Episode 6: Tiger Lilies

Development: Spring

Isabelle looked out her plane window, watching the beautiful sunrise above the clouds, a sunrise so majestic and magical. It was a sunrise that made you want to believe in God.  As she sat in this plane taking her back to her home in China, she couldn't help but feel as though the world was preparing something especially for her. What that something was, she had no idea, but she was prepared to find it.

Thinking back on the past thirteen years that had gone by seemed like a blur to Isabelle. She remembered her grandparents taking her into court to legally change her name from Yang Fenghuang to Isabelle Young. She felt as though her identity was stripped of her that day. Regardless of her new name that all her friends from school and piano lessons called her, in her mind and in her heart, she was always phoenix.

Going to an English speaking school wasn't easy for her at first, but her skill for languages was able to help her get accustomed to it quickly.  She managed to attend UCLA, and even graduate with a bachelor's degree in classical piano. She had taken a year off when she graduated to perform and save money for this trip. "I have to do my best." She thought, as her mind ventured to why she was here on this plane in the first place.

When she graduated she had been given an offer to study under a famous Chinese concert master Chin Yi in Beijing, China. He owned his own music company, CY Music Company, and every couple years he took on a new group of protégés to train and debut into the classical music world. Every one of his previous protégés had all gone on to become well known musicians. Chin Yi had a younger brother who was also the CEO of a well known company in the rock music industry in China. Chin Lu, with help from his brother, started CL Entertainment, which in only five years had skyrocketed in the rock music industry and had debuted hundreds of stars already.

Isabelle and a handful of other students around the world were given the opportunity to be the next group of protégés to work under Chin Yi. They had all been given a year to perform, save money, and prepare for the two years of training they would receive. But first...Isabelle closed the shade on her window, letting her eyes readjust to the darkness of the plane. She was planning on visiting her mother's grave before going to the studio she was supposed to meet at.

All she could remember was that the doctors had said that the argument she had with her mother was what had caused her death. All these years, Isabelle had blamed herself, but she didn't let that guilty feeling stop her from doing anything. She had always wanted to be like her mother, a world famous classical pianist, and ever since she died, Isabelle had nothing on her mind but to achieve that goal and continue her mother's legacy. "The seatbelt sign has been turned on. We expect unexpected turbulence. Please return to your seats."

The voice over the intercom interrupted Isabelle's thoughts. She clicked her seatbelt and sat back. The plane began to tremble.

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Isabelle rolled the window of the taxi down, smelling the familiar Beijing air, taking in the sites of a familiar city, listening to the chatter of a language she understood without trying. Even though she lived in the US, LA was filled with Asians of every kind. It wasn't difficult for her to find Chinese friends to speak with, and as a result, she never forgot her Chinese, in fact, she improved it.

Isabelle decided that she wouldn't go back to see her home. Seeing the house might be too much for her. "Besides," she thought, "Someone else is probably living there now." As the taxi sailed through the Haidian district of Beijing, the afternoon traffic began to start.

"Ta ma de..." cursed the taxi driver, as he tried to maneuver through the impossible amount of cars and bikes, all rushing through the road in a careless frenzy. Isabelle couldn't help but smile. There was no shortage of traffic in LA, but the traffic in Beijing was ten times worse, yet the familiar stop and go and thousands of near accidents and five lines of cars in a three lane road was comforting to Isabelle. It felt like where she was meant to be.

Finally, after what seemed like a million years of staring across a seemingly never ending sea of car roofs, Isabelle arrived at the cemetery. She told the taxi driver to wait for her at the entrance, she wouldn't be long. She noticed a fancy, black, shiny car was also parked in front of the cemetery. The windows were tinted, so she couldn't see inside.

She walked into the well kept cemetery. As she walked by the headstones she saw many familiar names, names of celebrities and scholars that had come from Beijing. "Oh, that's right." She remembered, "This cemetery is only for famous people who had come from Beijing isn't it?" She couldn't quite remember where her mother's gravestone was. She was still in shock when the funeral happened, she was absentminded the entire time, being lead back and forth by her nanny, not paying attention where she was lead.

After walking through a maze of hedges, trees, and gravestones, she finally found it. It was old and dirty from the years of weather. To her surprise, there was a fresh bouquet of flowers placed next to it. The red and orange tiger lilies were bright and vibrant, dancing in the light breeze.

"That's odd." She thought. She took the white roses she had brought and set them on the other side of the gravestone.  Then she kneeled there, looking at the characters carved into the stone.

"Yang Chun Hwa." She whispered to herself. Underneath her mother's name was her own. "Loved by her dear daughter, Yang Fenghuang." Isabelle gently touched the names on the stone with her fingers, whispering, "Mom, I'm here. I'm going to continue what you left me." She closed her eyes, willing for her mom's spirit to hear her. A small, cool, spring breeze drifted by, lifting the long dark strands of hair off of Isabelle's shoulders. It carried the smells of flowers and spring to Isabelle, and it carried her words and sorrows away to the sky.

Standing up straight, she looked up at the gentle sun. Her mother's grave stood underneath the large shade of an old oak tree. The rays of the sun cast gentle shadows that danced across her gravestone as the wind rustled the branches of the tree.

"Good, you have plenty of shade, mom." She said out loud, in a happier tone. Finally, she turned to leave, but then realized she had no idea how she had gotten where she was, now she couldn't get out.

Isabelle wandered the stone path, looking around the corners of the hedges and trying to place the trees and stone benches she's already seen. Just as she was about to admit she was lost and decided to call her taxi driver to come and find her, she turned a corner and saw a young man kneeling at a grave down the row. "Oh, I'm saved." She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Excuse me!" She called to him. He didn't look up. "Excuse me! I'm so sorry to bother you, but I can't find my way out...I've never been here before and...well...I'm really sorry to ask you to help me..." She approached him, stopping at his side. He still hadn't looked up, and didn't respond. Isabelle stood there confused. She looked at him carefully, taking note of his odd appearance. He had died platinum blonde hair, his natural black hair showing at the roots. It was pushed back, and even though it was very strange, it looked good. He was dressed in nice dress pants and a blazer. She could see the bright blue dress shirt he was wearing showing at the back as he was crouching.

Isabelle straightened her posture, flipped her long hair over her shoulder, cleared her throat and tried to sound as polite and professional as possible as she asked again for help.

"I'm very sorry to disturb you, but I really am lost and I need your assistance..." Before she could continue, the young man jumped up and turned around to face her. Isabelle instinctually took a step back, somewhat startled. He stood over her by several inches. She was fairly tall herself, at 5 foot 7. "He must be at least 6 feet." She thought as she turned her attention to his face.

"Do you really? Do you really need help getting out of here? Is that really what you're after?" He spat at her, frustration written all over his face. "His very attractive face." Isabelle thought as she observed his smooth white skin, straight nose, piercing eyes. She snapped out of it as she realized how rude he was being to her.

"What?! Yes of course! Why else would I disturb you? What else could I want? Why are you being so rude?" She threw back him. She saw a little glimmer of shock as he took in her face. "No doubt confused about how I look like a foreigner and still spoke Chinese with him." She thought as she watched his brows furrow. His dark black eyes looked sincerely confused as he asked,

"Are you kidding? You don't know who I am?"

Isabelle scoffed in disbelief,

"No, I don't! Why should I?" She answered curtly. Then she remembered again, she was in a cemetery where all the rich and famous were buried. "He must be the son of someone rich and famous. He must be famous too." She thought. She understood a little now, but that didn't mean he had to be so rude to her.

"How could you not now me?! I'm J Hawk!" He shouted, completely exasperated. Then he leaned a little closer to Isabelle, taking in her appearance. "Then again, you do look like a foreigner."

This made Isabelle even more frustrated.

"I don't care. I don't care if you're J Hawk, or whatever odd name you said," Isabelle glared right back into this J Hawk's eyes, not backing down. "but will you please, tell me how to get out of here!"  He glared back at her for a second, and turned away from her, looking back at the grave. Isabelle's eyes didn't move, staring right at him. Then he turned his back to her and started walking away, calling over his shoulder,

"Come on."

A little startled at how sudden he was, Isabelle followed. But before she did, she quickly turned her head to glance at the gravestone she had found him kneeling at. She couldn't make out the name from such a distance, but something did catch her eye. She put it from her mind as she focused on following the man and getting out of there.

Sure enough, he led her out of the maze and to the entrance. He began walking toward the shiny black car, and Isabelle toward her taxi. As she neared her taxi, she saw it in her mind's eye again. The bright red and orange tiger lilies next to the grave the man was kneeling at. She turned around and shouted,

"Wait!" She walked briskly towards the black car the man J Hawk was about to step into.

"What?!" He snapped. Swallowing her pride, she asked,

"Who did you bring flowers to today?" Isabelle watched as the annoyance on his face was replaced with uneasiness. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude...it's just that..." She tried to explain how she had seen the same flowers at her mother's grave, but he cut her off.

"I came to see my father." He answered quickly, not looking directly at Isabelle. She wondered whether or not to question him anymore. Her curiosity got the better of her.

"Is he the only one you came to see today?"

He suddenly looked even more hurt, the pain tugging at his heart. He looked down at the ground, as if in deep thought. After five long seconds of silence he said short and curtly,

"No." And with that, he put on his dark sunglasses and stepped into his car, slamming the door shut, and the black, shiny car drove away.

Still astonished at how rude this J Hawk could be, Isabelle got into her taxi and gave the driver directions to her next destination. After a couple moments of silence, she asked the driver,

"Excuse me, but do you know where one usually buys flowers for the cemetery?"

"Oh, yeah! There's a little shop down the street in the other direction," he started, "Its business is mainly making those customary cemetery bouquets."

"Customary cemetery bouquets?" Isabelle asked. The driver laughed,

"Yeah! Around here, we grow a lot of those orange and red tiger lilies. That little store sells them by the dozen! I found it pretty strange when I saw you with those white roses. I didn't say anything though. I thought  you knew! Haha, oh well, doesn't matter too much." He cheerfully went back to singing badly with the song on the radio.

Isabelle slouched back into the seat. "So it could have been anyone." She thought to herself. "Must of have been someone my mom used to know." She decided to dismiss the thought. But still, the image of the tiger lilies in the breeze full of life and inspiration, seemed to remain in her mind's eye, dancing in the breeze.

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Next Episode: 1-8-14