Lyra

It was Lyra’s favorite kind of day. After a week of rain, the wind had swept clear the smog of the city and it was now partly cloudy, great big cumulonimbus types that dotted the sky and traded shadows as they hovered across the horizon, blinding white in the mid-afternoon sun, casting slow-moving shapes grazing on the landscape.

She was looking out the window, standing in her parent’s kitchen. Well, her kitchen now. A few months ago, they’d both died tragically in a hot air balloon accident on a trip to Europe to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, on a day that was described to her as being much like this one. Her mother had worn a long flowing silk scarf, Hermes, her signature accessory for the better part of two decades after her father had paid over a thousand dollars for it, and that was in early 2000’s money. She always wore it whenever she wanted to feel fabulous, which was any time after 10am really. She guarded her morning privacy like any self-respecting alcoholic needing the appropriate amount of time to become presentable. But then, watch out! because her mother brings only one type of energy; loud and at the center. And so it was on that fateful day, scarf wrapped tightly around her head, sunglasses sparkling in the early evening sun, floating over the rolling green farmlands of northern France, less than an hour prior having finished the fourth lemon drop that accompanied their lunch time meal, Lyra’s mother ignored or either didn’t hear the protestations of the balloon pilot, unwrapped her headscarf to feel the cool wind whip through her long brown hair and lift it upwards along with her paper-thin silk scarf, no need to make contact with an open flame, this handwoven kindling of the gods combusts in a flash and she, Lyra’s father, and the poor pilot plummeted 800 feet.

As a result, Lyra had inherited their kitchen. Well, the entire house, but she was now standing in their kitchen – her kitchen. Everywhere she looked she was ambushed by memories of childhood. The family room just past the kitchen, the white room they’d called it. White carpet, white furniture, the whitest of white walls. And not just any white. You think you’ve seen white, but you’ve never seen anything like this. Lyra’s father worked for a paint manufacturing company, and he’d secretly created his own personal blend of white paint. It had an LRV of 98.6, which if you know anything about paint, is a pretty freaking incredible rating.

Her family never used the white room, and visitors were shown through it as a sort of architectural amuse-bouche, ooh’ and aah’s, yes-yes very white. It was a room to be admired, not lived in. Her father always kept a bucket of the white paint, ready to touch up an errant scuffing or even apply a fresh coat over the whole room. As a young child, whenever her parents would invite friends or family over, she would sneak out to the garage, strip naked and cover herself in the white paint, sneak back inside, and would press herself as flat as possible against one of the walls in the white room. Invariably they would notice Lyra missing and call for her, and she would wait, lurking, giggling, this great white monster in the shadows, stealthily hidden in perfect two-dimensionality, completely undetectable, the ultimate predator setting the trap for unsuspecting prey, meep-meep, come closer coyote…

… the mind of a child. In reality she was always given away by the fact we live in the three-dimensional space and she would be quickly spotted by some combination of her parents and their guests, bewildered as they stared at this lunatic child, cackling, cast in freakishly white glow, asking each other things like, ‘is that paint toxic?’ or ‘we should get going, shouldn’t we?’ Lyra did this seven times before her father moved the paint can to the top of the wooden shelf in the garage that Lyra couldn’t reach no matter which way she tried to climb it.

She was a weird kid. Now, she was a weird adult. A weird adult who owned a home, hey now, that’s something. Yeah, her parents were dead, which was a huge bummer, but that was more common now that she was getting older. Her friend Tiffany’s mom had passed away last year. And Bill’s dad had died almost five years ago now. She took a small comfort that inevitably in the coming years, another friend of hers may lose one or both of their parents and think to themselves, hey it’s not so bad, remember just a few years ago when both of Lyra’s folks died in a hot air balloon accident? She seemed to get through it okay. Maybe we will too.

And she was getting through it okay. A month after their death she went to Los Angeles with her best friend Elsi and they waited in line at the studio where they tape The Price Is Right, and they got their pictures taken by the audience producers and they got nametags they were told were theirs to keep, and when they were led inside the studio she’d never seen lights so bright, and when her name was called over the PA she’d nearly blacked out from excitement. Afterwards, Elsi hugged her with tears in her eyes. They had grown up watching this show almost every day, Lyra, Elsi, and her parents. Her parents had made an appearance on a special couples-themed episode that aired back in 1998, and her dad always talked about how they needed to take a family vacation to Los Angeles so the girls, yes including you Elsi, can experience the show in person. But that’s how it always remained, as something she needed to do, but never did, until now, after they were gone.

She admitted to Elsi she couldn’t remember much of the experience. Just lights and Drew Carrey’s black framed glasses coming in and out of view. It was dreamlike is how she’d said it. She remembered that she didn’t win in the end, right? But she played quite a few games, that’s pretty good, yeah? Elsi assured her she’d done great, her personality was on display in all the best ways, and that she’d banked a lot of cash (almost a hundred thousand dollars!) before overbidding on the final game and losing it all.

Losing it all. Never a great feeling. The episode was set to premiere tonight, and Elsi was coming over soon to help her prep some drinks, snacks, nothing overly done, just a small, tasteful viewing party where you can have the once-in-a-lifetime experience of watching your friend fumble the chance at life changing money. She couldn’t shake the feeling she was about to put herself on shameful display. She tried not to be resentful about it. Reminded herself it was about the experience. It was for mom and dad. But these feelings kept creeping in. She’d tell herself it wasn’t like she actually lost any money. She wondered how she could grieve something she never had. She wondered if it was misplaced grief over her parents. She wondered a lot of things, but she never seemed to find any answers. Her feelings kept coming back, weird, ugly feelings that seemed to become more complex and random the more she tried to identify and diagnose them.

She’d made the decision to host the gathering in the white room. She still hadn’t mounted her TV so it rested on a coffee table she’d scooted against a wall, leaving a small scuff. The first of many she knew would come. She seemed to lack the stuffy gene both her parents flaunted, she certainly didn’t have the energy to maintain a room that demanded to be so white, and there probably wasn’t any paint remaining besides whatever her father had left in the garage. The maker is gone, and his creation goes with him. Maybe in time the white room would become something else. The family room. The TV room. Or just a room.

Earlier this morning she’d practiced her resigned smile, sensitive yet resilient, the one she will give when the inevitable, ‘Aww!’ comes crashing down when everyone realizes their friend came this close to winning a small lottery but didn’t. It wouldn’t fool them, she knew that, especially not James, he could always pick up on her moods, but it wasn’t about fooling them. It was about protecting herself. And she knew… well she didn’t know much of anything about herself or her moods these days, but she knew enough to know she had no idea of how she might respond to any poking or questioning, no matter how light-hearted or good-natured. Thinking of it now, she practiced her smile again. Just right. When they see this smile, they’ll know, that’s the end of it. Give Lyra her space. She’s gone through enough already.

Just then there’s a knock at the door…