Read Online Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff - Free Book Online

variety, man,” he said, and held out his fist.
    What the hell. I bumped fists with Jimmy and said exactly what I was thinking. “I started listening to the Ramones because Hayden put them on his suicide-note playlist.”
    The kitchen got really quiet, and I knew right away I’d gone too far.
    “Sammy, now might not be the time,” Mom said finally.
    “No, it’s cool, Mrs. Goldsmith,” Jimmy said. “I kinda went through something similar myself.”
    “You did?” I asked, before I could help myself. I wondered if Rachel had known. Mom and I both looked over at her. Mom’s mouth was hanging open.
    Rachel shrugged, but she didn’t look that surprised.
    “I moved here from Chicago last summer,” Jimmy said. “I had this friend who was going through some stuff, and he offed himself. In my house, with my dad’s gun. I’m the one who found him.”
    For a second I found myself thankful that Hayden had chosen the method he did. I couldn’t imagine my last memory of him involving blood. It made me nauseous just thinking about it. I looked over at Rachel again; now she looked a little shocked. I figured she’d known the basics but not the details.
    “It’s why we left,” he continued. “None of us could stand to be in that house, and my mom kept saying how terrible it was to live in cities, all the awful things that happened there.”
    “Kind of ironic, that you’d move here, and then . . .” My voice trailed off. I wasn’t quite ready to say it out loud.
    “Yeah, that’s one word for it. It would have been a lot harder if I hadn’t already met your sister.” He smiled at Rachel, and she smiled back. I could see how into him she really was. Even Mom was starting to warm to him. “I loved Chicago—I just wanted to leave the house, not the city. It was my dad’s idea to take off for cow country.”
    “Corn, not cows,” Rachel said, and squeezed his hand. I’d been tempted to say the same thing, but let’s face it, there were some cows.
    “Anyway, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it back home, and I didn’t really want to talk about it here, but now that it’s been a little while I can think about it more clearly. So if you ever need to talk, you can talk to me. Maybe not now, but someday.” I wondered if my sister had put him up to it, but that would be so not like her. And he looked like he really meant it.
    “That’s a very nice offer, Jimmy,” Mom said.
    I could see Rachel trying not to smirk. This couldn’t have gone better if she’d scripted it herself. She looked over at me, willing me to say something.
    “Okay, thanks,” I said. I was starting to like him, despite myself. Too bad he hadn’t showed up before Mr. Beaumont. Then I could have at least said I had someone else to talk to.
    The doorbell rang before we could say anything else. Finally, food. It seemed like everyone was grateful to have the pizza to focus on for a while.
    “Tell me about your first day back,” Mom asked, after we’d all started eating.
    “No big deal,” I said. I really did not want to talk about Mr. Beaumont.
    “You missed the first few days when everyone was talking about Hayden,” Rachel said. “Now they’re all talking about what happened to Jason Yoder.”
    I turned to her so fast I almost hurt my neck. “What happened to Jason?”
    “You didn’t hear? This rumor started going around that he’s gay, I guess. And then, no one knows exactly what happened, but the police found him tied to a telephone pole outside the Blue Star bar. Buck naked. He didn’t press charges or anything—I guess he hoped no one would find out. But people always do. Everyone’s talking about it.”
    Libertyville was a pretty conservative town. Even though Iowa was progressive in being one of the first states to legalize gay marriage, it hadn’t trickled down to us quite yet. I hadn’t heard the rumor about Jason, but that wasn’t surprising—I wasn’t exactly clued in enough to be part of the rumor mill. But