Still Not Dead, page 13
“Oh, so if I participate in your rebellion or whatever, maybe a fairy will miraculously emerge from the heavens to grant me my wish?” I’ve shifted into unreasonable-little-shit mode, but I can’t help it.
“I’m trying to be helpful,” my mom says quietly.
“Well, try harder,” I say.
“I know this isn’t your fault, DRM,” Paolo says. “Thanks for being honest with me.”
I ignore Paolo’s polite words. “Ohmigod, this unassassin thing is why you were happy to have Pow around, isn’t it? If we saved him, it would be the same thing as this Whitney girl, right? The son of a DIA agent survives. What a statement.”
“Yes,” my mom acknowledges, looking down at her lap. “I did hope for that.”
“And now that he’s immune,” I say, “are you gonna kick him out of the movement?”
“Of course not,” my mother says. “I’ve come to trust him. You’re a sweet kid, Paolo. I know you wouldn’t do anything to endanger Frank.”
“Thanks,” Paolo says.
I know there’s nothing to be done, but I want to jump out of my skin.
Paolo takes a chip and scoops up the remainder of the peach salsa.
“This just sucks so bad,” I say as Paolo and I roam the streets near my mom’s apartment.
“I agree,” Paolo says, dragging a stick he picked up along the slats of a random gate we’re passing.
We took a few bites of the Colombian food Felix and Dane had ordered, then got the hell out of there. More for me than Paolo, I think. He’s handling his renewed death sentence surprisingly well.
“So, dude,” I say. A streetlight illuminates Paolo’s face, and he looks kinda ghostly for a second. “You don’t have to stick around here. You should spend your last weeks however you want. Maybe we should both ditch this place.”
“Nah, man, you got your mom’s mission. Which actually sounds kind of fun.” Paolo taps his stick along the sidewalk.
“Well, you should come with me to that funeral, then. ’Cause I don’t want to do it if you’re not there. Look, you heard my mom. Maybe spreading the virus will teach us something that can help you.”
“Ha, I wouldn’t count on it, D. But, yeah, maybe I’ll come to that and then go home.” Paolo stops on the sidewalk and leans poetically on his stick, so I stop, too. “The way I see it, Dent,” he says, “I wasn’t ever supposed to have this time with you. Whenever I imagined the last few weeks of my life, you were already dead, and I was just moping around with my mom and V, and it was very sad.
“But this last week has been crazy awesome, and I have complete faith that the next two weeks will be, too. Because I’m gonna live life to the fullest. Like you did, Dent, but even better! No offense. And it starts right now.” Paolo drops his stick under a tree and digs around in his jeans pocket. He pulls out what looks like a metal cigarette and a lighter.
“What’s that?”
“Want some?” Paolo asks. He flashes the end of the metal cigarette at me. It’s packed tight with pot.
“Whoa, where’d that come from?”
“Brought it with me that first day,” Paolo says, lighting the end and inhaling deeply. “In my sneaker.”
“That must have been uncomfortable.”
“Yes. But highly worth it.” He exhales a thick, narrow stream of white. “Been waiting for the right moment to whip it out. I believe I’ve found it.” He says the last part in a fancy voice.
I can’t help but be immensely paranoid. “Should you be smoking on the street like this? It smells really strong.”
“It’s NYC, baby,” Paolo says. “Anything goes.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Well, I’m gonna own this shit, and you should, too.” He holds the pipe out to me. I haven’t smoked since that time in the woods right before my deathdate, when everything was infused with the desperation and heightened stakes of dying soon.
Now I’ll just be another teenager getting high with his friend. Well, his dying friend.
“All right,” I say, taking a hit. It’s possible we’re smoking to run away from our problems, but I think that’s actually okay right now.
“Yeah! You getting high is one of my most favorite things,” Paolo says.
“I’m glad.” I cough three times. “So you’re definitely good to stick around, at least until the mission on Wednesday?”
“You know it, baby,” Paolo says. “Let’s save a dead girl!”
My mom was right. There are tons of people at this funeral. Paolo and I are having no trouble blending in.
We stand in the back, behind dozens of rows of pews, fidgeting in our suits, borrowed from Felix’s closet, neither of which fits correctly. Our pant legs are too long because Felix is taller than both of us, and Paolo’s shirt and suit jacket are extremely tight. He’s slightly wider than Felix.
“It should have occurred to me that we’d need suits,” Paolo says, tugging on his jacket. “Could have gone to a thrift shop or something.”
I don’t respond, because, even though we’re relatively camouflaged, the parents of the dying teenager—Congressman Tom Whitney and his wife—are in the middle of their joint eulogy.
“Oh, Haley,” Mrs. Whitney says, her blond hair perfectly coiffed, her face a red mess. “You’re our little darling, and you always will be.”
“Yes,” Congressman Whitney says. He has a full head of gray hair, and he looks pretty old to be the dad of a teenager; he’s at least ten years older than my dad. “You’ll always be Daddy’s little angel.”
Using the word angel in this context is perhaps a little misguided. A wave of sobs rises up around us in the audience, and the mother falls apart at the lectern.
“Oh, why?” she screams. “Why does it have to be our Haley who dies so young? It’s not fair! IT’S NOT FAIR!”
“All right, Suzanne,” Congressman Whitney says, patting his wife’s back. “All right.”
“It’s been hanging over our heads since she was born, and you know what? Knowing hasn’t helped. It hasn’t! They say it will make it easier, but this has been HELL. For years!” Someone brings the congressman a martini glass, which he passes to his wife. “No! I don’t want a drink right now! Can’t shut me up with a cocktail. Not today!”
I feel a combination of sympathy and embarrassment for this woman. But for the first time, I really understand my mom’s mission. Maybe deathdates bring more pain than they take away.
The funeral is happening in the chapel of an obscenely gigantic celebration home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Haley Whitney, the guest of honor, is a stereotypically pretty sixteen-year-old, all blond hair and cheekbones. So far, the main fact emphasized about her—mentioned in every single eulogy up to this point—is her passion for horses. Multiple friends have talked about how much they’ll miss “going out riding together.” I can’t relate.
Haley’s parents are now hugging Haley tightly.
Once the hug is done, the mother and father head back to their seats, and Haley takes their place behind the lectern. She wears a blue dress that sparkles in the light, and she carries herself like she’s a princess.
Before she begins to speak, she picks up a glass of water and takes a sip.
“She likes to drink water,” Paolo says. “We’re set!”
“Yeah, totally,” I say.
“Shhh,” an older woman in the row ahead of us says, giving us a death stare.
Haley takes her time sipping the water, like she’s unaware that hundreds of people are watching her. Maybe I should have taken that kind of ownership during my self-eulogy.
She stares out at everyone and begins to speak.
“Ohmigod, you guys!” she says, her voice high, childlike, and unpleasant to the ear.
You know how you can see a stranger one way, but then they say or do something that allows you to understand who they actually are, thereby instantly reframing their looks and making you wonder how you ever saw them as attractive? She’s said only three words, but they were enough.
“Yeesh,” Paolo says.
“I can’t believe all of you are here for little old me,” Haley continues, putting both hands on her cheeks, much to my mortification. I know this isn’t fair. I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but her vibe is painfully self-aware and filled with self-love.
“My parents and I were trying to guess last night how many people would be here. They thought three hundred. I thought at the very least four hundred. But now I’m looking out, and it’s gotta be way more than that!”
“The usher said we’re at six hundred seventy-nine,” Haley’s dad calls out from his seat.
“What? Ohmigod!” Haley says, looking around, mouth open wide. “That’s even more than Violet Rosenstein had! Thank you soooo much, everybody!!”
Oh man. It seems like very poor form to compare funeral attendance. Though now I’m wondering how many people were at mine. It couldn’t have been more than three hundred. But my dad’s not a congressman.
Why am I seriously thinking about this?
“So, I love all of you beautiful specimens so much, but first I want to take this opportunity to settle some scores.”
“Wow,” I say.
“That is kinda what you did, too, though, right?” Paolo whispers.
“Yeah, but I didn’t lead with that! It was totally different!” I say. But he’s absolutely right. It is what I did. I want to crawl in a hole.
“Bella Turner,” Haley says, one hand on her forehead as she looks out. “Is she here?”
“She’s over here,” another girl shouts.
“Good,” Haley says. “Can we just admit once and for all that I’m the better rider? You’re good at jumps, I’ll give you that. But your overall form, otherwise? Please, girl.”
“Sure, I agree, whatever,” a voice that must be Bella’s says from many rows ahead of us.
“Say it like you mean it!” Haley says, leaning forward over the lectern.
“I agree, okay?” Bella says again.
“Thank you,” Haley says, a sneer still glued to her face, which now seems impossible to imagine as anything other than ugly.
“Next up: Tyler Mechlowicz. Where is he?”
“Charming gal, right?” Felix says, popping his head in between Paolo’s and mine.
“Hey!” I whisper. “This is atrocious.”
“You look so cool,” Paolo says, admiring Felix’s black-and-white waiter ensemble.
“I need to go—don’t wanna arouse suspicion—but find me afterward.”
Felix weaves himself through the crowd away from us. It’ll be his job to serve my spit water to Haley somehow.
“So, Tyler, you see now,” Haley is saying, “how you being confused about your sexual orientation makes me look bad? Why’d you agree to go out with me in the first place if you like guys? It’s majorly offensive.”
“That’s enough, Hales,” her father says.
“Fine!” Haley brushes her hair back.
“Okay, yeah,” Paolo says. “This is different than what you did.”
“Thank you for saying that,” I say, genuinely relieved.
We watch as Haley berates and derides at least five other people. I keep waiting for her parents to stop her, but I don’t think they want to ruin her moment. Every new bash session makes it harder for me to justify saving her life. She is not a nice person.
“I think that’s everyone,” Haley says, tapping her fingers on her lips. “Yes! Okay, so now I just want to say thank you to my parents, all my chicas, and, most of all, FireFoot.” She hangs her head and sniffs right into the microphone, letting all of us know how emotional she’s feeling. “You’re such a pure spirit, FireFoot. You’re my best friend. You taught me so much. I don’t want to leave you.”
“Screw Steve,” Paolo says. “I should be using FireFoot as my alias. So badass.”
“I’m pretty sure FireFoot is the name of a horse,” I whisper.
“Oh,” Paolo says. “But still.”
“So now,” Haley says, wiping her face with a handkerchief that her mother has rushed up to her, “I want to sing a song for you, FireFoot.” People in the crowd look around, like, Is FireFoot actually here? “Hit it, Frank,” Haley says, and for the briefest of moments I think she’s talking to me. Which is progress, I guess.
She’s actually talking to the overweight, bearded man sitting at the big organ off to the side. He nods and starts to play. I recognize the music immediately, though it takes me about ten seconds to place the song.
“Good God,” I say to Paolo. “It’s ‘I Dreamed a Dream.’ She’s about to sing ‘I Dreamed a Dream.’ ”
“What is that?” he says.
“From Les Mis.”
“What? Are you saying real words right now?”
“It’s a musical,” I say. “It doesn’t matter.”
If my ex-girlfriend Taryn were here, she’d appreciate how heinous this is. In the variety show we were both in last year, the one that successfully kick-started our romance, Rebecca Chorsky sang “I Dreamed a Dream,” and we later bonded over how uneasy that performance made us feel. I don’t even know musicals that well, but I know that song is way overdone. Like, past overdone.
I wonder how Taryn’s doing.
In any case, Haley is giving ol’ Rebecca Chorsky a run for her money. As she starts emoting into the microphone, I actually need to look down at my feet. It’s that bad.
It’s not even a question of talent—Haley has a decent enough voice, with vibrato aplenty—but she’s singing as if she knows she’s an amazing singer and it’s her gift to all of us. Also, the lyrical connection to FireFoot seems tenuous at best. It’s all pretty much the worst.
“Come on,” I say, grabbing Paolo by the shoulder.
“Huh?” he says. Tears are streaming down his face.
“You all right?”
“Are you listening to the words? This is very moving.” Of course Paolo’s somehow made it through life without hearing this song. “It’s making me think I should sing something at my funeral. Maybe that song from The Breakfast Club.”
“Okay, that’s great, but I need to step outside a minute or I’m gonna explode.”
“Oh wow,” Paolo says. “Say no more.” He wordlessly follows me under the enormous stained-glass windows and through the heavy chapel doors. We stand on the sidewalk out front.
“It was too much emotions for you, huh?” Paolo says. “Bringing back memories of your own funeral and stuff?”
“Something like that,” I say, sliding out of my jacket so my pits can breathe for a minute. “I don’t know if I can go through with this, Pow.”
“It’s gonna be easy, bro-bro. All you have to do is spit in a glass of water.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s this Haley girl. She’s so mean. Out of all the people I could save, why does it have to be her? I don’t want to erase her deathdate. She’s just gonna continue to make the lives of Bella and Tyler and all those people terrible.”
“Well, I mean, it’s kinda too late to back out now, right?”
“Why?”
“Because,” Paolo says, “you’re gonna know for the rest of your life that she died because of you. She could have lived, but you chose to let her go.”
“It wouldn’t be my fault! There’s probably tons of people having funerals today. Am I supposed to feel bad that I’m saving Haley and not them?”
“Come to think of it, maybe,” Paolo says.
“I can’t tell you how unhelpful this is,” I say.
“You’re welcome.” Paolo digs around in his suit jacket, pulls out his metal cigarette, lights the end, and inhales deeply. “You want?”
“Yessir,” I say, grabbing it and taking my own huge pull. My stance on weed has shifted dramatically in the past week. Maybe it’s because I don’t want my almost-dead best friend to have to smoke alone, or maybe I’m just grateful to have some kind of release. Whatever the reason, Paolo and I have gotten high as we’ve explored some of Brooklyn’s finest destinations. High in Prospect Park? Check. High at Coney Island? Check. High at Grimaldi’s Pizza? Yes, indeed! My mom doesn’t seem to care; she’s just happy I’m on board with this whole mission thing.
I exhale and then cough into my jacket as an elderly couple slowly walks by, arm in arm. The woman’s overly made-up face is scrunched, giving Paolo and me a severe stink eye.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he says.
“Meh,” she says, looking away.
“And to you as well,” I say, taking another hit. I’m definitely feeling it, which at this moment I appreciate. “This stuff always kicks in so fast.”
“I know, right? It’s Willis’s superstrong stuff. So you don’t have to smoke as much of it to get high.”
“What the hell, man! Take it.” I shove the pipe back into Paolo’s face until he grabs it.
“Whoa, whoa, easy there, cowgirl.”
“We’ve been smoking pot from Willis Ellis all week? Have you forgotten he’s, like, my angel of death and almost killed me multiple times?”
“See, I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d get all snippy. All of that stuff was on your deathdate, man. Almost two weeks ago. You’re safe now, D. And anyway you can’t die from mari-joo-ana.”
“You can if it’s laced with heroin or something.”
“Well,” Paolo says, taking another hearty pull. “That might be true. In which case, I should be the one freaking out.”
The doors behind us open, and I jump. It’s a skinny girl in a green dress. She walks past us toward the curb and lights up a cigarette.
I feel high, but not in the usual giggly way. It’s more of a heart-stopping something-is-terribly-wrong way. We shouldn’t have left the chapel. I have no idea what I was thinking.
But if we go back in, I’ll have to save the life of that horrible horse girl.
“We’re going to make Haley famous,” I say. “You realize that, right?”
“What do you mean?” Paolo asks. “Like, be her agent or something? Her voice is pretty sick.”
“No, man, I mean I’m going to pass her the virus, she’s going to survive, and then, like my mom said, she’s going to become a news story. The first person to ever live through her deathdate.”
