by Anna Monardo
Until that summer, he’d never had a close-up look at such a careful life, a life lived with no financial net. He began to realize what advantages he had, starting with the deep foundation of his father’s money. Top that with the good taste acquired from his mother and her art education. Also, thanks to his mother, some halfway-good looks. All just luck.
The bird in the evergreen sat.
And sat there, forcing Christopher to know something new.
To keep up her mediocre bad-taste house, Denise had to exert more effort, take more risk, and use more caution than Christopher had ever applied to anything. On top of it all, at the end of the day, Denise couldn’t even sit down with the comfort of a glass of wine or a beer. Not without paying for it, in spades.
It was his own pampered life that was the mediocrity. And as he sat there that summer morning, it occurred to him that Nora’s struggle was harder than his, too. She, too, had always had some backup—the money left to her and Kevin when they lost their parents. But, man, the way they’d lost their parents. Two kids in high school. Shit. Their house burned down. Insurance money, yeah, but a lot of it went to paying their dad’s debts. That loser. Ed Conolly. The way Kevin and Nora talked about him, you’d have thought he was some kind of Irish saint sent to Albany by God himself. Christopher didn’t get it. In every story they told about Ed Conolly, he was acting superior to everybody else, making his wife and kids cover up for him about having been in jail and all that. And lazy, too. Maybe Nora and Kevin just couldn’t see it. Nora’s mother must have been like Nora, always working, always pulling her own load, plus extra to cover the father’s debts and his bad manners. Nora and Kevin still had the house at the beach, but it really was a shack, not worth the time and work Nora and Kevin had put into it through the years. And the time and work they’d got Christopher to put into it.
He and Nora had had one of the big fights of their marriage several years back, when Christopher’s father had suggested they raze the Greenport house, fix up the property, and he, Juno Sampietro, would pay for a decent house to be built. “My investment, your pleasure,” his father had said. Christopher understood now, as he hadn’t then, why Nora had flipped. But, boy, what a drag that had been, his father insulted to have his offer turned away, Nora furious at Christopher for even considering it. “Hey, where are my grandchildren?” Christopher’s father used to say on the phone each week. Nora finally had said, “Juno, I know you care about us, but it’s not appropriate to ask us that question.” Which, of course, got Juno pissed off. “What’s with your wife?” And then an earful from Nora about not “taking responsibility,” not “setting boundaries.”
Responsibility. Lying on the floor in front of Denise’s ugly tree, Christopher stretched out on his stomach on Denise’s worn-down wall-to-wall carpeting and watched the muted TV, all about the Berlin Wall falling. He stacked Baby Don’s new wooden blocks into a long curved wall. Then, with a flick of fingers, he knocked the stack down.
The baby cried. Christopher sat up, settled him with a hand on his stomach. “Hey, guy, okay, it’s okay.” It was a fake cry; Don fell back to sleep. He was starting to look like something. Objectively, Christopher was looking at one good-looking baby.
Every good feature of Denise’s, the baby had. She did have nice, smooth, really young-looking skin. Baby had a nice line of eyebrows that Christopher recognized as Denise’s. If Christopher had to force himself really to be objective, he would admit that Baby Don had only one feature that wasn’t aesthetically pleasing—his little ears stuck out quite a bit. Noticeably. This was the only immediate feature of his own that Christopher could find in the baby. Denise had even mentioned it: “Now, where do you think he got these ears?” Eventually, Christopher would have to tell Denise the truth—Christopher’s mother had had him go through the surgery to have his ears pinned back when he was a kid. In his earliest photos, Christopher had huge stick-out ears.
Nora was the only one who knew it. Sometimes, teasing, if she really wanted to get to Christopher, she’d call him Dumbo. But she only did that when Christopher teased Kevin about being such a hopeless fanatic about collecting junk, or whenever Christopher teased Nora about her all-white hair.
Don and Christopher lay together on the floor, Christopher leaning his arm on a faded denim Santa Claus pillow.
CHAPTER 28 :
DECEMBER
1989
Four days after Christmas, Franklin Fields called Mary at the loft in New York. It was Friday morning, not even noon yet. Mary and Natassia were still asleep in the bedroom, Kevin asleep on the couch, and none of them heard the phone ring. Franklin left a message asking Mary to call him back. His voice had that friendliness it always had, but he wasn’t stuttering, and Mary was convinced she heard an urgency, something like Call me as soon as possible because your ass is in trouble.
“They’re firing me,” she concluded after listening to the message for the third time. She, Natassia, and Kevin, holding their coffee mugs, stood in a circle around the answering machine, staring at it.
“That was your boss?” Kevin asked. “He sounds friendly, like he likes you or something.”
“He has a major crush on her,” Natassia said. “He tried asking her out.”
“Is that kosher, the headmaster asking a teacher out?”
“Kevin’s right, Mom. If Franklin’s firing you, you can sue his ass for sexual harassment.”
“He never harassed me. If the board told him to fire me, he has to fire me.”
“I’m sorry,” Kevin said, “to disagree with you, but there is nothing in this message that sounds like your boss is going to fire you. He said, ‘I need to talk to you. Soon, if possible.’ He sounds like he’s the one in trouble, like he needs you to help him. Maybe he just wants to ask you out again. Maybe they’re firing him.”
“They should,” Natassia mumbled, “fucking asshole.”
“He’s not married, huh?” Kevin said. “I wonder what’s up with that.”
“Natassia, hand me the telephone. I’m calling Ross.”
ROSS TOLD MARY what she already knew. She had to return Franklin’s call. Soon. When she did return the call, she got Franklin’s answering machine. Mary left a message, and then she and Natassia and Kevin ate waffles.
After their late breakfast, Natassia vacuumed. Kevin folded up his blankets. Mary changed the sheets on the bed and did a load of everyone’s laundry. Without any discussion, they all participated in the housecleaning, which convinced Mary that Kevin and Natassia were as worried as she was and were making this offering to the gods. Kevin had just poured a bag of split peas into a bowl of cold water to soak, announcing he would make a healthy pea soup, and Natassia was plucking Mary’s eyebrows, when the phone rang, finally.
“Mary, Franklin here. I’m just sorry as hell to bother you during the holidays, but I thought it best to reach you sooner than later. You’re in the city. Having a good time?”
“I was. What’s up?”
“Well.” Mary was fishing her asthma inhaler out of her backpack. “There’s a letter I got here from the board of trustees that we need to deal with.” The naked dancing. Damn Charlie. “It looks like they’re going after two programs I’ve been trying to develop, and I’ll be damned if they’re getting them. It’s black studies and the dance program.”
Why won’t he say right out it’s the naked dancing? “So they want to cancel the dance classes?” Mary signaled to Natassia to bring her a cigarette.
“No, no, no. They can’t cancel classes that easily, certainly not classes already in the curriculum. What we’re talking about here is the extended program in dance I discussed with you when you came on board last spring.”
Mary remembered, vaguely, something about how he wanted, eventually, a whole Dance Department, and how Mary would be first in line to be director, which would mean a pay increase, but at the time she hadn’t paid attention. If he’d just say it’s the naked dancing, I could explain.
“I’m real p
eeved,” Franklin said, “about how the board’s going about this, slipping this request in during the holidays, adding this to the agenda for their January meeting. But if they’re asking for this information now, we’ve got to get it to them. I’ll need your help in writing up the report. And, remember, Mary, you’re first in line to direct this program when it comes about, should you be interested in that.”
“Sure, Franklin. What’d you need me to do?” If he won’t say naked dancing, neither will I.
A few minutes later, the board’s letter came through the fax machine. When Mary read down the list of requested information, she wished Franklin had just fired her and been done with it.
Here was what the board of trustees wanted:
1. A detailed description of the dance program as it currently exists.
2. A detailed rationale for a continued dance program, with explicit explanation of how such a program will augment/benefit the general curriculum.
3. A detailed five-year plan for the projected dance program.
4. A summation description of six other existing programs at six other schools. The six schools must be comparable to the Hiliard School, citing establishment date, endowment, total enrollment, enrollment in dance classes, number of dance classes, background of the faculty, and summary of dance curriculum. With comments from alumni if possible.
5. Detailed course plans from last semester and for the forthcoming semester.
6. A reading list.
7. Copies of all exams given to date.
8. Current instructor’s CV.
9. Bibliography.
10. Detailed description of current instructor’s training, including pedagogical training.
11. A brief (no more than five pages) statement of instructor’s teaching philosophy.
12. Reference letters in support of instructor.
13. Standards for safety in the current dance studios.
Mary faxed the list to Ross, who called her back immediately. “Jesus, Mary, they’re treating this thing seriously. They’re not kidding around. Somebody wants blood. How much time do you have left on that contract you signed?”
“The rest of this year, and then another full year.”
“With medical benefits that whole time?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I see. It’s because Natassia’s on your medical plan,” Ross said. “They’re trying to get you to quit so they don’t have to fire you and pay you severance and risk your suing their sorry asses for breach of contract, but clearly they want you gone. They don’t like it that your daughter’s living with you and she has mental-health problems.”
“Ross! Don’t say that about her.”
“Hey, she had a nervous breakdown serious enough to miss a whole semester of eleventh grade. The label here is ‘mental-health problems’—that’s what’ll be on the record and that’s what they’ll call it. How’s she doing anyway? You guys hardly ever call me anymore. She want to talk to me?”
“Not now. I need you to help me. What’m I going to do?”
“You’re going to give them everything they want. Start writing. Don’t waste time with the stuff that’s impossible. There’s no way you’re going to come up with all that academic stuff they’re asking for. You’re no academic.”
“Goddamn it, Ross.”
“Stop it. Mary, you’re not going to get through this if you make it personal. This has nothing to do with you, and—and—don’t interrupt me or swear at me again—I didn’t say you don’t know how to teach. This isn’t about abilities. This is about background. Do you have a Ph.D.? No, so you’re not an academic. That’s a fact. And for the record, most academics don’t know how to teach. You’re a professional dancer. You’re an artist. You’ve got experience up the wazoo. Plus, there’s stuff you can do for that lousy school that your board of trustees hasn’t even thought of. That’s what you’ve got to show them.”
“Like what, what can I do?”
“You’re a world-class performer, you’ve got connections that can bring guest teachers up there who could get major press for the school, which can attract major money from alumni and the community and everybody else.”
“Slow,” Mary told him, “I’m writing this.”
“Then, if they happen to have even one or two students who actually are any good, you could help get the kid into a dance company or a college with a big dance program or something. Your connections, Mary, are more valuable to that school than a long list of academic papers, but they can’t ask you for connections, so you’ve just got to offer the information. Make a case for yourself. Wow them with what you’ve got, and show them why they need what you’ve got.”
“So how—”
“Get on the horn. Call in all your favors. All those people you worked with at Jacob’s Pillow. People in the company. Who else’ve you got? Then get together all your reviews and performance programs so they can see where you’ve performed.”
“I don’t have reviews. I never save that stuff.”
“The company has files. And the major reviews from foreign countries, you’ll need to get them translated.”
Silence. Mary was drawing on the top of a bakery box, little stick figures doing karate kicks at one another. “The company’s on tour. They’re in Japan and Europe and stuff.” She covered her face with her hands. “All this for a lousy high-school job?”
“Don’t think job, Mary, think career.”
“But my résumé lists—”
“Not good enough. You got to take them by the hand, educate them. Spell it all out. Tell them what it means to have danced solos at the Joyce. Tell them what it means to—”
“How low do I have to go in spelling it out? I mean, shit.”
“That’s the idea. Just go lower than you ever imagined possible. And lots of paper. Just bury them in documentation. Tons of support letters. Make charts. Natassia can show you how to do that on the computer.”
“Charts of what?”
“I don’t know. Muscle tone. Numbers of injuries. Charts are good. By the way, did they ask for your medical records or tax forms? How much do they know about Natassia?”
Ross’s voice was beginning to make Mary feel very alone. “You’re scaring me. You’re acting like I’m in serious shit.”
“Don’t get mad but, hey, I’ve got my own questions here. Are you losing your job? Is Natassia going to have a place to live or what?”
So there it was. Ross. During Christmas, Mary and Natassia had felt a little guilty that they weren’t with Ross or that he wasn’t with them. But he wasn’t with them, he hadn’t been with them during the whole crisis, all fall.
Mary tried to make her voice flat. “It’s bad enough already. You don’t have to hurt my feelings.”
A long, hot sigh somewhere in Spokane, Washington. It could go either way now, depending on how far gone he was.
“Honey,” Ross said, then paused. “They’re the assholes, Mar. I’m just mad at them for jerking you around. I don’t want you losing that job. I know how you love having that job.”
“I hate the job. I like the kids. They turned out to be not too bad, but the job—”
“What would you do if you lost it? Where would you go? Perform again? On the road? Would the company even take you back? I mean, Natassia’s at risk here, too.”
“Okay, Ross. I better go.”
“Do you want help with this thing or what?”
“I’ll call you,” Mary told him, and hung up. Then she took the phone off the hook to keep the line busy, because Ross would be trying to call back, hitting REDIAL for the next half-hour or so, and then he’d stop trying and go on to something else. The next time he and Mary spoke, things would be better. Or they’d be worse.
HOW LOW CAN YOU GO? How low can you go? Mary read the list of questions for the umpteenth time. Her life was now a take-home exam. Ross had said, Just pick one and start. A brief statement of instructor’s teaching philosophy. A good place to begin, since they want
ed it brief.
It was Friday night. Kevin and Natassia had gone out to a sushi place that had a TV so they could watch the coverage of the opening of the Brandenburg Gate. Mary had stayed home to begin writing her philosophy. Also because she thought sushi was gross. As soon as she was alone in the loft, Mary pulled a chair up to the head of the long dining table and set down a fresh legal pad she’d found in Nora’s bedroom, a pen, a glass of ice water. Kevin had said that if she wrote longhand he’d type everything up for her on the laptop. Mary sat down.
Suddenly Mary pushed back her chair and stood up.
This was the first time since the BF breakup in September that Natassia was out without her mother. Jesus. Natassia and Kevin were already gone. Mary walked to the window, opened the blinds. Natassia’s with Kevin. It felt okay to trust Kevin, but was he alert enough? What if Natassia gave him the slip, got on a bus or a train or a plane, and went off to find the BF?
Mary forced the window open, and a tiny wall of snow fell in onto the sill. Maybe Natassia and her BF had been communicating all along by secret code. Leaning her whole upper body out into the cold, Mary knew it was ridiculous to try finding Natassia and Kevin in the crowds down on the sidewalks, but she was looking. I should’ve at least warned Kevin first. The air was damp, a heavy Friday night. Scanning the crowds below, Mary felt inside her body that provocative tug that’s inevitable when leaning out into a high height. She was five stories up. The feeling scared her, mostly because it thrilled her body. How easy it would be. If you wanted to, how easy. She imagined the headline: WOMAN ON FIRST NIGHT HOME ALONE WITHOUT DAUGHTER JUMPS. After a few minutes, the combination of cold air and anxiety made Mary want a cigarette, but she’d been quitting since Christmas Day. She pulled in her head and let the window slam shut.