  “Jason, you got in everywhere!”

  The energy in the room is palpable. Jason smiles at his parents’ excitement, but his smile is purely cosmetic. Even eleven-year-old Oliver sees the pry in his upper lip.

  “College is your oyster. Where are you going to make your pearl?” His dad beamed.

  Jason shrugs. “Wherever Emily’s going.”

  His parents exchange a worried glance.

  His mom laughs it off. “Well, Emily should strongly consider somewhere you have a scholarship. There are a lot of great schools to choose from.”

  Tonight, the focus wasn’t on college. Again, Opposite Possum. His dad flipped through interior design magazines and yammered to his mom about upholstery while she stirred spaghetti sauce at the stove. Coupled with his exhausted daze from the sleepless night, the room didn’t provide the best environment for concentration, but the noise made the essay questions less painful.

  If you could only bring one thing to the University of Montana, what would it be? He debated the ways he could answer.

  1. A photograph of my parents because of all they’ve given me.

  True, but it tasted too saccharine.

  2. My glowing attitude and bright outlook to the future.

  He groaned—too generic.

  3. Nothing. If I wanted anything from my past to follow me, why the hell would I be going to Montana?

  He had a feeling that rebellious essays, like fervidly misguided speeches to parole boards, only worked in movies. Splitting the difference, he peppered the essay with all three inclinations and sealed the envelope without proofreading.

  • • •

  One week and vow of short-term chastity later, Oliver cruised down Sunset Boulevard with Daphne at his side. This wasn’t the Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, with its outward appearance of musical history and infamy. On a Sunday afternoon on this eastern stretch of Sunset, many of the shops were gated, giving the neighborhood a slightly dangerous flavor.

  After a brief internet search, Oliver had discovered that Jim Morrison was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Obviously, they couldn’t fly to Paris, so he had had to dig deeper inward. Who was his Jim Morrison? A singer with the talent and charisma to influence generations, with the small caveat that the musician needed to have died young and tragically. The scan through the bass lines of his memory had been quick. Melancholy guitar had taken over, strumming the answer. Oliver knew exactly where to bring Daphne and finished explaining all this as they arrived in front of a wine bar. Its façade was a painted piece of red, black, and white street art.

  “The Elliott Smith Wall.” He made a grand gesture with his arms to downplay the humble nature of the wall.

  “Elliott Smith? I’ve never heard of him.”

  “You have now.”

  Oliver pulled out an iPod and ear buds. A tinny sound vaguely resembling music dissolved into her as he tucked the buds into her ears. She squirmed and readjusted them.

  “Jason got me hooked on him, so I guess it’s even more appropriate. This wall was one of Elliott’s album covers.”

  He’d cued his favorite song, a ballad whose acoustic guitar fell like raindrops. He couldn’t hear the bitter lyrics in Daphne’s ear buds, but Elliott’s sarcasm sang along in his head.

  Someone’s always coming around here, trailing some new kill. Says, “I seen your picture on a hundred dollar bill.” What’s a game of chance to you, to him is one of real skill. So glad to meet you, Angeles.

  Daphne blinked three times, processing. “This song’s about L.A. and how much it sucks.”

  “Uh-huh.” Had she gotten all that from the first verse? It had taken Oliver five listens before he’d figured out that Angeles wasn’t a person.

  Picking up the ticket shows there’s money to be made. Go on, lose the gamble, that’s the history of the trade. Did you add up all the cards left to play to zero, and sign up for evil, Angeles?

  “You listened to this when you were ten? Pretty hardcore in the sad department.”

  “Not exactly when I was ten. I inherited Jason’s music library, and Elliott Smith was
one of his most listened to. I wouldn’t have discovered him otherwise.”

  “I like it. It’s so different from what Emily listened to. The Ramones, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Doors, Bowie. All the music my parents rebelled with in their youth. Oh, the irony in those chord progressions.”

  He laughed. The chord progressions in Daphne’s humor played in the right key.

  Daphne stepped closer to the wall and Oliver followed her lead. They examined the four thick black lines curving up, down, and around again before merging together into a thin point, something of a warped racetrack. Threads extended from the convergence point, forming infinity signs that connected to a pair of pliers. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Oliver, but that was the point of art, wasn’t it? To imitate life when words had given up.

  Gratitude, condolences, dedications, proclamations of love, and senseless obscenities graced the wall’s white background. People from all over the country had left their mark.

  “Have you been here before?” Daphne asked.

  “Nah. Didn’t seem right to be here without Jason.”

  Oliver noticed the vast amount of gum residue splotched all over the sidewalk. Something once so pastel and sticky now blackened and smooth. The sight unnerved him. He returned his focus to the wall while Daphne pulled a Sharpie from her pocket.

  “You remembered.” His chest puffed up. So few people cared enough to remember the things that came out of Oliver’s mouth, he’d started to forget himself.

  “I take basic instruction like a pro. If it was a sport, full-ride scholarship right here.” She pointed her thumbs at the meat of her shoulders.

  Foreboding lit within Oliver and sent his heart into overdrive. If she handed him the Sharpie, he had no idea what to write on the wall. He loved and admired Elliott’s music and couldn’t bear the shame of writing something meaningless just to write something. An inkling of perspiration spotted his hairline until Daphne saved him by plucking off the cap, kneeling down, and writing without hesitation. She’d known what to write since the moment they’d arrived. She inscribed the sterile cursive of a perfectionist, the letters exactly as taught in elementary school: Emily & Jason.

  She stepped back. They stared down the words together as though the letters might leap from the wall and run away.

  “That’s about it.” Oliver said.

  Daphne shrugged, “For better or for worse.”

  “I hope they found their better.”

  “Part of me hopes they’ve had to watch our worse.” She twisted the closed Sharpie cap around the marker, and the revolution squeaked in her palms.

  Oliver’s body swayed, the reality of her wish moving him. His thoughts had often taken similar positions, but he’d never said them out loud, and certainly not to another human being. Not even his therapist. Although, maybe now he would. Daphne couldn’t face him. Her upper lip twitched, and he sensed regret. He wasn’t going to allow it.

  “I hope they’ve had to watch our best and be sad about what they missed.”

  His words didn’t turn her toward him. Her eyes remained connected to the wall, reading something he couldn’t see. His first instinct was to grab her hand, squeeze it, remind her they were both still alive. But lately he’d found that his first instincts were often wrong when it came to girls, so he stood motionless, putting it back on Daphne. Plus, he was pretty sure she knew she was alive.

  He started despising himself for his nothingness, his pulse beating in his forehead. A soft set of fingers brushed through his. Oliver dipped his head in scant shame. She was braver than he, and always would be. He was getting used to being a step or two behind her, beginning to find reassurance in the warm cloud of her perception. She gave his hand a little squeeze and he responded with a flexing and tightening of his fingers against hers. She dipped her chin a few times, first at the wall, and then to Oliver. He detected a tiny movement at the corners of her lips. Was it a smile or nerves? She headed toward the car before he could decide. He looked down and discovered his hand empty.

  “We’re not done.” He called after her.

  Oliver couldn’t see her face to tell if she was happy or exhausted. She was already too far ahead of him.

  • • •

  A few neighborhoods west, near the postcard version of Los Angeles, the buildings were taller, the streets wider, and the towering palm trees more pronounced. Oliver led Daphne down a narrow driveway tucked between two parking structures.

  “I think this is it.”

  “I always thought if I was murdered in a dark alley, it would be in a less gentrified neighborhood,” she said.

  “Did you also think you would go so willingly?” He snickered and ducked under a small archway.

  “Little known fact, I’m actually very stupid.”

  She ambled through the gateway into a small, secluded cemetery. There were no other visitors, no one else between them and the dead. Daphne came to a halt. Oliver realized the flaw in his plan, so wide and apparent his legally blind great-aunt could’ve seen it. Cemeteries haunted as often as they consoled.

  “Oh no. I wasn’t thinking. Are you okay? We can go back.”

  “No, I’m fine.” She swallowed and took a breath. “I wasn’t expecting a cemetery. It’s beautiful. Peaceful.”

  She stepped forward and they looped along the driveway past the simple gravestones of varying shades of gray and bronze and rose.

  He masked his relief by pointing around. “There are a lot of famous people buried here.”

  “Figures they would get the good cemetery. Where did you bury him?”

  “The guy I killed last night? That secret stays with me.”

  “No, the other guy.”

  Serious Daphne was back. Something about the tone in Serious Daphne’s voice lured the truth nestled deep inside him with unsettling ease. When he heard this tenor shift in her voice, the hairs at the base of his neck prickled.

  “He was cremated.”

  “Please don’t say he’s sitting on your mantel.”

  “No! My family is dysfunctional, but they’re not anywhere near your level of morbid, sicko. We spread his ashes in the Pacific.”

  “Jason loved the ocean?”

  Oliver cackled. “He hated the ocean. Hated the sand. Hated to swim. Hated the seagulls. Supposedly, and conveniently out of my range of memory, he loved to swim and surf and build sandcastles and barely even cried when he got stung by a jellyfish. I don’t buy it.”

  “They reimagined him as Jacques Cousteau. Emily gets reimagined as Sally Ride because she asked for a telescope for Christmas when she was eight. And you know who actually used that telescope?”

  “I have a strong feeling she’s walking right next to me.”

  “I moved it to my room the summer after she got it, and it had so much dust on the lens, I thought I’d discovered a new galaxy.”

  “Now every time I say I’m going to the beach my parents get all sentimental, like I’m going there to grieve or something, when I’m just hanging out with my friends. With my parents, every aspect of my life is a reflection of Jason. Sometimes it’s really hard not to remind them about how much he hated the damn ocean.”

  Daphne let out a little laugh. He realized he didn’t need to apologize for venting. The blood in his veins was replaced with air and lightness inflated him.

  “Where is Emily buried?”

  “Up north, near San Fran, in my mom’s hometown where my grandparents are buried. It’s this huge cemetery with zero personality. They threw in a couple weeping willows here and there, but it’s not helping.”

  “You go up there a lot?”

  “We went up on her first two birthdays after to plant flowers. Then nothing. Having her grave so far away made it even easier to not talk about her.”

  “We could go.”

  “Nah. But thanks. I don’t feel any closer to her there.” She swallowed. “There’s nowhere I can go where I feel close to her.”

  “Well, this is the Père Lachai
se of Los Angeles. Emily and Jason wanted to see Jim Morrison’s grave. Maybe you could come here.”

  “I guess that’s all up to you and why we’re here. This better be good, Pagano.”

  He responded to the challenge by lengthening his stride. They passed two sanctuaries filled with stacks of crypts and rounded a corner.

  “Oscar Wilde eternally rests in Père Lachaise. People come from around the world to kiss his grave and leave giant lipstick marks. So who is Westwood Memorial’s Oscar Wilde?”

  Daphne scanned the sanctuary as they passed. One crypt, second row from the bottom, second row from the left, stood out from the rest of the gray-white slabs. Its deeper, blushing-beige face wore a coating of red-lipsticked kisses.

  Daphne smirked. “Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Did you bring the lipstick?” Oliver knew, certain as the graves before him, she had brought it.

  Daphne pulled a small tube from her pocket. Oliver scrunched his face.

  “What is this?” He snatched the red-tinted lip balm from her fingers.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a neutral lip gal. I don’t own a red lipstick. This is the closest thing I had. I even looked through my mom’s makeup.”

  “Oscar would disapprove.”

  “Well, maybe he’ll write a tragic character based on me for his next play running in the afterlife.”

  “Oh, yeah. This is Greek chorus worthy.”

  “A girl is told by a ridiculous boy to bring red lipstick to an unknown place for an unknown purpose. She gets hung up on the red detail and brings lip balm because it’s red, when any lipstick would have worked for the occasion, which is to kiss a grave.”

  “The ridiculous boy is definitely the hero of this story.”

  “Yeah, you’re right up there with Oedipus.”

  “So, kiss it.”

  “Ew. No.”

  “Are you a germaphobe?”

  “Are you going to peer pressure me into defacing a grave?”

  “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  He popped off the cap and pressed the balm hard against his lips, rounding over them again and again until a thick ring of bright red circled his mouth. Daphne fought back laughter.