Loud Awake and Lost

And everything I had with Kai—even if I always wanted more—seemed to sustain me just enough until the next time I saw him. If I were going to talk to anyone, maybe I would prefer it to be someone without that bias, someone who hadn’t been with me through this ordeal, or had only known me after I’d lost Anthony—and I had a bleak feeling that my loss of Anthony was bigger than my conscious brain was prepared to reckon with.

The next morning, my parents were cautious with me.

“What are you doing today, sweets?” asked Mom.

“Homework, maybe see a movie with Rachel.”

It wasn’t the answer they wanted. But they’d obviously made a pact with Dr. P not to talk about yesterday’s disappearance. I waited until they’d stepped out around the corner to their favorite diner for their usual Sunday brunch, and then I took out the car again, down to Livingston Street, just to think. I pulled into an outdoor parking area near one of the main federal courthouses.

I bought a coffee and donut from the food cart. With all the car doors locked, I ate my breakfast. It was maybe five minutes, maybe twenty, but unlike last night, this sleep came with real peace in the lingering closeness of yesterday with Kai. He hadn’t called or written, but I was getting used to this rhythm. The way we spent time together didn’t obey the natural laws of dating. Instead I’d have to tap into the dream, find the brine and beach sand, and the sweet softness of that particular memory.

When I woke up, it was clear to me that if I was really in the “jam” that Dr. P had mentioned, I actually did know someone who I could talk to. So obvious. It seemed silly that I hadn’t called Lissa before.

25

Drive It

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.”