Two of a Kind

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  “She is so conceited,” Jordan said, glancing back to where Francesca continued to preen.

  “But she’s really good,” said Alexis. Jordan couldn’t argue. “Want to come over later?” Alexis asked. Since Alexis lived in an apartment on West Seventy-eighth Street, they liked to hang out there.

  “I can’t; we’re having company for dinner,” said Jordan. Her mother had invited Misha and Stephen, the couple who had started out as their tenants and become their friends, to join them. It was their anniversary or something.

  “Tomorrow, then,” Alexis said. Jordan nodded as the teacher, Ms. Bonner, strode back into the room and began the center work. Mostly this was a recap of what they had done at the barre, but one of the combinations contained pirouettes. She fixed her thoughts exclusively on the small spot where her foot rose on relevé and then pivoted, imagining herself stuck there, like with a glue gun, unable to shift her foot at all. The only possible movement was around, around, and—yes!—around again. She finished cleanly, in a small burst of triumph—three neat, complete pirouettes. Francesca, who turned like a top, could do three pirouettes, but Jordan never had before.

  “Nice turns!” said Ms. Bonner as she looked in Jordan’s direction.

  Jordan stood there, chest heaving. Three, she thought, three perfect turns. The class seemed charmed after that—during the adagio she was able to lift her leg higher than usual, and she caught on to the balancé combination right away. Jordan still marked it dutifully along with everyone else, but when it was time to actually do it, she gave herself over to the music—a waltz—completely.

  “Everyone, please stop,” Ms. Bonner said with a loud clap of her hands. The room went still and Mr. Strickland, the pianist, took his fingers off the keys. “I’d like you all to watch Jordan. She’s got more than the steps; she’s got the soul. Jordan,” she said, gesturing to a place alone, in the center of the floor. “Please.” Ms. Bonner looked at Mr. Strickland.

  Jordan was nervous as the first few bars began to play. But once she began to perform the long, sweeping balancés en tourant—waltz steps that crossed the floor in a diagonal—the smaller balancés that rocked from side to side like waves, the piqué arabesque, in which she was required to strike and hold the pose, and the tight spin of the chaîné turns at the end, she wanted the combination to go on and on.

  “Brava!” said Ms. Bonner when it was over. “Very well done.”

  Jordan could feel everyone looking at her, especially Francesca, and Alexis gave her a high five as they passed. The glow stayed with her right on through the rest of the class and the final révérence where they all curtsied to the teacher. Then class was over; Mr. Strickland stood and gathered up his music; the sweat-slick young dancers filed out of the room.

  Jordan was mopping her face with a towel when Ms. Bonner stopped her. “I’ve been watching you for a while now,” she said. “And I like what I see. Keep it up, and things—good things—will be coming your way.” She put two fingers under Jordan’s chin and smiled; Jordan was almost afraid to return that smile. But she smiled all the way back to Brooklyn, on her walk from the subway station and through the front door of the house on Carroll Street.

  She got there just in time to see two men, both dark skinned and one wearing a turban, looking at the house. It looked like the one with the gelled-back hair was taking a picture; he held his phone up to the facade. He was speaking very rapidly while the other man just nodded without saying anything back. Jordan was confused. Who were these guys and what were they doing in front of her house? She was about to ask them, but when she approached, they startled like a pair of birds and rushed off down the block. She watched them go with some satisfaction; although she had never seen them before, she felt, instinctively, that they were intruders. Next door, she saw the flick of the lace curtain on the ground floor. That meant their neighbor Miss Kinney had seen them too. She was ancient and spent a lot of time sitting out front or looking out of her window. Maybe she would know what this was about. Or else Jordan’s mother would. But once inside, Jordan’s need to share her own news crowded out thoughts of the two strangers.

  “Mom!” she called as she came through the door. “Mom, where are you?”

  “In the kitchen,” Christina called back. “Misha and Stephen will be down soon.” The kitchen was at the back of the house’s ground floor; in the front was their living room. On the parlor floor was their formal dining room, along with her mom’s office and showroom; on the floor above there were two bedrooms and a bathroom in back. Misha and Stephen rented the top-floor apartment.

  When Jordan burst into the kitchen, she found her mother, dressed in a tea-colored linen dress and a strand of carved ivory beads, rinsing lettuce. “You sound so excited,” Christina said.

  “I am!” Jordan dropped her bags on the floor. “I just had the best ballet class ever.”

  She proceeded to tell her mother about the turns and waltz and what Ms. Bonner had said.

  “How wonderful,” Christina said softly, stepping back. She had the misty-eyed look she sometimes got; it could be annoying, but right now, Jordan was drinking in every misty-eyed second. “A red-letter day.” Then Jordan ran upstairs to shower and change before Misha and Stephen came down. They had become like uncles to her, making a fuss over her consistently excellent grades, buying her little presents, and taking her on what they liked to call “cultural outings.”

  Dinner, served in the dining room on the parlor floor of the house, felt like a party. There were tiger lilies in a crystal vase and the table was set with their best china, no two plates the same, and the heavy white linen napkins her mother had been collecting for years; they were so soft and thick, so what if they had someone else’s initials embroidered onto them? Along with salad, Christina had made wild rice and poached salmon, topped with a caper-dill sauce and presented on one of her big blue and white platters. Jordan knew her mom was always worried about money, but she managed to turn out these fancy meals anyway.

  Jordan ate the salad, ignored the rice, and meticulously scraped all the sauce off the salmon before putting a few bites of it in her mouth. Misha—tall and lanky, with a thick shock of hair that fell across his forehead—went downstairs for the champagne Christina had in the fridge. “You have to let her have a taste, Christina,” he said. “It’s a special day for her too.”

  “All right, just a tiny taste,” Christina said. The silver bracelet she always wore was bright in the candlelight; she had lit several long white tapers and placed them along the pine sideboard. Misha popped the cork, which shot across the room like a rocket, making them all laugh. Christina made a toast to the two men—they were celebrating their ten-year anniversary together—and then Stephen stood up.

  “To a three-pirouette day,” he said, lifting his glass in Jordan’s direction. “May you have many more.” He touched the rim of Jordan’s glass with his own. “Drink up, darling.” He drained his glass quickly and poured himself another. Then he turned to Christina. “How was the wedding of the century?”

  “Beautiful,” Christina said. “The decorations, the food, the flowers . . .” She sipped delicately at her champagne. “Though you should have seen her stepfather’s house; it was beyond tasteless!”

  “Do tell!” Stephen leaned in closer. He was a fashion stylist and Misha was a set designer; they both cared a lot about how things looked. So Christina obliged and pretty soon all three of them were giggling like a bunch of kids.

  “Speaking of weddings, are you two going to tie the knot?” Christina asked. Stephen and Misha exchanged a look.

  “Well, it’s complicated . . . ,” Stephen said. As the conversation turned to same-sex marriage, only recently made legal, they all grew more serious. Jordan stopped paying attention. The champagne was like soda, but crisper and less sweet. Good—it probably didn’t have so many calories. She took another sip and it was soon gone. When Christina went to the ki
tchen to get dessert, Stephen poured her a little more. “Sh,” he said, “don’t tell your mom.”

  Jordan drank that too, and for the rest of the evening felt blanketed by fog. When Misha and Stephen said good night, Jordan was about to go to bed too; she was tired. But she was stopped by the sight of her mother, seated alone at the table, shoulders slumped and head down. Jordan’s champagne-induced haze was pierced by this unsettling image.

  “Mom?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Christina said. “Go up to bed now, darling. It’s after eleven.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Jordan said, and went to join her mother at the table, which was covered with dirty dishes.

  “Well, I guess I might as well tell you now; you’ll find out soon enough. Do you remember my client Mimi Farnsworth?” Jordan nodded. The Farnsworths had a huge limestone just above Eighth Avenue on Third Street; Christina had recently completed a very big job there. “I just found out today that Mike Farnsworth was caught embezzling money from his firm. There’s going to be a trial and he’ll probably go to jail. The house will be seized and all their assets frozen. She doesn’t know how she’ll begin to pay the legal fees. Or me.”

  “But you have other money, right? Other clients? And there’s the rent that Stephen and Misha pay.”

  “That’s a huge help, of course,” Christina said. “But it doesn’t cover all our expenses. When Daddy died, I had to refinance the house.” Jordan must have looked blank, because Christina continued. “That means I went to the bank to get another mortgage on it. I’m still paying that off.”

  Jordan tried to make sense of this information; her mother had never talked to her so openly about money before. Then she had a terrible thought. “Do you think we would ever have to sell our house?”

  “No!” Christina said. “I would never do that.”

  Jordan was relieved. She knew how much her mom loved their house; she’d grown up here, and inherited it from her dad when he died. “When did you find out about Mimi?” she asked.

  “This afternoon,” said Christina.

  “So why did you wait to tell me?”

  “I was going to bring it up at dinner; you know I can tell Misha and Stephen anything. But then you came home with your lovely news and I didn’t want to spoil the mood.”

  “Oh, Mom!” Jordan flung her arms around her mother’s shoulders, inhaling her familiar lily-of-the-valley scent. Could there be a better mother on the planet? “I don’t want you to treat me like a baby anymore. You can tell me stuff.”

  Christina smiled, but she did not look happy. “There is one more thing,” she said as Jordan released her and sat back in her chair. “I got a job offer today.”

  “You did? Congratulations! You should have brought that up at dinner; we could have celebrated.”

  “When you hear the details, you may not think so. It’s in Greenwich.”

  “You mean like Connecticut?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “Oh,” said Jordan. “Oh.”

  “I applied weeks and weeks ago and after the initial interview, I hadn’t heard anything back. So I just assumed they weren’t interested. But then I got a call today; they’re offering me a full-time position with some very attractive benefits.”

  “What about Christina’s World?” Jordan asked.

  “I’d have to close it down. At least for a while.”

  “That would make you really sad, wouldn’t it?” Christina nodded; to Jordan it looked like she was going to cry. “And where would we live?”

  “For the time being, right here. I’d commute; it wouldn’t be so bad. Though at some point I might consider relocating.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I know, I know—that I would never give up this house. But maybe I could rent it out and we could find an apartment in Greenwich.”

  “Greenwich is a long way from West Sixty-fifth Street,” Jordan said quietly.

  Christina got up from the table. “Let’s not be so gloomy, okay? I haven’t taken the job yet.” She waved her hand over the cluttered table. “I’ll deal with all this tomorrow; we should both go to bed now.”

  Jordan followed her mother upstairs. She must really be upset; she never left dirty dishes overnight. Jordan wanted to comfort her but did not know how. What if they did have to move to Greenwich? That would be awful.

  Jordan got into bed. What a relief to lie down and close her eyes. In the dark, her worry about her mother receded and in its place came an image of Ms. Bonner. The ballet teacher’s words reverberated, not only in her head, but also in the cavity of her chest, her lungs, and her beating, yearning heart. Just keep it up, and things—good things—will be coming your way. But good things came only to those who worked hard. She would have to work even harder to live up to Ms. Bonner’s prediction, harder than she had ever worked in her whole entire life.

  THREE

  On the Tuesday morning following the wedding, Andy Stern was up sixteen minutes before his alarm went off at five forty-five, sixteen minutes in which he was able to don his workout clothes, stride into the stainless-steel and granite kitchen for a quick infusion of espresso, and march down the hall to his son’s bedroom. “Ollie,” he said, rapping on the door. “Ollie, you told me to get you up early today.” Nothing. “Ollie,” he tried again, and when there was still no reply, he turned the knob and peeked in.

  There was his son, sound asleep and splayed like a starfish on top of the jumbled bed. He wore a tie-dye T-shirt—had that trend really come back around again?—and faded boxers. Around him, the room erupted in a familiar sort of chaos, with clothes strewn everywhere and the floor a minefield of soda cans, textbooks, crumpled napkins, and dirty plates. On one wall, a built-in desk and shelf unit housed all of Oliver’s techno-toys, which included a large flat-screen TV, the latest-model iPhone, iPad, and several laptops. “Ollie, you said you had a paper to finish.”

  “Paper,” Oliver mumbled. His eyes opened and he propped himself up. “Right.”

  “Are you awake?”

  “Yeah, up.” He stood and picked his way across the floor to the bathroom. “I’m going to shower.”

  The bathroom door closed and seconds later, the sound of running water could be heard. Andy stepped into the room, looking for . . . what? Clues to his son’s evident unhappiness? He made his way over to the desk, stepping on something disgustingly slimy that turned out to be part of a red pepper and mozzarella sandwich that had probably been here for a week. Jesus. He picked up the offending mess and stuffed it into a plastic bag he plucked from the clutter. He’d have to speak to Oliver about leaving food around; it really wasn’t sanitary. On the desk, along with all the gadgets, he saw open boxes of LEGOs, wooden trains, and a very elaborate helicopter he seemed to recall Rachel buying when Oliver was about eight.

  Andy stumbled toward the bed—this time his foot had an unfortunate encounter with something molten that turned out to be a chocolate bar, its wrapper haphazardly torn open—to investigate an odd lump he spied behind the pillow. The chocolate joined the remains of the sandwich in the bag. Moving the pillow, Andy found a stuffed elephant that was more than a decade old. Once blue, it was now a soiled gray, and missing an eye besides. Buster, that was the name Oliver had given it. Andy tugged Buster’s outsized ear by way of greeting and tucked him back under the pillow.

  Then he felt something else odd. Andy pulled out a small plastic bag filled with rolling papers and, damn it, marijuana; even without sniffing the contents, he could tell by the dry, twiggy look of it. The discovery explained a lot of things—the way Oliver seemed to burn through the money Andy gave him, his erratic performance in school, the maddening funks into which he seemed to slip so easily. It was troubling too that his son could be so casual, even brazen, about his recreational drug use. Lucy changed his sheets on a regular basis; didn’t he ca
re if she found that bag? Andy checked his watch. The shower was still running and anyway there was no time to deal with this now.

  He pocketed the bag. Oliver would not ask him about it; of that he was sure. Then he went back down the hall, to the exercise room on the other side of the apartment. The trainer, Cassie, was now four minutes late and her lateness annoyed the hell out of him. But he tried to subdue his irritation with a few deep squats and a stretch. Then he walked to the window, where he stood forty stories above the city, gazing out at the sparkling ripples and toylike boats of the East River.

  When the concierge buzzed—finally!—Andy turned away from the view. The fitness room boasted an elliptical trainer in one corner, StairMaster in another. A wall of free weights, each set color coded. A bench press. Mats. He viewed this room as a necessary sanctuary; while he was here, he tried to keep the outside world at bay. As soon as Cassie came in, they began; he knew the basic drill—stretch, warm up, quick cardio blast followed by the core work she favored. Planking, her core technique du jour, was a bitch. He’d worked his way up to just over three minutes and was trying to reach four today. He assumed the position with his arms along either side his body, his toes flexed and sustaining his weight. At 90 seconds he was still in command; at 120, the strain was apparent.

  “You’re doing great.” Cassie’s upbeat voice provided the necessary encouragement. Andy had just passed the three-minute mark when Oliver came charging into the room despite having been told, numerous times, not to bother his father while the trainer was here.

  “I have to see you,” he said in response to Andy’s request that he leave, now, and save whatever it was until Cassie had gone. “It’s, like, urgent,” he said, pushing the hair—long, blond, springy, and so like his dead mother’s that it made Andy want to weep—out of his face. Andy wavered; he did not want Oliver to think it was okay to come barging in here whenever he felt like it. But he loved the kid and didn’t want him to feel ignored. Reluctantly, he got up from his plank, and excused himself to speak to his son.