Here's Lily

by Nancy Rue

  He shot Mom a look that, as far as Lily could see, meant they’d already had this conversation earlier.

  “And,” he went on, “it will take God-confidence for you to walk out on that stage with bandages on your face because you’ve made a commitment and you’re honoring it. How much God-confidence would it take for you to skip the show just so you can sit here with me and wallow around in your own guilt?”

  “I don’t need God to help me do that,” Lily said. “I’ve been doing that all day practically.”

  “Then I think you have your answer.”

  It looked as if that conversation was over too, until Dad rested his head back on his bed and said, “But the final decision is up to you, Lilliputian. You talk it over with God, and whatever you two decide, your mother and I will respect.”

  So Lily did what Dad suggested. And this time she didn’t put it off until later. While Art and Joe were telling Dad how cool the suite was at the Comfort Inn and were checking out his remote to see if the hospital got any more channels than the hotel did, Lily went down to a little waiting room at the end of the hall that had square furniture and magazines with curled-up corners and a TV that murmured away at nobody. She switched it off, wound herself into a ball on a couch, and closed her eyes. And there it was: a picture of herself running into some very wide-open arms.

  God? What do I do? she whispered into them.

  If God answered right then, she didn’t hear Him. She was asleep within seconds. But when Mom came in and woke her up and led her down the hall to the elevator, she already knew what to do.

  “Can you take me to the middle school tomorrow?” she asked as the doors slid closed.

  “So, you’re doing the show?” Mom asked.

  “You’re kidding,” Art said.

  “What are you going to do, wear a bag over your head?” Joe said.

  Immediately he clapped both hands over his mouth and bugged his big brown eyes out at Mom.

  “Old habits die hard, don’t they?” Mom said.

  Lily didn’t know about that, but she was sure about one thing. She was very glad she’d never found a way to get Shad Shifferdecker to the show.

  Thirteen

  The swelling in Lily’s forehead had gone down some when she woke up the next morning, but she still felt like a red blowfish as she stumbled into the bathroom for Mom to change the dressings on her cheeks while the boys slept on their fold-out couch.

  “We’re not supposed to let the burns stay wet,” Mom said. “I don’t think they’re oozing quite as badly as yesterday.”

  Lily held her breath as Mom carefully pulled the dressing free. What was it going to look like under there? There was a sudden vision of red, twisted flesh writhing on her face like—

  But that was only a vision. The reflection in the mirror showed a cheek dotted with flattened blisters, on skin even redder than her forehead.

  “A few more seconds over that grease pan and you’d be in the bed next to your dad right now,” Mom said. “But this really isn’t that bad, is it?”

  When Lily didn’t shake her head, Mom just dabbed gently at her left cheek with a cool, moist towel and said, “How are we going to get through this day, us two?”

  Lily caught her eye in the mirror in surprise. Mom’s brown eyes were dewy.

  “I’m serious,” Mom said. “I usually just plow right through things and never think about how I’m doing it, but I can’t do that today. I’ve got one more game. You have a show. What’s your plan? I know you have one.”

  Lily looked straight into the mirror, as if she were looking into the lens of a video camera. An answer didn’t come to her as easily as it did at Rutledge when they were doing slating. She grabbed at the first thing that popped into her head.

  “I guess I’m going to pray a lot,” Lily said. “Dad says God-confidence is good, and so does Kathleen, so—”

  “What does Lily say?”

  “I don’t know,” Lily said. “I don’t think it’s working yet. But I’m trying.”

  “Good enough for me,” Mom said. “We’ll compare notes at the end of the day.”

  She went to work on the other cheek and then re-bandaged both of them while she told Lily that Mrs. Johnson was going to be at the show with a digital recorder so that she and Dad and Art wouldn’t have to totally miss seeing it.

  “Art won’t want to look at the video,” Lily said. “Neither will Joe.”

  “Joe won’t have to. He’s going to be there in person.”

  Lily groaned. “Please don’t make him come, Mom. All he’ll do is whine about it and give me a hard time.”

  “I’m not ‘making’ him. He said he wanted to.”

  “No, he did not!”

  Mom blinked. She wasn’t familiar with Reni’s little phrases. “Yeah, he did,” she said. “I didn’t ask him why, mind you. I didn’t want to push it.”

  “He probably wants to boo me or something.”

  Mom stopped with the sterile gauze poised in her hand. “Lily, that little speech I made yesterday wasn’t just for the boys’ benefit. It applies to you too. They’re going to find it so much easier to cut you slack if you cut them some too.” She put the gauze pad loosely in place. “Besides, though heaven knows I’m not the person you want to come to for beauty tips, I do know this much: nobody looks particularly beautiful when she’s hitting somebody between the eyeballs with some evil remark.”

  Lily’s eyes darted to the mirror. Her mouth didn’t look like the envy of every woman in America at that moment. It was actually curled up and looking hateful.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I love you, Mom.”

  The next glance at her face showed someone no longer ugly. Just bandaged-up and sad.

  Mom dropped her off at the middle school at the appointed time, two hours before the show was supposed to start.

  “I’ll send Joe over in time,” Mom said. “You keep praying. It’s working for me already.”

  “You’ll win. You’ve already won two nights in a row.”

  “If we do win, I won’t see you until late tonight. Mrs. Johnson will take you to her house, and I’ll pick you up there.”

  Lily nodded and started to walk away with her makeup bag, full of brushes, cleanser, and hair clips; but Mom poked her head out the window again.

  “Don’t forget to check your buns for Cheerios,” she called, eyes twinkling. “And, Lil, I wish I could be here. I really do.”

  Lily stopped backing away and looked at her. Mom really did seem to be stretched in three directions at once. Lily felt her eyes well up.

  “I don’t have to do the show,” she said. “I can just come to your game—”

  “And disappoint God?” Mom said. “No way! You’ve already talked to Him. It’s a done deal. I love you.”

  “Go in already, before you get picked up for loitering!” Art called out the window. But he had a smile on his face, a big one like Lily’s.

  Lily smiled back, and she felt an inch more sure— until she got backstage, where everyone stopped brushing their hair and looking for tights to stare at her. Kathleen breezed through them, turning heads back to mirrors with her fingertips and beaming at Lily.

  “I knew you’d make the right choice.” She squeezed Lily’s shoulder. “You’re going to be so glad you did this.”

  “I sure wouldn’t do it,” Lily heard Cassie whisper as she and Kathleen passed by.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Cassie’s mother whispered back. “Because I’d have killed you already for burning yourself in the first place after what we’ve paid for this course.”

  I’m sure glad she’s not my mother, Lily thought. And then her eyes teared up again as she thought of Mom not being in the audience—of Mom being over at the high school, trying to concentrate on volleyball instead of Dad.

  “We have plenty of help for you to make your changes,” Kathleen was saying. “Tess will be with you the whole time.”

  Lily blinked back her tears and tried to concentra
te. “What’s my number in the lineup now?” she asked.

  Kathleen’s eyebrows lifted. “Number one.”

  “I’m still first? But . . . why?”

  “Why not? What’s changed?”

  Lily tried not to look too disgusted. She could already feel her neck going blotchy.

  “You have bandages on your face,” Kathleen continued. “But you are still the same person you were when I assigned you that number, and I see no reason to change it.”

  “Let me switch with her.” Lily turned to see both Cassie and her mother watching them from three mirrors down. Mama was nudging Cassie forward as if she were holding a cattle prod.

  “No,” Kathleen said firmly. “There is no need to switch. Nor is there any need for moms back here. Did I neglect to mention that?”

  “No, you said it,” about three young voices piped up.

  Cassie’s mother scowled and snatched up her purse. “Something decent-paying better come out of this,” Lily heard her mutter as she swept past on her way to the door. “Then I can buy out this whole agency.”

  If Kathleen heard it, she wasn’t showing it. She just ran her beautifully manicured hand down Lily’s arm and smiled at her. “God and I have talked,” she said quietly. “It’s all right. You have the confidence.”

  Lily swallowed away all the tears and nodded. “Okay. Which one’s my mirror?”

  “The one with all the flowers, I think.” Kathleen’s eyes were twinkling almost right out of their sockets as she pointed down the row of chairs and mirrors. Lily let out one of her gasps.

  On her dressing table were two huge bouquets of flowers with enormous silky bows and actual florist’s cards with her name written on them. Lily’s hands were shaky as she opened the first one—the one with the yellow ribbon and two dozen happy-faced daisies.

  “I am with you in spirit,” it said. “Love, Daddy.”

  Before she even thought about it, Lily put the card to her lips and kissed it. By now, several of the other girls had gathered around, but no one snickered. Their eyes were all wide with envy.

  “Open the other one,” Stinky said.

  “That sure is a pink bow,” Cassie said.

  Lily started to grin. She already knew who this was from, and she was right. “We will all be there cheering for you. Love, the GIRLZ.”

  “They spelled girls wrong,” said Cassie from over her shoulder.

  “Not my Girlz,” Lily said. Then she looked at Kathleen. “Will we be able to see the people in the audience with the lights in our eyes?”

  “Once in a while you can pick someone out,” Kathleen said. “Mostly it’s just a sea of faces.”

  Then I’m glad they sent me this, Lily thought, pressing the card into her palm. They’re coming. They’re not ashamed of me at all.

  Then maybe I shouldn’t be ashamed of myself either.

  Because God isn’t.

  She wasn’t sure where that thought came from, but it made her feel a little less red and puffed up and oozy looking. And when she was dressed in her “casual” outfit, complete with the cool hat, and looked in the mirror, she was even able to smile.

  “Atta girl,” Tess said. “But you’re not wearing the hat through your whole walk, are you?”

  “No,” Kathleen said as she was passing by. “The hat comes off when she gets to the end of the runway.” She stopped to look into the mirror from behind Lily. “Nothing has changed—remember?”

  Lily nodded and took off the hat. She was suddenly one big bandage again. “Anybody need a model to sell sterile gauze?” she said.

  “I’m impressed,” Tess said, nudging Lily with her elbow. “You still have your sense of humor. I’d be snapping everybody’s head off.”

  Lily shrugged and returned the hat to her head and prayed one more time. I need confidence, God. Please don’t let them stare at me like I’m horrible. And if they do, please don’t let me cry until I get back here.

  And then she tried very hard to believe that He would answer. Somehow.

  When they started the lineup in the wings and Kathleen was doing her own final hair check before she went out onstage, there was a commotion by the back door. Heads craned that way as Tess waved her arms at Kathleen.

  “Wait,” Kathleen whispered to the stage manager and then hurried to the door.

  “I bet it’s Cassie’s mother trying to get back in,” the girl behind Lily whispered.

  “No!” somebody else whispered. “It’s Lily’s mother!”

  Lily’s breath caught as she watched Mom follow Kathleen toward her. She could almost smell the sweat on her, and she could see that her hair was sticking out in all directions like she’d been pulling on it for hours. But Lily was ready to run right into her arms and would have if Mom hadn’t held her off, laughing.

  “You don’t want to touch me,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m disgusting. I just wanted you to know we’d all be in the audience—the boys and me.”

  “How come?”

  “We lost.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Wasn’t meant to be. But this was.” Mom kissed the tip of her finger and placed it so lightly on Lily’s forehead, she could hardly even feel it. “Break a leg, Lil—or whatever it is you models do.”

  Then she flashed a grin and disappeared, and Kathleen turned Lily to face her.

  “Look at that smile,” she whispered to Lily. “I mean this sincerely. You have never looked more beautiful.”

  For some reason, Lily knew she’d never felt more beautiful either. Thinking about the Girlz and Mom being out there, and even Art and Joe, all loving her and pulling for her, and Kathleen introducing the class so proudly, even telling about Lily’s accident, and God up there just wanting her to have confidence in Him—she didn’t let her smile fade. Not even when the music started and she straightened her shoulders and picked her focus point and headed across the stage and down the runway.

  Bag slung jauntily over her shoulder, she strolled to the end, got ready to pivot, and then stopped, just the way Kathleen had told her to. Taking a deep breath, she reached up and with a flourish pulled off her hat.

  No one in the audience gasped. No one snickered. No one sighed with pity. She only heard her music. Lily executed her perfect pivot with real confidence and turned to the audience on either side of the runway behind her to deliver them all a brilliant smile.

  Once in a while you’ll be able to pick out a face, Kathleen had said.

  And she’d been right. Lily did pick out one, one with shiny braces and beady little eyes.

  There, right there at her modeling show, was Shad Shifferdecker himself.

  Fourteen

  It took a couple of seconds before Shad’s eyes met Lily’s, and even then it seemed to take a few more for him to register that he was looking at Lily. When he did, the expression on his face wasn’t the one Lily had been dreaming about for weeks.

  Oh, his mouth fell open, all right, and his beady little eyes blinked in disbelief. But the awestruck eyebrows were missing, and so was the oh-Lily-you’re-so-gorgeous-I’ll-never-pick-on-you-again look. He simply stared as if he were stunned. Lily knew if she waited much longer for anything else, Kathleen was going to get a cane and pull her offstage.

  Making one more clean little pivot, Lily headed back up the runway, hit the stage, and turned for her final smile.

  If they’ve ever been to a fashion show, they’ll clap then, Kathleen had told the class in rehearsal.

  She hadn’t told them that the audience would burst into hurricane-strength applause and holler and whistle and then stand up. But they did.

  For a moment, Lily didn’t know what to do. Her mind was still spinning from seeing Shad Shifferdecker gaping up at her, and she felt confusion chase the smile right off her lips.

  And then her eye caught on two more familiar faces—Joe’s and Art’s. She caught them in the darkness, just in time to see Joe put his fingers to his lips and execute a whistle that shrilled right up over the rest of the
noise. On the other side of Joe, Mom didn’t reach over and pop him one. She was too busy clapping and whistling herself.

  Lily couldn’t have kept another smile off her face if she’d tried. She could almost feel the corners of her mouth meeting in the back of her head, which was just fine, as she plopped her hat back on, rewarded the audience with a wave, and pivoted so briskly her bag gave a merry swing. The audience was still hollering its appreciation when she got to the wings.

  “What did I tell you?” Kathleen whispered, eyes sparkling even in the backstage dark.

  “That I would be glad I did this,” Lily whispered back.

  “And?”

  “I am!” And, she thought suddenly, I don’t even care what Shad Shifferdecker thinks.

  By the time the show was over, Lily was having a hard time getting the smile off her face. All the girls were hugging her backstage, and only Cassie looked like she was a little bit jealous. Lily didn’t spend any time wondering what Cassie’s mother was going to have to say about it.

  As soon as she walked out the backstage door, Lily was smothered in neck-hugging from all the Girlz and Mrs. Johnson and Mom. Art and Joe drew the line at hugging, but Art did say, “Hey, way to go,” and Joe said, “I didn’t even have to use my spitballs.” They might as well have told her she was a candidate for Miss America.

  The best part came when they bought a pizza and smuggled it into Dad’s room at the hospital. Dad had a pretty much nonstop smile himself as Mom popped pepperoni into his mouth and told him all about the show.

  “I have never been so proud of her,” Mom said. “She was poised and graceful and all that, but it was the beauty that came from someplace inside her that really got to me.”

  “It came from God,” Lily said.

  There was a momentary disturbance as Art clapped his hand over Joe’s mouth, but Dad didn’t seem to notice. His face grew soft as he looked at Lily.

  “That certainly makes our decision easy, doesn’t it?” he said to Mom.

  “As far as I’m concerned, it does,” Mom said. “And it isn’t just that either. Did you know Lily started a support group for girls who get teased at school?”