The Looking Glass

by Janet McNally

  I remember everything about my sister, because that’s how memories work. They’re layered into our bodies like tattoo ink, hopscotching across neurons to find their own safe place. They hang around, even if you don’t want them. They lead you to places you don’t expect to go.

  Like this shop, today.

  The door is open to the sidewalk, air-conditioning leaking out into the street. As if you might be walking by, feel the cold air and say, It’s hot today. Perhaps I’ll duck inside to get cool and, hey, while I’m here, might as well get an illustration that can never be erased from my body. In the front window, a man-sized shape approaches, and when he gets close enough to the glass I can see him. It’s Toby.

  I was last here eighteen months ago, so I’m sure he doesn’t remember me. I’m just some strange girl standing out on the sidewalk, looking at her reflection in the window. But I lift my hand anyway, not a wave exactly but something close to one. The puzzled look on his face shifts into a smile, though I can still see a question in his eyes. He waves back.

  This is when I know what I have to do.

  When I walk in it’s so dim I’m blind for a moment. It’s quiet except for the Clash playing on the speakers above me, all jangle and drums. When the room sharpens into existence, my eyes adjusting, Toby’s there.

  “Hey,” he says.

  I echo him. “Hey.”

  “You have a dog.” We both look down at Pavlova, panting near my feet.

  “I do,” I say. “Is that okay?”

  He smiles a little. “Probably,” he says. “I’m Toby. What can I do for you today?”

  “I’m Sylvie,” I say. “Actually, we’ve met before.” I put my hand out and he shakes it. “My sister is Julia Blake.”

  “Oh,” he says. “Right.” His cheeks flush. I don’t know why I didn’t notice before, but I see it now: Toby had a crush on my sister. I imagine an alternate universe where she dumped Thatcher before things fell apart and dated sweet, well-inked Toby (Nancy Drew #62: The Secret of the Tattooed Beau). She’d have a couple more tattoos in hidden places and I would have gotten to see the look on my father’s face when she first brought him home. I bet Toby wouldn’t have given her drugs.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “People always remember her first.”

  He watches my face. “You look like her.” Even though I can tell how he felt about her, somehow this doesn’t sound creepy.

  “Thanks,” I say. “She left.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that,” he says. “My sister told me she got hurt.”

  I nod. “Did she tell you about . . . ?” I don’t even know how to put it into words, everything that happened. Especially here in this place where my sister was once okay.

  “Yeah,” Toby says, his voice quiet too. “I was really sorry to hear that. How is she now?”

  I shake my head a little. “I don’t know.”

  Toby looks surprised. “You haven’t talked to her?”

  “Not since she left New York,” I say. “A year ago.”

  “Wow.” He leans back against the desk behind him. I stand up straighter.

  “I’m going to find her.”

  “Good,” he says, but he doesn’t sound certain. He runs a hand through his hair and I see a tattoo of a tiny pointe shoe near his elbow. For his sister, I’m sure. It only makes me like him more.

  “I need a favor,” I tell him.

  He looks at me. I’m almost afraid to ask, but I can see it in his eyes. I’ve got him. He’ll say yes.

  “I want to get the same tattoo you gave Julia.”

  His brow furrows. “Sylvie, you’re what? Sixteen?”

  “Eighteen,” I say. I hold his gaze and pull my fake ID from my wallet. Sadie and I got them from a kid who works with her at the coffeehouse, when we wanted to go to eighteen-and-over shows and not get hassled at the door. It’s my picture here, with lots of makeup and what I thought would be a believable grown-up person’s frown. It worked well enough.

  Toby takes it from me and squints at it.

  “Please.” I know my voice sounds desperate, and I let it. I know I’m asking for something I shouldn’t, and I don’t care.

  “I need a good-luck charm,” I say. All the things I want to say: how magic needs a place to land and I’m giving it my body. How the only way I’ll be able to move on is if I can see my sister again. How I need this to find her.

  “Sit down,” Toby says.

  He walks over to pull down his binder, flips through until he finds Julia’s tattoo. He holds it up for me to see.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He sits down on the stool next to me. I put my arm on the table between us, palm facing up. I think about Julia doing this a year and a half ago, with me sitting next to her. I almost believe that if I were to close my eyes, I could be back there when I open them.

  “Are you sure about this?” Toby asks. He’s looking right at me. “It’s a choice that can’t really be undone.”

  I nod. “You could say that about most choices,” I say. “Right?” I press my fingers to the inside of my clean, empty wrist one last time. My pulse is steady. “I’m sure.”

  Toby sighs and starts to fuss with the needle. In spite of how certain I am, I feel nervousness bubble through me. I start to chatter.

  “Where did the name of the shop come from?” I ask.

  “Muhammad Ali.” Toby looks at me. “You know, ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’?”

  I nod, and at that exact moment I see one: a yellow butterfly, fluttering up near the ceiling. I’m about to ask Toby if this is normal, if he sees it too, when he asks me a question instead.

  “Are you going to tell me what twenty-six bones means this time?”

  I watch the butterfly land on the chair across from me, just above my bag. The white corner of the fairy tale book pokes out next to the zipper. The butterfly opens its wings gently, then folds them again.

  I look at Toby. It seems only fair to tell him. I open my mouth to answer, but that’s when the needle first touches my skin. A ribbon of pain streaks through my body.

  “Oh, shit,” I hear myself say.

  How I’ll Die

  A FEW HOURS LATER, TOMMY and I are eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and watching the ballet movie Center Stage for the eleventy billionth time.

  “Why don’t we ever have soap fights while washing the mirrors in the studio?” Tommy asks, pointing his spoon at the screen. Our heroine and her friends are tossing handfuls of bubbles at each other, whipping their squeegees around, basically just making a huge mess.

  “Because no one lets us wash the mirrors in the studio,” I say. “Honestly I don’t know if anyone washes them. I’ve never seen it happen.”

  Tommy nods, chewing. I’ve already told him that I’m not going to Fancy Dance Camp. He’s coming to terms with my decision, going through the stages of grief. So far, we’ve covered:

  Denial

  Anger

  Bargaining

  Frozen dessert

  I think acceptance is nearing, if only because he knows me well enough to know I need to do this.

  Tommy takes a gigantic spoonful out of his bowl. Anyone who thinks ballet dancers don’t eat has never met us and our runaway metabolisms.

  “Are you going to call?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess I’d better.”

  I look up the email from Fancy Dance Camp and dial the number on the bottom. A woman answers.

  “Hello!” Her voice is friendly and brittle, like if glass could be cheerful.

  “Oh, hello,” I say. “This is Elizabeth Blake.” I draw out our last name the way my mother does. “I’m afraid my daughter Sylvie won’t be joining you this week. She’s pulled a tendon in her foot and we feel it’s best that she stays home before the intensives.”

  Tommy claps softly at my performance. I wave him away and try not to laugh.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that, Ms. Blake,” says the cheerful glass-voice lady. “We wish her
the speediest of recoveries. It’s too late for a refund on the deposit, unfortunately.”

  “That’s no problem,” I say magnanimously.

  “All the best to Sylvie,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I say. “Um, I’ll tell her.” I hang up.

  Tommy lifts his palm and I give him a high five.

  Could it be that easy? Maybe. I lean my head against Tommy’s shoulder.

  “Is this dumb?” I ask. Pavlova is dozing in my lap, and she lifts her head at that word. She looks at me.

  “Is what dumb?” Tommy asks.

  “Going on this trip,” I say. “I’m getting in a car and driving around for days with someone who does not enjoy my company.”

  “Who cares?” Tommy says. “He’s just transport. At least he’s nice to look at.” He taps me on the head. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

  I make a face. “He’s Sadie’s brother.”

  “And? Brothers can be cute. Your brother is cute.”

  “Ew,” I say. “Please don’t say that.” I cross my arms. “You understand that Jack doesn’t speak when I’m around.”

  Tommy shakes his head. “I think he’s just the strong silent type.”

  “He’s not a cowboy in some old movie, Tommy,” I say. “You weren’t there the other night. It was so awkward.”

  “Yeah, well, Jack wasn’t the one perched dangerously on a narrow ledge.” Tommy points at me. “So who’s the awkward one?”

  I smile and take a spoonful of ice cream from my bowl. I hold it out toward him. “Uh-oh. Are we back to anger? Do you need more ice cream?”

  “All I’m saying—”

  I give him a stop-sign hand. “I know what you’re saying.”

  “Just let Cute Jack drive you around and deal with it.”

  “Crabby Jack.”

  Tommy shrugs. “Tomato, tomahto.”

  I’m shaking my head but I can’t keep from smiling. “I honestly have no idea what we’re talking about anymore.”

  We’re quiet for a moment, until Tommy looks up at me. “What if she doesn’t want you to come?”

  “Why would she send the book, then?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “It just doesn’t sound like Julia. You know, communicating in secret messages.”

  “Well, things are different now. And besides, she’s not who we thought she was, is she? All she did for a year straight was lie—to everyone.”

  “Now who needs more ice cream?” Tommy mutters.

  The fairy tale book is on the coffee table, and I put my palm flat on the cover. I think about the girls in trouble, all the heroines who need saving. My tattoo feels hot, like someone pressed fiery metal straight into my skin like a brand.

  I look at Tommy. “What if she’s in trouble?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, what if—sending this—she’s calling for help?”

  Tommy nods, slow and steady. “Then you are going to go and find her and help her. You, my friend, are the sister cavalry.”

  I should have known he’d say something like that. In the end, he’s always on my side.

  “I’m not sending Pavlova to the kennel,” I say. “I’m taking her with me.”

  “Damn straight you are,” Tommy says.

  On-screen, the dancers are still frolicking in soap bubbles, sloshing water all over the studio’s wood floor. I’m thinking about how slippery that wood must have been, and how no dancer I know would be willing to risk getting hurt just to run around in some soap. Not to mention what it would do to the floors.

  Tommy looks at me.

  “I can’t believe you got a tattoo,” he says. “Totally badass.”

  I smile. It hurts, my twenty-six bones, but it’s a comfortable kind of pain, twinging in a regular rhythm. It’s a secret etched right into my skin.

  “Also,” Tommy says, “your mom is going to kill you.”

  On a Mission

  WHEN THE SUN RISES ABOVE the rim of the building across the street and slips between the slats of my blinds, I’ve already been awake for hours, staring at the mountain-range crack in my ceiling. My tattoo burns on my wrist. Tommy’s asleep on a pile of pillows on my rug, his face turned toward my dresser. Pavlova’s curled up against his back.

  When Julia first left, Tommy slept over for three nights in a row. My parents barely noticed, and Everett was crackling with anger, so he never let me get close enough to him to actually talk. Tommy made sure that I wasn’t alone, that I ate my meals, even if they were only cereal and the takeout my parents had delivered. He watched marathons of 1960s TV shows like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie with me. He skipped ballet class too.

  Julia had left her bedroom door open that last night, but my mother closed it the next day, pulled it shut so hard the doorframe shook. I saw her do it, and she saw me see—or rather, she turned around to find me watching. “Dust,” my mother said. I guessed she was talking about keeping it clean, but I wasn’t sure. We never talked about it again, and I never opened the door myself, as ridiculous as that sounds. I never really wanted to. Until now.

  I slide to the foot of my bed and step around Tommy’s long legs, then walk as softly as I can across the floor. I push my door open carefully, stopping just before the spot where the hinges squeak. Then I squeeze through the opening, first one leg, followed by the rest of me. I’m barefoot on the hardwood, still wearing the clothes I slept in: my brother’s old Sleater-Kinney T-shirt and leggings with a tear in the knee. Totally rock-and-roll, except for the Band-Aids on my feet. Or maybe that makes it even better.

  Light pours from the window at the end of the hall, falls in a golden square on the floor. I walk past Everett’s room and my parents’ to Julia’s.

  I put my hand on the doorknob. It’s smooth and cool, clear glass in an octagon shape. I’m ready to turn it, when I hear footsteps in the hallway behind me. I whirl around, heart pounding.

  It’s Tommy, of course. I don’t know who else I could expect. He stretches slowly, arms raised over his head.

  “Do you always creep around the apartment like a burglar in the morning?” he asks.

  “Only sometimes,” I say.

  “Well, it’s a really charming habit.” He smiles. “What are you doing?”

  “Going in,” I say, but I might as well say time traveling. I put my hand out and he takes it. I squeeze. “Come on.”

  We Go In

  TOMMY AND I STEP INTO the room carefully, like we’re entering a museum. Which I guess we are. This is a place made of past-Julia, the Julia who’s been gone for a year. Who was gone before that, really, ever since she stopped being able to dance.

  I think some part of me half expects to find Julia in bed like a comatose princess, wax-figure beautiful and completely still. But all I see is her lavender quilt pulled tight around the mattress. Her empty desk. Three pairs of old pointe shoes, trailing ribbons, hanging from a hook on the wall. When I was little I couldn’t wait to have my own pairs of busted toe shoes to hang like a trophy, and I hung my first three pairs too. Now I’d have dozens more if I kept them, but I throw all the rest away. Just like Julia used to do.

  I kneel down in front of her low dresser and open the bottom drawer. I sift through her tank tops, then pick up ones in dark red and sapphire blue. I lift out one covered in gunmetal-gray sequins.

  “That’s going to be itchy,” Tommy says.

  “Thanks, Mom.” I drop it into my pile. Pavlova pads over and sniffs it. I wonder if she can still smell Julia. I can’t.

  “Just saying.” Tommy’s smiling.

  “I don’t care if it’s itchy. I like it,” I say. “I’ve always liked it.”

  “If you’re going to bring Julia home,” Tommy says, “I guess you might as well wear all her clothes now.” He pulls out a shimmery camisole the color of honey. “You’re not going to wear her underwear, though, are you?”

  I smile. “Probably not. But hers are nicer than mine.”

  Tommy st
eps closer and boops me on the nose with his finger.

  “Des Moines,” he says. This is our joke, our special code. If we don’t make it into the studio company we say we’ll end up together in some second- or third-tier company across the country: Albuquerque or Pittsburgh, if we’re lucky. Maybe Fargo, North Dakota. Fairbanks, Alaska. I haven’t looked into the possibilities, but Tommy always has a somewhat-obscure American city at the tip of his tongue. There aren’t even ballet companies in most of them, at least I don’t think so. Maybe we’ll move somewhere and we won’t even be dancers. We’ll just be normal people.

  “Des Moines,” I say. “Where’s that again?”

  “Iowa.” Tommy raises his eyebrows. “Cornfields and pigs.”

  I smile. “I can’t wait.”

  It’s almost true. Give me a home where the buffalo roam, or something.

  “Are you sure you have everything?” Tommy says. He’s holding one of Julia’s old black leotards. “Are you ready for any situation that comes your way?”

  “I don’t need a leotard,” I say. “That’s for sure.”

  “Are you certain you’re not going to have to break into spontaneous dance? Maybe your half of that pas de deux from Giselle? You can pretend I’m there with you.”

  “I hate that pas de deux from Giselle,” I say.

  “I know,” says Tommy. “Hang on.” He disappears down the hallway to my room.

  “Where are you going?” I call, but he doesn’t answer. And then I’m alone in Julia’s room, like I haven’t been in years. I stand over her dresser and pick up a jar of seashells, the tiny ones that look like butterfly wings when they’re still attached in pairs. There’s a photograph here of Julia and Everett when they were maybe five and seven, sitting on the dock at my aunt’s lake house in the Catskills. They have the same dark wavy hair, the same wide smiles. I didn’t even exist when that picture was taken. At the dresser top’s edge, there’s a small enameled pillbox with Van Gogh’s almond branches on it, delicate, white-flowered branches crisscrossing over peacock-blue sky. I know this box, because once, I brought my sister trouble in it.