Lisbeth
Cutest thing since slice bread. Well...
I've been on hiatus due to various health fails. Meh. I get my blood test results back next week, hopefully it's nothing serious and my writing can continue haha.
So anyway, I have the gift of a short romance story. This is super-cute and fluffy and made me go 'aww' at the end. :D
She always pronounces it Lisbeth. Lisbeth. Like she's something out of a fairy world, or a wonderland, where everything rolls nicely off the top of your tongue. My name is Lisbeth. It's not as if she has a lisp, everything else is clear cut and crispy to hear, paradise for the ears with the musical up and down journeys of her sentences. But it is Lisbeth, always Lisbeth.
On paper she writes Elizabeth, taking care to make the E as curly as is legibly possible, like those girls who sit at the back of class and make daisy chains. Swings on the chairs, kicks her plimsolls.
In the playground she is Lizzy, too fast to catch, climbing the tallest tree and breaking all the rules. Mam calls her Beth, apparently, and seems to say it in a overtly posh voice. Grandma calls her Eliza, always. Daddy, who visits every other weekend and takes her for bike rides, calls her Betty, which gripes her nerves according to her Monday-morning conversations.
Yet she stands with her toes pressed to mine, plimsolls almost mating in the grass, her eyes at my chin level, and lo my name is Lisbeth. She thinks it is endearing, or playful, or perhaps alluring. This is how she introduces herself to me every morning, standing just before me in alphabetical surname order, because every morning I feign forgetfulness towards her name. My name is Lisbeth, and I nod, smile and hum, and do not lay eyes upon her fleeting shadow again, until tomorrow when she steps up before me once more.
This is how I first caught sight of her. Stepping up before me, her gloved fingers still dripping with snow crystals, pushing me backwards in some display of playground hierarchy. I was shocked, insulted and mortally wounded: for who was this slight girl child who had appeared out of nowhere? Lo and behold, her refrain, my name is Lisbeth. I have never heard her say those words to anyone else, and in this I hold myself special, and inimitable, and significant to her daydreams.
I was a newcomer. Invader, stranger, prospective soul mate. They grouped around me with their doe eyes, half lidded with experimentally applied cosmetics, to prick at my duffel coat, flick my hair, scorn at my unready answers to their cruel questions. I was instantly singled out to be odd, disliked, shunned. In silence, I shuddered the way into my designated line, loitering thereabouts until some kind tutor put me aright. Thus the bouncy girl sauntered up to me, evidently thrilled, and introduced herself with a flourish of her blonde head.
At first sight, she repulsed me. Her blonde hair had been prettily arranged by a diligent mother that morning, but rough play and rough chase and excitement had made her sweaty and impatient, rubbing her curling fringe every which way, hardly caring about her appearance. She was nothing like the critical gaggle that had initially greeted me. She was nothing like the primped princesses I had had prior experience with. She was nothing like the girls you see in magazines, on billboards, in your extended family. She was an oddity, but revered amongst the others, and as such confused me.
Her eyes were green, too green, a mean green so that she seemed constantly on the verge of spitting some insult. Her cheeks were sallow, but pink, and her white uneven teeth were continuously battling up and down, left and right, loud and quiet, shouted across to another line or whispered to the girl in front; and suddenly she would turn to me, the biggest smile, and my name is Lisbeth.
Before I ever had the chance to reply, the same helpful teacher would arise and shush her down, patting her head sweetly as if she is the adored pet. We shared no classes, in those initial weeks, and so my mind was free to build her up. I imagined her skipping about the classroom, eternally singing, fetching this or that for the teacher, carrying many-a message, attending to her errands and earning the coveted gold stars in reward. In my day dreams she was a rotten little tell-tale. She would snitch and pinch the other children, push the prettier girls and coax the boys into fist fights; all of this in the back of my mind, until she awakened me with a flashing smile before she hopped off to class.
It was almost a month before I returned her determined conversation. I had made no progress with any of my attempts at friendship, my reputation as a stranger had seemingly spread. Perhaps it was because Lisbeth - no, they called her Lizzy - had taken something of a liking to me. What I mean to say is, I was getting desperate. Any friend would do, even if it were the green eyed demon who was infallibly healthy, cheerful and clean. I smiled one morning and promptly spoke her name before she had the chance to. Evidently surprised, she paused, rethought, tried a laugh, had a further thought, and swung her arms side to side nonchalantly.
"That's your name, right?" I said it jokingly, for if anyone could find this funny it was her. I was certain.
Shake of the head. "Everyone calls me Lizzy. 'Cept my mam."
She was infuriatingly irregular. Just when I thought I had gained enough knowledge to attract her with my well-chosen humour - or so I thought - she had bitten my extended olive branch, and whipped back facing front. I was enveloped by a sudden, unexpected and strange need to take hold of her hand. Perhaps my longing for a friend was reaching breaking point. Before I had chance to act on my new endeavour, shortly before the teachers would call us inside to our respective classrooms, she turned back slyly, one eyebrow aloft. Reader you have guessed it, short smile, long look in those mean eyes, all said in an extended, breathy exhalation… my name is Lisbeth.
I refused to speak to her after that, on principle. She would dally in the playground, approaching me when before she would not dare, teasing me with her silent stares, and I would turn my dumb head away. This frustrated her, and she would keep up a constant array of questions during our time in the morning line, all of which I dutifully ignored. It was all playful, of course, because I could not bear to have her rushing off to her classroom each morning without smiling to her, watching her smile in faithful recognition, and share in some part her mysterious way of teasing. It made us equals in a way.
Pretty soon after that, we became soul mates. She no longer pushed in front of me in the line, would simply waltz up to me, all rosy smiles, and wait for me to step back and create a space. She would step in, press her plimsolls to mine for one crazy dragonfly's heartbeat, and then face the front. We spoke, and often, of trivial things. Oh, how wonky is this line today? Mam says it's going to rain. We would jovially tug each other's uniforms in the blissful boredom of waiting, and would jostle and scuffle and tickle and whatnot. We had darling conversations and doubled up with laughter. The teacher would step forwards, pat her head, and we would be taken to separate classrooms. There ended our cohabitation of the same social bubble for that day.
I was permitted to call her Lisbeth. It was oh so hilarious, apparently, that I called her this when no other did. I told her she was silly, and stupid, and varying other childish adjectives. Her giggling girlfriends, stepping up to gaggle with her in the line before the teachers arrived, would ask why I called her such a thing. Did I have a lisp? I would give a mean smile, and rejoin her name is Lisbeth, mocking the way that she herself said it. It was a cruel jab, and the other girls would be ushered away hissing at my brashness, but before me in the line she would catch my eye, we would share a glint of equity; and return to whatever joking we had been enjoying before the gaggle interrupted.
This was bliss, and as such short lived. Our playground romance, distanced but heartfelt, would be removed from its birthplace. In the summer after that initial winter, Lisbeth was promoted to stand in the special girls' line, reserved for the prettiest and the most adored by teachers, whilst I remained in our multi-gendered, wonky and now lonely line. It was unspoilt hell. To begin with she would wave at me across the playground, make sad little heartbroken faces at me, or come over to speak for a short while. When the teacher passed by, she would smile her sad smile, and disappear into the gaggle of giggling peers across the way.
I began to resent her. I felt certain that they laughed about me, spoke of me, and that I was the subject of their mocking pointing and behind-the-hand whispering. I would shun her advances in the line, and told her to leave me alone. I expected her to cry, or carry on regardless with her prattle, but she sniffed, kicked my plimsoll vehemently, and swanned off to her special line. I had no further interaction with her for the next eight years.
She rose to the top of her particular social ladder, leading the line and leading the other girls into restless puberty. They became a brash gaggle, teasing boys and boasting of any new conquests. They repulsed me and I came to ignore them as they stood two lines away, taking my eyes off Lisbeth and falling in with a sturdy bunch of kids who I felt perfectly at ease with.
At thirteen, I was forced to share a class with her. Maths, I am less than certain, or perhaps it was Science. Regardless, she sat at the front with her daisy pencils and her new curled hairstyle. She styled it herself now, following instructions in the girly glossy magazine that was unfailingly by her side, and was always talking about her poor mother whom she often shouted down. Teachers would snap at her, she would stutter her answers, and gold stars were no longer enough to gain her interest. I sat at the back, forgotten.
Somehow or other, I did well in my exams, and so was granted access to our leaving dance at the age of sixteen. I and my friends, the geeky kooky boys who could count in binary, sat on the edges of the dance hall, sipping non-alcoholic cocktails and griping about the popular boys and their girlfriends. I nodded along with them, stirring my lemon slice, eyes fixed upon Lisbeth as her tall, dark, handsome date twirled her round and round in increasingly faster circles. He was a laughing sort, face like a dart board, and wearing white sneakers underneath his tuxedo trousers. His friends hung around nearby, heckling, their girls sitting collectively bored besides the drinks table.
I couldn't tear my eyes away. Lisbeth's date, leering Tommy, increased the pace, swinging Lisbeth so that her floating skirt edge kicked up higher and higher. By the drinks table, the hyenas jeered, called for an encore, and as Tommy obeyed, one of them snapped a shot on his waiting camera. Lisbeth, previously caught up in the excitement of the dance and the hottest guy in school, caught on, drew up short, and promptly burst into tears. After a second of indecision, she ran wailing from the hall. Tommy, whom she had evidently expected to follow her, sashayed off to the drinks table to get an eyeful of the snapshot. The other side of the hall, her best friend was engaging her tongue with that of one of the football players.
I acted quickly. I handed my decrepit drink to my group in the corner, and vaulted after her into the corridor outside. She sat by the bay window, her miserable forehead pressed to the glass, coating it with tears. Her make-up ran, smudged, and made her look disgustingly ugly. She saw me approaching; did not recognise me as her friend so long ago. I was simply a 'geek boy', and so she did not bother improving her appearance. This comforted me, somehow.
"Did you see what he did?" She said thickly through her tears, wiping her eyes furiously.
I produced a tissue. "Yes. It was terrible."
"Terrible? He's a dick. See if I care. I just won't speak to him for a few days. He can think about what he's done."
I wanted to laugh, until I saw that she was serious. "You mean, you'll go back to him?"
"Of course." She said it as if I were stupid, and I felt that I was. "He's the coolest guy in school. He's the hottest too. I'm lucky to be with him, because he said Carrie is twice as pretty."
"But… he's stupid."
She drew her self up, full on defence. "You don't know him. You don't know me, either. Why don't you go away?"
I tried to sit by her on the window seat. "Because I do know you. Don't you remember? We used to be friends? Lisbeth?" This jogged her memory and she met my eyes and sighed deeply; she frowned, the memory sank in and she shuddered in distaste.
"Oh that. That was ages ago. We were hardly friends. So why did you come out here?"
"To see if you were ok."
"Oh. Cool. I'm fine. Can you go get Tommy?"
"No. You shouldn't be with him you know."
"And why the hell not?"
"Well, you know, you're a thousand times better than he is. Pond scum like him don't deserve you."
"Well that's very sweet of you and all but… I'm with him."
"I know, but you don't have to go back in there. At least not right now. Stay here with me for a bit."
"I look terrible," she wiped away the majority of the smudged cosmetics, but smeared pink eye shadow under her eyes, making them look more bloodshot than they already were.
"No you don't," I countered automatically.
She laughed. "Yeah I do."
"Well, maybe. But still, you're beautiful."
She cocked her head, and I knew from that action that nobody had called her that before. Cheeks flushed. Eyes widened. Not shocked, surely? Disbelieving? I reassured her, pressed my cool fingers to her sweaty, tear-stained sticky temples and assured her of every little thought I'd ever dared to direct towards her. With my fingers at her forehead, eyes closed, leaning forwards somewhat in her exhausted state, she was just eight years old again, plimsolls gently nudging against each other, boasting of her new toy.
She frowned. I wanted to gather her up into the crisp folds of my tuxedo and bury her there forevermore. She was too innocent, too unbelieving, too trustful to be allowed to unknowingly wander into the path of the likes of leering Tommy. I fixed my critical eyes on her, and transmuted some silent message that she was safe, that I knew her and she knew me.
"Oh god. You're not going to kiss me are you?" Unromantic as ever, she spat the words as if I had already kissed her, distastefully, and nothing could repulse her more than that very idea.
I snickered and told her that no, believe it or not, that was the last thing on my mind right now.
Henceforth, we were soul mates again. Peas and carrots. We went well together. At my inspired instruction, she marched back into the dance hall with her pretty, newly-cleaned face held high, and slapped leering Tommy with such admirable force that the room fell silent. She kicked off her heels, and barefoot swung about, waggled her laughing hips side to side, and marched from that place with her hand in mine. As the door slammed shut, the room erupted in jeers and whoops. She later told me that it was the best thing she had ever done.
In the shadowy enclosure of a canopied piece of woodland, sprawled out beneath the oldest rowan, she told me that her mother's boyfriend was no friend at all. It took tears, and patience, and my steady comforting hands, but she told me that he had hurt her, touched her in places she did not like, made her cry in such pain that he had to sedate her. In the golden spring of three years ago, he had married her mother for good, and become a permanent fixture. It was not a bad deal, she told me in a whisper, because now that he was her legal father he never laid a finger on her. But his eyes, oh his eyes, they were always there.
I told her that I understood. I did not, of course, but I had forever and a day to come to terms with what it meant. I told her that I wanted her to run away with me. It was an over-romanticised idea, the kind of thing most sixteen year olds want to say, and yet I said it, truthfully, to her saddened, heartbroken ears. I have no idea what I expected her to reply. It wasn't thought out, it just seemed to be the next natural thing to say. She was not happy, thus I her oldest friend would save her.
She said yes. Readers, I know you're shocked. I stood her up on her feet, gave her the biggest hug known to humankind, and we walked arm in arm to the nearest bus stop. Where to? Oh, anywhere, end of the line please. Hope you and your girlfriend here aren't eloping? No, of course not mister. She wrote to her mother in the dim light of our hotel room, told her that she was fine, and happy, and that she would be coming home soon enough. She signed it with a kiss for mam, and a stony goodbye to the hated step father. You're never going to see him again, I told her.
We worked in cafes, in the hotel lobby where we became old favourites, currying bags and operating lifts and cleaning kitchens and whatever else they offered us. When we were old enough, we took jobs in pubs and clubs, I managing the funds, she pulling pints of ale or shandy or whatever they requested. We were poor and young and exhausted and homesick but happy. She learnt pretty quickly that there was an extra pretty penny in it for her if she shortened her skirts, wiggled her hips or even spared a kiss for the regulars. It became frequent, and soon enough they wanted more. As far as I know, she never gave.
We were friends, and nothing more. As innocent as innocent could be, we took on the world shoulder to shoulder and came out smiling. Partners in crime. We brought matching plimsolls and left them touching by the door whilst we slept in our shared bed, chaste as children, as a tribute. I loved her and she loved me, there was no doubt; but anything further, for her, meant pain and fear. Sex was her step father's weapon. Kissing was a thing of duty, a business arrangement, a chore. I understood, and smiled in her eyes, and never pushed for what she was not willing to share. In the dead of night, when she knew I still lay awake listening to the rhythmic drip-drop of rain, she would take my warm hand in hers, and sleep better.
Three years passed in that way, blessed and untroubled, before she told me that she was going home. She had written to her mam piously but received nothing in reply - indeed, she never left an address for fear of being discovered - and hungered to be around family again. It was a need, more necessary than food or water. She told me that she had written to her mam about her wonderful boyfriend, and their beautiful cottage in the countryside, and their sweetest little cat. Did I mind? Awfully, I replied, but I urged her to go. It was not as if she were my prisoner, reader, she was as instrumental in our life of anonymity as I. I told her that I would be here, in this pathetic rented flat, waiting for her when she wished to return. As she skipped from the door, she jumped back into my arms, pressed her plimsolls to mine, and kissed the corner of my mouth very briefly. "Thanks," said she, and she was gone.
I had not long to wait. I existed quite strangely in her absence, carrying on at our shared workplace, and paying the bills very intermittently. I even brought a cat, because I knew that she would find it funny, and dote on it, and give it milk even though I would tell her it was unhealthy. Within two months, she was back at the door, leaning against the frame with her sunglasses curling about her fingers, grinning that playground-grin of hers. I scooped her up, ate her up, swam with her to Neptune and beyond, confessed my love, confessed it all. We named the cat Hugo. As we lay, exhausted of our chatter, side by side on the crumpled bed, she asked me why I had never kissed her.
"I don't know," mused I, staring at the ceiling, feeling her eyes on me. Hugo mounted the bed, gave a colossal meow, and bedded down between our warm bodies. "I just thought it a bit impolite."
"Impolite," repeated she, "as if."
"You are a very mean girl, mocking me like that. What I meant is, I was a bit nervous, you know, because you are so lovely, I didn't want to spoil it."
"You mean, you wasn't sure if I wanted you to kiss me or not?"
"Yes, that's a good way of putting it." Hugo sprawled sideways, entangled his sharpened claws in the bedcover.
"Oh. Well. You may kiss me now, if you like."
I wasn't so sure if I would like it, being demanded of me like that. But I laughed, flicked Hugo's ears, and promptly proceeded to leave the raw imprint of my chapped lips upon hers so intensely that a thousand years hence, they may find our preserved bodies thusly engaged, drinking in that strange wonderland she occupied.
Life after that became quite weird indeed. After I had done enjoying my delicious fill of her unresisting lips, she joyfully informed me that mother dearest had given her a Big Fat Wad Of Cash, fat because it was enough to set us up for life, apparently. I took it from her, and inspected further, to find that it was two or three thousand - dutiful mam had been saving up in case "they" wanted ransom for her beloved daughter. We had a wonderful laugh, she telling me how mam had thought that she'd been kidnapped all this time. Incidentally, didn't I know that she had found us both jobs, better jobs, in a town just a few miles away?
We moved, town to town, job to job, house to flat to squat, spending our money on Hugo's food or glossy magazines, whatever struck her fancy. When one thousand two hundred remained, and the rain clouds patrolled the March skies, I asked her if she would marry me. Her big eyes filled with surprise, Hugo scratched at the door, and the thunder boomed. My heart probably stopped in the suspense. She grinned like a schoolgirl, and said yes, yes, of course she would, yes, always yes, a thousand times yes, could Hugo be page boy?
It was all terribly funny, this semi-existent lifestyle, not caring about the real things, living in a wonderland that lifted us above and beyond the normal trivia of humanity. She bade me spend the last of the money on a beautiful ring. She agreed quite rightly that a ring meant relatively nothing in comparison to my promise of eternal love, but that fat diamond in the shop window was perfectly beautiful nonetheless.
The actual wedding itself was shortly put on hold. We had no money, no permanent lodgings, no sparkling careers, but we did have a rather plump happy cat and the most sweet diamond ring. In the June following my inexpert proposal, we gained a little surprise member to our travelling band of fun. Yes, she was pregnant. Tiny little speck on the doctor's monitor, and I was pent up with teary smiles, and she was pointing out to me Little Baby's head and feet and oh lord that's not another one in there is it? This made my head whip up, she was joking of course, and I clutched her head to my chest with deep laughter.
I grimly told her we must pawn the ring, and most of our sparse possessions, and take Hugo to the best animal shelter we could find. She would part with the beautiful bed covers, the silver cutlery, the new china, but I could not wrench that grinning feline from her life. She proposed, soberly after I had tickled her into surrendering, that we should all move to mam's house. Mam's house? Oh yes, didn't I know, she had chucked her husband and moved to her old parents' house. There were bedrooms going spare… Mam said Hugo was welcome… I gave in, and happily, because of the baby that snoozed in her stomach between us.
Summer was hot, and long, and she wore beautiful denim shorts and her mam knitted the most designer bonnets and bootees for our imminent offspring. Born in February, worryingly early, but a little fighter. Held my thumb like a trooper, yawned like a hero, shuddered into the crook of my arm as I brought her to my Lisbeth, who was thumbing back the exhaustion. We both began to cry, because this baby was just perfect, perfectly perfect. Placed her in my beloved's arms, and I was in heaven. Named her Alice, for the wonderland that we wanted her to inherit.
One year, two, and another. Our own home by the beach, semi-rented from mother dearest. Hugo likes the sand, chasing hermit crabs through the swash; Alice likes chasing Hugo across the sandcastles that we are teaching her to build. A month ago my beloved turned to me, pressed her worn plimsolls to mine, and said that we should get married now, because if not now, when? I agreed, and planned today as if we were working head-to-head on a school project. That's what it has always been, life, for me and her.
I am looking at her stood before me, head so proud, eyes so bright and familiar. Nothing else matters outside of this sphere in which I am staring, staring, staring at her wobbling underlip, waiting for my heart to beat again. Between us, buried beneath an oversized red velvet pillow bearing rings, is our little attendant, the very image of her mother on my first memory of her. "Alice," I whisper, "can I have the ring now?"
The vicar clears his throat. He has known both of us since we were mere children, and he smiles at us fondly as if his heart will burst with pride.
"Do you, Elizabeth Johanna Thorne take -"
She clears her throat, holds up her hand to the near-to-tears vicar, who frowns at her worryingly. I do not stir. Alice, between us, almost drops the rings in the ensuing moment of utter silence. Before me is the child in the playground, and beneath her pearl-embroidered dress are the old plimsolls that she has worn for years, snaking their way forwards to meet my own. Her green eyes, full of the fervour that I have always loved and admired, turn suddenly to the vicar, and she smiles in the same way that our beautiful daughter perfectly mirrors. To the vicar, she sighs, and gestures that he can continue with the ceremony, but -
"My name is Lisbeth."