[I tried a new way of editing my story, by highlighting parts I liked and removing parts that werenât interesting, and changing parts that didnât make sense. Hope you enjoy this version.]
One day, I got a match with this girl who also liked the song âThriller.â I wrote her a message, saying "Hey, we should go to a graveyard for our first date." She responded with "Yes, that sounds great." I asked her which graveyard. She said, "The Grand Army Cemetery." I said, "That sounds grand." I looked it up and it wasn't so far from me. We set a day.
Though it was November, on that day, it happened to be temperate and sunny. I stopped by a cafĂŠ near my house to pick up a coffee and met her by the gate of the cemetery. She was very pale-skinned and I thought that she looked somewhat ghostly. I did not tell her that. Her name was Nora. She walked close to me as we perused the various gravestones and read the names inscribed there. I was good at making up stories about the various deceased soldiers, and she giggled as I did so. "The generals are so lucky, aren't they?" she said. "They don't have to die."
"Not usually. Unless they're very stupid." I took her hand and pulled her a little closer to me. The strands of red hair drifted in the wind.
"You're not hard to read. I can tell exactly what you're thinking. You're kind of on the fence with me. The graveyard fence."
"I just broke up with my boyfriend, that's why."
"And then you found me on the app."
"Yes." âThrillerâ was nowhere in our minds.
"The heart has different rooms. If he's in one of the rooms, I can see you in one of the other ones, right?"
"I guess so." Nora nodded toward my empty coffee cup. "But I'll need one of those too to get the motivation." And so we went to that same cafĂŠ near my house and talked more. I decided we should leave it at that and we said goodbye. We didn't see each other for a few days. Then I matched with this other girl on the app who also liked âThriller.â What do you know? The chances. I messaged this girl, saying, "I didn't know that so many people liked graveyards." There was no response and I thought that I must have sent a bad message.
I saw Nora again the next week. It was still quiet in the streets with the global situation, and we peered into store windows to see which ones were open. She didn't want to see her family for Christmas. I said I understoodâit was difficult travelling. But it sounded like there was something more. Her voice quivered when she spoke about her parents, so I knew it was bad. She said they were in England. I said "Oh. Well, you know, life is weird. So who cares anyway."
She was silent after that, and we were just as quiet as the storefronts. I did not take her home and the next day I got a text from the other girl who had liked Thriller. She said that she didn't like graveyards, unless it was very early in the morning. "How early?" I asked and she said 7 o'clock. I said that was fine, even though inside I didn't feel like it was. Some people wake up early; I didn't. Those people see life as a river and they want to get on the water first to get ahead. I admired them, but I didn't like them so much. I saw this girl, whose name was Holly, because I figured that Nora and I weren't officially going out yet. Holly wore a brown jacket and a hat, and had dark lipstick on. She was sitting on a bench waiting for me with her legs crossed, as if she had been there for an hour. She looked at me with beady eyes. "Thank you, I'm good," she said, even though I hadn't asked her.
"I'm sure you are. This is your time of day."
"If I woke up this early every day, I'd be a rich man," I mumbled as we started walking toward the gravestones.
"I had loans, okay?" We didn't joke with each other that much, at least in terms of tone, and we had these kinds of terse exchanges. I took her home that night. I found out she was a director of movies. That impressed me. I wanted to be in one of them. She told me I could be in a death scene. "Please let me be in a life scene," I said.
Holly sometimes wet the bed. She had a lot of rage against her father, who had left her family when she was twelve. She was not someone I would take to see my parents. But I loved her.
November became December and I had to choose with whom to spend more time withâNora or Holly. Holly had the name for that time of year; Nora had the personality. She was going to England after all to see her family. I said I would take her to the airport. I did have a car. We hadn't even kissed, but I liked her very much. It would be a good time to kiss her at the airport, when we said goodbye. I hoped she wouldn't be crying. She was a very gentle girl. Holly, instead, was a go-getter. And meâI was just a thrill-seeker.
"Have you seen the movie City of Women?" Holly asked me as we were lying in bed. "By the director Fellini. It expresses his fears of women. Are you like that? Are you afraid of me?"
"No. I'm too lonely to be afraid. That's why I met you in a graveyard."
"I see. It's like you welcome the ghosts in your life."
I could see that our whole relationship was tinged with death, and I had no idea why. Oh yeah-- "Thriller." But I didn't know if I liked that song as the other things in my life. Like coffee and sweets, and love.
"We should both be a little more quiet with each other," I said, and then we fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up to take Nora to the airportâbright and early. As we were driving down I-5, the song "Monster Mash" came on to the radio. "Do you like this song?" I asked, tentatively.
"So do I. I guess it's not quite 'Thriller,' but it's pretty good."
She was quiet for a minute. "I love you."
"Thanks," I said. I knew there was more going on in that head of hers than just that, but I wasn't sure how to tease it out. "Your parentsâwhy don't you want to see them?"
"They like me too much. They don't let me do what I want to do. They want me back in England, and I hate that place."
"Why don't you have an accent?"
"I moved here when I was nine." Sometimes fear interferes with your decisions.
I was suddenly glad to see her off. I didn't want someone who might not be coming back. I wanted to get back to Holly. That brown jacket, those dark lips. We had to plan my scene in her movieâmy death scene. I parked my car at the airport and said that I had to get back to take care of some Christmas shopping. Nora latched on to the lapel of my jacket and kissed me on my cheek. "I'll write you," she said.
I nodded, and then I slowly pulled out of the parking spot, and then drove back uptown. When I arrived back at my apartment, I saw a small note that had been left on my bed. "I can never be quiet," it said. "From Holly." I texted her, feeling that something was off. I didn't hear from her for weeks. After sending many frantic messages, I finally received a text from her mother that said she had tried to kill herself and was in the hospital. I didn't think that I could visit her. I never heard from her again. A month later Nora returned from England and we started officially going out.