A Lily in the Light(66)
“Well.” Amelia had sighed. “Why wouldn’t I water an orchid?”
“No, but really.” She’d wanted an answer, not a metaphor.
“Yes, but really,” Amelia had said. “You would’ve stopped dancing, and it would’ve destroyed you. To have that much potential . . . it broke my heart to think of you in a cubicle, thirty years old, surrounded by plastic ferns, wondering what you could’ve been. You already had one part of your life taken away. I couldn’t let life take another . . .” Her voice had trailed off.
Esme mulled over the question of whether she would’ve been happier with or without dance. Life in a cubicle surrounded by paper clip chains and tape dispensers sounded terrifying. What would she use those tools for? What would the sum of her life be?
But it suited most people just fine. It might’ve suited her, too, had it not been for Lily. Lily had given her the push she needed to step away from home.
That was the last time she’d seen Amelia, but she wrote sometimes, sending postcards from places she’d traveled or programs from shows, knowing her life had started in that little house on the edge of a forest. Well, it was a park, but it had seemed like a forest then. Everything about Amelia had seemed bigger, an invitation into the next part of Esme’s life. She could never really say thank you for that. She’d never know how.
Scenario five: If she hadn’t met Adam at SFBS. They’d been singled out together, even if Esme suspected she wouldn’t be as good without him. Once, after a particularly bad week without sleep, she’d searched the newly posted casting list for her name, but she hadn’t been on it. Again. She’d dumped out her dresser drawers that night and shoved everything into her suitcase. The room had been blurry. She hadn’t even bothered to turn on the lights. It hadn’t mattered. She never wanted to see the shitty gray rug or her cardboard mattress or smell the lemon Pine-Sol stink of the hallway ever again. She would drive a taxi like her father if she had to, but she was done with dance. She’d left her dance stuff on her bed in a heap for whatever stupid dancer came next. And someone would fill her space, some other person who believed they’d be an exception to something impossible.
Adam had followed her down the hallway that night and out the front door, all the way to the bus station, where she’d bought a ticket to Sacramento because she’d only had a twenty-dollar bill in her pocket, but it was not here. Adam had bought one too even though she’d ignored him. He’d sat two rows behind her and stared out the window while she’d cried into her sleeve. If someone else couldn’t cut it, they’d go back to their family and their bedrooms with New Kids on the Block posters and drawers of left-behind clothes. They’d watch TV and find other things to do instead, but not Esme. Going home was like crawling inside a shed cicada skin now. She couldn’t do it, but there was nowhere else to go.
The moon outside the window had had a halo around it. When she’d finally calmed down and realized how stupid the whole thing was, Adam had slid into the seat beside her.
“You’ll get there,” he’d whispered. It had been the only thing he said for the rest of the night, but it had been enough to switch buses back to San Francisco. Esme had rested her head on Adam’s shoulder as stars raced past the window. It was the first time she’d ever rested her head on a boy’s shoulder, but she’d been too tired to feel awkward. It had struck Esme then that Adam hadn’t had anywhere else to go either, and maybe he needed her too. The bus had rocked gently beneath them, and for the first time in days, she’d fallen asleep.
She ran through each scenario on the ride back to Paris, as she walked the long way to the studio, no longer concerned about missing rehearsal. In a few days, this would be over. She’d go back to San Francisco and lock her memories of Adam inside herself. They’d be safe there, packaged in whatever form she needed instead of what he’d become. Grown apart. She tossed the phrase around in her head, thinking of dandelion wisps huddled together until someone blew them apart, scattering seeds to make new plants before turning to seed and blowing away again. They were the same plant in new places. She was thinking about Adam, but it came back to Lily. It always came back to Lily.
“Es? I have news.” Madeline didn’t wait for a reply before rushing on. “Gloria Garcia’s maiden name is Santos. Her brother is Anthony Santos.”
The name was as familiar as a smell. Esme pressed the phone against her ear and waited for it to make sense. “Birdman.”
“Yes,” Madeline said, breathlessly. Any trace of her hysteria from the other night was gone. “The police contacted Mom and Dad and are running a DNA profile on Liz to see if she’s a match for Lily. They said she roughly matches the age-progression images Mom has, and the time frame makes sense. Birdman was away when Lily went missing, but there was water in the plants, and the mail was gone. Maybe his sister was watching his place. She lived close enough.”
Esme felt like someone had slid an ice cube down her spine. She sat up straighter. Her sinuses cleared, and her skin was covered in goose bumps. This could not be right. It could not all come together this quickly after eight years of nothing. She would not allow herself to even imagine it yet, but there had never been a connection this close. Imaginary Lily was outside the phone booth now running in little circles with her arms above her head. Do not get excited, Esme warned her. It doesn’t mean anything yet. Imaginary Lily crawled under the table where the roses were still in their vase, only the petals had fallen and curled at the edges.