The Book of Living and Dying (2 page)

“Mort,” Sarah said. “His last name is Mort.”

Donna scoffed dismissively. “Sounds like a geek.”

“It’s his last name, Donna. It’s not his fault. He’s not so bad.”

“Not so bad? The guy’s a creepy wanker! What is wrong with you, Wagner? It isn’t normal to go around staring at people like that.”

Sarah shrugged.

Donna wrenched her locker door open with a metallic crash. Sid Vicious sneered from a Sex Pistols poster inside. “Don’t you know what guys like that do? They stare at you all day in school then go home and pull themselves in the privacy of their parents’ bathroom.”

“God, Donna!”

“It’s true.”

“Come on. He’s just a guy.”

“He’s a creepy masturbating geek.” She made a jerking motion with her hand.

“You don’t even know him.”

“I know his type.”

Sarah clucked disdainfully. “His type. He’s been at our school for less than a week and you’ve got him pegged. What is your issue with him?”

There was a fleeting look in Donna’s eyes, as though she was about to disclose a secret, but it vanished quickly as she stepped back in exaggerated revelation. “Oh my God, you like him!”

“I do not!

“You like Mortimer.”

“I just don’t think he’s that bad, that’s all. He seems pretty smart.”

“Why? Because of his long hair and the Dead Kennedys T-shirt that he wears like a uniform?”

“I would have thought that you’d like that.”

Donna kicked her books into her locker. “Retro crap. He probably bought the shirt at some stupid fringe shop or something. I bet he’s never even listened to their music. I heard his dad’s a prof or something.”

“Who cares if his dad’s a prof?” Sarah said, shooting
Donna a look of disgust. “He’s in my media arts class. He seems to know a lot of stuff.”

“So that makes him okay?” Donna sucked in her bottom lip and nodded smugly. “God, you’re such a pushover, Wagner. Just wait until he starts stalking you.” She leaned toward Sarah and moaned.

“Shut up, Donna! He’s coming over here.”

Donna moaned louder. Sarah hid her face in her locker. “You idiot,” she said, laughing into her jacket so she wouldn’t have to see his face.

As Michael walked by, Donna began to pogo up and down, yelling out the lyrics to the Buzzcocks’ “Orgasm Addict.”

“Okay. I get it!” Sarah whispered angrily, clamping a hand over her friend’s mouth. “He’s a creepy masturbating geek. Satisfied?”

Donna shook her head and burst out laughing. “I don’t care if you love Mortimer as long as you still love me.”

“You know I’ll always love you,” Sarah said. “Just don’t bug me today, okay? I’m feeling sensitive.”

“Oooo, sensitive …” Donna put her arm around Sarah’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go to the Queen’s for a cup of j.”

“Can’t. I have band practice.”

“I have band practice,”
Donna mimicked her. “When are you going to quit that stupid band and join a real group? You’re a rock ‘n’ roll goddess, Wagner. Live the dream.”

Sarah ignored her, pulling the guitar case from her locker. Shutting the door, she engaged the lock, testing it to make sure it was secure. “See ya,” she said, turning away.

“Hey! I’ll buy!” Donna called after her, but Sarah only waved over her shoulder and disappeared down the crowded hall.

She was the first to arrive in the music room. Closing the door, Sarah shut out the voices and noise from the hall. She placed the guitar on top of a table, the worn black case covered in stickers. New York, Boston, Chicago—a sticker for every city John had gigged in. Forty-four in total. Two for Chicago, his favourite place. There was a sticker of the Chicago flag right in the middle of the case. He had wanted to be buried with that flag draped over his coffin, military style. A soldier of the blues. But they hadn’t buried him that way. She’d forgotten about the flag in the end. Fear tugged with quick fingers at the back of her neck as the spectre of John shot into her mind again. Sarah forced the image from her head, ran her hands over the guitar case and opened the latches with two low thuds.

The smell of wood and polish drifted into the room. Fender Stratocaster. Tobacco Sunburst. His first love. The guitar gleamed as though bewitched, the light trembling like a lover’s hand across the varnish. Sarah touched the neck, the finish worn dull from John’s fingers. He’d driven a cab for months to pay for the guitar, bumming money from friends for the deposit. The guy at the hockshop had demanded half the price upfront. John hated driving that cab but he had to have the guitar. He grew a beard, let his hair go wild and wore a black leather jacket with the collar upturned to protect his neck, just in case anyone got any ideas about stabbing him. That happened all the time in Chicago, he told her. “Some rubbie jonesin’ for a hit, looking for easy money.”

Lifting the guitar from its case, Sarah attached the strap to
one end, and then the other, the way she’d seen John do it. She let it hang, feeling the familiar weight of it across her shoulder, the body resting low against her legs. It had felt so heavy the first time she’d held it. Now it seemed comfortable and easy to carry. Pushing the jack into the amplifier, she smiled when she heard the hum and snap of electricity. She strummed a chord tentatively. Her fingers were stiff and clumsy, compared to John’s. Adjusting the knobs, she strummed again until she was satisfied with the sound. Peter and the other band members eventually burst into the room, their high spirits and loud voices shattering her solitude.

The school was all but empty by the time Sarah left; her footsteps echoed lightly down the hall. She could hear Peter turning the key to lock the music room door on the second floor. Afraid he would try to ask her out again, she hurried to get out of the building. He was always looking for opportunities to catch her alone. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him. She’d given him a chance—once. He just wasn’t her type after all. He didn’t do anything for her. She was fine going back to being just friends. That’s all she wanted. She’d run these reasons over and over in her head, but no matter how many times she examined the situation, she couldn’t find a way to save the patient, to tell the truth without killing his ego. So she took to avoiding him when she was by herself. She was running out of excuses.

Peter was calling her name, his feet scuffling quickly down the stairs to catch up with her. The metal bar on the
school door gave a loud clunk as she pushed it and slipped with John’s guitar into the night. The air was cool and tingling with needles of rain atomized to a fine mist. Sarah checked the road for cars before crossing, even though she knew the streets would be deserted. There was no life after dark in Terrace, Massachusetts.

As Sarah stepped from the curb, an exquisite rust-coloured leaf floated down, illuminated by the streetlights. It lifted on the wind and danced invitingly in front of her like a small kite.
Quercus alba.
“White oak,” she said to herself. She had learned the Latin names from one of her teachers at school, the foreign sound of the words soothing her when she couldn’t sleep after the sickness came. She had books at home, books she had made herself, cataloguing the leaves and the names of the trees that had released them, their varied personalities, the subtleties of design, the details. She had focused her mind and discovered a whole world that she had never considered before, opening up, calling her in. It gave her a sense of belonging when everything else had abandoned her—including her mother, who didn’t seem to care what she did any more. Didn’t care about her marks in school or who she hung around with or how late she stayed out—or if she even came home at all. Her mother didn’t care about anything, it seemed, except coffee and cigarettes.

The ethereal leaf dipped and bobbed. Sarah followed as it floated toward the library, pulsing lightly, like a butterfly, only to flutter away again as she went to catch it. Twirling in the air, the leaf slipped behind the wall of the library and was gone. The wall stood in shadow. Just the kind of place a ghost would like to haunt. “Don’t be silly,” Sarah muttered. Taking a sharp breath, she walked quickly around the cor
ner and then stopped, peering through the dark. Was that the leaf, just under the bushes? The moisture dripped off the cedars as she knelt on the ground, stretching out her hand. She turned her head slightly to increase her reach and caught the figure of a man watching her from the shadows.

Sarah shouted as she fell back, one arm clutching the guitar, heels skidding against the wet grass. Trying to right herself so she could run, she recognized the man as Michael Mort and laughed with embarrassed relief. “Oh my God! You scared me!”

Michael stood, half shrouded in darkness, the light from the street lamps dancing across his face in strange patterns with the movement of the leaves in the trees. From where Sarah was standing, it looked like he was changing rapidly, his image flickering and throbbing as if captured on old celluloid film. He looked older than seventeen in that light. Much older. His jaw was sharp and angular, punctuated at the chin with a coal-black goatee. His lips were full and curved, his black hair streaming over his shoulders and down the back of his trench coat. He was beautiful, she thought—almost too beautiful. The kind of dark and brooding good looks that earned him sideways glances from girls harbouring secret lust, too timid to risk his thinly veiled disdain. He was different, and wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of it with his aloof and disaffected manner. Sarah felt the pull of attraction, despite her better judgment. He could be the devil for all she knew. What had Donna said, about him stalking her? She held John’s guitar a little tighter.

“What are you doing back here?” she demanded.

“Just hanging out,” he said. He shifted his knapsack on his shoulder. The knapsack was covered in pins, with names of older bands that Sarah had only heard of from John. Black
Flag, Flipper, Reagan Youth, 7Seconds, Minor Threat, Dag Nasty, The Exploited, Hüsker Dü. There was something dangling from his fingers, too. It was the leaf.

“I was looking for that,” she said.

Michael held the leaf up, inspecting it indifferently before offering it to her. “Take it,” he said, stepping from the shadows.

Their fingers touched briefly as a gust of wind plucked the leaf from Michael’s fingers and carried it up into the night.

“Oh!” Sarah cried. She quickly collected herself and regarded him with mild chagrin. “I collect leaves,” she shyly confessed. “Pretty dumb, huh?”

Michael looked back at her, unflinching. He didn’t shift his eyes or look at his feet when he talked to her like so many other guys she knew. It made her nervous and excited just to stand next to him.

“I collect comics,” he said, his tone friendlier. “How dumb is that?”

They laughed with the surprise of spontaneous fellowship and she noticed for the first time that his irises were completely black. They stared at each other, the laughter trickling away, until only their smiles were left. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a bird scrambling inside a box and she found herself wondering what it would be like to press her mouth against his lips, to taste him. As she considered this, a voice called her name from across the street.

It was Peter. He jogged over to where they stood, glanced at Michael, then turned his back to him, addressing Sarah as though Michael weren’t there. “You walking home?”

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but said nothing. She didn’t want to go off with Peter and spend the next half hour dodging his advances. She wanted to stay in the half-formed
light beside the library and learn more about Michael. “I’m okay, Peter,” she said.

“I don’t mind walking you home. I go that way anyway. You know that.”

Sarah looked over at Michael. He had a bemused smirk on his face, waiting for her answer. Peter waited too.

“I’m okay, Peter, really. I’ve got some stuff to do.”

Peter nodded. “Yeah, sure.” He glared at Michael as he turned to leave, took a few steps, then turned around again. “Don’t forget the party at my place. You don’t want to miss it.” He pointed his finger at Sarah like a pistol and cocked his thumb.

Sarah winced inside. She hated when he did that. “Sure, great. Thanks.” She watched him go, willed him to leave faster, the sound of his green Keds growing fainter as they squeaked against the wet pavement in the distance. Michael was watching her. “Don’t ask,” she said.

He held his hands innocently in the air. “Hey, it’s none of my business who you go out with.”

“Oh, God, please.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “He won’t leave me alone.”

“Like moths to a flame,” Michael said.

Was he making fun of her? She looked at him, expecting him to make a joke of it. But he wasn’t laughing. He was just staring intently back at her with his dark eyes. She tried to grasp something clever to say but came up empty-handed. Now she was the one examining her feet.

“What I really want to know,” he said, rescuing her from her awkwardness, “is what kind of music you play on that guitar.”

Relieved to change the subject, Sarah dismissed her interest with a laugh, talking rapidly. “It’s my brother’s
guitar—John. He was amazing. I’m not very good. I just fool around a bit because I can’t stand the idea of his guitar just sitting around not being played.” She stopped, wondering if she should explain. She never talked about this stuff with anyone. Sadness made people uncomfortable, she discovered, especially if it went on too long. She felt suddenly naked, balancing on a very steep cliff, toes stuck dangerously over the edge. It would be so easy to just tell him, to free herself from the burden of it. Holding her breath for a moment, she spoke the word at last. “Cancer.” It tumbled out as she surrendered to the moment, relinquishing control. It felt so good to let go.

Michael nodded. He didn’t take his eyes from her, or fidget, the way other people did when she talked like this. He didn’t try to comfort her with words, or some story about a relative who had died in a similar way. Instead, he looked back at her, with simple honesty and genuine emotion. She felt the band begin to loosen around her heart, the air rushing into her lungs as though for the first time. Should she tell him about John’s ghost, too? Was it too soon for that kind of intimacy?