LIZZIE
"Lizzie, honey, it's for you!" mom called to my room.
I was ready to take the darn phone of the hook. I couldn't count how many sympathy calls I'd gotten since the crash. Some were people I didn't even know! I was thinking "how do you know about the crash you moron?" but I always did my best to be polite. Recently they had been slowing down, what with school starting soon and all. The crash had been a few months ago. But I still knew there were more calls to come, however few they may be.
I picked up the phone in my room. "Hello?" I asked. I heard mom hang up.
"Lizzie, I'm glad you're home. This is Mrs. Sanchez, I was wondering if you wanted to come over to the house and pick up a few of Miranda's things." Her voice was softer when she spoke next. "You know, to remember her by."
I nodded even though she couldn't see it. "I'd like that. Thank you."
"Oh, it's our pleasure. We'd rather her valuables go to you and Gordo than be sold at a yard sale for 50 cents."
"I'll be right over."
"Great. Goodbye."
"Bye."
Mrs. Sanchez sounds like she's doing better, I noted as I hung up. I was glad. It must be so hard for her and her husband. I felt a little guilty for pitying myself when they were probably going through so much more than me. They were, after all, her family.
But then, in many ways I felt like I was her family, too. Like her sister or something. We'd known each other for a long time, and I always felt like I "loved" her in a friendly, even family-like way.
I went downstairs and grabbed the car keys off the counter.
"And where are you going?" mom asked.
"Sanchezs invited me over," I answered. I didn't really feel like mentioning Miranda.
"All right."
"And Gordo'll be there. I think we may do something afterwards."
"Like what?"
I shrugged. "Eat or something. I don't know when I'll be home."
"OK. Have fun."
Did she mean it? Did she want me to have fun in my dead best friend's room, talking to my dead best friend's parents, claiming my dead best friend's stuff?
"Sure."
~*~
When I got to the house, Gordo's blue Taurus was already there. I walked up to the house. Mr. Sanchez answered the door and told me that Mrs. Sanchez and Gordo were in Miranda's room. I went in there and the 2 were standing in the middle talking.
"Hey, Lizzie," Gordo said.
"Hey," I replied.
"Take everything you want," Mrs. Sanchez told us. "We wish we didn't have to sell any of this, but we just simply can't keep it all. Most of what you don't take will be sold. We already went through it."
"Thanks a lot," Gordo said. "This was really thoughtful of you."
She smiled. "Anytime." Then she left the room.
"You'll probably want more of this stuff than I do," he said to me. "You'll have more use for it, I mean. Being a girl."
I walked over to her dresser. It didn't look like her parents had gone through it. Everything was where it always had been.
A scrunchie, a couple headbands, and a picture frame were on it. The picture was us 3 in NYC. I remembered that trip… our parents had let us go together for our sweet 16. Of course, a couple parents came along, too.
Mirada was wearing a shirt that I bought her at a store there and her favorite pants. Gordo was giving her bunny ears and my hand was standing still on the picture, intending to swat his hand down for the real picture.
I picked up the frame and showed it to Gordo. "This is a cute picture," I said.
"Yeah," he agreed. "I remember that. You should take it."
I put it in his hand. "No, you should. You said yourself that I'd probably find more I wanted than you. So you should take everything that isn't overly female."
He smiled. "OK. But you should take that shirt you bought her."
"I will if we run into it. But I don't wanna dig around her clotheslet and drawers looking for it." There was something uncomforting about me tearing through Miranda's stuff that I didn't like.
Gordo looked like he didn't understand why, but finally he said, "Fair enough," and turned to look around himself.
I turned to her bookshelf. She didn't have many books on it, though. She used it as more of a knick-knack shelf. Each separate shelf had it's own color. She had blue, red, yellow, and then one shelf with knick-knacks and suvounirs from her trip to France. She'd gone with the French class at school. I didn't take French, so the stuff wasn't of much sentimental value to me, but I finally decided to take the Teddy Bear that she got at Hard Rock Café.
"Ah," Gordo said, sounding pleased. "CDs. She's gotta have some good music." I smiled as he leafed through them.
"Did you go to France with her?" I asked. Gordo was almost the only guy in French that year.
"What?"
"For school. Did you go to France with Miranda?"
He didn't look up from the CDs as he spoke. "We were on the same flight, but once we got there we were split into 2 groups. I wasn't in her group. Why?"
"She has a French shelf."
He turned and looked at me. "A what?"
I pointed to the bookshelf. "A shelf with things from France."
He walked over to it and gave a small sort of chuckle when he saw something that caught his eye. He then picked up a deck of cards and a tiny, shot-glass-sized mug with the Eiffle Tower on it. The cards looked like regular casino cards, only they had a few French words on them.
"She played Claire for this," he told me, showing me the cards and the mug. "I couldn't believe it… she didn't know how to play poker. We met a dealer from Vegas and he taught her and gave her some tips."
I smiled. "You'll want them, then."
He held them both out to me. "Pick one."
I sighed and took the mug. I normally would have refused, but I've learned that Gordo can be very stubborn, and that he would make me pick first no matter how long he had to stand there.
"Were you there for the game?" I asked.
He nodded. "They played on the plane on the way back."
"Why did I take German?" I muttered.
Gordo smiled. "You look more like a French girl. Why did you take German?"
Then Mrs. Sanchez came in with 2 plastic bags. "Oh, good, you're taking stuff," she said. "I was worried that you 2 would be too shy and only take a thing or 2." She gave us each a bag. "If you need more bags, let me know."
"No way will I need another one," Gordo replied. "I doubt I'll fill this one alone."
I nodded. "Me, too."
"Well, the offer's always open," she said. "Don't hesitate." Then she left again.
"Why is she leaving us alone in here?" Gordo asked me, his voice a little hushed.
I shrugged. "So that it can be just us 3 again… in a way."
We locked eyes for a minute, then I suddenly felt sadder than I'd felt in a long time. Gordo was the one who broke it. He turned back to the CDs.
I glanced around her room. "I wonder where her violin is."
"Parents probably took it," came the quick, casual answer.
"Yeah, I guess." Then I finally asked a question that had been on my mind for awhile. "Gordo… did your parents call Jared yet?"
"Oh – yeah."
"What'd he say?"
"He's going to pay for the car. He can't afford everything like the hospital bills and such, since he's trying to pay for college."
"Maybe he should try to pay for them anyway."
Gordo looked at me, surprised. "I thought you said we shouldn't sue."
"Did you know he was on the news?"
Gordo blinked. "What does that have to do with it?"
"Answer the question."
"No… I hadn't heard that."
"I can't figure it out. After I saw it, I think I should be more sympathetic to his situation, but… now I just hate him more. Because he's a murderer, and he's getting away with it. He killed her."
"Lizzie, what did he say?"
I took a deep breath. I was getting hot. I could feel my face getting redder, I was on the verge of sweating, and I knew tears were going to come to my eyes soon. "He was an honor student in high school. He's really smart, he got a good scholarship and everything. It was his first time drinking at a party, and he said he got carried away. But… that doesn't excuse it, does it?"
"I honestly don't know what you're talking about."
I sighed. "Neither do I. Forget it."
He turned back to the CDs once again. "Superchick," he said.
"What?"
"She has Superchick. I was going to buy this." He put the CD in his bag. "How are you doing?"
I was surprised at the sudden change of subject. "Um… the last time we had an open conversation we practically strangled each other. Maybe we shouldn't-"
"No, I mean with stuff. You almost done?"
I felt incredibly stupid.
"Oh – stuff. I think I wanna look around a little more."
He shrugged. "OK."
"You don't have to wait for me," I said.
"But I want to. Maybe we can hang out afterwards."
"Oh, OK."
