Tiger Lily

by Wende Dikec

  Uncle Johnny took the microphone. I slid down in my seat, trying to make myself invisible. Zoe elbowed me.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, as most of you know, our nephew, Dominick, is a student here.” Uncle Johnny looked very stiff and formal. Uncle Danny seemed slightly more relaxed. He laughed and patted Johnny’s shoulder.

  “And you know how much we love that kid. We wouldn’t put on one of these monkey suits for just anyone.”

  “That is true, my brother,” said Uncle Johnny, tugging at the collar of his shirt. “We’re here because just a few short weeks ago, we almost lost him.”

  The crowd grew hushed. Johnny pushed back his hair and took a steadying breath. “We didn’t think he was going to make it. We certainly didn’t think he’d be performing here tonight. But thanks to a very special girl, he’s here with us right now.”

  Uncle Danny took the microphone again. “So this one goes out to Lily. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now Dominick will play the prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite Number One.”

  Everyone clapped, and they walked off the stage. I covered my face with my hands as I slouched in the chair. When Nick walked onto the stage in a tuxedo, I almost couldn’t breathe. I certainly couldn’t blink. He limped a little, but the cast was gone, and he looked perfect. How could I ever think he wasn’t tux material? He was made to wear a tux. The fact that he wore red Converse sneakers with it just made him all the more appealing. I watched him, mesmerized, as he sat in his chair and positioned his cello before giving a grin and a nod to the crowd.

  As soon as he began to play, I understood. Nick wasn’t just good. He was brilliant. The music poured out of him, so sad and hopeful, bright and beautiful. Soon I sat up in my chair, staring at him as his long elegant fingers flew over the strings and his silky hair fell into his face. He moved his head back and forth, lost in the music. The music filled me up, healing ever so slightly the fractured organ that was my poor heart.

  It ended all too soon. The entire crowd rose and gave a thunderous round of applause. I clapped just as loudly as everyone else. It wasn’t until the lights came on and Zoe turned to look at me, that I realized I’d been crying.

  “Are you okay, Lily?” She gave my arm a reassuring squeeze and I laughed.

  “I am now. Thank you, Zoe.” Just hearing him play had made things ever so slightly better. I knew that even if he wasn’t mine, even if he didn’t remember me, it was worth it, because he’d lived. Nothing else mattered.

  “Life and death are one thread,

  the same, hewed from different sides.”

  Lao Tzu, Sixth century BC

  Chapter Eighteen

  After I went to the restroom and pulled myself together, Zoe and I walked through the parking lot arm in arm. I felt better than I had in a long time.

  “Maybe my fate wasn’t to be with Nick. Maybe it was just to save him.” I looked at the little jade bracelet on my wrist.

  Zoe shook her head. “No. You two are supposed to be together. I know it.”

  I squeezed her arm and put my head on her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. As long as he’s alive and well, I don’t need anything else.”

  “You aren’t serious.” Zoe gave me a disbelieving look, and I smiled.

  “Okay, I wish he remembered me, and we could all live happily ever after, but maybe this is all I get, and maybe it’s enough.”

  “But you helped him to remember before.” Now Zoe looked like she might cry. I patted her arm.

  “This time it isn’t the same.”

  “Why?”

  “He needed my help then, but he doesn’t need me now.” I looked up at the sky. Stars were just beginning to pop out. I wished on the first one I saw out of habit. Zoe watched me carefully.

  “What did you wish for?”

  I tilted my head. “For him...to be happy.”

  Zoe made a noise of disgust and let go of my arm. I watched her stomp over to the driver’s side of the car, and then change her mind and stomp back over to me. “Stop it. You are giving up, and I can’t stand it.”

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “I’m being honest. Look, Zoe, the last few weeks have been...a challenge. Dying twice has changed my perspective on what is important, but I still felt really bad for myself until tonight.”

  “What happened tonight?”

  I smiled, hugging my arms close to my body, and tilted my chin back up to the stars. “I heard him play, and I knew. It wasn’t just about Nick being mine. It was bigger than that.”

  Zoe’s face fell. “But I’m sad for you.”

  I brushed away a stray tear that trickled down her cheek. “Me, too, but I’ll be fine. I have you, and my family, and my sweet little sister watching over me. What more could I ask for?”

  “Lily?” A deep voice from behind me made both of us jump. Nick came out of the shadows, walking toward our car. He’d loosened the tie to his tux and undone the top couple buttons of his shirt. Zoe jumped into the driver’s seat, making herself scarce.

  “Was that Zoe?” He ducked his head and glanced through the window, but he couldn’t see her. She’d probably slouched down and hidden on the floor next to the seat.

  “Yep.” I looked up at his face and almost had to steady myself. I had an immediate physical response to his nearness that hit me so hard I almost doubled over in the effort it took not to reach for him and pull him close.

  “She has ninja speed.” His eyes glowed in the dim light of the parking lot. He leaned against Zoe’s car, folded his arms across his chest, and just watched me. “I think she wanted to give us some space. I gave her the tickets and asked her to bring you tonight.”

  “She’s very subtle,” I said, glaring into the car window. Zoe was nowhere to be seen. Nick laughed, which made my heart do a funny little flip-flop in my chest.

  I’d thought he was beautiful as my Shadow Boy, but a three-dimensional Nick proved to be an all-out assault on my already fragile senses. He smelled rich, dark, and spicy. His straight hair curled right where it hit the collar of his shirt, begging me to touch it. His eyes, the same deep brown I remembered, now possessed a bright spark that hadn’t been there when his soul had been separate from his body. He was whole now, and completely intoxicating. To me at least.

  I struggled to think of something to say. “You were really great...on the cello, I mean.” I felt embarrassed and shy. Thrown off. This was my Nick, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t find my footing with him. “Why did your uncles dedicate your song to me?”

  Nick ran a distracted hand through his hair, a gesture so familiar it tugged at my heart. “I understand from my mom and my uncles that I have a lot to thank you for. They didn’t tell me the whole story, but what they did tell me seemed pretty crazy.”

  He reached into the neck of his tux and pulled out the necklace from Mrs. Chang. He put it over my head, so that the jade pendant rested on my chest. “Yours, I believe.”

  I touched it with my finger, outlining the words etched into the stone, still warm from the contact with his skin. I thought about telling him to keep it, but decided I wanted to have it. Nick didn’t need it anymore. The soul reaper was gone. If I had it, at least I had something that made me feel connected to him in a way.

  Nick reached out and touched the pendant too. “What does it say?” he asked, his voice husky as he stood very close to me.

  “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.” When I looked up, he had an odd expression on his face. “It’s a quote from Buddha.”

  “It’s nice. I think I’ve heard it somewhere before.” Nick touched a lock of my hair that had fallen loose from my bun. “You aren’t wearing a ribbon tonight.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t always wear ribbons.”

  “But most of the time you do.” He looked really confused when he said that, his dark eyebrows drawing together in a frown. He backed up a few inches, and just stared at me. “I wish I remembered you, Lily.”

  “Me too.�
� I extended my hand. “Thank you for telling Zoe about the concert tonight. I really enjoyed it. You’re a very talented musician.” When all else fails, let etiquette take over.

  Nick gave me a bemused little smile. “You are very welcome.” But instead of shaking my hand, he used it to pull me closer to him. Before I knew what was happening, Nick had leaned over and planted one swift, soft, sweet kiss right on my lips.

  He stepped back, blinking. I reached up and touched my lips, still reeling from the shock. Kissing Nick, even such a small, brief kiss, was something I felt completely unprepared for. It affected me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes and everywhere in between.

  Nick took another step backward. “You’re full of surprises, Lily Madison.”

  “And so are you, Dominick Fortuna.”

  He grinned at me. “Goodnight, princess.”

  I climbed into the car. Zoe had indeed sprawled on the floor in order to hide from Nick. I nudged her to sit up, and we drove out of the nearly deserted parking lot. Nick stood where I’d left him, watching us drive away.

  I held the jade pendant in my hands. “I think I understand now.”

  Zoe focused on the road, shot me a brief glance. “What?”

  “It wasn’t the necklace that kept the soul reaper from eating Nick. It was me. Because I loved him. It’s the eternal rule. Hatred can’t make hatred go away. Only love could do that. And if my love was strong enough to make that demon go away, surely it’s strong enough to make him remember me.”

  “That’s my girl. Ladies and gentlemen, Tiger Lily is back.”

  “The only question is, where do I start...and how?”

  “I think we need to pull out the big guns.” A small smile played on the corners of Zoe’s lips. She had a tiny dimple in her cheek that was completely adorable.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “We need to dress you in black leather again.” Zoe winked at me.

  I wrinkled my nose at her. “Why black leather?”

  “I didn’t need to see the look on Nick’s face to know that he liked it. That just may be what it takes to jog his memory.”

  I remembered the way Nick had stared at me in the bustier and blushed. Zoe was probably right.

  “So in order for Sandy to get Danny, Sandy has to be a Greaser?”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “You watch way too many old movies. This is real life, baby.”

  “Where do we start?”

  Zoe grinned at me. “At the beginning. We’re going to put together a tour de l’amour for Nick. And I know just the people to help us.”

  We called everyone, Josh, Jess, Maura, my parents, Maria, Uncle Johnny, Uncle Danny, Mr. Wan, Miss Lin, Mrs. Chang, and even Bambi. All promised to help. We just needed a few days to put it together.

  The only person missing from our group was Rosie. That thought made me sad, so I went up to her room, just to think about her. To my surprise, my mom already sat there, packing things into boxes.

  “What are you doing?” My mom, barefooted and wearing a pair of slacks, looked up and smiled. “Are you wearing pants?”

  She never wore pants. Even when she gardened, which was actually just pruning the rosebushes because we had a landscaper who took care of everything else, she wore a skirt with a matching apron and gloves. Granted the pants she had on today were a designer label and looked like silk, but they were pants. I had to wonder if this signaled something new, like when dad had bought his first Ferrari and started covering his bald spot with a spray on hair product. I suspected my mother’s was less of a mid-life crisis and more of a life-altering event. Communicating with Rosie had changed us all, for the better.

  “I know. Aren’t they cute?” She stood up and turned around to show them off. “I’m packing a few things up. I thought it was time.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  Rosie had acquired a lot of stuff in her short three months of life. I didn’t know what was harder to look at, the little clothes I remembered her wearing, or the bigger clothes she’d never grown into. Both tugged at my heart.

  “I miss her so much.”

  I’d told my parents about what Rosie had done, and about how she looked when I saw her last. My father couldn’t stop talking about her red curls. He still kept a bootie in his pocket, but now when he took it out and stroked it, he had a smile on his face.

  “I dream about her sometimes.”

  My mom looked around the room. “She’s here...with us. She’ll always be here with us. We don’t need a room full of her things to keep her close.”

  We kept a few boxes of things that were just too precious to part with, including the fuzzy white lamb I’d given her and the dress she’d worn when she came home from the hospital. My mother and I talked about Rosie as we packed. We looked at pictures. We hugged. Things were so different now, for each of us and for our family.

  My father came home straight from work and joined us in Rosie’s room. He glanced at the pile of packed up boxes. “It looks like the two of you have been busy.”

  My mom smiled and kissed his cheek. “No golf tonight?”

  He shook his head. “Nah. I wanted to hang out with my girls.”

  Rosie’s death made us fear our own fragility, but my death made us realize we needed to appreciate every moment. We were all trying, and we’d made a good start. Rosie would have been proud.

  Over dinner, my father turned to me. “So...tomorrow is the big day.”

  I nodded. “After school, operation ‘Make Nick Remember’ will begin.”

  He patted my hand. “It’ll work, honey. It has to.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  The next day school dragged on forever. Our plan was set to begin at seven p.m. We’d arranged to have a private party at The Zone for that night, a Friday, and Nick had been secretly scheduled to work it. I would be the only guest, and I had two hours to find a way to make him remember everything.

  I was just packing up my things to take with me when the doorbell rang. I ran down the steps and answered it, thinking it might be Zoe, but Nick stood on my doorstep.

  “Hi, Lily.” He had his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

  “Hi, Nick.” I felt a little confused, and wondered if someone had leaked our plan to him. He did seem kind of upset. “Would you like to come in?”

  He shook his head, took a deep breath, and then blew it out. He wore a black t-shirt and jeans, much like the outfit I’d seen him in as my Shadow Boy, but he looked so different. An energy and a vibrancy filled him that I hadn’t seen before. This was the real Nick. The boy I’d known had just been a sort of reflection of the actual person.

  I stepped out onto my porch and shut the door behind me, waiting for Nick to speak. If he wanted to yell at me, I was ready for it. He ran a hand through his hair, and muttered something under his breath.

  “Look. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been thinking about you all the time, and some things that I thought were dreams.... I’m beginning to suspect those might actually be memories.”

  I stood very still. “What kind of dreams?”

  He bit his lip and smiled, the same sexy way he had when he’d been my Shadow Boy. “Just flashes of things, some involving black leather.”

  “Oh.” I felt a blush creep into my cheeks and Nick laughed.

  “I remember that blush too.” He shook his head. “But it’s just bits and pieces. The rest is...fuzzy.” He looked at his watch. “I have to go to work tonight, but can we meet up tomorrow and talk?”

  I nodded, not sure what I should say or do. He had no idea what we’d planned for this evening. Nick hopped down the steps of my front porch, and then turned to smile at me in the sunshine.

  “So, it’s a date then?” He walked backward a few steps to his car, which was parked in my driveway, his eyes still on me.

  “It’s a date.”

  “Love is of all passions the strongest,

  for it attacks simultaneously the heart, the head, and the senses.”<
br />
  Lao Tzu, Sixth Century BC

  Chapter Nineteen

  The front entrance of The Zone was crowded with teenagers who’d arrived early to get good seats for Under Twenty One Night. The Fortuna Brothers weren’t playing in the bar this evening, though. A young band from one of the local high schools unloaded their equipment as I walked past. Nearly seven o’clock, and I was getting nervous.

  I bypassed the front and went to the side entrance of the building. The sign on the door said Closed for a Private Party. That would be me. I was the party. I pushed the door open and went inside.

  Uncle Johnny waited for me. He pulled me into a big hug, nearly squeezing the air right out of me. “Good lucky, Lily. Buona fortuna.”

  When he let me go, I almost stumbled backward. “Thanks, Uncle Johnny. I’ll need it.”

  He led me to a back room where Zoe waited with Jess and Maura. They’d carried all my things over and snuck them in for me. They’d even set up a mirror and lights.

  I looked at them with tears in my eyes. “You guys are great.”

  Zoe put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  I grimaced. “I don’t know. I’m not sure we’re doing the right thing. I feel like we’re putting him on the spot.”

  When Nick had been the Shadow Boy, he’d grown to love me, but it had taken time. He’d actually disliked me at first. The real Nick didn’t seem to dislike me, but he certainly didn’t love me either. It made me feel really vulnerable. I wanted to bare my heart to him, but he might reject it. There was also a definite possibility he could feel sorry for me. Even worse than rejection.

  Zoe plopped me down in front of the mirror and began brushing my hair. “It’s going to work, Lily. I just know it.”

  “Does your psychic spidey sense tell you that?”

  She shook her head, her silver earrings swaying back and forth. “No, but my common sense does.”

  Maura and Jess brought out my clothes. As I dressed, I fell less and less certain about what I’d planned to do. “Maybe I should just wait until tomorrow. He’s going to come over anyway.”