Lille was a strange, acutely empathic girl whose awkwardness and discomfort in the world was a palpable thing. Her sensitivity was an affliction, like an exposed nerve. Certain people dying young are not a surprise. Lille’s death, though tragic, is one of those unshocking deaths. She always possessed a certain sadness of spirit, a weary resignation about life that probably could not be sustained deep into old age.
Cressida was the opposite. She was life itself. She was beauty, vitality, and possibility all breathed into an exquisite physical form. She was the embodiment of power, inner and outer. She was unforgettable, her impact no less potent in her absence.
They’re both gone now and Kersti’s long-repressed grief over Cressida’s accident is starting to fester and rise to the surface. She can feel it in her chest, her throat, her head. As she folds up the letter and shoves it in her top drawer—as though hiding it can keep the truth from encroaching on her life—Kersti already knows that hearing about Lille’s death so soon after being invited back to the Lycée will be the inevitable catalyst that forces her to face the tsunami of grief and guilt she’s been holding back since the age of eighteen.
The invitation to the hundredth birthday gala is hanging on the magnetic board above her desk. She glances at it now, still undecided about whether or not to attend. Her years in Switzerland were the best of her life; the way they came to an end, the worst.
You are invited to celebrate our 100th birthday on June 11, 2016, at the Lycée International Suisse. 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Inside the envelope there was also a letter.
Dear Kersti,
In 1916, the Lycée opened its doors to a handful of students seeking the highest standard of education in the world. Since that time, we’ve been accredited by the European Council of International Schools and become one of a group of schools to be officially recognized by the Swiss Confederation. In 1925, our day school became co-ed and although we are proud of the great many achievements of our male alumni, as part of our centennial celebrations, we have selected “One Hundred Women of the Lycée” to represent the last century of our success in grooming young girls to reach their full potential and become thriving citizens of the world.
In 2016, the Lycée Internationale Suisse will celebrate its 100th birthday. We are delighted to inform you that you have been selected as one of our “One Hundred Women of the Lycée” for your outstanding achievements in the Literary Arts. We invite you to be one of the keynote speakers at our 100th Birthday Garden Party on Saturday June 11th, 2016 . . .
What would Cressida have thought of Kersti being chosen one of the One Hundred Women of the Lycée? She probably would have made Kersti feel like an idiot for feeling flattered.
When Kersti first got back from Lausanne after the accident, it was hard not to think about Cressida all the time. She became so depressed and reclusive she finally had to make the purposeful decision to not go there anymore. From that point on, she stopped living in the memories—the good, the bad and the surreal; stopped visiting that dark, deep place in her mind and forged ahead with her life. That meant she had to ignore all the unanswered questions that had been left dangling, which became easier and easier to do over the years. And yet here it is, that sleeping beast, gently waking after all this time, claws extended, determined to pull her back there. She’s not surprised. It takes outrageous arrogance to think one can successfully outrun the past, and Kersti has never been that arrogant. Cressida was, but not Kersti.
She opens her desk drawer and removes Lille’s letter again. She rereads it, finding herself stuck at the part about Magnus. I saw him leaving Huber House that night . . .
Lille’s letter is a welcome distraction from her last, tense conversation with Jay. She gets up, leaving the letter on her desk, and goes downstairs to the basement, where she drags a box marked lycee out of the storage closet. In it, she’s saved report cards, photo albums, yearbooks, and a shoe box full of tokens and mementos—a coaster for Bière Cardinal . . . moment d’amitié; programs from the Fête des Vendanges in Morges and the 1989 Holiday on Ice at the Palais de Beaulieu; lift tickets from every ski trip she ever went on, from Thyon to Gstaad; placemats from Niffenager’s Brasserie (they called it Niffy’s) and from Café le Petit Pont Bessières (they called it 2,50’s, the price of a chope); her medals from the Vaud Volleyball Championships; an artsy black-and-white photo of the Molecular Structure; a paper menu from Chez Mario, which has a strong mildew smell; and a handful of photo-booth photos—Kersti and Cressida, Kersti and Lille, Cress and Raf; Lille and Alison; Kersti and Noa. All six of them. Serious, silly, smiling, tongues out, kissing, fake tans, frost-and-tipped hair, the nineties.
The sharp stab of nostalgia is piercing. She hasn’t allowed herself to do this in almost two decades. Still, she kept everything. She was happy there, truly herself.
The yearbook is unsigned by her friends. She left Switzerland before it was handed out to the students and it had to be mailed to her. Her “Bequeaths” aren’t even included. Neither are Cressida’s or Lille’s. She reads Noa and Rafaella’s Bequeaths and what surprises her now is that they were able to bounce back so quickly after the accident and compose their lighthearted summations of the school year. I bequeath my tweezers to Komiko; raw brownies to Ali; the third-floor bathroom to the “Helvetians of ’94.”
Strange, given that one of their best friends had mysteriously plunged from her fourth-floor balcony just weeks before the end of the school year. Kersti had a much harder time recovering. Maybe she never did. Not just from the accident, but from the friendship itself. Going through the yearbook again, Kersti can’t help being transported back to that phase of her life that was both so brief and so deeply impressive. There she is in Stratford-upon-Avon, in Basel, at the Christmas Torchlight Descent, at Villars, Verbier, Chateau-d’Oex—
“Kerst?”
She looks up, disoriented. Jay is standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking disheveled and sleepy. He must have fallen asleep on the couch. She feels far away from him tonight, not just because of everything that’s been going on between them—the stress, the arguing, the tension—but because her mind is in the past.
He looks older to her at this moment, as if she’s looking at him through the eyes of her teenage self. He’s just turned forty and has a wreath of silver in his dark hair, some lines indented in his forehead, which was as smooth as a candle’s surface just a year or two ago. But she’s being hard on him. She’s in that kind of a mood. He’s handsome and well preserved; he makes an effort. If not for the silver wreath and the newish forehead lines, he doesn’t look a day over thirty-five. Plus he’s got a formidable upper body—broad shoulders, slim waist, great abs—that can be attributed to the flour-and sugar-free diet he embarked on after his thirty-ninth birthday.
He takes a step toward her, but keeps his distance. “What’s going on?” he asks, running a hand through his hair.
“My friend died,” Kersti says, closing the yearbook.