Wintergirls

by Laurie Halse Anderson

  I stop in front of the florist shop. On the second floor, the lights are on in my old dance studio. I spent a lifetime staring into the mirrors up there. I’d flex and leap, and bow and sweep; a sugarplum, a swan, a maiden, a doll. After rehearsal I’d steal my mother’s anatomy book and stand naked in the bathroom, tracing the muscles that swam under my skin, looking for the place where they thinned into tough tendon ribbons anchored in the bones.

  The girl reflected back from the window in front of me has poinsettias growing out of her belly and head. She’s the shape of a breakfast-link sausage standing on broom-stick legs, her arms made from twigs, her face blurred with an eraser. I know that it is me, but it’s not me, not really. I don’t know what I look like. I can’t remember how to look.

  Gray faces crowd the red leaves. The ghosts want to taste me. Their hands snake out, fingers open wide. I walk quickly, moving out of the reach of their sticky shadows. As I pass under a streetlight, the bulb pops and I smell burnt sugar. Her. Her.

  I run the rest of the way to the wake, one step ahead of the iron hooks she’s casting.

  022.00

  The line of people waiting to stare at the empty body snakes out the front door of the church and down the steps to the sidewalk. Dark chords from the organ slip into the night, turning our shoes into concrete blocks and pulling down our faces until we look like trees drooping with black leaves.

  We’ve all been here before. In fifth grade it was Jim-my Myers, leukemia. In eighth, Madison Ellerson and her parents died in a thirty-car pileup during a blizzard. Last year it was a guy from the tennis team, the one who made State. Didn’t buckle his seat belt, no airbags. When his car hit a truck, he launched through the windshield in a perfect arc until he landed, tangled and speared, in the arms of a pine tree. The line for his wake went all the way around the block.

  Walking through the front door, I am hit by the buzz of people talking but trying not to be heard. Parents unbutton their coats and drape them awkwardly over their arms. Sweat beads up on the cheeks of boys, leaning on the walls with their hands in their pockets and their ties loosened. Girls teeter-totter on their highest heels and thank God it is not them in the pretty box up front.

  I leave my jacket on, unzipped. For the first time in weeks, I am almost warm. Plastic candles with orange bulbs flicker along the dark windows. The line moves along at a steady pace, like we’re filing in to a concert or a football game. When the soccer team walks by the casket, the captain hands a team ball signed by all the girls to Cassie’s father. He gives it to a man in black who puts the offering in with the corpse, gently, so she doesn’t wake up.

  It’s called a wake, but nobody really wants the dead to rise.

  The closer I get to the coffin, the hotter it is. Brown-edged chrysanthemum petals drop loudly from the wreaths that are perched on metal holders. I’m wilting, too, and my head is filling with rusty nails. I shouldn’t have worn jeans. Idiot.

  There is a gap between me and the guy ahead of me, a space big enough for four people. A lady behind me hisses, “Move up.”

  Suddenly the organist stops playing. People stop in mid-murmur. The organist reaches for something above her and a whole stack of books falls to the floor, echoing across the marble like a gunshot. People jump.

  I can see the bottom of the box now. The soccer ball rests next to a folded black T-shirt from the stage crew. Cassie’s feet are hidden under a white velvet sheet, toes sticking straight up. I hope they put warm slippers on her, and comfy socks. I hope they left on her toe ring.

  The music starts up again, a long, trembling minor chord.

  The guy in front of me walks over to Cassie’s parents. Her mother sobs and he puts his arms around her. He’s an uncle, the fun one, the one who taught us how to water-ski. He is crying, too, groaning. They are the only two people in this whole hot, crowded, dead-petal church strong enough to say and do what we are all thinking.

  My turn to stare. My turn to rape the dead.

  Sleeping Beauty is wearing a sky blue dress with a high neck and long sleeves. Her hair looks like an over-brushed doll’s wig, tired yellow with faded red highlights coming through. She is not wearing any earrings or her silver bell necklace, but her class ring was shoved on her finger. Her nose piercing and acne scars are hidden under the foundation plastered on her skin. They used the wrong shade of pale.

  I want to take off her dress and see if they unzipped her belly. I want to look inside. She would, too, because that’s all we ever talked about, the hidden creatures with itchy wings and antennae that poked us and sent us stumbling to the bathroom, Cassie to the toilet so she could get rid of it all, me to the mirror so the girl on the other side would keep me strong and steel-ribbed.

  They should have put her crochet needle in the box next to her, and yarn so she’ll have something to do in Eternity. Some Gaiman, Tolkien, Butler, a few tabloids, mints—peppermint, not wintergreen—her swimming ribbons and Girl Scout badges, the posters from the plays she was in. I bet she’d like a box of cereal to munch on, too: comfort food for the ride.

  Her mother sobs louder than the organ.

  I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the small disk of green see-glass, born in the heart of a volcano, capable of showing the future. I stole it from Cassie’s room when we were nine, but I could never make it work, no matter how the stars lined up.

  I slip the magic glass into her frozen hand.

  Cassie’s fingers curl around it.

  My heart stutters.

  She squeezes the green disk tightly, then she blinks— once, twice—opens her eyes wide, and looks straight at me. She reaches up and touches her hair. It comes out of her head like dandelion fluff. A few strands float up to the real candles burning at the head of the box. They ignite like sparklers.

  I cannot breathe.

  Cassie sits up slowly. She holds the magic glass up to her blue eye, looks through it and laughs, a low, dirty sound that only came out at two or three o’clock in the morning. She pops the glass in her mouth and swallows it, then wipes her mouth with her hand, staining her fingers with wax and blood.

  She frowns and opens her mouth—

  —no. She is not sitting there. She’s not there at all. There is no blood, no cloud of doll hair burning up in the candle fire.

  I blink. She has disappeared from the coffin. The soccer ball rolls backwards. Her feet aren’t there to prop it up.

  I blink.

  She’s still gone, the white velvet sheet thrown to the side like she didn’t hear the alarm go off and now she’s going to be really late and her dad will take the car away again and she’ll have to drive with me, and that’s a little scary.

  The organ music pours down and floods the church.

  The line behind me mutters. People have places to go and things to do and the new episodes come on in half an hour, and besides, they are all much too polite to notice that the coffin is empty. The fun uncle is buttoning up his coat. The space in front of Cassie’s parents waits for me.

  A hand touches my shoulder and a guy whispers in my ear. “It’s okay. Go on. I’m right behind you.”

  I trip, then shuffle, eyes down, over to her mom. Mrs. Parrish drapes her arms around me without a word and lays her head on my shoulder. I pat her on the back. Mr. Parrish shakes the hand of the guy behind me and says something that I can’t hear because Cassie’s mom is so heavy that she is dragging me under the hip-deep water in the sanctuary and down through the marble floor. She wants us to sink below the basement into the warm crawly dirt, where Cassie has a room waiting, so the three of us can curl into critter balls and wait for spring.

  The hand touches me again. Mr. Parrish pulls us out of the ground and unpeels his wife from me. He fierce-kisses my forehead, but can’t find anything to say.

  “We’re so sorry for your loss,” says the smoke-eyed Elijah guy attached to the hand that is holding mine. “Words aren’t enough.”

  He pulls me into the tide moving out the door. I stum
ble, and he grabs my arm to keep me from falling.

  023.00

  “Drink this.”

  Elijah pushes a heavy mug of hot chocolate toward me. I don’t remember who ordered it. I don’t remember walking here.

  “Go on.”

  I use both hands to pick up the mug, and sip. It burns my lips and tongue and my pink throat. Serves me right. My hands shake as I set the mug back down, and it sloshes on the table. He pulls paper napkins from the metal holder to wipe up the spill.

  I know this place, I’ve been here before. It’s the vegetarian diner a couple of blocks from the church, the place with chill music, hemp bagels, and petitions at the cash register.

  “How you doing, Emma?” he asks.

  It takes a minute to register that he’s talking to me, that I still haven’t told him who I am because it’s easier to lie. I should say “Much better, thanks, how are you?” with the good-girl smile, but I am too freaking tired.

  He pushes the soggy napkins to the end of the table. “Seeing dead people can be weird.”

  I hold my fingers in the steam rising from the mug and watch the cook working the grill, the toaster, and the blender. Cassie is sitting in every chair, laughing, chewing, pointing at the special on the menu.

  “She’s not in her coffin,” I blurt out.

  He freezes for a second, eyes fixed on mine. His hair is washed and pulled back into a short ponytail. The wooden plug in his earlobe has been switched out for a hollow bone circle that makes a round window next to his jaw. He’s wearing a button-down dingy shirt with a sad black tie. His hands are clean. He shaved, sort of.

  “I know,” he says. “That’s just her shell, not her soul.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not what I mean. She sat up in the coffin. Then she disappeared. Didn’t you see that?”

  He lays both of his hands on mine and leans forward. They’re so warm they should be glowing. “Do me a favor,” he says slowly. “Take a sip, close your eyes, and breathe.”

  “That’s dumb.”

  He smiles and nods. “Yeah, I know. But do it anyway.”

  My hands raise the mug to my lips again. I am muffled in white velvet sheets. The beads click on my abacus: twelve ounces of hot chocolate = 400, but I am freezing. I need todrink one mouthful and ignore the taste.

  I sip, set down the mug, no spilling, and close my eyes. Breathe, he said. I breathe in pancakes and french fries. Nervous smells.

  “Keep breathing,” he orders, his voice a rumble of far-away thunder.

  The cook puts something on the griddle and it hisses. Chair legs scratch the floor as the guy sitting at the table next to us leaves. Someone lifts a rack of glasses that tinkle together like rain. A couple of women laugh, their voices tripping over each other. The bathroom door squeaks.

  “Ready?” he asks. “Open your eyes. Don’t think. Just open your eyes and be still.”

  The diner comes back into focus: tables, chairs, lights, kitchen. Posters covering the walls. Through the hole in Elijah’s earlobe I can see the crescent moon and stars painted on the wall under the clock. The girl sitting next to it is not Cassie. Neither is the waiter refilling her mug. I turn in my seat to look around. Nobody here is Cassie. I’m safe.

  “Better?” he asks.

  “Better. Thanks.”

  “No problem.” He spears a forkful of waffle drenched in maple syrup. “You had a shaky moment. It happens.” He shovels the waffle into his mouth.

  “Wait,” I say. “Where did that come from?”

  He points to the table next to us. The waitress hasn’t cleaned it off. It still has her five-dollar bill stuck under the saltshaker, a half-empty cup of coffee, a dirty fork, and an empty place mat with syrup stains.

  “They were just going to throw it away.”

  “That’s disgusting, what about the germs?”

  “Free food never makes me sick. You want some?”

  “No way.”

  He laughs so loud that people turn and stare.

  “Are you always this strange?”

  He laughs again. “Stranger. See this?” He rolls up his sleeve to show the tattoo that takes up his entire forearm: a muscular half-bull, half-man thing riding a bike through a wall of flame, with wings sprouting from its legs and arms and helmet.

  “What is that supposed to be?”

  “He’s the god of bike messengers. Cool, huh? This vision of him came to me one day when I was delivering a package to a law firm in Boston. Saw him so clearly I thought he’d reach out and choke me. He had to go in my skin.”

  “You have visions.”

  “It’s a gift. You should see the tattoo on my butt.”

  “No, thanks.” I give the diner a quick glance. Still no Cassies. “What if you get a vision you don’t like?”

  “Doesn’t matter if I like it or not. What matters is that I pay attention, and figure out why it was sent to me.”

  His eyes dart to something over my shoulder, and he suddenly shoves the waffle plate across the table, almost dumping it in my lap.

  Our waitress appears, long denim skirt, thick Icelandic sweater, tiny shells dangling from cartilage piercings. BMI 23. She rests the tray on her padded hip and frowns at the waffles. “When did you order those?”

  “I didn’t,” I say.

  Elijah gently kicks my leg under the table. “My buddy gave them to her,” he says. “The guy with the beat-up Bruins jacket—he left a couple minutes ago.”

  She narrows her eyes, smelling a scam. “Are you sure?”

  “He didn’t stick us with the bill, did he?” Elijah asks.

  “No.” She shakes her head. “He paid.”

  “Left you a good tip, too, so no worries, right?” He points to her tray. “Is that mine?”

  She sets the plate of toasted brown bread and a small crock of red jam in front of him and walks away without another word.

  He dumps the jam on the bread, spreading it thick with the knife.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  He takes a bite. “Anything.”

  “What’s a bike messenger with visions doing in the middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire?”

  “I don’t live in Nowhere, I live in Centerville. Want a bite?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “Not hungry.”

  “And I used to be a bike messenger. Right now I’m a handyman. Turns out I have mad skills with a wrench.” He folds the bread in half and stuffs most of it in his mouth. “It’s crazy. I can do anything.”

  “Right. Sure.” I laugh and accidentally drink some hot chocolate. “Like what?”

  “Where should I start? Poet, philosopher, fisherman. My pop calls me a bum, but that’s elitist, don’t you think? I can split wood, spread mulch, pour beer, and grow perfect tomatoes.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “I’m an ace poker player, a shaman, and a wanderer in search of truth. I can drive a cab, a motorcycle, and ride a bull, but not for long. I shovel manure in an original and artistic manner. As soon as I get my car fixed up, I will become a gypsy looking for a lost world.”

  “And you’re a thief,” I add.

  “When the situation calls for it.” He pulls the syrupy plate back in front of him and dips the toast in it.

  “Why don’t you just use your powers to win the lottery or make money grow on trees instead of stealing food?”

  “That would be boring.” He licks syrup off the side of his hand. “Your turn. What are you?”

  “Sad.” The word falls out.

  “You knew her well, didn’t you?”

  The lights flicker behind my eyes. I knew her a whole world. I knew her sleepovers and cookie sales and crushes on boybands and the time I broke my leg riding on the back of her bike and the time I helped her paint her room white after she painted it black without permission.

  “Tell me something about her,” he says. “Something nice.”

  “She loved waffles.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

 
“She said the world would be a better place if we all used waffles instead of bread.”

  He eats a spoonful of jam. “Why?”

  “Because they taste better and ‘waffle’ is more fun to say.”

  “Good point.”

  The scowly waitress comes by and leaves the check facedown on the table. Elijah flips it over and glances at the total.

  I take out my wallet. “What do I owe?”

  He reaches in his pocket. “I got it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep.” He dumps a handful of change by his plate. “But only if you finish that hot chocolate. I cleaned out a septic tank to earn this money. Not that you should feel guilty or anything.”

  I fight a smile and curl my hand around the mug.I don’t want to go home, not when I’m just starting to warm up. I’ll let the skin form on top of hot chocolate and be so grossed out by it, I can’t drink any more. He can’t expect me to drink skin. I’ll stay for twenty minutes, until the library closes. “You still hungry?” I ask.

  “Always. The smell of those french fries is killing me.”

  “Why don’t you order some?”

  “Can’t.” He points to the pile of change. “That’s all I have on me.”

  I pull out my debit card and wave it at him. “No problem.”

  Two french fries = 20.

  024.00

  I am almost a real girl the entire drive home. I went to a diner. I drank hot chocolate and ate french fries. Talked to a guy for a while. Laughed a couple of times. A little like ice-skating for the first time, wobbly, but I did it.

  As I walk in the house, the whispers start up again....

  ... she called.

  thirty-three times.

  you didn’t answer.

  body found in a motel room, alone.

  you left her alone.

  should should should have done anythingeverything.

  you killed her.

  I try to squeeze them out by focusing loudly. I am walking up the stairs. I am walking in my room. I am—