Loud Awake and Lost (17 page)

Juilliard students and School of American Ballet students all shared dorm space together in the Meredith Willson Residence Hall in Midtown. Literally hundreds of kids were auditioning, rehearsing, dreaming, despairing, being made into stars or accepting rejection all under the same roof. It was like a mini-kingdom of dance, fueled on talent and protein bars.

Monday afternoon, I took the subway to Columbus Circle and walked the block up Sixtieth. I signed my name at the lobby desk and pushed through one of the four industrial turnstiles to the equally impersonal elevator bank. My heart quick-jumped at the proximity of all these students—dancers, every one of them. I'd never been talented enough to take dance to the next level, but there'd been a time when I'd loved it just as much as Lissa. It was exciting to be around all that focus and energy, even if it was bittersweet, knowing what I knew now, that I'd always be relegated to the audience.

Lissa was in 1517, up to the fifteenth floor and then down an endless, dingy corridor of pill-bug-gray carpeting. The windowless hall smelled overpoweringly of lemon air freshener.

“Waffles, waffles!” Lissa answered the door with a whoop—but where had I heard that before? Then I remembered—I'd left that as a voice mail message for Rachel, on Halloween.

Why had Lissa said it?

“I'm so happy to see you!” I blurted. And I was. Lissa was wild as always, dressed in her signature unique style—a
LITTLE MISS DIVA
T-shirt, shredded jean shorts over rainbow sockless tights, taped feet, and a dozen blue stripes like jaybird feathers in her long black hair. Lissa's cupid lips were almost always ruby red, meant to be seen from the theater's nosebleeds. At any given moment, she could have been Giselle, or Coppélia, or Snow White.

“You're the best to come visit. Nobody does; I'm simply not exotic enough. University of Vermont, or Berkeley—now
that's
where everyone wants to go, to ski or the beach, or some stinky fraternity party. None of which is happening
chez moi
.”

I smiled, remembering something Holden had said—that Lissa looked like the future and talked like the past. “Believe me, this is plenty exotic,” I assured her. “It's like
Fame
—the next dimension.”

“I wish it were that glamorous. But look—speaking of a new dimension,” Lissa said, lifting her T-shift to reveal a line of script running up her side.

I squinted to read it. “ ‘I don't want dancers who want to dance, I want dancers who need to dance. —George Balanchine.' ” I laughed. “Nice ink. I've never heard that quote before.”

“It's such a lovely thought, though, yes?” Lissa traced the loop-de-loops of the words with her finger, then raised an artful eyebrow at me. “Is it too earnest? Do you think I'll regret it?”

“Lissa, you're the most earnest person I know; plus you don't regret anything.”

“True.” She grinned. “Kick off your shoes. Ooh, and you're wearing my jacket. Name your price, remember.”

“Not for sale. Sorry.” I hung up the jacket on the wall peg, then pulled off the boots and left them at the door as well, sliding in on my socks. Lissa's studio was just what I would have guessed—a few wobbly sticks of secondhand furniture, a lot of center space to move in, plus a great sound system now tuned to something that I would have termed as vaguely experimental jazz.

“All mine, and no roommate is the sugar on top.” Lissa gave an airy wave. “Except I'm never here. I told you I'm in the corps for
The
Nutcracker
this season, right? And next year I'm an understudy in
La
Sylphide.
They're even paying me real money, of all ginormous luxuries. Want tea? I was just about to have some; right now I'm in love with one called Sunday Saturnalia. But I bet they won't arrest us if we have it on Monday.”

“Sure.” I collapsed into a jalapeño-green beanbag chair, flinging out my arms and legs. A ballerina barre had been built against the opposite wall. Over it was a poster of Nureyev leaping through space. I breathed it all in.

“How's school? Is it such unimaginable weirdness to be back, just hum-de-hum, like nothing happened, after everything you went through?”

“There's good days and strange days,” I answered honestly. Today, when I thought back on it, being a strange one. At school, Rachel and I had shared lunch, and things felt to me as if we were in more of a truce than any real burying of the hatchet. I still hadn't been in communication with Holden—or Kai, for that matter. I'd been feeling vaguely off center all day. But I'd been right to come see her, because Lissa, besides being a breath of familiarity, also seemed like the answer to something.

“Except for that dying cactus on the windowsill,” I said, “I've got to admit, I'm pretty jealous of you. It must be so cool to know what you're doing with your life.”

“First of all, he's not dying; he's hibernating. Second—jealous? You?” Lissa glided from the kitchenette across the room to hand me my tea. “Last time we talked about the future, you had dreams of heading off to cooking school in Paris to learn how to poach the perfect egg.”

“Paris?” I sat up to take the mug. “Seriously? When did I say that?”

“Well, I mean it's not like I can
pinpoint
it. You were always talking about it. But I think that it was something you started in on sometime after you bombed that audition.”

“What audition?”

“
Chicago
? You don't remember? You wanted Roxie, and you made chorus.” Lissa dropped gracefully onto the futon. “It was back in December, and Birdie was working with Mr. Cutts and all the drama department people. I didn't see your audition, but you weren't happy about it. You were definitely pegged for a shot at the lead. I landed Velma—it was a lot of work, especially for my senior spring.” She rolled her eyes but she didn't mean it; knowing Lissa, she had loved each grueling rehearsal. “Jeepers creepers, Ember, you could not be giving me more of a blank stare. You don't remember? Well, you were a really good sport about it, but I think you were also feeling kind of like, okay, time to move on. Resolved, I guess. You had other plans.”

“Like culinary school…”

“For sure. Do you still cook? During winter break, you made me this scrumptious box of homemade truffles. It was like heaven. But I was surprised you didn't get Roxie, personally. Gadzooks, but that all feels like a long time ago.” Lissa swung her long legs around, pulling into a seated stretch, her calves flexing
élevé, relevé, élevé.

Chocolate truffles. Paris. An audition for
Chicago.
Nope, no recall of that. My tea tasted like hot, sweet campfire smoke. “I can't remember. What about ‘waffles, waffles'—what's that about?”

Lissa laughed. “It happened one afternoon after practice. We'd been planning to be all healthy and go to Siggy's for those quinoa salads we always craved, but then we got there and checked out the menu and nothing looked particularly delicious—”

“Oh, wait—and we both said ‘waffles, waffles,' at the same time!” I could feel the afternoon, a real-true click, the two of us hunched in the wooden booth at Siggy's. “We wanted waffles and pancakes and French toast and muffins. Mountains of carbs.”

“Yes!” Lissa clapped her hands. “That was just the phrase you used. ‘Mountains of carbs!' ”

The afternoon unspooled in a gust of wind and woolly scarves. Dashing out of the restaurant. Jumping on the subway to get to the IHOP over on Flatbush Avenue. “We were crazy; we must have each eaten for two,” said Lissa. “But that afternoon was hilarious.”

“And then we paid, big-time,” I remembered. We hardly ate a thing the next day except for carrot sticks. Dancers can pick and choose from eating disorders, but a satisfying afternoon of pancakes is just not in the game plan.

“Not your favorite part—the next two days of denial.” Lissa was right. I loved to cook, and I loved to eat—a simple pleasure, but any appetite, for a dancer, was a problem with a world of consequence.

Then I remembered something else. “So that was why we started saying ‘waffles, waffles' to mean a spontaneous, off-the-radar new plan.”

“Yep.”

“Ha. I love it,” I said. It felt great to have it again, too—it was a small, happy gift, like finding ten dollars in the pocket of my jeans.

Lissa stared at me over her mug. “Is this like a brain-damage-memory-loss thing you've got, from the accident? Sorry, not to imply you have brain damage. I mean, because you don't, do you?” She squinched her nose. Lissa relied on her innocent adorableness to save her from her innocent tactlessness.

“I think of it more as missing pieces. Not damaged pieces,” I explained. “And I do get jolted back into memories. Like when I saw you at the club back on Halloween, I could feel these—
sparks,
I guess I'd call them—of what we did last New Year's Eve. We hung out together that night, right?”

“New Year's Eve, sure.” Lissa sighed. “You came over to my place before. We got dressed together.… Let's see.… Oh, and that's when I saw your leather jacket for the first time; you'd just bought it. And I made us mozzarella sticks, do you remember that? No? Or what about that stand-up mirror in my room at home that makes everyone look like they're in a fun house? It was definitely shooting down our confidence, that mirror.”

“You're from Williamsburg.”

“Uh-huh. I am.” Lissa gave me a quick double take. Probably astounded that I could misplace such a huge fact. But nothing was clicking with mozzarella or the fun-house mirror, and I had only a dim recall of Lissa's home of old-fashioned furniture and flocked Victorian wallpaper and sconces that threw off blotted light.

“Okay, okay. Moving on to Areacode, which was where we went next,” continued Lissa, all business. “You'd been joining me on the club scene for a little while, and this dude—or wait, no, it was his
brother
—had given you a flyer earlier that week, up in Manhattan. You were dying to go—but you didn't really know the dude. And you were kind of shilly-shallying about it, hoping he'd be there but trying not to get too excited.”

“Did the guy have a name?” I braced myself. “Anthony, maybe?”

Lissa shook her head. “No. I'd remember that because that's my dad's name. Who's Anthony?”

“Just someone…” I breathed out. It was a relief in a way, every time I slipped a link to Anthony Travolo. It unnerved me to brush up against possible connections that I couldn't recall. It also seemed disrespectful to his memory.

“No, I don't think you knew this guy's name. But I think you knew his brother's name? Which is failing me. Now, I'd know
that
name if you said it.”

“How about Kai?” I said it just to say it, the way Rachel endlessly brought up Jake.

Lissa's face stayed blank. “Last name?”

Did Kai have his dad's last name? “Kai Ortiz?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

I shrugged. “I'm all out of names.”

“Okay. Well, anyway, we were super happy to get into Areacode. The sound was so hot, and I wanted to meet the DJ, or—whatever he called himself—
sonoric
artist.
He was sublime.”

Where did Lissa get these expressions? Not even my parents said
sublime.
“So did it work out? With you and Sublime?”

“For that night, it did. Although it seems that now I've blanked. What
was
his name? DJ London, Londoner…” Lissa shook her head and sipped her tea, leaving an electric red–lipstick smile on the rim. “And you found Romeo Late-Night, he was no slouch, following you around, acting pretty love-struck.”

“On New Year's Eve,” I said, “I guess everyone wants to be a little love-struck. But it feels like such an epic night for me to just…lose.”

“Don't look so sad. Most people don't remember New Year's Eve.” Lissa snapped her fingers. “But there was one other thing— at some point, you told me you were going out onto the fire escape, and you didn't want me to think you'd left. Because I remember thinking that it was crackers of you. I mean, since it was freezing. The coldest night of the year.”

Blood rushed to my head. “Oh my God, Lissa, you can't believe how strange that is! Because it must have triggered me to return to exactly that spot a few weeks ago. Wow, so I guess that wasn't a total coincidence.”

“Speaking of triggering.” Lissa was studying me. “Have you been back to any dance rehearsals at school? Dropped in to see Birdie or anything?”

“No.” I could feel myself get tense. “I keep meaning to. It feels so complicated, seeing her.”

“She's a person, not a jigsaw puzzle. Go see her. She'd love to see you. What about Bowditch Bridge? Have you been there?”

Bowditch Bridge. Even the name made me think of a blade, recarving my scars. “I'd definitely brave seeing Birdie before I went back to the bridge.”

“It might not be a bad idea, Ember. Especially if you want to reboot.” Lissa's voice was soft with care. “There's a term for it, right? ‘Exposure therapy.' Like the fire escape. Or you sit in on your old dance class, or visit your old dance teacher. Or you drive to the bridge, the place where it all happened. Even if, psychologically, it's like running back into the burning building.” She tapped her temple. “Because these blackouts that you're talking about—they're all in there. They might be hiding in a really dark spot, Ember, but they're not lost.”

“Right, I know.” My mind wouldn't stop the whirligig of imagining Bowditch Bridge again. I was acutely conscious of my heart's acceleration, the idea clenched like a fighter's stance in the core of my body. “I don't know. What if I freak out?”