Free Love Saves the Day by Gwen Cooper Page B

Josh’s feet coming into my room distracts me from my thoughts. He must be waiting for Laura, because he doesn’t do anything except stand there in the middle of the floor next to the Sarah-boxes. His eyes make a quick circle of the room without seeing me in the back of the closet, and they come to rest on the boxes of Sarah’s black disks. Crouching down, he starts to flip through them. My ears flatten against my head when he takes one out to look at the back of its cardboard cover. Those are
Sarah’s
black disks! It’s one thing if
Laura
wants to look at them (I guess), but for Josh to go through them by himself seems wrong.
    Josh must be thinking the same thing, because he seems cautious at first, keeping one ear tilted toward the door, but it’s like he can’t help himself. And he’s forgotten all about his caution whenLaura’s footsteps approach. “Look at this!” He turns his head up to her. “There’s a picture of your mother on the back of this Evil Sugar album! Right here.” He holds the black disk in its cardboard cover up to Laura, pointing to a spot I can’t see from where I am. “There she is with Anise Pierce in front of the Gem Spa awning.”
    “She and Anise were roommates.” Laura’s voice sounds like she doesn’t really want to talk about this. “Before Evil Sugar moved out to LA.”
    It’s funny to hear Josh call her “Anise Pierce,” because Sarah always calls her “Anise’s to Pieces.” Back before Anise was famous, crazy things always seemed to happen to her. Sarah teases Anise that she couldn’t even go out to buy a can of tuna for her cats without getting hit by a car or having her purse stolen or a tree branch fall right onto her head, or making some poor guy fall desperately in love with her at first sight—and usually all those things would happen in the same day.
    “This was my favorite album in junior high,” Josh says. “I was obsessed with that whole generation of New York bands recording at Alphaville Studios.” He laughs. “I was devastated when Anise Pierce married Keith Amaker. That’s when I tried to convince my mother to buy me a drum set. I figured if drummers got girls like Anise Pierce, then I’d be a drummer, too.” Josh turns the cardboard cover over in his hands. “I never realized how tiny she was until I saw her standing next to your mother.” He looks up at Laura, his eyes shining with excitement but also looking confused. “How could you not tell me your mom knew her?”
    “It never came up.” Laura shrugs. “Come on, let’s get these chairs down to the dining room before we’re late for work.”
    Josh seems reluctant as he puts the black disk back into the box with the others, but he walks with Laura over to the black chairs that live in the corner without saying anything else. “There’ll be seven of us tonight, right?” Laura asks.
    Josh puts one hand on her shoulder. “It’s not too late to call it off,” he says gently. “My parents would understand if you weren’t ready yet for a houseful of people.”
    “Don’t be silly. We’ve been planning this forever.” Laura turnsher head around so she can smile up at him, although her nostrils widen slightly the way humans’ do when they’re irritated. “And I keep telling you, I’m
fine
. Honestly.”
    Laura carries one chair and Josh carries two as they pick their way around all the boxes on the floor. This is the only room Laura didn’t clean yesterday. She still doesn’t like coming in here, and I notice how her eyes don’t look into the Sarah-boxes on her way out, just around them to make sure she doesn’t bump into anything.
    I think about that man Sarah talked about once—the one who lost his cat and all his reminders and didn’t want to be alive anymore after that. I wonder why Laura doesn’t want to look through these boxes and remember Sarah with me, so both of us can make sure she has a reason to come back.
    The day seems to go by more slowly than usual