Rules for 50/50 Chances

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Rules for 50/50 Chances Page 8

by Kate McGovern


  I’m practically dying by the end of class. My muscles are quivering, and I’m 99 percent sure I won’t be able to walk tomorrow. We give Felix and Nell a round of applause, and Miss Julia passes a clipboard around for us to sign up for seven-dollar tickets to their shows this weekend. I put a one in the quantity box next to my name and am about to pass it to Eloise, but then I hesitate. I cross out the one and replace it with a two. Lena will come with me, I’m sure—but I’m not sure she’ll be the first person I offer the extra ticket to.

  * * *

  At home, I soak in a bath with Epsom salts, hoping it’ll offset some of the muscular agony I’m going to be in tomorrow morning. I’m not really a bath person, honestly, but sometimes, like tonight, I leave class knowing that I’ll be punished if I don’t give myself a good soak.

  I lean back against the edge of the tub and try to relax, stretching my legs as far as they’ll go in the near-scalding water. I’m flipping through the magazine I brought in with me—The Atlantic, not very exciting—when there’s a knock at the bathroom door.

  “What?”

  “Rose, someone’s ringing you.” It’s Gram. I forgot to bring my cell phone in with me.

  “It’s fine, Gram,” I call through the door. “I’m in the tub. I’ll call whoever it is back.”

  “Want me to pass the phone to you?” she calls back. “It’s someone called Caleb.”

  I know she’s just trying to be helpful, but really, I’d prefer it if she’d just leave my phone where it is when she hears it ringing. Does she really have to go into my room, pick it up off my bed, and look to see who it is?

  I try not to sound irritated. “It’s okay, Gram,” I say. “Thanks!”

  Ten minutes is all I can stand before I start feeling nauseated in the humidity of the bathroom, and I haul myself out of the tub and stretch. Everything cracks—my neck, back, wrists, ankles. Seriously, my whole body is going to be wrecked long before Huntington’s gets to it, at this rate.

  On my way back to my bedroom, Gram pokes her head into the hallway.

  “Who’s Caleb?”

  “No one. He’s just a guy I know.” Caleb and I have been in some kind of contact almost every day since last week—text, IM, a phone call—but it still makes my heart race with nerves to think about it.

  “An interesting guy?” she asks.

  “He’s just a friend,” I say. Gram’s trying to ask the questions Mom won’t know to ask anymore, but I don’t feel like engaging in a dish session.

  In my room, with the door closed, I take a deep breath to steady my voice before hitting his number to call him back. If I ask him to come see the BPC with me, will he think it’s a date? Will he think I think it’s a date? As much contact as we’ve had, we haven’t made another plan to hang out.

  I shake my head, as if the physical act will somehow rid me of all the questions. It doesn’t, but I call him anyway. And he answers.

  “How do you feel about ballet?” I ask.

  “Is that how you normally greet people when you call them?”

  I laugh. “Yes. Just a quick interrogation.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Well, I told you. My little sisters are dance freaks. You’re a dance freak. So I guess I have a lot of dance freaks in my life.”

  My hands are actually sweating. I wipe them one at a time on the bedspread. “So, would you like to come see some ballet with me? I have an extra ticket.” I listen to the words hang in the air. “It’s not a big deal, or anything.”

  “Of course I’ll come see some ballet with you, HD. Obviously.”

  There’s that word again.

  * * *

  Our cheap seats are all the way up in the nosebleed section of the Citi Center, row XX or something ridiculous like that. It’s the actual last row. I rest my head against the back wall and look down to the tiny half moon of a stage below us. The ceiling of the theater, which, at this height, I could almost reach out and touch, is painted with intricate cherubs and clouds and ornate gold molding. I can see dust in the air, hovering in the beams of light.

  “So this is the famous Ballet of the Pacific Coast, is it?” Caleb asks, flipping through the Playbill before the curtain goes up.

  “The one and only,” I reply.

  “Your future employer, right?”

  I squirm in my seat, wishing I hadn’t mentioned to Caleb that the BPC was my dream company. It had been such an offhand comment—I didn’t imagine he’d even remember. Go figure.

  “So how come I haven’t heard of them if they’re so good?” he asks.

  I scoff. “Trust me, dude, you don’t know from good until you’ve seen these guys. They’re insane. They’re just based on the West Coast, so they’re not in town that often.”

  “Okay, dude,” Caleb says, flashing a grin at me. He glances around the theater, then leans in conspiratorially. “Also, I’m pretty sure I’m the only black person in this very large room.”

  I can hear the mischievousness in his voice, but his comment makes me blush anyway. It’s true that the theater is packed with a lot of white people. Mostly old white people, in fact—the typical ballet demographic. It’s not that I haven’t noticed this little truism about ballet, but I guess I haven’t ever noticed noticed. I’m relieved when the house lights dim before I can respond and the moment is cut mercifully short.

  * * *

  The first act is called “Classic BPC,” a series of three beautiful pieces from their classical repertoire, and then after the intermission, there’s a new original ballet called Depths, choreographed by the BPC’s artistic director. It looks like a love letter to the ocean, with a pas de deux midway through between a man and woman, both dressed in swirls of chiffon in different shades of blue. As they dance together, they look like they’re floating, treading water, reaching for each other. Their bodies separate, then come together again, barely distinguishable from each other as their limbs intertwine. I lean forward in my seat, my heart pounding, goose bumps rising on my arms. It’s stunning.

  When the whole company is onstage for the final movement, I spot Felix—even from this distance, I recognize the way he holds himself, how every inch of him responds to movements that start in his core: When he lifts an arm, his fingertips are alive. There’s never a piece of him that isn’t dancing. Nell, in the corps with so many other women designed to look identical, is harder to spot. At one point I think I recognize her, but then they all turn and I’m not sure again. That’s the thing about ballet that I love so much, but that also frustrates me: the unison and precision of it. There’s not a lot of room to be yourself.

  * * *

  “Well,” says Caleb, as we emerge onto Tremont Street after the show, “you were right. That was pretty good.”

  “Not bad, right?”

  “I mean, it’s not like I couldn’t do most of the stuff those dudes were doing—those leaps and turns didn’t look that hard.”

  I jab him in the ribs. The act of touching him, even momentarily, sends a jolt of electricity up my spine, not unlike the time I touched an electric fence at a farm when I was five and got a brief but potent shock.

  Outside the theater, we’re caught up in the throng of audience members swarming around the stage door, hoping to get an autograph as the dancers try to escape. Pressing through the crowd on our way to the Green Line, we pass an older white woman, her blond hair flecked with gray, her arm wrapped around the waist of a stout black man with a shaved head and a silvery beard. They’re smiling broadly and exclaiming over the performance, just like we are. They look like they’ve been that way for years, going gray and laughing together.

  See, I want to say to Caleb, there was at least one other black person in the theater. As they go by, the man nods at Caleb, who nods back in a silent greeting.

  When we’ve passed out of earshot, I lean into Caleb. “Did you know that guy?”

  He laughs. “I don’t know him. Code of black men.”

  “The ‘code of black men’?” I ask, incred
ulous. “Is that a thing?”

  “Oh, trust me, it’s a thing.”

  “You greet every black man you pass on the street like that? Seriously?” There is definitely no code of white women. Or if there is, no one has filled me in on it.

  “Not every black man,” Caleb explains, chuckling. “But yeah. You’ve gotta give the nod. Be cool. Give the nod.”

  Now I’m the one nodding—slowly. “Okay. Whatever you say. I’ve just never noticed black men nodding at each other all over the place before.”

  “Don’t worry,” he says, smiling. “You’re not meant to.”

  It feels vaguely condescending, but I let it go. I’m not sure Caleb and I are really at the point in our relationship to be talking about race, and it’s come up twice tonight. Not that we have a relationship, per se. But then he presses against my shoulder, giving me a little nudge, and I get another of those shocks to my spine.

  We walk the rest of the way to the subway in silence, but then as we get on the Green Line, Caleb clears his throat.

  “So, I have a kind of weird request.”

  “Um, okay?”

  “Can I draw you at some point this week?”

  At first, I’m not even sure what he means. As in, draw a picture of me?

  “You want to draw me?” I ask, really not wanting to embarrass myself by misunderstanding the request.

  “Yeah, I want to draw you. For my art class. We’re doing portraits this month.”

  Hearing that it’s for his art class is both disappointing—he doesn’t just want to sketch me in some romantic-Leo-and-Kate-in-Titantic-like way; he actually has an assignment—and also reassuring. It’s not romantic. Or not too romantic, anyway. I can handle that.

  “You mean you’re not creating images of me that you’re going to tape to the walls of the room you have hidden behind a fake bookcase?”

  “What!” Caleb exclaims. “Who told you about that? That’s my victim room!”

  “That’s what I thought! See, I knew you were really an Internet stalker!” We both crack up. The Green Line pulls in and we squeeze on board amidst a million other theatergoers.

  “Seriously, though,” he says, quietly now that it feels like everyone on the train can hear our conversation. “Can you model?”

  “Umm … I can sit still. Will that suffice?”

  “That will suffice. I’ll even pay you in food.”

  “Oh really? What kind of food?”

  He grins. “The best kind. My mom’s.”

  The bottom of my stomach drops as the train lurches to a start. The crowd presses me up against Caleb’s chest, and he rests a hand on the small of my back. I flinch when he first touches me, but it feels good to be tucked in against his chest. For a moment I imagine what we must look like right now: like one of those normal, happy, teenage couples.

  But normal, happy, teenage couples always think they’ll be together forever—because what could go wrong? I know things aren’t that simple. Pulling away from Caleb a few inches, I snake my arm through the crowd and grab one of the silver poles to steady myself.

  Nine

  Caleb picks me up the following Saturday night, driving a slightly battered Honda Civic that doesn’t seem like it would belong to a family that can afford to send their three children to private school.

  “These your wheels?” I ask as I slip into the front seat.

  “Yup. Fancy, right?”

  “Fancier than mine.”

  “Oh yeah, what do you drive?”

  “The subway, unless I’m borrowing.”

  The whole truth is, I could drive all the time these days if I wanted to. My mother’s car is still sitting in the driveway, even though Dad finally took her keys away earlier this year. (Considering that the fender benders were her earliest symptoms of Huntington’s, she was probably a danger on the road long before she stopped driving, but she and Dad had so many vicious fights about it for the first three years post-diagnosis that he gave up until Dr. Howard basically mandated the no-driving policy.)

  Anyway, I don’t drive Mom’s car unless it’s a real emergency. It just makes me feel weird, getting a perk out of her falling to pieces.

  “So, I want to warn you about what you’re in for here,” Caleb says.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “My little sisters are going to be very interested in you. That’s all.”

  So he doesn’t bring girls home for dinner very often. Okay. “So what can I do to impress them? Any tips?”

  “Know anything about tween pop stars? I’m pretty sure any knowledge of the latest Disney hotshot will make you an insta-friend as far as my sisters are concerned.”

  “Sorry, but did you just say ‘tween’?”

  “I’m ashamed to admit that I did,” he says. “Anyway, they’re twins, so be prepared. Ella and Nina.”

  “Ella and Nina, huh? Great jazz names.”

  He smiles. “Yup. Dad’s obsessed.”

  “So who are you named after? I don’t recall a Caleb among the jazz greats.”

  “No obsession for me. I was born early so they were unprepared. They just picked a name they liked.”

  Caleb’s family lives in a western suburb of Boston, known to me only for its literary significance—Louisa May Alcott lived there, I think—and for its affluent reputation. We take Route 2 for about fifteen minutes before he pulls off, and soon we’re winding along slightly hilly two-lane roads with thick trees on both sides. The foliage is full of warm oranges and reds.

  “It’s nice out here in the fall,” he observes. “The colors are insane.”

  “New England falls, man. They’re the best,” I agree. They’re too short, but they’re pretty spectacular while they last. “Okay, so, what about your parents?” I ask. “What am I in for there?”

  “You’ll be fine. My folks are goofy, but they’re pretty cool. My mom teaches. She’s a professor of economics at Harvard.”

  “So, she’s not that smart?”

  “Not really. Neither’s my dad.”

  “Oh, what’s he do? Brain surgery?”

  “No, he’s actually not that smart. He’s a neonatologist at Mass General.”

  I laugh. My mother would’ve called them a power couple, if she still thought of things like that to say. “That’s like preemies?”

  “Like preemies, indeed.”

  I steel myself to be completely intimidated as we pull up to a big old Victorian tucked down a long, densely forested driveway. The house is lavender with white and gray trim, and there aren’t any other houses in view—just land out the back and woodlands to the front. I already know Caleb’s family has money, obviously, but I can’t even imagine what this property is worth.

  He opens the door and ushers me into what I can only describe as barely controlled chaos. The house may be pristine and peaceful from the outside, but on the inside it’s a whirlwind of toys, kids’ artwork on the walls, and backpacks and sweatshirts strewn across furniture and over the banisters on the tall center staircase. I like it immediately.

  “We’re back!” he calls into the house. Two little girls in polka-dot leggings and purple tunic-length sweatshirts come sliding into the front hallway, practically squealing.

  “Ca-aaa-le,” they call, each grabbing one of their brother’s arms and tugging up and down. “Introduce us to your friend,” says one of them slyly, eyeing me.

  “My friend is Rose. These terrors are Ella and Nina.” He points at one and then the other.

  “Are you sure I’m Ella?” says the one on the left, who, admittedly, looks quite a lot like the one on the right. Even their hair is styled the same, in two curly puffs on either side of their heads.

  “Yeah, who told you I’m Nina?” asks the other.

  “Careful,” Caleb says to me, ignoring them both. “They’re cute but they bite.”

  “We don’t bite!” they exclaim simultaneously.

  “I actually shouldn’t get too close,” I tell Caleb, very solemnly. “I have that
allergy I was telling you about.”

  He plays along. “Oh, right, right. That’s very serious. You really shouldn’t get within breathing distance of them.”

  “What’s her allergy?” asks the one I think is Ella.

  “I’m allergic to twins,” I say, deadpanning. Their already huge brown eyes get even wider, four side-by-side saucers.

  “That’s impossible,” says Nina, suspicious but, I can tell, also not entirely convinced of her own certainty.

  “Oh, it’s true. It’s a rare but very serious allergy.” I back away from them, covering my mouth. “In fact, Caleb’s right, I really shouldn’t even breathe near you.”

  “What happens if you breathe near us?” Ella asks, quietly fascinated.

  I look at Caleb. He looks back at me and clears his throat.

  “Well…” I say slowly.

  “Well … it’s very, very dangerous,” he tells them. “She develops a potentially deadly case of…” He pauses dramatically, leaving the finale to me.

  “Polka dot–itis!” I shriek, storming at them like I’m going to grab them.

  The girls burst out laughing. “That’s not real!” Nina exclaims.

  “You’re teasing us!” Ella says. And then earnestly, to her brother: “Mom says you’re not supposed to tease us.”

  “Mom says no such thing. I think what Mom actually says is you both need to buck up and work on your comebacks.” He shoves Ella affectionately by the forehead, then does the same to Nina. “Now please, go do something useful with yourselves. Play with dolls, write the great American novel, whatever it is you people are doing these days.”

  He takes my hand, just for a split second, to lead me toward the kitchen. I used to think holding hands would make me uncomfortable—too boyfriend/girlfriend-y. I was wrong.

  “Parentals, this is Rose.” His mother is pulling a roast chicken out of the oven in a Pyrex baking dish, while his father hovers over the butcher block island, chopping garlic and chilies directly on the wood. Both look up with wide grins—Caleb gets the gap in his teeth from his dad—when we enter the room.

 

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