A Lily in the Light(51)
“Esme.” Adam spotted her from the door. “Got a sec?”
The courtyard went silent. Dozens of eyes avoided the girl from San Francisco, Adam’s random friend. Why was she here? One girl in particular, Jennifer, glared at her through blue-eyed slits, arms crossed icily over her chest, but the look Jennifer gave Adam was worse. She stared, daring him to look at her. The feeling was so intense it made Esme shiver in the sun.
“Merde,” Ashley whispered, squeezing her arm lightly. “Go ahead, Waltz Girl.”
Esme ignored her. For the first time in her life, she did not want a principal role.
“You’ve probably heard about Denise,” he said. The office door closed behind him. It was a forgotten office. There was only a desk with a thin gold lamp, a quiet rotary phone, a vase of lilacs. “Are you up for it?”
Esme hesitated.
“God.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why you’re so against this one, but the way you’re warring with it makes it perfect for you, Es. Don’t you see?”
He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I probably shouldn’t say this, and I’m sorry for Denise, but I’m glad it worked out this way. You can’t fake a Waltz Girl, Esme. The only reason—”
“It’s OK,” Esme rushed on. “It’s really OK, Adam. I didn’t expect more than a corps role. Serenade carries a lot of weight for me—it always has—but I’m happy to be here.”
Was she? “Hey, Emerald,” he’d said that day over the phone, her nickname from a bored night of internet searching name meanings on a computer neither had used before. They’d screamed when the dial-up sound had started. They’d broken it for sure. If she could have a little of that old life back, maybe she wouldn’t feel so untethered. Paris was better than home or her empty apartment, but she hadn’t felt welcomed. Adam was too busy now. Their time was too short. This whole experience was meant to be something else, but she wasn’t sure what. It left her feeling disappointed in some forgotten part of herself.
“Well.” He sighed. A small smile crept over his face, the same promising one that had held her together that first year in San Francisco. “Here you are. I need an hour or two to sort a few things out, but start without me, and I’ll join you when I can.”
He was all business. Where was the Adam who’d come to see her after her first performance as a soloist last year, surprising her in the wings with pink roses? Or the Adam who called her sometimes in the middle of the night, when it was midnight her time and three in the morning his, just to see how her day had been?
Esme lingered in the dusty office. The vase of lilacs, bright and purple and startlingly out of place, stared back at her. Something nagged inside. Adam leaned against the desk, staring out the window at the courtyard beyond, a sketch of lines and shadows in the flickering sun.
“Adam, why are you doing this? You know they’ll give you shit for it.” This was Adam’s show, his first stab at producing. It was a small show, but still. There was no one to blame except him, no management or higher-up conspiracies. The others would be pissed.
Her mother used to say her children were always with her, even before they’d been born. Now, Esme felt her younger self, an eleven-year-old in a black leotard and pink tights, her first pair of pointe shoes, walking around in the dark, empty space inside herself, waiting to see what her nineteen-year-old self would do. There was so much that little girl didn’t understand. Serenade in C ran through her head. It shook all her nervous places. She would panic when the Waltz Girl’s oblivion ended. That was the part she could not do.
He shrugged and stared into the courtyard. The glass looked like it was melting slowly. Everyone outside was a blur of colors and limbs. Adam was solidly real in comparison, even in the dim office light.
“This is my thing, Esme. I don’t have to explain.”
She’d seen this mood once before. In their third year, they’d gone to see SFB’s Nutcracker. He’d been regular Adam, skimming the program, sipping a Diet Coke, mumbling that the orchestra was slightly off tempo, but after intermission, Adam’s mood had changed. He’d kicked the back of the empty seat in front of him, pulled loose threads from his chair, torn his program into shreds, littering the ground with black-and-white headshots. When the sled had carried Clara and the prince away, heat had washed off Adam in waves so thick she’d thought he’d explode.
“Are you OK?”
No answer.
“We can leave if you want to.”
He’d stared at the stage as snow sprinkled the audience. The show had ended. The lights had turned on. Ushers had opened exit doors. People had slipped arms through coats, the sleeves snakelike in the dim lights.
“I can’t believe how stupid this is,” Adam had said at last.
Esme had pushed a glossy program piece with her toe.
“Do you know how I got here?” He’d laughed, coughlike. “My mother put me in a rubber boat with a father I’d never met and pushed us into the ocean. She waded out . . . she waded out in this dress she always wore with little white daisies. It floated up around her knees, and her feet looked so bloated in the water. She kept pulling at the strings on my life jacket.”
Adam had been lost in something so personal that Esme hadn’t been sure how much he’d meant to tell her. He’d rubbed the side of his neck, easing away ghost pain.