A Lily in the Light(33)
Esme threw sweatpants over her damp tights. She packed the pointe shoes she wasn’t allowed to use yet and spread the tongue of her sneaker, widening the laces to ease her swollen ankle into her shoe, then tightened them fiercely to control the swelling. Amelia waited by the door, arms carefully crossed over her chest.
“I don’t live far.” The car beeped. It echoed through the parking lot as the headlights flashed. Clouds rolled over the moon, and the air, cold and heavy, tasted like snow. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Esme wondered if Amelia had a dog.
The car smelled like coffee. There was a stain on the dark carpet near Esme’s foot, and clothes were scattered in the back seat. Esme was a little disappointed that Amelia’s car, world-famous Amelia’s car, was so ordinary.
The radio switched on when Amelia turned the key. It wasn’t classical music but a talk station. The man on the radio was talking about the weather. Six to ten inches, enough to close school. That would have made her sleep with one eye open before, checking for small serious flakes all night, but that was the Esme before Lily. New Esme didn’t care if it snowed or not. If it did, maybe Lily’s new family would take her sledding.
A pair of pink ribbons dangled from the rearview mirror, Amelia’s first pair of pointe shoes, maybe, or a first performance, but there was no date on the ribbon, so Esme couldn’t be sure. It was another of Amelia’s secrets.
The road to Amelia’s house ran alongside the train tracks Esme took to and from the studio every day. Slowly, the streetlights dwindled until there were only headlights and window lights to guide them. Porch swings swung silently in the darkness. If Nick saw this, he’d say it looked like a neighborhood from Unsolved Mysteries. Robert Stack would step out of the shadows where houses disappeared and the woods bloomed to tell them something awful had happened here.
But that was the old Nick. Now, the buzzed parts of his hair were growing back in patches. He never washed his clothes, and the cigarette smell circled him, leaving a trail wherever he’d been. Esme didn’t know what he was anymore, but she was relieved when he was not home. When he was, it was hard to look at him, even if he was still her brother, even if she still missed the good things about him, like his jokes, but he’d been cut away from her too. It made another reason Amelia’s house would be a relief.
Woodsmoke filtered through the car, making it smell like a fireplace. Perfect houses with gas lanterns threw light over potted plants and wicker furniture. Mailboxes dotted the street. Esme wanted to cry. Real people didn’t have fireplaces or live in Christmas-card houses like these, where they couldn’t hear other people moving and cooking in the spaces above, below, and beside their own sounds and smells.
“This is it.” Amelia pulled into a gravel driveway. It crunched beneath the wheels. Amelia’s red-painted house wasn’t as big as the others, but electric candles glowed behind lace curtains, and a big evergreen tree grew in the front yard. This house would be beautiful covered in snow. The candles in the windows were so unlike the concrete stoop at home and faded welcome mats in the hallway. Her heart sank. She didn’t deserve to live here, not even temporarily.
Esme followed Amelia up the walkway. Keys jingled as Amelia found the right one and placed it in the lock. It only took one key to open the door.
“That’s it?” Esme was shocked. Her front door had three locks. “One key opens your whole house?” The woods were dark behind them, empty and thick with silence. Anything could be in there. Anything.
“That’s it.” Amelia smiled. The front door creaked open. Food was cooking, meat and potatoes. Her stomach rumbled. She pressed her hand against her stomach to quiet it.
“Look around.” Amelia dropped the keys on the hall table and hurried to the kitchen. “The bedrooms are upstairs; the living room, dining room, and kitchen are down here. I have to check the Crock-Pot.” What was a Crock-Pot? Exploring on her own was uncomfortable even if Amelia trusted her to. A spoon tapped against a pot. A lid clattered. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend the sounds were coming from her mother’s kitchen, but that home seemed much farther away than just eleven train stops now. Esme stepped into the living room and ran her hand over the books on the shelf, VHS tapes, a tiny Eiffel Tower, a white spiral seashell the size of Esme’s head, and masks, not costume pieces or the Halloween kind but little ones carved from pink stones with eyes, noses, and mouths so boxy they were barely human.
There were also framed pictures of Amelia dancing, not as an adult but as a child and a teenager. Amelia was maybe seven or eight in the youngest picture, dressed in a hot-pink tutu with a diamond-studded leotard and a tiara. She was only in technique shoes and first position but smiling so brightly that Esme knew ballet was her favorite thing. It must have been so hard for her to stand still when all she wanted to do was dance in her beautiful costume.
In another, Amelia was sixteen or seventeen, posed at the barre in leg warmers with a baggy sweatshirt covering most of Amelia’s frame. One leg was stretched over the barre. Amelia stared into the mirror, wisps of hair escaping her ponytail and framing her face like a halo. Her reflection stared back, unaware that someone was taking a picture. I will get you there, the real Amelia whispered to mirror Amelia, holding a perfect pose. The intensity was so great that years later in Amelia’s living room, Esme shivered.
“You must be starving,” the real Amelia called from the hallway. “How about some soup?” She’d already set a tray of soup, a plate of crackers, and two water glasses on the coffee table.