Lily

by T M Linville

  When she was finally standing directly in front of Lily, she put her hand out.

  "I'm LaShay.”

  "Hi LaShay, I'm Lily."

  Lily took her hand and stared into her eyes.

  "It's a pleasure," was the only thing Lily could say.

  Lily kept staring, trying to think of something casual to say but the only thing going through her head was a future with her. She could see them together at her apartment, curled up on her couch together, laughing at the television. Then she pictured them together walking hand in hand in the country in Tennessee. Has she ever been outside the city? Has she ever ridden a horse or shot an arrow from a bow? Would she even want to? Lily could see Shay in her arms, her hair blowing across her cheek and shoulder as they looked out over the waves from a pier overlooking the ocean.

  Every part of Lily’s being wanted nothing more than to take Shay into her arms and kiss her but Lily knew she couldn’t do that. She had to be casual. After all they weren’t even friends. Yet. Lily couldn’t tell her what she had already learned about her. She could only imagine what Shane would say if he knew how much Lily had been around.

  "So would you like to play pool?” Lily finally asked.

  "No," Shane answered abruptly.

  Shay slowly looked over at him and mouthed her objection. He only crossed his arms and stood his ground. Lily laughed to herself as she thought how quickly she could end him.

  "Then go to the bar," Lily said to Shane just as politely as she possibly could.

  “Shane, do you want to play pool?” Shay asked him, under her breath. “If not, go to the bar.”

  “Fine,” Shane huffed and gave Lily a smug look and then he walked away.

  Shane walked to the bar by himself. He was wondering what Shay was up to. She had never been very interested in making friends outside where she worked, so why was she here? He could see why she was so enamored with Lily’s blue eyes, but that didn’t explain why Shay had come back to the bar. He wondered if Lily was here every night or just the weekend.

  He sat down at the bar and ordered a fruity mixed drink. No shots for him. It was fru fru drinks for him all the way. He glanced up through the crowd and saw Shay at the pool table. He didn’t know if she had even played pool, much less if she was any good at it.

  He had only a few sips of his drink before curiosity got the better of him.

  Shay was bending over the pool table taking the last shot at the eight ball. She lined up the shot and tapped the que ball into the eight ball and it dropped into the side pocket.

  “We win,” Lily shouted.

  Derek grumbled something under his breath.

  “Play again?” Ann asked as she hit Derek in the arm.

  Shane walked over to Shay and whispered in her ear.

  “Do you even know how to play pool?” he asked.

  “Sort of,” she answered in a normal voice. “Josh taught me while we were here one night. Why?”

  “Just wondering. I forgot that the drunk was here all the time,” Shane said snidely.

  “He’s not a drunk!” Shay mumbled. “Do you want to play? You can be on our team.”

  “What are you doing?” Shane asked so no one could hear him.

  “What do you mean?” Shay asked softly.

  “What are you doing here?” He asked. “You don’t play pool. You don’t go out and meet strangers in bars.”

  Shay gave him an incredulous look.

  “Well maybe it’s about time I did!” Shay smirked.

  “Everything alright?” Lily shouted from the other side of the table.

  “Yeah,” Shay answered, looking at Shane. “Who’s breaking?”

  Shay walked away from Shane and to the other side of the table to where Lily was standing.

  “Is everything OK?” Lily asked when she was standing beside her.

  Shay just nodded.

  Shane walked back to the bar with his drink.

  “I’ll be at the bar,” Shane shouted as he was walking away.

  No one heard him.

  Courting LaShay

  Lily and LaShay played pool for about half an hour when Shay decided that she had left Shane waiting long enough.

  “Will I see you again?” Lily asked as Shay walked away.

  “Pool? Tomorrow night?” Shay replied.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Lily answered with a big smile.

  Sunday night Shay showed up without Shane and Lily was grateful. She finally got to talk to Shay without feeling watched. They sat at the bar and talked about general things like favorite songs, favorite restaurants and the like. Lily wanted to ask about Shay’s boyfriend, but was afraid to pry.

  Shay was really beginning to like Lily. They quickly became friends and for Shay, was like having a new best friend. Someone new to hang out with and to talk to. Shay rarely had time with her schedule to do things before but was making time and enjoying it.

  Shane was against the friendship from the beginning. Not that Lily had done anything wrong, he was just jealous that Shay had another best friend and wasn’t always available for him anymore.

  After talking for nearly two hours the two decided that they’d play pool.

  Shay wasn’t a bad pool player, but Lily still had to let her win. Around midnight Shay finally told Lily she needed to go.

  “Would you like to go see a movie sometime?” Lily asked shakily.

  “Sure,” Shay answered.

  They met the next weekend at the movie theater and went to see and action movie. Lily was afraid to take Shay to a love story. Thinking that she might get all romantic and tell Shay how she really felt. Sappy love stories always had that effect on her and she figured it was a safe bet that Shay didn’t feel the same.

  Shay had never felt so close to someone so quickly. She was really beginning to like Lily, a lot. She found herself thinking about Lily all the time. After spending most of her weekends hanging out with Lily, she finally broke it off with Josh. She felt like she owed Josh more since they were dating and she was having so much more fun hanging out with Lily. The breakup went smoothly, he wasn’t upset at all and had actually known it was coming. She did love him, but it wasn’t the head over heels ‘in-love’ that she hears others talk about. The two had been dating for nearly two years and they got along great. The sex was great, the conversation was great and Shay had even introduced him to her father. Her father approved. Of course he did. Josh was a corporate lawyer and had an annual income of over a million dollars. But Shay just wasn’t in love with him. They could talk about anything together. Even Lily. And Shay found herself talking about her a lot.

  Lily had been playing it cool and trying not to let her emotions show... too much. After three weeks, Lily was dying to tell her. It was driving her insane but she was not going to screw this up. She couldn't, because she couldn't even imagine a life without Shay now.

  Shay was beginning to look forward to her time with Lily, too. She had even invited Lily over during the week for dinner and drinks on more than one occasion. A month into the friendship Shay had a stray thought one evening when Lily was over for drinks. Shay wondered what it would be like to kiss Lily. It was just a passing thought and Shay just let it go. A few days passed and Shay began thinking about it again. She could picture her fingers in Lily’s hair and the soft warm feel of her lips. Shay had never fantasized about being with someone before. She had never felt the way she feels about Lily. Could she be attracted to Lily? Could she possibly be falling for her? The two were getting increasingly closer and Shay was feeling uncertain about the way she felt. She surely didn’t want to stop seeing her, but should she? Did Lily feel the same? Shay wondered.

  The next night Shane was over to watch television and to just catch up with Shay. He immediately asked about Lily.

  He sat down on the couch with a margarita that Shay handed him when he walked in the door.

  “So how’s your new best friend?”

  “She’s good,” she answered almost too qui
ckly.

  “She coming over tonight, too?” He asked.

  “No, do you want her to?” Shay shot back.

  Shane just took another sip of his drink then sat it down on the coffee table.

  “Shane, when did you know that you were gay?” Shay asked.

  “What?” Shane answered, nearly spitting out his drink.

  “How did you know?” She asked again standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  She just stared at the floor without saying anything else.

  “Lily? Really?” Shane assumed.

  “I really like her,” Shay said after a long pause.

  Shane took a deep breath then said, “Is she gay?”

  “I don’t know,” Shay answered quickly.

  Shane took a deep breath, picked up his drink and leaned back on the couch.

  “Talk to me girlfriend,” he said then took a big swig of his margarita.

  “I think about her all the time,” Shay admitted.

  Shay and Shane had been friends for almost ten years. He once worked at the television station with Shay but had gotten a better offer and gone on to work for an advertising firm. Shay knew she could talk to him although he wasn’t crazy about Lily.

  “For the first time ever, I catch myself thinking about her and smiling. I’ve never thought about guys like that. Not even guys I’m dating.”

  Shane sipped his drink and nodded.

  “Could that be why I’ve never really been all that excited about sleeping with guys? Even when I should have been ‘boy crazy’ like all the other girls, I wasn’t. I could care less. And I always hated kissing guys in public. “

  Shane took another sip then said, “Sounds like you feel really strongly about her.”

  “I do,” Shay sighed.

  “So what do you want to do about that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid I’ll scare her off if I tell her how much I like her.”

  “Maybe she does feel the same. Maybe that’s why you two are spending so much time together.”

  “But how do I know?”

  “You just have to ask her, I guess,” he smiled. “My girl is gay!”

  Shay had been friends with Lily for almost a month and half and she was beginning to have strong feelings for her. Not just friendship feelings, but deeper feelings. She was thinking about Lily all the time and couldn’t wait to talk to her next. The feelings had been growing since day one at the bar. And the more they were together, the stronger Shay felt. She had never had these feelings before and she wasn’t quite sure how to process them. She knew Lily was important to her and couldn’t imagine them not seeing each other. She wanted to be with her all the time and the feelings were only getting stronger.

  Was she falling in love with Lily? She had loved guys before but not like this. Not like having butterflies in her stomach and smiling for no apparent reason. She had never even thought about being gay before. But if she were being truly honest, she had always been really close to her girlfriends. She would get more upset when a girlfriend would cancel their plans than when a boyfriend she was dating would cancel. She actually remembered being in tears once when Shelly, her best friend in high school, decided to go to her boyfriend’s prom at another school instead of double dating to their own prom. Shay just thought she was being emotional and never really thought it through. Maybe she did care too much.

  Was that the reason that intimacy with guys had always been awkward for her? Why she wasn’t like her female friends in school and always talking about boys and kissing and sex? Was that the reason that when all her female friends were gawking over boys, she was busy with school work and studying? Then Shay remembered one time in particular when she was with a friend at the park. Shay was with her boyfriend, Daniel. Shelly was with her boyfriend and Shelly’s sister was with her boyfriend. Shay remembered Shelly and her boyfriend rolling in the grass, play wrestling, and thinking that she wished it was her, wrestling with Shelly. At the time, Shay didn’t think anything about it. It never occurred to her that she should’ve been wrestling with Daniel and not thinking about Shelly.

  “How did you know,” she asked again as she sat down at the opposite end of the couch.

  “I just always knew,” Shane answered casually.

  “I mean, at what point was it clear that you liked boys and not girls?”

  “Pre-school,” Shane laughed then looked at Shay with a serious expression.

  Shay just sat there, sipping on the margarita she had brought from the kitchen.

  “You know I don’t trust her, right,” he finally said clearly, then took another drink. “You don’t really even know her!”

  “I know her enough,” she said.

  “Have you met any of her friends? Have you been to her apartment? What’s her last name? How old is she?”

  “No. No. Honeycutt. And I don’t know,” Shay answered in order.

  “Honeycutt? What kind of name is that?” Shane laughed.

  “A family name. She’s adopted, her mother died during childbirth and she was raised in Tennessee.”

  “Have you ever even been out of the city,” Shane snorted.

  “Yes! So? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “You’re right,” Shane said seriously. “Where does she live?”

  “The Crown Building.”

  “No way! And she’s never taken you there. I don’t believe it. There’s no way she lives in the Crown Building. People like us could never get a place in the Crown Building even with your father’s money,” Shane spewed. “It’s the most elite address in New York and she’s never taken you there? No way she really lives there!”

  “Why would she lie?” Shay asked.

  “I just don’t trust her,” Shane repeated. “I know you like her and all, but there’s just something missing with her. Like she’s hiding something.”

  Shay just shook her head and took another drink.

  It was another Sunday night and Lily was at Shay’s apartment, as usual. Lily had begun to realize that Shay was beginning to have deeper feelings for her. The hugs were longer, the touching was more often and not a day went by that they didn’t talk. Lily had to get up the nerve to ask Shay how she really felt. She had to convince her that she was serious and that she wanted to be around for a long time. Of course Shay didn’t know how long that would really be.

  They had spent hours just talking. That night was one of the rare occasions that Lily was with her alone without Shane, so they'd spent the time talking about everything from their favorite movies and music to deeper conversations like growing up and dreams that they had. Shay was very intelligent and Lily was usually amazed at how much she actually knew. Had she figured out Lily wasn't completely human? If she had, she never let on like she knew.

  During that night’s particular conversation, they were also talking about likes and dislikes, and Shay revealed that she was a little old fashioned in some ways. She liked hand written letters on old textured paper and hand-made gifts. Even turn of the century art and music.

  “What’s your favorite classical music piece?” Lily asked.

  Shay tilted her head and stared off into space for a brief moment.

  “Classical piece? How classical?”

  “Really classical,” Lily smiled.

  “Um, Fir Elise,” Shay answered.

  “Really? Mine, too!”

  “What is your favorite piece of art? Say… more than 100 years old or more,” Shay asked, grinning and thinking it would stump Lily.

  “Umberto Boccioni,” she answered almost instantly.

  “No way!” Shay squealed.

  “Elasticity,” they both said in unison.

  Lily dropped her head and smiled. She shook her head before looking back to Shay. How was she supposed to explain that she had that painting hanging in her living room? That two other Boccioni’s paintings were hanging in her apartment as well. And how was she to explain how Vincent knew Umberto, an Italian artist that fo
ught beside him in the First World War. Umberto had died during the war, but not before promising Vincent some of his paintings and two of his preliminary sculptures. The bronze precursor to Boccioni’s Futuristic Man sits on the mantle in Vincent’s penthouse apartment. Vincent also had original works by Picasso, Georgia O’Keefe and Andy Warhol. Lily smiled to herself thinking about all of the famous and historical artifacts that the Crown Building held. She couldn’t wait to show them all to Shay. But not before she knew how to deal with Eric.

  Lily’s thoughts floated back to the present and their conversation continued. After arts and music the subject turned to their own childhoods.

  “Where did you grow up?” Shay asked.

  “Nashville, Tennessee mostly.”

  “A country girl,” Shay teased.

  “Mostly,” Lily nodded and smiled. “Have you ever been out of the city?”

  “No, not really,” Shay said, shaking her head. “I’ve never gone to another city and went site seeing or anything. I’ve been on business trips with my dad to other cities, like Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. Big cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas and they look no different than here, really. Just roads, buildings and more concrete.”

  “But I’m sure you’ve read how much bigger those cities used to be,” Lily added. “And how different the skyline was here in New York before the towers fell in oh one.”

  Lily remembered the day like it was just yesterday. She remembered hearing that the first plane had hit the tower and thought that some pilot had made a drastic mistake. But when the second plane hit the other tower was when the United States changed forever. The coven had been in Atlanta at that time and Lily could still hear the roar of the fighter jet engines as they all left Dobbins Air Force Base just minutes after the second plane hit. F-18 fighters, fully armed, circled the city for days protecting the CDC from any attacks. The powers that be knew that if the terrorists were able to bomb the Centers for Disease Control that it would be catastrophic. So they took no chances.