Falling in Love with Natassia

by Anna Monardo

  “Sorry, I’m not here for a pickup. I’m here to deliver.” He kept walking toward Franklin’s secretary’s office.

  A moment later, Tracey, the secretary, stuck her head out into the hallway. “Mary Mudd. I thought I heard your voice.” Anytime Tracey spoke to her, Mary felt reprimanded, but Tracey treated most of the faculty, particularly the women, as if they were troublemakers, bad kids. “Mary, this UPS is for you. Want to sign for it, so this gentleman can be on his way? I’m sure he’s busy.”

  THE UPS PACKAGE had been sent from Lotte’s office. Curious, Mary tore the box open right there in the lobby. Inside, she found a note in Lotte’s handwriting: Use this to help document your training, career, etc. Whatever that board of trustees wants, you’ve got it. Hugging you with love, Lotte.

  Dance memorabilia—the box was full of it. And Lotte had even organized everything into piles secured with rubber bands. The first pile, with a Post-it note saying Use these to chart your early influences, was programs from dance performances Lotte and Mary had gone to together, including Baryshnikov’s first New York City performance. Twyla Tharp performances. Natalia Makarova on Broadway. On the program for the Alvin Ailey company at City Center, the margins were filled with David’s notes and numbers about a manuscript he was thinking of buying. The next pile—this really got Mary—was programs and reviews from a bunch of Mary’s performances. Mary had never realized how many times Lotte had come to see Mary dance. Right on top was a program for a performance Mary had done at St. Mark’s Church. Mary’s solo came right after the intermission. Lotte had drawn little stars all around Mary’s name. In a separate pile were three programs for performances Mary hadn’t danced in but students of hers had, and in the program notes they had included a special thank-you to Mary; Lotte had yellow-highlighted those thanks. Her Post-it note said, Use these to substantiate your teaching experience.

  Walking down the path from Admin to the cottage, carrying the square, awkward box in a tight hug, Mary was walking so fast she slipped on ice three times, but she managed to keep the box out of the snow. She was still dumbfounded and stunned to realize that someone—particularly Lotte, who had so much else to do—had kept track of her dance life in this minutely detailed way, like no one else would do.

  LIKE A MOTHER. Lotte and the package she’d sent were still on Mary’s mind days later as she stood at the photocopy machine in Franklin Fields’s office on Martin Luther King Day. After Lotte’s package, other things had arrived: two editors from big publishing houses, friends of Lotte’s, had sent letters saying how Mary had been an important consultant to them on dance books they had published. Mary called Lotte and said, “But all I did with both of those people was just talk to them at a party. I gave them a couple names.”

  “Do you have any idea,” Lotte said, “how important it is, when you’re trying to create buzz for a book, to get the right blurbs? It’s everything.”

  What was it to be a mother? As Mary watched the photocopy pages shoot out into the collating trays—Please, God, let this machine not fuck up on me again—Mary realized that motherhood was all different in her head now from what it had been before.

  She used to think that a good mother, a real mother, did certain things. Now Mary had begun to understand that it had more to do with how you felt inside, the way you felt about your kid without even trying, the way love so big inside you could choke you even before you got out of bed in the morning, before you put a foot on the floor. In writing about her early influences, Mary had talked about Merce Cunningham, who said dance could be about anything—everything the body can do—even just walking. And dance didn’t need costumes or a story or even a stage and music. None of that external stuff was necessary to create dance, because dance just happened wherever there was movement.

  There was your body, and there was the way your body naturally moved, and out of that came dance.

  There was your kid, and there was the way you felt about your kid—how you felt way inside, the deep below, under the guilt and fear, the love in your bones and in your blood, even when you were furious at the kid and at yourself. And that deep stuff made you do certain things for your kid, things no one else would think of, maybe uncharacteristic things that no one would expect from you. Like collecting seventeen years’ worth of dance memorabilia, like drawing stars all around a name on a dance program.

  “Fucking machine.” It was stuck again; a little button of red light blinked at her. “More paper. More paper. All right, I’ll give you more paper, just quit flashing me.”

  TWO WEEKS PASSED. No word from Franklin Fields about the board of trustees’ decision. Finally, Mary asked him.

  “They haven’t, haven’t, got back to me about it yet,” he told her, “but you did a top-notch job outlining the program. Terrifically detailed. Guest artists. Mary, terrific stuff. Very, very exciting.”

  “So you haven’t heard anything from them yet, huh?”

  “I’ll tell you as soon as I do. But we should get together for coffee sometime. I’d love to hear more about your time with Tim Dillon Dancers.”

  In. Your. Dreams.

  NATASSIA HAD begun taking a full load of classes, which she said were kindergarten compared with her city school. She insisted she had no friends at Hiliard, no real friends, but she did have a group to eat lunch with every day. Some evenings, she went up to the dorms to do homework with a study group. Mary was doing what Lotte had advised her to do: Teach your classes as if there had never been a problem, teach as if you intend to stay.

  Another week passed. Franklin Fields finally called Mary into his office. “I’m sorry, Mary—”

  They have to pay me through the spring term. I’ll get word out in the city that I need to teach a bunch of classes. David won’t like it, but Lotte’ll let me and Natassia move back into the apartment. I could commute down to Atlantic City and dance in a casino if worse comes to worst.

  “—I got word from the trustees,” Franklin was saying, leaning back in his desk chair, rocking. “They voted to table the discussion of the dance program for at least six months.” He was talking to the window, not looking at her, David Stein–style. “Apparently, there’s some sort of alumni money available for a dormitory-expansion plan.”

  “But, Franklin…” He looked at Mary, surprised by her interruption. “Listen, I’m sorry to cut you off, Franklin, but what about my contract? Am I fired or what? I’ve got to know now. I have a daughter. I need to know if I’ve got a job.”

  “Mary.” Franklin turned, put his hands flat on his desk, leaned forward toward her. “Of course you have a job. You’re signed on for another—what?—two years. I’m trying to figure out how we can keep you here beyond that, permanently, before one of the colleges with a good tenure-track offer snatches you away. I promised you when you interviewed that we were working on getting a full dance program, and we will get a program. I just need you to be patient for now. Don’t worry about Natassia’s tuition, of course. Of course, you’ll have to move out of the cottage next year, but one of the other faculty-housing units will be available to you and Natassia. For now, Mary, just…patience, please. Rest assured that within the next few years—I’d say five, max—we will have a full program for you, and it will be your program.”

  MARY CALLED ROSS immediately. “Can you translate, please? What’s he telling me?”

  “What you need to do now is go back to him and ask for a letter, get it in writing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve got the upper hand right now.”

  “I do?”

  “Mary! He asked you to do a bunch of work for his plan. It’s part of his agenda, which may just be to get inside your pants—who knows?—but, for whatever reason, he wants you around. Right now he’s got to apologize to you for not coming through with something he wants you to think he’s promising you, so here’s your chance to get stuff. Go for it. Ask for a raise, maybe.”

  “What about the naked dancing? Did they decide they’r
e letting that go?”

  “Forget the naked dancing, for God’s sake. That was half a dozen moves back on the game board. In this current round, you’re queen bee, so, quick, get what you can. Get a written something from the man.”

  “Then what’ll I do with it?”

  “If this job does end up blowing up in your face, you’ve got a good recommendation letter. Mary, with just a year in that job, you’ve set yourself up to go places.”

  “To where?”

  “A better school. Maybe a college program. For one thing, you’ve got a whole dance program written up to take with you. You got all kinds of possibilities now.”

  “Ross, I don’t understand this. It’s been over a year since I performed. I haven’t done any choreography that means anything. Why would anybody even look at me for a job at this point?”

  “You got a paper trail now, Mary. Now you’ve got a career; all of it’s on paper.”

  CHAPTER 33 :

  WINTER

  1990

  In the days after she got back from her Christmas vacation in Greenport, Nora was completely alone in the loft. Abe didn’t call and she didn’t call him, and she knew that if they did get together again for dinner or a movie it wouldn’t make much difference. He had opened that one nice conversation but then left her alone, and she was sleepless again, arcane flashes of her family running through her insomnia, and there was no one for her to talk to.

  No sign Christopher had been at the loft during the holidays. Nora had no idea where he was. Kevin’s leftovers were in the fridge and freezer (his chili really wasn’t as good as Christopher’s), and he’d left a note on the counter: “Nora, I don’t know what’s going on, but it was lousy of you to take off for Christmas without even letting me know where you are.” Nora called his apartment, left messages, but Kevin wasn’t calling back. Under her bed, Nora found dirty socks and a T-shirt, clueing her that Mary and Natassia had been there at some point, but they’d left no note.

  In the early days of January, not able to manage being in the loft alone, Nora spent as much time as possible outside, walking the streets. After work, all the way from Eighty-seventh and Lex, she walked home to SoHo. She tried taking the subway once, but as soon as she slipped her token into the turnstile, she knew she couldn’t do it. She pushed through the exit gate and rushed up into the street, grateful for the blocks and blocks and blocks of sidewalks, and for the way she was hemmed in on one side by slushy traffic and on the other side by storefronts and buildings. Nora walked. Mommy, is Christopher ever coming back? Will Natassia ever be all right? Will Kevin talk to me again? I made a fool of myself with Abe. Nora stopped only when a bakery window caught her eye. She let herself eat whatever she wanted. Sugar cookies, sour-cream muffins, glazed petits fours. When she reached home, hours after leaving her office, she was so worn out she pulled off her clothes and almost immediately fell into bed.

  And then, on the evening of Monday, January 15, Nora unlocked the door and walked into the loft, and Christopher was in the kitchen. “No-ra!” He was making chicken soup. He came to her and hesitated. Christopher wanted, she could tell, to hug her. She had missed him so much and was so relieved to see how happy he was to see her, she asked no questions. Neither did he.

  Nora and Christopher made love immediately, without wariness, without a pause, with total agreement between them. There simply were no questions. There was the black-and-white kitchen floor as they lay down, there were the dust balls skittering under the counters as their clothes came off, there was Christopher’s skin, and his stewy scent when his sweater was lifted off, then their voices echoing each other, saying nothing but I missed you, I missed you, I missed—and then, afterward, still on the kitchen linoleum, they held each other for an hour.

  NORA AND CHRISTOPHER began living in the loft again together, more or less. They were even back to sleeping in the same bed. Occasionally, they made love, and when they did, it was an orgy of touch touch touch, none of the fast, hot rubbing Nora had known with Abe. It moved her deeply now, the slow reverence Christopher’s hands had for her skin. After more than fifteen years, his eyes still stared with a kind of wonderment at whichever part of her body he was stroking. She appreciated it now, Christopher’s way of touching her. And the firm curve of his shoulders, and the velvet plush of his skin.

  But this lovemaking didn’t happen often, just enough to keep them both grateful, to make it possible for them to live in the loft together while still avoiding any serious discussion of what, exactly, had gone on during the holidays. Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? Neither one asked.

  Their days were productive. Christopher began, again, to check in with Nora by phone every afternoon before her three-o’clock appointment. Three or four nights a week, they had dinner together, at home or in a neighborhood restaurant. This all felt congenial enough to convince Nora—and Christopher, too? she couldn’t quite tell—that their marriage was reinstated. One weekend at the end of January they made a quick trip to Kansas City to visit Christopher’s family, and they presented themselves as if the marriage had never missed a beat.

  Back home after Kansas City, they carried on. They didn’t have the energy to put together one of their usual winter dinner parties, but they went to an opening together in Brooklyn one Saturday night. Life was pretty smooth.

  Except that, occasionally, Nora felt a strain, a small tugging between them, a boredom maybe. Something should have been happening that wasn’t happening; she couldn’t shake that feeling, it was all over her life. After the holidays, Nora’s pregnant patient had come back wearing maternity clothes. She’d told her boss about the baby and had set up maternity leave and was interviewing nannies. She cried a lot, in fear, but was moving ahead. When Nora had asked, “You’ve told your family?” the woman said, “No. No need yet.” Clearly, there was something important that needed to happen.

  THEN, ONE SUNDAY morning in mid-February, Nora and Christopher woke to a day of white wind. More snow falling on top of snow already piled up. Everything, including the cold, had gone on too long (and showed no sign of changing). There was nothing interesting or cozy in this bleak, cold Sunday. White swirls whipped the streets and the buildings. On the windowsills across the street, the snow was catching in small drifts.

  Around noon, while Christopher hogged up the couch with the Times, Nora made herself French toast with hot syrup and offered him some. He said, “No, thank you,” which was, she was sure, his way of being superior. He’d been hinting that she needed to watch her weight. Nice rump, he’d said a few nights earlier. Doughy, he’d said while kneading her waist. Wrapped in her robe, feeling that bulge at her middle as she held her plate in front of her, Nora sat in the rocker across from the couch, her feet on the coffee table. The hot syrup on the French toast made the heaviness—of her flesh, of the day—worse. She licked syrup off of her fingers. And then Christopher looked up from the sports pages and said, “You know what we need to do, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Nora said.

  They sat a moment longer. Then they stood up—first Christopher, and, a few seconds later, Nora. After going to their respective file cabinets and desk drawers, they returned to the big table with W-4s, plump files of receipts and bills. Christopher set himself up at one end of the table, his back to the long windows; Nora set up at the other end, facing the windows and the snow. All afternoon, they slid the calculator back and forth between them and went through the bits and pieces of the previous financial year.

  Just as they had prepared their taxes every winter for the past thirteen years.

  Look at us, it’s like we’re normal, it’s like we love each other and have a marriage.

  The CD player ran through three Miles Davis albums and a Thelonious Monk, and then Christopher hit the REPLAY button. Clean jazz. Neither of them had ever been able to work with lyrics in the background.

  Hours passed.

  When Nora looked up, she saw that on the building across the
street, on the roof, architectural landmarks of snow had shaped themselves around the water tanks. The sky, which had been the color of skim milk all day, was now deepening into blue ink, a color the soul could reach out to a bit. “I’m almost done here,” Nora said.

  “Yeah. Me, too. Almost done.”

  “Will you look at this,” Nora asked, handing him a FedEx receipt, “and tell me if you remember what it’s for?”

  “Yeah, and then I’ve got something I need to go over with you.”

  We’re sharing. That clichéd phrase, which she hated, rolled through her consciousness just as she looked up again and noticed that the windows of their own loft were getting glittery with the formation of ice flecks, and Nora chose to see hope in this.

  Christopher stood up. “I’ve got this stack of receipts,” he said, and walked to a chair closer to her, about mid-table.

  “Yeah?” She was paper-clipping her piles of receipts.

  Leaning back in his chair, Christopher crossed his legs. Nora pushed her chair away from the head of the table so she could face him more directly. He looked troubled, and she smiled to herself. Every year, there was some small situation that he got paranoid about. If he deducted too much for supplies, would that be a red flag? Wasn’t it a red flag to deduct their Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve dinners as business expenses, even though everybody they invited worked in the arts in some way? Then Nora would have to reassure him that the IRS didn’t care too much about who was invited to their parties.

  “Nora,” he said now, “there’s something.”

  “Yeah?” She leaned into the table and hit the OFF button on the calculator.

  “I have to tell you about something.”