The Virgin Suicides

Cecilia was the first to go.

What are you doing here,

honey?

You're not even old enough to know

how bad life gets.

Obviously, Doctor, you've never been

a 13-year-old girl.

Everyone dates the demise

of our neighborhood...

from the suicides

of the Lisbon girls.

People saw their clairvoyance

in the wiped-out elms.

the harsh sunlight and the continuing

decline of our auto industry.

Even then, as teenagers, we tried to put

the pieces together.

We stilI can't.

Now, whenever we run into each other

at business lunches or cocktail parties,

we find ourselves in the corner

going over the evidence one more time...

all to understand

those five girls,

who, after all these years,

we can't get out of our minds.

Cecilia, the youngest, was 13,

and Lux was 14.

Bonnie was 15.

Mary was 16.

and Therese was 17.

No one could understand how Mrs. Lisbon

and Mr. Lisbon, our math teacher,

had produced

such beautiful creatures.

Paul Baldino claimed to have

found Cecilia on her first attempt.

I was the one who found her.

I was in the storm sewer under my house,

and there's all these tunnels.

You could get

into anyone's house.

So when Paul said this,

we believed him...

because he was the son

of Sammy "The Shark" Baldino,

and we knew about his escape tunnel

that led through the sewers.

So I went up, thinking I could see

the Lisbon girls taking a shower.

- Right.

- Then I walk in,

and I see blood everywhere.

I turned around and went straight

for the stairs and back out the tunnel.

I had to tell you guys

that story, so...

See you guys later,

all right.

- It was an accident.

- No!

It was no accident, Joan.

Of course the parents are to blame.

Well, I heard they found

the razor in the toilet.

Everyone had an opinion as

to why Cecilia tried to kill herself.

That girI didn't want to die.

She just wanted out of that house.

She wanted out of

that decorating scheme.

The most popular theory

held Dominic Palazzolo to blame.

Dominic was the immigrant kid staying

with relatives until his family...

got settled in New Mexico.

He was the first boy in our

neighborhood to wear sunglasses.

and within a week of his arrival,

he'd fallen in love.

The object of his desire

wasn't Cecilia...

but Diana Porter.

- I love her.

When Diana Porter left on vacation

in Switzerland, Dominic denounced God,

Oh. no!

And. to prove his love. he jumped off

the roof of his relatives' house.

I'm gonna show you some images,

and, uh, you tell me...

what they remind you of.

Okay?

A banana.

A swamp.

An Afro.

I don't think Cecilia

truly meant to end her life.

Her act was a cry for help.

I know you're very strict.

but I think that Cecilia would benefit

by having a social outlet...

outside of the codification

of school,

where she could interact

with males her own age.

Peter Sisten helped Mr. Lisbon...

install a model of the solar

system in his classroom,

and in return. Mr. Lisbon

invited him for dinner.

Bless us, O Lord, and these...

Thy gifts which we are about

to receive from Thy bounty,

through Christ, our Lord, amen.

Amen.

- Lux, please, put your shirt on.

- Sorry.

- Thank you, dear.

- Can you pass the salt, please?

- Ham?

- Thank you.

- Sweetheart would you like some peas?

- I hate peas.

Yeah?

That's a nice-looking ham, dear.

Well, thank you, honey.

So, Peter, are you

an aviation enthusiast?

I don't know if I'd call myself

an enthusiast, but I like planes.

Ah.

Uh, Peter, are you

on-on the football squad?

Um, no, I play.

but I'm not actually on the team.

- Not a team player.

- Do you like to wrestle?

- You okay, Peter?

The Brazilian turbot frog was added

to the endangered species list today.

- That's the third animal this year.

- Oh, dear!

The turbot frog. darling...

I don't think I've ever heard...

Um, excuse me.

May I use the restroom?

Oh, of course. The one down here

isn't working very well.

- Go upstairs through Cecilia's room.

- Okay, thanks.

- Hold-Hold on.

I thought you died

in there.

You done hogging the bathroom?

I need something.

Do you mind?

- Thank you very much.

- You forgetting something?

Peter, here's the little airfoil

I thought you might find amusing.

Thank you.

It's, uh...

a demonstration

of Bernoulli's principle: lift...

From that time on,

the Lisbon house began to change.

- Almost every day,

and even when she wasn't

keeping an eye on Cecilia,

Lux would suntan on her towel

wearing a swimsuit,

that caused the knife sharpener to give

her a 15-minute demonstration for free.

Following the doctor's orders,

two weeks after Cecilia returned home,

Mr. Lisbon persuaded his wife to allow

the girls the first and only party...

of their short lives.

There. Is that okay?

I gotta get dressed.

- Welcome!

- Good evening, Mrs. Lisbon.

Come on in!

The party's in the basement.

Just go on around to the left

and then down the stairs.

- Hi, I'm Mona Venture. Hi.

- Hi. Tim.

- Nice to meet you.

- Hi.

- Hi.

- Would you like some punch?

- Yeah!

- Thanks.

- Hi.

Thanks.

- Hi.

- Thank you.

- Hey.

- Hi.

- Do you wanna sit down?

- Yeah.

Um. how'd your

S.A.T.s go?

Okay.

Do you know where

you're applying yet?

Well, no, but my parents

are pushing towards Yale,

'cause that's

where my dad went.

That's nice.

You'd have to imagine what it'd be like

when the clouds would open up...

and out of the sun would come the Hun

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