Audition
Page 14
“That steak is very bad,” Señora admits.
“Uh-huh!”
Julio pushes his plate away.
“Dancers should never cook.”
Her eyes flash at Señor.
“Teachers can cook.”
Four laughs vibrate in harmony,
Warm
Delicious
Real.
A new semester
Has begun at Upton.
Anne sits in the middle
Of the brown couch in the student lounge,
Wearing a new burgundy blazer,
With shimmering dark-red fringe around the collar,
A sharp, narrow cut.
Katia and I are on either side,
Wearing the same things we wore before,
Waiting for the school day to begin.
I try to listen to the gossip
About Ruby and Adnan,
About the plans for the spring dance,
About the biology teacher who is divorcing his wife.
But my shins ache,
I have a giant blister on my pinkie toe:
Rewards for working harder.
We’re back to tour rehearsals tonight.
I am still Mama Bear
For the spring tour.
And Rem is still my Papa Bear.
We fall back into our bumbling pas de deux
As easily as I fall back
Into his bed,
Though afterwards I often lie awake,
Memorize the curves and intersections
Of the cracks in the ceiling.
Search futilely for some pattern, some word,
Some way to understand
Why he gives the dances he makes on me
Away to Lisette—
Why this is all right—
While I wait for him to take me back
To my other, ugly bed
In Señor Medrano’s house,
Which has begun to grow
A bit more attractive.
Are habits as hard to break
As routines are to begin?
This is the question I write
In my essay about reality
For Professor O’Malley.
(Not the story of falling back into bed with Rem,
But of my oft-failed promises to get to class early,
Stay at the studio late,
Work, like Lisette, on every weak movement,
Imperfect step.)
Is the sound of the war bombs,
Like the ones echoing in the distance beyond
Heartbreak House,
Just easier to get used to
Than to recognize?
Is self-delusion turned-out feet?
A way we’re accustomed to stand?
Identity simply the place in the line
To which we’ve been assigned
By some tradition, some chance,
Someone?
Perhaps the trick about reality
Is as much rejecting the old place,
The old step,
The old bed,
As seeing in the mirror
Something different.
Katia and Anne are practicing
For the Upton talent show.
I try not to laugh as I watch
Their scuffling tap dance,
Imprecise arms.
“You should dance that Aurora thing
You always talk about,”
They tease.
I let them believe
I perform the great variation.
Did not tell them I was replaced
By dark-browed Bonnie,
That what I know best
Are the steps of the thickly padded bear
Distraught by hot porridge
And unmade beds.
I am afraid to dance at school
Even though these girls
Offer no more threat to me in ballet
Than I to them in college applications.
“The stage floor is too hard,
I might get hurt.
My teachers would be furious,”
I demur as I turn my feet out extra far,
Extend my neck,
Toss my hair like a prima ballerina.
I am pretty sure the myth of me
Is better than the reality.
My body is angry
After ballet class tonight.
I walk gingerly down the hall.
Barefoot.
Blistered.
Wash my face.
Brush my teeth.
Limp back to my room,
Shins stinging.
The ceiling at Señor Medrano’s
Is pebbly but clean.
No cracks scurry from the corners
To distract my mind.
At home, in Vermont,
Mom painted my ceiling a soothing light blue
With pale yellow walls.
Covered my bed
With a plaid coverlet in baby-soft hues.
All very tasteful
In her style.
I pull Señora Medrano’s bright, nylon quilt
Up to my chin,
Stare at the ceiling’s white pimples,
Wonder which bed
I should sleep in.
Which bedroom I want.
What dream I should dream
If I could sleep.
The stack of college brochures under my bed
Slips a little. In the slim shaft of morning sunlight
Sliding in beneath the blinds,
The stone archways
Of the Stanford University quad
Wink like supermodels from one glossy cover.
I put down Upton Sinclair’s
The Jungle:
The ravaging tale
Of slaughterhouses in Chicago
In the early 1900s,
Of hearty immigrant Jurgis Rudkus,
Whose work ethic yields him nothing
But grief.
My fingers stray to the slim propaganda
Of Stanford.
Smiling young people with rounded cheeks
Grin from every page.
Clean, bright buildings,
Captions like ECONOMICS, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE.
I try to imagine walking along sunny corridors
In ordinary shoes,
Shins not stinging, and no one
Asking me to bend or stretch,
To point my talent
Through my toes.
After a while
I put Stanford
Down beside The Jungle.
Pull a pair of tights from the closet floor.
Reject Rudkus’s struggle,
College’s bright utopia,
For a dark green leotard,
A velvet ribbon in my hair.
I practice piqué turns
Beside Madison and Simone
To the right
And the bitter left—
My clumsy side
Where everything is harder.
When I was younger,
In Vermont,
Ballet was the right.
I floated above the others,
A little proud.
Easy
To dream
When you’ve turned
The right way.
Here, trying to be a ballerina
Often feels like a step to the left.
Señor Medrano comes into the studio.
His character shoes squeak. He announces
We have learned the Little Swans variation
Well enough to perform it on the tour.
We will be sewn into tutus,
Old but lacy.
Some newer girls
Eye us with jealousy
As Señor snaps commands;
We snap our heads
Right, left, right.
Jane smiles
When she passes me in the hall.
Her teeth are too white.
&nbs
p; Her eyes too vague.
Can the scolding she gave me
Have faded in her memory?
The bright scar
Emblazoned on my brain
That makes me calculate the difference in our ages.
She does not mention
My missed appointment.
Carries a clipboard under her arm.
Heads purposefully toward her office.
Jane is staff
While I am a real dancer,
But her breasts stretch the front of her shirt
In a way that turns the straight boys’ heads.
My head turns, too.
I cannot take my eyes from that Cheshire Cat grin,
So mesmerizing
I miss my footing,
Slam against the dressing-room doorway.
Smiles mean a lot of things:
Congratulations,
Forgiveness,
Victory.
Jane’s sends a shiver down my spine.
At the Medranos’ there is a long letter
From Mom,
Which is weird
Because she is a chronic, addicted texter.
Makes me wonder how busy she can be all day
At the bank.
When I lived in Vermont
Dad always came home first,
Dirty from hours in the orchard.
Dad started dinner.
Drove me to ballet class.
When I got back, Mom was always there
To check my homework,
Wash my tights,
Ask about my day.
Now I unfold
Three long, computer-printed pages
Of single-spaced
Times New Roman twelve-point.
Pages littered with words she rarely speaks:
How much she loves me.
How she worries about my future.
How she had such hopes for dancing.
How she wonders, now, if she guided me in the wrong
direction.
After a while I can’t read anymore.
Set down page two.
Tie on my pointe shoes.
Dance the Little Swans
Without Simone and Madison
In front of the narrow bedroom mirror.
My feet wobble on the shaggy rug.
My nose tickles with the scent of dampness,
Once revolting,
Now almost as comforting
As the smell of stale cigarettes
Lingering in the dark gray velour
Of Dad’s well-kept Volvo.
I love the Little Swans,
The best dance I’ve been given
Since I came to Jersey,
Even though it’s with two other girls.
The three of us drill and drill.
Señor Medrano smiles like he’s just finished
Eating chocolates.
Pats our heads.
Sends us to wardrobe
To be fitted for skirts
Ready for the next round
Of school-tour stops.
Since starting rehearsals for this dance,
My pointe shoes are wearing through faster.
I am too hungry to resist
Señora Medrano’s terrifying, oil-fried eggs,
Too tired to cry myself to sleep
Thinking of Jane’s grin.
At Upton, Anne and Katia
Want to fix up
Their innocent ballerina friend
With some friend of Barry’s
Who goes to another prep school
Down the road.
Bess IMs me about
A zillion boys a week
And the glories of second base,
And I reply
As if I don’t know
Anything about that.
A week creeps by
Without a single kiss.
Each time Remington passes
In the hall,
Each syllable of his name
Conjures a movie in my mind.
Lisette
Forehead down
Arching
Reaching her hand
For him.
By Thursday, I feel a sting of desperation.
It is not exactly desire.
I am lonely,
Want
The comfort of Rem’s heat.
I want Rem to tell me he’ll protect me
From Jane,
From failure,
From the nagging fear that I am making the wrong choices.
From the dance I saw him teaching to Lisette and Fernando.
I linger near the studio entrance,
Hoping to see Remington’s long, sauntering shadow
Cross the foyer.
But when he comes
He is talking with Jane.
I look down, fast.
Hear him say, “Hang on.”
He walks over to me.
“Hey, Sara.
Why don’t you wait a minute?
Just got to finish something up here.”
All I can do is nod.
His eyes twinkle.
He makes a “stay there” gesture with his hands.
My legs go numb.
I slide down to the floor,
Pull The Jungle from my bag,
Pretend to read.
How long am I supposed to wait?
Staring at the jumble of letters
That swim before me
On the page.
Listening to the garbled whispers, gentle laughs
That waft from the conspiratorial mouths
Of Remington and Jane.
I try to strike a pose
Neither paranoid nor angry,
Hurt nor vengeful,
Nor even just curious about their conversation,
Though I am all of those things.
Head down,
I peek from beneath lowered lids
At Jane’s arched back,
Fingers pushing back her coarse curls,
Face a study in controlled casual.
Rem’s hand, occasionally touching her arm
Just above the elbow.
I watch Bonnie and Simone,
In street shoes, stop before me.
They look at Rem and Jane.
Look at me.
“Wanna walk over to the Rite Aid with us?”
Bonnie asks. “Simone needs hairnets.”
“Rem asked me to wait.”
My cheeks feel hot.
I don’t look up.
“Well.” Simone’s hand is on her hip.
“Doesn’t he have some nerve?”
Her voice is a stage whisper.
She makes no attempt at looking away,
Shiny black eyes send darts
In Jane’s direction.
I whisper,
“I’ve got a lot of reading to do.”
“If you’re sure.”
Bonnie hesitates.
Simone rolls her eyes,
Tugs Bonnie’s sleeve.
“Well, okay then. Bye.”
The book slips from my hands.
I pick it up.
Cannot find my page.
Adagio means slow,
Music sonorous, wandering,
Movements melting, blending, stretching,
Connecting the notes
Without coming up for air.
This night is all adagio.
Each second an hour.
Each movement unnaturally extended,
Painfully unreal.
“Hey, Sara.”
Lisette plunks down beside me.
“What’s that book?”
Is there a spotlight over my head?
“The Jungle.”
“What’s it about?”
She scrutinizes the orange-and-black woodcut
On the paperback cover,
Absently peels a Band-Aid
From her index finger.
“A
horrible factory, and
An immigrant trying to make it
In America.”
I give the rote answer of a diligent schoolgirl,
Still trying to overhear the conversation
Happening down the hall.
“Oh. Ever read Nory Ryan’s Song?
That’s about an Irish girl trying to get to America.”
I want to scoff.
I read that in fourth grade.
But it was a good book
And I have immigrated
To an alien planet