Fever

by Tonya Plank

  “You know what, why don’t you stay out of it?” I said to him. This was between my sister and me and I was feeling a bit ganged-up on. “What are you even doing here? How did you even find me?”

  “That’s right,” Jacqueline continued, completely ignoring me. “If you leave now, even for a short time, it will be obvious your passion isn’t there. Especially if you leave for something as ridiculous as dance. You’ll never get another law job. I’m not exaggerating here, Rory.”

  Suddenly it was déjà vu. I heard my mother’s voice insisting, after Daddy died and there was no one left to side with me, that dance was a ridiculous non-career, relying as it did on the body instead of the mind. The arts were for dreamers like my dad. People who were unreliable, wishy-washy, unserious, temperamental, wild. My sister’s career choice would lead to stability, respect. Plus, dance wasn’t a very feminist career; it was rather clichéd for a woman, in fact. But my dad was a womanizer so of course he’d want a dancer daughter. No, I could do better than that. I had a brain too even if I wasn’t quite as smart as my sister.

  I saw my dad’s face, his smile, felt myself in his arms as he picked me up and waltzed me around the kitchen when I told him I’d been accepted to the summer program at the School of American Ballet.

  “New York City! We’re going to New York City!” I heard his voice. An empty pit grew in my stomach.

  “Rory, that actually hurts.” This was James again. “Telling me to stay out of it. I still care about you. Deeply. In fact, I recently realized how much I still feel for you and how wrong I was to get angry with you over taking a single ballroom class. I feel like if I would have been supportive, you wouldn’t have gotten so carried away with this, and we’d still be together.”

  I couldn’t even look at him. Getting back together with him was just about the last thing I’d ever want. Next to Sasha, he actually kind of disgusted me now.

  “I missed you,” he went on. “I got a real urge to see you and to talk things out. I tried to call but you didn’t answer. So I went to the studio. I thought I’d find out which classes you were signed up for and take one…”

  What? James taking a dance class?

  “I know,” he said, chuckling at my bemused look. “I just…Rory, I should have never let you go. I was going through a lot. I really missed my job at the firm, doing corporate litigation. I really didn’t like entertainment law. I really didn’t like working for celebrities. They’re just such vapid…ugh. Anyway, when you started dancing, I just, I guess I started thinking of all the TV shows about dance and I just started thinking of you like all the obnoxious a-list a-hole so-called artists we represented. I just…I took it all out on you. And I’m sorry. I really am.”

  Wow. “Are you trying to get your old job back, then?” I asked.

  “Already did!” He smiled.

  His dimpled, boyish smile was what first made me fall for him. Memories came back to me—of how it was at the beginning, when he’d helped me through periods of deep insecurity during law school, telling me how smart I was and that I just needed more confidence. When he’d been protective of me over all my competitive, condescending classmates. “Well, good. I’m glad to hear that.”

  James was, deep down, a good guy. He deserved to be happy. I knew that job wasn’t him. I could tell he wasn’t entirely at peace with people like Mitchell and Cheryl and the whole celebrity culture. I think that’s why our relationship was so much stronger in San Francisco, before he’d gone all Hollywood.

  He nodded, his smile dissipating a bit. “Is that…I mean, are you really together?” He motioned toward the door.

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “Sasha’s both my dance partner and my romantic partner now. And I’m really happy.”

  My sister smirked and I could tell exactly what she was thinking: yeah, so happy you’re starving yourself. But the eating disorder had nothing to do with him. It was all me. And it was good that it was entirely my doing, because it was something I could and would solve myself.

  “Hey, what happened to that girl you were seeing?” I asked James before my sister could voice the thoughts behind her smirk and make me want to punch her.

  He shook his head, frowning. “What girl?”

  I gave him an “oh come on” look. He shrugged.

  “Seriously, I wasn’t seeing a girl, Rory.”

  “James! That girl I caught you totally making out with on the couch!”

  “Oh her?” He laughed.

  I didn’t.

  “Yeah, that lasted like five minutes. She was too young and too much a part of that Hollywood thing I so began to hate. But…I was going to ask, you’re dancing in the world’s biggest championship? Is that what you said? Where? It sounds cool.”

  He was actually being kind of sweet. Whether it was because my sister was there and he was trying to score brownie points with her, especially since she was clearly pissed and thought we were together again, I didn’t know. I always knew she was the one he really wanted but couldn’t have. I couldn’t have admitted that to myself before. But now I could. Now that I had no romantic feelings for him whatsoever and it didn’t matter.

  “It’s the biggest and most prestigious ballroom competition in the world, held in England. The winners are like royalty. Sasha won in the junior division a few years ago and he’s been second in the top division ever since. Second to his old partner. You should see the offers he gets to perform all over the world, and teach at ballroom boot camps. He practically has another house in Tokyo, he’s there so often. He’s so in demand because he’s the former junior champion.” I heard myself. The defensiveness had returned. Thanks to my sister’s audible smirking. And my ridiculously inscrutable desire for her approval.

  “Wow. Well, you’re really going for the top. I mean, if you’re going to dream, dream big, you know?”

  I could see him glance at my sister. He’d changed notes too quickly. They were up to something. Kill her with kindness? They were clearly humoring me.

  “Yep, that’s what I’ve always done. That’s why I worked so hard to get accepted to the School of American Ballet. The best in the country. Of course, I was pulled, but you know, ancient history now!” I said, trying to regain control of the conversation.

  Jacqueline had her arms folded across her chest. She was rocking back and forth from foot to foot, squinting her dismay at me. I wondered what she was going to throw at me next. I really wanted this conversation to be over. I wanted to go back to Sasha’s and I wanted her to leave me alone. As much as I missed her. The old her, anyway. It hurt me to think that but I really needed to be free of her judging eyes. At least for now, until I got myself together.

  Fortunately I didn’t have to be blunt and tell them to leave. The nurse returned, telling me they were going to release me soon and needed to take my blood pressure once again.

  “I really appreciate you coming,” I said, my eyes going back and forth between my sister and James. “I promise we will keep in touch better and I’ll keep you updated on my progress,” I said to Jacqueline. “And I hope we can remain friends,” I said to James, with a conciliatory smile. Please let me go, please, please, I chanted in my head.

  “Sure thing,” James said.

  “I’ll be checking in on you frequently. You can count on that,” Jacqueline said with a pat on my shoulder. No smile.

  ***

  “Are you a celebrity or something?” the nurse laughed as he and Sasha wheeled me out to the lobby. The nurse had insisted I be wheeled out instead of walking.

  I felt ridiculous, and even more so when we rounded the corner and I received a huge round of applause. All of my friends from the studio were still there, waiting on me, hours later.

  “Oh my gaaawd,” cried Samantha, running toward me when she saw me in the wheelchair.

  I hugged her, still seated. “What? Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you came!”

  “By this point, I think you know me.” She laughed.

  Rajiv stood next to
her, and I hugged him, followed by Roxy, Lilly, Kendra, Josie, Judy, Mitsi, Ron, Enrique, Larry, and finally Pepe. “Everyone’s so nice to care…” Suddenly, I just started crying, embarrassing myself further. This was the most friends I’d ever had. They cared about me so and I’d so let them down.

  “So glad you’re okay, florecita. Damn, you had us worried,” Pepe said.

  “I’m sor—”

  “Nah, none of that,” he said. “I know what you’re going to say and no worries. Believe me. We didn’t place, meaning we didn’t place last. So our record’s still clean. And they felt sorry enough for us that the competition organizer’s letting us compete without paying any fees at his next one. In Miami. In July. You see what I’m saying, chiquita? You ended up saving us a shit-ton of money! That competition is way the hell more expensive than this one!”

  Chapter 4

  I started seeing the psychologist the Irvine ER doctor recommended the following week. Sasha and Greta were both immensely supportive.

  “You don’t win a competition for being thin. You don’t win a competition for the way you look at all,” Greta insisted, Sasha nodding in agreement behind her. “At least not in Latin ballroom. Seriously, look at all the dancers who have won. Look at me. Look at this.” She flexed her bicep, making me laugh. “I am serious. Look at my thighs. They are not fat, but they are not skin and bone. I work out hard to keep this musculature in my leg. And look at Micaela. Look at Xenia. None of us is without developed muscle. That may be attractive in ballet—maybe, I don’t know that world. But not in our world. And how do you get muscle? Protein! And how do you get protein? Food!”

  She threw her hands up like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Now, if you want to obsess about everything you put in your body,” she continued, “please be my guest. We all do that. You don’t need white bread, you don’t need potatoes. So eat spinach. It weighs nothing. You don’t feel fat after you eat it. You feel like you eat nothing. You eat the green leaves, you eat the nuts, you eat the fish. You’re not going to get fat, I promise you.”

  With Greta around, I hardly needed the nutritionist the ER doctor recommended. I managed not to laugh at her calling leafy greens “green leaves.” And I liked how she had the opposite grammar issues as Sasha, using articles where none were needed. I should talk, though—what foreign languages could I speak proficiently?

  Sasha disappeared and returned with a bottle of his now-signature juices. This one wasn’t forest green or blood red but bright orange. He looked at me with puppy dog eyes and held it out to me, a fancy champagne glass in the other hand.

  “Now you need to drink all my juices, and more than one a day,” he said. “This one is mainly carrots. Some celery, some apple.”

  I agreed to the juices. Three a day, plus a couple of balanced meals. But what I really didn’t want was for them to be watching over me, over every little spoonful I ingested. I didn’t need anyone exerting that kind of power over me, telling me what I needed to put in my body. My mother and Jacqueline did that to me as a child, and that made me build up so much resentment. Especially against Mom. So I promised to see the nutritionist and the therapist on a weekly basis. A disinterested person I’d never see again once I was well was the best person to place in that kind of control.

  The nutritionist recommended I take it easy with dancing until I got my energy back. She recommended I take one week off while I built up my protein and iron levels so I didn’t faint again. I objected to that more than Sasha. But I did as she said.

  “Whatever is best,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my head. “I want you all better. And then…you’d better watch out!”

  The wicked look in his eyes caused darts to shoot from my center outward through every pore of my body.

  I discussed with the therapist my possible plan to leave law, that I was still unsure of what I wanted and was worried that what James and Jacqueline had said about ruining my career was true. I was also concerned about Jamar if Gunther completely handled his case, out of it as he’d been acting lately. Yet the rest of my job was profoundly unfulfilling. I was a profoundly unfulfilled stress case, to put it simply. I told him about Arabelle and how she reminded me of my days as a ballet dancer and that’s largely what I believe brought on the anorexia spectrum disorder in adulthood. I told him I truly loved dancing, and loved my partner and all that he brought back to me from my childhood passion.

  The therapist had me show him the DVDs from WorldTone, pointing out the dancers I admired and describing why. Afterward, he noted that I never once mentioned anyone’s body in my reasons for liking him or her. True, besides Arabelle, who wasn’t even on any of the tapes, I hadn’t thought about any of the other dancers’ bodies. He encouraged me to watch the videos frequently and remind myself what it was that I’d admired in those dancers, and strive to emulate that. He told me to focus on my reasons for loving dance, on the artistic outlet it provided, and the ability to achieve something athletically that I never had. He recommended I live one day at a time regarding law, and to refuse to allow anyone—either Gunther or Sasha—to pressure me.

  ***

  Gunther didn’t fire me but he wouldn’t let me work on Jamar’s case either. I spent the next two weeks in utter boredom drafting wills and doing some minor research for a senior associate. But then Gunther pulled some more crap. The afternoon before Jamar’s hearing, he came to my office and told me he needed me in court with him, and that I’d have to spend the whole evening catching up on Jamar’s case—reading all the motion papers filed back and forth. It was a lot to do in one night and I had to cancel my coaching with Greta and Sasha. But I was too thrilled that Gunther asked me to sit in on the hearing with him to care about his oddly frustrating actions.

  Sasha even managed to hide his annoyance. “I know how much you’ve wanted this. We’ll make up the lesson, sweetheart,” he said, nearly flooring me.

  I spent the entire night reading all of the hearing papers submitted by both sides. I got two hours of sleep but somehow wasn’t tired the next day. I was far too energized.

  “Don’t get too excited or this is going to be a monumental disappointment for you, Rory,” Gunther warned on our drive to the courthouse.

  I didn’t know why I’d ever expected anything from this man other than negativity and cynicism.

  Unfortunately, he was right.

  Gunther first argued, as I’d hoped he would and encouraged him to in my notes, that Jamar’s confession was coerced and should not be admitted into evidence at trial because the police were overly suggestive in their questioning, and Jamar couldn’t understand his Miranda rights because of his mental handicap and should have either had his mother present at questioning or been appointed a legal guardian. Gunther put Jamar on the stand. He told the judge exactly what he’d told me in the pens.

  The two officers who’d interrogated him also testified. They maintained they did not give him any details of the crime, although they admitted they knew those details prior to his questioning, from the other two men, and that though he seemed slow in answering questions, there seemed to be no indication to them that he was mentally handicapped. They said he never told them he had a headache but admitted he had held his head in his hands a few times.

  On cross examination, Gunther asked the officers if they thought it was odd that Jamar had marked an X instead of his initials when the form clearly asked for the latter, or if they thought that could be an indication his mind wasn’t working at full capacity. They said they just figured he’d made a mistake; nothing indicated to them he was lacking average intelligence. They said he never indicated he didn’t understand.

  “Your Honor, of course Mr. Jackson didn’t tell the officers he didn’t understand. As he testified, he was terrified of the one officer and desperately wanted to please him so he wouldn’t yell. He gets headaches from the yelling, and wanted his headache to go away. This is a highly sensitive individual, possibly mentally han
dicapped, who suffers from epilepsy and severe headaches.” Gunther seemed pretty persuasive to me. Surprisingly, given that I knew how little he believed in this case.

  “How were the officers to know what was going through Mr. Jackson’s mind?” the Assistant District Attorney countered. “He never voiced a complaint, never said he didn’t understand anything, never indicated his head hurt.”

  “He didn’t ask for those things for the same reason,” Gunther said. “He was young and scared, and quite possibly, as I repeat and as my motion papers have pointed out, Your Honor, mentally handicapped, at least in some way.”

  “The record is incomplete on that, is it not?” the judge asked. And by the way he said it I knew he wasn’t buying our case.

  “The records from Darnell Jackson’s trial clearly show that people in his community considered Jamar to be mentally retarded,” Gunther responded. “Jamar’s mother told us he’s mentally ‘slow’ and has a medical history of epilepsy, which could be related to retardation. If Your Honor sees fit, we would ask for an evaluation and possibly an IQ test.”

  “Your Honor, even if he is handicapped, that’s not a defense to murder,” the A.D.A. said.

  “That’s an issue for the trial,” Gunther said. “But our argument right here is that the confession Mr. Jackson gave to police is called into question by his mental handicap. Mr. Jackson is exactly the type of person the Miranda rights and the right to have a guardian present at interrogation are designed to protect, Your Honor.”

  I wanted to stand up and cheer. I had a renewed respect for my boss.

  The judge looked back and forth between Gunther and the A.D.A., once at me, once at Jamar, then denied Gunther’s motions—both that Jamar’s confession was coerced and to have Jamar examined. I was shocked that he refused to have him seen by a professional. I shouldn’t have been, after my experiences with the judge in Mr. Warren’s case. Was this common, I wondered? Did lots of attorneys argue their clients needed to be seen by a medical professional before a trial, causing judges to consistently exercise such caution before ordering exams? There’d been a real question mark over my defendants in both of my pro bono cases thus far. If I was a judge I’d want to be sure.