Picture - Alex Parger
She collected quirks. She so wanted to be noticed - to stand out among the photographers, comedians, jewelry designers and professional skateboarders she lived around. They drifted on the boundaries as they wrestled with plans and definitions - she didn't. She never had to. Her father founded a bank in the 70's and died soon after. When she hit the age of twenty-one, most of his money came to her and from then on, she was what she would always be.
"I can't help it if I'm lucky." she often whispered - but only to herself and never very convincingly.
Private confessions like that filled her. She distracted from them with constant movement and afternoons in boutiques. She fell in with the social circle in and around Nolita and bought an apartment on Elizabeth. The crowd there was mostly from London and knew how to be destructive while still remaining driven. Each of them stood alone with their own little ticks and habits. This seemed so cool to her. She wanted in on that dance. She wanted to be seen the very same way she saw them. So, she collected quirks that she would pick up along the way and would take them on as her own.
One afternoon, on a rare trip on the subway, she saw an elderly Hispanic woman lay a large handkerchief - white with stitched-on violet florals - over the orange seat before sitting down. From then on, she would always carry a selection of colourful, antique cloths to use as seat protectors in Ubers and limos. The same week, whilst reaching for money to pay for her lunch, she found in her bag a loose, red ribbon that had fallen off a card her step-mother had sent her. She rolled a $50 bill into a tube and tied the ribbon around it. This became her standard way of paying in cafes and restaurants. She made sure she always had enough ribbons and cash on her, so she would never have to pay on card.
She answered the phone by saying her name and the time:
"This is _____ and it is 12:47."
When taking pain medication, she would break the pills into thirds and wash them down with sparkling water. One of her neighbors sold earrings made out of pigeon feathers. She bought a dozen pairs and would attach a different one every day to the oversize fedoras she wore. She would never walk into a gym and would exercise by skipping rope on the rooftop of her apartment-building.
Sitting around, doing cocaine with them one morning was a Vietnamese girl who used to be a ballerina in the 90's. The Ballerina told her about the old starvation habits her fellow dancers used to employ. One of them restricted herself by deciding that she would be a vegan who would also not eat anything that was the colour red. This cut out most vegetarian dishes on menus around The City. You see, in those days, red-pepper made up the bulk of vegetarian dishes in restaurants and this is how that particular dancer stayed at skeletal. The Banker's Daughter added this dietary quirk to her mix right away. Later on down the track, she further banned food in the colours yellow and orange.
She always wrote in pencil, carried two phones - one a old-school flip-phone and the other a BlackBerry - and if she had a boy over, she would re-fold her lingerie drawer before bed. She never turned up on time or stayed for dessert or wore socks on a Sunday. She left big tips at bars and small bags of scarves at homeless shelters. In the winter months, she would sleep at The Soho Grand at least once a week. She loved the Soho Grand - they always remembered how she liked her chia seeds in the morning.
An ex-boyfriend introduced her to cricket. He was from India and was in The City for six months studying medicine at Columbia. After he returned home she would surf the internet late at night, reading articles by cricket analysts and watching YouTube videos of old matches. Her favourite player Rahul Dravid and she would often be seen out and about wearing an under-sized version of his national team shirt.
She never used a toothbrush more than three times and advertised an allergy to cats. Every week, she had two different El Salvidorian girls clean her apartment - one on a Tuesday and the other on a Thursday. She said this was because one cleaned the bathroom better and the other one cleaned the kitchen and living room the way she liked it. At Starbucks, she would give them the name 'Dhoni' - another one of her favourite cricketers. She cut her own hair and never clipped her own nails. She gifted books to strangers and bought shoes for her friends.
I met her one day when I wasn't trying to meet anyone. I felt her sorrow right away. The harder she hid it, the clearer it became. She took pleasure in how easily I found it. We chatted for hours and she added me on Facebook. Later on, we went on a date and I walked her home. I didn't go inside. After that, we'd send each other long text messages or links to Amy Schumer sketches every week or so. I never saw her in person again. She moved around too much. She was too hard to pin down.
As John Prine sang:
She was out there running just to be on the run...