Title : Early FarewellsAuthor : Marie NoireSummary : Journal entry written pretty much immediately after said events occured.In loving memory of Isabella Cristina SkeltonWho died of leukemia on July 19, 2001
An airport terminal in Philadelphia, the smell of soft-baked pretzels wafting in from the vendor a few gates down. My stomach rumbles, but not with hunger… it roils and tosses gently… enough to make me a little sick… but not actually throw up. It’s late September and I watch as leaves fall around outside the windows. It’s been a great four day weekend… no holiday on any known calendar, but a big one for me and my friends. Two from out of town, two high school buds and two newfound college cohorts… Alain and Bryan, our resident gentlemen had tolerated the girls’ emphatic oohing and ahhing over the Phantom of the Opera with smiles. We’d teased Alain with the South Park song “Blame Canada” and been stared at all over NYC because of our ostentatious gowns in the middle of the Virgin Records Megastore in Times Square.
Phantom of the Opera, a limo to and from New York, all of my friends in one place for once… and I had been the ring leader for it all.
But now, Alain’s plane has already left… Bryan and Puck have returned to their demanding studies… Jenn and Sarah back to New Jersey to continue work and school. And I’m in the Philadelphia International Airport to send off Cristina, the financer of the event and most cheerful person among us.
She grins, even as she comes back from checking her copious amounts of luggage. “We got fifteen minutes… wanna pretzel and a soda?”
I shakes my head, my stomach grumbling still. “Nah… Puck and I will go to the dining hall when I get back to school.”
She sits and puts her hands around my shoulders. I stare at the grayish-blue and well-worn carpeting of the gate, wondering briefly how many people had sat there, wishing that the person about to board the plane didn’t have to. Just as I did now.
“You shouldn’t have to go… there’s so much stuff we still have to do. I haven’t shown you South Street yet… we didn’t get a chance to go see the Statue of Liberty… and you wanted to go to a Phantoms game with me and Bryan.”
“I have to… but I’ll keep in touch… you know that.”
“I know.”
She looks down, rummaging through her backpack/carry-on for something, her chocolate brown eyes alert for her quarry. Finally she finds it, pulling the black box from some dark pocket in the bag and tossing it to me casually.
“Here… thought you might like this.”
I questioningly open it up, wondering what she could’ve dreamt up this time… she’d already spoiled the daylights out of me in NY with a Phantom mask and watch, X-Men comics, leather pants from Gap…
A small charm falls from the black velvet box, twinkling at me merrily in the harsh lights of the airport.
The Phantom’s mask, miniaturized beyond belief into a silver charm… the one I had never seen her without. I glance up to be sure. A strand of rosary beads has replaced the mask on her neck.
“Cris… I can’t. This is yours.” I try to shake my head.
She cuts me off. “You will. I never know what’s gonna happen… and I want you to have it. It’s my favorite Phantom thing and you’re the only one I know who might like it more than I do. I’m afraid I can’t give you the chain, though… that’s my mom’s… but you’ve got a silver chain for it right?”
I nod… thinking immediately of the fine silver chain that my great-grandmother left to me when I was only a toddler. “Yeah… I have one in mind.”
“It’ll be good luck… wear it to your GRE tests… and job interviews… and quests to get good seats for Phantom.” She smiles.
We both look up as the announcement for seating comes over the loudspeakers… unintelligible but certain. She stands after quickly zipping up her bag.
“Well… gotta go. I don’t want to… but I have to.”
I swallow… now that the moment has come… can I let her go? Do I have a choice?
The entrance to plane seems suspiciously bright.
“Call me when you get there?” I remind her as she heads off after a hug and a blown kiss.
“I will.”
She heads to the entrance, and I have to shield my eyes. The loudspeaker starts ringing and it hurts my ears. I groan and blink several times.
I turn over in bed, startled from my memory-dream into reality and a seize the phone, my voice low and groggy from sleep.
“Hello?” I ask… the word sounding more like “h’mo”
“Jennifer Black, please.” I recognize the southern-accented voice Cristina’s father after a confused second.
“Speaking… hi, doctor Skelton.”
“Sweetie I have some bad news… Cristina passed on at 3:17 this morning.”
I spent the rest of the morning torn between numbness and frantic activity. I call Puck and tell her… first time I’ve heard her cry… I tell my mom and cry on her shoulder for a bit. Get a shower… have to shave… get dressed… black seems appropriate. I hop online quickly and let all of my online friends know what’s going on and not to panic if I’m not around for a few days. Who would Cristina’s folks not think to tell? The Bazmaniacs… I drop a message on their board, secretly hoping Baz himself might read it… she and Baz had been pretty good friends… What else?
Can’t think of anything.
I don’t even know when the funeral is yet… her dad will call me once he’s slept a little and such. I don’t pester him…
So here I sit… feverishly typing while my head throbs from crying, with Phantom playing on my CD player… I already tried to listen to “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” and didn’t make it past the first verse.
Yet I feel those tanned hands on my shoulders… I hear her voice whispering in my ear.
“Hey Marie… I’ll snog Erik for you…”
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