In the shadows stood a figure in a shiny blue dress. She took a spot at the center of the stage — her arms in the shape of a ring above her head, her back straight, one foot flat and the other pointed, toes tapping in her shoes.
Whispers of excitement filled the auditorium as seats occupied. Two thousand heartbeats gathered with their smiles and applause on standby.
She shut her eyes. Even then, the bulging eyeballs and pointed fingers didn’t disappear. Growing whispers seeped through the cracks forming in the palm of her chest. She felt the burn of the spotlight against her eyelids followed by a roar of applause. She took a deep breath.
The first chords echoed through the room. Her cracks began to fade away. She opened her eyes but stayed in the same position, awaiting the right second to move. A millisecond before or after would be too late. So she stood still like a sniper awaiting its prey. She being prey for the music.
When the right second arrived, she allowed herself to be engulfed by the hungry melodies. The bulging eyes no longer mattered, the pointed fingers were no longer visible, and all that remained was her and the wave of sounds vibrating through her body down to her feet.
The strings and her limbs became one entity. Together they transformed and transported the audience to a place where the world could fit on their finger tips and where the senses of life flowed freely. It was magic really.
The music filled the cracks in her chest and pumped it with air. She began to float.
She flew as the music soared, and up there, everything seemed possible and within reach. There weren’t many days she felt this way. But out here on the stage, when the world was unfolding right before her eyes, she knew this was it. This was the moment she wished she could live in forever.
The audience felt it too. When she took her final bow, a thousand
pounding hearts, rose in rapid applause.
“Elise!” a voice emerges from the crowd.
She looks up and there is a lady walking towards her wearing a red scarf around her neck. She blinks and the lady still approaches. She blinks again and now the stage is gone, the audience too. Only the music remains.
Elise searches her surrounding for proof she is sane. It betrayed her. The only space around her is a five-foot wide wooden counter space. She isn’t in a shiny blue costume anymore. But rather wears a grey overall with her name plastered on it. Her hair is in a messy pony tail held loosely by a yellow headband. She is poignantly aware that she smells of sweat and cake dough.
She reaches behind her to reduce the volume of the speakers.
“Are you okay?” The red scarf lady asks.
“I’m sorry I was in my head for a moment there.” Elise quivers. “What can I do for you?”
“I understand. This song is too beautiful not to get lost in.”
Elise bows her head in embarrassment but a sliver of pride lurks behind her folded lips.
“I just need a little assistance, if you don’t mind me asking for directions.” Red scarf lady says, “I think I’m lost.”
“It’s no problem at all, we get a lot of people asking for directions all the time because of our distance to the railway. Good for business too.” she waves her arms enthusiastically like in a TV commercial.
“I don’t want to be a bother.”
“As I said, totally fine. So where are you headed?”
The red scarf lady squints her brown eyes and scratches her head. She eventually gives in and frantically searches her bag. It is here that Elise
notices some familiarity in her dressing style— the red linen scarf, long sleeve shirt, expensive looking boots and slick back hairdo. She saw people like her all the time in the city not so much in the town she’s returned to.
Red scarf lady pulls out a wrinkled flyer and points to a place Elise recognizes.
“You’re in luck. It’s not very far.” Elise leaves her counter cubicle to give clear directions which indeed isn’t far because it’s only a three step process.
“Thank you very much. My phone just died and I didn’t know what to do.” she reaches for a handshake and notices the metal cast on Elise’s right leg. Elise follows her gaze and automatically jumps into her routine response.
“It looks worse than it actually is.”
“Well, I hope you get better.” She firms her shake which then evolves into a hug.
Too stunned to think of another routine response, Elise blurts, “You’re welcome, I mean, would you like something else? Maybe a drink for the road?”
“Uhm,” she looks around the half empty shelves, and in the decade old refrigerator, past the candy section then her eyes stop at the baked goods section. In a childish squeal she says, “You sell corncakes?”
Elise nods unsure of how to react to her enthusiasm.
“I will definitely have this.” She picks up four cakes and fifth to taste, she takes a bite and then a bigger bite. “So good.” She says with a pang of nostalgia in her voice.
“It’s just a recipe my neighbor taught me, I’m glad you like it.” Elise adds as she packs them in a paper bag.
“You made these? Wow, you’re really good."
“It’s average at best. I barely know anything about baking.”
“I’m serious.” She finishes the last bite.
They exchange money and cakes across the wooden counter and red scarf lady says her goodbyes. But before leaving, she adds one last comment
“I love your music taste, reminds me of my theater days.”
Elise smiles, but only half a smile. This comment leaves a bitter-sweet taste in her mouth. Her attention is drawn back to the music playing. Memories flood in. Her toes start tapping. She shakes her head, refuses to get sucked in again.
Instead she leaves her counter space and attempts to get something done. Anything that could prove to herself and anyone else secretly watching that she isn’t handicapped. She fills the coffee and tea dispensers, cleans then restocks the shelves and later the fridge. Her steps are gradually turning into limps but she doesn’t stop.
As she stocks the refrigerator, she notices there is not as much ice as there should be. She places her ear to the side of the fridge. The buzzing sound it usually makes is gone.
“Dad!” she yells.
Her father pops his head through a door behind her.
She points to the “We have to call Anthony, the fridge has stopped working again.”
“I’m on it.” he says in his deep, full voice.
He steps into the store. The grey overalls he wore this morning are now brown and his fingertips are tainted in black paint. Beads of sweat drips from his receding hairline and his perfectly shaped mustache.
“At least it lasted a week this time” she shrugs.
A middle age man walks in to buy a packet of cigarette and a gift card. She attends to him. She tries her hardest to hide her limping but fails. She looked over to her father for any indication that he noticed.
He mouths something to himself, goes back in and returns without the overalls and a napkin on his shoulders.
“That’s enough for today.” He says, wiping his hands unsuccessfully. “You can take your rest now, I will take over from here.”
“I don’t need rest, I am fine.”
His grey mustache frowns in worry. “Elise, don’t disregard what the doctor said, it might take a while to heal.”
“I mean it, I am fine. It just looks worse than it actually is.” She spins around to prove her point. “I will be jumping around in no time. Besides, the day is already over, so you go and rest, I assume pulling down a wall isn’t easy.”
“Then no work for you tomorrow.”
“Fine.” she grunts.
He leaves with hesitation in his feet. She goes ahead with her duties, attends to other customers too, some not as nice as red scarf lady. And even though her legs hurt, she wouldn’t dare admit it.
As daylight fades, she flips the open sign on the front door and retires for the day. The breeze is calm today and the skyline is a majestic shade of orange-purple. She takes a giant mug of tea to the front porch and sinks into one of three foldable chairs she wiped earlier.
The song still plays in the background.
Her father joins her. He brings with him a stool for her to rest her feet on. She hesitates for a second before agreeing.
“What did Anthony say?” Elise asks after a long stretch of silence.
“He didn’t pick up.”
“I guess we’ll have to find someone else.”
“He would’ve picked up if it was you.”
She scoffs, “Yeah right. I know what you’re thinking and it’s not happening.”
“Did you see the way he looked at you yesterday?” he made a face deserving of an eye roll. She laughs instead. “I know a man in love when I see one.”
“And if you see a woman worthy of love, show her to Anthony, because she’s not me.” she says, still laughing.
His face drops, “don’t you ever say that.”
“It’s true.”
“No” he shakes his head. “You are still as beautiful as you were a month ago. Nothing has changed.”
“My legs have changed and…” She pauses to thinks of a less pathetic way to continue the sentence. “I love you for trying to encourage me but that means everything has changed.”
“You will get better, maybe not to the extent you want to but you will.” He placed his warm hands on her shoulders.
“I was so close.” She sniffs. “So close to my dream I could touch it. It’s just really hard to wrap my head around it sometimes.”
“That will come with time.” he pulls her in and they stay in each other’s arms.
“Thank you dad but I’m still not marrying Anthony though” she says once they’re apart.
“That is totally fine.” He laughs.
Elise heads into the shop for a refill. The shop is quiet. She realizes that the song must have ended sometime during the conversation earlier. She
disabled the repeat function because she thought it would be easier to change the song then. She was wrong.
It is quiet in the shop but the song still echoes in her head.
She remembers every chord. She feels the burn of the spotlight over her head. She remembers the cheers of the crowd chanting her name. She remembers the leap, she was flying. The music stops. She feels the ground call to her, the fall, the crack, and the sudden snap of everything turning black.
She reaches for the play button, she wants to return to the seconds before the fall. She stops herself.
She goes back outside with two cups of tea, two slices of cake and half a smile.
“Maybe Mr. Lawrence can help with the fridge?” she says as she takes her seat. “I’ll ask him tonight. He’s teaching me how to make cheesecake.
“That sounds like a good idea.”
They return to watching the sun retreat into its hiding place. Just two beating hearts taking the day in in silence. From a distance that would be the case but when you zoom in, you see a pair of feet tapping to the strings only she could hear.