WATER LILY DANCE by Michelle Muriel
EXCERPT
WATER LILY DANCE by Michelle Muriel
Format: Hardcover, Paperback eBook
Genre: Historical Fiction, Biographical Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Literary Ficiton
ISBN: 978-0-9909383-5-4 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-9909383-4-7 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-9909383-3-0 (eBook)
One’s better off alone, and yet there are so many things that are impossible to fathom on one’s own. In fact, it’s a terrible business and the task is a hard one.
CLAUDE MONET
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prologue
Sophie
St. Louis, Missouri
March 2012
After the second knock, I peer out the window at the police officer pounding on my front door. Three light knocks, a polite folding of his hands, two hammers, three and four. “Hello?” he calls. “Open the door please, ma’am.” He catches me at the window.
I check my cell; still no answer from Blake. I grab my keys and slowly open the door.
“Are you Ms. Noel? Sophia Noel? Blake’s wife?” the officer asks.
“Yes.” I stare past him, searching for my husband’s car to pull into our driveway. The drizzle ends, offering thick, warm air and a hazy sunset. Tonight I will tell Blake lavender and faded denim fill the sky.
“I love our sunset game,” Blake says, smiling. “I love your eyes, what you see.”
“Tell me again about my eyes,” I whisper.
“You see what no one else sees. I love that about you. There’s no one like my Sophie.”
“Miss?” the officer says, waving his hand for my attention.
“No one?” I say to myself.
“Ma’am?” the officer says louder. “There’s been an accident. Is Blake—”
I rush past him barefoot, splashing in puddles, through wet grass, into my car, speeding down the street.
I know where Blake is.
I know the street, the address . . . 1135 Cherry Blossom Lane . . . three blocks down the road, turn right, a slight left, three minutes, maybe four.
She wanted to live close to me after her divorce. “Sophie, I’m all alone,” she said. “One more chance—it will be different this time.”
She needed a friend.
I drive through the neighborhood, flashing red and blue in the distance, sirens rising. The smell of damp earth no longer calms me, or cherry blossoms mingled with pines. I see Blake’s car on the other side of the street.
There is nothing left for my heart to do.
It does not beat.
I cannot breathe.
The drizzle returns. A wash of tears covers my eyes. I didn’t see the little boy, the little boy, standing next to his bike. The boy, curious as a little boy would be.
He takes one step.
Why did he have to take that step? Why did I leave my house? Why did I go after Blake? Why did we argue? Why did I have to be right?
“God, please!” I slam the brakes and turn the steering wheel, missing the sidewalk. I throw it in Park, shut off the car, and rush to him—the little boy now curled up on the grass. I kneel beside him. “He’s all right!” I scream, trembling. “He’s all right!”
An officer runs to us. I search past him to Blake.
The sirens stop.
They cover my Blake.
The cold blue lights’ endless swirl cast shadows on his wrecked green car.
Silence.
“He’s gone,” I cry, kneeling next to the little boy. I cradle my face in my hands, unable to look at him, unable to move.
Silence.
“He’s gone,” I cry again, without breaths, without pause. Through my streams, through my fingers, two muddy sneakers step in front of my knees. “He’s gone,” I sob. “He’s . . .”
The little boy’s hands fall over my shoulders—warm, tiny fingers wiggling across my arms, stretching over my body into his soft hug. The boy fills the silence for me with his tender sigh. One pat, two . . . his mother rushes in to take her child home while I tumble to the grass into no one.
1.
Sophie
The quiet of a first snow.
Five seconds.
Softly close the door.
It sticks.
Try again; slam it shut—I want to rip it off and Hulk it out the window.
Breathe. Too late. A staggered breath ricochets inside my chest, tight, heavy, tumbling. I take pills to settle my heart. A shower of tears. It’s hard to swallow, impossible to hold them in. My eyes close to a movie of fast motion thoughts, blurry colored scenes, faces past and present, blinding white at the end of the reel. Fade to black . . . midnight.
When I close my eyes, I see you. I see light and a thousand colors swirling in the air above us. Bits of colors land. We stand in the grass, our toes between thin blades of lime green holding tips of gold, lemon, and cream. I notice this, all shades of colors, because you taught me how to see, truly see.
We come alive, laughing. I run behind a fat oak, its bark patches of melon, milk chocolate, periwinkle cracks. You laugh at me. Admire me in the twilight. I twirl in a pomegranate chiffon dress, swaying the grass around us, turning the shadows bronze and crimson. The cool air bounces off my cheeks. I breathe in rain, wet grass, and daisies stretching up through the earth. We stare up at the sky, its drifting clouds teasing, hiding the stars, revealing twinkling jewels. The moon casts white light over the trees until the seashell clouds tuck in their hidden pearl. Bathed in soft blue, you still see my smile, my rose lips saying goodnight. Tears tumble down my cheeks, you catch them, and with a soft kiss on my forehead, they end. You bottled them all. When I close my eyes, I think of you—in sunshine, starlight, and color—because when I open them, I see you in gray, and it frightens me.
***
The marble tile on my bathroom floor should feel cold; I’m melting. A flush pricks my skin at thoughts of death, loss, fear. I scan the touches in my new bathroom: my husband’s perfectly set tile, fluted window trim . . . the his and hers sinks. “It’s beautiful,” I whisper, stretching across the floor. “But you never got to finish.”
I’m wearing my husband’s favorite outfit: a ruffled green blouse and black slacks; it reminds him of our first date. I don’t care about the drywall dust or paint splatters on the floor; it feels good to lie down, disappear.
“You’re Irish, aren’t you?” Blake snickers in my thoughts. Our memories float above me as letters caught up in a gust of wind that need saving. I catch one. Our first date.
“Irish? How did you know?” I egged Blake on.
“You mentioned that clogging show, Riverdance, you have auburn hair and green eyes.”
I couldn’t stop smiling. Blake was so handsome, the way the corner of his eyes crinkled when he flirted. “Full disclosure, brown eyes, in case this leads to a second date.”
“In case?”
I tugged at the tablecloth and nearly spilled my wine. “Most people see a black and white tablecloth. The black is really blueberry.”
“Sophie, you’re changing the subject, but I’ll play.” He bit his lip, puzzled at me, noticing the tablecloth and tracing a square. “It matches the blue flowers in our vase.”
“Sweet peas. Technically, my mom insists my eyes are honey wheat with silver rims.” I hid my blush, tracing squares with him.
His hand crawled over mine. “Interesting.”
“My mom’s an artist. So am I . . . I think.”
“That explains it—in a good way,” he fired off.
“My best friend talked me into wearing these stupid green contacts. One sec.” I rushed into the bathroom fumbling to remove my lenses, contemplating the hideout. I thought I blew it until I returned to our table. Blake gave me the same enamored gaze on our wedding day. “Will it disappoint you if I’m not Irish?” I asked. We looked away and back into each other’s eyes, snickering and corny as a love-struck couple in an old Hollywood movie.
“Yes. I really need to impress you. I plan on becoming a top-notch attorney.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I read people. It’s what I do.”
“I see.” I bit a hunk of bread to keep from laughing. “Using your logic, you’re Swedish. You have aquamarine eyes, lemon chiffon hair, and you mentioned that movie Meatballs.”
Blake leaned back in his chair, arms folded. I mimicked him, laughing. “Touché. I don’t think—no, I guarantee no one has said I have aquamarine eyes or lemon chiffon hair.”
“Welcome to my world.”
He stared into my eyes with his confident grin, leaned in close and said, “Sophie, don’t ever wear those green contacts again.” And kissed me.
“Technically, avocado.”
When I told Blake my mom was French, he tried to impress me with a few French words. He said them all wrong. “If you would have said wee-wee one more time, I would have lost my mostaccioli,” I confessed to the ceiling, wishing I could live inside that memory forever.
A rap on the bathroom door dissolved nostalgia. I stayed quiet, noticing a crack in my ceiling. Water stains invaded my bathroom ceiling. Stains we should have been primed and painted . . . and cracks. Blake called it settling.
“How do you feather out the Crisco paste again?” Drywall compound, goofy. Blake’s imagined laughter covered the silence. I’ll fix it, Sophie. I’ll fix everything. “It’s too complicated,” I said to no one. “It’s too late.”
Blake added a speaker in the ceiling. “For your smooth jazz,” he said, making faces. He hung my crystal chandelier where I insisted—now it looks off center. The cabinets need pulls. I caved on the brushed nickel. I wanted bronze. We knew how to pick our battles. The bathroom was our last project together, that, and repainting our orange front door, Blake claimed was never an argument but a miscalculation. He promised to fix it. He promised he would fix it all.
I fell in and out of sleep, hoping my friends would leave, imagining my unfinished bathroom as a corner of nature Mom would have painted. That’s what I did.
Imagine.
Blake said if I were a superhero, my imagination would be my superpower because I possessed this strange ability to create beautiful things from nothing and watch them come to life to make the ugly disappear. “Beauty for ashes,” he said.
“You mean I’m an artist.” I laughed.
“It’s more than that. It’s how you see the world. How you determine to see it.”
My colorful imaginings served a purpose only I knew, but after ten years of marriage, Blake understood exactly why I needed the escape. He knew.
The bathroom rug sprouted grass tickling my ears, steel-blue walls: my sky, missing base trim: a crevice in the mud where earthworms sleep. Three taps on the door: an intruding woodpecker. “Fly away,” I shouted, staring at a rainbow of soaps on the tub’s ledge. “Mother soap fresh and fat rests on tub’s edge, watching slivers of her children used, forgotten, cast aside, stuck to holes on the dull silver drain. French soaps—stellar gift, Blake.”
“Sophie, you pick a scented soap based on how you feel?” Blake laughed.
“It’s called aromatherapy,” I said, defending myself.
“A stupid therapy. Make your case.” His smug smile declared I had none.
“My hotshot attorney always thinks he’s right. Fine, unscented ovals for so-so days; cocoa butter bricks: happy days.” He rushed behind my back, pretending his hands were mine, tossing my hair, waving jazz hands. “Minty evergreen loaves: tired days.”
His fingers stroked my chin. “You need a shave.”
“Lavender cakes: sexy days, creamy coconut bars: sad days.” I closed my eyes imagining the warmth of my husband’s arms wrapped around me now.
“I’m throwing them out.” He pressed my body into his. “Except for lavender cupcakes and chocolate bars, so my wife feels happy and sexy every day.”
“Lavender cakes and cocoa butter bricks,” I whispered.
“Sophia?” I faintly heard Mom’s call. I stayed quiet, drifting. She understood my complicated history—disappearing into bathrooms—a Houdini trick I mastered as a kid, Mom somewhat inspired. I locked myself in a bathroom at ten when my parents divorced, when we left Paris for California. I locked myself in a bathroom when my first crush, Tommy, moved away. When a kid spread lies about me in school, a blind date went south, Blake and I argued.
And I locked myself in this bathroom at thirty-blah years old because two weeks after my husband died, my stoic facade crumbled.
I sat up and clutched Blake’s cell phone. The bottle of well-meaning Valium teetered on the sink’s edge. The drip from the faucet: lip smacks, our soft air kisses. I rested my face in my coconut palms, noticing Blake’s cell again through my fingers, the laughing phone.
Sophie: Come back. I’m sorry :(
Blake:
Megan: You’re so hot. Come over.
Blake:
Sophie: I checked out. You’re right.
Blake:
Megan: I’ll make you feel so good.
Blake:
Sophie: I love you. Can’t we bring it back to before?
Blake:
Megan: You’ll love it. You’ll love every beautiful minute of it.
Blake: I’m driving—
The quiet after a first snow.
Two seconds.
Drip. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
Kiss. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
“Blake, you should have fixed that drip. You promised you would.”
Blake: I’m driving—
“Mother soap fresh and fat cleans debris.”
Blake: I’m driving—
“Mother soap wishes men would not waste children. Men would not leave children to waste away.”
Blake: I’m driving—
Mom and my friends stormed into my house—my bathroom. A row of grim faces hovered above, a slow pan on the actors in this Hitchcock flick: Mom, my neighbor Mr. Elders, his wife Maudie, my college bud Joe, his friend “the cop” and my coworker Jacey. Last week, Maudie taught us how to make cherry scones at one of Mom’s get-togethers. Joe and I listened to Mr. Elders and Mom trade war stories, history about my grandparents—stories I never heard, about things I never asked.
“She was so happy last week,” Mr. Elders whispered. I floundered as Mom’s protégée but proved a master at painting on a smile.
“I thought she was doing better,” Maudie said, holding wet smears of mascara on her fingertips. “Gossip from the news again; they’re so cruel.”
“Sophie said she dealt with that about her dad in Paris,” Jacey whispered.
“It sucks she has to deal with the press now,” Joe said through his teeth, shooting them a scowl demanding silence. That’s my Joe, I thought.
“She just lost her father,” Mom told them in a quiet aside. “Not a good time. I don’t blame Sophia.”
“Little Girl of the Garden,” I mumbled. “Remember, Mom? What’s the headline today: Wife of a Cheating Dog Lawyer Dead Husband?”
“Shh, honey. It will be all right,” Mom whispered, shooing them away. Her soothing scent of chamomile and lilies brought me back to our moment.
“Never been one for those rosy-colored glasses. Noel needs tough love. She tried to kill herself, Josephine,” Mr. Elders whispered.
“Ed,” his wife snipped. “And stop calling her Noel; it’s Sophie.”
“She’s all right,” Mom insisted, waving a hand to quiet the two. “Sophia promised me she didn’t take all those pills. I trust her. My daughter has a beautiful imagination. It helps her, that’s all. She needs time.”
“To disappear,” I whispered to her. “Mom, make them go away.”
“She’s in shock, ma’am,” the police officer said. Mom crinkled her nose at him.
“I love you, Sophia,” Mom said in her story time voice. “It’s going to be all right, ma petit chère.” The others—meshed collective chatter in an underground tunnel.
“Ms. de Lue, the ambulance is here,” Joe said. “I’ll take her.” He cradled my arms, guiding me along as he used to in college after one of his frat parties.
I fell into him. “Trash can punch. Joe, you should’ve never let me drink trash can punch in college or let me wear that go-go outfit. Remember?”
He squeezed my hand. “Hippie lush.” His shhs whistled across my ear.
I loosened my grip. Joe wouldn’t let me go. “Mom isn’t a miz. Mrs. Noel—no, that’s my dad’s name . . . and mine. My maiden name, the only thing Dad ever gave me. Wait, Mom is Ms. de Lue, the artist.” I wobbled between Joe and Mom as a lazy pinball between bumpers.
“Come, ma fille.” Mom held me now.
“Ma fille means my daughter,” I said. “Mom’s not saying my feet. That’s what my dad used to think she was calling me. Remember, Mom?”
“Oui.”
“See, isn’t that cute? Mom’s French and a famous artist. What am I now?” She couldn’t catch my tears fast enough.
“Our Sophie,” she said, stroking my hand tender, careful. I traced my finger as her little girl over the blue veins squiggling across her thin bones, stretching and squirming as she moved her long fingers. I watched my life unfold upon her hand: a memory of Blake making a snowman at midnight on Christmas Eve. “Next year, Paris.” He laughs, eyeing the white fluff, takes my hand; we land with a thud, fanning crooked snow angels in crunchy snow.
“Mon trésor, time to go,” Mom whispered. My treasure. My image of my husband melted with a splattering of tears atop her hand. I closed my eyes drifting, floating farther away like a snowflake on an unknown journey, swaying, swirling in an indigo sky.
“Everyone in your life is a gift, Sophia Noel, even your enemies. It’s up to you whether you receive them as a gift into your life or not.” Mom’s recited whisper led me out of the bathroom. It’s what she always said, what she always used.
“Blake was my gift,” I whispered, squirming to hide in the bathroom again. She felt my body stiffen for the flight, holding me close. Mom eyed the officer squeezing in to move us on. She held up a hand to stop him. I paused at a row of photos on the wall: college dates, our wedding, anniversaries. “Why does God give gifts if He’s going to take them right back?”
“God doesn’t take anyone He receives them.” Mom stared into my eyes, I barely into hers. She straightened my blouse as her child, floating her fingers across my cheek.
She left me alone, my tears dripping on the floor. I watched them splash and huddle together in tiny puddles. “God doesn’t take anyone He receives them,” I whispered, her words erasing fearful images of the past days. “But I’m still alone.”
“Miss?” The officer held out his hand; his blurred into Mom’s.
“Orange. We’re the only house on the block with an orange front door,” I mumbled. “The paint swatch said Cinnamon Squares, brick red. Blake knew I wanted Peace, sky-blue with a hint of gray. He wanted Cinnamon Squares, sounds like a breakfast cereal.”
“Let’s go, ladies.” The officer herded us forward.
“There’s no one like me Sophie Dot Dot Dot.” My body pulled away from Mom, collapsing into Joe’s. “I didn’t take the pills, Joe. I wanted to.”
I wanted to close my eyes and sleep, swallow pills—one, two . . . twenty.
“I know, you crazy girl.” Joe’s kiss to my cheek, soft as I remembered.
“It’s been a long time since you kissed me like that. Joe’s from Paris, London, and Kenya . . . my Kamau, remember?”
“Mpenzi wangu.” Joe revealed a handkerchief and wiped my tears. “Shh.”
“Mpenzi wangu, my love . . . I remember.” I sighed, squeezing his hand. “They still make men’s handkerchiefs?” I said to myself. Joe heard me and smiled. He always heard me.
“And gentlemen still give them to ladies,” he said in the soothing tone I adored. “Shh, you will be all right.”
You will be all right. Not a piece, not half. All. Right headed. Right hearted. I will be . . . that means someday, not now. “What about now?” I asked.
Jacey wrapped a red silk scarf around my neck. “It’s vintage French. It will make you feel better. We’re all here, Sophie. We’re coming with you.”
“Lavender.” I breathed it in, burying my face into the cool, fragrant fibers. “I’m not going to the nut house, am I, Mom?” I tried to shake myself awake. “Just exhausted, you guys, sorry for this. Plumb burned out, if I was in a John Wayne movie. Plumb. That’s a funny sounding word. Plumb. I need to repaint this door.”
Mom nudged me along. “They said you’re dehydrated, honey. We’re taking precautions.”
Mother soap scrapes up children to put them together again to be useful. “Dehydrated in a bathroom.” I laughed, leaving tender eyes, shaking heads, and that tch tch tch people make with their tongues on the roofs of their mouths. The star of the freak show Megan directed. “You’re wrong, Megan. They love me. This is true friendship.” They all heard it. Even if I didn’t say it as much as I should, even if I shut them out again. They all heard it, and I hoped someday I could believe it again.
Mother soap—bathrooms aren’t meant to be bunkers, but they’re perfect for hiding from the world.
2.
Camille
Paris, France
April 1865
It started with a dream—of water. I am nine. Papa tucks me underneath the covers; Mamma says goodnight. I close my eyes and see the meadows of Lyon. Tiny white flowers, Papa and I cannot name, fill the countryside come spring, violets, too. Fuzzy, pink blooms intrude upon our path, sticking to our fingers as spun sugar. Papa and I run through the fields warmed by the sun with my little dog Raphael. Raphael is only a pup, a white fluff bouncing in the field of green; I can always find him. And then, the water comes.
It covers me.
At first, sky-blue water so cool and refreshing, as if I float upon the lake in the early morn. I drift through mist as one of those little bark boats and to the sea. Water splashes warm and soft over my skin. The mist rises to fog, and I no longer see the sun, meadow or Papa. In an instant, the water churns thick and yellow, thrashing about me, swelling into a purple wave washing over my body, burying me beneath its crest. My throat fills with water as I scream for Papa, but he cannot find me. The beautiful, blue water, now putrid dense with mud, makes it hard to breathe.
My legs drag clumsy and weighted. Papa calls for me to run for higher ground. In the night, the river disobeys its Creator and comes to swallow us whole. The hem of Mamma’s dress, a golden ruffle washes past. I reach for her hand; she looks at me and turns away. She turns away.
Papa rescues me. My petticoat catches the railing, preventing me from falling in the river like the others. Papa said it was an angel holding me tight until he could reach me. So, I pray for hundreds of angels to save those lost.
“Mamma’s in shock,” Papa whispers. But I know Mamma clutches the baby inside her. I cuddle safe in Papa’s arms, but the screams and thrashing of neighbors in the water below, tree limbs and livestock, too, pieces of homes, our entire lives—swept away in the night. Papa covers my eyes; I, my ears; and he sings soothing songs to silence the horrors.
When I awake, I’m ten, eleven, twelve, for this dream is as water. It holds no age, knows no time, no boundaries, and yet it brings no restoration. I huddle in Papa’s arms; he knows this dream—the great flood we survived when we lived in Lyon, France, my birthplace.
Papa sings his lullaby to hush me back to sleep, a tune about our saving angel. “Papa, will our angel find us since we moved from Lyon to Paris?”
“Indeed, angels are forever about us offering gifts at the right moment. Though we may not see; they help us to see when we need them the most.”
“But, Papa,” I say, shifting out from his bundle. “God promised Noah He would never again flood the earth. Have our rivers disobeyed Him?”
Papa sits up, bristling at my question. “Ma fée, God promised He would not destroy the whole earth with flood but made no conditions as to Lyon, nor our home, and when the waters recede He will build anew,” Papa says, doing his best to tuck me in, but I wiggle and squirm as a fish tossed into a skiff. “But without us.”
“But, Papa—”
“Hush, my daughter.” Papa’s soft, big palm strokes my hair. “Seek the good in the worst times.” His voice trembles. “God lifts us out of the mire, and we have arrived in Paris to start a new journey, perhaps one greater than in Lyon, oui?” His brown eyes glisten with hope, resolved. He smiles, caressing my hair. “God has blessed my daughter with raven hair and a curious disposition. Shall I worry, Camille?”
I snicker, but dare ask, “Papa . . . is it fair?”
He sniffles and wipes my tears. “My family is safe. God will not give us more than we can bear.” He pulls his best handkerchief from his pocket and turns away to wipe his slender nose. Mamma claimed it silly, but we all fancied Papa’s nose. How beautiful it was for a man. His broad shoulders and stature, olive complexion and handsome mustache—my papa glimmered as my angel inside and out.
“Can we carry this, Papa?” I ask, snuggling into him.
“We don’t have to,” he whispers. “Let nature be fickle,” he says louder. “God shall never be. We must not waiver now.”
When Papa’s tune doesn’t calm me, nor his sermons settle my thoughts, he walks me to the window to view the moonlight on the cobblestone streets of Paris. Gaslight mingles with moonlight washing the stones gold, crimson, and amber. He offers the satchel of lavender Mamma hangs in the window; we take turns savoring its scent. “Paris is France,” he whispers. “There.” He points out the window, and, from our high tower, we watch the tranquility of the Seine, unafraid. “There is our future.”
I settle. Papa explains again our hardship to rebuild in Lyon. How the Emperor sailed to rescue us, tossing his gold coins, and Papa caught many—that’s what Papa tells me, that we have family in Paris and a fresh start. He even fancies a famous painting he feigns is us, Papa holding me tight on our roof when the Emperor traveled by boat to rescue his people. “The painting is of Tarascon, far from Lyon,” I say, yawning. Papa’s story lulls me to sleep, for I believe I’m the child in the painting, but insist the artist has incorrectly painted me as a peasant and in the wrong costume, for we’re much more fashionable.
I close my eyes to dream about this grand Paris, where everything is changing and so must we, but Papa still cannot tell me why Mamma never comes to my room when I cry, and why she turns away from me in my dream, why she has always turned her eyes from me.
When I grew older, my dream of the flood came less until forgotten. Papa visited my room on occasion when he caught me awake at my window. Sometimes, he sneaked us slices of Mamma’s butter cake, baked for the next day’s lunch. We whisper about our new dress shop in the Batignolles, Napoleon’s progress on the new quarters, the people of our village, the artists, and writers. How our emerging village flourished as a hub of modernity, opportunity, and creative insurrection. How Papa thrilled, though now older in years and to Mamma’s consternation, he brought us here to play a part in it.
On my eighteenth birthday, the dream of the flood that carried us to Paris strangely returned. After the birth of my sister, and as I neared the age of marriage, I began to see why Mamma had turned away, why turning away from me was her own measure of survival. For perhaps I, as Noah’s flood, glimpsed an impure thing that needed a rush of water to erase.
