en pointe — chapter 15: croisé

w — swearing, sexual references, the bog standard for eva. no pictures in this chapter! before reading, you can refresh on what’s happened so far in en pointe here; character boards here.

croisé [ crwah-zay ] : crossed.

song link (youtube).

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THE FIRE FLOWER MOUNTAINS

 

The Sierra Nevada rises in magnificent crags, blazing in the bright afternoon sky. An endless meadow of wildflowers blooms forth from where my feet are planted, violet lupines and fiery poppies and pale star blossoms, a thousand heads bending in answer to the summer breeze. My heart soars. I feel light as the clouds gliding beyond the Sierras, like me—and my siblings and Misha and our golden retriever—haven’t been hiking up Kings Canyon National Park for the past day, the June sun beating our asses, and I’m not wearing the world’s fattest backpack.

Adorning my backpack are ten enamel pins, a miniature lacquered universe of wild forests and lakes birthed by meteors, fragmented across the green canvas. All of the National Parks in California, Nevada, and Oregon. A few of the pins are older than I am—marking the first time Mom and Dad abandoned their city shoes for good and ventured into the wilds of Southern California. Inside the backpack is a tent for two, a sleeping bag, a map of the Sierras, a metal water bottle that could knock out a man, and approximately 50 protein bars. 

And here we are—halfway through the hike—where summer wildflowers murmur across the valley and gather around three glimmering reflections of the Sierras. Every year since I was 14, our family has trekked here, to this very place where my heels hover on the crest of the trail; and yet without fail, time stops moving; and I almost feel like I could fly. 

“Loser goes fish!” Matias yells, and the spell is broken; I tussle free of the heavy backpack and the guys tear their shirts off as we scramble; Señor Papperino bounds ahead, his joyful barks echoing across the mountain peaks, and makes an almighty winner’s bomb into the lake. Lupines snap past my legs as I leap down the hill after our dog. The glacial water shocks the summer hike right out of me, but it’s sweet and clear as a fresh spring, and when I open my eyes underwater for the briefest moment, I glimpse schools of tiny silver fish darting away from me.

I burst into the sunlight again, and cup my dripping hands around my mouth. “Slowpokes!” Fawn is delicately stepping into the shallows, looking pleased at her third place. I tackle her. 

“Agh- Eva!” She bobs up, drenched and spluttering. She throws her arms around my neck and we paddle together into deeper emerald water, giggling. From somewhere above, Santiago shouts to the windswept sky. He jumps off the rocky outcrop, followed quickly by a whooping Matias, and then Misha, who flourishes his hands in a ridiculous gymnast pose before doing the cleanest backflip I’ve ever seen into the lake. 

My eldest brother is the last one on the shore—ironically, the longest-legged of us—and yells indignantly after Matias. “I’m coming for you, piece of shit!” Alejandro wades in, our golden retriever splashing wild circles around him. Matias tries to swim away, but impeded with his wheezing laughter and Alec’s tall strides, he’s immediately caught in a noogie. 

Our five day hike began from the cool, heady sequoia groves in the deepest valleys of Kings Canyon, damp moss and ferns silencing our footsteps, ducking under gossamer webs stretched between the ancient redwood trees and twinkling with morning dewdrops. From the forest we jumped from rock to rock along the thundering river, kicking off our shoes to swim where the current slowed into gentle green pools and dragonflies glided across the water. Then we trekked up the hot, dusty trail for another day, across the aspen and juniper meadows cupped between mountain peaks. I’ve slapped the shit out of at least a hundred mozzies in the past 24 hours, but I’m home.  

We float in the cirrus clouds drifting across the lake, and read the tales of the cumulus clouds above. Swallows chase insects and pas de deux with their mates. Peregrine falcons hover alone on the winds. We swim until the light starts mellowing, purple shadows slide down the mountainside, and it’s time to camp. Alec crouches on a rock where he thinks trout might be lazing in the shade; while Matias yoinks the largest driftwood he can find with our dog trotting jauntily beside him, sticks in mouth; Santiago plunges the water filter into a brook splashing down from the Sierras, Fawn unwraps our well-loved set of green enamel mugs, I toss Misha the pegs and we pitch the tents. This routine is instinctual to me as Kitri’s dancing. We’ve spent our lives in the Californian wilderness, learning the secrets of the redwood forests and deciphering the weather forecast written in the wind. Mom likes to recall, with both fondness and exasperation, the summer nights when we were kids and it was near impossible to corral us back into the tiny house. Especially you, she’d poke me furiously, until I’d double over from laughter. Even as a kid I refused to listen to anybody but the wind. 

When we brush the dirt off our knees and admire the tents, the mountain air is thick with a tantalising smoke. The campfire is spirited now, spitting bright sparks and snapping pip pops into the dusk. A trout is baking in the fire, along with juicy corn cobs, zucchini, and flatbreads. Fawn’s chopped up the zesty salsa recipe Aunt Lilith passed down to us—well, Fawn and Alec, after that one time my little bros and I almost burned the kitchen down—and we perch on driftwood logs around the crackling fire, wolfing down blackened fish tacos and sipping cider from chipped mugs. There’s nothing quite like this feeling. Crickets sing from the evening field of wildflowers around us, and Señor’s golden fur is impossibly soft as he curls up beside my legs. I shut up for once as my siblings and Misha debate, with increasingly elaborate arguments, which mountain animal we would each be (apparently, I’m a pika). Instead, I breathe in—desperately trying to capture this feeling in my chest, so it stays there forever. 

After dinner the vibe is too relaxed to do anything except watch the first stars twinkle over the Sierras, but something in me itches to explore before nightfall. Tortoiseshell butterflies flutter around camp, stealing the last crumbs of dinner. I bounce out of my seat and poke Misha’s shoulder. He and Santiago are discussing their favourite songs off The 1975’s latest album—Notes on A Conditional Form, something Tio has been humming and picking guitar strings to all summer—and when he glances up at me, his expression is serene as I’ve ever seen it. 

“Solano! You up for a wander?”

Misha shakes out his majestic mane of hair and grins. “There’s nothing I love more, Thoreau.” 

I turn to my siblings brightly. “Y’all want to come?” 

Matias yawns hugely and flops down on the grass. “I’ve eaten too much and can’t get up,” he says sleepily, to echoed agreement. Señor Papperino, however, never turns down a chance to explore, and immediately bounds off into the fields. Only his tail and the swaying of wild irises marks his way. 

I pick our way across the meadow towards the montane forest below the lakes, Misha echoing my footprints, leaping over the brooks splish-splashing in the dusk. Every so often, we raise our hands in customary hello to the few other hikers camped out along the trail. Birds rustle in the dark, beautiful fringes of the sugar pine trees, settling into their nests for the night; I crane my neck and glimpse the saffron breast of a warbler, peering down at us curiously, before it darts away into the depths of the forest. “Señor! Buddy boy!” I snap my fingers. He comes circling back and flops down in a patch of daisies, wagging his tail. Black bears are pretty active on this trail, and even though they’re usually quite shy, our golden retriever lacks the braincells to realise making friends with a bear is an extremely stupid idea. I keep an eye out for any signs as we pass by bushes of ripe berries. We’re not likely to get flatlined by a fucking bear, but the ones around this National Park have learned that people means easy treats, and I’d rather not be woken up at the crack of dawn by a bear sprinting away with my precious stash of protein bars.

As we wander, listening to the evening news that the birds and squirrels are passing through the trees, I glance at Misha. He seems at home trekking the wilderness as he does in the glittering marble streets of Rodeo Drive. Matias and Santiago became friends with him at my birthday party, and very enthusiastically invited him to our camping trip, ignoring my incredulous face. If there’s anything I can’t imagine rich kids doing, it’s pissing in a forest billions of miles from civilisation. 

“Sooooo,” I hop upon a rock and balance on my tippy toes, “how come you aren’t dying right now?” 

Misha twinkles; he’s been expecting the question, and clasps his heart mournfully. “I can’t believe you ever doubted me, Kingston.” 

I laugh. The sound rings out over the mountainside. “No offence! I just can’t imagine Mako or Sasha ever agreeing to this.” Sasha is in France for the summer, decorating a pied-à-terre with her boyfriend for the start of her Paris Opera Ballet contract. She often sends pics of Parisian bakeries and the Louvre to our group chat, much to Piper’s excitement. 

Misha grins, and presents his elbow. I bounce down, pebbles skittering, and resume our wander together. “I was a child of the sea,” he tells me, and for once, his voice isn’t Shakesperian or jokey; but thoughtful, humming like the ocean. “I grew up in thunderstorms and bioluminescent waves. My parents sailed around the world—to see the beauty of la Terra, but also, to carry out the work of The Solano Foundation. They preferred to love with their feet planted in the earth instead of a luxury office, you see. And so I caught the wanderer’s spirit from them. I’ve been backpacking since I was sixteen.” 

I listen as he paints his adventures. In the June light he’s ethereal, those golden irises and fine Italian features sculpted in Gucci editorials; yet his skin has turned earthy over the Los Angeles summer, a thousand freckles scattered over his nose, rooted plainly to the world in a way so different from our elite dancer circle. Misha Solano is free and beautiful as the wildflowers carpeting the mountains. I can see why Mako loves him so. From meandering barefoot between seaside churches and orange biscotti along the coast of Italy, to the still and vast fjords at the bottom of New Zealand, through the emerald green rains soaking the Inca Trail high up in Peru, there are places he’s wandered alone that are wilder than even I can imagine. 

I think of all the times I’ve gone hiking with my beloved family, the warmth and laughter around our campfires. It’s hard to imagine such an experience without them. “Why alone?” 

Misha pauses. The birds serenade. “My dear,” he says seriously, “The problem with wanderers is even when we returned to Palos Verdes for my education, they couldn’t bear to stay. Sometimes, in the furtherest reaches of the world, they disappear. Here, in the wilderness… see that bird?” We gaze up at the red-crowned vireo, singing and yanking without a worry. “He’s himself, nothing more, nothing less. One can almost forget the cruel and terrible deeds my own people have wrought upon this world. To other humans. To me. And yet… in defiance of the blood and the broken bones, the wicked and the ravagers, there are beautiful things that live on in peace, are there not? Things that are still worth saving.” 

I squeeze his elbow, my heart hurting. Sometimes I honestly don’t know what the fuck he’s saying—like a Sherlock riddle decipherable only by Sasha and Mako’s functioning braincells—but this feeling is clearer to me than anything. “I know what you mean.” 

The trail turns down and out of sight around the forest fringe—and a meadow of Indian Paintbrushes bursts open in front of us, flowers vivid as blood, the Sierras caught in a glorious inferno of dying sunlight, as if the summit is on fire. A mule deer is grazing amongst the flowers. She lifts her head to gaze at us for a moment, one delicate hoof raised. Misha is still beside me. His silence tells me everything he’s feeling: there’s no describing some things, no matter how well versed in poetry someone like Misha may be. 

We stand there until the sun seeps from the mountain. “Let’s get back before dark,” I say. We walk up the trail in quiet, taking a different path that we missed on the initial hike, which I know loops to Rae Lakes. It’s the southern side of the mountain, where I can see all the way down into the beautiful lower valleys, a full moon hanging low in the lavender sky. An owl hoots softly as the nocturnal animals begin to wake.   

A singed tree rises along the side of the trail. It’s a young sequoia, wounded from a wildfire that must have burned earlier this summer. Wildfires are a natural part of life in the Kings Canyon ecosystem; every so often, they sweep through the forests, killing the choking vegetation so new life can flourish. We round a corner in the trail. I halt in my tracks, and Misha swiftly sidesteps me.

A black scar yawns across the entire mountainside. Thousands of ancient sequoias stand silently, as if in vigil, their branches desolate. My heartbeat quickens. I scramble down off the trail, not listening to Misha’s call. My shoes crunch on ash and splintered branches. It is the only sound; the birds are gone, their nests and eggs broken on the forest floor. I gingerly approach the oldest tree I can see. If there’s any tree that could survive, it’s this one, dwarfing the forest and making me an ant. The bark is obsidian. I reach out slowly and place my palm on the bark. For the briefest moment—the forest is roaring, the night sky searing a terrible scarlet, burning branches screeching and thundering down around fleeing deer, the flames engulfing the sequoias, destroying the hearts of trees that have beat quietly for millennia. They are dead. 

I snatch my hand away. My heart pounds against my ribs. Shadows move silently across the grave of giants. I drop and dig into the ash, searching for the seed pods which are meant to open in the heat of wildfires. My knuckles hit something hard. A sequoia baby, turned into coal. It’s getting worse. Year by year, the wildfires rage and devour with more greed, scorching so hot that the oldest living things in the world, stood through countless fires and storms, are falling. I think of the jewels in Cartier, gleaming coldly in the dark. My chest aches. The ash drifts down from my fingertips. 

Something wet touches my cheek. A soft whine of concern; Señor Papperino is nosing me. I wrap my arms around him and kiss his head. “Thanks, Señor.” I rise, brushing soot from my knees, and turn to meet Misha’s golden eyes, troubled and dark as the sun gives into night. I understand. Misha had always felt so unlike me, brilliant behind the class clownery, but there is one thing that we have in common. What we love most, above all, and to the ends of the world we would go to protect it. 

 

 

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THE STAR FESTIVAL

 

Mako’s absence doesn’t pain me, but I feel it. The empty space which his steady presence had occupied for the past year. Strange, how pas de deux always leaves a little mark—this time, not a faint surgical scar on my ankle, but a quiet longing in my chest that never goes away.  

I’m hiding from California’s midsummer heatwave in the garden, where the seaborne breeze glissades through the olive trees. Summer is my favourite ever season, but this heat makes me want to die, and ever since I stood in the grave of sequoia trees, wildfire smoke has frequently darkened the sky, choking and acrid, burning a hole little by little into my heart. At least here—sitting under the gnarliest olive tree—all I can smell is the Pacific Ocean. I press the iced glass of lemonade against my temple, flip open my shitty old Macbook, and click into Skype.

This time, my partner is kneeling on a tatami mat. Ancient cedar columns rise to meet a ceiling of shadows, far above. Cloudy sunlight filters through paper shoji screens. When I squint, the light is catching upon an enormous ink painting: cranes with bloody chests and great crystal wings that stretch across the room, soaring over a castle high in rugged, black mountains. For the last week he’s stayed at his family’s Kyoto estate, which he says is for “business” “meetings” with his grandparents, whatever the fuck that means, but I also know he’s really there for his niece, to give her the childhood that never belonged to him. 

Mako pokes his head around Chiharu and smiles at me. She keeps putting her little hands on the screen, where my face is. He says something in Japanese, and she settles back in his lap, briefly composed. In her pale blue kimono, embroidered with lotus flowers and koi fish, she looks like a princess. 

“Good mor-ning,” Chiharu says, seriously. She pulls apart the syllables, as if reading it from a book for the first time, determined to understand the meaning. 

“Hi!” How do you talk with small children? “You look nice. Are you going somewhere special?”

“The Star Festival.” Mako gently adjusts the cascade of silver stars, pinned through her bun. Although he frowns in concentration, his fingers are relaxed, and the tension I sensed in our previous calls has melted away. The stars glimmer and bell as Chiharu taps my nose. “Have you heard of it?”

“Don’t think so.” I wrack my memories of my Uncle Raphael and come up only with Asahi Dry. “Tell me about it.” 

“Hoshi matsuri!” Chiharu pipes up, wriggling like a fish. “Star is hoshi. Fes-ti-val is matsuri. Qixi in Chinese.”

I burst out laughing. At how cute she is, but also the bonkers fact that she’s already speaking three languages. “I can’t believe I’m getting schooled by a four year old.”

“Well, she is a Hayashi.” Mako smiles. I’m slow to return it. Hayashi has come to mean cruel mothers and absent fathers, not Chiharu’s sweet dark eyes shining with curiousity. The thought suddenly occurs to me that Mako must have been once like this.

“Hoshi matsuri celebrates an ancient folktale. It was one of my favourite stories as a child. There was an old edition in the library, I think… the spine was lettered in gold leaf. Watercolour illustrations on every second page.” He taps his chin and pauses, to recollect the story, or perhaps the memory. “Orihime was the princess of the heavens, weaving silk from the trails of falling stars. Hikoboshi was a lowly herder, guiding the cows that roamed over nebulae clouds. Folklore says they fell in love and married, but when their duties became neglected, the emperor of the heavens banished them to different sides of the Milky Way. The birds took pity, and on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar year, they build a bridge so the lovers may reunite.” 

“Huh. Sounds familiar.” I scrunch up my nose. Mako straightens up with an expression of mischief remarkably alike his best friend. “Oh, no-“

“But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks?” My partner quotes, twinkling. I glare as hard as I can through the screen, but he continues with a dramatic flourish of his wrist. Chiharu tries to grab his hand, giggling, and the corners of his lips twitch. “It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

“Stop!” I squirm in my chair, laughing. “If I hear one more star-crossed lovers tale, I’m seriously going to flip off a cliff. The story is always the same.” 

Mako tilts his head, in that gentle, thoughtful way of his; and the five thousand miles between California and Kyoto suddenly aches. “Love and tragedy are bound together in every language.” 

Chiharu must have gotten bored of the conversation, because she starts poking at the laptop keys. Butterflies flutter on our cheeks. She giggles, delighting in each filter. Cat ears, in Hayao Miyazaki style, her favourite. Crowns of summer flowers. Mako likes that one, and spends a minute playfighting with Chiharu over the keys. 星祭り2020 in a sparkling Milky Way over our heads. Every so often, a tiny star soars across the screen and disappears. 

 

***

 

THE SUNSET UPON LOS ANGELES

One of the fiercest rivalries in my family is thanks to our beach volleyball tournament. Every August, we gather on Surfrider Beach for the biggest showdown of the year. Whoever is in Los Angeles at the time—usually the Torres side of the family, but sometimes the Kingstons, if my grandparents have taken a summer trip down from Oregon, or my cousins from San Francisco. Aunt Lilith and Uncle Raph rock up with all the fixings for s’mores. Uncle Luc and Michel stagger down the sandy boardwalk carrying six-packs of beers and Coca-Cola—the latter for my seventeen year old brothers, much to their complaining, and Mom’s absolute refusal to budge. 

Campervans and Chevys smoke along the Pacific Coast Highway. I glance up along the beach. The glass castle is silent and dark. For as long as I can remember, the Malibu villas had been impenetrable fortresses, symbols of the elite world I hated so much and danced so hard for. And yet, this summer, I found myself inside. It feels like forever since the villa was warm and glowing in the evening, and I was crushing heirloom tomatoes for soup, humming to Prokofiev; my partner’s hand gliding across my back as he passed from the herbs to the stove, our movements instinctively tracing Romeo & Juliet’s pas de deux. It felt totally normal. I don’t know whether I should be happy about it.  

My cousin Amaya yanks the volleyball net, and the tangle finally unravels in our hands. Amir, her mechanic husband, and Sunny, Alec’s very athletic girlfriend that he met in his health science degree, are also competing. My other cousins, India and Kiya, are attempting to draw a court in the sand, hampered by Señor Papperino, who is overjoyed that so many of his favourite humans are together. His excited zoomies keep kicking up their lines.

The bonfire is roaring, Asahi Drys cracked open, and alliances forged in s’mores when the first game begins. Kiya stands by the net with a whistle ready to blow. I bounce on my heels, energy pumping, as I face off the first team. “Sure you old geezers are up for playing?” I toss the ball from one hand to another. “We don’t want to end this game with another trip to the hospital.” 

“That was one fucking time,” Luc crosses his arms. With his half-moon glasses and silvering hair, he’s looking more and more like the classic psychology professor. 

“I would call you insults your silly blonde head has never heard of, child,” Raph says uninterestedly, “but your mother is here.” 

Mom throws him a dirty look. Volleyball brings out a rare feistiness in her five-foot-four frame, that, according to the amused reminiscing of Dad, was her characteristic brat attitude when she was my age. She points a delicate and threatening finger at Luc, who raises his brows. “Oh, you are gonna regret teaching me how to throw.” 

A whistle pierces the air. I jump into action, serving the ball high over the net. Luc digs it back with surprising speed. For all my shit-talking, these two old men (they’re like, fifty) were both athletes when they were younger, so Mom and I work our asses off to keep the ball off the ground. My family shouts from the sidelines, Señor Papperino barking excitedly at the ball. Raph spikes and the ball crashes onto our side; the first point of the tournament. Aunt Lilith cheers. I race around the court, passing and blocking, throwing extra aggression into my attacks. Sand implodes, once, twice.

“YES!” Mom jumps up and down, and we high ten, laughing. “Suck my DICK!” I yell at my uncles. Mom is too busy wheezing from laughter to tell me off. Raph takes the golden opportunity to give me two middle fingers. 

The tournament leaps on, teams running on and off court and whooping. The evening sky deepens and a crescent moon rises over the palm trees. Mom gets tired quickly and switches with Amaya. We get knocked out just before the final round by Sunny and Alec, but I gladly hug my cousin and go on a search for more s’mores. Mom and Dad are snuggling together by the bonfire, a single blanket wrapped around their shoulders. The first signs of fall whisper in the chill of the breeze. When Mom spots me, she unwraps the blanket for me to wriggle in between. Dad is toasting a ridiculously long stick of marshmallows, and slides me one. It’s sweet and squishy and perfect. Mom loops her arm through mine and hugs me tightly. 

“It feels like only yesterday when I dressed you up in that first tiny pink leotard,” she says wistfully. “And tomorrow my baby is leaving to New York as a professional ballerina! I don’t want to believe it.”  

I rest my head on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Mama. I’ll video chat home every week, just like at the academy.” 

“This is different,” Mom whispers, and the catch in her voice breaks through what I’ve been trying to ignore all summer. 

I’m scared.

The grimy brick blocks of Manhattan feel millions of miles away from here. And in a day, I’ll be standing alone the opposite coast of the continent, cut loose from my family by seven hours of flying. My stomach twists. And it’s not just the people I love so dearly, but the sea, the woodlands, the morning conversations of the sandpipers I listen to like the radio news, the pale blue wildflowers that Mom always brings in a jar to my bedroom windowsill. They’re part of me as truthfully as the blood runs through my veins. 

“Well, Mako will be there to help.” Mom seems to reassure herself. She often talks happily about how he’s a responsible young gentleman and how glad she is that I found such a sweet partner, and I try really, really hard not to imagine the villa nights when he fucked me until I saw stars. Hastily, I grab another marshmallow and immediately choke on it. “You won’t be alone, love.” 

I swallow the marshmallow with some difficulty. She’s right. The thought of his steady heartbeat, the familiar quirk of his smile in a world of unfamiliar faces and sounds and streets, calms me. All of a sudden, I can’t wait to be in his warmth again. 

Dad puts his arm around my shoulders. We watch the glowing cinders rise from the bonfire. “You’ll be alright,” he finally says. The waves hush. “Just remember where you come from.” 

 

 

 

E N D   O F   A C T   I I   :   F A L L

 

 

 

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Heya! I hope everyone is healthy and happy—loooong time no see (for more than a year, yikes).  I’ve been super busy and my game, very ironically, keeps having debilitating issues on my gaming PC. For En Pointe to continue and finish up in a year (not a decade), I’ve decided to remove the sims aspect entirely. This is with much sadness as losing the sims feels like losing part of the characters, but it also means much more freedom; I will do my best to conjure the visuals with prose, music, and moodboards (this chapter’s moodboard here)! Here is the first, and last, picture I took for this chapter before I officially gave up:

I hope you enjoyed reading the chapter regardless, and I’m excited to hear your thoughts!

Lila ♥