In her earnest effort to find a ballet studio for me, Aunt Laura almost came up empty-handed until one day at Joseph P. Hurley School, where she taught, there was an announcement about a public ballet performance offered to students and their families. The Cambridge School of Ballet was issuing the invitation in order to promote their summer scholarship program and to announce that auditions were being held one week later. Not only was the Cambridge School of Ballet one of the most prestigious training and performing schools in the Northeast, situated at one of the most illustrious addresses on Massachusetts Avenue, in the Odd Fellow Building just off Harvard Square, but there was something even more relevant: the scholarship program was specifically for students who couldn’t otherwise afford tuition.
A flurry of preparations began at once. Not knowing of any particular ballet protocol, Agatha took remnants out of her sewing supplies and, by hand, carefully sewed sherbet-colored interfacing strips—in lieu of ribbons—onto my black, mail-order pointe shoes; not the traditional color or fabric.
The plan, strategically conceived, was for me to take the bus to the downtown Boston Trailways station where Uncle Richie would be waiting as I stepped off. He would then drive me at once over to Cambridge for the audition, all timed for me to be at least an hour early in order to roll up my pants and put on my toe shoes.
As we discussed the big day ahead, Agatha made sure I understood the level of competition I would encounter. We both knew that my interpretive dances at Forest Edge were coming to a close. I also understood the value that came from the introduction to ballet, along with the gift of discipline produced from my diligent practice of relevés with the support of a doorknob. For one hour, daily, with the musical accompaniment of our sunburst clock, tick-tocking, I faced the living room door and dreamed, humming and talking myself into believing that there was a stage and a theater past the door, through the wood slats and plaster and into infinitum.
In nearby cultural centers, especially Boston, it was certainly another world—full of aspiring dancers who had already been exposed to classical music and training, not to mention the advantage of resources unavailable to me. But I had three clear advantages: natural talent, a desire to succeed, and a willingness to work hard for what I wanted.
Not yet so evident was something else that would serve me in the long haul: a competitive streak. I had no choice but to excel, whether it was winning the fifty-yard dash in the second grade or competing in a sled competition down Barley Road. I had to win. This was a double-edged sword, as I would discover, but for the good part of it, I credit my sister Lori for sharpening this edge in me. A social worker who used to visit us described Lori as being quite competitive with me. Looking back, I find this to be odd, because we were so different: Lori was always quiet, delicate, unemotional; I was outgoing, talkative, and full of feeling. When I was literally chasing after butterflies and catching frogs and grasshoppers, Lori stood stoic, somehow already knowing life was not a fairy tale.
I loved my sister and assumed in her own way that she loved me, too. But her coping skills were such that she couldn’t allow herself to be embraced—as much as I tried. For her, armor was synonymous with survival. In that regard, Lori was more strategic than I was. In terms of emotional survival, I learned the hard way later. On the other hand, I knew from the age of six what I wanted to do in my life, and that was a lot to ask others of my own age to embrace, let alone my slightly older sister. It was only natural for her to resent me at times for what became known as my “special interests.”
Lori’s eventual path into law enforcement and forensics couldn’t have been predicted. Nonetheless, she would excel in that field, which benefited from her kind of cool temperament and the discerning strengths that she had developed since childhood. Although we were destined not to be close in the way that sisters can be in adulthood, she forewarned me early on not to be in a rush to get out of foster care and helped me welcome competition, rather than fear it.
As prepared as I could have possibly been under the unprecedented circumstances, on the Monday morning that followed my specially timed birthday party of June 1968, I breathlessly watched the taxi round the bend on Barley Road to pick us up. The moment for departure had arrived and I couldn’t wait to leave.
“Slow down,” Ma cautioned as I ran down to the dirt road in half as many steps as usual.
Before I knew it, the last vestiges of Forest Edge receded behind us, as we bumped along passing the familiar sights of West Lebanon, Maine. Past Ole Bull, a hollowed-out cave where Indians once lived and where a Norwegian violinist in 1871 gave concerts because he believed it had perfect acoustics. We passed the Congregational church built in 1835 where Agatha sent me for Bible studies one summer, past the post office that was actually a part of our neighbors’ house, past the Lebanon town hall built in 1833, before we eventually cruised across the state line into New Hampshire.
Once we got to the Trailways stop, I faced one problem: having to say good-bye to Ma. I blinked back tears forcefully, denying them to fall, swallowing every urge to cry. I detested “so long,” “see you later,” and especially “good-bye”—there was nothing “good” about it.
Agatha did all she could to reassure me, wrapping me into her sideways concave hug, and then stood back to gaze at me with loving approval. She began, “Mother is very proud of you.” I nodded, taking in every ounce of her encouragement. Repeating what we had already been over, she went on, “You’ve practiced hard; be yourself and you’ll be just fine! And remember, don’t talk to strangers.” Agatha reminded me that the minute I got off the bus, Richie would be there to pick me up. With that, she sent me on my way.
After I boarded, I knelt up on my seat to peer out the far side window for one last look at Ma—standing by herself under the gold lettering of Woolworth’s five and dime, exuberantly waving good-bye with a brave smile. In an instant I understood the impact of Agatha’s birthday gift to me. I was alone in body but not in spirit. Therefore, I was not afraid. In effect, she sent me off into the world with the support of my country village on Barley Road. Ma took hold of her brown wool scapular draped around her neck, and in response, I pulled out the Saint Christopher medal she had given to me for my journey. Without words, we said everything that needed to be said. She had taught me everything I needed to know to navigate circuitous roads ahead.
Excitement was now replaced with intensified sadness with each revolution of the Trailways wheels. I felt myself inexplicably detaching from Agatha as more and more distance came between us. I measured her shrinking frame between my thumb and index finger and in the smallest of spaces I held the greatest unconditional love I possibly could for a human being. We trusted what we had between us. I was nine years old and on a bus pulling me away from the “Lilac City” and toward a gateway to the world.
Both the driver and the beverage hostess—the Trailways version of an airline attendant—had been enlisted to look after me. The hostess said, “Vicki, if there’s anything you need, you just ask, all right?” She paused, then added, “You’re very grown-up to be riding the bus to Boston by yourself. How old are you?”
“Nine; I just turned nine.”
The bus driver chimed in with his heavy Boston-Irish accent and said, “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll get you to Boston safe and sound in a jiffy.” His booming voice was reassuring. I sat back in my reclining burgundy chair thinking about all I had seen and all that had been done to get me on that luxurious bus.
Just as I was convincing myself to view the day as a grand adventure, no matter the outcome, the bus did something I had never felt before. It hopped with a down-up motion, lurched, swerved, and finally screeched to an earsplitting halt.
Our formerly jocular bus driver was now very serious. I had no idea what had happened and did not want to ask a soul as I had sworn not to talk to strangers. Instead, I knelt up on my seat and looked out the window and saw something unbelievable: an older black man laying on the ground, completely immo
bile, the lower half of his body pinned under the bus. His eyes, bulging with terror, looking straight up into mine. My first thought was, because it was what I sometimes pondered whenever I saw an unfamiliar black man, Is that my Daddy?
As all the passengers filed out of the bus, including me, I spied the suffering man’s wooden cane on the wet asphalt and wanted to give it to him but I wasn’t permitted near him.
It seemed as though hours passed before emergency crews were dispatched, tow trucks arrived, and the transference of luggage onto another bus was completed. Numb by now, I knew that I would never forget the mercilessness of random tragedy and the despair in the old man’s face. For the remainder of the trip, I wondered if the nameless man had lived or died. At last, the bus pulled into the Trailways station. Waiting there as I descended the steps was a stalwart Uncle Richie, proudly wearing his policeman’s uniform, framed by the backdrop of tall Maine elms in the Boston Commons, gifted by Judge Humphrey Chadbourne to John Hancock after the Revolutionary War. His expression told me that he was fully informed about the accident. It was late and there was only a slim chance that the auditions were still under way. The day was getting bleaker.
Uncle Richie, a seasoned Boston cop with a determined attitude, knew every backstreet there was and could speedily navigate us across town, and into the other world of Cambridge.
In record time, we parked in front of the Odd Fellow Building. We leapt out, raced inside and up the grand staircase, taking the steps in twos and threes, and dashed down the hall and into the almost empty, massive ballet studio.
At the far end was a stunningly elegant woman with a cigarette clasped between two fingers, jangling the assortment of bangles she wore on both forearms as she lifted it to her mouth and then exhaled, staring off in deep thought. She turned to see Richie and me standing apologetically just inside the studio. She pivoted and glided in our direction, in such a manner that she seemed not to walk like other human beings but rather to float. “I’m sorry,” she said, “the auditions are over. We finished nearly an hour ago.”
Her voice and accent were rich, exotic—the embodiment of ballet knowledge I yearned to have. I could not help but stare in admiration, not only at her arctic blue eyes and the wisp of smoke swirling up from her like a genie escaping from a lamp, but also at the backdrop of the ballet studio behind her. This was my first view ever of a real studio—with massive mirrors lining the walls, a ballet barre running down the length and width of the studio, gilded royal flags with fleur-de-lis and eagle emblems giving it a grandeur I could not have dreamt in my most expansive visions.
I was about to accept my unhappy fate when Uncle Richie took a stab at explaining why I was late. The woman listened with no reaction. I did not dare look at either one of them; instead, I fixed my attention on another little girl scurrying around with great ease and familiarity. She smiled at me, which encouraged me to think that everything would be all right. The next thing I heard was that unmistakable, elegant voice, “Well, dear, you’re here now, let’s dance, shall we?”
This was my first encounter with the extraordinary Esther Brooks. We soon learned that she was the founder and artistic director of the Cambridge School of Ballet, and that though the summer program had been filled and exceeded capacity, she would not turn me away without the chance of auditioning first. Esther summoned Christine Murad, the little girl who had smiled at me, a student no more than nine years old herself, and asked her to show me to the dressing room so I could change into my leotard and tights. What? Nothing in the article Agatha had found remotely mentioned anything about a leotard and tights. What was Esther talking about? I told her that I had pointe shoes and that was all. Esther showed no judgment or surprise as she asked Christine to help me find something in the lost and found steamer trunk. So, off we went.
I had never met a little girl with such maturity and confidence before. She led me down an L-shaped hallway into a dimly lit dressing room to an enormous old steamer trunk with brass latchings. Christine’s strength reminded me of my own as she single-handedly hoisted open the lid of the trunk. We both giggled as we buried ourselves from the waist up in the antique trunk, furiously searching for a leotard and a pair of tights that would fit me. Within minutes I was changed, back in the studio in a pair of pilled red tights, a black leotard, and my black pointe shoes with striped interfacing for ribbons, looking more like a confection than a ballet dancer.
Esther smiled in approval, masking any amusement she may have had over my apparel. All that mattered now was what came next, as she began by asking me to show her the different rudimentary positions of the arms and feet. I sailed through this part of the audition, earning approval from her. The second part of the audition, however, moved us to the corner for tour chaînés déboulés, a rapid series of turns across the floor on a diagonal, all with French terms that had not been in the Forest Edge curriculum. Unfazed, Esther, in the most perfect French, her first language, demonstrated the movements, and I then followed along.
“Good,” she said. With a quizzical expression that seemed to have her quite perplexed, she asked, “Vicki, where did you study ballet?”
“I learned from a book.”
“From a book?” Though Esther’s English was impeccable, when she asked this, I could hear hints of an eclectic accent shaped, I would soon learn, from a childhood spent in France, China, and points in between. She was astounded. “Did you say a book?”
“Yes, Ma…I mean my f-f-foster mother, Mrs. Armstead, Uncle Richie’s mother, Agatha, I mean my mother; she taught me.”
I got through that horribly complicated explanation. I took a deep breath to control my stuttering and inner trembling. I seemed to have confounded her even more. To a woman whose raison d’être was her devotion to the transformational power of the arts, it was almost as if I have been sent to her as validation of her beliefs and ideals. For me, she had been sent as the mentor of a lifetime.
The result of the audition proved to me that the luckiest place in line can sometimes be the last. Ma, now acting as my publicist, may well have written the articles published five days later in the two Maine newspapers that served West Lebanon, both with the headline “Vicki Rowell Will Attend Ballet School”:
Congratulations to Vicki Rowell, nine-year-old foster daughter of Mrs. Agatha Armstead of the Barley Road, West Lebanon, on winning a $700 scholarship to the Cambridge School of Ballet in Cambridge. She auditioned in Boston, Monday, and passed with flying colors. The award was made at the school. Vicki has never had any previous lessons.
Her classes begin June 24 and finish just before Labor Day. There will be dancing lessons, trips, and other activities from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. each day. She will stay with Mr. and Mrs. Richard Armstead in Dorchester.
On the Tuesday morning after the audition, after spending the previous night in Dorchester, we planned to spend the afternoon with Ma, pack everything that I needed for the summer, and return that same night so that I could settle into my new routine.
Even though I was going away only for two months, an undeniable sense of finality hovered around us, as if we all knew that the time away might just be longer than that. We all recognized that inevitably I would be changing while Barley Road would stay much the same.
Uncle Richie loaned me a large blue-and-cream-trimmed suitcase for me to pack my things in—a piece of luggage that would become synonymous with my nomadic life for the remaining nine years of my term as a ward of the state. Solemnly, Ma and I placed the suitcase atop the dining room table and opened it. She proceeded to fold in love with every article of clothing she packed. Barely looking at each other, we knew that by nightfall I would drive away without her.
That moment came much too soon, even though I was late leaving and Uncle Richie was waiting for me down the road at his trailer. Ma accompanied me from the kitchen to the back porch. Hugs and good-byes were exchanged. I started off into the cool summer night air and walked into the field of high grass, scattering fireflies as I gl
anced up at the sky that seemed almost excessively studded with stars, and then back at Ma standing there under the glow of a naked porch light, beaming the brightest of any light source.
I walked forward, all the while looking back over my shoulder, not wanting to take my eyes off that misshapen silhouette that I loved—Agatha Armstead. She had foreseen this moment of my departure many moons ago, maybe from the instant she first sat down at her Steinway and gently commanded me to dance.
Esther Brooks was born with arresting beauty, destined to grace the world’s most illustrious stages and concert halls, as both an actress and a ballerina. She had an unsurpassed intellectual brilliance that put her in the most esteemed cultural circles abroad and in the United States, but her true calling was empowering others, especially children, through teaching classical ballet and providing opportunities in the arts. She felt that if she introduced them to a discipline, they could eventually free themselves from the chaos that poverty so often inflicts on the very young. She hoped that this discipline, if learned, would give them some of the tools needed to embrace whatever careers they might choose for themselves as adults.
Esther was not afraid of her own power, nor did she apologize for it, something that made her disarmingly successful at what she did—with an innate business prowess she could have run major corporations—and that also made her sometimes controversial. A powerhouse in and out of the studio, without question, she made things happen. People shook in her presence.
The Women Who Raised Me Page 12