Stratford, England
1993

Cecilia, the distinct emphasis of “Cec” over “-ilia” saluted Italian novelty over French provocation. Her russet curls were always anchored carelessly with bobby pins and took the long, ruffled way home when coming undone. She was young and possessed a trademark of authenticity I hadn’t seen in my previous caretakers. My parents hadn’t gone through her references. It had been an international emergency and they’d left me on her doorstep with the kind of urgency that accompanies those types of situations. Their recklessness was embroidered in Cecilia like twill patchwork. She smoked cigarettes like air was a religious preference or a dual citizenship. She swallowed pills like vitamins and had a sheer disregard for anything that suggested acquiescence. She was a Lilith; she drank lapsang souchong and stained the ends of cigarettes with smudges of her chili-pepper lipstick.

We slept on yards of organza, our feet contorting the sheets like origami. Her hair entwined with mine, our breathing synchronized, and I was cradled in a bouquet of grapefruit and clover. She would wake before dawn to begin her writing. Her strokes were relentless and unapologetic, pausing only to consider verb preferences, which were often unusual and distinctive of her elusive style of writing. She’d turn to me during the recess, spell out the word, and I would flip through Webster, hunting. I loved when she tried to teach me things, when she paid attention. Forgetting the word halfway through my search, she would abandon the thought as though wrongfully accused from the beginning. She wrote for hours, smiling and cursing, quoting Proust and blaming James.

We rarely left her apartment but when we did, the universe appeared alien and unfamiliar. Our few trips to the market were met with profound suspicion and guarded stares. We were missionaries amongst savages. They watched in bewilderment as she bagged cilantro and pierced the cavities of raspberries. She was an endangered species and her motives were unknowable. Everything about Cecilia was unknowable. She was beyond awareness and saturated with an imprecision that was reminiscent of dense fog and expensive cheese. Our two weeks ended as abruptly as they had begun and on an overcast Tuesday in mid August, I left her. She’d given me two hardcover volumes of Proust so I’d remember. She didn’t know forgetting was as easy as blinking away the darkness of a room after staring into the sun.

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