Loncey looks at me with a wry expression. “I was talking about the night sky, Maeve, what are you talking about?”
I nudge them playfully. “Are you going to paint here?”
Loncey looks back at the darker side of the sky. “I think so. It’s such a clear night. It would be wrong to not paint it.”
“I agree,” I say as I walk away from them to a small rock I just spotted. I sit down on it and open my tote bag. “It would also be waste not to dance under a sky like this.”
“Dance?” Loncey’s brow furrows.
I pull out my pointes. “You once said you wanted to watch me dance. I was going to dance for you in Dublin but that didn’t happen so I packed my pointes on a whim. I can’t think of a better place to dance for you than under the stars, while you paint. Unless that would be ridiculously distracting?”
“It would be ridiculously perfect,” Loncey says with a wide smile. “But your shoes are going to get filthy.”
“My pointes,” I correct them. “Doesn’t matter. They can be my desert pointes for when I come out here. Maybe, one day, when I live here.”
I feel an inane sense of bravery for saying that last sentence, but I did it very deliberately. Loncey and I haven’t had a serious conversation about our future since everything happened with Jessica. Even on the long overnight flight to Vegas we mostly slept, watched the same movies together and moaned about how tired we were. And now I only have two more days with them until I’ve got to get back on a plane for Dublin. I don’t want to spend that whole time talking about how we are about to be apart and how hard long distance is but I also don’t wantto ignore our reality. I want us to have a plan, a series of next steps so at the very least, I know it’s not going to be months and months until I see them again.
“I like the sound of that,” Loncey says and it’s the perfect reward for my bravery. “But how are you going to dance without music?”
I pull my phone out of my pocket and place it on the rock next to me. “I figured it would be quiet wherever you were taking me so this should be enough. The question is, what song?”
Loncey steps closer. “Can I pick?”
“Sure.” I hand them my phone.
They take a few moments to find what they’re looking for but they hand my device back to me finally. “Just hit play when you’re ready. I’m going to set up over there.”
I go about removing my trainers and socks and then tying up my pointes. I’m grateful for the head torch to do so but as soon as they’re on and feel secure, I switch the light off.
My eyes need to adjust to the dark if I’m going to dance without killing myself. At roughly the same moment Loncey switches off their head torch too. It means all I can see of them is a blurry silhouette and the bright white of their canvas which is now positioned on a wooden stand.
“You paint in the dark?” I ask.
“I told you, Maeve. The darker the night, the brighter the stars.”
I look directly above me and feel like I can see what they see when they look at the stars. The endless possibility of the night sky. The infinite number of stars that seem to shine just for us. The perpetual mystery of where they are, what they are, and how they are.
“Are you ready?” I ask them and I feel like I’m asking them if they’re ready for so much more than what’s about to happen here in this desert canyon on precious Paiute land.
“I’m ready,” they reply, and their voice tells me they’re smiling.
“Let’s do this,” I say and hitplay.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Loncey
Pink + Whiteby Frank Ocean starts playing and I wish I could see Maeve’s face. I wish I could track her reaction to the song choice. Does she think I chose it because it was a TikTok trend once upon a time? Does she think I chose it because Frank Ocean is a Black queer person like me? Does she wonder if I chose it because it’s listening to Frank Ocean’s music that somewhat sustains me when we’re apart? Whether she thinks any of these things or not, only the last one is really true. I may have even imagined Maeve dancing to this song once or twice.
But I no longer have to imagine her dancing because it’s happening right in front of my eyes. Admittedly, I can’t see the detail I want to, but I can see her move. And for a long, long moment I watch her rise up on her toes, stretch out her arms and start to sway in time to the music. I watch as she lifts a bentleg and turns, doing what I think is called a pirouette, and then she kicks that leg out, the white of her pointe shoes catching the moonlight. She starts to spin, her hair flowing out around her like liquid gold, and I wish I could see her face. Is she smiling, is she pouting with concentration, or are all her features completely at peace?
I tell myself I don’t need to know. I just need to be in this moment, fully present as Maeve dances under more stars than any human could count. There will be other times in the future when Maeve dances for me. There will be times when she does so within touching distance and I’ll be able to observe every single expression she makes.
My future. With Maeve. Full of dancing and painting and stars. All the stars.
I sigh, and then before the music ends, I switch on the light that I have positioned above my canvas and I pick up the single pencil I brought. I use it to sketch out lines and curves, the most basic and abstract drawing of what I see in front of me. Maeve has her hands above her head now and she’s taking the smallest and most delicate steps to the side, her head tilted low. I capture that. And I sketch the rough position of the moon above the desert mountains that surround us. And then I put the pencil down and I pick up the slab of wood I use as a palette and my paints.
It’s time to bring the stars to life.
