by Amy Reed
It’s times like this I most wish I were in my studio, dancing alone.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I feel my feet on the solid floor and the air holding me. I feel my warm muscles, my elastic tendons, my strong bones. The music starts, I open my eyes, and I dance.
Luz’s choreography is strange, reptilian, full of odd angles. It is at once jerky and luscious and fluid. It makes a dancer’s body do everything it is capable of, and then forces it to do more. The other dancers struggle to make the right shapes. They’re too worried about being pretty. Their brains tell their bodies the mathematics of it all. You can see it in their eyes—they’re thinking. But I dance somewhere beyond thought. These are the movements of an underground world I already know. This is how my body breathes.
When we are done, I stand in the middle of the floor, panting. I feel weightless, floating, triumphant. Most of the other girls’ faces are twisted in frustration, confusion, even anger. They are not used to things being this hard.
I look at Mary in the corner, her chin in the air, obviously disappointed. She glances at me, and for one brief moment her face changes, and I have no idea how to read it.
“Maybe go a little slower with the next round of choreography, Ms. Hernandez,” Mary says, “to make sure everyone gets it.”
“Yep,” says Luz, then turns toward the class. Did she just roll her eyes?
I study Luz’s movements as she shows the new choreography. I study the tiny details, the tilt of her head, the flex of her wrists. I mirror what I see.
“Miss Lemon,” Luz says. “Will you come to the middle of the floor and demonstrate, please?”
I try not to smile or look at the other dancers’ faces. Just pretend this is no big deal, that I’m used to being called out for doing something well.
I dance the new series. “See that micro bend in her elbow?” Luz asks the class. “See that arch in her back?” The class nods solemnly. “There aren’t words for that. This isn’t ballet, folks. I can’t recite a bunch of technical terms to program you like freaking robots. There’s no vocabulary for feeling. You have to experience it. You’re not looking hard enough.”
I look at my feet. It’s all I can do to keep from floating off the ground.
“Again,” Luz says, and the class dances again.
By the end of class, the floor is soaked with sweat. Two girls are in tears, and a few more look on the verge of them. I follow the slow, sad progression to the locker room, and this time I’m standing taller than everyone, even Natalie Morris.
“Miss Lemon,” calls Mary from her perch in the corner. “May I have a word with you, please?”
A handful of students are still in the studio, watching me walk toward Mary, getting ready for something juicy. They are not going anywhere.
Neither is the little girl. She’s perked up in her corner of the mirror with a new glint in her eye.
“I know you feel in your element in this class,” Mary begins, “and I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”
I can tell a big “but” is coming. I look around for Luz, but she is gone.
“But,” Mary continues, “when you dance in an ensemble, your job is to blend in with the other dancers. You must not stand out too much during performance. The goal is not to show yourself; it’s to take on a larger identity with the group. You may bristle at this, but right now your job is to fit in. You’ve been dancing alone for so long, you don’t know how to dance with other people. Save your personality for your solos, okay?”
I say nothing, but I have plenty I want to say. Part of me is thinking this is the worst metaphor in the history of all metaphors—You’ve been dancing alone for so long, you don’t know how to dance with other people? What bullshit. Another part of me wants to say, “I’m getting a solo?” And another part of me just wants to punch Mary in her perfect pointy chin.
“Miss Lemon, you’re here to learn how to be a dancer, right? I’m teaching you how to be a dancer. If you really want to do this, you’re going to have to be part of an ensemble. No one’s career is just solos. You have to earn that.”
“Is that all?” I say. I can’t look at Mary. I’m in that volatile place between anger and hurt. Eye contact with anyone might make me burst into tears or start punching.
“You know I’m on your side, right?” Mary says.
“Yes,” I say, but sometimes, like right now, I’m not so sure.
“Go get cleaned up,” Mary says. I turn around and head to the dressing room. I pretend not to notice the other students making eyes at each other and snickering. I know what they’re thinking. Serves her right, thinking she’s so special. She shouldn’t even be here. I refuse to look at the sad-eyed little girl only I can see, watching me from the corner.
I pull my clothes over my drenched tights and leotard, even though it’s freezing and I have to stand outside for half an hour to catch the bus home. But the fear of hypothermia is nothing compared to my desperate need to get out of the locker room, which is eerily quiet even though it’s full of my stuck-up classmates. I can feel their eyes burning holes into my skin. They hate me for not being good enough, and they hate me for being too good. I can’t win.
I hurry out of the building and immediately feel the sweat on my face start to freeze.
“Hey,” someone says.
I turn around, and Natalie is sitting in a car that’s nice but not too flashy, not brand-new but not too old. Safe, dependable. It looks warm inside.
“Hey,” I say between chattering teeth.
“Are you okay?” Natalie says. “Mary was kind of a bitch.”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s okay if you’re not.”
I look into Natalie’s eyes then, so surprised by how this simple statement from this beautiful girl takes my breath away. Either that, or my lungs are freezing.
“Will you get in the car, please?” Natalie says. “You look really cold.”
My survival instincts outweigh my other instincts to avoid being in close proximity to people who want to talk to me.
The car is warm, as I expected. A ballet shoe key chain dangles off the rearview mirror. It smells like vanilla, but not cheap artificial air freshener vanilla, actual vanilla, like someone’s been baking cookies in here.
“I love the way you dance,” Natalie says.
“Thank you,” I say, looking at my lap.
“Mary does too, you know? She’s just trying to get you ready.”
“By making me quit?”
“You’re not quitting, are you?” She seems genuinely concerned. “You can’t quit, Lydia.”
“No,” I say, looking out the window at the other students filing out of the building, getting into their own parked cars or their parents’ warm minivans. “I don’t know. Just maybe I’m not cut out for this. Maybe I’m only capable of dancing by myself.”
“I doubt that,” says Natalie.
“I’m like one of those kids who are raised by wolves their whole lives and can never be a part of civilized society.”
“I don’t think that’s a real thing,” Natalie says. I look at her. She smiles. She has a beautiful smile.
“It’s a good story, though,” I say, maybe also smiling a little too.
“Let me give you a ride home,” Natalie says, and she starts pulling out of the parking lot before waiting for an answer. “Where do you live?”
“Carthage,” I say. “The north part just outside of town, before the rez.”
“Cool,” Natalie says. Is she really this nice? If she’s really this nice, why doesn’t anyone know about it?
“Thanks for the ride,” I say. “I probably would have frozen to death without you. Then who would Mary have to pick on?”
“You know she never got to solo, right?” Natalie says. “Not professionally. She went to Juilliard and all that, danced for a few years before her injuries made it impossible. Tulsa Ballet, I think. And then she came back here to start this school. But she was only ever an anony
mous girl in the company. Which is awesome, don’t get me wrong. So few dancers even get that far.”
I’m not quite sure what Natalie is trying to tell me. That Mary hates soloists? That Mary hates me? That Mary’s jealous?
“Anyway,” Natalie says, “I love the way you dance.”
“You already said that.”
She smiles. “Do you really hate ballet as much as you act like you do?”
I don’t answer right away. I don’t want to tell this ballet dancer that I hate what she loves.
“I don’t hate it,” I finally say. “I guess I don’t really understand it.”
“Okay,” Natalie says. “That’s fair.”
We drive the rest of the way to Larry’s bar in silence, but it is not uncomfortable. Something soft and singer-songwritery is playing low on the stereo, but I can’t make myself ask who it is. I don’t want to waste my breath on small talk about music. Not with her.
I am strangely not embarrassed as we pull up in front of the bar. “My dad owns this place,” I say. “We live in back.”
“It’s nice you’re so close to the river,” Natalie says.
“Yeah,” I say, but all these years living here, I never once even considered that.
“I’ll see you at school,” Natalie says.
“Thanks for the ride.”
“Anytime.”
I get out of the car, and the little girl and I watch Natalie turn around and drive away, and even though it’s started to snow, I still feel warm all the way through.
BILLY
IT’S CHRISTMAS AND THE BUSES aren’t running and Grandma refuses to drive me anywhere and Larry loaned his van to someone for the night. “Why don’t you just walk there?” Grandma said, but it’s miles away and it’s about twenty degrees outside, and I’m pretty sure I’d die by the time I got there. So here I am, stuck in my homicidal house, and there Lydia is, sitting in a bar with a bunch of drunk old men. It isn’t right.
Ever since the new lead about Caleb’s false identity was announced, everyone in Fog Harbor thinks they’re detectives. Grandma says people stop by her office every day to ask her questions and she has to chase them out with a broom, and our home phone stays unplugged all the time now until one of us has to use it, and as soon as we plug it in, it starts ringing. In addition to the black car making more appearances, there is a constant stream of vehicles that slowly drive by our house at all hours of the day and night. There’s one in particular that’s covered in Rainy Day Knife Fight bumper stickers and has set up a semipermanent camp across the street, and a girl with bulging eyes just sits there in the driver’s seat staring at our house and crying until Grandma calls the cops and they tell her to leave, but then she just comes back the next day. Luckily, Caleb’s window faces a direction no one can see from the street, but really it’s just a matter of time until someone flies a drone or something up there and our whole cover is blown. I’m surprised no one’s thought about that already. Maybe stalkers aren’t the most intelligent people on the planet.
Grandma and I already did our customary five-minute Christmas gift exchange. As she inspected the lumpy mug I made her in art class, I told her way too enthusiastically, “You can put pencils in it!” She was not impressed. “Customers will love it,” I said. “People trust people with homemade art by children on their desks.” That seemed to get her attention. She nodded in approval. Then she handed me a plastic BigMart bag and said, “Hurry up. I don’t want to miss the start of my show.” It contained new socks, underwear, strawberry-scented bath gel, a five-dollar bill, and a box of snack cakes. It’s actually the perfect gift because the tourists have taken almost all of my socks and underwear, and I’m sick of smelling like dish soap. I felt kind of bad about the five dollars since I actually have my own money now, but I think Grandma would have been suspicious if I tried to give it back. She made me give her two snack cakes, but I didn’t mind, because it’s Christmas.
Lydia and I ran out of things to talk about on the phone, and I don’t want to sit in my room by myself while an endless stream of spiders keeps coming out of the hole in my wall. It’s not worth trying to go to sleep because I know the house will do something to wake me up the second my eyes close. So I sit on the couch with Grandma while she eyes the box of Christmas snack cakes in my lap every couple of minutes during the made-for-TV Christmas romantic comedy. “Are you going to eat those or what?” she asks at least three times.
“I’m saving them,” I say. For what, I don’t know. For a moment that feels cake-worthy.
She gives me the look I get so often, the one that tells me I’m an alien, that I do not really belong to her.
“You’re too skinny,” she says.
“I know,” I say.
She eventually falls asleep on the couch, snoring loudly. I cover her with a blanket, whisper, “Merry Christmas, Grandma. I love you,” and take my box of snack cakes up the two flights of stairs to the attic. My foot goes straight through another rotted stair, but I keep my balance. My one tiny accomplishment of the day. The house shakes like it’s laughing at me.
I pull my foot out of the hole and open the door without knocking. The nest is there as usual, the Frankenstein dolls standing guard on top, looking down at Caleb almost affectionately, and the movable column he uses as a door is already wide open, revealing him inside, sitting in his chair looking at his computer screen. His body is more relaxed than usual, his face softer, and something about seeing him when he thinks he’s alone, without that extra barrier of blanket wall to open first, makes me feel embarrassed. It’s not like he’s naked or anything, but it almost feels like it, like he hasn’t had a chance to decide how he wants to be seen, and there he is just raw and exposed with nothing to protect him.
But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe he left his fort open for a reason. Maybe this is a sign he’s getting better.
And then a sudden feeling of dread squeezes my heart. What happens then? What happens when Caleb gets better and leaves? Will he go back to his old life? Will he forget me all over again?
Is there a part of me that hopes he never gets better? Then he’ll have to stay here. Then I get to keep him.
“You again?” Caleb says, finally noticing me.
“I brought dessert,” I say. But I do not deserve these cakes. I am not a cake-worthy person.
Caleb perks up. “Mmmm, sugar,” he says as I hand him one. “God, how I love high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils.” He tears the cellophane wrapper, and we eat the whole box in silence as we watch the Christmas movie on the computer screen, the one about the bullied kid in the olden days who wants a BB gun and the dad who’s always yelling and the mom who never sticks up for herself. I don’t know why everyone thinks it’s so funny. It’s one of the saddest movies I’ve ever seen.
“This guy,” Caleb says. “What a fucking bastard. But my dad makes him look like a saint.”
“What was he like?” I say.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Because I never met him, and he’s my grandpa, and I should get to know something about him, and Grandma never says anything.”
“Yeah, that’s what she does, right? Says nothing about anything that matters. But says way too much about shit that doesn’t.”
“He was a logger, right?”
“Ha!” Caleb laughs. “The bastard worked at the shingle factory. He was just a foreman on an assembly line carrying a clipboard.”
“Oh.”
The movie dad is trying to fix his lamp that’s shaped like a leg after the mom “accidentally” broke it because she hated it so much. No one in the family has the guts to tell the truth, so everyone goes around being sneaky.
“Your grandpa was a fucking drunk and smashed up the house on a regular basis,” Caleb says. “Smashed us up on a regular basis. And Ma didn’t do anything, just watched her TV and yelled and slapped us around too. Especially when he’d leave. Did you know about that? He’d just disappear for a week
and never tell us where he went, and as far as I know Ma didn’t even ask him. She just accepted it like she didn’t have a fucking choice what he did, and then she took her misery out on us. Sarah was convinced he had another family somewhere that he was supporting, and that’s why we were so poor all of a sudden, but who knows. Who fucking cares? I don’t.”
Sarah. It’s alarming to hear her name out loud. Like my grandfather, it’s as if she never existed, as if Grandma erased her from the family. As if I lost all rights to my own mother.
“Tell me about her,” I say, so quiet I can barely hear my own voice.
“I don’t want to talk about her,” Caleb says quickly, eyes on the computer screen.
“But she’s mine,” I say. I reach out my hand and slam the laptop shut.
Time freezes. I look at my hand, wonder for a moment if it has a mind of its own, because I don’t do things like slam other people’s laptops shut.
“She’s mine and I want to know about her,” I say. “I deserve to know about her. Grandma doesn’t tell me anything except that she was a disappointment and a junkie. But she was someone before that.”
I know I’m crying, but I don’t care. Grandma’s not here to make fun of me and call me a sissy. Caleb might, but so what. What can he really do? What power does he have? He’s a prisoner in an attic.
“She was mine, too,” Caleb says. He looks at me, all of his usual sarcasm and irony drained from his face. “You should have known her.” He hands me a paper towel from the roll he keeps by his table.
I wipe my eyes with the scratchy paper. “Was she nice?”
“Yeah,” Caleb says. “For a while, anyway. Do you know what Ma used to say to me all the time, after Sarah died? That she was the good one. She was the one who was supposed to make it. I wasn’t even supposed to be born. And I was ten. Imagine saying that shit to a ten-year-old. I wasn’t even an asshole yet.”
I have no idea what to say. I have never had anyone to talk to about all this unspeakable stuff. It’s like I grew up in two dimensions, and now, in this attic, in this pile of musty comforters and pillows, the third dimension has just been discovered, with all kinds of weird new gravity, and I feel wobbly. Upside down. Inside out.