Esmeralda

by RoZita
for all Chicas
There was once a girl named Esmeralda, or Esmé as she was more commonly known. She was pretty, smart, talented, spunky, and came from a loving family. She was almost 18 and she had everything she could have wanted. There was only one major problem: She was only one inch tall.
She wasn't a fairy or elf or anything magical. Just a very tiny human girl. Her family was normal sized. Her sister Chelsea was one year younger. Her brother Lenny was 9. Her birth had come as quite a shock to her parents, naturally, but they treated her with all the love and affection that they showered on their normally sized children. She lived in a dollhouse in a big sunny room which was once the children's playroom when they were little. At first her dad wanted to use the dollhouse Chelsea had, but she put up such a big fuss about it, even though she never played with it any more.
"It's not FAIR that she gets to have her OWN HOUSE!!!" she wailed. Never mind that Chelsea had a room of her own, a big airy one with her own phone, stereo, TV, VCR, and computer, plus a great view, not that she ever looked out the window.
"You never play with it any more, honey," her mom pointed out.
"I just don't want her living in MY dollhouse," Chelsea pouted. "Like I don't have enough crap to put up with already, it's not enough I gotta have a sister that's only one inch tall, I mean like, how weird is that, but she's gotta live in MY dollhouse on top of everything?? I mean, that just majorly SUCKS, mom, ya know?!!!"
So their dad got Esmé her own dollhouse, not the kind you play with but the kind from the hobby shops that people collect and it was much nicer than Chelsea's. He furnished it beautifully, and Chelsea wasn't any too happy about that either, but that was too bad about her. He rigged up indoor plumbing, even, so that Esmé £ould use the toilet, take a shower, wash her face and hands at the sink, and there was even a tiny lighted mirror. He wired the little house for electricity and figured a way to pipe in music from the stereo so that she could turn it on and off herself (he installed a little remote control that she could work by leaning on the buttons). There was even a fire escape, a little chute leading to the garden outside, in case of fire you just opened a trapdoor and slid down to land safely on the ground. He had thought of everything.
Her mom made her clothes, since they never could find any doll clothes tiny enough, and taught her at home. Chelsea thought that way unfair too, even though she wouldn't have gone for home schooling herself, she didn't want to miss out on all the social stuff. And she certainly didn't want everybody knowing she had a sister who was only an inch tall. It was just toooo embarrassing!!!
On the other hand, Lenny thought it was cool to have a sister who could sit in the palm of his hand, and he liked to take her places. Actually, he didn't have friends, himself. He was very near-sighted and wore thick glasses and was sort of frail and small for his age. He and Esmé got along famously. He fixed up his Hot Wheels so that she could ride in them. He had lots of cool racers, and he liked to construct intricate race tracks for her, with sections of track that could be taken apart and re-connected in all different ways. There was a thingy at the beginning of the track that you stuck the car in and pressed a button and it shot the car out, and it looped the loop and jumped over ramps and all kinds of neat stuff like that. It was a major thrill. There was also a bigger car that you flicked a switch and it went, and Esmé figured out how to drive it, which minimized the danger of her getting stepped on in the house. Then there was his toy airplane that you could fly with a remote control, and she loved going flying in it. Lenny even made her a teeny-weeny helmet and goggles with this plastic molding kit he had--which was also how he made her shoes and handbag. He was a very clever boy. She'd give him a thumbs-up just before take-off and say, "Contact" with a wink--it cracked him up every time. And his toy boats. They learned sailor songs from their dad, who had been in the Navy, and sang some of the more respectable ones on the water.
Chelsea would watch these antics with pouting scorn on her pretty face, going on about how unfair it was that Esmé could drive a car from the time she was twelve when Chelsea had to wait till she was sixteen, etc, etc, etc. She was never really happy about ANYthing, unless it was new clothes or makeup or press-on fingernails or something like that, and then she was only happy for a little while. Sooner or later you could count on something to make her life miserable all over again. Like Lenny making such bright remarks as, "Hey, but look on the bright side, Chels--you can wear fake nails and Es can't."
"She just doesn't get it," he would say to Esmé ·hen Chelsea finally stalked off to unload all her troubles on her girlfriend, Stacy. Stacy had recently gotten breast implants, and Chelsea asked her parents if she could get implants for her 16th birthday, and when they said no, she looked like the whole world was coming to an end. Esmé, by way of a joke, had asked if she could get implants too. Everyone cracked up except Chelsea, who had about as much sense of humor as a bowl of stewed prunes. She just fled up to her room to the shelter of her phone to bewail her hard lot to Stacy.
At dinnertime Lenny would take the tiny table and chair from Esmé's dollhouse and put them right next to his place at the table, and she had itty-bitty dishes that he would fill for her, and even a teeny little vase with one little dried flower in it. She would sit with her back to her sister so she wouldn't have to look at Chelsea's pouting face. Lenny wished Chelsea did have her own house, so she'd stay there and he wouldn't have to listen to her whining all the time.
On the whole, Esmé had a fine life. But the drawbacks to being an inch tall were pretty obvious. There was absolutely no one even approaching the same height. Her dad put an ad in the paper, but the shortest person who answered was 33 inches tall. So, it looked like she was destined for a lonely life. Even though she was a very graceful dancer, and she was well proportioned for her size, and could not have been any prettier. Boys looked at her with admiration, but then told each other, "Well, she can't put out, so what's the use?" and their lewd jokes poured in all around. When Chelsea's friends saw her, at first they'd be like: "Oh, how cuuuute!" Then, "We don't have to take her with us, do we?"
Her one companion was Lenny. Just what WAS in store for her? she often wondered.
Then one day, she found out.....
Lenny took her to the park that day as he often did in the summertime. He took her to a very pretty spot out of the way of the general public, which congregated near the pond, feeding the ducks, which Esmé preferred to avoid (they could easily mistake her for a bug), or the softball field. She was an adventuresome little being, and liked to explore the out of the way areas, which fascinated Lenny also. He had a new toy Jeep he wanted her to test drive. It was supposed to go over some pretty rugged terrain, so he took it and her to a rocky and grassy spot. She usually rode in his shirt pocket. People generally thought he had a mouse in there, when he cupped his hand around the pocket and spoke softly to its occupant, so they either steered clear or just didn't pay much attention, or dragged their little kids away if they showed too much curiosity.
"This is the place," he said, finally setting the Jeep down, and he carefully took his sister out of his pocket and placed her in the toy vehicle. "How's that?"
"It's kinda big," she said with a little sigh. Everything was kinda big to her. "It's hard to see over the steering wheel. Think you could find something to use for a booster, big bro?"
Lenny patted his pockets, and came up with a square of bubble gum. "How's this?"
"Great. It could double as an airbag," she giggled. That cracked him up. She was always cracking him up. He fiddled with the gum till it was the right size and soft enough to be comfortable, and fitted it into the seat of the Jeep for her. "Ready, Freddy, to rock and roll," she said with a little sassy wiggle, and he flicked the switch and she was off. He followed it a ways on hands and knees, talking to her the while. And then....
"Well looky there," an all too familiar voice above him said, and a snigger from another source close by. It was two neighborhood boys about 4 or 5 years older than Lenny. Cooter and Sonny. Beavis and Butthead, Lenny would have called them, except that would have been giving them way too much credit for intelligence, manners, and all-around attractiveness. Cooter was shirtless. He must have thought himself quite a stud, although his scrawny, pale, pimply chest was only a little easier on the eyes than Sonny's big fat belly peeking out below the edge of his dirty t-shirt. "It's that lil dude that's got a bug for a sister," Cooter said.
"Hehehe," went Sonny, who had all the brains of a golf ball. The plastic kind with the big holes in them. "Hey, I wanna see the bug. Is it in that jeep?"
"Yeah," Cooter said. "We need somethin' to feed them ducks over there. Ya gotta feed the ducks, it's the right thing to do. Hey, does she have six legs? I wanna see the legs. You ever see her nekkid?"
"Why don't you turds go to the brain rental place," Lenny said, quivering inside. He couldn't see where the Jeep had gone, fortunately. Esmé had driven it underneath a nearby gazebo. "I hear they're having a special on brains with double digit IQ's. It would be a real step up. Who knows, they might even let ya rent to own."
"Huh?" Sonny said, digging at his nose with a fat forefinger. He was too busy looking for the Jeep to really take in Lenny's remark. Cooter gave Lenny a hard shove.
"Hey, you little bug prick," he said. "What'd you say to me?"
"You heard me," Lenny said, straightening his glasses on his nose, hoping they wouldn't see how his hand shook. "You probably didn't understand, but you heard me all right. Even if it was a little too deep for you."
"You tryin to be a smart ass, you little pussy boy," Cooter snarled. "How'd you like a wedgie? Hey Sonny, you find the bug yet? Why don't we squish it. The ducks 'll like it better all squished. Easier on the teeth."
"Ducks don't have teeth, ya moron," Lenny said.
"I think it went under that thing," Sonny pointed at the gazebo. Lenny held his breath. Of course, Sonny didn't stand a chance of squeezing his big fat ass under that gazebo. Even Lenny couldn't get under there. But Cooter might actually think of something. Maybe. Miracles did happen.
Then Lenny heard the Jeep go thunk, and he knew it had bumped into the concrete steps that led up into it. Esmé probably hadn't been able to see where she was going under there. He scrunched down to see what he could see. Cooter planted a foot on his rump and pushed him right over. Lenny went sprawling forward, his glasses falling off. Sonny kicked them away.
"We'll find that bug!" he snorted. Cooter drew back a foot to kick the fallen boy again, when suddenly he jumped back with a howl. Lenny heard a swishing noise.
"Go," said a strange voice behind him. Sonny gawked for a moment, then turned and fled, his finger evidently stuck in his nose. Cooter was clutching his butt with yelps of outrage and pain. Lenny could see someone standing in the sunlight. He crawled around looking for his glasses, then he saw the stranger reach down and pick them up, and hand them to him.
"Thanks," Lenny said, wiping them on his shirt and putting them on. Cooter turned and began to run, and Lenny saw something on the seat of his pants. It looked like some kind of zigzag, though he couldn't be sure. He turned and looked up at the stranger, and saw that it was a young man, 18 or 20 years old, with dark curly hair, and he held a fencing foil in one hand.
"Maaaan," Lenny said, "that was the coolest thing I ever saw!" Actually, he hadn't really seen it, but what the hey. The only place he'd ever seen a fencing foil before was in the movies and video games.
The young man smiled. He was very good looking and dark skinned. He wore tight fitting jeans and a sleeveless white t-shirt, and a silver chain around his neck with some kind of round thing hanging from it. Lenny had never seen him before. It was a smallish town; he must be new here.
"Hola," he said, holding out one hand. Lenny knew that meant hello in Spanish. He knew that much. The guy spoke with a Spanish accent. "I am new in town, yes. My name is...Alejandro. Are you all right?"
"Yeah, thanks. Alejandro what?" Lenny always wanted to know such things. He held out his own hand and Alejandro shook it.
"Just Alejandro," said the young man with an enigmatic grin, pressing the boy's hand warmly. "And you are...?"
"Lenny. Just Lenny." The boy winked. Alejandro laughed. "Can you really use that thing?" Lenny pointed to the foil.
"Sure. The pointy end goes into the other man," said Alejandro making dramatic gestures with the weapon. Lenny laughed out loud. Then he remembered Esmé®¦lt;/p> "Ummm...could you help me find my sister?" he asked.
"Sure. Which way did she go?" Alejandro asked.
"I think under that gazebo," Lenny drew a deep breath. This was going to take some explaining. And as he turned toward the gazebo, whom should he spy but Chelsea, standing off at a little distance with her friend Stacy, she of the fake boobs, and they were both gawking at Alejandro.
Oh, great. Just great.
*****
"Oh my GOD," gasped Chelsea. "Did you ever see anything so CUTE? WHO IS HE?"
"He must be new in town," Stacy said. That was pretty good, for her.
"He's GORGEOUSSSS," groaned Chelsea, clutching her chest at the risk of messing up her freshly painted fingernails. "Isn't he a BABE? What a great ass!"
"He's not bad," Stacy said. She liked blond, square-jawed, all-American guys, herself. But she always agreed with whomever she was with, especially if it were Chelsea. "Hey, isn't that Squiggy over there?" She pointed at Lenny, who was down on his knees by some little white house thing.
"Lenny," Chelsea sharply corrected her before realizing that "Squiggy" was Stacy's idea of humor. "What the hell is the Junior Geek doing here, anyway?" She didn't know why she said that, she knew perfectly well the park was Lenny's favorite place to hang out. Even though it was the most boring spot in the whole universe. There was absolutely NOTHING to do in this stupid town, a subject she had been going on about at length to Stacy before they spotted the newcomer.
"I don't know," Stacy said. "What's that in his hand? A sword?" She quivered.
"It's one of those fencing things," Chelsea said dreamily. "I've seen 'em like on TV and stuff."
"Fencing?" Stacy looked a total blank, even for her. "I don't see any fences around here."
"No, dumbass. It's a...you know," Chelsea murmured. "Oh god, he's sooooooo HOT!! I wonder how old he is? Gosh, he's even got hair on his chest. He must be in college. High school boys are so boring and stupid. But college men...now, they're a whole different matter."
Chelsea had never met a college man in all her life, actually. Well, her dad was a college graduate, but that hardly counted.
"You think he's cuter than Brian Hartmann?" Stacy named a boy Chelsea'd had a crush on for two months now. Actually, Stacy thought chest hair was gross. But she wasn't about to say so and get that "you stupid idiot" look that disagreeing with Chelsea on ANY subject would get you.
"Who?" Then Chelsea had a sudden, horrifying thought. Lenny had Esmé ·ith him, surely. The little retard took her everywhere with him. That's probably what he was looking under the gazebo for right now....
WHAT IF THE NEW GUY SAW HER?????
*****
"She went...under the gazebo," Alejandro drew his dark, thick eyebrows together. Lenny resisted an urge to stick out his tongue at Sabrina the Teenaged Bitch, who wasn't even looking at him anyway.
"Yeah," Lenny said. "You see....she's only an inch tall." He braced himself. But Alejandro just grinned indulgently.
"An inch tall," he repeated. "What an imagination. Of course, we must find her." And he got down on his knees, laying the foil aside.
"She was in a toy Jeep," Lenny explained, "but I can't see it now. Maybe she drove out the other side?"
"It is too dark to see much," Alejandro said. Lenny wished Bimbo Butt would chase herself the hell out of there. Ol' Fake Boobs was just standing beside her giggling. "What is her name?"
"Esmeralda--Esmé for short," Lenny wrenched his eyes away from the girls.
"Lovely...and what does she look like?" Alejandro's big dark eyes twinkled wickedly.
Lenny almost said, "She's ONE INCH TALL, duhhhhh" then remembered that this guy had rescued him from two bullies and had maybe saved his sister from getting squished and fed to a duck. He had better be more respectful. Besides, the guy was just kidding, get a grip....
"She has black hair," he began, "and she's...uh...."
"One inch tall," Alejandro's eyes were still glittering. Lenny knew the guy didn't believe him and was just messing with him. But, at least he wasn't stalking off in disgust. And he had a fencing foil. That was just so awesome. Lenny didn't want to let him out of his sight. "And pretty?"
"Yeah, real pretty," Lenny crawled around to the other side of the gazebo. The Whine Queen was still there.
"Do you know them?" Alejandro said, noticing Lenny looking distastefully at the two girls.
Lenny drew another deep breath. "That's my sister--my other sister," he finally admitted.
"Which one?"
"The blonde bimbo," Lenny said before he realized that both girls were blonde and they were both bimbos. "The Marcia Brady look-alike," he added, then it occurred to him that description fit both girls too. "Oh, crap. Maybe they're both Chelsea. Maybe she got herself cloned.... The one without the fake boobs. The natural blonde. The one with the whine on her face. That's her."
"This is not a nice way to talk of a sister," Alejandro said with amused reproach.
"Well, you're not the one that's gotta live with her every day of your life," Lenny retorted.
"True," Alejandro admitted. "She is pretty, however."
Lenny made a low-key raspberry. "What ever. If you like whiny bimbos. Anyway. We gotta find Esmé. I bet she's scared. She doesn't crash a jeep under a gazebo every day of her life."
*****
"Ow," exclaimed Esmeralda, rubbing her forehead. She wondered where she was. Then she remembered the Jeep and the two nasty boys. She had hoped to divert their attention away from Lenny by driving under the gazebo. But it was so dark she couldn't really see where she was going under the thing, and she had crashed. And hit her head on the steering wheel, evidently. Toy Jeeps didn't have seat belts.
There was a little bit of light from the rim of the gazebo, but there was so much undergrowth here, she didn't know if she could have found her way out of here.
She could hear voices, but it was hard to tell what direction they were coming from. There was a strange adult male voice out there, she'd never heard it before, but she certainly liked the sound of it. At any rate, it sounded like the two creeps were gone.
"Lennyyyyyyy," she called, hoping he could hear her. Her voice was too small to carry well, however. "Lennyyyyyyyyy...." It was useless. She might as well have been a bug.
For the billionth time she wondered why she had been born like this. She was not usually inclined to self-pity, she was of a joyful and enthusiastic nature and she tended to make the best of things and thought it kind of fun to figure ways around obstacles. But in a situation like this, she could not help but wonder. Why was she like this, and was she really the only one? Her mom said everything happened for a reason; what was the reason for this?
Chelsea constantly complained that there was nothing to do; Esmé never understood that. There was ALWAYS something to do, as far as she was concerned. Lenny was always coming up with something. Often there was danger, but she always got past it. It made for stories people listened closely to--at least, when those people were her parents and grandparents. Few other people seemed to believe in her existence. She'd been on TV once, but hardly anyone really believed she was real. They thought she was trick photography or computer generated or something. Once she saw a picture of herself in a supermarket tabloid, but who ever really believed those?
"AM I real?" she would sometimes wonder, herself. Actually, when other people were around, she pretended to be a doll, so as not to spook them out. She would move with jerky motions, or repeat nonsensical phrases in a stilted and toneless voice. If people knew she was real it might frighten them and that could be dangerous for the family, so to protect them she would pretend not to be real.
She didn't watch TV much, except as a way of bonding with Lenny, and the cartoons and stuff he liked didn't interest her much anymore, nor did the type of programs Chelsea watched. She'd tried watching TV with her sister, but all the while Chelsea watched, she'd get on the phone and talk about everything that was going on with the show, as if her friend weren't watching the very same thing: "Now they're doing this, he's doing that, ewww, she's so ugly, look at her hair, this is so stupid, etc, etc." Of course, there were always fairy tales. There was Thumbelina, who finally found happiness with the King of the Fairies, and was made a fairy herself. But there were no fairies in real life. There was only...reality.
Or was there? Was there some kind of meta-reality beyond the obvious? Did the twilight zone really exist? Could fairy tales ever really come true? When she was with Lenny, she could sometimes believe it. With Chelsea, it was a whole different matter. With Chelsea, reality loomed like a monolithic concrete wall, and there was truly NOTHING to do. And you pretended not to be real in order to protect your family from reality, till you doubted your own existence and you became nothing too....
But now she could see something, hear someone coming closer to the gazebo....
*
What am I going to do? thought Chelsea wildly. If he saw Esmé, what chance did she ever stand with him? If only Esmé would just get lost forever....
Oh but would she really like that? Would she truly want her sister gone?
She didn't have time to think of it. Should she just run away right now? Or stay and try to attract the stranger to herself?
She could see him scrunched down on hands and knees looking under the gazebo. What to do, what to do? Maybe she could pretend to be choking to death so he'd have to come do the whatchamacallit maneuver on her...maybe he'd even touch her breasts...she was glad now that they were real and not implants like Stacy's, and thank God she wasn't wearing a bra....
"How does my hair look?" she whispered to Stacy between clenched teeth, running her fingers through her long, straight hair which probably needed highlighting in the worst possible way. She probably looked absolutely horrible.
"Huh?" Stacy was looking at God knows what down the other end of the street. Chelsea dug frantically in her purse for her mirror, and checked her makeup. It looked pretty good, considering that it had been a good 15 minutes ago that she had freshened it, but she badly needed her lipstick. Her hair wasn't too vile, after all. Oh but this halter top, it was so last year, why hadn't she worn her new one, and where the hell was her lipstick....
*
"What is that?" exclaimed Alejandro as a coughing, gagging noise distracted him from their search. He looked up and saw one of the two blonde girls bent double, the other one frantically pounding her back.
"It's just Chelsea pretending to choke to death so you'll go do the Heimlich maneuver on her," Lenny said but Alejandro didn't seem to hear him. He was running toward the girls. Lenny couldn't believe he would fall for such a cheap trick.
Alejandro grabbed the Bimbonic Wonder from behind, placed one hand on her stomach and a fist over that hand, and pushed, once, twice, three times. Fake Boobs dug in her purse and came up with her cell phone to call 911. She stared at the buttons probably trying to remember which numbers to punch in, whimpering a little. Why didn't she get a brain job instead of a boob job, thought Lenny, turning glumly back to the gazebo. He guessed he'd have to find Esmé himself. You couldn't count on big people for anything.
Chelsea sagged, she hoped gracefully, against Alejandro's front, moving her head from side to side in a sweetly helpless manner. Stacy had finally succeeded in dialing 911, after only two tries. But she couldn't remember the name of the street they were on, and she kept saying "Huh?" Alejandro told her to hang up, they didn't need it now.
"Oh," gasped Chelsea, "oh my god...what happened?"
"It looks like you choked," he said. She wondered if she should turn to look at him now, or if he would slide his hands up to cup her breasts. She was a tiny bit disappointed, she'd thought they put their hands on your chest to do this. She'd forgotten it was on your stomach. Oh well. At least he was touching her.
She leaned against him panting a little. "That was...pretty scary," she said. She was trembling a little, fortunately. It was hard to fake trembling. "I must have swallowed my gum. How...how stupid of me. How...childish. Maybe...I should go home and lie down...." She subtly pressed her rear end against his front, to try to feel the size of what lay underneath those jeans. She tried to force tears into her eyes as well, then moved her behind with a very slight undulating motion to give him a bit of a hard-on while trying not to be too obvious about it.
"We could go sit on that bench over there," Stacy suggested. Chelsea shot her a murderous look from beneath her hair, but the vacuum head didn't even notice.
"A good idea," Alejandro said, and he gently tried to upright Chelsea, when a shrill cry from the gazebo rang out:
"I FOUND HER!!!"
*
Lenny had stuck Alejandro's fencing foil under the gazebo, calling for his sister. Esmé was able to find her way out by following the blade.
"Oh my GOD," moaned Chelsea, and she looked like she would choke for real this time.
"Huh?" Stacy said.
"So you found her?" Alejandro said with a smile, wondering why in the world Chelsea was looking so tragical. Lenny was squatting beside the gazebo, his eyes glowing behind the glasses, his hands cupped together. Alejandro couldn't see what was in them. What an imagination, he thought once more. Cute kid. He was really fond of kids, especially bright and gutsy ones with lots of imagination. And when they had pretty older sisters...
"Don't come over yet," Lenny called to him. "She's kinda shook up. Let her calm down first."
"Of course," Alejandro said gallantly, then turned to look at Chelsea once more. Lenny had a second thought.
"I'll bring her over there instead," he said. Chelsea looked like she was going to have a heart attack. Lenny smirked to himself. He rose, carefully cupping Esmé close, stroking her hair with the tip of his pinky to calm her more.
"There's a guy that wants to meet you," he spoke gently to her. "He ran those jerkazoids off with that foil. He's way cool, and I bet you'll think he's good lookin'. You wanna meet him?"
"Sure, why not?" Esmé ran a hand through her hair quickly. "Can I check my makeup first?" she joked. Lenny almost dropped her for cracking up. Then he glanced sideways at Chelsea again, and his laughter died out.
"Ol' Bimbo Butt is here too," he said. "Along with her pal Fake Boobs."
Esmé just removed a tiny bit of weed from her hair. "I would be honored to meet your hero," she said in a very ladylike manner. "Sorry about your Jeep. I didn't mean to crash it."
"Screw the ol' Jeep," Lenny grinned and crossed over to where Alejandro stood talking to the girls. Chelsea motioned him back with a scowl but Lenny pretended not to notice. Alejandro looked around with interest.
"Don't do the doll act with him, OK?" Lenny whispered to Esmé. "Just be real this time."
She nodded. She looked beautiful in the sunlight. Much prettier than Chelsea. Her hair had lots of colored lights in it, kind of like a black butterfly. She wore a red dress of a very simple design--of course, all her clothes were necessarily of a simple design, but well made and form fitting. Lenny couldn't wait for Alejandro to see her.
Alejandro was looking quite interested by now. It was a slightly patronizing interest, Lenny noted with some smug satisfaction. Well, he was about to get a big fat surprise. No, a tiny slender surprise, actually.
"So," the young man said, "introduce me to your other sister? Actually...you have not introduced me to this one yet."
"That's Chelsea," Lenny said, jerking his head in her direction. "And this..." he held out his hands which were cupped closed, then slowly and dramatically opened them... "...is Esmé® I toldja she was pretty, didn't I?"
He thought he was going to crack up when Alejandro's jaw hit the ground.
Esmeralda was on her knees in Lenny's cupped palms. And she thought she would fall right through them when she saw Alejandro. He wasn't just a handsome young man; he was a god. A phenomenon. She could not believe his beauty. If you took a perfect gem and turned it into a man, it would look like this.
There WERE things beyond the obvious reality.
Alejandro walked over to her, the two girls forgotten, and stared down at the tiny wonder kneeling in the little boy's palms.
"She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in all my life," he said very softly. "May I...hold her?"
"If it's OK with her, you can," Lenny thought he would split apart with pride. "Is it OK?" he asked his tiny sister. She nodded without speaking, then kissed his fingertip. He handed her very carefully to Alejandro, setting her down gently on the young man's palm.
"Hola...Esmé," Alejandro said with the sweetest smile possible. She stood with her feet close together and her hands clasped, staring up at him in shy confusion. Then she, too, smiled a little. "She...is...truly, real?" He lifted his eyebrows to Lenny.
"Yep," the boy said with a grin. "She's the genu-wine article, dude," he said with a rednecky drawl, then he noticed Chelsea and Stacy were gone.
"So beautiful," Alejandro said again. "Like something to be worn and cherished. A gem in human form." He noticed the way Esmé started. "I am holding you the right way?" he said. She nodded. "I can see why she is so tiny," Alejandro said. "So much beauty in full size would be too frightening and dangerous. She is a miracle beyond all telling." He delicately touched her clasped hands with a fingertip. She didn't flinch.
Lenny had heard it said that Spaniards were smooth talkers. Now he believed it. But it was cool that someone besides himself found her beautiful without being all freaked out by her size and everything.
Still, he was worried about Esmé, who seemed speechless now. Which was certainly not like her.
"Why don't you come over to dinner tonight," Lenny suggested after an awkward moment. "You could meet our mom and dad. They're cool. And they're regular size, too."
"I would like that very much," Alejandro said without taking his eyes off Esmé.
*
Esmé took after their mom a lot in looks. Her mom had Latin blood too, and she cooked up a mean paella. And she appeared to be a little struck on their handsome young guest, herself. She looked very lovely in her red dress too as she fluttered around the table like a big red bird, lighting candles, serving plates, filling glasses, smiling, sometimes winking.
But their dad looked worried.
Esmé sat in her usual place next to Lenny's plate. She had changed into a different dress, her best one, made of an irridescent purple lace and tulle, that came from an old party dress of her mom's, with a teeny-tiny jewel stuck on the front, and a wee little real flower in her hair. Chelsea had called to say she was spending the night at Stacy's, and so she wasn't there. Boo hoo, thought Lenny.
Alejandro sat right next to him. Everyone fired the expected questions at him: where was he from, why was he here, did he work anywhere, where were his parents, and so on. He answered them graciously. He was from Malaga, Spain. He wanted to take advantage of the different job opportunities here. He didn't have a steady job yet but he was looking. Sometimes he did construction or yard work. He hoped to go to college someday and major in law enforcement or something. Well, he'd like to be something really cool like a freedom fighter, but there didn't seem to be much call for it around here.
He confessed, he'd been in trouble a time or two. But he was trying to straighten himself out now, after spending a few months in jail for petty theft. He sincerely hoped he'd be able to erase his criminal record and do some good in the world.
Lenny looked at Esmé to see how she took that. But he couldn't tell what she was thinking. Their dad didn't look any too happy about it.
"You are taking fencing lessons," their mom said. She seemed a bit more subdued now.
Alejandro nodded. "It is something I always wanted to do. In Spain, I could not afford it. Recently a man saved my life. This, after I tried to rob him. He said he could show me the way, and he took me under his wing, after my brother was killed in that botched and stupid robbery attempt. He teaches me his skills. He is a truly amazing man. Because of him, I see things as I never saw them before. Like seeing a window of colored glass from the inside."
"Just who is this man?" their dad asked. Lenny and Esmé both held their breath. Alejandro stared down at his plate for a long moment.
"His name is...Diego," he said very softly. "Diego de la Vega."
"I have heard of him," said their dad, nodding.
They all went out to the patio after dinner. It was a balmy summer night. The fragrance of roses and pine needles filled the dusky air, and fireflies rose from the grass like bright bubbles in a giant glass of champagne. Crickets sang in the distant trees and birds chattered the evening gossip to each other in a big mesquite tree.
Esmé sat on the patio table in a tiny chaise longue. Lenny went out to the yard to catch fireflies in a jar. He seemed a little depressed somehow.
"What a wonderful place this is," Alejandro said, then he looked at Esmé, who was even more radiant than the fireflies.
Some salsa music started playing on the boombox that sat next to the door. Alejandro grinned and suddenly Esmé stood up. She'd felt one of her dancing fits coming on all evening, and the music was really all she needed to set her going.
She sprang from the chaise longue and began snapping her tiny fingers, right there on the glass top of the table. Then she whirled and twirled, letting the music carry her to heights it never had before. Come to think of it, she had never heard this music before, even though her mom frequently listened to Latin music. It was even more bewitching than usual. And she knew she was crossing a point of no return, that she would never really be able to do the things she did with Lenny any more, that his racers and planes and boats would no longer hold the thrills for her they had before...and maybe he knew it too. The world had turned inside out for her in just a few hours and she now saw the true color of reality. Like a window of colored glass...from the inside.
And she could not stop dancing. Rainbows filled the air around her like a million jeweled butterflies. She seemed to be flying, herself, and not with an airplane. It seemed she had her own wings. Never had dancing made her feel quite like this....and before she knew it, she saw that Alejandro had lifted her up and she was dancing on the palm of his hand. She saw the lights in his eyes as though they, too, were full of fireflies.
And when the music finally ended, he slowly raised her to his lips, and touched her with them, so softly, that it was like being kissed by the entire world.

Wait wait WAIT--there is a sequel! Click here Two lovely friends wrote it for me as a birthday present--it's a hoot!:):):)

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