What It Looks Like in the Light by Anna Megdell

The day I found Lily, I woke early. I wandered through my apartment, counting the steps from one side of the living room to the other. It was clean except for the tumbleweeds of cat hair and dust underneath the couch, and the magazines piled on the kitchen table. I could’ve untangled the necklaces in the china bowl on top of my dresser, thrown away all of the old food in the freezer, returned my father’s call. I thought to go to the bank, to meet with a representative about the possibility of buying a house just to have someone talk to me like an adult. My chest tightened as I walked into the kitchen, and I cracked my knuckles two at a time. It was raining, the windows foggy. From somewhere I heard the slow roll of thunder, like a stomach churning. I thought of Lily then. I didn’t realize I was headed to find her until I was already in my car, pulling into the parking lot of Beans and Leaves. The lights of the coffee shop were bright against the darkness of the early morning.

Paul hadn’t meant to tell me her name, but it’d slipped when I’d pressed for details. “I met Lily through a friend who used to work with her at Beans and Leaves. You know, that coffee shop we always talked about trying.” He said this as if reminiscing about the conversations we wouldn’t be having anymore. I’d asked him what it was about her that he liked, and he mumbled something about her laugh, something so simple that I knew I didn’t stand a chance. The second button of his shirt was undone, and it gaped when he shrugged, like a mouth without teeth.

Now, two weeks after that conversation, I waited in the parking lot before going inside. It was still raining, and cold for late September in Ann Arbor. The sky was grey but no longer dark, the clouds thick. From the car, I could see a barista behind the counter, a tall man wearing a flannel shirt with sleeves rolled to his elbows.

I should’ve been at The Paintbrush by now, taking inventory of the colors and brushes that needed to be restocked before customers arrived. The owner, Joe, would have to be there because I’d called in sick. He was old and had bad knees, and I wondered how he’d reach the bottom shelves, if he’d be able to read the fine print of the labels.

There were a few other people in the coffee shop. A middle-aged man sat at the bar along the window, furiously typing on his laptop, his neck jutted forward; two women in exercise clothes talked in the corner, their hands folded around porcelain mugs. The barista looked up when I walked in, his eyes heavy. I ordered coffee and sat against the brick wall facing the door, opened my book, and waited for Lily.

I’d first met Paul the week of the 4^th of July, at the mechanic while I was getting an oil change. The taillights in his car were out, and he’d gotten a ticket the night before. I liked that his fingernails were groomed and that he didn’t seem to care how loudly he spoke. He didn’t make an excuse to talk to me, just sat down and said hello.

The next week we met for dinner, and I learned that he was a high school teacher. Even though he was several years older than me, his enthusiasm made him seem boyish. I hadn’t gone on a date in a year. I was grateful for the easy conversation.

We went out again later that week and slept together that night. The next morning over breakfast, Paul told me that he wasn’t looking for a relationship.

“I think you’re great, Sarah. But I’ve spent so much time putting other people first, I need to focus on myself now.”

I nodded at his logic. I could see the whole size of him then, saw the limits to any potential of us. It made sitting at his breakfast table without pants on feel safe.

“So, should we end things then?”

His eyes grew big, and he said, a little too quickly, “No, not at all. I guess I mean I don’t want commitment right now. Just casual. Is that okay?”

When friends would tell me that someone they slept with used the word casual, I’d become angry on their behalf, insisting that they deserved more. But over peanut butter toast that morning, not quite looking Paul in the eye, I said, “That’s fine with me. I got out of a bad relationship a little while ago so I’m not really looking for anything serious either.”

I wanted to be the kind of person who admitted to what she really wanted: to make plans with someone, to share a mailbox and grocery lists, to be known so well that the way she held her mouth revealed a secret she couldn’t keep. I wanted to be the kind of person who would respond to casual without an apology.

Paul saw me start to speak and leaned forward, a breadcrumb stuck to his raised eyebrow. Outside, the bright summer leaves moved like they were dancing. Saying anything more would’ve made that moment the opposite of casual, would’ve made me the destroyer of sexy breakfasts, would’ve frayed whatever was between us. And the truth was that I felt more relaxed at that table than I’d been in a long time. I shook my head and took a sip of coffee, and he leaned back in his chair, satisfied.

The bell over the front door of the coffee shop chimed. A woman wearing a black jersey dress and grey clogs walked in, her hair piled on top of her head. She greeted the barista and walked to the back of the shop, returning quickly with an apron around her waist. I shifted my weight in the chair and crossed my legs, my cheeks flushed.

Lily was less beautiful than I’d imagined, and somehow that made it worse. Somehow it made Paul a better guy and their love more substantial. She was messy in a sexy way, slippery and unkempt. But her face was flat, her eyes small and far apart, her neck short and thick. She stacked mugs on top of the espresso machine, and I saw that her fingers were red, the skin of her knuckles dry and flakey. Oily hair had fallen from the nest on her head, clumped together and stuck to her nape. She had a tattoo on her forearm that looked like a cityscape or a constellation. I thought of the thin lines of mountain range tattooed on Paul’s shoulder, and my heart raced.

An old woman came into the shop, her raincoat too large for her small, stooped frame. She shuffled to the counter and Lily greeted her with a loud hello. Her back was to me, but I knew Lily smiled at the woman. I imagined the small talk: Lily eager to know the woman’s plans for the day, the woman complaining that they were all cancelled because of the god-awful rain, and Lily agreeing that it really was terrible, and she hoped it would stop soon. The woman would compliment Lily on her smile; Lily would thank her instead of mumbling an apology.

I folded the corner of my book and kicked the leg of the table, the empty mug rattling. I thought of Joe at the paint store climbing a ladder to grab a gallon for a customer. Sweat coated my back. I glared at the woman as she carried her teapot to the table next to me. She looked over and smiled. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to leave or stay.

Lily was wiping the counter when she glanced at my book, then up at me. For a second, I wondered if I had screamed. We looked at each other. I tried to relax my face, appear as though I had a reason to be there that had nothing to do with her. I even smiled a little before looking down at my lap. I wondered if she thought I was pretty.

After that first breakfast, Paul and I had continued to see each other several times a week despite our intended nonchalance. He’d ask me to sleep over after sex, and more than once I’d woken up to him tracing designs on my back, letters and scribbles of faces. He cried in front of me when his favorite student broke his leg and lost a basketball scholarship, and I learned that he’d never leave the house without double-checking that the front door was locked. But we never met each other’s friends, never kissed in public.

We were at a bar when he asked me to tell him something I’d never told anyone else. It was mid-August, the weather humid and ripe. I was two glasses of wine into the night, and I rolled my eyes at the silliness of the game.

“Paul, I’m a woman. I have best friends. There’s nothing that I’ve never told anyone.”

“Have you ever been in a fistfight? Or hit a deer with your car?”

“No, but if I had I’d never keep it a secret.”

“Think really hard. Sarah, I want to know.”

I could have told him that the first time I got my period, I’d shown my stepmother my underwear because I didn’t know what to do, and she’d cringed. Or that my biggest fear was being stranded in space or the ocean, anywhere expansive. Or that my mouth watered whenever I saw a slab of raw steak, that I wanted to pull at the lines of fat with my front teeth.

But instead I told him about the girl who was killed on my block when I was eight years old. She was sixteen. I liked to ride my bike past her house, watch her on the front porch painting her nails or talking on the phone. Sometimes her boyfriend would be there, and on those days I’d slow down, try to get a glimpse of them holding hands or kissing.

Her boyfriend shot her five times in the back the night after Halloween. I was sorting my candy at the dining room table when police cars raced down the street, their sirens shrill. My father turned on the news and told me to go upstairs. The next morning, I heard him talking with Mrs. Henley from across the street. She said the girl’s boyfriend had confessed right away, said he never meant to hurt her. “Of course he’d meant to hurt her,” my father said.

Paul stared at me with his mouth open. I took a sip of wine.

“Were you scared?”

I shrugged. “My dad wouldn’t let me ride my bike while the house was still roped off, but I’d sneak over there a lot. I tried to look in the windows a few times. I never saw anyone in there. Her family must have moved away.”

I took another long drink, tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. Paul signaled to the bartender and put his credit card down, an easy grin on his face. I wanted to ask why it was so difficult for him to see what was really going on. He put his hand on my waist as we walked into the heavy air outside, and I stared at a cigarette butt on the sidewalk. Inside the cab on the way to his apartment, my shoulders cold against the leather seat, Paul held my hand. I turned toward the window and took in the glowing streetlights, smiling at the thought that maybe we were getting somewhere, that maybe I’d finally managed to say the right thing.

I stared at my book, my mind drifting. Three hours had passed at Beans and Leaves. I’d bought another cup of coffee when Lily was on her break, and there was enough of a crowd now that I didn’t feel as exposed.

Did Lily know about the girl on my block? Had Paul told her about it late at night, presenting it as a story he’d heard from a friend that was so awful he had to repeat it?

Then Lily asked another barista if there was anything else he needed her to do before she left. She hadn’t been there eight hours; why was she leaving already? When she went into the backroom, untying her apron, I gathered my purse and left. It was raining harder now, orange lightning cut through the clouds. I ran to my car and locked the doors behind me.

Lily came out of the coffee shop, the hood of her maroon sweatshirt pulled over her head. I held my breath when she walked by, watched in the rearview mirror as she pulled out of the parking lot. I counted to thirty before backing up my car.

Lily drove a white sedan, and it looked like an exotic bug scurrying through the rain. After a few minutes, she turned left onto Main Street, and I did too, passing the high school and golf course, then right onto Scio Church Road. Three cars sat between us at the intersection of Maple Road. When the light changed, I kept a casual distance while watching her. She signaled to turn left, and I knew she was headed toward the library.

All day, I must have known it would come to this. I was good at following her. The radio was turned to an Oldies station, the Jackson 5 blaring. When we approached the library, its wall of windows glowing in the dark afternoon rain, I was pleased with myself for having been right. My laugh sounded eager in the emptiness of the car.

Lily parked close to the door of the library. I drove to the other end of the lot, backing into a spot so that I faced her, and turned off the engine. I reclined the seat just enough so that I could watch over the steering wheel.

Her hood still on her head, Lily got out of her car. Water splashed as she ran toward the library. A tote hung from her shoulder, corners of heavy books jutting out. She looked like a mythical creature running hunched in the rain.

I waited five minutes, then walked inside. The library was small and bright. I dripped water on the grey linoleum, on the red painted footprints that led to the children’s section in the back. The dusty air tightened my skin. I should’ve been wearing a baseball hat. I walked to the computer by the clerk’s desk, bent over the keyboard, and slowly typed the titles of my favorite books from childhood, peeking around the screen for Lily.

The sloppy bun on her head poked over the top shelf of the cookbooks. She walked a few steps then paused and crouched down, bun disappearing from view. I moved from the computer to the New Releases, grabbed a plastic-shrouded biography of Abraham Lincoln. I leafed through it as Lily walked to the chairs next to the windows, carrying a stack of thick cookbooks. She set them on the floor, placed the book from the top of the pile onto her lap, and pulled a notepad from her bag.

Holding the hardcover close to my chest, I walked to the magazine rack that ran behind the chairs where Lily sat. I flipped through a magazine, my body angled toward her. She copied a recipe into her notebook, her handwriting small and jagged. I could see her scalp through her tangled hair, smelled grapefruit when she took off her damp sweatshirt, and dropped it on the floor. I wondered if she’d recognize me in the reflection of the windows, if she’d turn and tug on my sleeve, tell me she knew I’d been following her and was waiting for me to finally get too close, cringing as she said Sarah out loud.

A man sat in the leather chair next to Lily. His grey hair was swept high off his forehead, and a thin, silver hoop pierced his earlobe. I skimmed an article about the California drought, glanced at a cartoon of a couple on their honeymoon who’d forgotten their bathing suits. Children laughed as they jumped from one red footprint to the next, their wet boots smacking the plastic floor. Lily looked in their direction, the skin around her eyes wrinkling as she smiled.

One of the children slipped, and her scream filled the library. The man looked at Lily and asked if she thought the child needed help. They turned to me then. Lily’s eyes, the color of a halved kiwi, paused on my face. The man said that the girl’s parents had it under control, and Lily nodded, still watching me. I glanced at the floor, tried to smile serenely, and placed the magazine back on the shelf. I forced myself to move slowly as I walked to the door.

Back in my car, I turned on the heat, the fans hitting my face. I found a baggie filled with almonds and cracked them one at a time with my back teeth. Flakes of the thin, bitter skin stuck to my tongue. I remembered the way Paul chewed gum when he was trying to concentrate, and I spit the almond out of my mouth. It hit the windshield and fell into the vent on the dashboard.

Paul had ended things a month after the night he held my hand in the cab, two weeks before I found Lily. We were at the same bar, and I was telling him about a customer at work who’d ordered a hundred gallons of violet paint for a mural. Paul stared at a baseball game on the television behind me, chewed on a red cocktail straw. I kissed him on the cheek as I stood to walk to the bathroom. When I came back, before I could sit down, Paul said, “I met someone.” Not someone else, but someone, like the first someone, the only someone.

“While I was in the bathroom?”

He cradled the straw between his second and third fingers, bubbles of spit clustered on the twisted, collapsed tip. “We met at a party last week. It’s happened very quickly. Like you know, I wasn’t looking for anything serious.”

“It’s serious after a week?”

“I’m sorry, Sarah. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think I was ready for more, but this just feels right.”

It was then that I asked him her name, and he said Lily without hesitation, like he was proud that his love was attached to such a beautiful word. I pictured velvet white petals, long and open, and not shy.

Paul continued to apologize as I paid for my drink and pulled my sunglasses from the top of my head. I was unhooking my purse from the back of the chair when he said that he still wanted to be friends.

“I don’t think my being with Lily should stop you from being in my life.”

It was like I was seeing him for the first time. He looked excited, expecting me to say yes. He was happy. I realized then that maybe all along he’d just been pretending to be satisfied with casual. How had I missed that? I mumbled something about not being sure and needing time and left quickly.

At home that night, I sat on the couch examining fashion magazines, embarrassed that each model made me wonder about Lily. I told myself there was nothing I could do to compete with love; it was mysterious and unplanned, overpowered logic. But then the room shrank and the faces in the magazines scowled at me. I hated those posed and lacquered women, hated their bored expressions, and the way they asked to be wanted, so at ease with being watched.

I turned to a model in a fur coat and wide-brimmed camel hat. She smiled at me with half-closed eyes. I ripped the sheet from the binding into tiny pieces. On the next page, three women wearing blue dresses stood in a line looking down at the camera. Their toenails were painted red like the inside of a mouth. I tore them, too, and kept going until the magazine lay in shreds around me.

Thunder rippled overhead as Lily walked out of the library. She wrapped her arms around herself and stepped slowly over the puddles. When she reached her car, she looked around before getting inside, sensing something. My car was still on the other side of the lot, and it was raining hard enough that I knew she couldn’t see me. Still, I ducked and draped my body over the gear shift and parking-brake, my head resting on the passenger seat. I counted to fifty before sitting up. Lily’s car had already pulled out of the lot, turning right toward Scio Church Road.

I hoped she was finally going home. I wanted the day to end. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to find Paul and yell that he’d made a mistake. And yet I was following Lily’s car as she turned onto Maple, not Paul’s. I’d spent my day trying to see if it was Orion’s Belt or Chicago’s skyline tattooed on her arm, hoping she might trip or spill hot water, wanting to understand why he chose her.

She turned onto 9^th Street, a narrow lane between rows of large houses. A film of sweat covered my eyelids, and I bit the tough skin around my thumbnail. Excitement filled the damp car as we crawled through the neighborhood. And something else too: a pulse in my gut that I wanted to ignore, a feeling that wasn’t fear but panic. I trailed Lily’s car too closely. When she braked, her taillights like the coil of a hot burner, I pulled to the side of the road. She continued driving another block, then turned into a gravel driveway next to a blue house.

From where I parked, I had a clear view of Lily getting out of her car. She’d taken her bun down, hair the color of a pinched dandelion heavy on her shoulders. I imagined calling Paul to tell him that I’d found her. I’d say that the soft lighting and modern furniture at Beans and Leaves were better than other coffee shops in town but that the latte tasted like melted wax. I’d ask if he’d been embarrassed when I’d kissed him on the cheek at the bar, if that was why he told me about Lily then. What made you, I’d ask, want to see her naked?

I’d ask if he cringed when he remembered how my voice got loud or that I hated to be hugged from behind. What was it like to feel safe with her? I’d say that I didn’t love him, but that it was something else I couldn’t name. He’d likely be inside waiting for Lily to come home, ready to make dinner, or take a nap together while the storm passed.

My hands twitched in my lap. I was reaching for my phone when lightning hit a transformer a few yards ahead. Hissing, staccato claps surrounded me, and also, somewhere, the sound of bells. Wires fell and sparks sprayed from the explosion. I folded over myself, arms covering my head.

Here is the thing, the only thing, I’ve never told anyone: I was in a hotel room with my ex-boyfriend, Justin, on the night of my birthday one year ago, a week before we broke up. There was the smell of champagne, like dried hay, and the last time I ate strawberries. We’d had a fight because he wanted me to move in with him. When I said I wasn’t ready, he’d asked why I was always so scared. We’d been together for two years, were approaching adulthood, and he wanted to know why I couldn’t grow up. He asked as if he already knew the answer.

I was nauseous from dinner, from the wine and stale bread and overcooked meat. We’d been having that fight a lot. Every time he wanted more, sirens would start inside of me. When he felt rejected, he’d drink. I’d finally started to notice the way he’d mumble late at night, his walk swerving and laugh too loud. I couldn’t admit to myself what it meant. The night of my birthday, I was the one who’d ordered us more wine.

There was the dirty hot tub in the middle of the hotel room, Justin’s Scotch-soaked tongue in the back of my throat. I wanted to be anywhere else, but I swallowed his spit, lifted my legs so he could push up my dress. Times before had hinted at that kind of roughness; he’d refer to it after like a mark of adventure, my spirit deserving a pat on the shoulder for a job well done.

But this time, there was the stab of his belt buckle in the soft, rounded flesh of my belly that was my favorite part of my body. His hands smelled like soap from the restaurant bathroom, twisted in my hair. A painting of a farm hung on the wall behind his head, and I counted the black spots on a cow. My jaw and neck ached. I didn’t recognize the feeling of him inside me, like a spoon carving out the pit of an avocado.

There was my attempt to push him away, take a break. I said I needed water, asked if he wanted some too. Why hadn’t it occurred to me then to tell him we could move in together? Why hadn’t I realized that would have stopped him?

It ended so quickly that I knew he’d be embarrassed later, blame the alcohol and stress. Then there was just us in our silence. He walked to the shower, kicking his pants into a pile, and I turned off the light. Part of me broke away from my body that night, a muscle ripped from bone.

The rain fell harder. I sat up, blinked. People stood on the sidewalk and lawns, staring at the singed electrical cables fallen on the cars in front of me. Sparks shot from the wires, and the onlookers staggered backward. Lily watched from her porch, her brow low, her mouth flat. The bag of books was heavy on her shoulder, and I realized how tired she must be, her back bowed and tense from work and wet air.

I wanted to warn her to be careful, to tell her that it didn’t matter if she was good, there would still be people who would hurt her. I wanted to call Paul and remind him how easily something beautiful can be destroyed. I wanted to go back to the night in the hotel room and not disappear. I wanted to go home.

I started the car. The spectators on the sidewalk jumped in surprise, not having noticed until then that I was there. I put the car in drive, turned the steering wheel toward the street, and released my foot from the brake. The people reached out their hands as if to warn me of the fire, as if I didn’t already know.

Anna Megdell holds an MFA from the University of Tennessee, where she won the John C. Hodges Award for Fiction. Her work has appeared in Entropy and Midwestern Gothic. She lives in Ann Arbor, MI.