Kristina Luprie

When I found Kristina Luprie in the summer of ‘96, she was sixteen and pissed drunk. She used to tie her blonde hair in a loose bun at the top of her head so you couldn’t tell that it would naturally fall to her lower back. She used to chew double-bubble bubblegum, piece after piece, with the teeth in the back, right corner of her mouth. She littered my car with thousands of those yellow and blue gum wrappers. She would toss the chewed up, pink wads out of the window as we drove, yelling “Yahtzee!” when a piece hit another car or a pedestrian that we passed by. Her parents were in a constant state of intoxication, too. That’s probably why they never noticed the hundreds of bottles of Mikes Hard Lemonade that she swiped from their booze fridge.

We would meet on Tuesday evenings and Saturday middays. There used to be a park in our hometown: pretty basic, a swing set and a slide in a mound of pebbles, a couple of benches for concerned moms to supervise and depressed high schoolers to score acid or ‘shrooms. We’d meet up on the trail, half way between her house and mine. “Hello, Kristina Luprie,” I’d smile. “Hey-ya, Joan of Arc,” she’d laugh.

I don’t know why she started calling me Joan of Arc. I’m not much into history or Jesus, but the way I understand it, Joan of Arc was a young girl, alive with the Spirit. I was twenty-three at the time, four years older than Ms. Arc was when they set her ablaze, bearded, and dressed in black, head to toe. People like naming other people, is what I’ve learned throughout my years. My parents named me James. My peers named me Jimmy. My eleventh grade math teacher, barely thirty and completely in love with me, named me Mr. Stewart. “Mr. Stewart,” she’d coo, “There’s a chivalry in your features that has long been thought to have died with Old Hollywood.” And that’s what she told Annabell Peters when the girl turned me down for the homecoming dance. In college the girls named me “Cocoa” because, as they used to say, they’d like to have a cup of me on a cold night. Wasn’t true, though. The girls were all my friends and I never got any tail. But that was fine. The only tail I wanted was that of Erica Johnson’s, and she named me “Jake,” though, I figure she thought that’s what my parents named me, too.

Kristina Luprie was a kid back then, and I guess I was a kid, too, but I felt old. I mention this because I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I was fresh outta college and concerned about the world. So when I stumbled upon a girl, losin’ her shit like Kristina was, that concern and idealism transferred to her. I got the idea that I could save the world by saving a skinny, blonde, miniature alcoholic. 

The first few months that I knew Kristina, we met up at that park and walked and talked in a loop. “Tell me about school, Kristina.” “School’s shit, Joan.” “Tell me about your parents, Kristina.” “My parents are shit, Joan.” “Tell me about anything, Kristina.” “Did you know they made Clueless into a TV show, Joan?” “No, tell me about Clueless, Kristina.” “Clueless is the shit, Joan.”

But time flew quickly and before we knew it, summer had gone and fall had followed suit. In November she turned seventeen and, when the first snow fell, we moved our meetings to a coffee shop downtown. She wanted to drink coffee because she wanted to be older than she was; I drank tea because I was older than I was. She’d take a sip, pucker her lips and observe, “Needs a little creamer. Needs a little sugar.” And I’d say, “Just get hot chocolate, Kristina.” And she’d say, “No. Hot chocolate’s gross, b’sides, it costs more.” And I’d tell her that you don’t outgrow chocolate beverages and two bucks difference didn’t mean much to me. She’d shrug off that comment and talk about Seventh Heaven and Mariah Carrey. 

In late December she called me. It was three in the morning and my first thought was that my mom must’ve fallen again. “What is it?” I answered, not even saying hello. “Joan?” She sobbed into the phone. “Kristina? Dear God, I thought you were my mom.” I was shaking myself awake, still not entirely convinced I wasn’t dreaming. “Joan,” she sobbed. “Kristina, what is it?” I pleaded. She told me and I listened best I could with me being half asleep and her being a stream of tears. Her father had died of alcohol poisoning and she was scared the same would happen to her mom, and the same would happen to her. “D’you drink, Joan?” “No.” “Good. I couldn’t stand to lose us all.” Two hours later she showed up at my door, spent the next few days crying on my couch. We drank a lot of hot chocolate those couple of days. 

Three weeks into January, Kristina told me she was three weeks sober. “I think I’m gonna live to be eighty,” she told me. “Oh?” I asked. “Yeah, eighty sounds good to me.” Sounded good to me, too, but she told me otherwise. “You’ve gotta live to be eighty-seven, Joan.” “Why’s that?” “Cause I can’t bare to let you die, first.” So I said I’d live to be eighty-seven, so long as she lived to be eighty. 

When she was eighteen, Kristina Luprie started dating this guy named Jason. “Jason’s great,” she’d say. “Real great, Joan, I think you’d like him.” “I hope so, Kristina, Luprie.” She started smelling like pot then, too. “I don’t smoke it, Joan, I swear. But Jason does sometimes.” “Whatever you say, Kristina.” Eight months later, I met up with her on a Monday. It was an accidental encounter. She a busted her nose, got beaten real well, and I was working in the ER. “What happened, Kristina?” “Nothin’, Joan.” The next day she still wouldn’t say. She’d just say, “Jason’s swell, Joan. Are you ever gonna find a girl? You’re twenty-five, now, Joan.” “I know, Kristina, I know.” 

I had found a girl. She was short with dark brown hair and bright green eyes. She sang renditions of rap songs; she sang acoustic and folk. Her name was Julie Jackson. Three years later, at our wedding, she sang a rendition of Outkast’s Ms. Jackson. I had begged her not to, didn’t want people to think she was knocked up, though I suppose they figured that out nine months later when there was still no baby. Point is, I had found a girl back then, just didn’t tell Kristina about her. 

Three months later, someone snapped Kristina’s arm like a twig. She never told me who, but Jason wasn’t allowed within four hundred feet of her and they were officially “done.” She also chopped off most her hair and started practicing tai chi. “I’m gonna live ‘til I’m eighty-one, Joan,” she’d say. “Eighty-one, Kristina?” “Yeah, eighty-one sounds good to me.” Eighty-one sounded good to me, too, but she told me otherwise. “No, Joan. You gotta live to be eighty-eight.” And I told her if she made it to eighty, I’d make it to eighty-eight. 

She went to college six hours away. I was happy, don’t get me wrong. I kind of thought I had saved the world; I thought I had saved that girl. She’d fly back three times a year. We’d meet up every time. She wrote me letters, proper letters. “Dear Joan, I’m majoring in writing and beer pong. Fun fact about beer pong: you don’t get drunk if you play it sober. Dating a guy named Mikey. Mikey? Isn’t that great? He sounds like a teddy bear, don’t he? Well, he is one. I’m missing you these days, Joan. Love and Such, Kristina.” I think she was kidding about the beer pong. She’d been sober since she was seventeen and I couldn’t imagine that changing. I flew out there to visit once or twice. Mikey was, as she said, a teddy bear. He was a big black man who bought her flowers and baked cupcakes. He hugged everyone. 

She came to my wedding. And I walked her down the aisle at hers. She started teaching grammar in a local high school. She’d say, “Joan, I’m gonna save some of these brats. Just like you saved me.” She was twenty-seven back in 2007. She wanted a baby but got cancer instead. “Joan,” she cried when she told me, “Do you think I’ll make it to eighty-one?” “I’m sure you will, Kristina.” And I was, too. I believed it so hard and with so much of my might. The chemo helped and remission came and in the summer of ‘08 she was laughing. “I’m gonna make it to eighty-two, Joan. And you’re gonna make it to eighty-nine.” “If you make it to eighty-two, I will, Kristina.” 

She called me crying two years later. “How old’s that daughter of yours, Joan?” “Ten,” I said. “She’s gonna outlive you, you know?” “I know.” “She’s gonna have to see you die and she’s gonna start saying, I’ll make it to older.” “And I hope she does, Kristina. I hope she makes it to ninety, at least. Maybe even ninety-three.” “I’m not gonna make it, Joan. I’m not gonna make it to eighty-two. I’m not even gonna make it to my forties. I’ll never get to live as long as my father the boozer, did. Hell, I won’t make it to thirty, Joan.” “Of course you will, Kristina.” 

But I was wrong.