Ms. Jordan was known as a taskmaster. She occasionally dictated choreography with her hands, expecting me to calculate, translate, and then execute the combination. I learned that the brain was another muscle and could be developed and trained just like any other. The developed skill to decipher hand movements, emulating choreography, would prove invaluable later in New York during my professional career and in other professions that required memorization.
It may have been apparent to Ms. Jordan already as to how many of us only in our preteens would continue with ballet once we had completed high school. Perhaps as few as ten dancers would pursue a career out of hundreds of students. Even so, she expected the best from each of us. Latecomers had to sit out the entire class. Not one hair should attempt to be out of place. She did not permit excessive jewelry and despised leg warmers or any article of clothing that hid the body from her critical gaze. She knew each and every one of our bodies as if they were her own.
Carol Jordan would say, “Muscle tone is the ability to move out of the way of a speeding car.” It was Carol’s insistence on this that played a key role in saving my friend Patricia Knight’s life in years to come.
Ms. Jordan’s special message for me came during the very first class I took with her and made its way into every utterance she made in front of me. In contrast to the limitations of her body, she emphatically wanted me to remember, “Never take natural talent for granted,” reminding me what Maxim Gorky believed, “Talent is work.”
With that, she had license to push me to go past what came easily and naturally. On one unforgettable day, Carol Jordan tapped into my focused space as I held the barre with my right hand, my left leg in à la seconde, and transferred her energy to me, as if by osmosis. I could feel a kind of opening, a freedom, a release in the ball and socket of my hip. The discovery that I could sustain this difficult position by understanding the architecture of my muscles was exhilarating.
We looked directly at each other without words, a moment made more meaningful by Carol Jordan’s knowing nod. We both knew that I had found that invisible connection, placement, also known as the center. I gained confidence in my craft knowing that Ms. Jordan had the expectation that I could. As early as the sixth grade when I was twelve years old, she had instilled in me the sense that I was to be one of a handful of pupils exiting the Cambridge School of Ballet: to put all of my training to the test, to embark on a professional career, and ultimately to make my mark.
This confidence was further fueled by the rest of our ballet instructors. Rosalind DeMille, the daughter-in-law of Cecil B. DeMille, had been the first to announce that at ten years old I was strong enough to go en pointe, a rite of passage for every ballet student.
The naturally gifted Marie Paquet inspired all of us. A former ballerina with Gerald Arpino’s Joffrey Ballet, Marie did everything with ease, even the way she walked and talked. She floated as she whispered instructions—“Pas de bourreé en tournant”—making each movement seem as though it ought to be effortless, even in combination: “Chassé, pas de bourreé, glissade, grand jeté.” To watch her was to watch a fairy. In class I sometimes wondered if I reached out to touch her whether my hand would pass through her. There was absolutely no evidence of effort when she danced.
Tatiana Babushkina was my true inspiration. The Ukraine-born, heralded prima ballerina who had danced with the Ballets Russes was a marvel of consistency, a common thread among so many of the women I most admired. As a metaphor for perfection, Tatiana—with her ballet skirt tucked just under the bottom of her leotard to reveal that much more of her perfectly shaped legs—frequently carried a yardstick in order to measure the height of our extensions. Her technique was unflappable. I was mesmerized by the strength and crisp speed of her feet. Like diamonds they pierced the air, stirring up rosin as she executed intricate combinations. My impulse was to applaud not only at the end of class in a reverence—a show of respect to the teacher and the accompanist—but during class. I knew that I was in the presence of greatness—a bona fide prima ballerina. Tatiana epitomized what Martha Graham believed, that “where a dancer stands is holy ground.”
She was further validation that my serious studies mattered, that I mattered, and that I indeed was related to ballet royalty that she embodied: the high instep, her perfectly proportioned body, her thick Eastern European accent never lost to my ear, carrying her history and her privileged ballet knowledge. It never failed to amaze me how far she had traveled in her life to teach me in the basement of a church.
In the years leading up to my twelfth birthday, I was what social workers described as well adjusted. If there was any doubt as to the fullness of my young life, I had only to flip through the pages of my expanding brown scrapbook, which I enhanced by painting flourishes on the front in gold glitter nail polish. Here was yet another device for keeping track of experiences and relationships, which Agatha had encouraged me to institute. The collection of newspaper clippings, dance programs, notes from teachers, dried flowers, ticket stubs, photographs, napkins, and any scrap that held a memory were all captioned by me in my sprightly cursive handwriting—almost as though I was writing to a future version of myself—with references of shared events with my diverse assortment of new friends.
The gift of friendship, sisterhood, was something I didn’t take lightly. Not surprisingly, most of the friendships that were made in these years became lasting ones.
Patricia Knight and I knew each other from ballet, starting from that very first summer scholarship session. Patti danced on an unshakable plane, refusing to be bullied or made to adhere to any demands—even those of ballet—unless they made sense. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to muss her press and curl with unnecessary perspiration; it was that she had other priorities, including an eye on education that eventually led her to conquering the corporate world. All it took was her staid, “I have an exam tomorrow and need to get home to study.” I knew that if I wanted a ride home from Cambridge that night, I’d better throw my street clothes over my leotard and tights in a hurry. Patti was no joke, serious in every way. Mature beyond her years.
In a small-world scenario, Patti’s parents, hard, hard working Jamaican immigrants, lived in Dorchester and knew Uncle Richard and Aunt Laura, which meant that whenever I was staying with them we could commute together. Patti’s no-nonsense mother, Mary “Pearl” Knight, understood the importance of the arts in life and as they applied to high education. Pearl passed on to her daughter her own practical thinking, and, moreover, strove to give her child the best—from private schooling to extracurricular enrichment—in order to ensure success in whatever she pursued. In addition to this vital support from her parents, Patti was strongly influenced by Carol Jordan’s determination and commitment.
Tall for her age, with a quiet, poised demeanor, Patti was invariably able to listen the way most everyone else preferred to talk. Indeed, the fact that no one knew what she was thinking could be intimidating, something she would employ to strong advantage in the corporate arena.
Remarkably, I never saw Patti cry. Not ever. If she was annoyed or upset, her face would remain implacable—except for the tiniest arch of her eyebrow. How to find that state of Zen mystified me for years, though it didn’t surprise me when I heard in adulthood that it had helped her overcome a near fatal accident and its aftermath.
We had by then established a pick-up-the-phone-never-miss-a-beat friendship, and late one night I received a call from Patti to tell me about an incident that had happened while she was on assignment in London as global director for the Gillette Corporation.
Unbelievably, Patti had found herself in exactly the crisis that Carol Jordan had used as an example so many years earlier—she was crossing the street and saw a car coming straight toward her. Ms. Jordan’s voice reverberated in the memory of her muscles, brain, and cells. Had she not been able to jump and roll over its hood, falling to the pavement, one can only speculate about the dire consequences. She immediately rose to her feet,
declining emergency medical treatment, and walked away.
Years later, I had to ask, “Did you cry?” Patricia answered, “No.” She attributed her spared life to Carol Jordan. Throughout her corporate career Patti continued to take ballet classes, which returned her to a time and a discipline that were familiar and enjoyed. “Dancing makes me feel good” was how she described it; that feeling good and being good do not require perfection—something Patricia Knight exemplified even in our early days.
Another lifelong friendship made early on was with my ballet buddy Robyn Silverman, destined to be a sister to me in more ways than one. Robyn was like an Olympic gymnast in her unbridled approach to dancing. In continual amazement of how she had no fear of falling, I watched her throw her body full bore into whatever was asked of it. In contrast, I detested striking anything hard or anything hard striking me. Being her friend emboldened me somehow when it came to the passion for ballet we both were pursuing. By the same token, Robyn made me feel that she admired me for my independence, which challenged her. On those and other respects we built a lasting friendship, despite our different backgrounds, as we were destined to become even closer in our high school and adult years.
I also came to know Jackie Legister from ballet class. A Jamaican beauty, who loved every inch of her voluptuous self—not at all the conventional physique of a ballet dancer but more of a burlesque dancer for the Moulin Rouge—Jackie had a lackadaisical manner of moving and getting through class that drove Carol Jordan to distraction. Of course, I took ballet much more seriously, but Jackie’s “evry’ ting gonna be all right” spirit helped me consider that life might not be as serious as I thought.
At school, Lauren Turner and I were still the greatest of friends. I continued to work on my hip stances and tried to learn the latest urban dances, in addition to the cool lingo that went along them, not to mention the lyrics to the never-ending list of R&B songs.
Everyone in the Bury could sing. There seemed to be talent showcases and scout searches every other weekend. But as soon as I opened my mouth to join in, Lauren invariably gave me a look that said Don’t do it! Everyone knew I made up my own lyrics and sang a little off-key. But I was making up for lost time. At Forest Edge, Ma only had old 78s in the attic, so I still had a lot of catching up to do.
To be really hip, I had to learn how to jump rope. No, you don’t understand. Jump rope. It was mandatory. Incredible skill was required. It was a language: double Dutch, Chinese jump rope, onesies, twosies, checkers, hand clapping games. It was scenic: Black, Puerto Rican, and Irish girls in uniforms, some with greased-down sideburns and big gold earrings, everyone swinging rope and swinging to the rhythm of made-up lyrics in a school yard. If you couldn’t jump, you’d better know how to swing—no, swang—how to slack the rope and gauge the distance between it slapping the asphalt and the top of the most elaborate hairdo. It was status, respect, identity. I loved the sound as I stomped the schoolyard asphalt hard and breathed in the crisp New England morning air.
Still, I never thought that I could really be hip enough, until an event that happened in the spring of 1970 taught me that I could, simply by paying attention. Everyone was talking about a hockey player named Bobby Orr. I had never been to a professional hockey game, but by living in Beantown and opening up my ears I got an immediate education about the importance of the Boston Bruins.
The entire city was electrified by Orr’s redefining the role of defenseman in the National Hockey League. Orr and Phil Esposito galvanized every man, woman, and child from Roxbury to Marblehead with a sense of hope. It didn’t matter if you were Irish or Italian, Dominican or Puerto Rican, African or Chinese—it just mattered. Countless people came together for one common goal: rooting the underdog to victory. Even I, not knowing a lick about hockey, knew the odds were stacked up against the Bruins who had not won a Stanley Cup Championship in twenty-nine years.
But I received the most incredible birthday gift on May 10, 1970, when Bobby Orr, just twenty-two years old, scored the winning goal of the Stanley Cup Championship. He defied gravity, arms and legs outstretched, frozen in time forever, scoring against the St. Louis Blues. I was equally impressed with Derek Sanderson, the Bruin who made that quintessential assist, passing Orr the puck. It further solidified my belief that nothing is done alone, that even great men need support. It proved to me that impressive triumphs always had assists; that mentoring happens everywhere and in everything, inspired through genuine action. The importance of that heralded victory resonated with me for years to come.
Two years after Agatha decided to return to Forest Edge, I went through a period of wondering whether ballet was worth it. It seemed possible that the lack of a secure home base increased the frequency of the episodes of sudden, excessive sweating of my hands and feet. This was a clue that there might be a stress connection, even though I couldn’t put the pieces together as such.
I went from receiving an Honorable Mention in the spring of 1970 to a D the following school year, reflecting my growing distress at being separated from Ma.
Everything came to a head during a visit to Maine before the start of seventh grade. When it was time to say good-bye I just could not tumble into that abyss one more time. It had occurred to me that I was now coming home for every possible holiday, even Valentine’s Day. On those interminable, claustrophobic bus rides from Boston to Rochester, New Hampshire—with sealed windows and a thick fog of smoke that caused me to consciously learn to breathe in as shallow a way as possible—I had plenty of time to think about my decision.
If I had to choose between ballet and Ma’s love, the latter was what mattered most. True, I had found a sense of confidence and belonging with my ballet family in Cambridge, and although I might be the odd man out back on the farm, so be it; home was where Agatha Armstead was. Ma was alarmed by the suggestion that I take a break from ballet, knowing that technique would be lost. Our compromise was, “Well, sugar, we’ll just have to find you a school right here.” As impossible as that had been four years earlier, Agatha not only located a ballet school in Rochester, New Hampshire, but also found a teacher by the name of Mrs. Brooks. She arranged weekly transportation there and back. On top of all that, she cleared the expenses with the State of Maine, making sure that the costs were approved in advance.
With that, a reverse in course was made. I became a farmer once again, attended Berwick Newichawannock (“river of many falls”) Junior High School, and enrolled in the Lindy Brooks School of Dance, situated in Mrs. Brooks’s garage, to be precise. European, with an air of show biz about her, my new teacher entered her top students into area and regional dance competitions. This was a complete 360-degree turn from the rigorous Royal Academy of Dance and Vagonova rudiments that had been ingrained in me for the last four years.
Agatha hired a local farmer, a young man who was a member of the Heath family, to drive me to and from class once a week. It was a sobering change after the hustle of the big city to ride home in the rusty pickup, occasionally startling a deer darting across the road, as I gazed out at moonlit fields.
As the truck wound its way through the narrow dark roads of West Lebanon, only the red embers at the end of the driver’s cigarette reminded me that he was still there. At moments I worried that he might turn down an unfamiliar pathway but he always delivered me safely to Barley Road. He was completely trustworthy, never arriving late, always respectful.
His circumstances were modest. He lived in what was basically an underground cinder-block bunker, with one floor aboveground, together with his children and wife. This was to conserve on heat during the winter months.
Agatha told me about the farmer’s wife, recalling that she had been quite a beauty and was famous for her wild bareback riding. One day her horse became startled, reared up, and threw her backward. She tried to hold on to its mane, but lost her grip and slid backward, violently hitting her head—an image I could never shake. Ma believed that the impact from the shattering blow brought on the multiple
sclerosis from which she now suffered.
The first time I witnessed one of the rare visits made by the couple, upon Agatha’s invitation, was shocking. I had never seen a man so attentive to his wife, nor seen such a young woman so feeble and distorted. Moreover, the sight of Agatha leading them over to our best antique living room chairs was unprecedented. The satin upholstered chairs with carved wood lions’ heads on the arms were strictly off-limits to kids or most houseguests. Under other circumstances, whenever uninitiated company had the nerve to sit in that chair, I usually held my breath, knowing that they’d be advised to move. Not so these two, whom Agatha treated like visiting royalty, and who were visibly improved, when they left, by her kindness.
The reality was that I, too, was visibly improved being back with my Agatha. But the school year was not over before it was soon realized that I was losing my technique. I had to make my way back to Cambridge and get back to a real studio—with a real pianist, not a record player that skipped. I needed to be where I belonged. Ma and I were temporarily stumped as to what to do, so I returned to the doorknob for my barre and Agatha playing a jazz standard for accompaniment. Not a minute too soon, Carol Jordan called.
After receiving the latest photograph of me at a recital in Spaulding High School in New Hampshire, attired in an abominable sequined canary yellow tutu and yellow tights, sent to her by Agatha, Ms. Jordan was aghast that my hard-earned years of technique were in jeopardy. She put it as diplomatically as she could, saying, “Mrs. Armstead, I will do whatever it takes to ensure that Vicki returns immediately to Cambridge.”
The Women Who Raised Me Page 16