Love Sucks and Then You Die

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Begin Reading

  Teaser

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  About the Author

  Copyright

  On Sunday morning, April 24, at 8:43 A.M., the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, give or take a few hundred thousand, and it’s looking pretty good, all things considered.

  E.V. Spiker on the other hand, who is 15 years, 3 months, two days, and a few random hours old, has had better mornings.

  Her hair is matted, her mouth scummy. She reeks of B.O. A bloody, sequined dress from Saks lies like a contorted corpse on her bedroom floor.

  E.V. yawns, stretches, flips open her laptop. Three minutes and thirty-two seconds elapse, during which she checks Facebook, Reddit, and McSweeney’s, before she opens her in-box.

  From: Brizley, Bob

  Sent: Sunday, April 24 1:12 AM

  To: Spiker, Evening

  Subject: wtf?

  look, e.v., if you didn’t want to kiss me, all you had to do was say no, not go all freaking ninja … i have a deviated septum now & thx to u i may never smell again … plus i’m out like 260 bucks if u count the corsage and the smirnoff & dry cleaning the rental tux which my mom says they may not be able to get the blood out of … i mean i drive a bmw 3, E.V., i could’ve taken karina instead & she probably would have put out … at least she wouldn’t have decked me in front of the entire school … you deeply suck, e.v., and i don’t unfortunately mean that literally …

  E.V. studies the missive from Bob. She is troubled by the punctuation, but surprised by the correct use of “literally.” Bob, a junior, is a star on the water polo team, solidly built, and passably charming, but he is taking his freshman English class for the third time.

  E.V. considers forwarding the e-mail to Aislin, her best friend. Aislin witnessed the whole unfortunate incident: the head butt to the nose, the crimson gush under the twinkling mirror ball, the backward fall, the collapse of the henna tattoo table.

  The theme of the dance had been “Arabian Nights,” which explained the henna table and the Magic Carpet Ride photo booth, but left the Mardi Gras beads and roulette wheel open to interpretation. E.V. and Aislin agreed that the suggestion they’d submitted to the dance committee—“Life Sucks and Then You Die”—would have made for a more compelling decor.

  While Bob was stuffing napkins up his nose, Aislin had done what any best friend would have done: She’d dragged E.V. to the bathroom, wiped Bob’s blood off her corsage, and high-fived her for disrupting an otherwise tedious, overly chaperoned evening.

  The head butt had been unintentional mostly, a gut reaction to Bob’s closing in for a kiss during the first slow dance of the evening. Something about the look of expectation on his square-jawed face had bothered her, his certitude, the inevitability of the whole thing.

  She’d snapped. Lost it. Maybe it was the green apple vodka–Dorito breath, the cheesy boutonnière, the Jurassic Era Clapton (you look wonderful tonight.…). Maybe it was the half dozen chocolate chip cookies she’d scarfed down in rapid succession when no one was looking, the torture chamber heels Aislin had convinced her to wear, the smell of stale sweat and Axe deodorant.

  Maybe it was the zit mushrooming near Bob’s left nostril.

  Or maybe she will never know what set her off.

  E.V. considers brushing her teeth, or downing a Red Bull to get the synapses firing. She has a buttload of homework to do.

  Instead, she lies inert, staring down at her dress. Twelve minutes and thirty-three seconds pass, during which she wonders if she is, in fact, as Bob had so graciously suggested to her departing back, a frigid bitch.

  With a sigh, E.V. forces herself to click on her history homework folder.

  All week, they’ve been creating a time line of the Earth’s history. Her teacher calls it “The Big Picture: Big Bang to Right Now.” The line E.V’s created stretches on for pages. Algae get inches. Dinosaurs, a nice, healthy chunk. There’s no room for the Renaissance.

  Her life would not register on this line. The entire history of modern humans barely registers.

  Ms. Leach had warned them: You will find this exercise humbling and surprising.

  E.V. clicks back to her e-mail.

  She stares at her laptop screen and begins to type.

  From: Spiker, Evening

  Sent: Sunday, April 24 8:56 AM

  To: Brizley, Bob

  Subject: Re: wtf?

  Bob:

  I will be happy to cover the costs of dry cleani–

  E.V. stops typing. Her mother is rapping insistently on her door. She doesn’t wait for E.V. to yell “Come in.”

  She never does.

  Terra Spiker looks elegantly fatigued in her Prada suit. She is the CEO of a pharmaceutical company worth billions. She always looks elegantly fatigued.

  “Were you at work all night?” E.V. asks.

  “A crisis. My head biochem is a cretin.” Terra waves a hand dismissively.

  She trains her gaze on E.V.’s bloody dress. “What happened? Were you deflowered?”

  “My virtue remains intact.”

  “You’re all right, though.” It’s not so much a question as a command.

  “Yep. Minor skirmish. I ran into my date’s nose.”

  Terra puffs her lips and lets a bit of air escape. “You’re still taking the pill, Evening? And your condoms are up to date? Condoms expire, you know. Like milk.”

  “You do understand, Mother, that I have never even been kissed?”

  “Forewarned is forearmed.”

  Terra approaches the bed. She strokes E.V.’s head the way an allergic person pets a cat. Satisfied her maternal duties have been executed, she heads for the door.

  “I’m going to take a bath and head for bed. Do you have plans?”

  “Homework. I might hook up with Aislin later.”

  Terra exhales. “Aislin is a—”

  “—drunken slut. Yes, I believe you’ve mentioned that.”

  “Actually, I was going to say ‘slutty drunk.’”

  E.V. ignores her. It’s more efficient that way. “Speaking of slutty, do you remember your first kiss?”

  “No.”

  “Everyone remembers their first kiss.”

  “Firsts are highly overrated. First kiss, first intercourse, first…” Terra says with a shrug, “marriage.”

  E.V. frowns. Her father, having died several years ago, is not exactly in a position to defend himself.

  Terra slips off a Jimmy Choo and rubs her heel. “Why do you ask?”

  “I just feel like I’m behind the curve,” E.V. says. She points to her laptop. “Look at this time line. I mean, tick tock.”

  Terra glances at E.V.’s screen. “You gave the Cretaceous Period too much space. Also the Triassic.”

  “My point is: I’m not keeping up with my peer group.”

  “Pfft. You’re only seventeen.”

  “Fifteen.”

  Terra pauses, calculating. Milestones are not her strong point.

  “I’m emotionally delayed.” E.V. realizes she must need more sleep. She does not talk about feelings with her mother. Her mother is a businesswoman. She does not like feelings. She cannot patent them.

  Terra purses her lips. Twin frown lines make it clear she’d prefer to be drawing her bubble bath.

  “Aislin says I’m too much of a perfectionist about guys,” E.V. adds. She is beginning to feel quite sorry for herself.

  “Aislin will happily bed any carbon life form with a credit card.”

  “Maybe I am too picky.” E.V. tries unsuccessfully to comb her fingers through a knot in her hair. “I keep thinking if I wait long enough, the perfect guy will materialize. You know: fate. Kismet. True, perfect love.”

  “Let me tell you what true love amounts to: pheromones and a nice Cabernet.”

  “You loved Dad.”

  “Yes, well. To err is human,” Terra says. She half smiles.

  E.V. hopes it’s wistful, but she doubts it.

  “Today’s his birthday, you know,” E.V. says softly.

  “Is it?” Terra asks, and then she is gone.

  “Thanks,” E.V. murmurs to her empty room. “I’m so glad we had this little pep talk.”

  History homework beckons, but first, E.V. rereads Bob’s e-mail. She searches the trail of ellipses for a reason she might have accepted his invitation to the dance in the first place. He’d seemed … not unpleasant. Sweet, in a Labrador-like way. Although his douchey e-mail indicates she may have misjudged him.

  In fairness, she had just humiliated him in front of the whole school. The BMW remark notwithstanding, he was probably just venting. In any case, douche or not, she owes him some kind of explanation, doesn’t she, or at least some cash for the dry-cleaning bill?

  E.V. stares at the e-mail, starts to push DELETE, then hesitates.

  She turns back to the time line and mo

ves the Cretaceous boundaries. Her mother is, of course, right.

  * * *

  On Sunday afternoon, at 4:37 P.M., E.V. sits at a Peets in a beach town north of San Francisco. She sips her latte and considers the crowd. Lots of Sunday tourists. Day-trippers and lovers, heavily paired. There is much hand-holding and butt-cupping.

  At least that’s how it seems. Maybe it’s just the way the search engine in her brain works these days.

  Aislin is late, but she’s texted a couple times. E.V.’s phone vibrates. It’s another text:

  April 24 4:38 p.m.

  Sorry, Antonio came over, might be

  little late for cafeen.

  Spelling is not Aislin’s favorite thing. Antonio is Aislin’s favorite thing. This month, anyway.

  On her time line, E.V. marks the emergence of the first reptiles. She’s been working for eleven minutes when she feels a hand—Aislin’s, heavy with silver jewelry—on her shoulder.

  Aislin is impossibly leggy, gorgeous, and turning E.V., by default, into the adequately pretty friend. Generally, E.V. is okay with that, but she bristles a little today at the heads turning to take in Aislin’s entrance.

  As she sits, Aislin thrusts her cell into E.V.’s face.

  “Did you see this shot of the Bob beatdown?”

  E.V. sighs. “It has a name now?”

  “A hashtag, too. Plus somebody, I dunno, maybe Maira, got some great video of Bob going ballistic.”

  E.V. sips her latte, blinks, narrows her eyes. “Read the room, Aislin. Seriously not in the mood.”

  “Sorry. But in a few days, it’ll be funny, right?”

  E.V. rubs her eyes. “In a thousand years, give or take.” She slams her laptop shut. “Did you finish the history time line for Leach?”

  Aislin cups her hand in her chin. “What’s a time line?”

  “Yeah, I kinda thought so. The point is: It’s depressing, is all. The irrelevance of everything. Of us. We’re all just blips. Grains of sand on a massive beach.”

  Aislin scarfs a sip of E.V.’s latte. “Which means Bob is just a blip, too.”

  “He’s not even a blip. He’s not even a zit on a blip.” E.V. stares hard at her friend. “I am not a frigid bitch, you know.”

  “No. That’s your mother’s area of expertise.”

  “Are you in love with Antonio?”

  Aislin examines a fingernail. “I’m in lust with him. It’s much easier to have fun when you’re not so picky, you know.”

  “I’m not picky. I’m just … holding out for true love.”

  “That’s very noble.”

  E.V. drops her head on the table. “I am going to die alone with hundreds of cats, aren’t I? They’ll consume my rotting flesh. I’ll be nothing but bones when you find me.”

  Aislin puts her hand on E.V.’s arm. “Grab your drink. ’Tonio’s double-parked. Let’s go for a drive. You need to clear your head.”

  “I’m kind of not in the mood to sit in the backseat and watch you guys exchange bodily fluids.”

  “Where do you want to go?” Aislin asks. She picks up E.V.’s computer and her latte. “Anywhere you want.”

  E.V. considers. “The cemetery.”

  Aislin wraps her arm around E.V.’s shoulder. “You are some kind of fun, girl. Bob doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

  * * *

  At 5:34 P.M., Antonio parks his mother’s boyfriend’s Honda in the Ocean View Cemetery parking lot. As E.V. leaves the car, he is already unbuttoning Aislin’s blouse.

  “Guys. Seriously?” E.V. inquires, slamming the door. “Um … cemetery? Dead people? Respect?”

  “Sorry, E.V.,” Aislin says, possibly chastened.

  E.V. hasn’t been here in a year, but her father’s grave is easy to pick out. He was a sculptor, and his headstone is one of his own works, a smooth, round granite piece riven by a deep fissure.

  E.V. sits on the damp grass. He’d died in a car crash, one of those awful, late-night-knock-at-the-door moments in life. She’s over it, as over it as anyone can be.

  He was a fine artist and a good man, probably flawed, because apparently everyone is. E.V. likes to draw, and that came from him most likely, along with the belligerent hair and the unpredictable temper. He loved her a lot, probably even loved her mother.

  E.V. looks past the neat path of graves to a line of eucalyptus trees. A guy about her age is standing between two small gravestones. A blond, surfer type, shorts, black T-shirt, muscular. He drops two flowers—nothing fancy, just roadside weeds—one for each grave, and then walks away.

  E.V. watches him go. Something about the way he moves, deliberately, purposefully, makes her stare. Maybe it’s the way he strides past the gravestones without looking at them.

  Maybe it’s the way he pauses to take in the trees, the ocean, perhaps even her.

  Two seconds pass, maybe three. A blip, and then he vanishes.

  E.V. starts to cry. After a while, she collects herself. She feels a little better, lighter. Crying always helps.

  She is climbing into the backseat of Antonio’s car when she sees a black sedan driven by her mother’s chauffeur, Joe.

  Joe pulls into the lot and parks, then walks over to her father’s grave and places a white rose on the round headstone.

  E.V. can just make out Terra through the darkly tinted windows.

  Antonio takes a right out of the cemetery. They pass the surfer guy walking on the side of the road.

  “Nice,” Aislin murmurs.

  “Bitch,” says Antonio affectionately.

  In two days, Eve will forget all about the surfer guy.

  In one year, seven months, and sixteen days, she will encounter him again.

  He will not be perfect, and he will not be a blip.

  * * *

  At 6:40 P.M. E.V. returns to her bedroom. She marks the moon landing on her time line. She labels the very end of the line “Right Now.”

  E.V. examines her work. It’s thorough. Not perfect, but close. Leach will probably give it an A-, but she’s pretty ruthless, so you never know.

  E.V. opens her e-mail and clicks on Bob’s note. For eleven seconds, she stares at it.

  Four months from now, E.V. will not remember Bob’s name when she passes him in the lunchroom.

  One year and eight months from now, she will realize that the head-butt incident makes a great first-date anecdote.

  E.V. presses the DELETE key.

  She lies back and closes her eyes, waiting to be humbled, waiting to be surprised.

  1

  I am thinking of an apple when the streetcar hits and my leg severs and my ribs crumble and my arm is no longer an arm but something unrecognizable, wet and red.

  An apple. It was in a vendor’s stall at the farmers’ market off Powell. I’d noticed it because it was so weirdly out of place, a defiant crimson McIntosh in an army of dull green Granny Smiths.

  When you die—and I realize this as I hurtle through the air like a wounded bird—you should be thinking about love. If not love, at the very least you should be counting up your sins or wondering why you didn’t cross at the light.

  But you should not be thinking about an apple.

  I register the brakes screeching and the horrified cries before I hit the pavement. I listen as my bones splinter and shatter. It’s not an unpleasant sound, more delicate than I would have imagined. It reminds me of the bamboo wind chimes on our patio.

  A thicket of legs encircles me. Between a bike messenger’s ropy calves I can just make out the 30% OFF TODAY ONLY sign at Lady Foot Locker.

  I should be thinking about love right now—not apples, and certainly not a new pair of Nikes—and then I stop thinking altogether because I am too busy screaming.

  * * *

  I open my eyes and the light is blinding. I know I must be dead because in the movies there’s always a tunnel of brilliant light before someone croaks.

  “Evening? Stay with us, girl. Evening? Cool name. Look at me, Evening. You’re in the hospital. Who should we call?”

  The pain slams me down, and I realize I’m not dead after all, although I really wish I could be because maybe then I could breathe instead of scream.

  “Evening? You go by Eve or Evening?”

  Something white smeared in red hovers above me like a cloud at sunset. It pokes and prods and mutters. There’s another, then another. They are grim but determined, these clouds. They talk in fragments. Pieces, like I am in pieces. Vitals. Prep. Notify. Permission. Bad.