There Will Come a Time (12 page)

“Lily.” She smiles and her whole face lights up. She's cute. “I just transferred in this year. I'm a junior,” she says, as if to answer my question about why I haven't seen her before.

Either she's really good or no one wanted to help Pete. I size her up: small frame, skinny, and a little flat in the chest, more like a ballet dancer. She's wearing two-toned black-and-purple leggings, high-top Nike sneakers, and a gray baggy T-shirt with a red flannel tied around her waist.

“I'm supposed to tell you to come to the dance room.”

“Now?” I say, a little annoyed because the piece isn't ready.

“Yeah, we're all there.”

I think about having her tell Pete I'm not coming, but I know he'll just come here himself and demand my presence. I pack up my bass.

“Where have you been?” Sebastian asks when I follow Lily
into the dance room. He and Brandon are set up in the corner. Pete's talking to someone on his phone.

“No one told me we were having practice.”

“Pete said you called it.”

“No, I told him I was going to . . . Never mind. Actually, this'll work. I have some ideas we can play around with. Hey, Brandon.”

“Hey,” he says. “Hi, Lily.”

Lily gives him a big smile and sits down on the hardwood floor in front of the mirrors and begins stretching. I talk through what I have in mind with Sebastian and Brandon.

When we're ready, I count off and Brandon starts the piece with the cello. Sebastian comes in on his drum machine after a couple of measures. Sebastian's beats are simple at first and a little thin, but he's setting the tempo. Lily begins twisting and turning, contorting her body to the music. I take out my bow and begin playing long sustained notes, holding them longer than Brandon's, so as I finish one, he's already on to the next. It's like a call and response.

As the beats become more intricate, Lily uses them as markers, making her movements more angled, sharp. She pops and juts her body to the rhythm.

I switch to pizzicato, plucking the bass lines. We play for a couple of minutes before I give the signal to stop.

Pete claps. “That was great, Santos. Really great.”

“It was crap,” I say.

Lily stands with her hands on her hips. A little sweat forms on her temple.

I add, “Not you, Lily, what you're doing is awesome.”

She smiles. “I'm just freestyling.” Her smile is the kind that makes you want to lean in closer.

“No, no, it's going to be good,” Sebastian says. “It's rough, sure, but once you write what we'll actually be playing . . . I can hear it.”

“We'll be playing when the models walk the runway, right?” Brandon asks.

“Yes and no. Okay, here's the show. I wrote it all down.” Pete opens his sketchbook and explains his concept, which is big and extravagant and completely Pete, but I have no idea if we'll be able to pull off.

“Cool,” Lily says when he's done. “So how many dancers are you thinking?”

“Seven? Can you get me that many?”

“Done.”

“So I have to be a model now?” Brandon asks, looking worried. “I'm not going shirtless.”

“Neither am I,” Sebastian adds.

I shake my head no when Pete looks at me.

“Cowards,” Pete says. “I'll need to take all your measurements. Lily, we'll have to talk costumes for the dancers, too.”

“Sure. Are we done, then?” Lily says.

I check the time. “We have ten minutes or so. Let's keep playing, see what we come up with. Can you dance again?” I ask Lily.

“Yeah.”

Lily interprets the music so effortlessly that I find myself inspired. Next to Levon, she's probably the best dancer I've seen at the school. She'd be the perfect muse, not just for this show, but for my senior recital at the end of the year. Pete asks me something as I'm playing; I nod my head. My focus is on Lily. Her movements are the beginning of a feeling that's contagious and grows with each measure. It takes me a beat before I recognize it: hope.

•  •  •  •

I didn't realize I'd agreed to go to the fashion district with Pete after school, but I guess I did. He told Sebastian he'd be my ride home, too. Pete also ropes in Lily because he wants to go over fabric for the dancers' costumes.

“How long is this going to take?” I ask Pete as he parks in a tagged-up lot surrounded by a chain-link fence.

“Not too long. An hour?”

I've only been down here one other time, which was also
with Pete when he recruited me for a different project. The fashion district is located in downtown LA, and it reminds me a little of being in certain parts of Mexico. Each store has reams and reams of multicolored fabric in their front windows and spilling out onto the sidewalk. Since we're here in the afternoon, it's crowded and the streets have that too-many-people smell of BO and milk, which makes me want to gag.

Pete takes us to his usual haunts. In one of the larger stores, I have to pause so I don't get dizzy. The walls have rolls of fabric piled to the ceiling. There're too many bright colors in one place. Pete and Lily walk through the aisles as if they know exactly what they're looking for. He stops in front of a ream of a camouflage.

“Yes. For the bottoms, for sure,” Lily says.

“You planning an eighties retro look?” I ask as I touch a black piece of velvet from a nearby ream.

Pete glances at Lily as if to say,
See what I put up with
?

“In due time, my friend,” he says. “In due time. Maybe this can be for you.”

“For me?” I ask.

“Yeah, remember, you're part of the show.” He holds the camouflage up to my face as if he's testing the color.

“Pete, nothing embarrassing, okay?”

“It'll be my designs. When have they ever been embarrassing?”

“There was that one—”

“Stop! Freshman year shall not be mentioned.”

Pete and Lily continue walking around the store, pulling more fabric and other items on his list, while I find a seat by the door. There are a couple of fashion students here, probably from one of the local colleges. It's easy to tell them apart from the general public who're just trying to get a deal. The students all have that skinny, a little androgynous, funky with their clothes or hair look, like Pete. Pete will be one of them soon. He's hoping to go to Otis, a really good arts school in the area, next year. He's so driven that my lack of plans seems to freak him out a bit, but he doesn't ride me about it.

We leave the store and load up Pete's car.

“That was fun,” I say, the sarcasm lost on both of them.

“Yeah, thanks for taking me. I've never been here,” Lily says.

“Oh, we're not done yet.”

“Lead on,” she says.

I groan, but follow the two of them through the tight streets past smaller stores that all look like variations of each other. How many fabric stores could there be? The store clerks perch outside on metallic stools ready to offer you a great deal as soon as you are in earshot. Pete stops at one to buy some lace. Lily waits with me. We lean against a concrete wall.

“I thought you'd be more into fashion,” she says.

I think it's supposed to be a compliment. “I like the finished product.”

She nods. “Pete's very talented. How long have you known him?”

“Since freshman year. Where'd you transfer from?”

“This terrible school. I moved from Chicago two years ago and my grandma didn't really know about the schools in her area.”

“Chicago? That's kind of far.”

“Yeah, well, after my mom died, Dad and my sister and I moved in with Grandma. LA's not that bad. The people are cool.”

She pulls out her phone and starts texting or whatever.

“I'm sorry,” I say, and cringe because I'm saying the very words I hate to hear.

She keeps typing. “It's not your fault she died, but thank you.”

I notice her fingers are long and slender. Everything about her is petite, but she's got incredible strength. There was a part in her free styling when she switched to B-boying and performed a one-handed freeze for more than a couple of seconds, then threaded into another handstand.

Maybe it's because of her transparency or because she doesn't really know me, but I say, “My twin sister died last year.”

She looks at me. “What was her name?”

“Grace.”

“That's pretty. My mom's name was Susan, but everyone
called her Suzie. She had the best laugh. I have an old voice mail of her telling me about this perv that tried to pick her up at a grocery store and she bursts out laughing. I sometimes play it when I miss her. Want to hear it?”

I'm taken aback with how open she is, so I just nod. Lily finds the recording on her phone. She puts the phone on speaker so we can both listen. Her mom tells the story and at the end comes the laugh, deep and rich and explosive. She ends with, “Love you, baby.”

I agree with Lily about the laugh.

“What do you miss about Grace today?” she asks, which takes me a little off guard. In fact, the whole conversation is a little unnerving.

“Today?”

“Yeah, like today I miss Mom's laugh, other days it's the way she'd make French toast, a little burnt and crispy.”

“I don't know. I . . . How can you just talk about it, about your mom?”

“What's the alternative? Not talking? Then it'd be like she was never here.”

She starts typing again on her phone.

Lily shocks me. I mean, could she be more blunt? She's not waiting for me to answer, either. She acts as if she doesn't care if I respond or not. So I decide to offer up: “I guess today it's
the fights we'd have in the morning over the bathroom.” Grace took forever, so I usually tried to get in there before her, since we shared a shower. But sometimes I didn't make it. I'd pound on the door and tell her it wasn't her personal sauna.

Lily puts her phone in her back pocket. “That's a good thing to miss because it's real. The details are important. They start to fade if you don't work to remember them.”

Pete exits and I'm a little disappointed because I was starting to get into our conversation.

“Done?” Lily asks him.

“Almost. Come on.”

Pete walks slowly, leading us down one of the alleys, where the feel is more like a foreign bazaar. Tiny stores are all smashed together, selling not just fabric, but clothes, shoes, children's toys, jewelry, clubbing attire, watches, towels, and sports paraphernalia. Everything's cheaply made. You'll save money buying the stuff, but get ready for it to fall apart in a month.

Lily stops at a jewelry case. She picks up a beaded necklace and holds it up to me.

“I'm not a necklace kind of guy,” I say.

“Yeah,” Pete says, “the only accessories you'll see on Mark are those plugs and beanie.”

The way he says “beanie” makes me ask, “What's wrong with my beanie?”

“Nothing.”

Lily laughs just like her mom. “Ohh,” she says when she sees mannequins wearing leotards and huge multicolored leg warmers in a shop's window. “I'll be back.” She enters the store.

“Where'd you find her?” I ask, not daring to trail after her.

“Levon's suggestion. He's too busy with his own senior show.”

“She's . . .”

“Great, I know. I knew you two would get along.”

“I was going to say ‘forward.' ”

Lily comes out of the store and smiles at us, holding up a pair of leggings as if she's just found some major score. “Aren't these amazing?”

“Yes,” Pete says. “Perfect.”

I want to say that
she's
amazing, but I stop myself. Just because she's pretty and talented, and we bonded over each having a dead relative doesn't mean that we have some deep connection. But there is something about her for sure.

•  •  •  •

That night I get a text. It's from Hanna.

Run?

Now?

Duh.

It's dark out already.

Not a problem. Outside in five.

I open my front door and Hanna is on the sidewalk, bending down over her left leg, stretching. She looks up at me and I burst out laughing. She's wearing one of those headlamps on top of her head.

“Laugh all you want. It's perfect.”

“Where'd you get that?”

“I found it in our camping stuff.”

I join her stretching. “Can you even run with it?”

She reaches up and pats the bulb. “I tightened it. If not we can strap it to your big head.”

I spy her running shoes. “Did you get new shoes?”

“Yeah, Steve got them for me. He said I needed proper running shoes to train. These are supposedly the best.”

“Steve's really working hard, huh?” I say as I pull my arm across my chest.

“It can't be too easy to win me over.”

“So he's buying your love?”

She stands up. “I didn't say anything about love. Ready?”

She doesn't wait for an answer and starts jogging up the hill. I jump up and quickly catch her.

“We're supposed to be able”—she takes a breath—“to talk a little back and forth”—another breath—“have a pace where we can still”—breath—“have a”—breath—“conversation.”

By the time we reach the top, she's too winded to talk. It takes a couple of paces running on the flat road for her to regulate her breathing.

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“I read it somewhere.”

I could easily pass her, but I don't. I stay with her and shorten my stride. The sidewalk is wide enough for the two of us to run together. The trick is not making it look like I'm going too slow. She doesn't like charity. She told me if we're going to train together that I shouldn't hold back. I don't see the point in running with her if we're not together.