Sammy

by Bruno Bouchet

  ‘You belong to your family, your faith,’ Dad says quietly.

  ‘I belong here, too.’ I turn away from him and head back to the Academy. ‘I’m staying.’

  I’m going to show him. Some day he’ll come and see me dance and his heart will jump with pride. Then he’ll thank me. I’m going to have to work so hard, harder than I ever thought I could, and I’ll do my regular studies and I will show him.

  But before all that, there’s something else I need to do – one more Sammy Lieberman humiliation – climb into the skip and fish out my pointe shoes.

  CHAPTER 3

  Today the teasing will stop. Today all the smart comments about imaginary girlfriends will cease, because today Mia, my very real, absolutely perfect girlfriend, is coming to the Academy to see me. I haven’t seen her in weeks. She’s been on a kibbutz in Israel, doing things that make my obsession with dancing seem pretty small. She’s that kind of person. Mia is smart, beautiful, funny, gentle, caring, Jewish – all things that can be summed up as the perfect girlfriend for me. Just when I need her to appear and prove she really exists, that’s exactly what she does. Who could ask for more?

  Kat gets an instant girl crush on her. Tara is also impressed but she’s got an even greater female love happening. She’s just discovered that her inspiration, the legendary Natasha Willis, is Kat’s mother. Natasha’s in town performing Swan Lake at the Opera House. Tara is completely star-struck.

  Everyone wants to know who Mia is. Even Abigail is curious. Abigail is our resident version of perfection. She’s a brilliant dancer, technically perfect, but she can be cold. Correction, she is permafrost, as I experienced when Patrick had us tied together on either end of a cord as a ‘trust’ exercise. I misread the assignment and thought we had to be together for 24 hours, not 2–4 hours. She still hasn’t forgiven me – especially as she had to go into the boys’ toilets and stand outside a cubicle while I watered the garden. It wasn’t easy to do with the impossible princess on the other side of the door.

  She’s a different kind of perfect to Mia. The kind that’s irritating, annoying, frequently insulting and … and I realise I’ve been looking at her for far too long as she walks into the common room while Mia and I are sharing a pizza.

  ‘Would you like a slice?’ Mia offers.

  Abigail flicks me a condescending smile. ‘I really wouldn’t.’

  ‘She doesn’t do carbs after three,’ I say without thinking, remembering the time we were tied together. Oops. Both perfections look at me. ‘Apparently,’ I add quickly.

  I beat a hasty retreat to the pool table where Christian is sinking shots with his usual brilliance.

  ‘Can I?’ I ask, picking up a cue.

  Christian shrugs. ‘If you want to talk?’ he says after a moment.

  ‘Really?’ I can’t believe he’s being friendly. ‘No,’ he says, turning his back and walking to the end of the table.

  Sucked in, Sammy.

  At breakfast the next day, I’m with Kat and her Mia crush.

  ‘She’s smart, funny, way too hot for you.’

  ‘Perfect.’ I nod and sigh.

  Kat was at the ballet last night watching her mother. Mia and I didn’t go because she was jet-lagged after the flight from Israel.

  When Mia joins us, Kat has a surprise – matinee tickets for the ballet.

  ‘A present to the reunited lovebirds.’

  Mia beams. ‘Thanks Kat, that’s so sweet.’

  I know I should be excited too, but something tells me I’m not. I really shouldn’t listen to that something.

  Later I’m sitting on the outside stairs at the Academy when Abigail comes by. I’m feeling dreadful because I’ve just ignored a call from Mia. I move out of the way.

  ‘I was looking for you,’ Abigail announces.

  Then she starts talking, to me. She knows I’ve got tickets for the matinee of Swan Lake, thinks she really ought to see it and …

  ‘Yes,’ I blurt. ‘We can absolutely go to the ballet together.’

  Abigail snatches at the offer before I can change my mind. ‘Great. I’ll meet you in the common room at three.’

  I’ve just given the ice queen Mia’s ticket to the ballet. I know it’s completely wrong but I want to go with Abigail, not Mia. I call Mia and make a pathetic excuse about the tickets falling through.

  I lie to Mia, lovely perfect Mia, so I can sit next to an ice block all afternoon.

  Four hours on, Kat watches me as I get ready, deciding whether to wear a jacket or not. I want to look my best.

  ‘Awww, you and Mia still get nervous around each other.’

  I try to cover my guilt with a smile. ‘Yeah.’

  I decide on a jacket. It’s almost three so I pop a breath mint and rush to the common room to meet Abigail. When she turns up, she’s looking stunning in pink. She’s got really great … I shouldn’t be noticing them.

  ‘Where’s Mia?’ she asks.

  I don’t have an answer.

  ‘Your girlfriend?’

  ‘Right, no it’s just us today. I think she’s coming down with something.’

  The shock of what I’m doing makes me choke on my breath mint.

  As I’m choking, Mia bounds in.

  ‘Sammy! You’re seriously going to love me.’

  She’s managed to secure some tickets for the ballet and is thrilled that I won’t miss out.

  ‘You look nice, Abigail,’ she says, then looks at me in my jacket and realises what’s going on.

  I want to die. I want Christian to fire a ball from the pool table right into the back of my head and kill me instantly.

  ‘Silly me,’ Mia says quietly, gives me her tickets and runs out.

  ‘Mia …’

  I stand there in full knowledge that I’ve been a total tool to the loveliest girl on the planet.

  Not one to let someone’s broken heart get in the way of a good time, Abigail asks for the tickets. She can have them. I couldn’t possibly go now. I have to go after Mia.

  I find her outside, sitting on a bench looking out at the Opera House. It’s cloudy and the wind’s making Sydney Harbour grey and choppy.

  ‘What’s worse than dog poo?’ I ask.

  She doesn’t turn around.

  She finally speaks. ‘Maggots in the dog poo.’

  ‘So they’re squelched between my toes …’

  ‘Burrowing into your skin … Which causes some parasitic disease that makes you vomit incessantly.’

  Ouch.

  ‘That’s what I am.’

  ‘Worse,’ she adds.

  We sit together staring at the steel-grey water.

  Mia looks down at her fingers. ‘You know before I went away everyone said we were …’

  ‘… perfect together.’ I finish for her.

  She gives a half smile. ‘So is Abigail more perfect for you than me now?’

  ‘No, she’s kind of the opposite.’

  ‘But.’

  ‘But.’

  How can two kinds of perfect be completely opposite and why do I have to be obsessed with the kind of perfect that’s rude, cold and can’t stand me?

  Kat is devastated when I tell her the news later in the day.

  ‘How could you do that? You should know I’m going with Mia in the divorce.’

  If she thinks the break-up is bad, wait till she finds out it’s because of Abigail.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Traitor!’

  ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen,’ is my only defence.

  Tara and Kat are stunned but it’s their fault. They were the ones obsessed with finding out who I had a crush on. At first they both assumed it was them and gave me the ‘thanks but we’ll always just be friends’ talk. Then if they hadn’t been torturing me to tell them I wouldn’t have ended up confessing.

  Now they won’t touch me. I am a fly-infested, diseased rat carcass.

  ‘I’m sorry. What c
an I do? She drives me crazy. The heart goes where it goes.’

  Tara of all people should understand. Her obsession with Ethan knows no bounds and she’s getting about as far with her crush as I am with mine. The nearest I get to speaking to Abigail is whenever she catches me goofing around with Tara and Kat and she calls us lame.

  Then Abigail and I are paired together in Miss Raine’s pas de deux class for the rest of the semester. It should be my big chance, but I can tell by the way Abigail rolls her eyes that she’s not impressed with me as a partner.

  I’m determined to make it work. I can see a lifelong dancing partnership as we take the world by storm. I’ll be Nureyev to her Fonteyn, bringing new emotion and life to her dancing.

  The chemistry is not immediately obvious. In our next class together, I’m doing okay, though I’m a bit nervous. She’s not helping by trying to ignore me. As we move towards the lift, I put my arms around her waist and try to raise her. She’s heavier than I think. I’ve been working on my strength but I just can’t lift her properly. We tumble to the floor.

  ‘I said like a gazelle, not an elephant,’ Miss Raine comments.

  Abigail is furious. It doesn’t help that Tara and Christian get positive comments.

  ‘Go to the back. I’m sick of the sight of you,’ Miss Raine tells us.

  Abigail scowls at me. She doesn’t like being less than perfect.

  As much as Tara and Kat want me to be punished for my ‘betrayal’, they don’t like to see me suffer. They reckon I’ve only got myself to blame for this painful affliction but I didn’t deliberately expose myself to the terrible Abigail virus. It just took hold. Abigail herself is applying the only known cure, a daily dose of cold shoulder, but so far it’s not working. That’s the part Kat and Tara don’t like. It’s times like this when you learn what real friends are like – they support you no matter what disease has taken hold of your heart.

  Friends like Tara and Kat are the major bonuses of being at the Academy. They’re brilliant. And I think my roommate, Christian, is slowly becoming a friend, too. At first he was seriously hard work. If I managed to squeeze a word out of him instead of a grunt it was usually to complain about the mess I was making in our room.

  Now I’m learning that he might not talk much, doesn’t like to hang out, but he is a decent bloke. He even stood up for me once when Sean gave me this killer wedgie. Christian hates bullying of any kind.

  He’s quiet, that’s all. Or so I think until his best friend, Aaron, arrives. He and Christian go back years. Aaron’s Mr Cool, always trying to impress the girls, and I can tell straightaway he’s out for what he can get. Still it’s fun hearing about Christian’s past. When he was ten he was obsessed with some girl that looks like Tara and was going to marry her. Suddenly we discover that Christian is a real person who smiles, talks and apparently even cracks jokes.

  ‘Funniest guy I know,’ Aaron tells us. He, Tara, Kat and I are in our room while Christian’s out getting some bedding for Aaron.

  ‘Christian?’ says Kat. ‘He doesn’t speak.’

  ‘I’ve seen him smile about twice,’ adds Tara.

  ‘And one of those was a grimace,’ I add.

  Then Aaron tells us a bizarre story.

  ‘We get pulled over by this cop who asks, “Why were you speeding?” and Christian says, “Sorry mate, but the servo we’re about to rob closes in five minutes.” The cop just laughs and lets us off.’

  ‘No way,’ says Kat.

  ‘Funny thing, same cop, half an hour later picks us up for robbing the servo.’ Aaron cracks up as if this is the funniest thing in the world.

  Tara and I are stunned. We can’t believe it.

  ‘Guys, come on,’ Kat says. ‘It’s obviously a joke. Right?’

  Aaron’s getting a bit too much of a kick out of our faces. It’s like we’re these naive little kids and he’s this big bad wolf that’s come to shock us.

  There’s an awkward silence and then Aaron kicks in again. ‘Why do you think he’s here in ballet school? He’s got no choice.’ Just then, Christian walks back in the room.

  That night I go to bed in shock. I’m spending the night with two criminals who got caught robbing a service station. Aaron even had a knife with him. Their court case is coming up later in the year and part of Christian’s bail conditions is that he has to attend the Academy.

  To be honest I can believe it of someone like Aaron but as I lie there, drifting off to sleep, it’s hard to believe Christian did something like that.

  In the morning Abigail is torturing me, playing the DVD of our pas de deux incident over and over again. I count twenty-three times.

  ‘Sorry to disturb your morning, Sammy, but I’m not too keen on splitting my head open because you lack upper body strength. Which means one of us has to deconstruct pas de deux and since I’ll be wasting my lunch hour with Tara, this just has to happen now.’

  That’s me told. Apparently she was so upset after the pas de deux she went and kicked the mirror in her room. It was actually Tara’s grandmother’s and they’re going to buy a replacement at lunchtime.

  Abigail is so serious about dance that it’s scary.

  My dream of a beautiful partnership is in the same state as that mirror. Broken beyond repair. I’m now dreading this afternoon’s class, terrified that I’m not going to be able to lift her.

  When I turn up to class, she’s not there. She and Tara haven’t returned from their shopping trip. Instead of being angry with them, Miss Raine decides to take it out on their partners – Christian and me. She pairs us together.

  ‘Who’s going to be the girl?’ I ask Christian. The look on his face makes it clear.

  I’m suddenly filled with a newfound respect for female dancers. It’s nerve-racking standing in front of someone hoping they’ll lift you properly. It doesn’t make it any easier that Sean’s watching with a grin on his face.

  ‘You’re going to buckle – I’m too heavy,’ I tell Christian.

  Christian reckons not and counts me in. He grabs my waist and lifts me perfectly. We did it. He gives me a grin and we start enjoying the class. We muck around but he holds his lifts in a way that I’ve never managed with Abigail.

  Just when we’re thinking we might ask Miss Raine if we can be partners in the next class too, Mr Kennedy comes in with a police officer. They ask for Christian. They’ve got some questions about Aaron’s whereabouts last night. The smile vanishes from Christian’s face and he shrinks back into his quiet shell.

  I realise that I don’t really care what he did or didn’t do before he came to the Academy. I know he’s a good guy, even if his mate isn’t.

  CHAPTER 5

  I have a funeral to attend. I never thought this day would come, but here it is. Tara and Kat are supporting me as I say farewell to my pointe shoes. Finally! We perform a touching ceremony, down on the wharf. Kat has made a paper boat for each of them and Tara brings some flowers to decorate them. I climb down the ladder at the end of the wharf and push them out into the water.

  Abigail and her younger sister, Paige, are there. Abigail thinks the whole thing is ridiculous but Paige shows due respect, performing a gymnastic ribbon dance in honour of my shoes.

  Abigail’s sister is really sweet. The next day we all take her across the harbour to Luna Park and I have to admit, she is totally besotted with me. Can’t leave me alone. Unfortunately she’s only eleven years old, but at least I know someone with the same genes as Abigail thinks I’m wonderful. That means there must be hope.

  It’s the end of first semester so I’ve gotten rid of the pointe shoes just in time. I was having nightmares about having to perform my first exams in them. Not any more. I have officially strong ankles.

  Unfortunately strong ankles aren’t enough. I need to be able to dance with them, too. Before our first contemporary dance exam I’m nervous, but so is everyone else. Tara talks even more than normal. Kat eats even more than normal, if that’s physically possible. And I fart. It hap
pens when I’m nervous. And Abigail?

  I ask her outside the exam what happens to her when she gets nervous.

  ‘I don’t get nervous,’ she answers.

  I don’t think she’s ever farted in her life.

  The exam goes … I’ve no idea how it goes. It was a blur of sweat, nerves and, for me, wind.

  But the pressure doesn’t stop there. It’s like we have a full school curriculum and dance on top of that. I’ve resorted to listening to revision notes on my MP3 player, reading a textbook and practising my port de bras all at the same time. Who said guys can’t multi-task?

  Kat tries to interrupt, taking my headphones off. She wants help with anatomy, but I can’t.

  ‘I’m taking advanced physiology. Do you know how difficult that is?’ I tell her.

  The exams do have a plus side, as I discover in the boys’ toilets of all places. I’m in a cubicle quietly doing what people do in a cubicle when I hear a voice on the other side of the door.

  ‘For some unknown reason – maybe I killed someone in another life – you’re my partner in the pas de deux exam.’

  ‘Abigail, is that you?’

  I emerge from the cubicle. ‘Was there something you wanted? Specifically?’ I ask.

  ‘We clearly have a lot of work to do.’ She points to the sink, like some school matron, for me to wash my hands. I’m powerless to resist and do as I’m told. She continues. ‘And by “we”, I mean “you”.’

  I spin around. ‘One-on-one? With you? Awesome. I have physiology on Wednesday but after that I’m all yours.’

  ‘I’ve booked the studio every night this week.’

  Not so awesome. ‘Right, so I’ll just study instead of sleeping.’

  Abigail is indifferent to my physiology. ‘Tonight, eight-thirty,’ she says and sweeps to the door.

  ‘It’s a date.’

  ‘It really isn’t.’

  The second she leaves I go straight back to the cubicle to deal with the extra nervous stress she’s just added.

  Night after night Abigail and I are alone in the studio. I should be in heaven. The two of us together – me taking her dancing to new heights, tapping new emotions in her …