In the car on the way back, I put on your album, the first one, and as you started shouting Break on through, we rolled down the windows and screamed along, and for a moment we forgot about everything that’s hard and just let ourselves feel what we wanted to, which was free.
Yours,
Laurel
Dear Kurt,
Things have gone sort of back to normal after last week. Hannah’s been staying with Natalie, and we’ve been eating at our table again, Natalie and Hannah trading Capri Suns, and me with my Nutter Butters. Instead of going off campus for lunch, Tristan and Kristen have sometimes been eating with us, too, because they are getting nostalgic about the end of high school, which is only three weeks away. Today was the first day that it was real shorts weather. I wore my cutoffs just above my fingertips that I made at the beginning of the year.
Since the night at the bridge, Sky and I have hung out a little bit at school. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on between us, but one good thing is that he’s not seeing Francesca anymore. And then today, I ran into him in the alley, and he asked me if I’d come over later. It was the first time he’d asked me to go to his house during normal hours. Unfortunately, it was an Aunt Amy night, and I had no idea how I’d get to go. I’ve been avoiding Mom entirely, so asking her to tell Aunt Amy to give me permission was out. And I didn’t feel like making up an elaborate lie. That left only one option—try telling Aunt Amy the truth. She’s been extra nice to me ever since I got upset that night, and I figured I had a shot.
When she picked me up after school, I asked her if we could go get French fries. On the way to Arby’s, I kept opening my mouth, and then closing it again. Finally, after we got through the drive-thru line, Aunt Amy turned to hand me the bag. I took a deep breath and said, “So, there’s this guy…”
She looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and concern.
“… who I like. His name is Sky. He was actually, well, he was my boyfriend for a while.” I waited to see if Aunt Amy would freak out.
Instead of pulling back onto the street, she parked in the lot. Then she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?”
“I thought you’d be mad. I mean, it’s just that you never want me to do anything. You hardly let me spend the night at a friend’s house.”
Aunt Amy sighed. “I know that I’ve been a little bit strict with you. There are just so many dangers in this world, Laurel. I never want to see you suffer. Being a teenager was a really painful time for me. And I wanted to protect you from it. From all of it.”
When she said it like that, everything seemed different. She was the way she was not just because she believed in God and sin and all of that, but because she wanted to protect me, and suddenly, I felt thankful that she cared that much. “That’s really nice, Aunt Amy, but don’t you think everyone has to go through stuff?”
She paused a moment, and then she said, “I can’t stop you from growing up. But Laurel, you have to be careful … Of course I would recommend against a sexual relationship, certainly at your age, as would Our Lord, but I want you to know that if you do get into a situation where you—”
Oh no. A sex talk with Aunt Amy. I cut her off. “Right, well, we’re not. Having sex. I haven’t. We’re not even together anymore.” I ate a French fry and offered her the bag.
“What happened?” she asked. “Why did you break up?”
“It’s sort of a long story. Basically, I wasn’t really ready to be with him. There was a lot of stuff I still couldn’t say. And then I found out that he used to like May, which was awful, of course.”
Aunt Amy’s face melted with sympathy. “Yes,” she said, “I imagine that was really difficult.”
“Yeah. But on the other hand, he’s been a great friend, and I think I still like him, and I think he might like me again, too. And he asked me to come over tonight so that we could talk. So, do you think I could go?”
She looked torn. “Will a parent be home?”
“Yes,” I said. “His mom. She’s always there. And I promise not to be out late.”
Finally Aunt Amy said, “Okay.” Then she said, “I’m glad that you felt like you could talk to me.”
I saw that it really had made her happy. “Me too.” I smiled.
So later that evening Aunt Amy drove me to Sky’s. When she let me off, I kissed her cheek and thanked her for letting me go, and then I walked up to his door. The bulbs we’d planted in the fall were blooming now—tulips craning their necks all in the same direction, toward where the sun comes up.
I ignored my pounding heart and knocked.
Sky answered. “Hi,” he said. His body in the doorway was like a wall, protecting the house. We stood there in silence for a moment, and I wondered if maybe he’d changed his mind about asking me over.
“So, can I come in?”
Over his shoulder, I could see the shadow of his mother, peering toward the open door. “Skylar, who’s there?”
Finally I just ducked under his arm and stepped inside. The television was on, talking about someone’s dream house. Sky’s mom walked over. She had on her same bathrobe, and her hair was in the same frayed bun. She pointed to the cut tulips from the yard that stood proudly in a vase amid the clutter.
“Did you know if you put a penny in the water it keeps them straight?” she asked.
“Oh,” I said, “no, what a good trick. They’re really pretty.”
She smiled the kind of smile that made it seem as if it had honestly occurred to her to be happy in that moment. But then she just kept looking at me, like she was trying to figure out who I was.
“Mom, it’s Laurel,” Sky said. “You met her before. Outside, when we were planting the flowers.”
“Oh,” she said, “silly me.” But her eyes didn’t flash with recognition. “Can I get you a cup of tea?” she asked, a bit bewildered.
I followed her to the kitchen while she made it. Sky tried to help, but she swatted him away. She performed the ritual with careful, measured steps, as if she had memorized the motions as handles to hold on to, to keep her upright.
When I took the cup and smelled the peppermint steam, she said, “Skylar, I’m going to lie down. I’ll leave you two alone.”
I followed Sky across the squeaky floors to his bedroom. Unlike in the rest of the house, everything in his room had a place. The furniture and posters lined up in straight lines, like they were working hard to form a kind of sense. He had one of your posters, the one from In Utero, and one of the Rolling Stones.
Sky propped a pillow against the bedpost and gestured for me to sit down. I arranged myself on the edge of his bed.
“So…” I said.
“So,” he answered.
“So I never really thanked you for the night at the party. And the night at the bridge. And all of that. Thank you. For being there.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad that you let me.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Do you see her when you look at me? I mean May?”
“No. I see Laurel.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you even love me? I mean, why did you?”
“Because—because you remind me of my first concert. The one I told you about on New Year’s. You remind me of the feeling of wanting to make something.”
My heart twirled around in my chest when he said that, and it wanted to leap into his arms.
“Listen,” he went on, “I’m sorry that I took so long to tell you all of that stuff about May. And I’m sorry that I said it the way I did. But I don’t want you to think … I mean, the way I felt about you, I’ve never felt that way about a girl before. Not your sister or anyone.”
“You know how you said May didn’t have an easy time in high school or whatever? I just always thought that it was different from that. Why didn’t she ever tell me?”
“You were her little sister. She probably wanted to protect you f
rom all of that stuff. She probably wanted you to look up to her.”
Maybe he was right. I thought about the lengths that she went to to make me believe she had wings when we were kids. Maybe May had needed me as much as I needed her. She needed the way I saw her, the way I loved her. “Do you think that I didn’t know her?” I asked. “What if I didn’t really know her?”
“Of course you knew her. You knew her for your whole life. Nothing changes who she was to you. Maybe it’s just when you get older, you understand things that you couldn’t before.”
“I think that after my parents split up, she must have been really angry at them. I mean, my mom spent May’s whole life telling her how she brought our family together. So she must have felt betrayed. Even though of course it wasn’t her fault, maybe she felt like it was. So maybe she was angry at herself, too.”
Sky said, “When she used to talk to me, she’d talk about you sometimes. How she hoped that growing up would be so much easier for you.”
I smiled to think of her saying that, but of course it wasn’t easy. I guess it’s not for anybody. The truth was too sad to feel right away. May couldn’t see how she was letting me get hurt, because she was hurting, too.
“I just want to go back in time and tell her that she could talk to me. That I would understand. That it could get better.”
“I know,” Sky said.
“The only thing I liked about that story you told me,” I said to Sky, “was Paul getting beat up. But I’m sorry that you got kicked out of school. That wasn’t fair.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It wasn’t fair what happened to you, either. Or what happened to her. A lot of things aren’t. I guess we can either be angry about it forever or else we just have to try to make things better with what we have now.”
I looked at him. “Yeah,” I said. “You’re right.”
I didn’t know if I would ever kiss Sky again or not, but it was nice to be able to talk about May with someone who knew her.
I looked up at your In Utero poster, with the picture of the winged woman with the see-through skin, watching Sky and me from the wall. I thought about how for a long time, I wanted to be soaring above the earth. I wanted Sky to see me as perfect and beautiful, the way I saw May. But really, we all just have these blood and guts inside of us. And as much as I was hiding from him, I guess part of me also always wanted Sky to see into me—to know the things that I was too scared to tell him. But we aren’t transparent. If we want someone to know us, we have to tell them stuff.
Yours,
Laurel
Dear Allan Lane,
On the way home after school today, Aunt Amy turned to me and asked, “Would you like to come to dinner with Ralph and me tonight?” (Ralph, aka the Jesus Man.)
He never comes to the house, at least not when I’m there, but she’s been seeing him, and the rose soap in the shower has turned into a diminishing pink disk. Maybe after I told her about Sky, she wanted to open up to me, too. Maybe inviting me along was part of her trying to be closer with me, I thought, so I agreed.
When we got home, Aunt Amy went about getting ready, dabbing rose oil behind her ears and taking a faded flower dress out of the dry cleaner bag.
We met Ralph at Furr’s. I thought it was weird that he didn’t pick us up or something, but I didn’t ask any questions. We got there first and waited for him by the door. Finally he walked up with a swagger and kissed Aunt Amy on the cheek. He was wearing knockoff Birkenstocks, jeans with a suit jacket, and had long hair that was scraggly and wavy, as if he were literally trying to look like Jesus.
He shook my hand and said, “You must be Laurel.”
I tried to be polite. “Nice to meet you,” I said with my best smile.
We went through the cafeteria line, and he got chicken fried steak, Salisbury steak, and fried chicken—all at once! Plus cornbread, mashed potatoes, okra, and three kinds of pie. And then, when we got to the end, he let Aunt Amy pay. I mean, he didn’t even try to take out his wallet or something. He didn’t even pretend like he was trying.
When we got to our table, I was poking my fork at my Jell-O, and he said, “Uh-uh. What do you think you are doing, young lady? No eating your food before we pray.”
“I wasn’t eating, I was poking,” I mumbled. But Aunt Amy eyed me nervously, so I didn’t make a fuss.
Then he took Aunt Amy’s and my hands and bowed his head and said, “God bless this food we are about to receive. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”
That was the lamest prayer ever, I thought, for a Jesus Man. Aunt Amy always says something that’s relevant to what’s going on, like she mentions me or our family or May, or what she has to be grateful for, in particular.
Once we started eating, Ralph turned to me and said, “So, how’s school?”
“It’s all right.”
“This is a very difficult time in a young person’s life. A time when the Lord gives you a lot of tests.”
“Yeah, I hope I’m not failing,” I joked.
But I guess it wasn’t that funny. He didn’t laugh. Neither did Aunt Amy. She still looked nervous. Finally he said, “The pitfalls of sin are not something to make light of.”
I won’t bore you with all of the rest, but it went on like that, more or less. I tried to keep up some kind of conversation and to figure out what exactly he was doing here. I guess he’s staying in a church and showing up to all of these services to talk about his journeys. The thing is, Aunt Amy didn’t even seem that happy around him. She didn’t do any Mister Ed impressions, or anything like that. She was just really quiet. And I don’t know if it’s because I was there, but mostly she seemed nervous, like she felt like he was going to get up and leave at any minute.
We finally said good night and got in the car to go home. It was too quiet for a while, until we came to a stoplight and Aunt Amy said, “Thank you for coming, Laurel.” She paused, and then she asked, “What did you think?”
“Do you want me to tell you the truth?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said thinly. “Of course.”
“I think you are too good for him. I mean, way too good for him. Like, he doesn’t even hold a candle to you. I think just ’cause you love God definitely doesn’t mean you have to love him.”
She didn’t get mad or anything. She kept her eyes on the road. And then she finally said, “Thank you for giving me your honest opinion. I appreciate that.”
“You do?”
“Yes.” The light turned green, and she drove down the street, turning into the quiet dark of the neighborhood. She pulled up to the little adobe house that she’s lived in for so many years and turned the car off, but she didn’t get out. I waited to see if she wanted to say something else.
“He’s been asking me for money,” Aunt Amy finally said, “to help fund his next pilgrimage. But I’ve been thinking that I don’t want to give him any more. I could be saving for you instead, for college.”
It felt like one of the most generous things that anyone has ever said to me. Not just because of the money—I know I’ll need a scholarship anyway. But because it meant that she really cares about me, and maybe that she was starting to care about herself in a different way, too. I knew that I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to be lonely for that long, and I wanted her to have someone. I just wanted it to be someone who would really see her.
When we got inside, I asked Aunt Amy, “Do you want to watch Mister Ed?”
Aunt Amy smiled and said she did. The theme song came on, and without her even having to ask, I did the horse hoofs on the table and the horse noise with my lips, until she started to laugh.
Yours,
Laurel
Dear Judy Garland,
I always thought of you as a kid. The little girl tap-dancing in the air-conditioned movie theater in the desert. The little girl whose daddy clapped for her and then carried her through the summer night heat to the station wagon. The girl who sang to stop them from fighting. The girl who sang her
self to sleep. And then the one who got signed by the movie studio, where they put fake teeth on her and told her she wasn’t pretty. The girl who took the pills they gave her and wore pigtails and did one picture after another. The girl whose voice broke into sobs as she sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” over and over again. You were so tired. But they gave you more pills and told you to keep singing. You kept singing. You were the girl who was about to become a star, just when your daddy died. The little girl whose voice was too big for her body.
But I didn’t know that you grew up and hurt your own kids, too. I watched this movie about you on TV yesterday—a replay of something they made years ago. I know that not everything they say on TV is true. I know. But there you were, with your little girls, girls little like you used to be. You taught them to get up and sing with you. You taught them that applause was the closest thing to love. You taught them that people love you for what they want to see in you, not for what you are. That’s a sad thing to learn. You could have made it different for them.
I guess maybe even though you got older, you never stopped being the little girl who needed someone to take care of her. So you wanted your own little girls to take care of you. And when they couldn’t—how could they have?—you left them finally, for good.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s the same with my mom. Like she started her life so young that she never got to finish growing all the way up. And maybe that’s why she needed us—May especially—so much.
She called today, and Aunt Amy tried to hand me the phone. I’ve been avoiding Mom for almost three weeks now. I said that I’d call back later, but Aunt Amy insisted that I really needed to speak with her. So finally I took it.
It started out normal. “How are you, honey?” she asked.
“I’m actually pretty good, I guess.”