On the Day I Died Page 8

“Dead and gone,” whispered Johnnie.

  The cemetery grew so quiet, Mike could hear himself breathing. There was no other sound now. Not the moaning of the wind, or the creaking of a tree branch. He felt the ghosts’ sadness and longing deep within his own bones and wished he could help them. But there was nothing he could do, nothing except …

  “Does anyone else have a story to tell?” he asked.

  A girl stepped into the circle of moonlight. “I do.”

  IT WASN’T A CRUSH. It wasn’t puppy love. I knew what love was—real love. After all, I’d been reading about it for years—Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labour’s Lost. In fact, I’d read all thirty-seven of Shakespeare’s plays and all one hundred and fifty-four of his sonnets. You could say I’d gorged myself on Shakespeare (which is way better than gorging yourself on a bag of Milky Way miniatures), and if there was one thing I knew after all that reading, it was this: I loved Collin. With all my heart. And I knew I would love him until the end of time.

  Did my heart love till now?

  Forswear it, sight!

  For I ne’er saw true beauty

  till this night!

  We didn’t meet until our senior year—not surprising, considering there were about three thousand kids at Schaumburg High School. Our paths never crossed, fate never intervened, until the semester we both signed up for drama class—me because of my obsession with the Bard of Avon, Collin because he needed an honors elective.

  “Lily,” said Mrs. Childress on our second day of class, “would you read the role of Juliet, please?”

  I cleared my throat, took a moment to think—really think—about the music of William Shakespeare’s passionate words.

  O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

  I paused then, and looked up from the page. And there he was! My Romeo, my Collin. He sat by the window wearing a pair of tan cargo pants and a yellow-and-green-striped rugby shirt, his black hair glinting in the afternoon sunlight, his lips as red and inviting as the apple I’d had for lunch.

  As usual, I was on a diet.

  Oh, and his eyes. Did I tell you about his eyes? They were a brilliant blue, but not the blue of my favorite Abercrombie dress, the one that looked a little like the outfit Cleopatra was wearing the day she kissed Antony goodbye for the last time. No, Collin’s eyes were a brimming blue, as if on the verge of tears, and the sunlight streaming through the window danced on that blue like shimmer on a lake.

  There are moments that stop the heart, you know? Moments that seize your breath and halt the flow of your blood in your veins, and the clock stops—time stops—and you wait for something to bring you back again. And what brought me back was my name on his lips:

  “Lily? What are you staring at? Do I have food in my teeth or something?”

  O, speak again, bright angel!

  And I knew. Just like Romeo knew the first time he beheld Juliet, or like Petruchio when he spied shrewish Katharina hurling a vase. Love had come crashing across the cosmos. Unknown. Unhoped for. Unexpected. Yet in a twinkling I understood that this was forever.

  I stumbled through the rest of the passage, through the rest of the period. Then the bell rang and he crossed the room toward me. For me. His aftershave, spicy and exotic, invaded my senses, making my heart pulse wildly and my head whirl.

  “Want to hang out tonight?” he asked.

  I wanted to leap with joy, or run around in circles, or sing a song, or write a poem.

  “Yes,” I whispered, because I couldn’t speak any louder.

  No sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed.

  After that day, Collin and I were always together—in the school cafeteria, in the hallway between classes, at the movies, the mall, each other’s houses. We carried each other’s pictures in our wallets; spent Sunday afternoons bicycling together through Busse Woods; read to each other from our favorite books—mine The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Collin’s The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. We discovered that it drove Collin nuts when I clicked my pen against my teeth while studying. We agreed that it was okay for me to listen to Sarah McLachlan and for him to listen to Jay-Z just as long as the other person wasn’t around. And we figured out that Collin should always stop for our soy sugar-free cinnamon dolce lattes before picking me up for school because I wasn’t a morning person, and that I should bake snicker doodles for him at least once a month because they were his absolute favorite—another of true love’s sacrifices because I was, like I said, dieting.

  And then?

  Life shattered.

  We were coming home from the library that Saturday—Collin and me and his younger brother, Drew, when we saw a clutch of leftover birthday balloons waving from a mailbox. A handmade sign propped against a harvest-gold recliner read GARAGE SALE. Beyond it, a ton of junk stretched from the depths of a double garage, out onto the driveway and across the expanse of lawn.

  All that glisters is not gold.

  Drew leaned over the front seat, a lock of his dark hair falling over the sprinkling of acne that had just recently cropped up on his forehead. “Hey, c’mon, you guys, let’s stop,” he begged.

  Drew had a real thing for garage sales, especially the half-built car model kits you could sometimes find at them. Afterward, he would spend hours putting all those tiny plastic pieces together, the nostril-searing stink of model glue oozing out from under his bedroom door.

  “Do you think my brother’s a nerd?” Collin had once asked me.

  “Yes,” I had replied, “but a sweet nerd.”

  Now Collin pulled over to the curb. He had barely stopped before Drew had the door open and was loping away in hot pursuit of treasure. We followed along behind, hand in hand, happy just to be together.

  A dozen or so people milled around. Some poked through the racks of out-of-style dresses and jackets; others riffled through laundry baskets of used kitchen utensils or pawed over piles of stained baby clothes. I looked around for the stack of paperback books. Every garage sale has them, and sometimes I could actually find a dog-eared copy of Macbeth, or the Cliffs Notes version of All’s Well That Ends Well. That’s when I caught a glimpse of myself in a dresser mirror.

  “Tell me the truth,” I said to Collin, “do I look fat to you?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” he said, kissing my forehead.

  “No, seriously.”

  Collin’s eyes sparkled. “If you’re fat, you’re fat in all the right places.”

  I poked him in the stomach just as Drew hollered, “Hey, guys, check this out.” Stumbling around the tired furniture and jumbled tables of mismatched silverware and cast-off jewelry, he held out something dark and gnarled.

  The thing was a knot of furrowed leather that sprouted five wrinkled fingers, each tipped with a cracked yellow nail. The fingers curved into a sort of agonized claw—a hideous mummy’s claw fringed with long black fur.

  “What is it?” said Collin.

  “That is a genuine, bona fide monkey’s paw,” came a voice from behind us.

  We turned.

  The garage sale’s organizer stood there, a plump middle-aged woman wearing a red velour sweat suit and gold sandals. She had just put on fresh lipstick, and when she grinned at us, her mouth looked like it was bleeding.

  “Double, double toil and trouble,” I muttered under my breath.

  “A monkey’s paw,” she repeated. “You don’t find many of those around.”

  “Thank goodness,” I said with a shudder.

  “Isn’t there some law about hacking off a monkey’s hand?” asked Collin.

  I imagined a jungle full of one-handed monkeys falling from the trees. “If there isn’t, there should be,” I said.

  We waited for Drew to agree, but he just stood there. By the way he was clutching the paw, I could tell he wanted it.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “Twenty dollars,” the woman replied after a moment’s thought. “I’
ll be honest with you. I started at seventy-five, but nobody’s shown any interest in it.”

  “No wonder—it’s hideous,” I said under my breath. “Drew, you’re not really going to spend money on that thing, are you?”

  But Drew was already digging in his pocket.

  “What about your car fund?” Collin reminded him. “I thought you were saving every cent between now and your sixteenth birthday for a”—he imitated Drew’s slightly lisping voice—“dope set of wheels?”

  Drew was as obsessed with classic cars as he was with modeling kits. Every inch of his bedroom walls was covered with posters of Impalas, Mustangs, Camaros, Trans Ams. I’d once asked him why he never taped up any pictures of new ones. “Cars from the seventies are my passion,” he’d replied.

  Now I said, “Think about that Mustang, Drew.”

  “Or that GTO,” added Collin.

  Drew hesitated, then whipped out his wallet decisively. “How often does a guy get the chance at a real monkey paw, huh?” He looked at the woman. “Do you know anything about it?”

  “Just what I heard from Mr. Patel,” she replied. “He’s the one who gave it to me. Of course, I don’t believe a word he said.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, twirling her finger around her ear. “He just wasn’t himself after the house fire, if you know what I mean.”

  “House fire?” repeated Drew. He laid a handful of crumpled dollars on the table, then began counting out his loose change.

  She pointed her chin at the empty lot across the street. “Mr. Patel’s house stood right there until the fire. Everything he owned went up in flames—everything except that monkey paw. When he saw it, he said, ‘Take it, Mrs. Alvarez. Bury it, burn it, throw it in the lake—anything. I just never want to lay eyes on it again.’ ”

  “Why not?” I wondered.

  “That’s what I asked him, and he said the paw was magic.”

  Drew stroked the paw’s fur. “Magic, huh?”

  “Old magic, according to Mr. Patel,” said Mrs. Alvarez, snorting with disbelief. “Seems that hundreds of years ago an East Indian fakir—you know, a holy man—put a spell on the paw. ‘The fakir wanted people to understand that fate ruled their lives,’ Mr. Patel tells me all serious-like, ‘and that those who tried to interfere with their fate would meet great sorrow.’ So the fakir put a spell on the paw—whoever owned it could have three wishes granted from it.” Mrs. Alvarez snorted again. “Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? Sounds like something from some kids’ book, doesn’t it?”

  She didn’t wait for us to answer, just plowed on.

  “I couldn’t help myself, now, could I? I had to ask. ‘Did you make your wishes?’ I ask Mr. Patel. ‘Were they granted?’ And you know, Mr. Patel’s face turned white as a corpse. He looked toward the ruin of his house, just stared at it for a while. Then he slowly nodded. ‘They were,’ he says to me, moaning. ‘God help me, they were.’ Then he threw the paw down. ‘Get rid of it, Mrs. Alvarez. Do this last favor for me and destroy it.”

  “But you didn’t,” I said. “Destroy it, I mean.”

  “Of course not! Why throw away something that might make a little money?” Mrs. Alvarez turned her attention to the pile of coins and bills Drew had put in front of her. After counting it—her bleeding red lips moving silently—she chirped, “And see? I was right. I’m twenty bucks richer.”

  Afterward, we drove to Woodfield Mall. It seemed like all of Schaumburg High School was there, flitting and cutting loose beneath the artificial lights. It reminded me of that scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream where Puck and the other fairies cavort through the forest, feasting and frolicking and causing trouble. I waved to some girls from last semester’s chem class, proud to be seen with Collin’s arm around my shoulders. A couple. The couple. Like Hamlet and Ophelia, or Rosalind and Orlando.

  Collin and Lily.

  Lovers eternal, side by side.

  At the food court, Drew begged me for money for a pretzel.

  “Come on, Lily,” he whined. “I’m broke and I’m starving.”

  “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” I replied, taking a sip of my Diet Coke. “Guess you’ll just have to wish for it.”

  Drew pulled the monkey paw out of his pocket, held it above his head and said dramatically, “O magic monkey paw, I wish for … Naw, forget it.”

  “What?” asked Collin. “Afraid it won’t work?”

  “Afraid to waste a wish.” Drew grinned. “I mean, why ask for a lousy pretzel when I could ask to be a rock star or a gazillionaire? Besides, my generous, good-natured and, might I add, handsome big brother will buy me one, won’t you, bro?”

  “Only if you promise to wish me into being the greatest guitar player who ever lived.”

  “You got it,” said Drew.

  “Then your wish is my command.” Collin handed Drew a five-dollar bill.

  Drew scampered off to the pretzel line.

  Alone, finally. Collin reached across the table and knit his fingers through mine. “If wishes really did come true, what would you wish for?” he asked.

  I thought a moment. “I don’t know. I have everything I want—a summer job, college next fall at Northwestern, you. Especially you.”

  His blue eyes warmed, and his beautiful mouth smiled. “Yeah, likewise,” he said.

  His words, so tender, freed my spirit. I wanted to shout to the sky, join the birds in their singing. Instead, I leaned forward and kissed him. And as always, I was instantly caught up in the scent of him, made dizzy by his closeness.

  Eternity was in our lips and eyes.

  “What’d I miss?” interrupted Drew, plopping down beside us.

  Collin pulled away, and I felt a tiny pang of loss, as if some part of me had been misplaced.

  “We were just talking about wishes,” said Collin.

  “Did you say wishes, or kisses?” joked Drew, his mouth full of pretzel.

  “Hah, funny,” I said.

  “Besides a sense of humor,” Collin asked him, “what else would you wish for?”

  In reply, Drew wiped his greasy fingers down the front of his jeans, then pulled the monkey paw out of his pocket again. Winking at me, he once more held it above his head, and intoned, “O magic monkey paw, I wish for a 1972 Gran Torino with optional laser stripe and Magnum 500 wheels.”

  The lights in the mall flickered off, briefly plunging the place into shadowy darkness before snapping back on.

  With a shout, Drew leaped to his feet, sending the paw spinning to the floor. “It moved!” he cried, his eyes wide. “Its fingers wrapped around mine. I swear. I made the wish and that thing held my hand!”

  “Get a grip,” said Collin, patting Drew’s shoulder. “That thing couldn’t possibly have moved, doofus.”

  “It did,” Drew said, his voice shaky. “I swear. It moved.” He clutched my arm. “You believe me, don’t you, Lily?”

  His eyes were so intense, so sincere.

  Something wicked this way comes.

  “Let’s go,” I said, unable to keep an edge of urgency from creeping into my voice. “I think we should go.”

  “Whatever,” Collin said, and cleared off the table while Drew bent to pick up the paw. He used his thumb and forefinger, as if he was picking up a pair of sweaty gym socks. Then he stuffed the paw back into his pocket.

  Tight-lipped and tense, Drew followed us as we made our way through the mall and out into the parking lot.

  “Just imagine it, bro,” said Collin, trying to lighten the mood. “When we get home, I bet your Gran Torino will be parked right out front—red with black leather seats. And sitting right behind the three-spoke steering wheel, wearing a little orange fez, will be your chauffeur—a one-handed monkey!”

  Drew tried on a laugh. “And I need a sense of humor?”

  He stepped off the curb.

  There was the blare of a horn … the squealing of tires … Collin shouting, “Drew!” as he shoved his brother out of the way and then … a sic
kening thump.

  So much blood. Everywhere. I ran to Collin, fell to the asphalt, held him close. His skin felt warm, but his eyes were frozen wide open, unmoving.

  I whispered in his ear, “Wake up! Please, my heart, my love!” I shook him.

  He grew heavy in my arms. And heavier.

  “Oh God, oh God …”

  A thread of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth—that beautiful, beautiful mouth. I wiped it away.

  Then the sirens came.

  And the numbness.

  After the ambulance had taken Collin’s body away, a policeman asked if I’d seen the car that had hit him.

  “I’ll always love him,” I replied, my thoughts as trembling and detached as a leaf pausing in the air before the wind takes it. “I’ll never love anyone else. Not as long as I live.”

  “Miss?” the policeman said. He laid a gentle hand on my arm. “Can you remember anything?”

  I shook my head blankly.

  Blow, blow, thou winter wind …

  “I can.” Drew stumbled forward, shock and horror etched on his face. “I saw it.” His lips shaped his next words with effort. “It was a … a … Gran Torino—a 1972 Gran Torino with an … an optional laser stripe and … and Magnum 500 wheels.”

  ***

  I can recall only bits and pieces of Collin’s funeral—the stifling heat of the church; those endless, useless prayers; the nauseating, overripe smell of lilies.

  O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day! Most lamentable day, most woeful day, that ever, ever I did yet behold!

  What sticks most in my memory is the long line of cars mournfully crawling the two miles to Mount Hope Cemetery, where—sick and dizzy and clinging to Drew’s hand, feeling like I’d crumble if I let go—I stood beside that hole cut deep into the ground.

  Collin’s grave.

  O day! O day! O day! O hateful day! Never was seen so black a day as this. O woeful day! O woeful day!

  I wish I could say that my earlier numbness remained. It didn’t. Now I felt everything. The loss of Collin ate away at my bones, the pain creeping through my veins. Everything—his picture in my wallet, his heart-enclosed initials on my notebook covers—was a dreadful reminder that once he had existed, but now I had lost him.