I can’t resist turning back to them
Before I go into the dressing room.
A few minutes later, Jane comes through the door.
“He wants to talk to you.”
Her eyes look half victorious yet half sorry
So I can’t sort out what Remington could have told her
About our country duet—whether he had any interest
In discussing it with me or if Jane,
With her health-care-professional practicality,
Just told him that he should.
“He wants a lot of things,” I say.
Jane laughs
The kind of laugh
You’re supposed to join in with
If your heart isn’t an open blister,
Raw and bleeding inside a new pointe shoe.
In Variations class, Yevgeny partners me
With Remington.
I lose my balance
At the first touch of his hand,
Our duet an impossible attempt
At an impossible conversation.
It’s a slow, languorous dance
From Balanchine’s Four Temperaments,
With its strange, discordant music
That captures some part of what used to be
Between Remington and me
But maybe never truly was
Or slowly faded, a drawing curtain, a song
Dwindling to silence—
Sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholy.
Like the moods, the fateful journey
Of Milton’s Adam and Eve
Traveling from paradise
To another kind of dance for two.
After, I write down for Professor O’Malley
A long piece
About chords and harmonies,
Dancers and dances.
How making a dance is very different
From learning it,
Dancing it,
Performing it with someone
Or before footlights.
Like a word
Read aloud
Sounds different in every voice.
Professor O’Malley scrawls
“Keep writing”
In his spider handwriting, red pen.
Though he does not ask me
To stop by his office.
And I think, maybe,
He is right.
I’ve spent a year pretending,
So why should it be any different
Writing a new myth—
One where Remington and I
Never were?
That I am still the innocent girl who sat on fence posts,
Followed a dream others dreamed for her,
Danced on summer sand without
Dipping her toes
In the water?
I try to console Julio,
Who is fighting with Simone
Over some misunderstood text,
Innocent omission.
Though I do not tell him
How much it hurts to see Remington
Rehearsing with Lisette in the small studio,
Or how I miss his hands,
The safety of his enveloping presence,
Sheltering his muse—
A role that seems to weaken in my memory
In a way the steps of Aurora’s dance
Will never fade.
“Rummy 500?” I shove my sorrow
Into a punch at Julio’s shoulder.
“I’ve got to weed the front walk
Before Mama gets home.”
I leave the cards on the sticky yellow tablecloth
As Julio laces up his boots,
Goes out through the garage.
I should go out and help him
But instead
I walk past the abstract paintings,
Up the steps to my bedroom.
Sort through my half-dry leotards,
Separate the new gray ones from the other colors.
Pull one across my chest as I stand before the mirror,
Wonder if I could have told Remington
Whether I am a ballerina or a woman
Myself.
May becomes all preparation
For the final performance.
Notices cling to the bulletin board:
The order of dances,
Rehearsal calls,
A local newspaper clipping featuring Lisette,
Smiling, hair brushed out and long,
Announcing her acceptance as a junior apprentice
To a New York ballet company.
Bonnie is back,
So I will not dance Aurora
In June,
Though I am glad to see the hint of rosy roundness
In her still over-lean face.
Lisette and Fernando will officially premiere
Remington’s prize-winning dance.
Madison, Simone, and I will bob and sway as Little Swans.
I’ll dance the bears’ duet
With Remington.
When you dance with a partner
You have to learn
When you should be the one to begin a step,
When your partner times the landing of a lift.
I’ve been studying hard
For final exams at Upton,
With more energy than I had
When my nighttime hours were lost in Rem’s bed.
I sit on the floor in the hall of the ballet school,
Legs in a side split,
Book propped against my dance bag,
Not wasting the time while I wait for a ride
With Señor Medrano.
Still, sometimes I look up from the page,
Distracted by the music snaking
Around the corridor
From the small studio.
Some nights the CD player sashays through the Bach cantata
That makes me think of the orange chairs
In his living room, the dusty smell
Of a brown afghan, the gorgeous feel
Of skin on skin.
I wonder what steps he is molding
Onto ballerinas,
If he’ll ever make a dance that could explain
Who led, who followed
When it was Remington
And me.
Ruby and Adnan
Are arguing about summer plans again.
She zooms down Harris Avenue
At a speed that matches her frustration.
“Stop!” I shout
As the traffic signal turns red
And the taillights of the car before us
Flash.
Ruby jams the brake,
Stopping the red convertible a second
Before what seemed like an inevitable
Crash.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry, Sara.
I didn’t mean . . .”
I think of Rem’s magnetic smile that night at Denardio’s,
Of Bess and Billy on that Easter afternoon,
The momentum of a turn,
The rush of reality as you slam on the brake,
The force of gravity
That stops pirouettes and pulls arabesques down.
The light turns green again.
Ruby tenderly taps the gas,
Signals to move right, into the slow lane.
“It’s okay.”
Different test schedules mean
This is the last day Ruby can drive me to the studio.
Tomorrow, I’ll ride the awful city bus,
Still terrified,
Though it occurs to me that
I have never asked
To get a driver’s license,
Which would mean
Another test to take,
Another world to understand.
But then, sometimes
I could drive myself
Somewhere.
I imagine my bedroom
In Darby Station.
Think of painting it
shadow gray
With a great rainbow across one wall,
Asking Dad to build bookcases,
Hang one bright brass hook
Up high on the ceiling
For a single pair of pointe shoes.
“Thinking of coming home,”
I text Bess.
She calls instantly, squealing.
“Senior year’s going to be great!”
She says lots more,
Starts planning a welcome-home party,
Checking dates for the fair
“So you can finally get that tattoo.”
I interject “mm-hmms”
At regular intervals,
An enthusiastic metronome.
And she, as consistent,
Prattles only of happy, easy things.
Bess, my childhood friend,
With whom I shared so many dreams,
Imagined so many tomorrows,
Who cannot envision anything
For my return except
The resumption of every old, familiar plan,
Forgiveness for everything
That happened while we were apart.
Do I need more forgiveness—
For feeling so different, so drawn, so distant—
Than she?
But I just say,
“This all sounds great! Thanks!”
Even though every book at Upton
From Heartbreak House to Paradise Lost
Tells a story of how you can’t really go back
To anyplace.
Mom emails a long list
Of colleges to visit this summer.
I look it over as I fold my Upton uniforms,
Clothes she mostly chose, sent
To Jersey with me last fall.
Twist the unraveling shoulder seam
Of the cheap maroon blazer
She persuaded me to buy last August.
“I know you’re busy at work,”
I write in reply.
“I’ve made a list, too.
Maybe I’ll plan a trip
With Dad.”
I try to imagine long afternoons
Without ballet classes, rehearsals,
Standing in damp sand,
Watching the little Allegra girls,
Now all one year taller,
Splash and giggle and pretend sometimes
To be ballerinas.
The Medranos are confused
When I try to explain
Into the chasm of half-understood English
That this is not their fault, that they have been very kind.
Julio interjects
The occasional Spanish phrase
In my support,
His thick brows furrowed,
Replacing a guitar string,
Not looking up at me.
“Okay, okay,” Señor says at last.
“Julio, he will miss you.
We all miss you.
You a nice girl.”
He gives my back a firm pat.
Señora stands up.
“I make coffee,
Those little cookies you like.”
Now Julio chuckles.
I catch his eye.
“Rummy?”
He lays his guitar in its case.
“I’ll get the cards.”
“I’ll miss you,”
I say as he shuffles, deals.
“It’s been fun having a little brother.”
“Little brother!” Julio drops the deck,
Punches my arm.
“I’ve got six inches on you!”
“Just deal!”
I punch him back,
Relieved to hear Señora announce
She doesn’t have enough butter
To make the cookies.
School ends in early June at Upton
So I ride to the studio
With Señor Medrano
Every day.
Tendu and stretch.
Join the occasional company class
To fill the morning hours
Before the other students arrive.
Even though I won’t be there for senior year,
Begin working my way
Through the Upton summer reading list.
Though, at night, The Thorn Birds
Still tempts.
It is hard to sleep alone
All the time.
One afternoon, I find the courage
To tell Yevgeny I’ll be going home.
He pats my head.
“Perhaps we should have sent you
To the audition in New York this spring.”
I don’t know how to answer
Through my pride.
Perhaps I should have asked
To go to New York with Bonnie and Lisette
Instead of staying silent.
A kind of panic wafts over me,
Like the moment your partner lets go your hand
And you have to balance alone in arabesque
Or spin a pirouette
Without his palms against your waist;
The moment the penny leaves your fingertips
Bound for the wishing well
And you wobble, uncertain,
That you envisioned the right dream.
I want to turn time in reverse,
Retract my farewells,
Reclaim the dream everyone
Dreamed for me
For so long ...
But only for a moment,
A heartbeat.
Now, I draw my chin up,
Make my voice loud.
“Thanks, Yevgeny.”
I even say his name.
The sky is hazy
The Saturday of the final student performance,
The air unusually humid for June.
I’ve come to the theatre with Señor
So, as usual, I am early.
But Bonnie and Simone will be here soon.
Lisette, Madison, Fernando,
And Remington, who came to the dress rehearsal last night,
Wrapped in his favorite plaid shirt
To accept everyone’s congratulations
On his commission to make a dance for the company
Next year.
Rem, wide hands clasped together,
Exuberant gaze tilted politely downward,
Not casting about for Jane
Or me.
Standing at the portable barre in the middle of the stage,
I work through half a dozen grand pliés.
My arm is softly rounded, fingers graceful
As I bend my knees, hold my turnout,
Allow my heels to come slowly
Off the floor. My heart aches a little
With my shins.
This performance may be on the grandest stage
I will ever grace, the last time I dance
Sewn into tulle and satin.
But I have stopped wanting
A life without words beyond
Fat romances to fill the moments
Between dances
That make me consider pressing my thigh
Against anyone in hopes
Of feeling my worth.
I’ve collected applications for half a dozen colleges
With dance programs, literary magazines.
Or I may choose someplace
Entirely different,
Someplace I haven’t found yet, though
I am certain when I get there
I will know how to drive.
The thought makes my breath come sharp,
My eyes as bright
As the dancers around me
Swinging their legs, pinning up their hair,
Preparing for the radiance of the stage.
From the wings, I watch
Bonnie’s beautiful Aurora,
Lisette and Fernando.
Then it’s my turn:
The Little Swan in the middle
Framed by S
imone and Madison.
Heads angled symmetrically
We piqué, plié, pas de chat,
End in tight fifth positions
On the music’s final plinking note.
We step forward to curtsy
A révérence nearly the same
As we do at the end of a class,
Offering the audience our best
Vaseline-slick smiles, well-sprayed buns, sucked-in guts,
Gratitude for their applause.
We are the last variation before intermission.
We pose center stage as the footlights dim.
The houselights rise,
Revealing glimpses of the audience standing, stretching—
Friends, teachers, families, including Mom and Dad,
Who drove to Jersey early this morning,
Their Volvo trunk empty,
Ready to fill with the boxes I’ve packed.
Audition Page 19