“I want you, too.”
I hold the silver phone in my hand,
Feel its weight,
Sleekness.
It says the time is nine p.m.
“You need to take me back to the Medranos’.”
“Okay, okay.”
Remington stands up
Slides into his jeans
Grabs me before I can reach my dress
Twirls me in his arms.
“Do an arabesque.
No, the other leg.
Not too high, just forty-five degrees,
Then pull your knee forward.
Can you drop your head down to touch it?”
In only my tank top and underpants
I point my toe,
Reach my leg back,
Move to his words.
As always,
Remington’s ideas for dancing
Burn into my heart.
I am tired of making dances in this room
Only to see them performed by Lisette.
Only to watch him tell others about his successes before me.
But I cannot stop moving.
I stand outside the door
Of Professor O’Malley’s office.
In my hand two short pages:
The story of a skeleton ballerina in a waiting room
Reading a book about a mythical, bosomy woman
And the man who cannot resist her
And the dance she dances
To try to be that girl.
My right hand will not knock on the wooden panel,
Will not try the brass knob.
My left hand clenches,
Wrinkling the sheets where dreams of ink
Are nearly as terrifying
As Yevgeny’s eyes
When I arrive late to dance class.
Professor O’Malley is short.
A flap of gut bulges beneath his sweater.
His hands are small, ink-stained, lined.
But he lets me write my own dances.
Easter is a feast
At the Medranos’.
Señora cooks wildly,
Gestures at Julio and me
With flour-white fingers,
Speaking rapid-fire Spanish
Peppered with the occasional English phrase.
We sit at the kitchen table
Rolling hard-looking cookies in powdered sugar.
Julio smirks,
Flicks sugar at my face.
“You gonna eat any of these pebbles?”
“Don’t!” I flick some sugar back,
Try not to meet Señora’s eyes,
Which is easy, given her cooking frenzy.
“Papa will make the flan,
So that will taste okay.”
He is wry, philosophical.
“Shouldn’t you be practicing guitar
Before it gets too late?”
I give Señora my good-girl smile,
Stick my tongue out at Julio.
His eyes turn from silly to serious.
I think he knows what happens before
I come back home from Remington’s
And I do not like to think
Of Julio
Imagining those things.
I shut my eyes.
Erase my smile.
Remind myself that Julio and I
Are both prisoners.
His chains are made of guitar strings
Held fast by his parents’ desires
While I sometimes rail against bars of pink satin and mirrors,
Though I’ve half forgotten
Who wants this life I lead
Or who even really chose it to begin with.
I remember my shock
When I learned there was no Easter Bunny,
No Santa Claus.
Confronting my father in the front hall
Before we left for ballet class.
My informant was a first-grade friend, Jessica,
Whose parents were free-spirited, practical folks.
One April morning, Jess, quite matter-of-factly,
Pronounced the Easter Bunny a myth
“And the rest of that stuff, too.”
Dad looked woebegone at my certainty
As if he had not expected me
To ever be wise,
To connect
The bags of bright-colored candy in the supermarket
With the same stuff in my big pink basket
Filled with grass as fake
As all it stood for.
Still, I almost cry
At the sight of my old Easter basket.
Señor and Señora
Clap with delight at my surprise.
Mom and Dad shipped the basket
Filled with treats and presents
Down to Jersey,
Where the Medranos kept it hidden
Until Easter morning.
Not until now
Do I regret
Missing Dad’s egg hunt in the orchard,
Nannie’s suntanned arms
Enveloping me in wafts of Shalimar and Avon skin cream,
Mom’s worried musings
On if it was time to pour the glaze over the ham
Or whether the meat was still cold in the middle.
“What’s this?”
Julio picks up a small white box
Labeled NORTHERN LIGHTS SWEETS.
“Dark chocolate caramels.
Want one?”
I hold them out,
Though I don’t want to share.
There is a pair of gold earrings
Shaped like ballet slippers,
A book of poetry,
Jelly beans, licorice vines,
And those candy dots that come on rolls of white paper.
Presents fit for a girl of sixteen—or six.
Jessica’s words waft over me.
“A myth . . . a myth . . . a myth ...”
I am six years old again,
Standing dumbstruck before her
By the playground swings.
I am in the front row
This Saturday.
I pretend it is not because Lisette and Bonnie
Are auditioning in New York.
Try to put my heels gingerly on the floor,
Warm up slowly,
Feel my hips popping in and out
Of where they are supposed to be.
Yevgeny pauses beside me,
Concerned.
“Maybe you should get some physical therapy,”
He suggests.
From Jane?
I am good at being quiet
So I do not laugh
Out loud.
Remington invites me
Into the little studio.
“Can you help us out, Sara?”
His voice is casual.
Yevgeny stands by the stereo in the corner,
Cueing up music.
“You know a little about this dance.”
I drop my bag by the door,
Barely able to nod,
Feel like I am passing through
A mythical gateway,
Entering a chapel.
“I want to work on a bit of pas de deux.”
He leads me through steps
I pretend I have not committed
To heart. Takes my hands,
Passing them over and under his own
In the complicated pattern
We composed beside his bed.
Yevgeny watches, nods,
Makes the occasional suggestion
About helping me balance,
Smoothing Rem’s steps.
In an hour, it is done.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead,
Which can barely contain its visions
Of our passing hands illuminated by stage lights.
Run to take a sip from the water fountain in the hall.
“Lisette said she can come for a late rehearsal
Tomorrow
When she gets back from New York,”
I hear Rem say to Yevgeny
As I come back through the door
To realize I am just Coppélia, a doll,
A substitute for Lisette’s great talent.
As if what Remington does with me
Could ever be real, in his real world,
The way it is for me.
It turns out the stories of Greek mythology,
The most ancient epics that came before
Nory Ryan’s Song
The Jungle
Great Expectations
The tales of muses, sirens,
Easter rabbits, Santa Claus,
Are all true.
And, most of all,
I am
A myth, a myth, a myth.
At Upton I find myself
Rifling through shelves
Of college guides, catalogs.
It seems like there are thousands.
My adviser said to look
For universities with dance programs.
I pull the Swarthmore brochure
From the section labeled ARTS.
Turn the pages, as if they could explain
How a school can grow dancers
On a green, leafy campus,
Inside grandiose buildings
Adorned with NO SMOKING signs.
There’s a girl with a straight back,
Taut ponytail, bulging bag
That could easily hold ballet shoes.
She smiles out from page five.
And I grab a copy of the application,
Not just because it saves me from going
To morning math tutorial.
My cell phone pulses
As Ruby Rappaport races me
Down Harris Avenue,
Turning her head away
From the road
To point out a rainbow,
Mottled pink and yellow arches
Costuming the white-and-neon Rite Aid building
With a kind of grace.
A text from Bess.
Six words:
“On Easter I kissed Billy Allegra.”
I picture them at the annual orchard Easter Egg Hunt,
Bending to grab the same bright, plastic egg
From the crook of a gnarled apple tree,
Brought together by the traditions
Of Darby Station, where, eventually,
Every path crosses another
If you don’t go away.
I imagine their foreheads
Nearly touching,
Their sneakers damp from running through dewy fields.
I doubt Billy has discovered
The musical note,
Purple on Bess’s thigh
Near the elastic of her underpants.
Should she feel any more sorry
Than Rem for continuing his curious friendship with Jane
Despite me?
I can’t bring myself to feel anger,
Though the thought of their kiss
Dissolves the dream of returning home to Vermont,
To be the girl I was before,
Into another siren’s island, another place
Where I have failed in courage, in voice.
Another myth of safe harbor.
“Sara, we’re here.”
Ruby taps my shoulder.
I look up to see the cracked asphalt,
The heavy, metal double door.
Realize I’ve been staring
At those six words
A long time
Without answering.
Lisette brings
A dog-eared paperback to the studio:
Nory Ryan’s Song.
“It’s a great story,” she says.
A million notions scuttle through my mind,
Hopes for friendship, understanding.
I want to ask her how she feels
Doing the movements Rem teaches.
Instead . . .
“I don’t want to dance anymore.”
I hear my confession
To Lisette’s
Upturned nose,
Dirty-blonde bun.
Her eyes round,
Like Coppélia’s,
Astonished buttons.
I want to paint
Red circles on her cheeks—
Complete the costume
Of incomprehension.
But it’s me
Who is Remington’s toy
He can play with
Or abandon
On his whim.
I leave Lisette
With her well-read book,
Run into the dressing room,
Lock myself in a toilet stall,
Cry
As if every bone in my body
Were shattered.
When Señor Medrano finds me in the hall
I have managed to cover the dark circles
Beneath my eyes,
Dust my red, snuffling nose
With enough powder
To avoid curious looks.
“Bonnie, she is sick.
You will dance Aurora
On the tour this week.”
A thunderclap. I grab
At a chance
Of silver linings.
A moment on center stage
Almost erases the memory
Of my confession to Lisette.
A thrill roils my stomach,
Rattles up my throat
To a catch in my breath.
“Uh-huh.” I nod,
Then blush
At the speed of my reply,
My failure to ask what’s the matter
With Bonnie or when she’s coming back,
At how quickly I plan
To put off completing the Swarthmore application.
The girl who doesn’t want to dance
Staring at a chance to be
Prima.
Every day is a flurry of extra practice—
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Simone says Bonnie’s not so much sick
As struggling with her hatred of her weight,
Now dangerously low.
I imagine her amidst the cats and chaos
Of her crowded house,
Or here between the perfection of Lisette
And the flamboyance of Simone,
Twisting the white elastic she keeps around her waist
Tighter and tighter until
Her body disappears like my voice
When I look too closely in the mirror
Without the pages of a notebook, a pen
To save me.
The Sleeping Beauty music
Burns into my brain as I développé, tendu, turn.
In their eyes I see them compare me
To Bonnie’s absent form.
I fear the shadow of their disappointment
And, some nights, can no more connect
My reflection to the knowledge that I will be Aurora onstage
Than my heart to the desire I once had
To celebrate sixteen in pointe shoes.
In the dressing room on Tuesday night,
I scribble my fears
Onto the back of an old social studies assignment.
“What are you writing?”
Lisette peers over my shoulder.
Is there a graceful way
To cover my words with my hand?
Protect my secrets without losing
Her offer of friendship?
My toe slides along the front of my calf.
I release it at the very last moment,
Let it fly out, into the unforgiving open air
Of the stage.
My muscles its only hope
Against plunging to the ground.
Remember the slow, lenient moments
When the toe could touch the leg,
When there was safety in a preparation, a beginning,
The cha
nce to fail had not yet become
A failure.
Sometimes, of course,
The movement is perfect,
The risk its own reward.
The step becomes
A dance.
Other times, it is the mottled stumbling
Of a human stuck to earth,
Of a dreamer half awake,
Too uncertain
To make a wish come true.
I turn over these words,
The page.
“Just some stupid stuff
For school,” I say to Lisette.
At Señor Medrano’s
I will type my notion
Audition Page 17