Jim Morrison’s Grave

“I’m not telling.” Katrina reclined against Oliver’s locker. She stretched a lock of hair to cover her lips.

Oliver did his best to fend off annoyance. He loved homecoming, but he could’ve done without the dance. The formality was fine. Oliver liked getting dressed up in a suit. He liked seeing his date in a slinky dress, teetering in high heels, wearing twice as much makeup and hairspray as usual. He enjoyed showing off with the guys in the middle of the floor as much as slow dancing with his date, pressed up against her, breathing in the perfume on her neck, carving a private cave around them amongst the other couples. All that was good. It was the dinner beforehand that had to be somewhere nice, which really meant expensive, that he dreaded. Making conversation while out came course after course—that was a lot of talking that could lead to places he didn’t want to go. He also hated those damn flowers. He’d never met a boutonnière whose pin hadn’t stabbed him in the chest.

“I need to know what color your dress is so I can buy a matching corsage,” he said.

“I want it to be a surprise.”

Oliver noticed the blind optimism in Katrina’s eyes. Nothing had ever gone truly wrong in her life. There was that one time freshman year when she didn’t make the cheer squad and was named an alternate, but Caitlyn Mendelson broke her ankle a week later and Katrina was added to the permanent roster. This year, she was the team’s beloved captain and Caitlyn a mere shadow in the bleachers.

Silly girl. Katrina thought a surprise could only be something good.

“I just don’t want to show up with the wrong flowers and ruin the night,” he said.

“You couldn’t ruin it if you tried. I can’t wait. It’s going to be a night to remember.”

Oliver slung his backpack over his shoulder. He leaned in like he was going to kiss her and at the last second pulled up and kissed her forehead, leaving Katrina hanging, lips puckered against the wind. She whimpered and punched his arm as he took off down the hall.

“That’s what you get for not telling me,” he called over his shoulder.

When Oliver arrived at the chapel for the second time in two weeks, he realized how infrequent his visits there had been, except to shortcut through from the football field to the parking lot. He had no idea how Daphne could concentrate in the five o’clock shadow of Christ. But there she was, furiously punching the keys on her graphing calculator and scribbling in her notebook.

“For a minute I thought you were gaming. I was going to light a candle in your honor.”

“Aw, and I was one candle away from sainthood.” A corner of her mouth dimpled her cheek.

Daphne continued calculating, jotting down equations, circling the final answer and resting her pencil before giving him her full attention. Her dedication astounded him. No commitment in his life equaled her attentiveness to a single math problem.

“Are you coming to homecoming?” he asked. “It’s this Friday.”

“Do you need a date to the dance?”

Trepidation intersected with flattery and the combination took Oliver off guard. Was she asking to be his date? She had the ability to disarm him with simple questions. This fight was unfair, yet something deep inside him enjoyed the challenge.

She rolled her eyes at his hesitation. “I’m kidding.”

“Yeah, I know.” The hoarseness in his voice forced him to clear his throat, making it all the more obvious that he had not been in on the joke.

“I didn’t even go to my own school’s homecoming. Why would I come to yours?”

A tinge of hurt pinched at the small of his back. He ignored it. “The chicken suit, of course. I got some new moves.”

“Are they going to shoot you out of a cannon? Because that I would go see.”

“So you’ll only come if my life is in jeopardy?”

“Pretty much.”

“You’re a tough audience, Daph.”

She crossed her legs, signaling a refocus to the heart of the matter. That was why he was standing amongst the chapel pews after all, for hearts and matter.

Defeat weighed down her voice. “I’ve been racking my brain on Jim Morrison’s grave.”

“Don’t worry, I got this one.” He gave a reassuring nod.

Daphne’s nod fell into sync with his. “Okay, you’re on. This weekend?”

“It’s homecoming.”

She tensed again and picked up her graphing calculator. “Oh, right. I thought, Sunday, maybe.”

He hated letting her down, but his parents were conveniently out of town this weekend. He hoped the carnal midnight after the dance would stretch into daybreak—especially given Katrina’s current state of forgiveness and overall enthusiasm. The thought of jumping out of his twisted sheets and spending the day with Daphne felt dirty. He didn’t know why. It probably had something to do with him not telling Katrina about the Top Ten list, and how he wouldn’t ever be divulging that information to her.

“Next Sunday. Bring a Sharpie. And red lipstick,” he said.

Daphne bent an incredulous eyebrow and returned to her homework. “You better wear the chicken suit to the dance, or I’ll be very disappointed.”

For half a second, he considered it. Katrina would kill him.

• • •

Homecoming was a typical game with a higher box office. As the Sacred Heart Hawk, Oliver ran back and forth and back and forth, energizing the rambunctious crowd. Sacred Heart was winning so handily and exuding such school spirit that no extra encouragement was needed, but Oliver kept running, jumping, and cheering, as he had for the past season.

Oliver had spent all of middle school trying to bulk up for football and praying to grow five more inches for basketball while throwing ten thousand footballs and shooting a million free throws. He’d earned the friendship and respect of all his teammates, but after sitting on the bench in both sports for his entire freshman year, he’d grown tired of the pity in his coaches’ eyes.

During sophomore year, while he prepared to sit on the bench before the homecoming game, he read an article that profiled a college mascot. The young man bore the broiling heat and relentless cold all for the sake of the fans. How selfless. The accompanying photo depicted this small man being hoisted on the muscular shoulders of the football team, their faces focused upward in admiration. It didn’t hurt that this scrawny, not-conventionally-attractive fellow alluded to having zero trouble in the lady department.

Oliver knew he needed a powerful ally in the mascot game, and Coach Anderson was the mark. Anderson was the merciless football maverick that the high school revolved around. A new trophy case was always under construction for his end-of-season accolades. The Math Team trophies had been stuffed into the teachers’ lounge to clear shelf space. If Oliver could win Anderson’s approval, the school board would blindly follow.

On the first day of practice junior year, Oliver marched into Coach Anderson’s office with straight shoulders and made his announcement. “Coach, wouldn’t it be great to have a mascot who pumped up the crowd at every home game?”

Anderson mulled it over for a moment. “No, that’s what the cheerleaders are for.”

“But the Hawk would be the living embodiment of the team, and fans love mascots. He could interact with the cheerleaders. We could play off each other.”

“We?”

“Yes, I would be the Hawk.” Oliver debated whether he should have led with this information while Anderson scratched his forehead.

“You’re a football player and you want to be a bird?” Anderson curled his upper lip.

“Coach, I want to contribute to the team. All I do is sit on the bench. And I’m not blaming you for that. I suck, I know. And I’m not getting any better. If I could be the mascot, at least I’d be doing something.” Anderson inhaled his irritation. Oliver kept going. “I just don’t want you to waste your time on me, Coach. You’ve already spent more than enough.”

Anderson perked up. “You used to play baseball, didn’t you? Heard you were good. Made the All-Star Team, right?”

Oliver hung his head, the shame of unwelcome accomplishment. “I did. But I don’t play anymore. Baseball’s not for me.”

Anderson didn’t bite. Oliver knew he needed to go even further, bring his argument back around, but he couldn’t do it on his own. He needed to play the dead brother card. “Things have been kind of rough at home, Coach. I really miss Jason…”

After two years of devoting every fall afternoon to the gospel of Anderson, Oliver had learned the only sure way to terrify the football coach was to mention feelings. Oliver averted his eyes so Anderson could openly shudder.

Jason had been an elite wrestler, making it to the State Finals his freshman year, finishing as runner-up his sophomore year, avenging for a win as a junior, and defending his title senior year. Though Anderson hadn’t known Jason, his athletic prowess had grown into a tall tale after his death. The legend had scaled the school walls and spread throughout the San Fernando Valley. Anderson had remarked on more than one occasion, usually when Oliver was struggling to block anything with two legs, how Jason’s talent was rare and how it was a damn shame that it had been wasted.

Anderson cleared his throat to cut off Oliver. “I think it’s a good idea. I’ll see what I can do.”

On his way out of the office, Oliver tried to shake off the guilt he felt. Wasn’t this the least Jason could do for all the anger, confusion, and every other negative emotion in the English language that he’d unearthed in his absence?

By the home opener, Oliver was the embodiment of the most expensive mascot costume in the San Fernando Valley. He ran back and forth along the stands, hyping up the crowd. He danced with the cheerleaders, even joining in some of their choreography. Like the scrawny Sports Illustrated mascot had prophesized, the ladies loved the the Hawk. More than once during a steamy make-out session he’d been asked to leave on the bulky body of the furry bird until the last possible moment.

Through the eye slits in the headpiece, Oliver enjoyed the view: the roaring crowd, the men on the field, the bouncing cheerleaders, Katrina. She never took her eyes off Oliver, even when she was at the top of the pyramid. For a split second, her ankles faltered, and his heart dropped, but she steadied herself and beamed down at him from the top of the world. He knew that even if she did fall he would catch her. Or, at least, soften the impact.

On Katrina’s front doorstep, Oliver slipped the pale pink corsage around her wrist. “You look gorgeous.”

Katrina sauntered to his car without responding. She didn’t have to. Her long, bare legs spoke for her, stretching out underneath a short dress of royal blue sequins. He charged ahead of her and opened the door, right on time for her to slide in.

The tiny, reflective discs on her dress scratched Oliver’s hands, but he figured he deserved a little pain to go along with his pleasure. He had convinced Katrina to forgo a romantic solo dinner and hitch onto the Mitch and Joe supper wagon. Oliver concocted this scene as a sure way to avoid any boyfriend drama. Or, in their case, lack-of-boyfriend drama. Mitch and Joe would mess around and barely avoid a food fight, and Oliver could make eyes at Katrina while they played footsie under the table. Katrina had balked at the suggestion, not because she didn’t like Mitch or Joe, or even because she had wanted Oliver to herself, but because Mitch and Joe’s dates, Jamie and Mandie, were dumb as hell. Hanging out with them was a chore, but without the sense of accomplishment at the end of the agony.

Katrina and Oliver were the last to arrive, mainly because they had pulled over to have an impromptu make-out session in Oliver’s car, during which Katrina forfeited half the sequins on her dress to the back seat. The geometry of her updo had been pushed a few degrees off-kilter. Neither she nor Oliver cared. A glorious precedent had been set for the evening and neither Jamie nor Mandie (formerly Mandy, she changed to an “ie” to match Jamie) could hinder them.

The dinner played out like a bad sitcom. Mitch and Joe and Oliver ribbed each other, Jamie and Mandie (Oliver nicknamed them the “Ies”) shared a single order of french fries. Katrina managed to respond to all of the Ies’ frivolous observations on the following topics with one-word answers: Their proudly overpriced dresses, their gaudy corsages, the blotches in their fake tans, their unbroken-in shoes that had the nerve to give them blisters, and even the paint on the restaurant walls, which was deemed “perfection.” It helped that the Ies took five trips to the bathroom together over the course of the meal. Five. Even Oliver noticed.

“Maybe one of them will come back pregnant,” Oliver whispered to Katrina as he stole one of the Ies’ french fries.

Katrina snorted a little too loudly, and Oliver had to backpedal to explain the outburst to Mitch and Joe.

“I told a lawyer joke.” He shrugged.

By this time, Katrina was in tears. She could barely get out the words. “My dad’s a lawyer.”

“Tell it, man.” Mitch and Joe gaped at Oliver like he was a traitor for not sharing the best joke ever.

Retreat was the only option. Oliver stood up. “I can’t. I have to go the bathroom.”

Katrina drowned in a new pool of laughter, and Oliver marched to the bathroom. Mitch and Joe turned to Katrina for the joke, but she shook her head, leaned back, and hung her napkin over her face until Oliver returned, which was well before Jamie and Mandie did.

Oliver and Katrina spun every which way on the dance floor. By the end of the night, the skin on Oliver’s hands had become numb to the sequins. He couldn’t tell the difference between the scaled dress and the soft skin on Katrina’s arms, the same arms she wrapped around his neck during all of the slow songs. Swaying in the center of the gymnasium, surrounded yet isolated, she whispered in his ear how they were like the old song that was playing by the band she didn’t know. Two worlds collided and they can never tear us apart. Oliver liked the romanticism, but he was pretty sure that her arms would let go of him with little resistance. One pin prick into that tender skin and she would jump twenty feet away. He tightened his grip on her waist knowing she would let go before he would.

In the darkness of his bedroom, it had all gone according to plan. Well, not that Oliver had an actual plan. He wasn’t an evil sex genius by any means. It had all gone according to hope. To dream.

He plucked stray sequins from Katrina’s bare body and kissed each spot after removal. Their breath and soft laughter took on a musical quality, the roll of a timpani.

“Oly. Will you be my boyfriend?”

And the cymbal clanged.

Every expletive in the book ran back and forth between Oliver’s ears. He kissed her, praying the moment would pass, but she pulled back, demanding a response.

“Oly?”

A sequin stuck on her cheek, which made it difficult to take her seriously.

“Katrina, you know I don’t do the boyfriend thing.”

He reached up to pluck off the sequin and she slapped his hand away, surprising both of them. Undeterred, she looked directly into his eyes.

“We spend so much time together. Why do I feel like I’m your dirty secret?”

Dammit, there were going to be tears. Oliver hated tears. Even more, he hated being the cause of them. He went out of his way not to cause them, and still, it rained.

“We went to the dance together. I didn’t dance with anyone else.” He bowed his head and rested his forehead on her shoulder.

“Did you want to?” She rolled her shoulder out from under him.

Frustration coiled inside of Oliver. Why had she waited until neither of them had any clothes on to have this conversation?

“No.”

“Why not?”

The room smelled of coercion. He gritted his teeth. “Because I like you, and only you. And we’re having fun.”

“This is fun for you?” She sat back and crossed her arms.

Every response was a question. There was no winning this game.

“It was fun. But this isn’t fun. I guess it needs to stop. If you want it to.”

“Oh. You won’t be my boyfriend, but I still have to do the breaking up part?”

Katrina grew smarter with each question. Oliver ached with sadness. Good things always looked better when they were putting their clothes back on and disappearing from his life.

“That’s not what I want, but it sounds like what you want,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Are you putting words in my mouth?” She threw her arms down to her sides. Her disdain for Oliver was so great that she couldn’t even wear her arms the same way as his.

The argument ran a few laps, always ending in the same place, with Oliver thinking he was crossing the finish line and Katrina feeling stuck in the starting blocks. Ultimately, the race came to a close with Katrina cursing Oliver down the hallway, out the front door, and into the fall night air while she searched not-so-silently for her car. Neighbors came to their windows to see the shimmering blue wreck in the streetlights.

Oliver was deleting her contact info from his phone when it rang. A familiar number glowed in the darkness.

“Hello?”

A shivering voice growled out of the phone. “You picked me up. I need a ride home.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I mean, about the car. I totally forgot—”

“Just take me home!”

He hung up, pulled on his pants in two hops, zipped his hoodie, and followed the trail of blue sequins out to his car.

• • •

The trauma from the night carried over into the next day. Oliver’s mind overflowed and emptied at the same time. Little aftershocks rolled through every surface he sat upon—his bed, the sofa in front of the TV, even at the dining room table. When his parents arrived home in the early evening, the ground stabilized. Oliver basked in the normalcy of his dad’s pestering about college applications and his future.

Oliver’s parents owned a furniture store, Pagano and Sons, three generations strong. The name was a dark cloud hanging over the fourth generation. At times, Oliver wished they would change the name to Pagano and Son, if only to acknowledge the burden of being the only son in a family business with “Sons” in the name.

The Pagano furniture business was a successful endeavor. Oliver’s grandfather and father had expanded the standalone store to several chains. Every time his parents entered a restaurant, they buzzed about how great the chairs were and brainstormed about how they could mass-produce a cheaper knockoff, all before the hostess had taken their name. This shared interest bound them together, through everything. The furniture business was the reason Oliver’s family remained intact, kept their sanity after losing Jason. Oliver wanted to express his gratitude by dedicating his life’s work to Pagano and Sons, but he had zero passion for furniture. More problematic, he didn’t have a better alternative. Oliver had no idea what he was passionate about, couldn’t picture himself doing anything day in and day out for decades. Thinking about it made his head throb, and he blamed the dangling “s” on the end of “Sons.”

Fortunately, his parents had agreed to pay his college tuition no matter where he went and what he studied, as long as his grades were strong and he graduated in five years. The plan was to go somewhere out of state where no one knew him as the only heir to a small furniture empire and figure out his life.

That night, Oliver filled out a college application at the dining room table. Jason’s empty chair was a distraction.

“Full ride!” His mom reads a piece of paper and rips open another envelope.

Jason sits back in his chair, his parents tower over him.

“We are pleased to inform you…” His dad laughs and drops his piece of paper on a growing pile.

“Another full ride!” His mother claps.

“Jason, you got in everywhere!”

The energy in the room is palpable. Jason smiles at his parents’ excitement, but his smile is purely cosmetic. Even eleven-year-old Oliver sees the pry in his upper lip.

“College is your oyster. Where are you going to make your pearl?” His dad beamed.

Jason shrugs. “Wherever Emily’s going.”

His parents exchange a worried glance.

His mom laughs it off. “Well, Emily should strongly consider somewhere you have a scholarship. There are a lot of great schools to choose from.”

Tonight, the focus wasn’t on college. Again, Opposite Possum. His dad flipped through interior design magazines and yammered to his mom about upholstery while she stirred spaghetti sauce at the stove. Coupled with his exhausted daze from the sleepless night, the room didn’t provide the best environment for concentration, but the noise made the essay questions less painful.

If you could only bring one thing to the University of Montana, what would it be? He debated the ways he could answer.

1. A photograph of my parents because of all they’ve given me.

True, but it tasted too saccharine.

2. My glowing attitude and bright outlook to the future.

He groaned—too generic.

3. Nothing. If I wanted anything from my past to follow me, why the hell would I be going to Montana?

He had a feeling that rebellious essays, like fervidly misguided speeches to parole boards, only worked in movies. Splitting the difference, he peppered the essay with all three inclinations and sealed the envelope without proofreading.

• • •

One week and vow of short-term chastity later, Oliver cruised down Sunset Boulevard with Daphne at his side. This wasn’t the Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, with its outward appearance of musical history and infamy. On a Sunday afternoon on this eastern stretch of Sunset, many of the shops were gated, giving the neighborhood a slightly dangerous flavor.

After a brief internet search, Oliver had discovered that Jim Morrison was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Obviously, they couldn’t fly to Paris, so he had had to dig deeper inward. Who was his Jim Morrison? A singer with the talent and charisma to influence generations, with the small caveat that the musician needed to have died young and tragically. The scan through the bass lines of his memory had been quick. Melancholy guitar had taken over, strumming the answer. Oliver knew exactly where to bring Daphne and finished explaining all this as they arrived in front of a wine bar. Its façade was a painted piece of red, black, and white street art.

“The Elliott Smith Wall.” He made a grand gesture with his arms to downplay the humble nature of the wall.

“Elliott Smith? I’ve never heard of him.”

“You have now.”

Oliver pulled out an iPod and ear buds. A tinny sound vaguely resembling music dissolved into her as he tucked the buds into her ears. She squirmed and readjusted them.

“Jason got me hooked on him, so I guess it’s even more appropriate. This wall was one of Elliott’s album covers.”

He’d cued his favorite song, a ballad whose acoustic guitar fell like raindrops. He couldn’t hear the bitter lyrics in Daphne’s ear buds, but Elliott’s sarcasm sang along in his head.

Someone’s always coming around here, trailing some new kill. Says, “I seen your picture on a hundred dollar bill.” What’s a game of chance to you, to him is one of real skill. So glad to meet you, Angeles.

Daphne blinked three times, processing. “This song’s about L.A. and how much it sucks.”

“Uh-huh.” Had she gotten all that from the first verse? It had taken Oliver five listens before he’d figured out that Angeles wasn’t a person.

Picking up the ticket shows there’s money to be made. Go on, lose the gamble, that’s the history of the trade. Did you add up all the cards left to play to zero, and sign up for evil, Angeles?

“You listened to this when you were ten? Pretty hardcore in the sad department.”

“Not exactly when I was ten. I inherited Jason’s music library, and Elliott Smith was one of his most listened to. I wouldn’t have discovered him otherwise.”

“I like it. It’s so different from what Emily listened to. The Ramones, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Doors, Bowie. All the music my parents rebelled with in their youth. Oh, the irony in those chord progressions.”

He laughed. The chord progressions in Daphne’s humor played in the right key.

Daphne stepped closer to the wall and Oliver followed her lead. They examined the four thick black lines curving up, down, and around again before merging together into a thin point, something of a warped racetrack. Threads extended from the convergence point, forming infinity signs that connected to a pair of pliers. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Oliver, but that was the point of art, wasn’t it? To imitate life when words had given up.

Gratitude, condolences, dedications, proclamations of love, and senseless obscenities graced the wall’s white background. People from all over the country had left their mark.

“Have you been here before?” Daphne asked.

“Nah. Didn’t seem right to be here without Jason.”

Oliver noticed the vast amount of gum residue splotched all over the sidewalk. Something once so pastel and sticky now blackened and smooth. The sight unnerved him. He returned his focus to the wall while Daphne pulled a Sharpie from her pocket.

“You remembered.” His chest puffed up. So few people cared enough to remember the things that came out of Oliver’s mouth, he’d started to forget himself.

“I take basic instruction like a pro. If it was a sport, full-ride scholarship right here.” She pointed her thumbs at the meat of her shoulders.

Foreboding lit within Oliver and sent his heart into overdrive. If she handed him the Sharpie, he had no idea what to write on the wall. He loved and admired Elliott’s music and couldn’t bear the shame of writing something meaningless just to write something. An inkling of perspiration spotted his hairline until Daphne saved him by plucking off the cap, kneeling down, and writing without hesitation. She’d known what to write since the moment they’d arrived. She inscribed the sterile cursive of a perfectionist, the letters exactly as taught in elementary school: Emily & Jason.

She stepped back. They stared down the words together as though the letters might leap from the wall and run away.

“That’s about it.” Oliver said.

Daphne shrugged, “For better or for worse.”

“I hope they found their better.”

“Part of me hopes they’ve had to watch our worse.” She twisted the closed Sharpie cap around the marker, and the revolution squeaked in her palms.

Oliver’s body swayed, the reality of her wish moving him. His thoughts had often taken similar positions, but he’d never said them out loud, and certainly not to another human being. Not even his therapist. Although, maybe now he would. Daphne couldn’t face him. Her upper lip twitched, and he sensed regret. He wasn’t going to allow it.

“I hope they’ve had to watch our best and be sad about what they missed.”

His words didn’t turn her toward him. Her eyes remained connected to the wall, reading something he couldn’t see. His first instinct was to grab her hand, squeeze it, remind her they were both still alive. But lately he’d found that his first instincts were often wrong when it came to girls, so he stood motionless, putting it back on Daphne. Plus, he was pretty sure she knew she was alive.

He started despising himself for his nothingness, his pulse beating in his forehead. A soft set of fingers brushed through his. Oliver dipped his head in scant shame. She was braver than he, and always would be. He was getting used to being a step or two behind her, beginning to find reassurance in the warm cloud of her perception. She gave his hand a little squeeze and he responded with a flexing and tightening of his fingers against hers. She dipped her chin a few times, first at the wall, and then to Oliver. He detected a tiny movement at the corners of her lips. Was it a smile or nerves? She headed toward the car before he could decide. He looked down and discovered his hand empty.

“We’re not done.” He called after her.

Oliver couldn’t see her face to tell if she was happy or exhausted. She was already too far ahead of him.

• • •

A few neighborhoods west, near the postcard version of Los Angeles, the buildings were taller, the streets wider, and the towering palm trees more pronounced. Oliver led Daphne down a narrow driveway tucked between two parking structures.

“I think this is it.”

“I always thought if I was murdered in a dark alley, it would be in a less gentrified neighborhood,” she said.

“Did you also think you would go so willingly?” He snickered and ducked under a small archway.

“Little known fact, I’m actually very stupid.”

She ambled through the gateway into a small, secluded cemetery. There were no other visitors, no one else between them and the dead. Daphne came to a halt. Oliver realized the flaw in his plan, so wide and apparent his legally blind great-aunt could’ve seen it. Cemeteries haunted as often as they consoled.

“Oh no. I wasn’t thinking. Are you okay? We can go back.”

“No, I’m fine.” She swallowed and took a breath. “I wasn’t expecting a cemetery. It’s beautiful. Peaceful.”

She stepped forward and they looped along the driveway past the simple gravestones of varying shades of gray and bronze and rose.

He masked his relief by pointing around. “There are a lot of famous people buried here.”

“Figures they would get the good cemetery. Where did you bury him?”

“The guy I killed last night? That secret stays with me.”

“No, the other guy.”

Serious Daphne was back. Something about the tone in Serious Daphne’s voice lured the truth nestled deep inside him with unsettling ease. When he heard this tenor shift in her voice, the hairs at the base of his neck prickled.

“He was cremated.”

“Please don’t say he’s sitting on your mantel.”

“No! My family is dysfunctional, but they’re not anywhere near your level of morbid, sicko. We spread his ashes in the Pacific.”

“Jason loved the ocean?”

Oliver cackled. “He hated the ocean. Hated the sand. Hated to swim. Hated the seagulls. Supposedly, and conveniently out of my range of memory, he loved to swim and surf and build sandcastles and barely even cried when he got stung by a jellyfish. I don’t buy it.”

“They reimagined him as Jacques Cousteau. Emily gets reimagined as Sally Ride because she asked for a telescope for Christmas when she was eight. And you know who actually used that telescope?”

“I have a strong feeling she’s walking right next to me.”

“I moved it to my room the summer after she got it, and it had so much dust on the lens, I thought I’d discovered a new galaxy.”

“Now every time I say I’m going to the beach my parents get all sentimental, like I’m going there to grieve or something, when I’m just hanging out with my friends. With my parents, every aspect of my life is a reflection of Jason. Sometimes it’s really hard not to remind them about how much he hated the damn ocean.”

Daphne let out a little laugh. He realized he didn’t need to apologize for venting. The blood in his veins was replaced with air and lightness inflated him.

“Where is Emily buried?”

“Up north, near San Fran, in my mom’s hometown where my grandparents are buried. It’s this huge cemetery with zero personality. They threw in a couple weeping willows here and there, but it’s not helping.”

“You go up there a lot?”

“We went up on her first two birthdays after to plant flowers. Then nothing. Having her grave so far away made it even easier to not talk about her.”

“We could go.”

“Nah. But thanks. I don’t feel any closer to her there.” She swallowed. “There’s nowhere I can go where I feel close to her.”

“Well, this is the Père Lachaise of Los Angeles. Emily and Jason wanted to see Jim Morrison’s grave. Maybe you could come here.”

“I guess that’s all up to you and why we’re here. This better be good, Pagano.”

He responded to the challenge by lengthening his stride. They passed two sanctuaries filled with stacks of crypts and rounded a corner.

“Oscar Wilde eternally rests in Père Lachaise. People come from around the world to kiss his grave and leave giant lipstick marks. So who is Westwood Memorial’s Oscar Wilde?”

Daphne scanned the sanctuary as they passed. One crypt, second row from the bottom, second row from the left, stood out from the rest of the gray-white slabs. Its deeper, blushing-beige face wore a coating of red-lipsticked kisses.

Daphne smirked. “Marilyn Monroe.”

“Did you bring the lipstick?” Oliver knew, certain as the graves before him, she had brought it.

Daphne pulled a small tube from her pocket. Oliver scrunched his face.

“What is this?” He snatched the red-tinted lip balm from her fingers.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a neutral lip gal. I don’t own a red lipstick. This is the closest thing I had. I even looked through my mom’s makeup.”

“Oscar would disapprove.”

“Well, maybe he’ll write a tragic character based on me for his next play running in the afterlife.”

“Oh, yeah. This is Greek chorus worthy.”

“A girl is told by a ridiculous boy to bring red lipstick to an unknown place for an unknown purpose. She gets hung up on the red detail and brings lip balm because it’s red, when any lipstick would have worked for the occasion, which is to kiss a grave.”

“The ridiculous boy is definitely the hero of this story.”

“Yeah, you’re right up there with Oedipus.”

“So, kiss it.”

“Ew. No.”

“Are you a germaphobe?”

“Are you going to peer pressure me into defacing a grave?”

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

He popped off the cap and pressed the balm hard against his lips, rounding over them again and again until a thick ring of bright red circled his mouth. Daphne fought back laughter.

Oliver noticed her struggle. “All the cool kids aren’t doing it,” he joked at himself.

He closed his eyes and leaned into the wall of crypt, pressing his lips firmly against the pink marble until his nose touched. He rested there for a few long seconds, praying the color would adhere to the stone. He pulled away feeling like he had blown out birthday candles and opened his eyes to see how many were still aflame. To his pleasant surprise, a faint but distinct pair of pink lips kissed back.

“It could be better,” he said with an air of pride.

Oliver turned to Daphne, doubting she’d be impressed, but encouraged by her glimmering eyes. Still, he braced for impact against merciless teasing when those eyes shifted to his mouth.

“Well, it couldn’t be worse.” That was all she was going to say.

Oliver’s laugh carried them toward the entrance. Daphne refused to hasten her slow pace, forcing him to walk backwards to talk to her.

He pointed at her, square between the eyes. “You like when I look stupid.”

“I guess that’s why I like you, because you look pretty stupid all the time.” A half-smile unzipped the corner of her mouth and revealed a quadrant of teeth.

He clasped his hands, leaving his index fingers straight, and tapped their tips against his chin. “Daphne, has anyone ever told you what a pleasant, flattering young woman you are?”

“You look like you painted your face with a lollipop. It’s giving off a psychotic clown vibe.”

“Hey, I bet I look pretty good compared to all the other psychotic clowns out there.”

“I can’t believe I just watched you make out with a grave.” Daphne buried her laughing face in her hands.

“And she was great.” He threw his arms out, full wingspan. “Thank you, Marilyn!”

On the drive home, the stillness between them evolved into a hum of contentment. Daphne closed her eyes and rested her head against the seat, listening to Elliott Smith on Oliver’s iPod. Occasionally, she opened her eyes to see Oliver pumping his fists in celebration or pounding the steering wheel in agony while he listened to the Rams game. His lips were still eight shades pinker than skin.

When they reached the empty school parking lot, Daphne removed the ear buds and handed him the iPod.

“Keep it,” he said. “I have three of them. Dead-older-sibling-slash-bad-parenting-guilt-money buys a lot of MP3 players.”

“I’m financing college with my guilt money.”

“Well, you’re always gonna be three steps ahead of me, aren’t you, Daph?”

She climbed out of the car and closed the door. “Learn to walk faster.”

She thought about what she wanted to say for a noticeable length of time. The car window framed her, the setting sun haloing her head, her eyes gazing off into the distance. She was so close, yet all puzzle. A smile pulled at the corners of her lips but didn’t materialize.

“Thanks.”

A single word after all that thought. The smile finally came when she turned away toward her house. Oliver caught only one curve of the dimple on her left cheek. He was disappointed not to see the whole thing.

Oliver went home and had the strangest urge. He dug out a stylus from the bottom of a desk drawer, plopped down with his tablet, and started doodling the moments of the day. The abstract racetrack of the Elliott Smith wall. The lipstick on Marilyn Monroe’s crypt. A boy walking backwards in front of a girl through the cemetery. Stick figures, nothing serious. His brain needed a few more minutes to remind his hand how to draw.

He had no formal training. The only art classes he’d ever taken were walking to the comic store with Jason on Wednesdays, buying all their favorite titles. Then they would come home and draw for hours, half-tracing, half-creating. Oliver had given up comics, filed them under Opposite Possum, buried them in a box in Jason’s closet to collect dust.

This isn’t cheating, he kept telling himself. There were no superheroes or villains, not a stitch of spandex or latex or leather. It wasn’t the same.

Oliver opened a clean page. He drew a face with huge eyes that he framed with heavy, uneven streaks of hair. He drew lips, not too small, not too big, pinched but not puckered. He filled them in, how red lipstick would appear in black and white. But she didn’t wear red lipstick. He was making her a superhero, giving her an alter ego she probably didn’t want. He smiled, knowing how pissed off she’d be by a dumb boy drawing her so inaccurately. She might even drop phrases like hypersexualize and testosterone eyes and misogynistic fantasies. The glare and snarl might be worth it to hear the deservedly feminist rant this false representation would inspire. He erased the lips and redrew them without filling them in.

He drew more hair, procrastinating. It was weird having a picture of Daphne sitting in front of him, inaccurate as it was. Unsatisfied, he drew a line over her face, and another one, a few wavy curves and sharp edges. Making the drawing something more, because despite barely knowing Daphne, it was clear that she was more. More than her eyes. More than her Goldilocks lips. More than the sister of his dead brother’s dead girlfriend. He connected the last line, and puzzle pieces covered her face.

And then it hit him. He already knew Daphne’s alter ego, one that wouldn’t make her cringe. One that would make her smile so big she wouldn’t be able to bite her lip to hide it. He started over, but this time added a black mask across her forehead and temples, leaving her eyes unobstructed. He squiggled a nose, but it was too small for her perfectly proportionate face. He erased, tried again. It was better, but still wrong.

He sat back and absorbed the full picture. The face looked nothing like Daphne. The nose and mouth weren’t quite right, but he didn’t know how to fix them. The eyes weren’t expressive enough. But he could practice and improve. The next time he saw her, he’d pay better attention to the mechanics of her face.

• • •

Oliver and Daphne hadn’t spoken directly about her play since texting when she got the part. She’d dropped a few hints reminding him about the show dates that he pretended not to pick up on, but he’d never verbally committed to attending. Besides, she hadn’t gone to any of his football games. Which had stung. Well, not stung so much as left him doubting the Hawk’s allure. Not that he wanted to allure her. The point was, he owed her nothing. But he was practicing being the bigger person. He wanted to see the surprise on her face when he showed up.

He watched Our Town sitting in the back row of the surprisingly full auditorium, a bouquet of the freshest supermarket daisies in tow. Daphne was right—it was kind of boring. Life and death and whatever comes after. Blah, blah, blah. The mystique was gone for Oliver. He felt he’d lived longer than any of the characters, even the grandparents. Despite all this, his throat constricted to uncomfortable levels during Emily’s farewell speech, when Jason and his Emily slipped into Oliver’s mind. Oliver pushed them out and focused on Daphne, who was pretending to be a dead, old woman on the stage. Harsh lines had been painted on her face to mimic wrinkles. She wore a wig with a matronly bun and pantomimed knitting, because for some inexplicable reason there were no props in this play. The set consisted only of tables and chairs.

The strange workings of his mind began to morph the tragic scene in front of him into comedy. Seeing Daphne, this young, vibrant person made up to be old, wrapping invisible yarn around invisible needles—the whole thing was absurd. He knew this was his brain’s way of fighting the lump in his throat from Jason and Emily, but he didn’t know how to counter it. The tickle started in his knees and inched up through his hips and abdomen. He could feel a set of the giggles coming on, crawling up his esophagus, a thousand cactus pricks in his throat. The only way to prevent laughter was to cause pain. He bit down on the fleshy part of his hand between his thumb and forefinger didn’t let go.

He closed his eyes. For a few eternal minutes, the hot pulse in his hand throbbed against his teeth. Applause rang out, and he unclamped his jaw, revealing a hand with broken skin and flecks of blood in the deepest impressions. Oliver cradled his hand while the actors took their bows, and the curtain closed. He filed out with the rest of the audience and waited patiently in the hallway with daisies and damaged nerve endings.

Daphne was one of the last cast members to emerge from backstage. For a moment, he thought he caught her eyes searching the hallway, but he couldn’t confirm it. She maneuvered through the crowd, granting hellos and accepting congratulations. Four girls and a guy breezed by her.

“See you at Gizzarelli’s?” one of the girls asked.

“Yeah, I’ll see you there!” Daphne waved.

She landed in front of Oliver as though he was the target she’d been aiming for the whole time. If she was surprised by his presence, his senses weren’t acute enough to identify it.

“You came.”

“I don’t make idle promises when it comes to extracurricular activities.”

He handed her the flowers. “Congratulations, on your theatrical debut. The Oliver Times declares your performance mesmerizing, transcendent, and…”

“Geriatric.”

“Really geriatric,” he grinned.

“Did you like the knitting? I came up with that myself.” She rolled on her feet, heel to toe, inching closer to him before tilting back.

Oliver was surprised at missing those few inches of closeness when they went away. “That was my favorite part.”

“Who the hell is this?” A lanky girl with long, black hair barged in on the conversation.

Oliver examined her from head to toe and diagnosed that she might be decent looking if she didn’t have a permanent case of pissy face.

“Janine, this is Oliver. Oliver, this is Janine.”

Janine performed the same once-over of Oliver that he’d given her. She announced her verdict in the rolling of her eyes. Her expression didn’t say, Oh, this is the Oliver that I’ve heard all about in relentless repetition. It was more, This dude is a jackass. I can smell it.

“You’re still going to Gizzarelli’s, right?” Janine crossed her arms.

“Of course. Give me a couple minutes.”

Janine threw one last warning glance at Oliver before turning on her heels and leaving.

“The Drama Crew is celebrating its success. Mostly that the curtain didn’t fall on anyone, and the lights stayed on the whole show. Tiny victories.”

“Janine’s protective of you,” Oliver said.

“Yeah, you don’t need birth control if you have a Janine.”

Oliver snorted. “Super juice.”

This Daphne girl was something. He liked not knowing what.