LAZARUS

CHAPTER ONE

Margo

        Plink plink.  Plink plinka plink.

        I’m trying to concentrate and my boyfriend Hank is lying on my bed playing the ukelele.  It’s annoying.

        I know I’m obsessing, but I want to look good for the first day of school.  Put together.  Strong.  The opposite of the way I actually feel.

        Plink plink.  Stru-u-u-m. 

        Concentrate.  The orange felt flower pin on the grey crop jacket over my dress (with chunky boots, that’s a given) or just the magenta shrug?  Or is it all too cutesy-thrift-store-punkette?  Should I just wear black?

        No.

        I did that the year my mother died because I thought: that’s what you do.  And now here we are again.  But I’m not that little girl anymore, I’m sixteen.  And I refuse to dress like Margo Price, tragedy magnet.  Because that’s what everyone expects.  Heads bowed, can’t make eye contact, oh, the poor thing...

        How about orange pin and magenta shrug?  Why not?  How’s that for Grief Girl?

        "Ooh, very bold, very now, " Hank twinkles from the bed.

        I cast him a look.

        "You know, you shouldn’t even be up here."  

        "I shouldn’t be a lot of places," he counters.  "And yet up I turn like a flat gopher in the road.  And you know you’re always glad to see me."  Hank smiles his crinkly Hank smile and I can’t disagree with him.  I am pretty much always glad to see him.  He balances out my too-serious side.  And right at the moment he looks so cute, I wish I could climb on to the bed with him and mess up my outfit.  But of course I can’t.

        I smell bacon cooking downstairs.  Are you kidding me?!  I charge down there two stairs at a time, late summer blinking gold in at me through the landing window.

        Into the kitchen where my Dad’s at the stove, already in his uniform.  I confront him: "It’s going out, Dad."  

        "It’s for you!  he insists.  "You need a good breakfast on the first day of school."

        His blue eyes are so determinedly cheerful, so rumply Dad-ish, I could almost believe him.

        "Unh-hunh.  Except I don’t eat bacon and you know that.  So then you say: well, it’s already cooked, I might as well eat it.  Right?"

        At this, he actually looks like he might cry, which is saying something for a police chief who can lift a pick-up truck off a stray calf.  I feel bad, but Dr. James has him on a strict low cholesterol diet and I am the Enforcer.  If I don’t do it, who will?  I will not have him joining my mother anytime soon.

        He turns off the stove and dumps the bacon, grumbling.  I get us both some whole grain cereal, which he looks at like it’s the Black Death.  I try to distract him.

        "So, I bet you’re glad summer’s over," I offer, sitting down.

        "Oh, I don’t know," he sighs.  "Summer’s the exciting time in my line of work.  Chasing horny teenagers out of the cornfields.  Real Clint Eastwood stuff."

        "Well, there was one big event in Lazarus this summer."  says Hank from the doorway.          Goddamnit.  I shoot him a look but he keeps going.

        "Come on, it even made the Norfolk Daily News.  Right between the Beef Council report and "Teens Deface Dairy Queen."  I wish my mom had given ’em a cooler picture, and really, "honor student" was a bit of a stretch...."

        "Okay, Hank, that’s enough." I hiss.

        Dad looks at me.  Uh-oh.

"Hank?  Did you say ’Hank’?"  

Oh no.  Here comes the worried look again.  I blew it.

"Margo, why are you talking to Hank?"

Across the room, Hank shrugs -- oops.

"Honey, you’re still going to those counselling sessions, right?  Are they helping?"

I touch his arm, offer my most reassuring smile.

"Dad, I’m fine."

He’s not buying it.  He leans in, fixes me with the laser blue Chief Roy Price stare.

"You’re talking to Hank at the breakfast table, Marg.  And he’s been dead for two months."

        Hank hangs his head.  He forgot he was dead again -- he does that sometimes -- and just jumped into the conversation.

        I could tell my Dad: no, really, he’s actually here.  Because I  believe he really is.  I’m just the only one who can see him.  

        But that’s not going to fly.  So I just smile my weak Grief Girl smile, and look down at my orange and magenta ensemble, which isn’t hiding anything.

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