“I am going to die the day before I turn nineteen,” she said. “I want to be eighteen forever. Doesn’t eighteen seem like it would be a great age to die?” She always asked, and I always replied with a yes. Though I was not sure, but I still agreed and I still listened. “But I have to do everything before I die, but I will never have kids. I hate kids,” she would say. “But we are kids,” I would reply. “Yeah, and I hate us too.” Lacy seemed to hate everything and everyone, but at the same time she loved the world. She was the kind of person that hung around in gardens reading. “I have to read one-thousand books before the day I die,” she once said. And she did end up reading one-thousand books. The first one being Tuck Everlasting, which soon after became her favorite book. The 1000th book was The Virgin Suicides, which was the book she was on the floor when they found her hanging. It was ironic, but not the humorous kind of irony, the kind that made you think. It was beautiful irony.
As we grew up she only became more obsessed with the idea of death. She spoke about it the way most kids would talk about Disneyland. “I only have three thousand, nine hundred, and thirty-four days before the day I die.” As she got older she became adventurous and she always had to bring me along. I was her side-kick and she was my hero. She had always been a fast bloomer. By ten she already had a figure, but by then she had already read thirty-five hundred books, kissed twelve boys, and had seen twenty R rated movies. When she was thirteen and I twelve, she had decided we were going to sneak out, and go to the city. Of course we were only twelve and thirteen, so we had no money nor did we know how to get there. So she used her many skills to make me bribe my fifteen year old brother to help us sneak out. Though it was not a bribe, because all I had to do was ask, and he said yes, but he had to tag along. She was in charge of getting the money. Though my brother had offered to help, but she had already had a plan. She always had a plan.
The night of the great sneak out, my brother told my parents he was going to take me to go watch a movie. Obviously, they allowed it. She had told us to meet her in the garden. She only liked one garden, so we knew where to go. When we got there she was reading Catcher in the Rye by a bleeping blue light. She had a red hat on, a fit hounds tooth jacket, jeans, and saddle shoes. Right next to her there was large laced bag with her name written in lace. “Hey, what’s in the bag?” I asked. “Three thousand, nine hundred, and thirty-four dollars,” she said with her eyes on the book. “How did you get all of that?” My brother inquired. “By doing something I had to before I died anyway,” this time she looked up, but she did not look at me, only at him. “Which is?” he asked. “I stole,” she smirked and then focused her eyes back to the page. “I am almost done, just give me a minute.” Minutes later she shut her book. “Change of plans,” she preached. “Tonight we shall scrub the ‘fuck yous’ off the walls.” I did not understand, so I asked, “What’s a ‘fuck you?’”
We ended up never even leaving the garden. She told me I had to sit on the bench, read the book, and not get up until I knew what she meant. She took my brother’s hand, the heavy bag, and told me they would be back when I understood. I finally got what she meant by sunrise, and then they emerged from the bushes. They looked as though they had rolled around on a freshly painted Monet. Later that day she told me that she lost her v-card, but then I didn’t comprehend.
By fourteen her and my brother were dating. She would end up always sleeping over my house. We told everyone we were having sleepovers, though she stopped sleeping in my room after the first night. I would sometimes try to hear what they were doing, but I never stayed too long. I always was afraid I would get caught. I was always afraid she would stop being my friend. So I began to hate my brother. She kept telling me she had to do everything, and one of those everythings was falling in love, but like always she had a plan. She told me she was going to break up with him on her 18th birthday, because she wanted him to stop loving her before she died. At this time she had a Bob, and twenties inspired clothing. Her favorite book of the year had been The Great Gatsby. She even inspired me to get a Bob, but it looked strange on my still formless body. I thought I was hideous, but she told me otherwise. “You’re just a late bloomer,” she would say while I glared at my ugly reflection. This was the year I went into a deep depression, and began to write crappy poetry. Most of them were about her, and I how I wished my brother was gay. She soon found them, and began to hang out with me once again. She was my reason to be happy, and I was her only friend.
When she was fifteen we began to sneak out to the garden nightly. She was still with my brother, but he had moved out. He was now in college, and I now had my friend back. He visited monthly, pretending he came to see the family, but he only came for her. We began to experiment with narcotics. First it was cigarettes, then alcohol, weed, E, and some harder things I never had the guts to try. The garden became our escape. At this time she was reading books like Go Ask Alice, Cut, Girl Interrupted, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I began to realize that the books she read inspired her to do even more things before she died. She kept telling me we needed to go to parties, and that I needed to get a boyfriend. But because we were such social outcasts we had no parties to go to nor were there any guys that would ever like me.
She got a job at a ribbon store when she was sixteen. It as a tedious job filled of fake hellos and lying smiles, but that was the point. It was another one of those things she had to do before her last breath. In a way the job was perfect for her. She loved lace, ribbons, and floral print. She actually had gotten the job because of her name, and the outfit she wore that day; which just happened to be a floral dress. She liked the job, because she was allowed an unlimited amount of ribbon, and, since there were not many customers, she could just read. At this time she had begun reading more classical books. Mostly anything by Shakespeare and Jane Austen. Two other people worked with Lacy: Mrs. Rose, the owner, and Aaron, her son. Mrs. Rose was a nice pudgy lady with curly red hair, who created beautiful children. The first time I saw Aaron was the week Lacy got the job. She made me go visit, because she told me she had something amazing to show me. That “something amazing” just happened to be Aaron. Gladly, by this time I had already begun blooming. I was no longer that ugly duckling, but I still felt like it. After that first week I never stopped visiting. I would hang out with them during their shifts and breaks. We no longer were just two.
Lacy was still working at the ribbon store when she turned seventeen. She kept telling me that Aaron liked me, but I never believed her. Until the day he asked me out. She told me she would help me prepare. I kept asking why? She answered, “Because I don’t want to you be alone when I am gone.” This was when it clicked: She was actually going to do it. She pulled the hair out of my face, “Your eyes are too nice to hide them. It’s one of the things I liked about you and your brother so much. Since when I look in those big dark eyes, I feel closer to death.”
The next two years passed quickly. Aaron and I got together, and we even went on a double date with Lacy and my brother. Which was one of the most awkward nights of my life. We later went to a college party. We even went to a ribbon party. On her 18th birthday we went to Disneyland. She broke up with my brother on the Tower of Terror, just before the first drop. She obviously did not know that there was more than one drop. After that my brother stopped visiting, and Lacy began to become more distant and melancholic. She was obsessing over Edgar Allen Poe, Chuck Palahniuk, and depressing foreign writers. I was almost off to college, and she was almost off to the afterlife. But that last summer was worth it. Aaron flied the three of us to Europe. Lacy and I asked how he got the money, and all he said was “Ribbons.” After that trip, she rarely hung out with me anymore. She even stopped going to work. I always thought her last year would be her happiest, but all she wanted was for it to end. She often sat, in the garden, reading. I would visit, but she wasn’t really there. Sometimes she came over, but she only got more distant.
Lacy Ribbons had chosen her fate long ago. She knew what she had to do. If she didn’t her life would have been a lie, and Lacy never lied. She lived her life in the reality of books. Aaron and I tried to hang out with her those last few weeks, but we were starting college. She told us she was happy that it was almost her birthday. She even told us that she was almost done reading her 1000th book, and that she had done everything she could ever imagine. She was happy she knew us. Then the day finally came: The three thousand, nine hundred, and thirty-fourth day.
When they found her hanging in her room, all her books, but one, were in boxes labeled “To my best friend.” Her long hair was covering a smile, she was wearing a lace dress, and The Virgin Suicides was on the floor. She had hung herself with floral ribbon.
No comments:
Post a Comment