In The Light of Destiny

View from the Coast

Lia grabbed her jacket from the couch and her bag from the floor and disappeared into the bathroom in a whirlwind of energy.

Emma stood in the living room for a moment after she left, her smile still on her lips, a warmth in her chest that she chose not to examine too carefully: the warmth of being happy for someone, and the very small shadow that sometimes lived beside it when you were still waiting for your own good news.

She went back to looking for her necklace.

She had just found it draped over the edge of her bedside lamp, exactly where she'd left it when her phone rang.

She picked it up without looking at the screen, her fingers already working the clasp of the necklace behind her neck. "Hello?"

"May I speak with Miss Emma, please?" said the voice.

It was a different voice from the one Lia had described, but it carried the same quality; composed, measured, professional. Emma frowned slightly, stilling her fingers at the back of her neck.

"This is her," she said. "May I ask who's calling?"

"Of course. This is Mr. Kylen Roy, from Superstar Entertainment."

The necklace clasp clicked shut. Emma's hands dropped from her neck and she stood very still in the center of her bedroom. "Superstar Entertainment," she repeated slowly.

"That's right. I've had a chance to review your resume, Miss Emma, and I'd like to invite you to come to our office to record an audition tape. We've been expanding our roster and your profile caught our attention."

Emma sat down on the edge of her bed because her legs had made that decision without consulting her. She pressed her free hand flat against her knee to keep it from bouncing. Kylen Roy. The same man who had just called Lia had her resume. I had reviewed it.

Had found it interesting enough to call her on a Tuesday evening.

"Really?" she asked, and she hated how young it sounded, how unguarded, but there was simply no way to make the word sound composed when your heart was hammering the way hers was.

"Really," Mr. Roy confirmed, with warmth in his voice. "Please be at our office at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. We'll get you set up with the team."

"Yes," Emma said, and then, collecting herself: "Absolutely. Thank you so much, Mr. Roy. I will be there." She paused. "I'll be there at eight-forty-five."

There was a smile in his voice when he replied. "We'll see you then," he said. Have a good evening."

She hung up the phone. She stared at the wall across from her bed at the framed print she'd bought from a street vendor when she first moved to the city, a simple black and white photograph of a skyline at dawn. She had looked at that photograph on bad days and told herself it represented something. Possibility. The city before the day had yet decided what it was going to be..

She walked back to the living room on steady legs and found Lia standing in the hallway in the process of getting herself together for her evening earrings in fresh lipstick, that particular electrified quality she had when she was ready to move.

"Lia," Emma said.

Lia looked at her. She read her face the way Lia had always been able to read Emma's face, which was a skill that had taken most people considerably longer to develop. "What happened?"

"That was Kylen Roy." Emma blinked. "He wants me to come in tomorrow and record an audition tape for Superstar Entertainment."

For a fraction of a second, Lia was completely still. Then they were both squealing, a sound that was significantly less dignified than either of them would have liked to admit in any other context but which was entirely appropriate for the moment, grabbing each other's hands in the middle of the hallway, bouncing slightly on the balls of their feet like two women who had just remembered that they were, in fact, exactly where they had always been meant to be.

Kira appeared in her doorway, hair loose around her shoulders, toothbrush in hand, blinking at them with wide, sleep-softened eyes.

She looked at the two of them, Lia dressed and glowing, Emma clutching her phone with one hand and Lia's wrist with the other, both of them lit up from the inside in a way that hadn't been visible three hours ago when they had all walked back from the bar in quiet, tired solidarity.

"What is going on?" she asked, and Kira's voice was gentle and careful as it always was, holding space for whatever the answer turned out to be.

They told her. She listened without interrupting, her toothbrush forgotten at her side, and when they were done she smiled at both of them with a real, full smile that reached her eyes and held there longer than her smiles usually did. "That's wonderful," she said quietly. "I mean it. That's really wonderful."

No one said what they were all aware of at that moment. The evening had started with three women returning from a day of closed doors and ended with two of them holding open invitations. Kira's smile didn't waver, and neither Emma nor Lia let their joy dim.

This was the unspoken agreement of the dormitory, of women who lived their shared dreams side by side. You celebrated each other's moments because the alternative of letting envy hollow out the love between you was something none of them were willing to do. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Lia left for the set at seven-fifteen, not willing to risk anything close to late. Emma stood at the window and watched the side street below until she couldn't see her anymore, then turned back to the apartment and got herself ready for bed, setting her alarm for seven o'clock, reviewing in her mind what she would wear, how she would carry herself, what she would say if they asked her to introduce herself before the tape started rolling.

She fell asleep with her resume folded on the nightstand and the skyline photograph across from her glowing faintly in the light that filtered in from the street.

A few days later, the door to the dormitory apartment flew open with the kind of force that meant news, the kind of news that couldn't be delivered at a walk.

"Kira! Kira!" Emma's voice came streaming in ahead of her, loud and bright and barely contained. "Are you home?"