I finish my fries and place my empty lunch tray by the Dead Guy’s plaque. (O Tim Gelpy, here is your offering of ketchup residue for the day.) And I scoot backward across the ground one, two, three times so that I am in the shadow of the bench. One more and I’d be leaning against it. I want to, but she’d notice, even though she has her eyes closed again.
“And how could you not move around, you know? It had all the steps shouted out right in the beginning of the first song. It was A Chorus Line, have I told you that before? I guess that’s kind of key to our story, because I—I mean, she, our heroine—had no idea that good old Celine the nanny was going to hear some of the words in the music she was dancing to and get really pissed off. So she stopped the music and locked me in my bedroom.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I bet I never told you that part before. She was planning to lock me in there just until my parents came home, but then she remembered that, oh, my parents were flying back from the West Coast and wouldn’t be home until late.”
“How long were you stuck?”
“I don’t know. Long enough to have to empty my box of Legos and pee in it.”
“Damn, that’s awful.”
“And I didn’t tell my parents what Celine did. She asked me not to tell. So she was my nanny until we moved to Seattle.”
The leg of Tim Gelpy’s memorial bench is cool to the touch. I can see why Victoria likes it. I lean against it, with one shoulder.
“But you started taking lessons in New York. The place above the dry cleaners, and the teacher with the pink hair and the cat she brought to class, and all that.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah. All of that totally happened. My mom came to me a few days after the locked-room ordeal, and she was like, ‘Celine said you might like some dance lessons,’ and I agreed.”
The fifth-period bell.
I dart away from the bench, and Vic sits up and for a second her legs come apart, but she smooths out her skirt and gets back to herself.
“So, wait,” I say, picking up my lunch tray.
“Hmm?”
“You started dancing because your nanny traumatized you?”
“That’s not what I said,” Vic says. “I dance because I love it.”
We’re back in the building, and I’m walking too slowly. Vic stops to let me catch up, and the crowd slides back and forth around us. It’s the weird post-lunchtime dimness after being out in the sun—dim vision, dulled senses. Vic still looks gorgeous, of course, but her face is hazy.
“So I’m working on a new piece,” I tell her.
“That’s great, dearie! What is it?” We’re walking in step again.
“It’s totally different from anything else I’ve done. It’s kind of abstract, but also not?” She wouldn’t believe me even if I told her about the Red Mangrove Estate and what Lilia has done there. So why should I even try to tell her? While I’m creating it, my project can be my own perfect secret.
“Here’s to the girl on the go!” Victoria grins. “Tell me when it’s ready. I want to see it.”
I wish Vic’s story was different. I want it to be a story of pure love for her art—of inspiration and creation, a sense of having had her vision. She leaves for French, and I head in the opposite direction for trigonometry, and with every step of my purple sandals, I’m trying to make something happen. For her, for me, for us. Moving forward . . . well, I’m always moving forward when I walk, but this time seems more solid than usual. I’m going back to Lilia’s. I’m going to finish the red walls and the secret painting. What would it be like to bring Victoria there someday, to let her try to see what I’m seeing? The beauty, the simplicity. Just love. Just art.
The clock by my mother’s bed says 10:02.
Angela is the champion sleeper in our family. She doesn’t remember a single one of our flights to or from San Juan because she always zonks out before takeoff. She slept through hurricanes while my parents and I stared down the trees closest to our house in Naples, willing them not to fall.
But I feel like my taking a single step in the house tonight will wake her up. And, you know, if life was fair and logical, that’s what should happen. Angela should catch me trying to leave, should remember that she’s still mad at me, should force me to sleep on the floor next to her bed to make sure I don’t try to leave again.
It’s so easy to go out the window.
In the imaginary conversation I’m having with my sister, I’m explaining the unexplainable. I’m telling her about the Estate and its weird energy. Its patient doors and its musty stairways and its secret paintings. I’m telling her about how I’ve got to go there, right now—that everything I’ve ever wanted to do with my art seems possible in that place. And somehow, I’m able to say this in a way that makes sense to Angela, and she smiles and remembers Abuela’s mofongo recipe after all, and tells me it’ll be ready when I get home.
I wonder how Lilia leaves the other half of the house. I can’t imagine her saying to Rex, “Hey, I’m going to my studio. I’ll be back at six in the morning.” I bet she just shuts the door and is gone.
But she doesn’t have anyone expecting her to be in a certain place.
Does Victoria feel this way when she’s going to the dance studio or to one of her company practices? Does she feel this pull toward the art, a pull so hard that I think I might wake up with sore muscles tomorrow?
I leave the light on in Mom’s room. “I’m sorry,” I say, to the whole Moreno half of the house.
Outside, it’s colder than it’s been in weeks, and a chilly mist of rain moves in and sticks to me as I’m climbing into my car. I don’t know why, but I feel like taking my cranky old Pontiac tonight. Poor thing needs to get out of the driveway and see the sights. It grumbles at me as I’m maneuvering around Rex’s Jeep, but on the main roads, it doesn’t make a sound. It’s like it knows where I need to be, and that I need to get there as soon as I can.
At a stoplight, I turn the wipers off and the windshield blurs over with rain. A sheen of tiny drops, all of them trapped in the glow of the stoplight and reflecting red onto my hands and face and neck. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful. There’s no one around to see it, but maybe that’s okay. I flick the wipers on again to wash it away, and then the car pushes on toward the Estate.
nine
“I’M BACK.”
I say it to the room, to the walls. I thought I’d feel relieved to be here, but it’s more of a shout than a sigh. Yes! I’m here. Time to work.
The paint and supplies have already been set up for me. My circle and lines from the secret painting are there, but the projection guiding me is gone.
Okay, fine. Back to the red walls.
I wonder what led Lilia here, if this room I’m standing in right now is a place she’s lived in, or if it’s truly nothing more than an adopted studio to her.
I wonder if she’ll ever tell me.
I’ve swept across another white wall with red paint. All I need to do is edge around the door to the empty closet, and it’ll be done.