Into the computer keyboard.
Print a hard copy
On fresh, white paper.
“Denardio’s tonight?”
I ask Remington.
My voice, a little louder than I planned,
Turns a few heads
But I don’t see Jane.
Rem raps his cigarette pack
Against his palm.
Answer sliding slowly from his silky lips.
“Okay.”
I have never asked for anything before.
Never shown my want beyond the press of a thigh,
The strength of a glance.
But, later, sitting across from his distracted eyes,
Soaking in the oily smell of cheese,
Pizza crust singed in a busy brick oven,
My will dissolves.
I ask nothing,
Only whisper, when he stands,
Lifts up the helmets,
“I can’t tonight. I have too much homework.”
“Then why did you . . . ?”
I can’t explain.
Is there somewhere, in the allegro beats of days ahead,
A time
When Remington will stop
Letting me huddle in his bed?
What will I become
If I stop waiting when he tells me to,
Show him the dances I write,
Ask for something different, something more
Than stolen kisses, secret afternoons,
Rem’s voracious gazes
That do not fill me up?
“This is different.”
Professor O’Malley rubs his chin
As he reads the page
I bring to him on Wednesday morning.
I cannot tell if he means worse
Or better.
But I double-check
That I’ve left the extra button on my blouse
Undone.
My blazer sits folded atop my backpack
By the door.
“What did you think of . . .”
I sidle up,
Bend my head beside his head,
Point to an unseen line.
He reads a passage aloud,
Thoughtful.
His breath smells like wintergreen.
His narrow mustache
A little greasy.
I wonder what it would feel like to
Have it brush against my lip.
“Sara?”
“What?”
I bleat
Like a stupid chorus girl,
Cowering as if he could read in my eyes
The temptation
To shift my weight
Against his shoulder.
On the corner of his desk
A photograph of three little girls
In summer bonnets,
Not unlike the hallway frame
Where my great-grandmother
And her sisters
Stare from beneath their heavy cloches,
On guard against lice.
I think his daughters in their finery
Guard Professor O’Malley
Against girls like me.
I am ashamed
Of the reason
I brought this page
To his office,
Of the button
Undone at my breastbone
And the time I spent brushing out my hair.
As if I were dancing, I feel my body separate
From my soul,
Watching from overhead
A girl who stands too close
To a man.
“I’ve, um, got to go.”
My paper is still in his hand.
I do not take it back.
Just grab my bag,
Run, graceless, head bowed,
Down the long hall,
Out the dark oak door.
Past the safe green hedgerows
To the gritty street.
I do not even know what time it is
Or if I should have stayed longer at school
But when the bus comes,
I get on.
No matter two tattoo-smeared men who sit
In the front seat
Catcall and whistle
As I squeeze past their knees.
My face is numb, then ice, then fire
As the bus lumbers down
Harris Avenue.
Why did Remington kiss me
That first night at Denardio’s?
Why couldn’t he have said
My name
Out loud,
Made the moment
Syncopate,
Hesitate?
But then,
I didn’t have to
Kiss him back.
Plié, tendu, rond de jambe, jeté
In my stylish gray leotard
With its thin straps, well-cut legs,
Fresh pink tights
Unencumbered by leg warmers.
Outside I look like the others now.
Once you learn the technique
Of joining a man in bed
It seems that it might stretch further
Than développés, splits, grand jetés.
And maybe you’ll consider
Using that technique
On more than one boy
Until, like ballet,
The steps become
An act in themselves,
Separate from you,
And you forget who you are
All over again.
I have not called Bess
Since she texted about Billy Allegra.
She knows I’ve always liked him. Still,
I’ve been away so long.
I imagine she thought,
What was the harm?
It isn’t as if I ever asked her
In all my emails and texts
About him.
I guess Kari, Tina, Bess, and I
All agreed
Billy’s muscled arms, brown curls
Were something worth the gaze
Of any girl.
And so I dial.
“Why do you like swing music?”
I ask when she answers the phone.
“Why not?”
Her reply is bright, white,
Simple as an apple blossom,
Artful as a girl can be
Who has never braved a city bus,
Who reads only one book
All year long at school.
“It’s up-tempo, romantic.
In those black-and-white movies with huge scores
Where every musician gets a chance to stand up,
Solo . . . A dream.”
I know her dreams also stray
To the feel of a boy’s hands
Exploring her breasts.
I know she would listen
If I told her
Everything I have learned
Since coming to Jersey.
But I cannot speak,
Cannot write
About that.
At the next stop on the tour
The floor of the school is hard as all the others
But I do not feel it
As I slide into Aurora’s lacy tutu,
Watchful for Rem’s eyes
At the dressing-room door.
Try to forget about boys,
About men,
Become the innocent sleeping beauty
Aurora was at sixteen.
The CD, well-worn from Bonnie’s many performances,
Includes a few certain, predictable hesitations.
I build them into my dance,
Feel my arms swirl, my toes point,
Grabbing at celebration,
At dancing
For joy.
The little girl
In Ms. Alice’s basement,
Whose friends celebrated,
Whose parents softly prodded,
Who wanted to be good,
Who became good e
nough to audition
For the chance to leave them all behind.
Before I know it
The music has stopped.
My dance has ended.
From the wings, Madison and I watch
Remington’s dance,
Which Yevgeny has added to the tour program.
Lisette and Fernando,
Her head, bent forward.
Her arms, reaching back.
He draws her up into an arabesque.
She pulls her knee forward, head down again.
He grabs her hips, lifts her to the side.
Madison follows every move,
Her feet pointed as if
She would step onto the stage
Any instant.
When it is over, the applause
Crashes toward us
As if the kids in the audience
See, understand
This dance is special,
Different, made
On one of them
For them,
For us.
Behind me,
Already in his Papa Bear shirt,
Rem grabs my hand,
Gives it a quick squeeze.
He’s called the dance “Country Duet.”
I feel the electric joy
In his fingertips,
The rushed exhale
Of his elation.
Look up to where his moist eyes reach
From the wings
To Lisette’s perfect curtsy.
Scurry away
To change into Mama Bear
For another kind of country dance.
The applause lingers
Like dust in bright sunlight
As Remington and I begin
Our bear promenade.
I let him lead me
Through the simple combination,
Watch, as usual,
Fernando support
Goldilocks Lisette’s precise pirouettes.
Resist the urge
To step to center stage
Alone, claim my part
In Rem’s dance.
The audience is still with us,
Laughing, cheering at the bears’ silly antics,
Goldilocks’s delightful arabesques,
Exploding when Lisette takes her bow.
In the back of the bus on the way home,
Remington sits beside me.
A grin hovers on his lips.
He laces his fingers playfully through mine,
Tilts his head.
I blush remembering my half-taken step
Toward Professor O’Malley,
Feeling the uncertain power
Of my words on the page.
I force the guilty image from my mind and, instead, accept
Remington’s familiar invitation,
Endure his kisses, always too slippery,
Too wet.
His huge, wrapping embrace
Presses my shoulders.
Is he as changed
As I
By the storming applause
For the “Country Duet”?
The bus swerves around a sharp corner.
Brakes screech.
I slide across the green leather seat
Away from him.
Before he pulls me back,
I wipe the wetness from my lips,
Straighten my top.
“Remington?”
“Huh?” He’s lighthearted,
Curling my legs across his lap.
The road straightens.
I see clearly as if they were typed
Onto the page of a book,
Two lines,
A question:
“Do you want a ballerina
Or a woman?”
I feel his body stop
His hand drops onto my leg.
He gives a little laugh,
The kind he used against Paul’s questioning glares
At our first embrace months ago,
Across the table at Denardio’s.
“What do you mean, Sara?”
My name coming from his lips
Makes me shudder
But I will not let him
See me cry.
“That’s your answer?”
Rem rubs his hand against
The five-o’clock stubble forming
Along his jaw.
Looks past my shoulder out the window.
“Did you hear that applause today?”
My head is as cloudy as the night I never went to the movies
With Madison and Bonnie, but instead
Raced up the stairs to Remington’s place.
I feel reckless, drunk, insane.
I want to grab his face,
Point his eyes at me,
Make him look.
“Why did you give my dance to Lisette?”
Now he turns away from the window,
Back to me, his endless lashes doing nothing
To soften the hardness in his brown eyes.
“It’s not your dance.”
In the months that she’s been driving me
Along the avenues of Jersey,
Ruby Rappaport has had a dozen fights
With Adnan but
I don’t think they have been anything like what happened
Between Rem and me
On the bus last night.
He is late to dance class on Monday,
Slipping in when the rest of us are already
Circling our legs in ronds de jambe.
I watch Remington’s slow pliés
From the corner of my eye
Until Yevgeny’s sharp critique of my timing
Jolts me back to my own dance.
After barre, we move to center, where
Yevgeny sets a brisk series of jumps across the floor.
Tombé, pas de bourrée, glissade, assemblé.
Chassé, chassé, chassé, tour jeté.
The dancers prepare, stepping through the combination
In bits and pieces, in silence.
I stand still, listen to the soft shushes and dull thuds
Of dancing before the music.
It’s rhythmless and disjointed,
Full of false starts, abrupt stops,
Like Remington, alone in the small studio,
Or dancing round the corners of his dark apartment
With me.
I know I did not, could not have woven
The complex tapestry of hands over hands, and lifts to turns,
Or matched the steps and counts
That made the duet
Lisette and Fernando performed,
Yet
I know I am some part of that fabric—
There was some reason Rem wanted
To tangle his fingers with mine
And draw my legs across his lap
In the back of the bus last night.
After Variations class,
Fernando passes a group of us in the hall,
Suggests Denardio’s.
Rem glances my way for one quick beat, turns to Fernando,
Nods.
Paul and Don and Galina
Agree.
I say I have too much homework
To spare the time.
Julio is putting his guitar away
When Señor and I get home.
“Cards?” he asks.
The question feels so normal, so mundane,
I can only shake my head, refuse,
In silence so the tears won’t escape
Before I reach the safety, solitude, home
Of musty carpet, slippery quilt.
I leave my blazer in my room on Tuesday,
Parade through the halls of Upton
Bereft of burgundy adornment,
Hoping someone will catch me, stop me,
Tell me what to do.
But the headmaster is not in his office when I walk by.
In math tutorial, I t
ry
But the numbers blur
Too much in my heart to add
Together.
I put away my pencil.
Take out a pen.
Write on a fresh piece of paper:
“I will never go back
To Remington’s bed.”
In clear, blue ink.
Words
To make it
Real.
Rem and Jane are talking in the doorway
Of her office
Before class in the afternoon.
They seem to freeze as I pass.
Audition Page 18