Falling in Love with Natassia

by Anna Monardo

  Mary turned onto her back, stared up. A fat moon was spilling light in through the tall windows, lighting up cobwebs in the cathedral ceiling. “Oh, Ross. Oh God, Ross.”

  “I know. I know. It’s stupid. It sucks.” He screamed a little scream that was caught in his throat. “Shit, Harriet’s upstairs sleeping and I’m down here—”

  “What time’s it there? Is it too late to go to a meeting? Can you call your sponsor?”

  “Listen,” Ross said solemnly, then he said nothing for a while. “I need to take a break from calling Natassia. It hurts me too much. I know I’m a selfish, bad daddy, and this is really a piece-of-shit thing to do to her, especially now. Tell her to understand. Can she understand? Tell her. Man, I just can’t stomach the long-distance from her. I can’t stand—” Another caught scream.

  “Ross, do whatever you can do, that’s enough. Write to her. She’ll answer your letters if you write to her. Why’n’t you do that?”

  “Do you know how much I loved you?” It was a wild whisper, a muffled scream. “Mary, goddamn you, Mary. Do you know I loved you like nothing else?”

  Mary closed her eyes, lowered her chin into her neck. When he bullied her like this, his love—or whatever it was he really felt for her—didn’t feel like love, just some bad force to get away from, a windstorm carrying lots of sharp, dangerous objects. Lying right next to Mary was Natassia, stirring in her sleep. As soon as Ross stopped ranting to take a breath, Mary whispered to him, “Write to her, Ross. She’ll write back. She’s writing all the time these days. You should see the stuff. Did you know she’s really a good writer?”

  “Is she all right?” Ross asked. “Really? Tell me the truth.”

  “She’s great,” Mary lied. “She’s doing much better.”

  NATASSIA WAS GETTING WORSE. For almost a month she had progressed safely at Mary’s side, eating and sleeping a bit better each day. Then, the night after her third therapy session with Heather Jamison Jonson, the BF tried to hug Natassia in a dream. It was an early-morning dream, and when she woke up she said she couldn’t remember anything specific, just the heat of his hug, and she looked as if she’d been extinguished. Mary’s heart slid.

  By now, after a solid month of giving constant care, Mary had pretty much depleted her stash of mother energy. Nothing’s changed. She’s no better. After the dream, Natassia wept in the bathtub, wrapped in a towel, as in the first days of the crisis, crying shamelessly, without covering her face. At two years of age, Natassia had once broken down this way on the street at the San Gennaro festival, when her ice cream slipped off her cone and onto the sidewalk. She’d cried so hard Mary had had to walk away, leaving the kid with Ross, as she muttered to herself, “Over a goddamn ice cream.” Grown-up Natassia in a tantrum of grief was becoming as distasteful to Mary as Toddler Natassia had been. Nobody ever sat and watched me throw a fit. Handing Natassia a warm, wet washcloth, Mary said, “Come on, honey, wipe off your face.” The phrase drama queen slid through Mary’s mind, making Mary hate herself, which exhausted her even more.

  “Why’d he just forget about me?” The kid’s thumb was near her mouth, tweaking her chin. She was rocking. “He used to say how much he needed me and stuff. What did I do wrong? Why’d he stop loving me?”

  “He doesn’t love anybody but himself, Natassia.” Natassia’s hair needed to be washed, but this wasn’t the day to push for that. Especially because Natassia had been complaining of an earache. “He’s a mean, cruel, sick person,” Mary said.

  “He’s not!” Natassia pulled the grungy shower curtain closed to hide herself from Mary. “You don’t even know him, so stop it.”

  Mary was making mistakes left and right, she knew that. “Natassia, I’m sorry.” No answer from the other side of the curtain. Let her cool. Mary sat on the toilet to pee, and to collect herself. Don’t respond to the words, Cather had said. Listen for the emotion. Respond to that. Validate her feelings. Mary flushed the toilet and sat down on the damp bathmat. “Honey,” she said, staring at the shower curtain’s plastic spread of Monet water lilies. “I do know how it feels to have a guy break your heart.” There was nothing but stillness now on the tub side of the shower curtain. “Natassia?”

  “Who broke your heart?” Natassia demanded.

  “Antoine.”

  “Who’s that?”

  The first guy to get her pregnant. French Canadian. He’d come to the dance academy in Albany to be guest modern-dance choreographer for the summer. The most beautiful male dancer Mary had ever seen, and out of all the students in his master class, Antoine picked Mary. He picked her for a part in a big ensemble piece. He picked her as his regular dinner companion. He picked Mary’s attic bedroom window out late at night, tossed pebbles at it, and convinced her to climb down and drive around in the night with him. Mary had assumed he was gay, the dance mistress told her he was gay, but that summer he pursued Mary as if nothing else mattered to him.

  Mary told Natassia, “I was a little older than you are. Sixteen. I took my driver’s license test in his Karmann Ghia.”

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah. All summer, we ran around Albany in that car. He took me to a couple performances at Jacob’s Pillow, and I got to go backstage and meet all these dancers.”

  Natassia opened the curtain a bit. “How old was the guy, Antoine?”

  “Somewhere in his twenties. Too old for me.”

  “But you were in love with him?”

  “The asshole said we were going to perform together all over the world. He choreographed a solo for me. He bought me new school clothes. My stepmother hadn’t bought me anything new in years. I remember Antoine took me to a doctor to have my knees checked out. I mean, at that time, nobody was doing any of that for me. My parents sure weren’t. He was like this gorgeous guardian-angel older-brother love object.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “There was a big high-school party. It was all my friends, and I brought Antoine. After a while I don’t see him anywhere, so I go upstairs and he’s in bed with this guy.”

  “M-o-m-m.”

  “Cute guy, too. He’d asked Nora to go to the prom with him.”

  “Did you make a scene?” Natassia asked.

  “You better believe it. I really was strong then, you know—”

  “You’re strong now.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t know how strong. I lifted the side of the bed and dumped them both onto the floor with the mattress on top of them.”

  “And then you jumped on top of the mattress.”

  “You got it. Right on top of them.” A few days after that party, as Nora’s mother was driving Mary to Planned Parenthood to see about an abortion, Mary began to bleed, miscarry. She’d had to ask Mrs. Conolly to pull over at a Friendly’s so she could use the bathroom. Mrs. Conolly sat in a booth and waited, and when Mary came out and told her about the blood, Mrs. Conolly said, “Thank God, Mary, and don’t ever do this to me again.”

  The next year, the next pregnancy, Mary went to Planned Parenthood by herself, since she knew where it was. Now Mary told Natassia, “Antoine almost dislocated his shoulder that night. He was in big pain for a couple weeks.”

  “No, Mom, you dislocated his shoulder for him. He could have sued you.”

  “Yeah, right, sued his own ass straight into jail, screwing around with an underage girl and an underage boy. But you see, honey? I know how it feels, having somebody break your heart.”

  “It feels terrible,” Natassia said softly.

  “Like total shit.”

  And by now Natassia was crying again.

  Mary had to help her out of the tub, hold out the leotard for her to step into, then the sweatpants. She had to pull the sweatshirt over Natassia’s head. All dressed, still crying, Natassia went back to bed. Mary sat on the windowsill with the window cracked open, lighting her fourth cigarette of the day. Not even nine o’clock yet. From across the living room, she watched Natassia lying in bed in a wash of grief, and Mary began to
lose faith.

  Just the day before, Natassia had walked out smiling from her first solo appointment with Heather Jamison Jonson. Mary had been included for the first two sessions. Heather seemed okay to her, not as cheery as the father-in-law but just as harmless, and Mary had thought, Great, maybe this shrink can straighten the kid out. Natassia had told Mary she liked Heather and she’d keep seeing her, even when Heather suggested they try two appointments a week; Natassia would be going back in three days. Mary lit a fifth cigarette and wondered if maybe she should cancel Natassia’s next appointment. Maybe seeing a shrink was making Natassia worse. Or maybe she needed to go back sooner, like today. Should I call Heather? When Natassia, still sniffling, got up to go into the bathroom, Mary yelled out, “Leave that door open.”

  “I want some aspirin for my earache,” Natassia said.

  “We don’t have aspirin.”

  Natassia returned from the bathroom with her long hair pulled back into a ponytail and her hand cupping her ear, and began the reel again: “What did I do wrong?”

  I can’t take this.

  Natassia was pacing the floor, gripping her head, chewing the ends of her hair.

  This was how Lotte said Natassia was acting the night the rotten BF first broke up with her. But then Mary remembered: regression. Cather had taught her this word. When things inside you get too balled up, you go back temporarily to acting the way you did before you knew better. Temporary. Mary decided that the thing to do was to hold off for a day, let this regression run itself through Natassia’s system. Don’t start calling for help yet.

  Ignoring Natassia’s crying, the way they told you to do with a toddler, Mary stood up and said, “Honey, I’m going into the kitchen to make myself more coffee. Do you want some? Do you want some tea?”

  Natassia was still gripping her head and whimpering, but she nodded yes.

  Mary made Natassia’s tea before she made her own coffee, and called for Natassia, who came in and lifted the cup to take a sip and immediately scalded her lip. “Fuck! You burned me,” she yelled, and tossed the whole shebang across the kitchen linoleum.

  I can’t stand this shit another minute. But then Natassia dropped to her knees, crying, apologizing, mopping up the mess with her sweatshirt. “I can’t do anything right. No wonder he left me.”

  If she doesn’t stop this, I’m going to kill her.

  You have to validate her feelings.

  “I understand, Natassia, that you’re feeling bad right now. But all these bad things you’re saying about yourself, they’re not the truth, so that’s not why he left.” Exhausted and disheartened, Mary sat down on the floor next to Natassia. “Listen, we have to—”

  “Sometimes I didn’t want to do what he wanted to do. No wonder he got bored.” Natassia was cross-legged on the floor, raising her right shoulder up toward her sore ear. “Sometimes he wanted to see me but I said I had homework. I’m such a—”

  “Stop.” Mary grabbed Natassia’s hands, held them tight with one hand; with the other she cupped Natassia’s chin and looked into her eyes. “Natassia, you must stop. Now. I’m not letting you say this bad stuff about yourself.”

  “Now you’re sick of me, too, aren’t you?” There was no stopping her that day.

  THE SECOND DAY after the dream of the BF’s hug, after another whimpery bath and no breakfast, Mary said, “I’ll cancel classes again if you want me to, but I’d rather we get out of this house and go up to the studio. Which is it?”

  Without answering, Natassia put on her shoes.

  It was raining and cold, and they walked up the hill quickly, huddled together under one big golf umbrella.

  “HEY, HI.” Natassia was sitting in her usual corner in the dance studio when a couple of students walked in and asked her, “You feeling better?”

  And Natassia told them, normal as could be, “I had a bad earache, but, yeah, I’m better. What’s up with you guys?” And then she joined the others for the warm-up.

  Mary was thrilled. Here were her “advanced” ballet students, sixteen leotarded, legginged, ballet-slippered, beautiful teenagers of different heights, weights, shapes, skin tones, and hair lengths, with varying degrees of turnout, flexibility, and strength, but all of them now practiced enough to stand at the barre with their vertebrae aligned, their hips tucked under, their abdominals pulled up, their shoulders and hips squared as their feet turned out to find first position. No one’s tongue was accidentally hanging out with the effort. Their butts weren’t sticking out, their chins weren’t tucked in. Gorgeous young bodies ready to learn more about what a body can do. And standing with them in a snaggy old black unitard too short in the legs, with a pair of linty old warm-up tights sagging off her skinny butt, her wild coppery hair reined into a plump braid down her back, was Natassia. All it took was one kid saying, “Hey, Natassia, wanna take class with us?” Without effort, without practice, with those impossibly long legs of hers, Natassia did the warm-up exercises alongside the students who took class every day, and she managed to keep up.

  Mary had taught beginners before (which most of these “advanced” students were), but never required classes. About the Hiliard situation, where all 425 students were required to take at least one semester of dance and hand in written evaluations of their teacher at the end of the term, Mary felt both disdain (the only students who interested her were those who came to class voluntarily, not just to fulfill requirements) and intimidation (she needed their good evals more than they needed her experience, so, in essence, the students were her bosses). Today, though, with Romeo and Juliet playing on the tape deck, Mary walked up and down the studio observing her dancers at the barre, all of them sneaking glances at themselves in the mirror, but, Mary thought, They’re beautiful, and Natassia, she’s beautiful with them. “I love you guys,” Mary said to the class, “you’re getting gorgeous. You’re standing taller! You’re getting longer and stronger—”

  “And hornier!” said Charlie, the class clown, the handsome, long-limbed melding of a Brazilian rock-musician father and a Dutch painter-heiress mother. “And hornier!”

  Charlie was cute. Outrageous but cute. By now Mary was getting used to the chatter during class, which she would never have tolerated in a real dance setting; at Hiliard it seemed the kids were allowed to talk all the time. Money talks. They did, however, keep one another in line. Gillian, overweight but flexible, a twin daughter of two surgeons, a girl with a crush on Charlie, told him, “Quiet, Charlie, you’re disgusting.”

  “Okay, my beautiful dancers,” Mary said, walking to the center of the studio, “line up in groups of three to go across the floor. We start simple today. Mark this with me.” They followed her across the wooden floor as she slowly did a series of pirouettes. Mary could see in the mirror that, except for two of the show-offs, Charlie and Gillian, who were overdoing the simple step, everyone looked fine. Jenefer, who was an excellent dancer and not a show-off, was leading one of the groups, and a few of the girls were trying to mimic her simple elegance, a twist of the wrist at the end of her turn that was natural to Jenefer but not to the others. Natassia, in the center of the third line, looked fine.

  And just because things were going better than she’d expected, Mary grabbed a Bach tape she hadn’t used in class before. With the music, she demonstrated the clean, simple arms she wanted. “Nothing fancy!” Then she turned the music up, called out, “First group, ready? And six and seven and eight, and one—” And Group One stepped out and danced. “Second group, get ready!” And then Group Two was pirouetting across the floor.

  “Third group!” Mary called out. “Ready?” Natassia lined up between two other girls, in position. She looks sharp, better than any of them. When Natassia held out her arms to begin, she bumped hands with the girl next to her, and they both giggled and readied themselves again. It was a delicious moment, so normal normal normal. “And one—” And Natassia’s group stepped out.

  But as soon as they began, the music stopped. The tape had run o
ut. “Keep going!” Mary yelled to Group Three. “You’re beautiful. The music will start again.” Natassia’s first turn was perfect. She was the only one who didn’t stumble, because she was the only one to spot the opposite wall. She just needed to be pulled out of herself.

  Group Three completed two pirouettes without music, then a Sarah Vaughan tape came on, and the kids stayed right on the beat. But with the third chord, Natassia’s turn teetered. “Ahh!” She fell onto her knee, toppled over onto the floor, where she lay, holding herself tight, making no sound.

  A few of the kids got to Natassia before Mary did. Mary pushed the kids aside. “Are you hurt, Natassia? Can you stand?”

  “But don’t,” Charlie said, “if you can’t.”

  Her breath was all inside of her. “Deep breath, Natassia,” Mary commanded. “Come on. Breathe.”

  And when Natassia exhaled, it was with a scream so loud it made all the other kids step back. “Natassia,” Mary commanded, “stop!” But she couldn’t control herself. Weeping, she wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist. Mary held Natassia’s head on her lap. Natassia was wailing. The students just stood there; a few, embarrassed, turned away.

  “Want me to get the nurse,” Charlie asked, “or call 911 or something?”

  Mary shook her head no.

  “Maybe we should just leave?” he asked.

  Reluctantly, Mary nodded yes.

  Slowly, the students gathered their shoes, warm-ups, books, and headed out.

  “I’m sorry, you guys,” Mary called out to them.

  “That’s okay,” a few said, but none of them turned to look back.

  MARY QUICKLY hung up signs canceling the rest of her classes for that day. As she walked Natassia through the rain to the cottage, trying to keep their footsteps out of the puddles, Mary had to admit to herself that she had never imagined Natassia’s crisis dragging on for so many weeks. Back in the cottage, Natassia threw herself on the couch and hid her face. Her back trembled with sobs.

  “You’ve got to stop crying, Natassia.”