Blue Osman, 27, has called Coronado home for 1 year. As a dancer at Midnight Decree, their world is steeped in glittering sequined corsets, whispered secrets in red velvet rooms, and pills of many colors to evade her memories. Often found reapplying their lipstick and quickly scribbling notes down on club napkins, they move through life with Change (In the House of Flies) by Deftones in their ear.
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before
I. There was the sound of June’s laughter like heavenly music to her ears - Blue’s first memory. In those days, she’d felt like God himself shone the sun on her and her alone. Not sure what she’d done to deserve it, but not one to pry, she accepted her life as perfect. Life is blue sky, warm days, and milk and honey. It is family dinners, dancing in the den, and deep belly laughter. She’s young then, carefully cradled by a blanket of innocence, safe in the epicenter of her nuclear family. Her carefree spirit had yet to be tamed, and her sister June is by her side at every step. There are just the two of them and no one else in the world. Junie-and-Louie, a four armed, four eyed, twenty fingered animal. They are joy, smiling mouth, eager heart, and indomitable spirit.
II. When they are older June leaves for college and it is Blue’s first heartbreak. She is off to Coronado University and Blue begs her not to leave. How could she go so far away from home without a second thought? The question fills her mind, expands and contracts in all of the neurons and grey matter. She’d known God to be the guiding hand, but had never expected him so cruel that he’d let her sister leave her. Weeks pass and Blue’s sadness persists and grips tightly onto her bones. Her parents are concerned, but time passes on as it always does, and eventually she comes around. It makes her happy to see her parents talk about how proud they are of June, seeing as they hadn’t gone to college themselves. “A real journalist in the family,” her mother would whisper blissfully, “My own daughter”. June is focused and diligent at school. She sends letters home, and calls with updates. But, in her last year, these are harder to come by. Blue feels her sadness return to her.
III. Blue wants to be a painter, and everyone says she’s talented enough for it. This is her calling, she thinks. Here is the thing that everyone wants and goes their whole lives wanting, and she has it. She feels lucky, like maybe God had decided to give her some reprieve. But then of course, because he has a sick sense of humor, her mother is suddenly very sick. So she goes to a college close to home in order to help tend to her. University life comes and goes, and Blue’s boat feels unsteady. On one hand she is offered a residency somewhere she’s always dreamed of going. She wants to leave her town so badly and start fresh. She almost does. However, on the other hand, her mother’s condition is worsening, so she stays. Life goes by in hues of brown and grey. She welcomes her sadness as a break from the numbness that tries to consume her. She calls June and offers to visit and she’s told not to bother. Years pass. No art. No life of her own. No June.
IV. Then, one night, Blue is awoken by a strange sound in the house. Investigation leads her to June’s old room, where she nervously watches her sister frantically rummaging for something and muttering harsh words under her breath. Blue almost doesn’t recognize the gaunt, disheveled, manic person in front of her and the sight scares her. Who had her sister become in their years apart? Thousands of questions bubble up in her throat. She tries to speak to her, begs her to explain what’s going on, but just as quickly as she appeared, June is headed for the door and gone. In the midst of the panic, a crumpled piece of paper had fallen from June’s satchel. Blue picks it up, the torn edge of a letter that she can’t quite decipher. On the back, though, is ‘DEL BOSQUE’ scribbled in red ink. She decides then that enough is enough, and goes to Coronado to get some answers from her sister. What she doesn’t expect walking into June’s unlocked apartment is the darkness and the mess. Littered and scattered on seemingly every inch of the living room are papers, articles, red string, and thumb tacks. There are endless notepads filled with dates, times, and places scribbled in June’s messy handwriting. On the wall there is a collage of sorts, some mystery yet to be uncovered. Blue glances at all of the photos and papers, but doesn’t recognize any of the faces or names except for one - Del Bosque. She waits for June to come back and explain. She waits - for hours, for days, for three weeks - but June doesn’t return.
now.
V. A year later, and June is still missing, though Blue feels her presence everywhere. She dances at Midnight Decree, now fully enmeshed in a life of secret code, secret dances, private clients, champagne, chandeliers, and lies. But with time, Paloma City wears on her and she knows she is out of her depth. More often than not she feels like the trunk of a tree being axed in two, separate identities diverging from the wound. At night she is alive - she sparkles. She is beautiful, clever, swift and sophisticated, coquette with keenness but intent. She is fun but sensual, the perfect combination for a woman who must charm for information. One night, one of the clients called her ‘effervescent' and she laughed at his earnestness. Not because it was a silly thing to say, but because she knew that she was playing her part well.
But by day break, she retreats into herself again. Life is slow and heavy in these hours, and a dark fog rolls over her, thick and black as ink. If she doesn’t take the pills, she fears it might swallow her whole. She has to take a few more to forget what she’s overheard at the club and what she’s been made to do for the hungry eyes of men. When she returns to her sister’s apartment, aching and sore from the night's work, she trudges over to their wall of proof, tacking down another sentence, another clue that someone has generously and unknowingly given her, another something…another anything. A year here and there hasn’t been too much progress. But she knows in her heart that her sister is alive and waiting for her. She can find her if she can just hold it together.
