A Lily in the Light(64)
The motorcycle slowed to a stop. Everything was suddenly quiet, rushing wind replaced with the crashing and calm of the ocean. Her legs trembled as she stepped off the bike. The wooden boards creaked beneath their feet. Cafés and restaurants were closed along the strip. The beach was dotted with umbrellas rolled tightly shut. They quivered in the wind. The ocean was a mess of blackness and breaking waves. Esme tried to imagine what it would look like in full sun instead of just a tiny sliver of moonlight.
Is this where Mommy is? Lily might’ve asked her stranger. We’ll see, her stranger might’ve said. She could almost see them, the outline of a tall, dark shape and Lily’s skinny legs poking out beneath her red corduroy coat, her tangle of dark hair. Why, why did Madeline have to tell her about the girl in the basement? She should just be a woman looking at the ocean. She didn’t want to think about all the horrible possibilities, one worse than the next. Imaginary Lily was a blank page. Esme could fill her in however she needed, but the girl in the basement was not.
“Come.” Christophe pulled her toward the sand. He kicked off his shoes and carried them. They walked to an umbrella near the water.
“I’ve found beach glass here before,” he said, uncoiling the rope around the umbrella. It sprang open into a canopy of blue-and-white stripes, a bathing screen. It looked like a tiny circus tent, out of place with only the moon for company. He swept the curtain aside and pinned it back, a window to the ocean.
The smell of seawater and tanning oil folded around her. Christophe spread his jacket over the sand. They sat together. The heat from his body burrowed through her jeans. The tent reminded her of childhood sheet forts held together with pillows and stuffed animals, but this one was sturdy, just as Christophe’s thigh was beside hers or his arm around her shoulders, a secret place. When was the moment she’d realize it was wrong and couldn’t undo what was happening? Christophe leaned his head toward hers.
“I used to come here as a kid,” he said. “My brothers and I used to wade out as far as we could.”
“How many brothers do you have?” A thin red string was tied around his wrist, frayed and faded.
“Four. They’re all married and miserable.” A sad smile pulled at his mouth. He shook his head as if the whole arrangement was inhumane. Esme felt a stab of guilt for her sister.
“And you?” Esme asked, curious about nonballet plans.
“Eventually.” He sighed. “It happens to all of us eventually.”
A crab skittered slowly along the sand, pale as moonlight, disappointed by their presence.
“It doesn’t have to be,” she said. “That doesn’t have to be anybody’s future.”
His eyes met hers. “We can’t all be prima ballerinas.”
Her face reddened, followed by the familiar tinge of disappointment. She’d worked so hard and sacrificed so much, but no one saw it that way. She shifted away from him.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Christophe’s eyes narrowed with concern. “I didn’t mean that toward you. I meant it more for me.”
He reached for her feet and untied her laces. Esme squirmed, embarrassed by her gnarled feet. She didn’t want him to see them, and yet as he untied her laces, she wanted him to see the toll dance had taken on one small part of her body, to see the scars she hid.
High tide was coming in. The waves crept closer, swallowing dry sand with every thirsty wash. Her shoe slipped off. Blisters, bandages, the callous on her heel, and the missing nail on her pinky toe fell under the moonlight. She was proud to arch her foot, an easy motion that had taken years to achieve. She waited for any trace of disgust or realization that her journey hadn’t been easy. Instead, he ran his fingers over the calloused places. To her surprise, he lowered his face to her arch and kissed it. Her spine tingled.
“Tell me the story of the red string. Why do you wear it?”
Christophe looked at the string as if it were unfamiliar. His other hand reached for it and tugged, leaving a thin mark on his skin. He hesitated.
“It’s a reminder.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder. His wrist and the red thread disappeared under her hair.
“Of what?”
“That”—Christophe sighed—“is a story for another time.”
There was a disconnect between them, a forced intimacy. It didn’t sit well, but the night ahead was too long for silence. The more she thought about it, the less she cared. She wished she was here with Adam, without the fresh snap of newness, so she could relax into their old comfortable place. She pushed the thought away.
That same hunched figure sat with Imaginary Lily in the distance. Had there been a moment when Gloria’d looked at the little girl babbling in the back seat through the rearview mirror and realized she couldn’t undo what she’d done?
They sat quietly for a long time, listening to the sound of the ocean, following a trail of white dots in the sky. The world seemed impossibly small. And yet it could swallow someone here, bury them in the sand or wash them away with the ocean.
Esme felt oddly exposed. There was nothing to say. The wind shifted. Christophe traced small circles on her knee. His mouth found hers, a new mouth. Adam. The door closing behind Jennifer. This didn’t feel right, but they were a jumble of hands and clothes, hot skin pressed against a warm summer night, lost in the ocean breeze, and Esme was not alone.