Of Pens and Swords

by Rena Rocford

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It was an arabesque. What’s eating you?”

  I looked anywhere but at her. Her room was draped in gauzy scarves, and one hung over the lamp, casting the room in rosy tones. The sunset outside promised to set the sky on fire, and little roses painted on the walls gave the room a country feel. Christine thought it was drab, but she loved that it upset her modern art loving father.

  A deep pink scarf hung from the edge of the curtain rod, and embroidered flowers and sequins reflected back from the floor length mirror next to the window.

  “It’s not worth talking about.”

  She nodded. “Bull. Shit.”

  “You want to know what’s eating me?” My voice rose, and my frustration boiled out the top. “I’m upset because I’m never going to make it. I’m never going to get the chance at the Olympics because it costs too much money. Apparently, for someone like me—someone with a heartwarming story—it’s easier to get a sponsor if I’m shooting for the Paralympics rather than the Olympics because the system is designed to make it easier for someone who has a ton of money. And before you ask, a ton of money is thousands and thousands of dollars. But even more than that: they don’t think I can fence without having two hands.”

  “Holy Smores on Maple Cake. You’re joking.”

  I shook my head. “They don’t want me to try because I’m at a disadvantage, but if I’d just swallow my pride and fence in a wheelchair—” My voice cracked and I choked.

  Christine draped her arms over me. “Oh my God, Cyra. They’re full of it. They don’t know anything. What’s in a hand?”

  “Everything!” I cried. My sobs tore through me, and I couldn’t keep it down. “It was the only thing I ever wanted. And now they won’t even let me try, because of my hand? Stupid idiotic missing hand. My whole life defined by something that happened when I was four! Who else has to live with that? And now—now they all just want me to give up on my dream and move along like I could switch off the need to fence, like a light bulb.” Miserably, I shook my hand and held my stump up in front of me. “All for reaching for a stupid toy! Why? Why do I have to be punished every step of my life for something I did when I was a freaking toddler?” I raked my arm across my face, catching tears.

  Christine handed me a tissue, and I blew my nose. “What happened?” she asked, quietly. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

  I sniffled some more. My secret. It was my secret to keep, but now my secret seemed to break open in front of me. They wanted someone with my talent in a full body or a body more broken. I had the unenviable distinction of being handicapped in either direction.

  “My parents were trying to get a divorce. They’d split. They were trading us back and forth.” I blew my nose again, but instantly, my nose filled. I hiccupped trying to draw air into my lungs.

  “It was late at night. My dad had taken us to get pizza, and we’d run into Mom. She was with another guy. We hadn’t met him yet, but my mom introduced us. He was nice. It was one of those places where they have those inflatable slides inside. They served pizza and soda. Upstairs they had a bar where people could watch their kids.”

  It all rushed back to me. More than a decade ago, and the whole night just under the surface, ready to be dredged up at a moment’s notice.

  “I remember my hand, you know. I remember what it was like. I could barely tie my own shoes, but I liked the ones with Velcro. Mine had pink hearts and a rainbow.” I paused, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat. “My sister wanted to play on the big slides, and I was scared. She finally talked me into it. When we came down the slide, our dad was right there. His face was like being dropped in cold water. We had been laughing, but his face was like a man on a mission. He yelled at us, grabbed my arm tight enough to hurt. We put on our shoes, and my mom came over. She offered to keep us that night, but my dad was furious. I guess he had only just learned she’d started dating. It’s the only thing I can think of.”

  I took a breath, and the air flooded in. “We got to the car and Dad drove to another store. He told my sister and me to wait in the car. We did. He came back with a paper bag. He was drinking, but my sister and I were scared. He was acting crazy. We didn’t know what was going on, and he’d just pulled us away from Mom.

  “When he started driving again, the car jerked. I dropped my doll between the car seat and the door. I reached down to get it, and I saw the headlights through the window.” I shrugged, unable to speak.

  Tears threatened in Christine’s eyes. “Oh my God. How did you—I can’t even… your sister, was she?”

  “Both of them.” I nodded. Christine put her hand to her mouth, crying such beautiful, graceful tears. I swiped at my own ruined face. “I woke up in the hospital. It’s funny, before the accident is so clear, but after is murky. I can hardly remember the whole next year. Mom dumped the other guy, but then again, it’s hard to keep dating someone when you’re in court all the time.”

  Christine nodded. “The other vehicle.”

  I nodded.

  She handed me another tissue.

  Silence reigned for a moment before Christine spoke again. “So, here is this horrible thing in your past, something undeniable, and you just want to move on, but the world won’t have it.”

  I nodded again, feeling like an idiot. I was so easy to sum up. I wiped at the tears.

  Christine chewed on her lip and nodded, as if agreeing with me. “So, this sounds like a problem. A problem with enemies. Tell me, how do you intend to demolish your opponent? How are you going to show them that this thing that happened to you is merely a thing that happened to you? How do you intend to define the moment?”

  A smile hit my lips. The world was a conquerable place in her mind.

  “Normally, I’d say the way to beat them is to go to every competition and make them eat my ratings.”

  She nodded like she was sitting at a board meeting. “That’s good, but it sounds like you’re about to throw in a loser’s ‘but.’ Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.”

  I blinked at her. My heart ached. I was tired. I wanted to curl up and cry for the rest of my life. “Are you suggesting that the difference between making it and not making it is just an attitude?”

  Christine shrugged. “I’m not saying that determination alone will get you there, but if you give up before you’ve chased this dream down, then it’s gone and you eliminated yourself.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m not saying there isn’t a horrible, emotional part of why you’re in this spot, but if you want this—and I mean want it enough to mutate your body as you claim—then you need to think about this like a business. What is the primary obstacle stopping Cyra from making it to the Olympics?” She raised an eyebrow at me.

  I turned it over in my head, speaking as soon as the ideas hit my mind. “The problem is that the people who have the money and inclination to sponsor me think I’m a better investment somewhere else.”

  “Right, that’s the real problem.” She shrugged. “Lucky for us, they aren’t the only people who have money.”

  I blinked. Her logic hit me like a balm, a cool shower to a sunburn.

  She kept going. “All you have to do is figure out who else is willing to sponsor athletes into the World Cup stage. There are plenty of corporations who set aside money every year for pet projects like outreach and professional sponsors.”

  My heart flew back together. It had been lying in pieces, and now, magically, it had hope again. As quick as that, I went from being distraught to having a plan.

  “Now all you have to do is start preparing a presentation and one kick ass essay. Luckily, I know from experience you have a solid ability to write kick ass essays.”

  he first week of February was always the worst. Too far from Christmas for that memory to be helpful, and too far from summer to make believe like I could make it that long. Worse, there was still a whole month before we would start to hear back from colleges. The fog layer blanketed
everything in dew, slicking the roads and making my arm ache where my hand should be.

  My car slid the last few inches into its space in the parking lot. In weather like this, I could feel my missing hand. I slipped a tight sock over my stump to get it to calm down, but the damp made everything ache.

  As if she could sense my vulnerability, Sara marched up to me. “Fine morning, don’t you think?” she asked.

  I narrowed my puffy eyes at her. Last night, I had written a letter for Christine. It was easy to talk about missing someone when you could see him but never talk to him. He was completely out of my reach. Like everything else in my life. I’d missed three deadlines for applying for the humanitarian efforts Christine had talked about. My hopes hung by threads, and to be honest, it scared me to think that my future as a fencer depended on my ability to convince some mega-corp that I would be an excellent spokesperson or sponsoree. I had cried. I had cried a lot.

  The letter was full of my insecurity and the pain of being so close to something, but never being able to have it. It might have been a little over the top, truth be told.

  It hadn’t left me in the mood to deal with jealousy on two legs. “Yes, Sara, it is indeed a lovely morning. One for unicorns and rainbows. Now, if you’d just wait for those rainbows in the quad…” I pointed in the general direction, the opposite way from my first class.

  “You wouldn’t call this morning a ‘dew swept gem, casing the emerald leaves in diamonds of water?’ Not a ‘blessing from the gods of old to see the world freshly scrubbed and new again. The blossoms of a new day, wrapped in a cocoon of mist, holding the mysteries of life?’ Humph. I mean, it sure looks like the kind of morning you wrote about.”

  She held out one of my letters. It was the letter I’d given to Christine at the competition. Now I knew what had happened to it. I snorted derisively to hide my rising panic. “Wow, that’s really terrible poetry. I believe that’s what Mr. Bartlionus was talking about when he said we needed to avoid purple prose.”

  “You wrote this, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She held the paper right up in my face. My calligraphy across the page was marred by water stains. A drop from a nearby tree splashed the page, and the ink began to run again. That was absolutely the last time I paid money for that fake ink. I needed India Ink if I was going to create properly.

  Hell, a better ballpoint pen would look better.

  “Don’t you recognize this?” she asked again, shaking the paper in my face.

  “Look, Sara, I’ve had a long week, and I doubt if I could remember the back of my own hand. I’m tired, classes just started back up, and I have to get back to training as soon as possible. Why can’t you worry about something important?”

  “Important?” Her eyes pointed to daggers. “Important? This is the same paper someone gave to Rochan just before he broke up with me. This paper, Cyra. What did that letter say? I know you wrote it. I saw you give this letter to Christine at the competition. This is how you two schemed to get him to dump me, isn’t it? Don’t lie to me!”

  I nodded stoically at her. “You’ve lost your marbles. You think that anyone would have to help Christine do anything?” I pooched my lips out at her as if admiring the ridiculousness of her accusations. “You are a sadder creature than I thought, so let me give you a sliver of advice.”

  She paused mid shake. I’d caught her off guard, so I thrust ahead before she could recover.

  “Christine is the real deal. She is going to take the world by storm. You do know that, right? She’s going to blaze a trail from here to the best ballet company. She is going to dance so beautifully that people will weep—weep!—and she’s going to do it all, absolutely legitimately. It won’t be some gimmick that gets her to the top. She doesn’t have to cut up people’s costumes. She doesn’t need to make people feel bad about themselves because she has talent coming out her ears. She’s going to earn her way, every step. You only hate her because she is everything you’ve ever wished you could be. Everything. She’s worked harder than you, trained longer than you, and when all is said and done, she’s a better person than you. You don’t have what it takes to compete with her. You never did. So wave that paper around like you think you know what’s going on, but all you’ll ever be is a sorry, sad little imitation of the real deal. Good luck with your life.”

  I pushed past her while her mouth opened and closed, but words failed to come out. My face was set for war, and if Sara wanted one, I could give it to her. But this would be more effective. Pretending to be so confident in this matter would destroy her.

  “You come back here, Cyra! I wasn’t finished!”

  I turned around, walking backward. “You were finished the day you set foot in a studio. It’s all over but the crying, Sara.” I gave her a cutesie smile like one of those impossibly optimistic people who talk about turning that frown upside down. “You were never even in the running.”

  Sara sputtered, trying to come up with a response, but I turned back around and kept walking. My heart pounded in my chest like a fencing match. She was going to make us all pay for that.

  I strode into the first bathroom I could find and whipped out my phone.

  It rang twice before Christine picked up. “I’m about to go into the morning class, what’s up?”

  “Sara knows,” I whispered.

  “Oh God. And all this time I only ever worried about what would happen if Rochan found out. Is there any way to stop her?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. She has the letter.”

  “Crap.”

  “I think this moment calls for harsher language than crap and shoot.”

  A laugh squeezed out of her. “You know my rules, no cussing in tutus. Well, unless it’s to psych out the competition, but it’s never worked for me.”

  “Still, a damn or a shit might seem more on par with the transgression we’re dealing with.”

  She took a long breath. “Listen, Rochan is coming up to see me this afternoon. Just hold her off him until then.”

  I ran our schedules through my head. Every class Sara had with Rochan, I also had with him. I could probably insulate him, since he was still avoiding her. But I had to find him before she did. “Right, I’m on it. Look, confirm nothing. If he calls, just make up an excuse, maybe let him go to voicemail or something. You’re busy with your dancing and everything.”

  “Right.” Even over the phone I could practically see her nodding along. “That’s a good idea. Oh God, I hate her so much right now.”

  “She’s just a pretender, a creature barely worth noticing.”

  “No, Cyra, I’m going to have to tell Rochan.”

  Ice coursed through my veins. “What?”

  “I’m going to have to tell him the truth. Just buy me enough time to tell him myself.” She paused. “I’d have to punch her in the face if she told him first.”

  My heart thumped against my chest, and I wrapped my right arm around my shoulder, as if I could hold it back. “No, you can’t expose me like that.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do? I can’t let him find out from her.”

  Kicking the drain in the floor, I checked around the bathroom again. “Hold off, delay. He’ll break up with you if you tell him.”

  “He’ll break up with me if she tells him. Besides, he—he’s been talking, and…” She sighed.

  “Talking about what?”

  She shuffled the phone around like she was trying to hide her response from people nearby. “He said that he almost wished I wasn’t so beautiful. Like it was a crime for someone to be as beautiful as me, as talented in dance, and to have words and poetry as well. He said it would be easier to be around me if I was less extraordinary.”

  “Oh, but, Christine, he fell in love with you.”

  “My body, your words! We have to tell him! He said that he would love my soul forever. That if you took away the dancing, that if I were disfigured an
d hideous, he could never erase the words I’d written, that they were burned in his heart.”

  I gulped at the air, trying to understand her words. “Oh God, Christine.”

  “He loves you.”

  “No, we can’t tell him. He’ll hate us both for deceiving him. He’s never had feelings for me.”

  Something hit the phone. “Dammit, Cyra, he has always had feelings for you. And you’ve had feelings for him, too. Admit it. You love him. How else could you have written those letters? You love him.”

  “No, I don’t,” I lied.

  “Ha, you expect me to believe that you climbed out the third story window in the middle of a rainstorm out of the goodness of your heart? You love him. You’re just too scared to do anything about it. Why? Is it your hand? Are you worried that he couldn’t love you because you don’t have a hand?”

  “No, it’s that he loves you! Don’t you understand? People say things, but when presented with the truth of it, they never do what they say they’ll do. He loves you!”

  A door clicked on her end. “You’re scared. You’re scared that if he knew it was you who wrote the letters he would still pick me.”

  I tried to breath, but the room was suddenly too small for one person. The walls were closing in. “Fine, you want him to pick, we can tell him, but you will be throwing it away. You could just let the letters go. You could stop giving him letters, but if you tell him, he’ll hold it against you for the rest of your life.”

  “We tell him.” The signal garbled on the last note, as if her determination cracked the air around her.

  With my toe, I played with trash on the floor. “Fine. I’ll come by this afternoon with your work packet, and we can talk about how we’ll do this.”

  “Done, now go keep Sara from doing anything stupid. Punch her if you have to.”

  “I’m a fencer, Christine. I’d never use my bare hands.”

  I hung up the phone and let my head lull back to the cold tile wall behind me. What had I done? Was I scared of love? She had to be wrong. I knew what would happen. He’d be mad, but he’d pick her. He could say what he wanted about me, but he loved her. My letters had just been—