Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [33]
And so much more. All thrown away.
You discovered then disposed of all this evidence of a full life lived well. How did that vibrant young woman turn into the bitter Turtle Lady? Who were the classmates who had laughed at her jokes? Where was the man with the champagne glass? What had she done to win the ribbons? Why did she keep that bumper sticker? Where were all the writers of those cards? Had they all gone before her? Had she outlasted everyone she loved? Wouldn’t that make anyone bitter?
Many questions, with no one to answer them.
In the end, you threw almost everything away. You couldn’t help but swipe a momento from that woman’s room, because you didn’t want her forgotten by the world. To this day, that tiny I TURTLES pin is still stuck to the underside lapel of your peacoat, where only you can see it, when you want to see it, when you want to honor this woman you never really knew when she was alive.
And as I sit on the floor right now, surrounded by Jessie’s Junk, I’m not seeing myself as an eighty-seven-year-old spinster, the cliché of the never-married aunt, the shriveled-up presence at Marin’s holiday gatherings whom no one wants to sit next to because I spit and mumble and smell like urine-soaked mothballs. (Though that would have been a good guess as to how I might have taken that story to heart.)
No, I’m wondering if the contents of the MOM AND DAD box will be preserved and protected by whoever is put in charge of throwing my life away. Or will it all be considered as worthless as 412 turtles?
Correction: 411.
twenty-four
Ack. I needed to get out of my room and take a break from all that reminiscing. It seemed like a good opportunity to check in with what was going on, so I got up off the floor, headed to the kitchen table, and randomly picked up one of the Sunday Times sections scattered across the table. And the Sunday Times pissed me off.
This is not at all unusual, because being pissed off by the New York Times is an important part of my whole NYT- reading experience. As you know, my rage is usually directed at the Sunday Styles section. (No! You will not try to make me feel bad because I don’t own a belted funnel-neck sweater dress! No! You will not make me feel unworthy because I have never heard of Club Kashmir, where the eponymous cocktail is one part Cristal and two parts pashmina goat piss. No! You will not make me feel inadequate because I can’t afford to buy a Slavic orphan baby, implant a tissue expander in her tender flesh, and harvest her pale, flawless skin to rejuvenate my tired complexion. Noooooooooo!”) But today it was the Travel section that got my ire up.
On the front page was a travelogue written by a woman who had visited thirty-six cities around the world. It took three months and cost less than four thousand dollars. Now, I never had any real desire to visit many of these places, some of which, like Kyrgyzstan, are countries I thought only existed within Sasha Baron Cohen’s imagination. And if I had a few thousand dollars, I would immediately use it to get that student loan bitch Sallie Mae off my back. But I hated this chick nonetheless, for having traveled so far, so safely. She treks though countries that endorse public beheadings. I spend an hour in Virginville, Pennsylvania. Which traveler loses all her possessions? Me.
Last December, I gamely accepted the offer to accompany Hope on her road trip/RISD senior thesis, “Mental States: A Cross Country Tour of My Emotions,” for which she planned to take pictures of herself next to