Character study: Lucy Rasmussen monologue
When I was a kid, Dad always took me along to the grocery store, and we always stopped at the candy machines on the way out. I would buy a fistful of Runts candy and eat them in ascending order of preference: I started with the unremarkable banana pieces, and then worked my way up through the cough-syrupy cherries and vague citrus fruits to finish with the pink, heart-shaped strawberries.
Before I left for Costa Rica, Elliott made a mix CD for me to listen to on the plane. I hid it from Toby until he dropped me off, and then I saved it for the last leg of my flight. Twelve tracks, Elliott has this…thing with twelve. It was like a dozen pink heart strawberries, the confectioner’s glaze melting off in my eager little palm.
It fit too well: a big slew of old songs by nerdy guys trying to get action. “What a Good Boy” by BNL, “Surrender” by Cheap Trick, “Break Down” by Tom Petty, that sort of thing. Some new indie stuff, too, which I didn’t recognize, but they were pretty consistently about giving into temptation. Carpe diem all over the place. The boldness of it surprised me, really.
I faced out my window; I was blushing so fiercely I thought it would show in the dark. I felt torn and wrenched and a little guilty, but then that is not always a bad way to feel, necessarily, when it stems from too much adoration. Now I was unavailable, now he’d realized just how jealous he was. There have been less delicious dilemmas.
So the whole time I was in CR, that’s how I walked around: a juicy secret burning a hole in my tongue, like the time in sixth grade when I tried to dissolve a forbidden Atomic Fire Ball under Mrs. Burbidge’s radar. (It worked until she called on me.) I played that CD every chance I got, memorized the indie songs without ever knowing who the bands were. I called him once a week, and he always sounded giddy and secretive, like he had a spicy emotional jawbreaker of his own. We didn’t say a thing about it.
When you want badly enough to believe a thing, it is funny how your perception skews to accommodate that desire. Billions of people around the world believe in the ten-second rule, because it allows them a second chance with errant butterscotch discs. The price is, on occasion, getting sick.
It might have occurred to me before I left, with all the talk of hating each other and overplayed boredom with each other. Nope! It could have hit me over the phone, how often he seemed to mention her. Nope! It should have set off bells when I got Di’s e-mail, and she mentioned her perplexity at receiving a mix CD about general aviation -- twelve tracks, including “Leavin’ (On a Jet Plane)” and “This Flight Tonight.” Nope! I did not put two and two together until two days before I headed home, when I called Di to ask about a pickup at the airport (Toby had work).
Well, Di was in the middle of saying she’d be happy to come get me and who do I hear in the background but Elliott Bailey, calling from another room: “Baby, where’d you put my bathrobe?”
I knew who it was. I would know his voice anywhere. But I gave her a chance: “Who’s that?”
And of course she lies. Really badly. Dunno, she says, maybe it’s interference from, what, some other phone or some radio broadcast, which…never really happens, does it? Who the hell broadcasts bathrobe inquiries on the radio? But I go along with it, and then, as if he’s come into the room: “Di? Can I get my robe when you’re done with it?”
So, that. Unmistakable. And her silence. No story prepared. I felt like every organ in my body would prolapse. I couldn’t believe it, and yet, I felt like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner.
I hung up then. Big ass pile of banana pieces, come to find there’s not a damn heart-strawberry in the whole mound. Waste of a perfectly good quarter. Why would you lie about something like that?
I had a cigarette out my window but it didn’t help. I left my dorm. I walked to the shoreline and chucked the mix CD into the water. Then I thought about the marine life, and I felt so guilty I spent the next 45 minutes picking up cigarette butts and candy wrappers on the beach.
Before I left for Costa Rica, Elliott made a mix CD for me to listen to on the plane. I hid it from Toby until he dropped me off, and then I saved it for the last leg of my flight. Twelve tracks, Elliott has this…thing with twelve. It was like a dozen pink heart strawberries, the confectioner’s glaze melting off in my eager little palm.
It fit too well: a big slew of old songs by nerdy guys trying to get action. “What a Good Boy” by BNL, “Surrender” by Cheap Trick, “Break Down” by Tom Petty, that sort of thing. Some new indie stuff, too, which I didn’t recognize, but they were pretty consistently about giving into temptation. Carpe diem all over the place. The boldness of it surprised me, really.
I faced out my window; I was blushing so fiercely I thought it would show in the dark. I felt torn and wrenched and a little guilty, but then that is not always a bad way to feel, necessarily, when it stems from too much adoration. Now I was unavailable, now he’d realized just how jealous he was. There have been less delicious dilemmas.
So the whole time I was in CR, that’s how I walked around: a juicy secret burning a hole in my tongue, like the time in sixth grade when I tried to dissolve a forbidden Atomic Fire Ball under Mrs. Burbidge’s radar. (It worked until she called on me.) I played that CD every chance I got, memorized the indie songs without ever knowing who the bands were. I called him once a week, and he always sounded giddy and secretive, like he had a spicy emotional jawbreaker of his own. We didn’t say a thing about it.
When you want badly enough to believe a thing, it is funny how your perception skews to accommodate that desire. Billions of people around the world believe in the ten-second rule, because it allows them a second chance with errant butterscotch discs. The price is, on occasion, getting sick.
It might have occurred to me before I left, with all the talk of hating each other and overplayed boredom with each other. Nope! It could have hit me over the phone, how often he seemed to mention her. Nope! It should have set off bells when I got Di’s e-mail, and she mentioned her perplexity at receiving a mix CD about general aviation -- twelve tracks, including “Leavin’ (On a Jet Plane)” and “This Flight Tonight.” Nope! I did not put two and two together until two days before I headed home, when I called Di to ask about a pickup at the airport (Toby had work).
Well, Di was in the middle of saying she’d be happy to come get me and who do I hear in the background but Elliott Bailey, calling from another room: “Baby, where’d you put my bathrobe?”
I knew who it was. I would know his voice anywhere. But I gave her a chance: “Who’s that?”
And of course she lies. Really badly. Dunno, she says, maybe it’s interference from, what, some other phone or some radio broadcast, which…never really happens, does it? Who the hell broadcasts bathrobe inquiries on the radio? But I go along with it, and then, as if he’s come into the room: “Di? Can I get my robe when you’re done with it?”
So, that. Unmistakable. And her silence. No story prepared. I felt like every organ in my body would prolapse. I couldn’t believe it, and yet, I felt like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner.
I hung up then. Big ass pile of banana pieces, come to find there’s not a damn heart-strawberry in the whole mound. Waste of a perfectly good quarter. Why would you lie about something like that?
I had a cigarette out my window but it didn’t help. I left my dorm. I walked to the shoreline and chucked the mix CD into the water. Then I thought about the marine life, and I felt so guilty I spent the next 45 minutes picking up cigarette butts and candy wrappers on the beach.