Jersey Tomatoes are the Best

by Maria Padian

  Cojones. The word flashes through my brain at the same moment that Jonathan Dundas crumbles. My new favorite Spanish word—thank you, Yolanda—surpassing even taco and empanada. An important word, and surprising, especially given Jonathan’s dramatic fall and the fact that I didn’t think I kneed him all that hard. But hey, whatever works, and I’m about to turn tail and run, when I see him. Standing over Dundas. As if he just delivered a blow.

  David Ross, aka Little Andre. Wearing a look of pure fury.

  “I think she said no,” he says quietly.

  Jonathan rolls over, grimacing. His combined expression of pain and surprise is sweet to see as he struggles to stand up. He’s a big guy, Dundas. Bigger than David. But I can tell: he’s afraid of him.

  “Hey, no worries, bro,” he says nervously. “Just a little misunderstanding. Everything’s cool. Right, Henry?”

  I suddenly feel like I might throw up. All I want at this moment is to get as far away from Jonathan Dundas as possible. So I nod silently, look away and swallow hard.

  “Okay, then, we’re good. Okay,” Dundas says uneasily. “I’ll be going then. Almost lights-out, you know?” He limps away from us, quickly, across the Overlook and down the stairs. David and I listen to his retreating footsteps, until we hear the clubhouse door open and shut. That’s when I yield to the weakness in my legs, and plop down on the couch. I hear this sound, like bees buzzing, and I put my head between my knees to ward off the faint that’s coming on.

  A few minutes pass before the queasy feeling fades. When it does, I realize David is sitting beside me on the couch, his hand resting gently on my back.

  “You okay?” he says when I glance up. He looks at me intently, a little frown forming between his eyes. I nod. He takes his hand from my back, and shifts, slightly, away from me. As if he’s trying to put a respectful distance between us.

  “That guy? He’s a creep,” David says.

  “Tell me about it,” I sigh. “He’s a stalker. He followed me up here.”

  “Well, you were next on the Hickey Hit List,” David says matter-of-factly.

  “The what?”

  “Hickey Hit List. Dundas has made it his personal goal this summer to plant a hickey on every girl at camp. You were next in line.”

  “And you know this how?” I demand. Outrage rises in me.

  “Common knowledge,” David says, shrugging. “It’s all he’s talked about since camp started. The guy’s a vampire wannabe. Frankly, I think he should spend less time leaving his mark on the ladies and more time on his backhand. It sucks.”

  I’m speechless as I try to absorb this open secret that all the guys seem to know. In my head I do an inventory of necks, trying to recall telltale bites.

  “Listen, Henry,” David continues. “Warn your friends, then let it go. Dundas is a joke, okay? Someday he’ll play for a second-rate college, then run Daddy’s company and hit on all the women at his country club. End of story.”

  A thought occurs to me.

  “What are you doing up here?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you know he was going to follow me tonight? Or is this a coincidence?” David shrugs again.

  “Let’s just say I’ve got your back, okay?”

  I shake my head, still disbelieving. I don’t know what’s weirder: Dundas coming on to me, or David Ross looking out for me.

  “You’re not stalking me, too, are you?” I ask. Half joking. I see the color rise in his face. I don’t know him well enough to identify this as annoyance or a blush.

  “Just doing my duty,” he replies lightly. “Like I said, you were next in line. Pretty typical. Kinda like your game.”

  I freeze. An insult. Out of nowhere. Or is it?

  “Excuse me? Are you dissing my game?”

  “God, no. Don’t take offense, Henry. Typical at Chadwick is fairly good everywhere else.” He yawns. An exaggerated, I-don’t-care yawn. And for the second time that night, I feel capable of surgical excision. David stands. “We’d better get back to the dorms,” he says.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. You don’t just lay that on me and walk away. Define ‘typical.’ ”

  He’s not much taller than me, and as he stands there, his hands buried in the big, loose pockets of his wrinkly cargo shorts, his mouth a bare suggestion of a grin, I feel this horrifying urge to … kiss him. To wipe the smirk off his face with my lips.

  Is it possible to want to kill a guy and kiss him at the same time? Something is seriously wrong with me.

  “You’re a grinder, Henry. You’ve got solid strokes and an overall good game. But basically, you win off other people’s errors. You grind ’em with consistency.” He says this coldly. Analytically, all teasing gone from his voice.

  “You mean force other people’s errors,” I correct him.

  “Force, wait around, get lucky,” he says impatiently. “Whatever. Fact is, it’ll only get you so far. If you want to dominate at this level, you have to hit put-away winners.”

  “You don’t think I hit winners?” I ask, incredulous.

  “You’re capable of blasting winners all day, but for some reason you play patty-cake from the baseline and occasionally come to net on short balls.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been spending a lot more time watching me play than working on your own game,” I say. Acid in my voice. This is partly a dig. Partly a revelation. David glances at his watch.

  “Nah,” he says, the smirk returning. “I figured you out in five minutes. Listen, it is lights-out at this point. So nightie-night, Henry.” He’s walking backward, away from me and toward the stairs, as he says this. Hands in those big pockets. “And, uh, by the way. You’re welcome. For saving your neck.”

  David Ross turns, and disappears quickly down the steps. I fall back onto the couch, breathe deeply and shut my eyes tight. I don’t care how late it is, or how much trouble I get into. I’ll stay here as long as I have to, and if they give me a hard time I’ll just shrug. Go ahead. Expel me.

  ’Cause I’ll be damned if anyone is going to see me cry.

  Chapter Fourteen

  EVA

  Rhonda is absolutely convinced it’s an omen of future fame. The call tonight from Madame DuPres has sent her rocketing into Proud Parent Hyperspace, and she’s pulling out suitcases. Because this weekend I’m moving into the dorms. Madame found room for me, and “someone” (she wouldn’t say who) is paying for it.

  “We value students like Eva,” she said to Rhonda.

  Earlier today, I had thought I was getting kicked out. So I guess it just shows you what I know.

  Let me back up: Friday afternoon, following pointe class. I was leaving the studio and walking to the dressing room, when Madame waylaid me by the door. She spoke to me over the cluster of tightly coiffed heads.

  “Eva, after you change, could you please come by my office?” she said. No smile, no expression. Just the regal command, then the click, click of her heels as she disappeared down the hall.

  Naturally, this sent a shock wave through the rest of the class.

  “What’s going on, Eva? Why does she want to see you?” The questions buzzed around me as I honestly answered, “I have no idea.”

  Why? Why Eva? Subtext: Why you and not me? Should I be jealous? Should I feel sorry for you? Are you moving up or heading out?

  My mind scrolled through the just-completed class. I thought I did fine. Nothing spectacularly brilliant or devastatingly awful. It was an hour of relevé, rising on the tips of your pointe shoes from first, second, fourth and fifth positions. We did it French school style, then Russian. Over and over. A solid hour. I don’t know. Maybe I looked bored?

  In the dressing room, Marguerite body-slammed me against the wall. Figuratively speaking, that is. She zeroed in on me with such intensity that I felt body-slammed.

  “You don’t have any idea what she wants?” Marguerite demanded. I shrugged weakly. I felt weak; it was no act. My right toe screamed at me from inside the b
allet slipper, my mouth felt papery with thirst and half my mind was still in the relevé zone. An hour of balancing the full weight of your body on your toes, which are encased in a box as hard as wood. All wrapped up in girly satin, but don’t kid yourself: pointe shoes are to the feet what thumbscrews are to the hands.

  “Honestly, Marguerite, I have no clue what I’ve done,” I said, lowering my bottom onto the changing bench and unwinding the ribbons around my ankles. When I offered no other information, she retreated to her locker. I concentrated on not falling over. I didn’t know whether it was nerves at the prospect of seeing Madame alone, or postclass fatigue, but the room around me swam and shifted from bright to shadowy, then bright again. The voices of the other girls sounded like buzzing bees.

  When I knocked at Madame’s door, I was packed to go. For the weekend, or forever. It was Friday afternoon, Rhonda was due in thirty minutes to pick me up and I was feeling fatalistic. I removed every single thing I owned from my dressing-room locker. Normally, I’d clear out whatever needed to be laundered, leaving my shampoo, conditioner, deodorant and other toiletries neatly arrayed in order of size and sequence of use. Not then. If I was to be “uninvited” to the New York School of Dance, there was no way in hell I’d take a valedictory lap through the locker room to collect my stuff.

  “Come in,” I heard, and I pushed the door open.

  Madame DuPres’s narrow lair seemed a more likely place to find a high school guidance counselor than the artistic director of one of New York’s leading ballet schools. Yellowing framed photos and old ballet posters covered the walls. Two metal filing cabinets, stacked high with folders, occupied one end of the room; a battered wooden desk at the other end faced out the one long window. Madame was seated on an off-gold couch. It reminded me of the beat-up sofa in my grandmother’s playroom, which clanks open into a metal-framed bed.

  She gestured to the unoccupied end. I dropped my stuffed backpack onto the floor and sank into the cushions.

  Your thighs are so fat. Look at that flab, all spread out on the couch.

  “Can I get you something to drink, Eva?” I shook my head. The water I chugged in the locker room roiled like a tidal wave in my stomach. I willed myself to concentrate on what she was saying to me. To not think about how my thighs were stuck together. I hadn’t taken a shower. I had hurried and now felt sticky.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” I replied.

  “Is someone waiting to pick you up?” Madame asked.

  “My mother will be here at three-thirty,” I said. She looked at the clock on the wall. How long does it take to kick someone out of a school and destroy a lifetime’s worth of dreams? I wagered that Madame could do it in five minutes flat.

  “How did your first week go?” she asked.

  They chafe, at the top. Your thighs. They rub together when you walk.

  “Good,” I said, calibrating the right amount of enthusiasm in my voice. “I mean, I’ve already learned so much.” She nodded. Waited.

  “Such as?”

  “Well, I guess turnout. I think you were absolutely right when you noticed I was using my knees too much.” She nodded again.

  “The hips. It really comes from the hips,” she said. “What else?”

  The carrots were around 35. The yogurt was 140. That’s 175 calories for lunch. Seventy for the apple you eat on the drive home.

  “I’ve learned a lot from doing basic things slowly. It helped me improve my technique.”

  “Absolutely. A solid foundation, the perfection of the basics, is essential to any success in ballet,” Madame said. “Now let me ask you: are you having fun?”

  “Fun?” The word hung in the air. It had been a long time since I’d used “ballet” and “fun” in the same sentence.

  “I don’t know. Do you think Michelangelo, lying on his back on the scaffolding of the Sistine Chapel, paint dripping in his eyes and his arms aching, was having fun?” The words escaped my lips before I had a chance to think.

  Now you’ve done it, smart-ass. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

  To my utter surprise, Madame DuPres laughed. Her face contorted into something I’d never seen on her before: a bona fide smile.

  “Brava!” she exclaimed. “I suppose you think I had a lot of nerve asking such a question.”

  Oh, I thought no such thing, Madame. Believe me.

  I said nothing. Just smiled back at her. When Madame DuPres finished laughing, the trace of a smile remained. Somehow, miraculously, I’d broken through. I wasn’t sure where I’d landed, but it was different from where we’d started.

  “Eva, you must know that I’ve been watching you.”

  Hmm. Actually, I didn’t know that. But now I’ll be sure to be extra nervous and paranoid. That is, if I’m not getting thrown out today.

  “You have potential. True, you come to us with many deficits, but those are more the fault of your teachers, not your abilities. So we can overcome those. Especially because you work hard. You work very, very hard, don’t you?” I nodded. It dawned on me that this might not be the big kiss-off speech after all.

  “But Eva, I sense a fragility about you that troubles me.”

  Fragility? Bad word. Does she think I’m weak?

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” I replied cautiously.

  “Are you tired?” she asked.

  “What, right now? Sure. We just finished pointe class,” I said. She waved her hand dismissively.

  “I mean generally. I mean when you arrive in the morning. Eva, you seem exhausted to me, even when you are dancing well. You push yourself hard, you execute beautifully, but I sense you might collapse at any moment. Do you eat breakfast?”

  Half a grapefruit, fifty calories. Black coffee. Egg white, no yellow. None of that gross fatty yellow.

  “I always eat breakfast.”

  “What about sleep? You don’t stay up late watching television, do you?”

  “I never watch TV.”

  Television? Is she kidding? You know you are not allowed to sit for longer than fifteen minutes without compensating. Fifteen minutes of sitting equals thirty minutes of exercise.

  Madame sighed. She looked at me quizzically.

  “Why aren’t you staying in the dorms this summer? This commute from New Jersey must be hard on you as well as your parents.” I shrugged.

  “Madame, staying in the dorms costs two thousand dollars. We can’t afford it.”

  She pondered my comment for a few moments, then went to her phone. She dialed.

  “It’s Gloria. Quick question. Are we at capacity in the dorms?” Pause. “What does ‘over capacity’ mean? Are students sleeping in the hallways?” Pause. “When might we know about that?” Pause. “Tell him to call me this evening. I don’t care how late.” She hung up.

  “Well, we are apparently ‘over capacity’ in the dorms now, whatever that means. They’re trying to free up some space in our annex, but it’s not clear how much space or when …” She trailed off.

  I wondered what part of we-can’t-afford-it she didn’t get.

  “They’ll call me tonight, at any rate,” she concluded briskly, rubbing her hands together. I sensed the audience was over. I began to gather my belongings.

  “Just one more thing, Eva. Did you attend the nutrition class this week?”

  The nutrition class. I had no clue what she was talking about. I shook my head.

  “The Wednesday-afternoon seminar is always on nutrition, and I highly recommend it.”

  Once again, I tried to explain my reality to her.

  “You know, those seminars,” I said haltingly. “They start at three-thirty? My mom tries to hit the road before that to avoid rush hour.”

  Madame shook her head, frowning.

  “Now that is precisely what concerns me. Valuable information you are missing because of the commute.” She rose. “Perhaps we can do something about it. Good evening, Eva. I’m glad we spoke.” Madame held the door open for me. As I walked out, I no
ticed, way at the end of the hall, Marguerite. Leaning against the wall, her ballet bag at her feet. Poised to extract from me every word that passed between Madame et moi. My heart sank as I anticipated the interrogation.

  Then the elevator doors on our floor rang open, and quickly, frenetically, Rhonda emerged. I couldn’t remember the last time it felt so good to see my mother.

  “We’ve got to hurry, hon! I’m illegally parked,” she said.

  I couldn’t help lovin’ the expression on Marguerite’s face as Rhonda and I hurried past.

  “Have a great weekend!” I called to her with a smile. As the elevator doors slid closed, Marguerite’s mouth dropped open slightly, the very picture of disappointment.

  I leaned against the walls of the elevator, feeling the bottom drop from the soles of my feet as we descended. Madame was right: I’m always tired. I was too tired to even talk to my mother, to tell her about the Audience. It did occur to me, however, that something very, very important had happened.

  “We value students like Eva.”

  Subtext: I’ve noticed her. Picked her out from among my legions of robotically perfect ballerinas and decided she’s worth watching. Worth moving into the dorms.

  Marguerite was right to hover; she sensed something. Something big.

  Yeah, right, Eva. Who are you kidding? She wants you to see the nutritionist. She thinks you’re fat.

  Chapter Fifteen

  HENRY

  With both hands, Yolanda cradles a steaming, bowl-shaped cup. It gives off the near-burned smell of strong coffee beans.

  “Ooh, a latte,” says Maney, staring enviously at the concoction.

  “Café con leche,” Yolanda corrects her. “A little bit of strong espresso, lots of hot milk and sugar.”

  Maney rolls her eyes. We’re at that stage at camp where we don’t know each other very well, but we do know each other’s annoying habits well. For Maney it’s Yoly’s Latino thing. (Actually, for Maney it’s a lot of things, but this is a particular irritant to her.) Personally, I’m entertained when Yoly describes how you make sofrito, or tells us how you can distinguish among Cubans, Mexicans, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. Maney, however, only likes to talk about the other players at camp. Or herself.