by Luna Lacour
If he could have, I think he would have written her name in the stars. He couldn’t, of course. But he had one named after her. He kept the framed document in his office.
It’s a funny thing, how people go. How you can be so consumed by one person, and then as the years go by, like a slow-working serum, something seeps into your skin that renders the person you once loved so dearly a total stranger. It’s as if, despite the memories, and despite all of the things that we weep and beg and cry out to hold onto - nothing can save what is inevitably damned. There’s that moment when you look at that person who once carried everything so intrinsic to your own being in the palm of their hand, and you think to yourself: did I ever truly love you? Or was it for that moment of intoxicating thrill?
He tried to hold onto her, even after the affair was discovered; but she left anyway – as most people do. She left us for a life at sea; sailing yachts and remarrying in an event so lavish that it caught fire in the newspapers. For the water that maybe, she hoped, would carry her to a life that would give her some greater happiness.
My father sobbed. He kept the newsclippings for awhile until Vivian asked him to burn them. He broke all the crystal statues that my mother had kept – angels - in the study. Glass was sprayed like frozen rain, like ice; turning the stretch of marble floor into tangible constellations.
I remember my father, upon seeing me standing in the doorway, still in my pajamas – and how he looked so totally choked. He took my small hand, pressing it against a wet cheek that glistened much like my own. Tears streamed down my face as I stared at the mess, frightened and wondering how my father could have been capable of breaking so many things at once.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “Everything comes and goes.”
And then he left; I was once again alone.
My father tried to hold on to me for awhile. His attempt at possession was desperate and destined to crumble from the beginning. We went to church, we prayed. We prayed, and prayed. We adorned our home with crosses and once again the crystal angels returned. I think deep down he was begging the Almighty to bring my mother back. But you can’t change the stars, just as you can’t change the mind of God.
Still, my father was drunk in blissful neglect; drowning in tears and something stronger.
He swept me away to the mountains out West, where at a grand ball accompanied by girls carrying a wooden cross draped in lace, I pledged my purity; a gestured solidified by the ring I still wore today.
None of it was about love, though. It was about control – and for awhile, I indulged him. I neglected boys and focused on my studies. I was accepted into Trinity, a success my father boasted about heavily, loudly.
When he met Vivian, the two connected instantly. Her husband, Marius’ father, had also been consumed in an affair with some woman he met in Queens. She had a thick accent, I guess, and raven-colored hair; Marius showed me her picture once, a somber, hateful smile on his face.
“I hope it was worth it,” Marius muttered, and we both sat in a shared, understanding silence.
After that, we stopped going to church as often, even though the crosses still hung. My father treated our moments together more as a business transaction. If I needed something, he fulfilled my requests, and in exchange I kept my grades and sensibilities and everything else to his polished standards. When it came time to consider universities, he took care of it immediately, securing a spot at Yale – where he had attended, and his father before – so quickly that I barely had time to blink.
I continued maintaining my posture and smile, dressing in silk and wearing my hair and makeup and every piece of fabric that covered my body with a perfect, conscious manner. And I kept the ring on my finger, not as a gesture to my father’s desire to maintain possession over my actions, but as a reminder to myself that I didn’t want to let anyone else in. I wanted to keep that control; that safe, deliberate distance. I wanted to remain a perfectly painted mask. No emotions, no love, not risking the exposure of my own vulnerabilities.
I let them see what they wanted to see: someone kind, and good, and clean - that was enough.
And yes, for that, I thanked my parents.
That evening after school, my father called me into the parlor. I was still weighed down with my own thoughts of Mr. Tennant’s hands on my waist. His fingers skimming down the length of my jawline.
My father was surrounded by his business partners, all in suits, their faces already flushed from the alcohol that slogged through their veins like motor oil.
“Kaitlyn!” he hooked an arm around me, and I fell against his shoulder. “Kaitlyn here is to be attending Yale this fall. Isn’t that true, darling?”
In my mind, I imagined confessing that the spot had been financially secured, and what his reaction would be. I pictured his face swelling, along with the dozen other men in the room; expanding like balloons and so lit with spirits that if I were to stick a needle into their skin, they would have exploded into a mess of gin and brandy.
“Yes,” I said mildly, smiling and tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. I contemplated laughing to convey a bit more enthusiasm. “I’m quite excited.”
Docile and gentle. Meek and soft and quietly feminine. That was the way to deal with these kind of leery-eyed suits.
I pulled myself away when Vivian entered with a tray of new liquid concoctions, and made for a quick excursion into the elevator. I didn’t dare take the steps and risk a run-in with anyone else that would feel like carrying a conversation.
In the library, Marius was sprawled out on a chaise lounge, scribbling in his journal and surrounded by stone statues of angels in various positions. Prayer, pensive, empty-eyes without any pupils. The walls were painted with a dark gold that glimmered when the sun hit in such a way that made the room seem like a particularly special place. Heavy paintings depicted Michael the Archangel, Adam and Eve, and the Virgin Mary. There was one of Christ on the cross, too, but Marius took it down each time he went in to write. It was one of the few things that he struggled to look at.
“Fuck him yet?” Marius called, slamming the book shut. I flipped him off.
“I’m enraged that you failed to tell me about your little decision to audition for the play,” I told him. “Just leave me alone.”
In my room, I slammed the door shut and threw my uniform jacket on the dresser. I yanked the tie from over my head, unbuttoned my blouse, and stepped out of my skirt. The folds crumpled at my feet, and I was left standing in only my underwear and a pair of knee-high socks.
I was thin, arguably too thin, and the full-length mirror that I stood in front of only served to elongate my limbs and torso, making me look like a doll. Hungry, starved.
Grabbing a bathrobe, I wrapped myself up and sat down at my desk, which was in a small side-room away from the actual sleeping area. I shut the door and turned the light on, blinking and rubbing my eyes and skimming over the pale pink walls; glossy and splattered with a pastiche of various magazine cutouts. Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean. Models with red-lipped smiles and full bodies and even fuller eyes. Pop Culture contemporary things; blown up and over-airbrushed photographs of stick-skinny models in lingerie and dark-stained mouths, sprawled out on white linens that only made their white skin seem so deathly pale. The small crystal chandelier made the lights dance in orbs over the eyes and silicone smiles.
I sat down at my desk, bag in tow, and pulled out my copy of Lolita, staring at the cover until I set it aside. Fingers tracing over my laptop keyboard, I punched in the first thing that came to mind: nymphet.
A list of sites pertaining to Nabokov’s controversial masterpiece popped up, with nymphet being the coined term for Humbert Humbert’s insatiable obsession. There was a slew of differing opinions, calling him a lover and a monster and ultimately, just a man. Seduced and sick and at the core of all things simply flesh and bone and blood like the rest of us.
There was a music video for some dark, throaty band that consisted of men with long black
hair and heavy guitars. It started with a pale-eyed woman on a swing, swinging back and forth on this wooden plank suspended by a rope crawling with white roses. Her hair, too, was white. In a dark forest-esque sort of setting, a couple, two women - one with dark hair while the other’s was fair - gazed at each other with an expression of lust and languish. The dark-haired woman wore a mask that was nearly identical to the one Mr. Tennant had been wearing at the masquerade, her upper lip lined with a faux-mustache.
It was both bizarre and disturbingly beautiful, and I imagined myself as the girl with fair hair, wearing gossamer clothes and angel wings; Mr. Tennant kneeling down on one knee, kissing my hand and looking up at me as if I was the only girl in the world with a beating heart. The rest of the Earth barren and lifeless.
I slammed my laptop shut, and after a brief pause, leaned down and withdrew a hidden box that I kept in the bottom drawer of my desk. An old shoebox that contained all the love notes and jewels and sweet nothings that were the only remains of my sole perennial love. A love that lasted only as long as summer would allow; as long as I would allow. Our relationship died along with the leaves, along with everything else. Along with a part of myself that in with the first cold breeze granted me the harrowing awareness of the what I really longed for. Something real.
On my bed, I opened the lid of the box and set it aside gingerly. My fingers traced over the various pieces of jewelry that I now refused to wear; notes that were folded over half a dozen times. It was like the boy who had written them with such a hasty hand had always wanted them to remain a secret.
His name was Henry, with the first letter silent and the last letter drawn like the final note of a favorite song. His father was an obscenely wealthy man who crafted the fine jewelry that adorned the necks and wrists and slender fingers of those that had never seen a day of real labor. He had a crop of golden hair and blue eyes that were a touch too feminine; long lashes and lips that fell in a perpetual pout. Two years ahead of me at Trinity Prep, we met at a gathering when our parents introduced us.
He fell in love immediately. I fell into his arms in the same, hesitant way that one might if they were standing on the ledge of a cliff; contemplating how cold the water was below, or if the fall alone would kill them.
Henry was constantly giving me jewelry, draping blood-red diamonds and pearls around my neck in insane abundance. He wrote me love notes, little notes, about how he wanted us to be together forever.
Obviously, it didn’t last. I left him at the turn of summer, before my Junior year. He was devastated. I was not.
If there’s one thing I have always mourned the most, it’s the inconsistent and unreliable burden that is our ability to remember. All of the beautiful images and delicate memories die so quickly – and they never return.
Lying on my back, I looked around my bedroom. The walls, the bedspread, the sheets, the furniture was painted in the pale, sugar-spun pink that bled with an almost joking femininity. Even the crystals of the chandelier that hung were rose-colored.
I closed my eyes, thinking about the past and thinking about the present. Thinking about how I had never felt a damn thing; no trace of lust or desire or any spark of heat in my veins. Nothing worth writing love notes or stealing concealed kisses in shadowy corners. Nothing worth making love, or fucking, or having sex.
Until the masquerade.
I thought about Mr. Tennant, and what he was doing, and if he was thinking about me, too. I was quite positive that his eyes had followed me out the classroom door, but I could have imagined it.
Standing, I took a deep breath and decided to take action. I threw on a pale dressed; layered lace the color Provençal Rosé, that hovered just above my knees. I coupled it with a pair of white flats, and to make it seem casual, my favorite Houndstooth jacket.
In the garden, the pool glowed with an eerie, electric blue. The rose bushes were covered in leathery, black leaves. The grass was just a path of shadows; a stretch of black turf with no hint of green in the shrouded night.
I looked up at the sky, shimmering in a way that made me want to believe something greater really did exist. Something beyond the physical symbols, the evening prayers. I wanted to believe, like most girls do, that every single star held an unanswered wish, and that it was only a matter of selecting the right one amidst the glittering sands of an even grander celestial body.
Clutching the gates, I briefly envisioned Will standing before me; the two of us shielded from the iron bars. Our fingers touched; our eyes touched, too. We didn’t say anything, but we didn’t need to.
I shoved through the gates and ran until I saw lights; hailing down a cab, my chest burned and my face felt warm, feverish. I touched the glass and wondered, tracing my name on the window, how many others had done the same.
“Stop here,” I instructed, handing him a folded twenty. “I’m set to walk. I need to stretch my legs.”
We hadn’t gone far, but that was enough. He thanked me for the money and I left with my coat and a pair of sunglasses. Pretentious, perhaps. But it felt appropriate.
Walking with a slow and steady pace, I felt my heart quicken as I neared Will’s apartment building; when I reached the park, it nearly stopped.
I almost wished that I had brought a shopping bag or something. Anything to make it seem like I hadn’t just wandered to his front steps in hopes of seeing him.
Tyler was right. The structure was crumbling; the cement steps leading to a cracked sidewalk. But the strangest part of it all was that the exterior damage didn’t give the building a downtrodden sort of look; rather, it was almost charming. It was a subtle decay; something that still managed to give a genuine allure. Like maybe, if I wasn’t a millionaire’s daughter, I would have lived there, too. I would have opened the windows and watched the children play in the park, laughing with the kind of jovial ring that I never knew.
When I saw him, I removed my glasses and paused before going a step further. And when I finally decided to, I revealed myself under a perfectly-placed ray of streetlight, feeling like half maniac and movie starlet.
Will raised his eyes, and when he saw me, there it was: the wavering warmth spreading from head to toe. A silent, unspoken belief that the girl in front of him wearing a lace dress and pretty shoes, a pretty coat, was incapable of such a thing as searching him down like a cautionary predator.
In that moment, though - it felt organic.
Mr. Tennant smiled, his eyes on the glasses in my hand, his hair wind-swept and figure vaguely hunched over. He had his headphones on, and was re-lacing a pair of sneakers. He had been running.
“Kaitlyn Laurent,” his voice was a breathless beacon. “Well, isn’t this a surprise?”
He moved aside, making a spot for me on the steps. I sat next to him, we watched the empty park for awhile, and by some fantastic stroke of luck - a cold drizzle began to fall.
I stretched my fingers, barely brushing across the tips of his; I felt Mr. Tennant look down.
“Would you like to come inside?” he asked quietly. “I’ll call you a cab.”
Pulling me up, he opened the door to the apartment, and I basked for a brief moment in the warm glow of light that spilled over the blue cement and gray, empty streets.
Clutching my coat, I followed him inside.
SIX
His apartment was larger than I would have expected from the outside. It had dark panel-wood flooring, and the walls were painted a deep burgundy. The furniture was old, worn; from the over-stuffed recliner to the midnight-blue settee that made me think, vaguely, of a stage prop. He didn’t have a television, but rather a large projector screen that took up nearly the entire living room wall. His kitchen was galley-style, with a black-and-white checkered patterned floor. It barely fit the two of us as I watched him pour boiling water into mugs with classic lines from The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye.
“I painted them myself,” he explained, smiling.
Will seemed to have a love for little tsotchky
items. Coffee mugs containing the same brand of ball-point pen were everywhere, strewn about on glass-topped tables with notebooks and stacks upon stacks of well-loved novels. I picked up a weathered copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and flipped through the pages, relishing that old book smell. Frames upon frames of random photographs were everywhere; many of Will with various people that looked, to some degree, like they could be family. Some were of a woman, with light brown hair and eyes of the same color. She had freckles on her nose and a smile that told me, without even needing to ask, that she had once been intimately tied to Will. An old friend, a past lover.
I wondered, for just a moment, what his life was like before now.
There were also, collectively, at least twenty clocks hung on the apartment walls. All of them, every single one, appeared to be made by hand. All gold and polished wood, you could see the metal gears; but none of them moved. The arms were lifeless.
However, I knew one of them was alive. I could hear the sound, the seconds ticking away like that vital organ in my chest.
Squinting my eyes, I saw that it was in the very center, just above my head. I had to crane my neck in order to see it; a mesh of gold and cold gray metal, just slightly larger than the rest.
I felt Will’s hand on my shoulder, his face reflected in the glass. We were both staring into frozen time.
“Did you build them?” I asked. “All of these?”
He nodded, looking over each of them as if he too had never seen them before. There was a soft wonder in his expression, an unmistakable pride.
“Yes…but none of them work. Well, except for that one. But if you can possibly tell-” he rolled up a shirtsleeve, exposing his watch. “It moves just slightly faster. The timing is off.”
I moved in closer to compare the two. He was right.
“How can you stand it?” I asked him. “The noise. The constant tick, tick, tick.”