100 sentences about Lily Tallulah Strombeck
Lily's middle name is Tallulah. Secretly, she likes that name a lot. When she was a lot younger, Lily disliked having a birthday that happened during the summer holidays, because it always seemed to her that other people got more presents. Sometimes, when she can't sleep, Lily gets up and counts Emmy's fingers and toes, just to make sure. Lily smoked her last cigarette when she twenty eight. When Lily was fourteen, what she liked best about Eddie was the fact that he never laughed at her. And she was worth laughing at. At the bottom of the wardrobe in Long Bay, there are a pair of very worn, very loved combat boots. The first time Lily had a baby die while she was there, she came home to Eddie and cried until she made herself throw up. The first time (and only) Lily had a mother die while she was there, she made herself throw up and then she drank until Eddie had to carry her home. When Lily was pregnant with Emmy, she wrote Eddie a letter, just in case. When Emmy was born and nothing happened, Lily didn't throw the letter away. Emily Iris Donna Stromebck was born by c-section. In the back of one of her notebooks, Lily has a list of names for a son. Lily likes to read aloud, to Emmy or Eddie or anyone who'll listen. She finds it easier to picture the things that are happening, that way. If heaven is a moment in time when you were most happy, Lily is blissful in the notion that she'll be spoilt for choice. That last cigarette that Lily smoked was actually one of Lennox's, and she was sitting on the back steps of her and Eddie's house. There are days when she still really misses smoking. She would have given up everything that she ever loved doing for Emmy.
From the time that Lily and Eddie conciously started trying for a baby to the day that Emmy was born was ten years, which felt even longer than it was. Lily has never asked her mother why flower names. Her sisters' names, for the record, are Rosie, Poppy, Daisy and Violet. At some point in her life, Lily wanted to be (among other things), a vet, a mommy, a pilot, a curler, English, an actress, a singer and a boy. Lily cannot resist singing loudly to the radio. In the Victorian language of flowers, "Iris" means message, which makes Lily smile. Whenever Jim Lennox used to throw lego bricks at her, she used to throw them back. The only thing in the world that Lily wouldn't have given up for Emmy...is Eddie. Here it is: the first time Lily saw Eddie (or remembers seeing Eddie) was at Lennox's house, and she couldn't stop looking, and she wasn't quite sure why. Coffee is how Lily gets through the day; giving it up while she was pregnant and breast-feeding was one of the hardest things that she ever did. Given the choice, Lily would much rather not wear knickers. The glove compartment in Lily's car is almost perpetually full of candy. Lily never takes off her wedding ring; when it isn't on her finger, it's on a chain around her neck. On her wedding day, Lily wore a white dress, and a beaded shawl that she'd knitted and red satin stilettos. She did wear knickers under her wedding dress. At her wedding, Lily danced with Eddie (obviously), Chris and Lennox (by the time she got to Lennox, she was so tired that she took off her shoes and stood on his feet. The best thing to eat in the world, according to Lily, is Eddie's spagetti bolognese when it's been allowed to go cold. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue; Eddie's grandmother's earrings, her red shoes, a silk hankerchief and the ribbons on her underwear, specially bought. When Lily was fourteen years old, her hair reached almost to the small of her back. The day she cut her hair she cried.
Losing her virginity was Lily's idea, not Eddie's (but Eddie was very pleased). Listen: when Lily Tallulah Brown was fourteen years and twenty three weeks old, she had a sharp, pretty face and a mouth with a full bottom lip, and long blond hair which curled and she fell in love for the first time. In her wardrobe in Long Bay, Lily has a shoebox full of everything that Eddie has ever given her, in twenty five years. There was a notebook, when Lily was younger, in which she wrote down everything that amused her. A lot of it was Lennox, but most of it was Eddie, because, even before she realised that she was in love with him, he always made her laugh. Sometimes, Emmy goes to stay with her grandma so that Eddie and Lily can "go out to dinner", which really means have dinner at home, and then have very noisy sex, including at least once in the bath. Lily swears that the first time she met Chris Cutter and James Lennox, they were holding hands (but they probably weren't). They were also six. Biology was Lily's best subject at school, but she really loves history. While she owns more shoes than are humanly necessary, she always seems to end up wearing the same two pairs. Despite talking about doner sperm, Lily likes to think that there would have come a day in her life when she decided enough was enough and that she'd be happy with what she had. Emmy turned up just in the nick of time. Try as she might, Lily will never be able to think of Emmy being born and Chris coming back as anything but subtly connected. Sometimes, Lily knows, God just provides when you're least expecting it, and the boys and Amy needed Chris, and she needed Emmy more than she's willing to admit, even to herself. The best day of the year, in Lily's opinion, is the 14th October, which is her wedding anniversary. For as long as Lily can remember, Eddie has been bringing her coffee in bed, except for when she was pregnant and he bought her milkshakes. While she prefers not to wear any, Lily has a few sets of underwear which she bought solely for Eddie's benefit, and which she never spends very long in. The first time that Lily and Eddie made love as man and wife, their wedding reception was still going on, and her dress got in the way. When Lily was thirteen, she fell out of a tree and knocked herself unconcious for a full minute. If Lily wasn't a midwife, she'd sleep much later than she does.
Alright, so Lily Tallulah Strombeck is twenty one years old, and no-one will dance on the table with her. This red dress is new and a little too big, because it was made for someone else, not her, but it skims her knees and pulls tight across her chest when she puts her hands on her hips. She cut her hair just recently (it had been so heavy and long her whole life), and it falls in odd angles across her face. She pouts. It's her birthday, and she wants someone to come up here and dance with her. She has a lit cigarette and one more behind her ear, and she's had more beer than's wise, and it's her birthday for another two minutes. And she wants to dance. Her birthday present from is a scrap of silver, a ring, barely there, with specks that may or may not be diamonds, but it sits perfectly snug against her engagement ring when she holds out her hand. Eddie blushes and shakes his head; in private, he's hers, but he's no table-dancer, her boy. Chris is too drunk, bless him, and Neil's too sweet and quiet. She flicks cigarette ash at him and winks. Lennox then, come on, Jim, James, baby, who still punches her in the arm when he sees her, who will give her her last cigarette, three years from today. Lennox doesn't take as much coaxing. Up on the table, he takes the cigarette from between her lips and takes a drag and then he dips her and she laughs and laughs and will never feel this young again. She dances with James Lennox who leaves bruises on her arms and shins with one arm curled around his neck and her cigarette dropping ash on the shoulder of his horrible jacket, and he's close, and she's close, and she only has eyes for Eddie. Lily Tallulah is dancing on the table in her heavy boots, and she's twenty one years old, and nobody stops her. And later, Eddie takes her by the hand to take her home, and when it's clear that she can't walk in straight lines or even circles, he makes her get up on his back. It isn't that far, and first she kisses him for luck. I love you, birthday girl, he says to her. And Lily knows that it doesn't have anything to do with her birthday, and it never will.
What she loves about Eddie (and there are many, many things and this is just one) is that there's nothing he wouldn't do for her; he carried on coming to the prenatal classes she gives on a Tuesday night even after it became apparent that it was killing both of them, just a little bit. While she has given it serious thought, Lily cannot quite understand (though she loves him dearly) why so many people find Chris Cutter so attractive. She did once have a dirty dream about James Lennox, and the less said about that the better. She was seventeen and so horrified that the next time she saw him, she punched him in the arm and refused to speak to him for two hours. There really isn't any man for Lily but Eddie. Back when she thought that it was her who was sterile, Lily cried but said nothing to Eddie, which was the cause of the one and only time that they ever stopped speaking to each other entirely. They lasted two hours, and neither of them actually left the house. Lily hasn't smoked pot since the day she gave up cigarettes. The only time Lily actually prays is when Emmy is sick. Sometimes, guiltily, Lily is glad that Emmy took a long but came cleanly, instead of like those girls she deals with who miscarry and miscarry and break their own hearts. Eddie's body is as obvious to her as her own, and her favourite thing about him (everything else aside) are his hands. The first time Lily had sex with Eddie was her first time ever and it hurt like nothing else but Lily has always trusted Eddie to make everything better, and he does. Try as she might (and she has tried, for Neil's sake), Lily really can't get along with Linda. Andrea, however, she dotes on. Lily isn't quite the dancing, dancing, dancing girl that she was when she was younger, thicker in the waist, and she doesn't wear her boots anymore, but oh, she's happy, and oh, she's loved. There is a quilt which Lily made (and loves) stitched with patches from her wedding dress and Emmy's first romper suit and Curling penants from before Chris left and a t-shirt of Eddie's that she took to wearing when she was fifteen, and it sits folded at the foot of her and Eddie's bed and Lily likes nothing better than to come in from work and strip off all her clothes and lie naked under it and feel all of her history and all of her love. Lily rolls her eyes each and every time she says the name that Lennox gave to Emmy's bear ("Princess Fizmdoodle", for the record). Lily is not surpised about Lennox and Chris.
The island won't make Lily sad, because she'll have everything she ever wanted or needed or loved.