The day it happened, I had no idea. Simple as that.
I woke at 7:03, and shaved for the first time in eleven days, put on my old jeans with the tear running through the left knee and the new shirt you bought for my birthday because you thought I had no reasonable ones.
Then Guinevere called and yelped out what happened in a tear- stained voice. You know what hurt the most? I didn't even know you were dead. Isn’t that ridiculous? I think it is.
***
The air inside of the cafe is thick and warm and a drizzle powders the greasy window beside my seat. She is looking at me, glancing up once in a while from a newspaper stained grey with rain. Her hair is white, but not old white. It's long and glossy, trailing down at her shoulders and disappearing behind the plastic red of the table. Some of it is trapped between her fingers and licks at the water from the newspaper. Her eyes are covered behind a thin layer of bangs, but her lips, slightly parted and stained with cherry color; show a neat row of teeth like her hair.
She looks at me again and her eyes gleam a dark green.
I feel myself blush and turn away; watching two droplets race down the murky glass. They merge as one towards the end and speed to the finish line together. Rain is overrated. It's just water.
"Hey."
I start. My eyes dart everywhere, but the sound definitely came from her. "Huh?"
"Hey." She blinks. "I said hey. Like, greeting-wise. You know, aloha?" Her hands glide through the air to emphasize.
"Um. Hey."
She creeps to the edge of her seat and smiles, shaking the newspaper. "What's your name?"
"Jerome."
"Jerome. I'm Shalott. Don't laugh at the name."
"What's bad about the name?"
"It sounds like an old Southern woman screaming Charlotte when people read it aloud. They don't know you have to pronounce it Shyah- Lot." She says 'pronounce' weird. Prununce.
"Well, now I know, Shyah- Lot." She smiles at me. "What language is the newspaper in?"
"Oh." She twists the paper between her fingers. "Swedish. Oh, I don't understand it, don't get me wrong. I just like looking at the letters." I feel myself melt as she smiles again.
***
We were lying on your bed underneath the silky mosquito net, your hair draped over my arm and sparkling under the window. Your eyes were closed; lashes trembled. I shifted and blew into the caramel curlicue of your ear and you scrunched up your face like a rabbit and wrapped your hand around my chin. I laughed. You laughed too.
"Have you ever heard about the Lady of Shalott?" I played with the edge of your lilac shirt and shook my head. Lilac looks pretty with white.
"It's a sad story." You sighed. "My mother loved sad stories and old myths. My sister's name is Guinevere, like King Arthur's wife."
"You have a sister?"
"It is a poem, The Lady of Shalott. By Alfred Lord Tennyson." You sang out the name like a first grader memorizing the alphabet. You didn't say anymore and I closed my eyes, drifting to sleep.
"Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle embowers
The Lady of Shalott."
"It's beautiful." I glided my hands down your taut stomach.
"It's long." You wrapped your hair like a honeycomb around your fist and floated it above your face, your forehead furrowed. I don't know if you were talking about your hair or the story.
“There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott."
"I don't remember much else." You sounded sad. "I just know that she dies in the end."
"Everyone dies in the end, Lottie."
"She dies young. She leaves her tower and her curse is a slow death. Why would my mother name me after a woman that was doomed to die?"
"Why did she leave?"
"He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot. "
You smoothed your hand through my hair. "She fell in love."
***
We were so opposite each other that we became alike in our controversies. I didn't like movies with a lot of death in them, but you loved them. I would scold you with disgust as you watched a bloody battle; I called you cold- hearted and cruel and you bit back that I was a wimp and tolerating death was just another way of understanding it. It's true, now I know. I'm sorry for scolding you.
Whenever we would walk and you found a dead insect curled up on the floor you would yelp and delicately cup your palm and drop the dried body into it, then run to bury it. I crunched on dead cicadas when they came out and sang because fragile things scared me. When I was younger, I pulled apart the delicate wings of butterflies and cried when their colorful powder rubbed onto my palms and made my fingers a rainbow.
I told you all of the little things about me; the rib I broke when I showed my brother I could fly and jumped off the couch (you laughed at that one), the wrist I sprained the first and last time I tried to break-dance. I showed you the mysterious streak of blonde hidden underneath my dark brown hair and the skull tattoo on the small of my back that my father found, before he locked me out of the house for three and a half days. You told me that you liked words like "milk" and "slope" and "eradicate" and that you liked walking round the house in one sock and mini shorts and oversized shirts. You liked airbrushed tattoos because you liked variety, and you lit candles because they made you hope and your middle name was Sevya. You hated roses because they were cliché. You loved melted wax but you hated when it dried on the tips of your fingers because it made you feel trapped.
***
I'm dreaming. This is after she died. I am hiking through the woods with her and we silently choose a fallen tree and climb on top of it like we're horseback riding. Her hair is in braids and she is wearing a purple shirt with a sun on it, and red knee length shorts. I stare at the leaves and the muddy orange and ochre mixture.
"Why did you do it?" My voice breaks the stillness of the forest and I feel alone, so so alone. I look and she blinks her pretty green eyes at me, like a cat.
"Daw, honey, you know me." She smiles apologetically and raises her hands high in an animated shrug. "I'm... impulsive. You can't stop me... once I get started."
"But why couldn't you think it through, just a little? I mean, I... love you."
"I love you too, Jerry, I do. I'm sorry, really." She frowns. "But hey! You see me now."
"It's a dream."
"So? You can still see me. You know, you should go for someone else, now, I really won't be mad. If you won't, I'll keep poking your back at night and you'll hate me for it."
"This isn't funny, Lottie. You know I could never hate you."
"Well you will." She picks up a bunch of leaves in her hands and throws them in the air. "And you can get mad at me too, honey. I would. Now go. Oh, and tell Guenny hi."
I shake my head and reach for her, but she moves back and I fall into a pillow of leaves. She laughs, and everything turns black.
***
"Let's go catch fireflies." She pulled at my hand with her cool fingers and smiled at me. "Come on, Jerry, let's go catch fireflies."
"It's January!" I laughed at her eagerness and she slumped against me.
"So?"
I wrapped my fingers round a silky tube of silver hair. "You're so impulsive."
Her olive skin broke into a smooth rift of white pearls and thin pink ribbons. "That's me!" She sang. "Shalott the impulsive, Shalott the one- socked, Shaaaaaaaaalott- the firefly."
She made a song about everything.
"So how do you propose we catch fireflies?"
"Oh!" She took my hand and led me to her bedroom, with the wispy mosquito curtain dancing at her bed and the Urdu music softly streaming from a player in a shelf. Figurines of little creatures glittering under silver dust lay scattered among the shelves and books on mythology and abstract painters. Her hands, gloved in striped stockings, wrapped around four clear candle tubes and she plunked them onto the table. She grabbed two little ones from the highest shelf and one shaped like a lion from a rolling cabinet. She fumbled through her pockets, then mine, under her pillow, and finally under the mattress; where she took out a little green lighter. She took it, winked, pressed the button, and blinked as the flame flew out. A minute later, each candle stood gleaming.
"There." She spread out her arms like an invite to see a kingdom. "Behold. Fireflies."
I laughed and enveloped her waist with an arm and pulled her to the wall. The fireflies danced as we kissed.
***
There was an argument. Of course there was an argument.
We were sitting cross- legged on your bed, again. Your hands were cupped in your palms and a grim expression crossed your face like a cloud. I wanted to cheer you up, that's all.
"A smile is a curve that sets everything straight." I ran my thumb down your lips. "Smile."
You turned away. "My smile is a straight line." Defiant, like a child.
"Well, maybe I was asking you to smile normal." You looked up fast and I quickly regretted it. "Why do I always have to smile?" You unfolded your legs like a swan landing in water and leaped from the bed. "Why the hell do I always have to smile?" I stood up and approached you gingerly, like to a wounded wild animal. "I didn't mean any harm, Lottie, I-"
"Don't call me that! Everybody always calls me something other than my real name! My name is Shalott, Shyah- Lot!" You pronounced ‘everybody’ weird. Everybawdie.
I touched your elbow; you pulled away as if my fingers stung your flesh.
"You came home drunk last night." I accused. "You're having a hangover or something. Snap out of it."
"You're just jealous." You narrowed your eyes like an angry dog. "You think I'm fucking around with other guys, don't you? Here you are, sitting like a grandma eating Chinese food and reading; what is this, Of Mice and fucking Men, wondering, 'where oh where is Lottie'?" I was so angry.
“Who would fuck around with you anyway? With your... impulsive outbursts and weird ideas and fucking baby attitude."
You froze. Your voice turned to steel. "I warned you you would misunderstand me. I warned you I'd get tired of you and this would turn to shit." And you spun on your sock and ran to the bathroom, locking the door.
I wasn't angry anymore. I tiptoed to the bathroom and knocked lightly on the door. No sound came out of it. I knocked a little louder, but you didn't answer and I gave up. I crept to the armchair by the front door and took my coat and wrapped it around my arm. I craned my neck to the cream colored wall behind which the bathroom hid, but you didn't appear. I opened the door and walked out.
***
I called her and she answered. We were silent for a little while, but I knew she was there with her olive green phone, waiting.
"I'm sorry." I breathed.
"Me too." She sighed.
Silence.
"You didn't mean what you said, when you said all those things, did you?" I offered.
"No. No, honey I didn't."
Silence.
"Did you mean what you said about my impulsive outbursts and all?"
"No, baby. I was mad."
Silence.
"Do you think I'm pretty?"
"I think you're beautiful."
"You told me that beautiful scares you."
"Not your beautiful. Your beautiful makes me happy."
"I think I want to dye my hair again. White is starting to get boring, don't you think? Purple sounds good, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it does. Lilac is very pretty."
I heard her shift and my fingers tapped against the polished arm of my chair. I thought about the summer coming soon and soft rains and carnivals and warmth, I don't like carnivals because there are too many people and too much noise and color and light. But I like the sound of them.
"Maybe we could go to a carnival sometime." I offered because I knew it wouldn't happen anyway. Something in me just knew. "I could try winning you a toy and we could go on the Ferris wheel and kiss with cotton candy in our mouths and ride the big horses, and..."
"Sounds nice." Nice. She hated nice.
"I memorized some of the poem." I let my smile enter my words.
"But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often through the silent nights a-"
She laughed. I laughed too.
"Look, baby, I'm gonna go sleep. You were right, I shouldn't have been drinking; I'm really sorry. I love you. Call me tomorrow, will you? It would be... nice."
"Alright. I love you."
Click.
***
I park my car by the cemetery and sit still and stare. You never dyed your hair purple. Maybe you never wanted to, anyway. Maybe it was just a way to make me stop worrying.
Guinevere pulls up behind me and I open the door and get out. Her eyes are pink and she is alone.
The funeral is small. A few friends, a few crying aunts. The priest is distracted by something else, an upcoming wedding, probably. A baptism. We listen to the end of his prayer, he slaps his little book closed, we scatter the casket with moist soil.
As everybody leaves, I step behind Guenny and smooth her shoulders with my hands. She shudders a bit, but lets me. A after a while, she pats my hand gently and walks away. I step closer to the casket and crouch down.
"My impulsive Lottie." I smile. "My stupid, impulsive little Lottie." My fingers play with the soil and my smile fumbles as the wind picks at my hair.
Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”
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