“How could I know? I thought you wanted—”
“No. You were supposed to w-wait a long time, remember? Jeez.”
“Okay,” she said. “Just try again.”
“I’ll never g-g-get her again,” he moaned.
“She’s right there,” René said, pointing.
Leon edged back into the group and René cried, “Snowball!” But Leon ended up with the girl next to Cindy. “Snowball! Snowball!” she called, but Leon kept going the wrong way around the circle, and some of the kids were getting tired of dancing and had started to break off for the snack table.
Pretty soon all the girls were on one side of the patio again, and all the boys were on the other, and Leon had not danced with Cindy but for those first fleeting moments. There were a few forays back and forth, kids from one group going across to the other like emissaries sent to negotiate, but after that, their rides starting showing up and everybody went home.
“Nice party,” Eve said happily, dumping the uneaten chips back into their bags.
“Yeah,” Leon said. He was disappointed. “Thanks,” he said.
“Sure, honey,” Eve said. “We’ll have to do it again sometime.”
“That’s okay,” Leon said, and he went up to his room to get out of his good clothes. Then he and Chuck launched back into the woods.
10
Outnumbered, Surrounded
Eve got a call from Al. He’d invited an “important rancher” from Montana for dinner. They were on the road and would be arriving soon, so Eve should get some dinner ready, he said.
“Of course at the last damn minute. Can’t imagine what in the sam hell he thinks I can just cook up on the spot like that.” She started banging around the kitchen, frantically defrosting chicken in hot water, digging through her vegetable drawer. She got down flour and sugar, soda and salt, and checked to see if she had any frozen strawberries. “And when am I supposed to get myself ready, I’d like to know. God knows I need to wash my hair. You make sure Jayne is dressed, and take a bath, and pick up your room,” she called to René. “And Leon, pick up this front room, and get out the vacuum, and help me get the extension in the table.”
They were all in a panic.
“No doubt they’ll be here before we can get it all done,” Eve fretted. “Soon as I get this meat in the oven, we’ll do the table. And maybe I’ll have just enough time to drag a comb through my hair.”
She flew, and when Al and the important rancher and his wife pulled up, forty-five minutes later, everything was ready: the chicken was in the oven, the table was set, Eve had on a pretty dress and fancy apron, with her hair pinned back, and the kids had clean clothes, freshly washed faces, and real smiles at the excitement of company. Al had even brought home a bottle of chokecherry wine from some farmer friend of his, and Eve walked right over and gave him a kiss.
The grown-ups sat in the living room and talked, drinking the sweet wine and commenting on the beautiful view, the twinkling lights of the city. The doors were wide open, letting in the fresh, pine-heavy air. It felt cozy and comfortable and safe with so many people talking so nicely, with Eve and Al so cheerful, laughing at the important rancher’s jokes, and Al telling some good ones of his own.
Dinner went off without a hitch. There was oven-fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots and peas in ginger sauce, salad with homemade dressing, and cranberry gel. René couldn’t help but wonder where all this food had come from. Before Al had called, it was looking like they were going to have hot dogs, pork ’n’ beans, and carrots for dinner again.
Jayne got down from the table first and went out onto the patio with Chuck. Then Leon got up to follow.
“Get back here and clear your plate, Leon,” Al called after him.
Leon was on his way back to the table when Eve grabbed his arm and pulled him close. “Leon had a solo tap dance on television, right here in Rapid,” she said to the company.
“So did I,” René put in, and Al smiled.
Leon shrugged, embarrassed, then glanced up at Al, who immediately dropped his head to examine his napkin.
“He’s doing such great things,” Eve went on, hugging Leon closer. “His teacher says he has a natural talent. And this year, he’s going to start taking ballet lessons.”
“My,” the rancher’s wife said, blinking. “Well, isn’t that nice.”
The rancher looked to Al, who continued fussing with his napkin as if he were considering reweaving it.
“And I see your big dog out there,” the rancher’s wife went on. “Did you know your dad got that dog from a neighbor of ours? Is he being a good dog for you all?”
Leon nodded. “I taught him some tricks,” he said shyly. “Well, not t-t-tricks, but things he can do. Like s-sit, stay. Just things.”
“Why not show us?” the rancher said.
Al raised his head.
“I’d love to see that, Al. I would. Why, I hear tell that dog was such a nuisance—”
So Leon brought Chuck inside, with Jayne following after. He held a piece of leftover chicken and said, “Sit,” and Chuck sat, then “Shake,” and Chuck lifted a paw.
The rancher chuckled, and Al started to grin.
“Down,” Leon said, and Chuck lay down. “Okay, Chuck,” Leon said. “Stay!”
Leon walked around the table three times before coming back to Chuck and finally giving him the chicken, which made the rancher and his wife laugh. Eve laughed and applauded, while Al laughed and kind of blushed.
Then Leon ran to clear his place, like Al had told him, stumbled over Eve’s chair leg, and fell into the table where his plate was sitting, just a fraction off the edge. He hit the plate with his open hand and sent chicken, bones, peas, bits of potato, and cranberry flying into the air, then falling and spilling over the carpet, some even splattering onto the rancher’s wife. Chuck grabbed a leg bone and took off out the door as Leon stammered and dropped to pick the greasy bits of food out of the rug, and the rancher’s wife started and gasped, and the rancher said, “My heavens!”
“Oh, sorry, so sorry,” Eve said. “Here—” She jumped up and got a damp cloth for the rancher’s wife, who dabbed at the shoulder of her dress.
“Jesus Christ,” Al said, his face on fire. “Damn dumb Indian.”
“Oh, now, Al,” the rancher said, laughing.
Eve threw her napkin onto the table with a snap, then got down on her knees to help Leon with the cleaning. “Go on. I’ll get this,” she said when they’d gathered most of it. “Go ahead outside.”
“Accidents happen,” the rancher’s wife put in. “I know with our boys it was one thing after another.”
Al gave a half-hearted grunt of agreement, Leon went outside, Eve retired to the kitchen, and the room went terribly quiet.
After a long moment that felt as if an eclipse had darkened the surface of the earth, René said, “I can do a walkover.”
Al looked at her, vacant and pale.
“And what on earth is a walkover?” the rancher’s wife said, as if she were wondering what indecency was going to be perpetrated against them next.
“I have no idea,” Al said, looking at the important company as though he’d just awakened to the sound of shattering crystal.
René got up and unloaded her entire repertoire of gymnastics: a walkover, then a one-handed cartwheel, a headstand, an arching chest roll, the splits, a backbend, a back walkover, and a headstand with the splits.
As she was going along, Al began to get his color back, and the rancher and his wife began to nod their heads, until everyone seemed pretty darned cheerful again.
“Dessert?” Eve said, coming back from the kitchen, her eyes looking almost like she hadn’t been crying but for one light streak of mascara. She was right on cue with a beautiful strawberry shortcake, complete with whipped cream.
Whipped cream? René thought. Where’d she get that?
Leon was out on the patio, sitting on the ledge, his legs hanging down to nowhere, his arm around Chuck. René went out to get him.
“Mom made your favorite,” she said.
“I don’t want any,” he said quietly.
“Come on.”
“I’m not hungry,” he said.
So she left him, and he sat by himself, looking out at the dark, starry night as the rest of the company shared in dessert.
* * *
—
As the years went by, Leon would find himself sitting on a ledge like that again and again, staring into some endless darkness, wondering how the ground beneath him could shift so suddenly, how he could be so easily cast out, dismissed, discarded for something he hadn’t meant to do and didn’t know how to fix.
Even as a grown man—drunk or recuperating from a week-long bender, or fresh out of rehab with his hair slicked back and so much cologne you could feel his aching, or homeless, living in a waterlogged tent by the river, roaming the streets, getting singled out for his dark hair and Native features and beaten up by a gang of teenagers, or back at home, trying to make a fresh start as a “good Christian man”—he would think of it as a well.
“You know how you keep going back to the well and the well is always dry?” he said to René maybe a hundred times as the years unfolded, their heads bowed over coffee and the ashtray he was filling, each looking into the palms of their hands as if they might be able to trace their life stories backward. “It’s like that,” he’d say. He’d hang his head ponderously low, shaking it back and forth. “It’s no use going back to a dry well,” he’d say. “That’s what it’s like.” And he’d pause, and without the slightest hint of animosity, just wanting to be clear, he’d make a gesture toward his heart: “For me.”
Too many times to count, René had thought of telling Leon he needed to fight, to claim his place, to take what he wanted and never give it up, no matter who it hurt or what was lost. He needed to get for himself what they wouldn’t give him, she wanted to say. But there was never a good time to say something like that to Leon, not without feeling like you were simply piling on.
* * *
—
After the important rancher and his wife had left, with Eve and Al waving their goodbyes, Eve came in, sent the kids to bed, and said, “There. We did what you wanted. Now why don’t you just go.”
“What I wanted? What I wanted? Well, for crying out loud, you think I wanted food flung in our guests’ faces? For God sakes, Eve, what I wanted? Or ‘Leon’s taking ballet lessons.’ How about that? That makes an impression. That’s an impression, you bet.”
Eve stomped off to clear the table. “You heard me,” she said.
“Those people mean business for me, Eve, and food for your big mouth. You know how many head of cattle that man moves in a month? In a year? No! No, you don’t! Because everything’s just given to you, no questions.”
“No questions? I get nothing but questions—questions and accusations. No matter what I do! No matter how I work and sacrifice and do without! Nothing’s ever good enough for you, is it, Al? Nothing’s ever just right, not even your own son.”
“Jesus.”
“Jesus is right!” Eve was crying in the kitchen, slamming dishes into the sink. “He’s your son, Al. Your son. And you can’t treat him as well as you would a stranger. He’s just trying—”
“Trying to what? Trying to ruin the carpet so we’ll have to pay good money to replace it? Trying to embarrass me in front of—with all this ridiculous ballet talk. That’s your fault, Eve. That’s your doing.”
“Trying to impress you!” Eve hissed. “Could you be so blind? He’s trying to make you proud of him!”
“Oh, why, yes. Yes, yes. Of course,” Al mocked.
And on it went, up and up, Eve sobbing and screaming, Al holding his ground, the two of them battling into the wee hours as the kids, perhaps, God willing, finally succumbed to the quiet, the peace of sleep.
When René got up in the morning, Al was sitting at the big table, behind his paper, and Eve was in the kitchen, stirring eggs and sipping coffee. No one was talking. Leon had already escaped to the woods. Jayne and René got up to the table.
“And how are the girls this morning?” Al said, cheerful-like.
“Good,” René said for both of them.
Eve put the eggs on the table, then went back to the kitchen, leaned against the counter, and lit a cigarette. “René,” she said, obviously furious, “when you finish your breakfast, you can go clean out your drawers and vacuum your closet.”
“But—”
“No buts. And you can plan on helping me all day today, no complaining.”
Al gave her twinkling, buddy-buddy eyes to say, Watch out. Looks like there’s gonna be hell to pay today, which she both did and did not appreciate.
* * *
—
At church, which they attended at random intervals, the Sunday school teacher often spoke of sacrifice, of how Christ had given his last breath to those who opposed him, with prayers for their salvation. So, the teacher said, the path of Christian faith involved accepting everything that came your way, all the suffering and hatred and cruelty, without animosity or anger or resistance. But René wasn’t like that, and neither was anyone she knew.
The church put together Christmas boxes filled with canned hams, homemade cookies, and old coats to give to the Indians, but that didn’t seem like much. Hadn’t they taken the Indians’ sacred land? And weren’t they living on it, spreading out to their heart’s content without the least hesitation or regret? Brutality and force had got them what they wanted, and it certainly looked like they meant to keep it. You couldn’t make a story of sacrifice out of that.
Some of the Indian kids whose grandparents and great-grandparents had survived the frontier battles were in René’s Sunday school class. Their families had been starved and murdered, imprisoned on reservations, yet they folded their hands and bowed their heads just like the white kids, which made René wonder if they weren’t the real Christians, the ones who knew what it meant to have faith, what it meant to love God in spite of a smoldering pit of loss.
She’d seen the pictures at the Indian Museum downtown. Right alongside the beaded moccasins and leather loincloths were old black-and-white photos of Indians frozen in pools of their own blood, or lying in disarray, limbs twisted at impossible angles, mouths eternally open, defunct flesh and scant clothing woven into snowbanks.
The whole arrangement put René in mind of a bottomless pool of hurt. Was she really living under the watchful eye of a tender, loving God, a God of mercy and forgiveness and protection? Then what about the Indians? And what about Leon? Because as far as René could tell, Leon was in a fight just like the Indians—a fight he hadn’t asked for, didn’t understand, and couldn’t win. Just like the Indians, Leon was overmatched. He was going to lose, and it wasn’t going to be fair or just or right.
But when it came to sacrificing something for Leon, it always seemed to René like there was an answer she couldn’t remember or that she’d never known in the first place. She didn’t know what to do. How was she supposed to help him? There were no instructions, no directions, no back passageways or hidden doorways opening into the sudden daylight of a clear solution. And mostly, she was watching out for her own skin.
From time to time she’d stop and scan the horizon, but nothing—nothing inside or out—was giving up any secrets.
Part Two
11
To Ripen, to Bring
to Fruition
It was a miracle of circumstances, involving things as far off as the Russian Revolution and two World Wars, that classical ballet in the tradition of Diaghilev had found its way to the frontier town of Rapid City, South Dakota. But there it was: th
e Academy of Ballet, founded by former Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo corps de ballet member Helen Gilbert. She had white hair that stood up around her head like a powdered-sugar halo, turned-out feet, shot ankles, arthritis in her hips and knees, and a waddle like a sea lion. She carried a stick around the classroom for tapping out the beat on the sprung wooden floor, poking some innocent’s jutting-out ribs, or swatting an untucked behind. She weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds, having married, got pregnant, gained weight, and never got her body back. Plus, she was a big eater.
“Dancers use up a lot of energy,” she’d say. “When you stop dancing, watch out. Everything changes but your appetite.”
She’d sit on her stool at the back of the class, surveying the young dancers at the barre. “Why, after all this time,” she’d say, stopping the music, coming over to jab some little girl in the stomach and push down her hips, “do you still have your great big butt hanging out? Now tuck it in like you’re pinching a penny! And pull up. There.” Or, like an empress, waving her stick menacingly to indicate the entire landscape, everyone as far as she could see: “I have never in all my life seen the kind of pig slop you girls are dishing up today. Suuuu-ey!” she’d squeal. “Now do it again, and pay attention! Watch yourselves! Focus, balance, concentrate! Leave the pig slop for the pigs!”
René was in Beginners, Leon in Advanced Beginners, and they all, Eve and Jayne included, started falling in love with the pure force, the aliveness, that was Mrs. G.
Leon’s class met three times a week, and René’s met twice. It was a lot of driving for Eve—down the hill, then all the way through town, out past the Canyon Lake Club—and she didn’t want to make the round-trip twice in a single night, so she’d bring Jayne and some knitting or a sewing project that required handwork and sit in the waiting room until classes were finished.
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