A Lily in the Light(23)
No, Lily was with another family, like in storybooks where kids walked through cupboards and into other worlds. They fought wars against animal people, sailed imaginary ships across oceans full of paper monsters, met kings and queens, and came back unscathed but smarter. Lily would love that. It was make-believe, but even pretend stuff was based on real things. Even the possibility was comforting.
“All those cops asking people in our building what they’d seen seemed stupid, and people will just walk past posters. No one really looks because they’re so busy with their own shit. But lots of people see shit every day, and no one pays attention to them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Homeless people, Esme. People who live on the street and watch everyone else all day. A lot of them sit in the same spots. They know what’s normal and what’s not, which kids belong to who. Dad thought it was a great idea, so that’s what we did. We went to the depot, the park, the corners, under the train, wherever we could think of. Now they’re looking. They’re out when no one else is, and everyone thinks they’re invisible, so they see stuff.”
It was a good idea, surprisingly good from someone who didn’t bother with school or homework or studying for tests, who didn’t have a “constructive” hobby and hung around with Denny. She felt stupid in comparison.
“How’d you think of that?”
“Es,” he said, “when shit like this happens, you have to think outside your world.”
She thought of Cerise praying at church, hoping Lily would reappear when she opened her eyes, or her own small world at the studio, how just going there almost every day was her portal to the next part of her life.
“How do you do that, though?” She felt especially stupid, something else she needed him to explain. Ice melted in the pot. She wanted him to keep talking.
“You already know how to do it,” he said. “You’ve already figured out that dancing’s how you’ll do stuff no one else will. Think about it, Es. Everyone else your age is studying the same stupid crap as everyone else, writing the same answers on paper for bullshit grades and being told how special they are.”
That’s what Madeline was doing. School was so easy for her. He was calling Madeline a sheep, but he wasn’t entirely right about ballet.
“I just do what I’m taught in class,” she said. “I’m just learning things other people already figured out.”
“So? That’s how it starts. You learn words one by one before you string them together.”
He was right. Anna Pavlova had done it, eventually moving away from what she was taught and creating her own, but Esme didn’t understand how it happened.
“Yeah, but . . .” She trailed off. How could she explain that learning things that had started centuries ago was like staring at the sky? She felt big and little for being part of it, even though none of that was helping now. It didn’t even feel important anymore, not in the way it had last week, but the thought of Amelia’s studio—its grapefruit smell; the feel of the floor under her feet, solid and polished and squishier than regular floors; the chill on her bare arms before she was warmed up—made her miss it bone deep. The thought of it filled her lungs with the right kind of air in a way that felt selfish now. She pushed it away.
“What do you think it means?” She changed the subject to Annette and everything she’d said the day before, debating whether to float her theory of Lily living with another family. “All that stuff about prisms and the tree house.”
“It’s a nice story, I guess.” He sighed and pulled his hand away from hers, tucking it under the quilt. Someone knocked on the front door. Cerise, maybe, back from church having forgotten her key.
“You should get that,” he said, rolling away from her. His back was a thick lump under the blanket. “And wake Dad up soon.”
No, she wanted to say, feeling more alone now that he was quiet. Someone knocked again, louder this time. Esme left to answer it, feeling as bounced and disoriented as a Ping-Pong ball. It wasn’t just a story. It could be real, as real as she was. She pinched the place between her thumb and forefinger. The pain felt good, refreshingly real, but the feeling left when she saw Madeline by the door and Detective Ferrera in the doorway. Andre spilled out from his room, as ragged and loose limbed as a puddle. Detective Ferrera’s gaze flickered toward the garbage bag taped to the wall, but he said nothing. It couldn’t be bad news, Esme thought, not if he was wearing a faded old Champion sweatshirt. Bad news came in suits.
“All right,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I have updates. Is Cerise here?”
“No.” Andre’s voice swam to the surface. “She’s at church.”
“Anthony Santos, Birdman as you call him, has an alibi. He was in Atlantic City on Thursday night and has been there since early last week. The maintenance man Madeline mentioned was working another building. We have surveillance footage of him in the building all night.”
“Which leaves us with no one,” Andre finished. His voice was flat, reciting a fact. Esme waited for the but. When God closed a door, he opened a window. Wasn’t that what Cerise always told them?
“Not necessarily.” Detective Ferrera opened the front door and pointed down the hallway. Esme leaned forward to see. It was full of casserole dishes smothered in plastic wrap, flowers, stuffed animals, fruit baskets, balloons, a jumble of things wrapped in cellophane and tied shut with ribbons. A bizarre kind of Christmas without a tree, like all the boxes wrapped in mismatched wrapping paper for the giving tree at church, but they hadn’t posted any ornaments asking for things they couldn’t afford. Or the kind of dressing room she hoped to come back to one day after an amazing show, full of appreciation from fans. The astonishment she felt for a hallway full of presents turned sour with hopelessness, stacked with every dish and basket of waxy fruit.