A Lily in the Light(41)
“Really?” Esme tried not to squeal. She’d only ever seen videotapes from the library. What would it feel like to watch that blue light fall over those diamond girls? All these new things made Esme’s brain turn over in a way it didn’t usually. Maybe it had happened to Balanchine when he’d first come to America, and that was why Serenade was so good.
“Mm-hmm. We can go this afternoon. It’s a dress rehearsal. We’ll be the only ones in the theater, and there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
“Who?” Esme asked. Amelia had only been sixteen when she’d joined the New York City Ballet as a corps member. It was hard to believe Esme was only five years away from the beginning of Amelia’s dance career.
“Paul Katzman, a choreographer. He’s part of the judging panel for NYCB summer students this year.”
“Oh,” Esme said, mildly disappointed that Paul and NYCB were here in New York. She wanted to be farther away.
Amelia handed Esme her breakfast. Steam rose off the omelet next to a pile of mixed greens and sliced cherry tomatoes. This was fancy restaurant food. She couldn’t remember not scooping her food from a big bowl her mother set out for everyone. This was the first time someone had made a plate with everything on it just for her. It was too perfect to touch.
At home, Madeline and Nick would be pouring cereal from a box and splashing milk over it. Why did she get to be here? And Lily. Did she have nice breakfasts in her new house? Someone who hung prisms in windows and built a tree house must make nice things. She hoped it was pancakes for Lily, the kind she loved with melted sprinkles inside so it looked like tie-dye.
“He’s very well connected. He used to dance in San Francisco and does some work in Boston. I’ll give you some info to read about him before we go. You should always know who you’re meeting, especially when they can be helpful to you.
“Eat,” Amelia urged.
Esme pushed away the lump in her throat. On Friday, she’d go home for two nights, but she had a whole week before that happened.
After breakfast, she showered, surprised there were only two shampoo bottles on the bathtub ledge, and changed. It wasn’t an audition, but wearing a black leotard and pink tights felt appropriate, especially because she hadn’t brought any nice clothes, and this was a ballet thing. She was fussing with her bun in the hallway mirror when Amelia walked in, heels tapping on the hardwood floor.
“Oh.” Amelia stifled a smile.
The bobby pins pressed between Esme’s lips tasted especially metallic. She didn’t want to tell her she didn’t have anything nice to wear, but Amelia was already rummaging through the closet. Esme finished her bun, pushing away how stupid she felt next to Amelia in her wool pants and leather boots.
“Here.” She slipped a pale-gray sweater over Esme’s head, adjusting the turtleneck so it draped in pretty layers. It was too big, but Amelia wrapped a brown braided belt around Esme’s waist, and when she was finished, it looked like a dress.
“That works,” Amelia said, stepping back to admire Esme. “It’s cashmere. I shrunk it by accident, but I loved that sweater. Soft, right?”
Esme nodded, fighting the urge to snuggle into it. In the mirror, she looked like a mini grown-up. She felt like one, too, living here, going to the city to see a real company rehearse.
On the train, Esme skimmed Paul’s history while a cat in a carrier hissed and scratched against its plastic walls. Its owner whispered soothing sounds. Paul had danced in San Francisco and Boston, organized dance festivals in Saratoga Springs and Prague. Esme wasn’t sure where Prague was, but she knew all about San Francisco.
The theater was somewhere in Manhattan. The city was whirling. The rights and lefts were impossible to follow. People hovered next to buildings with cigarettes, pushed past with shopping bags, carrying children, walking dogs on leashes, while new smells came and faded: sugared nuts, salted pretzels, the faint scent of a fireplace, oil on a cooking grill, exhaust from idling cars. She looked at the smallest New Yorkers under heavy hats and hoods, walking hand in hand with their parents, hoping to spot Lily’s brown eyes under her web of lashes and bangs, but she didn’t. The usual disappointment worked its way between her thoughts and footsteps down the crowded sidewalk.
And for the first time, Esme wondered if those kids belonged with those grown-ups. How would she know if they didn’t? How would anyone know by passing someone on the sidewalk if the little girl they were with wasn’t really named Elizabeth after all and was really someone else? She looked up at Amelia, who was and wasn’t really her own grown-up, and felt panicked for Lily, who was too little to make sense of any of it, especially if Esme couldn’t.
“We’re here.” Amelia pushed open an unmarked door on the side of a building. It wasn’t the kind of theater Esme had expected, in the circle of Lincoln Center or on Broadway with glittering lights and fancy signs, but this was for a private performance, so maybe things were different.
They found seats in the middle of the theater. Amelia waved at someone she knew. The stage was a mess of dancers stretching and talking, sipping coffee, sewing ribbons on pointe shoes. Others kicked the boxes of their shoes against the stage, slipping back to the wings for more rosin. Some practiced. The theater lights dimmed and rose, tracing broken patterns on the stage until the entire theater was bathed in blue light. Even Esme’s hands were underwater blue.