A Love Song for Ricki Wilde (99)
Ricki bargained with every god she could think of for more time, a few extra weeks, even. Days. Hours. But she knew it was futile. Her story was over. Their story was over. The time for deluding themselves into a false sense of security or safety had passed.
As the afternoon drifted into early evening, the two looked at each other across Ricki’s tidy foldout dining table. They’d been silent for ages, picking at their take-out pad thai and avoiding each other’s eyes. Finally, Ricki broke their solemn trance.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I always thought I’d die an old lady in my sleep. Remember the gray-haired couple who died together in their bed at the end of Titanic? When I was a kid, I thought it was the most devastatingly romantic thing.”
“That was horrible. They drowned,” Ezra said with a sigh, his eyes pools of sadness.
“They drowned old, after a life fully lived. And they were with each other at the end. Sleeping peacefully.”
Letting out a heavy exhale, Ezra shut his eyes and rubbed his brows. This conversation, their reality—pure hell. And there was no way to escape it.
An idea surfaced in his brain, as if literally rising from the murky depths of a dark sea.
“Maybe that’s how we square it, then. We’ll do like that couple.”
Ricki lowered her fork and looked at him quizzically. “What, sleep through it?”
“Of all the choices, it seems like the softest landing.” Ezra reached across the tiny table, taking her hand in his. Dr. Arroyo-Abril had lectured him often about the perils of using avoidance as a coping mechanism. Respectfully, he didn’t give a fuck about her warning tonight.
So they bought an over-the-counter sleeping aid and a bottle of obnoxiously expensive white wine—Le Montrachet Grand Cru 2015—and Ricki whipped up a tray of weed brownies. No doubt, the combination would knock them out before midnight, as the twenty-eighth bled into the twenty-ninth. It was a solid plan. If she had to go, at least she wouldn’t feel it. She just… wouldn’t wake up. And Ezra would be spared the agony of watching his love fade away.
At 6:00 p.m., as Ricki pulled the brownies out of the oven, Ezra and Ricki eyed each other, their expressions twisted with sadness. Her emotions mirrored his; they knew without words that they both felt the same thing. Solemnly, they gathered a blanket, pillows, and a duvet, along with the wine; and as inevitably as they were drawn to each other and to Harlem, an invisible force led Ricki and Ezra upstairs. As if pulled by an invisible string, they were compelled to return to the roof, the scene of the crime. They headed up there in silence and laid out the bedding. For hours, they held each other, cloaked in the darkness of this strangely balmy evening. Ezra sat up, holding Ricki close, her back resting against his chest. His arms were tight around her, clasping her hands. They couldn’t bear to not touch each other. Especially now.
This is it, thought Ricki, gazing up into the endless sky. The end.
And Ricki had dressed for The End. She was wearing a sweeping, low-cut tangerine velvet gown from 1961 (per ReclaimedVintageGowns.com), topped with a faux-fur ivory duster. The velvet was bare in some places, and the lining was torn, but the dress held a sense of grandeur. She wasn’t about to face the afterlife not draped in something epic. After all, it was the last thing she’d ever wear.
“I don’t regret any of it,” she said with bleary finality. Holding the wine bottle by the neck, she took a long, hearty sip and passed it over her shoulder to Ezra.
“What don’t you regret?”
“Us. I wouldn’t take back a second I’ve spent with you.”
Ezra clenched his eyes shut, trying to hold on to her words. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness, and he certainly didn’t deserve her love.
“I’m so sorry, Ricki.”
“Please don’t be sorry. No more apologizing, okay? It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped this.”
“You’ve never done anything to harm anyone in your life. You shouldn’t have to pay for my mistakes. Why you?”
“Why me, why you, why Felice?” she asked softly. “We could go around in circles forever. And we don’t have that time.”
She squeezed his hands tighter. Her words hung in the air, dismantling them both. Cutting through their false sense of calm.
“What will you do?” she asked. “You know. After.”
“I don’t know.” His voice was deep, raspy, pain etched in every syllable. “There is no after. I just see everything going blank.” He dropped his head into the hollow of her shoulder, breathing in her skin, her hair. “I won’t feel anything real ever again. Nothing will matter.”
Moments passed, and together they gazed up into the sky. The moon was so red. It looked disproportionately big and low. A blood moon. From their vantage point on the roof, it was a mesmerizing, surreal sight.
In her short time in Harlem, Ricki had come very close to living the life she’d always dreamed of and becoming who she’d always hoped to be. So many of her dreams had been realized, and she’d finally started to see the power in what she could create. It was heart filling. And the only thing better? The idea of her and Ezra together. Till they were old and gray, full on a satisfying life.
“I thought I’d live well into my nineties,” whispered Ricki. “Achieving the wisdom that’s supposed to come with old age. Does it ever happen?”