Behind me, Jack lets out a small chuckle.
I shake my head a little. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Thatcher looks down at my hand, so I do too. It’s curled into a fist.
“No,” I say. I unclench my fingers. “Maybe I was thinking about it. Subconsciously.”
“I wouldn’t blame you,” he says. “But since your brother already did, maybe we can avoid that.”
“Okay,” I say. “You deserved it, though.”
He leans against his desk. “I know.”
I take a step closer to his desk, but I don’t touch it. “I don’t even really want to talk to you, like, ever again, but I’m looking for Julia.” I cross my arms. “Do you know where she is?”
He looks straight at me. “You don’t know?”
“Do you really think I’d be here otherwise?” I’m channeling Sadie-Pretending-She’s-a-Detective-in-a-Cop-Show. He’s the perp, and I’m using perp tactics, just like she would. It makes me feel better, like Sadie’s here with me.
Thatcher rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t know she wasn’t in touch with you. When was the last time you heard from her?”
I wait a moment before I answer. “When she left New York.”
His eyes widen a little, and then he catches himself. “Well, it’s not like she did a lot of talking while she was here. She was only here for one night. She slept on the couch.” He says this last part like he’s trying to reassure me.
I’m not reassured.
I picture it—the tacky, expensive leather couch Thatcher probably has, Julia stretched out in the darkness, trying to fall asleep. Did he even give her a blanket? The thought of it makes me want to cry. I bite my lip hard instead.
“Did she tell you where she was going?” I ask.
“No.” He shakes his head. “How did you know she was ever with me in the first place?”
“She put you on a list,” I say. I don’t explain any further. “Who’s Daniela? She’s on the list too.”
“I don’t know.” He’s looking down at the floor. “Look, Sylvie, I know I messed up.”
“That’s the understatement of the century.” I realize that I’m shaking, and I don’t know if it just started or if I’ve been vibrating (with rage? sadness?) the whole time I’ve been talking to him.
“I was trying to help her,” he says, looking up at me. “She was terrified she’d have to stop dancing.”
“Yeah, and if you’d asked anybody—anybody—they would have told you how dangerous it was for her to dance while she was taking so many pills.” My fists are clenched again, my nails digging into my palms. “You could have freaking googled it. Julia knew. She just knew you were dumb enough not to check it out.”
I feel a hand on my right shoulder. Jack, who is still here, still standing behind me. I had almost forgotten. I don’t know if the hand means I should stop or keep going, but I choose the latter.
“Do you know what it was like?” I ask, and I don’t let Thatcher answer. “No, you don’t know, because you weren’t there. Well, I was.”
Here’s what it was like: Everett had taken me to a movie. An art theater downtown was playing the Beatles’ Help!, and we’d eaten Junior Mints and popcorn in the warm dark theater, our scarves and sweaters piled on the seats next to us. We took the train uptown and then walked back to our apartment through the slushy streets. Everett was the one who unlocked the door, but I stepped through the doorway first. I’m the one who first saw her: Julia stretched out on the couch, her head tipped toward us. She was asleep.
She wasn’t asleep.
“Jules,” Everett said. His voice was loud and seemed to echo in the apartment, but she didn’t move. He crossed the room in maybe two steps and knelt on the floor next to her. He shook her shoulders. She didn’t wake up.
It’s ridiculous, but I thought of Sleeping Beauty then. How many times had Julia practiced that scene? How many times had she sunk down to the stage floor and played at being unconscious?
Everett turned around. “Sylvie,” he said, his voice calm. “Call 911.”
I stared back at him, frozen.
“Now, Syl.”
I fumbled in my bag for my phone, and dialed with shaking fingers. When the dispatcher answered, Everett took the phone from me. I sank to the floor next to my sister.
Wake up, I told her, or maybe I just thought it. Every time my heart beat I said it, so the words matched the rhythm of my blood pumping through my body. Wake up wake up wake up.
She didn’t. The dispatcher told Everett to get her down to the lobby, that the ambulance would be there soon, so he slipped his arms underneath Julia and picked her up. She looked so small then, my sister who took up so much space when she danced. Who could leap from stage left to stage right while barely trying.
My sister, who defied gravity.
Everett carried her to the elevator. I ran ahead and pressed the button and we waited, waited, waited while the numbers ticked up to six. I pressed the lobby button when we got inside. Actually, I threw all my weight against that button, like if I hit it hard enough it would get us there faster. It didn’t.
Our doorman Rafael was there, and his face turned gray when he saw us. He ran over to us and tried to take Julia from Everett—I don’t even know why, to try to help, out of habit—but Everett wouldn’t let her go. He just sank down to the floor, and I knelt down next to him, cradling Julia’s head in my hands.
I could hear the sirens by then, but they never seemed to get any closer. I think I already knew I’d be hearing those sirens for the rest of my life.
“She could have died,” I say to Thatcher now, my voice rising on the last word.
Thatcher is shaking his head. “Don’t you think I know that? I think about it every day.” His voice breaks. “Why do you think I didn’t get her any more pills after she tore up her knee?”
A chill runs through my blood like ice. “What? No. You got her the pills. All of them. It was you.”
Thatcher slumps backward, leaning on his desk. “Sylvie, in the end, whatever she did, she did on her own,” he says. “She told me she stopped using. That she didn’t need the pills anymore. I had no idea.”
I feel so suddenly unsteady that I take a step back from him.
“Are you okay?” Jack says, his voice low. I can’t make myself answer. I don’t know if this makes it better or worse, knowing that Julia had to find some other way to get the drugs. Knowing that she could have stopped and didn’t, even after she knew she wasn’t going to dance again, at least the same way she had before.
Suddenly, it all comes at me in a rush: she wasn’t trying to stop the pain, that last time. She was trying to stop the world, or at least stop living in it. I whirl around then and head toward the door.
“Sylvie.” Thatcher’s voice is sharp.
I stop. I don’t turn around.
“If you see her?” He takes a breath. “Tell her I’ve been thinking about her. Tell her I’m always thinking about her.”
I stand there, feet flat on the floor, my arms at my side. I could let him off the hook here, just nod my head or something. But this isn’t really about him anymore. When it comes down to it, it wasn’t really about him at all. So I just start walking: through the door, down the hallway. Away.
Track 19:
The Ledge
OUT ON THE STREET, THE sun is too bright, too golden. The world looks like a postcard and I don’t know how to fit both myself and my despair into it. I’m moving down the street so fast I’m practically running.
“Sylvie.” Jack sounds breathless, but he catches up to me. I stop.
“What?” I know my voice doesn’t sound friendly. I don’t really care.
“Are you okay?”
I focus on the lamppost behind him, on the black sticker on its middle that says Stop War.
Stop everything, I think.
“No,” I say to Jack. “I’m not.” I feel like I might cry, and not the quiet kind.
> Jack walks next to me for half a block without saying anything. I’m still walking really, really fast, and he keeps up. Somehow this calms me a little. I slow down.
“Okay, listen. This whole situation sucks,” he says. “And I think that guy’s a douchebag.”
I laugh then, one loud ha, and Jack seems surprised. To be honest, I am too.
“Douchebag?” I say. “Really?”
Jack flips up his hands. “What’s wrong with that description?”
“I’ve just never heard you use that word.”
He looks embarrassed. “Well, I don’t usually use it. But it seemed to fit. As does wanker.”
“Wanker works really well,” I say.
“I mean, if you want a British insult. He’s named after Margaret Thatcher, right? So he would have to be an idiot.”
“I think it’s a family name,” I say.
“Well, I just don’t see what your sister saw in him.”
“He never told her no.” I stop walking. “At least, until the end, apparently. But you know what? I didn’t tell her no either.”
Jack doesn’t ask what I mean. He just cocks his head toward a bench near the end of the street, and goes to sit down. I stand on the sidewalk for a beat, two, then I follow.
This time, I make sure to leave a few inches between us. I even set my purse down between his hip and mine. Then I sit there with my hands folded in my lap, watching the streetlights turn from green to amber to red and back again.
“Can I ask you something?” Jack says.
“Yeah.” I keep my eyes on the streetlights. They go amber, then switch to red.
“Why did you keep dancing if you wanted to forget Julia?” he says. I look at him. He looks straight back at me.
“I’m not saying you should have stopped,” he says, “but I guess I’m wondering if you ever considered it.”
It’s a good question. I say I want to forget about her—or at least stop thinking about her all the time—but how can I do that when I spend so much time at the studio? Julia was the one who taught me how to pull out the nail in the shoe, how to soften the shank by closing it in a door. She was the one who held my hands the first time I put on pointe shoes at eleven so I could balance on my toes. She helped me sew the ribbons, slowing down her stitches so I could see the angle of the needle going through the satin. It’s all so wrapped up in her.
“I think I was trying to keep her with me,” I say. “I never wanted to forget her. It just seemed like . . . like she wanted to forget me.” I rub my left thumb into the palm of my right hand. “Do you remember when I said that ballet is supposed to look effortless? I mean, I always knew it wasn’t, but I didn’t know it could be so ugly. That Julia could be. It’s like seeing behind the curtain. Now the whole thing feels tainted.”
Jack is nodding slowly. “It’s not like I can judge.” His voice is soft. “I say I want to forget my dad, but if that were really true, I wouldn’t be driving his car.” He leans his head back. “I mean, it’s not even like it’s a cool car. It’s a freaking Volvo. I mean, nothing against Volvos.” He says this quietly like the car might hear, even though it’s parked in a garage blocks away. I smile.
“Obviously,” I say.
“I drive it because I like it, and I like it because he gave it to me.” The way he says this sounds like it pisses him off.
“I get it,” I say, and I wonder: Did I like ballet because Julia gave it to me? Or did I like it for its own sake? I couldn’t be sure anymore.
“You know, the thing you have to remember is that Julia didn’t just break your heart. She broke your parents’ hearts, and your brother’s. Her friends’. Even that asshole Thatcher’s.”
I look at Jack. “Is that supposed to help?”
He laughs. “Maybe. What I’m saying is that you’re not alone. In all sorts of ways.” He’s looking at me and I’m looking at him and then we both look away.
“I guess,” I say. I look down at the worn wood on the edge of the bench. “You know, recently, I have thought about quitting.” When I say it, I realize that it’s true. I’ve doubted what I do in the studio. I’ve questioned its purpose. I’ve wondered if I want to do this all the time. Forever.
Jack is looking at me, and I’m looking at him. A warm feeling bubbles up in my chest, and I look away. I point my toes in my sandals a little, stretching, as if even talking about ballet makes me want to go on pointe. “If I go into Level Seven, I have to give up high school. I’ll have tutors instead. I don’t know if I want that.” I look back at Jack. “But I’m not sure. Maybe that’s why I need to see Julia.”
He nods.
“Of course,” I say, “if I quit Tommy’s going to kill me.”
“Probably,” Jack says. “At least at first.”
“Right,” I say. “He’ll kill me and then bring me back from the dead.”
Jack smiles. “Sounds about right.” He leans forward and puts his hands on his knees. “So what’s the plan?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know who Daniela is. We’ve hit a dead end.” I look up over the buildings to the cloud-streaked blue sky above. “I think it’s time to give up.”
“Really?” Jack says.
“I guess.” I shrug. “We might as well drive to Richmond so you can visit your dad.”
“I don’t think so,” Jack says. “We’ve had enough drama today.” We both sit there, silent, watching the traffic light green-amber-red itself again. Then he takes out his phone and starts texting.
“I have an idea,” he says, still typing. “It’s not a supermarket.”
“That’s good,” I say. “I think I may have had enough of sleeping in the Volvo.”
A reply dings back almost immediately. Jack smiles at the screen.
“Who are you texting with?”
“Knox.”
“Knox?”
He nods. “I have a friend who lives in Philly,” he says.
“Really?”
“He’s not here right now. He’s working at a camp this summer, about an hour away.” Jack looks up. “He’s willing to host us.”
It seems strange to run away from camp to go to . . . camp. “It’s not a dance camp, is it?”
Jack laughs. “I don’t think so.”
“Then that’ll work.”
“Should we go pick up that tiny canine of yours?” He stands up and extends his hand to me. I let him pull me up.
“Okay.”
On our way to get the Volvo (which, when you think about it, is basically Jack’s pet), we pass a natural foods store called Gaia Groceries. There’s a girl out front, red-cheeked in a red apron, holding a basket of apples.
“Want one?” she says. “We’re offering samples. These are the best apples you’ll ever have.”
Jack shakes his head and says, “No thanks,” but she holds the basket so close to me—almost blocking my path—that I can’t really pass without taking one.
“Thanks,” I say. I put my hand into the basket and close my fingers around the piece of fruit.
I keep walking, looking at the apple. It’s beautiful: cool and round, red and glossy. It’s heavy in my hand. And I’m hungry, the kind of hungry that comes from not having eaten since breakfast.
But I’ve come this far. If fairy tales teach you anything, it’s that apples from strangers are never a good idea.
When I get to the corner, I pitch the apple into the nearest trash bin.
Track 20:
Never Make Me Cry
THE CAMP IS CALLED CAMP Wildflower, if you can believe it. An hour and a half later, Jack and I stand under the huge wooden sign, waiting for Knox to come and get us.
“Wildflower. Sounds like a real rough-and-tumble place,” I say.
“Oh yeah,” Jack says. “Caters to a very tough crowd, obviously.”
“Only the wildest flowers,” I say. “My kind of people.”
Knox appears then—tall and grinning, with pale wavy blond hair and hazel eyes. He’s basic
ally the human version of a Labradoodle.
He immediately folds Jack into a huge hug. Pavlova barks at him, so when he lets go he kneels down to pet her.
“Hey, you,” he says. I swear she bats her eyelashes at him.
When he looks up at me, he smiles. “You must be Jack’s traveling companion.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m Sylvie.” I put out my hand, but he hugs me too. I let him. I even hug him back. I’m a little overcome by his Muppety energy. When he lets me go, I look over at Jack, who’s grinning.
“See?” he says. “This is way better than going to Richmond.”
Knox leads us toward a cluster of cabins across a wide-open lawn, at the edges of which are a bunch of little kids playing freeze tag. Beyond that, cabins, and then the dark green edge of the woods. My heart squeezes a little to see all those trees.
“So where did you get your name?” I ask.
“Oh,” he says. “People always ask this. My mom was on bed rest before I was born, so she was watching a lot of soap operas. There were two characters on two different shows with that name.” He shrugs. “She thought it was a sign. But I think it was an unfortunate choice, because one of those Knoxes had amnesia and the other eventually plotted to kill his twin brother.” He smiles. “I’ve seen the reruns.”
I laugh. “Well, you don’t seem to have amnesia, and I’m just going to assume you’re not a murderer.”
“Good assumption,” Knox says. “Camp screens pretty hard for that sort of thing.”
“Are you sure it’s all right if we stay?” I ask.
“Oh, totally.” He’s nodding his head. “There aren’t really any grown-ups here.” I must look surprised, so he starts shaking his head. “Or, rather, we are the grown-ups. This is a hippie-ish nature camp. It’s pretty hands off.”
I’m nodding. “Okay.”
“I mean, we’re very responsible. But I can vouch for Jack, and he can vouch for you.” Knox makes a game-show-hostess type of gesture. “And anyway, we have a couple of empty cabins right now, so you won’t be staying with the kids. You are very welcome to stay for the night.”
He waves across the lawn to a tall girl with her hair in a smooth black bob. Like Knox, she’s wearing a navy-blue polo shirt. She smiles and starts heading over.
The Looking Glass Page 16