Water Lily
To survive she took a job dancing in her boyfriend's father's bar. To provide a palatable focus for their outrage, she told everyone back home that she was cleaning offices. The bar was cleaner than most offices, and on a good weekend you grossed over two hundred dollars. Not this weekend, though, thanks to a chilly, percussive, late spring rain.
The Pond Room was empty when she arrived on Saturday, so Abigail decided to linger a while in her street clothes, maybe smoke and watch the koi circling lazily amongst the lilies. The aquarium guy had been there earlier, Abigail could tell because there were new plants, a new variety altogether, floating at the jungle side, and the sand along its edges had been raked just so.
Her boyfriend's father had no idea who she was, so strictly speaking it didn't mean anything when he came on to her. He would never have stood for his son dating one of the dancers, he was that kind of dad. Her own dad would probably have liked him.
But she could not picture her dad in this place. There was this place, and there was she: a water lily in the sand.