Spin the Sky

by MacKenzie, Jill;

  I mean, the guy’s got crazy passion and it doesn’t take a hip-hopper to know how good he is at his style, but I’m not kidding when I say he looks as though he’s ready to kill someone with both his giant hands. His face is red and his teeth are all jagged—it’s like he’s been in multiple fights, not to survive like Liquid, but for fun. And his top lip is curled up in this unsettling way. And there’s a light in his eyes. Not light like George’s light—shimmery and everything—but light like fire, ready to set us all aflame. This guy’s like that, only scarier because he’s here. Like no one I’ve ever met in real life.

  He finishes his routine and then steps forward, his chest puffed out and heaving. He stares into the audience and the cameras focus in on his black eyes. Then he spits. Right there on the stage. In front of all the cameras. On purpose.

  Elliot Townsend shifts in his seat. I expect him to yell at this kid for defacing property or being so rude or scary or something. I expect the guy to be embarrassed, regret what he’s done because the cameras have caught it and now maybe everyone in his hometown will see what he’s done, too.

  “Tell us about yourself,” is what Elliot says. He doesn’t mention the spit and I wonder if maybe I imagined the whole thing. “Mr. Jackson Wiles, is it?”

  “Jacks. Not Jackson. Not ever.”

  “Jacks. Give us something to remember you by.”

  Jacks shrugs. “What’s to tell? I got a deadbeat dad in Miami that stubbed cigarettes out on my arm when I told him I wanted to dance instead of play football. A mom that stayed in bed watching TV as the fire burned through my skin.”

  All of the judges except Elliot grin, so obviously impressed by his dance and sob story skills. The cameras slide closer to the judges. Astrid adjusts her low-cut blouse. Elliot pretends the cameras aren’t there, but I can tell he always knows they’re there. They zoom in on Jacks’s face. The screen behind him lights up, zeroing in on those broken teeth, wrecked and ruined. It’s sick.

  “What a difficult upbringing.” Astrid sniffs. “And how did that make you feel, Jacks?”

  Jacks sneers. “Feel? I haven’t felt a thing since I was five.”

  George and Rio and I exchange glances because it doesn’t make sense. How can a guy with veins pulsing through his neck and little scars the size of pennies all over his arms not feel anything? Or maybe he does feel and what he really means is that he doesn’t feel anything good.

  Jacks cracks his knuckles and the sound magnifies by a million, echoing through this auditorium. No one says a thing. The whole place is silent save for the sounds of cameras wheeling all around us and the deep breathing coming from Jacks.

  The judges hand Jacks his ticket to LA and he grabs it and storms off stage like he’s doing them a favor when really, if you ask me, he’s done them anything but.

  Next this awesome ballroom couple from New Mexico dance a fox trot to an old Prince song and make it through, as does as a West Coast Swing guy from New Jersey named Lawrence. And then a hip-hop girl from Illinois, called Zyera, who wows the judges with her “crisp popping abilities,” plus another contemporary girl from Georgia named Juliette, whose leaps literally defy gravity, make it to the show. The screen flashes all of their faces and their families in the audience, holding signs that cheer them on and wish them good luck.

  I think of home and Rose and imagine Rose watching the show somewhere, her nails getting chewed to death because she always chews them when she’s nervous. I imagine her getting a poster board from the Pic ’N’ Pay and using a sharpie to draw those thick black bubble letters she does with my name and George’s name across the front. I imagine seeing her face on that screen, holding it up.

  But I know that won’t happen. Rose is always working. I don’t know if they have a TV where she works. Don’t know if she’d want to watch it even if they did.

  “They’ve just let eight people on the show,” George says. “Eight people out of thirteen and we’ve only been here a few hours.”

  “How many do they pick in total again?” I say.

  George shrugs. “It’s different for every season. They usually just stop when they have all the talent they need.”

  I shift in my seat, my knees jittery, my toes tapping. At this rate we’ll be lucky to audition at all today, no matter what number we have. The way it is now, my whole cutting-in-line super-plan seems almost for nothing.

  But after Juliette, six terrible dancers are sent home while the audience boos and pretends to throw stuff to get them off the stage. Elliot tells them they make a mockery of dance. Astrid tells them to take dance lessons and lots of them. I sit up straight and push my shoulders back. I’m not like them. I’ve been training for this exact moment my entire life. I can do this. Only eleven more dancers until it’s my turn to prove it. And then that realization sinks in, too. Only eleven more dancers until I’m up.

  A classical ballerina takes the stage.

  “We gotta get back there,” George says. “We’re up in fifteen.”

  Next to me, Rio squirms in her chair. But she doesn’t get up or say a thing while, on stage, the girl rises on her toes and extends her leg in attitude. She’s really good and her legs are long and her hair is beautiful and it actually looks like golden droplets of rain when she pirouettes.

  Wait. I lean forward to read her home state.

  At the same time, Rio says, “Hey. Is that who I think it is?” She blinks a couple of times and then it clicks. Arizona. I’ve met someone here from Arizona already. I know that hair and those legs. And Rio does, too.

  “She’s not terrible,” Rio says. But I hear it in her voice. Legs is definitely not terrible. She’s amazing. Better than any of us thought she’d be when we cut in front of her in line. Better than any classical ballerina I’ve ever seen in my life.

  The screen behind her changes to show colors, swirling pastels—pinks and greens and cool blues—shades that match her flowy hair and movements. They didn’t do that for any of the other dancers. Then again, no one before her danced ballet like this.

  When she’s finished, the judges toss her bucketfuls of praise and with it, a ticket on the show. But Legs doesn’t jump up and down as she accepts it. She scans the crowd until she reaches our row, and stops. The colors disappear and the screen changes to show her face. Which has this really smug, you-guys-are-so-gonna-eat my-shit smile on it.

  The world looks totally different from backstage.

  People are crazy bouncing up and down as they breathe and stretch and come offstage smiling these ear-to-ear smiles. Or don’t. The few who make it bound toward us, eyes gleaming. But the ones who don’t stumble back, skin sallow, clouded by the words they’ve heard. You’re not good enough.

  These ones have tears hiding behind sockets. Some don’t even try to hold them back. Some let them free, falling, unobstructed, dreams crushed.

  Total elation.

  Or heartbreak.

  George comes out of the restroom, changed and ready. His hair is freshly gelled and swooped over to one side and he’s wearing a clean white tank and a pair of fitted gray calf-length sweatpants that accentuate his lean torso, tight butt, small waist. He’s washed his face and it looks so good—clear and poreless and perfect. Everything about him is chiseled and styled except his eyebrows, which are messy, but manly messy. A camera swivels around to film him and he laps it up, rolling his shoulders back and smiling. He’s like a blond Channing Tatum, only better because he’s real. The audience is going to love him just as much as the cameras seem to.

  George hands some backstage assistants Rio’s iPod with our music on it while I duck into the bathroom to swap my own clothes out. I give myself a once-over in the mirror, hoping I seem half as self-assured as George. I can feel the cameras on me even though there aren’t any in here. I can feel the heat from their lights and I’m sweating and my face feels so warm and yet is so white.

  I grip the sides of the sink and squeeze until my knuckles are white, too. I close my eyes. Say the words I�
�ve said inside my head every minute since we left Summerland: You can do this. If you want to fix what’s been broken for so, so long, you have to do this.

  When I open my eyes, my reflection’s all blurred and out of focus and my body is outlined in a thin black line, my insides colored in with brown—no—gold. Shimmery, blurry gold.

  This happened once before, three summers ago. Before Colleen died. Before things got worse than we ever knew they could.

  Mom was home and she and Rose and I went for breakfast at the Pig ’N’ Pancake—Mom’s treat, which didn’t happen often, if ever. While they grabbed us a booth, I excused myself for the bathroom. I guess no one knew I was in there, though, because seconds later Mark’s mom and little sister came in, breathless and giggling over the bad smell the Pig ’N’ Pancake had. They talked about going elsewhere. They talked about how Mark liked the Pig ’N’ Pancake and wouldn’t go elsewhere, which made them both giggle harder. They talked about how the restaurant should hold its standards higher, the way it used to.

  They didn’t have to say it, but I knew what they were talking about: the smell, the buzz in the air, like the hum of an old refrigerator. It was because we were there. And even though Mark never said it either, I knew it’s how he must have felt about me, too.

  So I waited in my stall until they did their thing and left the bathroom. When I came out, my reflection was hazy, distorted. There, but not really there. Me, but not really me.

  Now, I cover my eyes with my shaking hands.

  When I finally let my arms fall to my sides, the gold is gone and the black outline is gone, too. I look exactly like I always do. And then I know: This isn’t like that last time. Here, no one’s talking about me. No one, save George, even knows who I am.

  I swing open the door and smack directly into Rio and George. Behind them are a few dancers who have already auditioned. The ballroom couple and the tapper and Jacks and Liquid, who are sizing each other up, like they’re about to throw down. Jacks’s face is all red and heated again. Liquid’s laughing at him, though I don’t know why.

  George looks at both of them over his shoulder. Back at me. Frowns. “You take a nap in there or what?”

  “I couldn’t find my tights.”

  “Fix your hair at least.” He licks his palm and smoothes out my wispies with his spit while Rio watches, her smirk covered by her hand, but not well enough. From on stage, we hear this weak round of applause and then number twenty-eight, a guy from Texas, comes off the stage. He’s clenching his stomach with his fingertips, kind of digging into his middle, tearing at his own skin.

  George pats the guy’s back halfheartedly and then straightens into a perfect exclamation mark. “I’m up next. It’s now or never.” He kisses my cheek and Rio’s and we tell him to break a leg, and then he runs toward the wings. We follow behind him but stop when we get to the wings and let George take center stage alone. The cameras from the ceiling lower to follow him and I wonder if he can feel their heat, too.

  He crouches down in a half-man, half-moon position.

  I know his stance. Know his routine like I know every pine-lined street in Summerland. Yet I never get bored of the sight of George’s perfect back, rolled into an enviable sphere. His natural roundness is what makes him flow like some smooth, space-aged machine. It’s what sets him apart from everyone. The music starts. But it’s not the usual pop-princess song I’m used to hearing him dance to.

  My breath catches and holds.

  I know this song.

  Last August, a month after my mom left, George and I heard it in Washington. We were all there. Me and him and Mrs. Moutsous and Malcolm and Rose, all of us on this little weekend getaway to take Malcolm back to college after summer vacation, when George pulled me away from them.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Before I had the chance to protest, George pulled me into a yellow cab that stopped in front of us, suddenly, as if it knew.

  “The Gorge,” he told the driver who nodded and flicked his meter on.

  “Of course you’re taking me someplace that sounds almost exactly like your name,” I said. “So predictable.”

  But George didn’t laugh. Instead, he got all quiet and then turned his head to stare out the window. “You ever feel like you know every person in Summerland, but nobody knows you?”

  I wasn’t expecting these kinds of words to come from George. The fact was, it wasn’t like him. It made me feel vulnerable. More than that, it made me feel afraid. “Maybe. I don’t know. What do you mean?”

  “Like you can never really be yourself. Be the person you are on the inside.”

  “Yeah. I pretty much wish I was someone else on a daily basis.”

  “I want to get out of here,” he said, his head glued to the window. “Where no one knows me. Where I can be the person I’m destined to be without all this stuff dragging me down.”

  I didn’t know what he meant. No one in our town ever dragged his name through the mud. He was George Moutsous. Everyone knew that and loved him for it.

  Fifteen minutes later, we got out in front of this place on the edge of the Columbia River. It was called the Gorge, like George had said. But no sweet name came close to describing this thing, this amphitheater, smack dab in the middle of an epic canyon. A concert was just ending there. But everyone was still seated all over the stadium’s grassy area, listening to the band’s last song. The acoustics bellowed in and out of the Gorge’s walls. Echoing. Exhaling. Breathing out the breaths of angels.

  We sat in a patch of worn-away grass and inhaled the music.

  We closed our eyes. We went outside of ourselves. We imagined.

  I never did know the band’s name, but I’ll never forget the song they played—the only song we made it in time to hear. There was this line in it that made me feel something I hadn’t before. Made me feel like it was me they were singing for. Me they were telling it to. Dance yourself clean. Dance yourself clean.

  And in that moment, I dreamed. Dreamed what it would be like to really to dance myself clean. From the picture I still see every single night, behind my eyelids. My bike, pulling up to my house after my shift at Deelish. Paramedics leaving, two of them, three of them, more, pushing her lifeless body strapped to a stretcher, dried blood still caked on the stiff corners of her mouth.

  That day at the Gorge, we lounged on the outskirts of greatness, the music flowing through our veins, more potent than blood.

  And now, watching him on stage, leaping, turning, gaining momentous height, creating impossibly clean lines with his limbs, I know that George must have felt it, too.

  His tilt jumps are endless. His pique en arabesque stops time. I’ve never seen his legs extend that high. I’ve never seen George dance himself clean. Until now.

  And then, as he nears the front of the stage, his upper body ready to take one final leap, his left foot misjudges the firm ground below him. And then George is down. Crouched down, crumpled, in the same position he started in.

  Half man.

  Half moon.

  THIRTEEN

  George stays balled up in this shape, his head buried between his knees, while the song plays itself out. Seconds pass. Cameras swoop, moving past him and behind him and in front of him.

  His body heaves.

  Get up, George. Please, get up.

  The crowd is completely silent.

  My body is shivering while my eyes dart back and forth between his crumpled figure and the judges’ faces. They exchange glances. Lean back in their chairs. Whisper. Flip through the sheets in front of them.

  “Excuse me, young man? Are you all right?” Elliot calls. “Do you need me to call for assistance?”

  George’s head swivels from side to side, slowly. The rest of him is still, except for the rise and fall of his back.

  Get up, George. Please, get up.

  Next to me, someone’s elbow jabs me in the ribs. “Is he dead or what?” My eyes slide left to meet hers. Happy
Feet. She’s smiling with that same plastic grin.

  “Why isn’t he moving?” Rio says.

  “I don’t know.” My hands press the sides of my cheek. “I’ve never seen him slip. Never. Not in fourteen years.”

  Rio chews on her thumbnail. “Maybe if he gets up now they’ll give him another shot. Come on, sweetie,” she whispers. “Get up.”

  My eyes burn through Rio’s, but she doesn’t notice.

  Fifteen minutes ago, she thought he was hot. Hot I could deal with, or sort of deal with, at least. Now, she’s watching him—his body rolled into this ball that makes him look so small—with something entirely different in her eyes.

  Next to Rio, someone spits a piece of their own chewed-up nail to the ground in front of me. I glance left. Jacks.

  “He better get up or it’s game over for him,” Jacks says. “Not that I’d care.”

  “He’s going to get up,” I say.

  “Nope. Doesn’t look like it.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t care either way.”

  I get close to him. So close that my face is inches from his, even though I’m a good foot shorter. Scars. He’s full of them. Not just on his arms but all over his face. There’s a big one under his right eye, sloping from the bridge of his nose to his temple. And another one under his lip. Puffy, and in the shape of two semicircles, like teeth marks. I wonder how many fights this guy must have been in to make his face like this. I don’t want to know who he was fighting. My face is so hot I can feel it. I ball my hands into fists.

  He laughs. “What? You think I wouldn’t hit a girl back?”

  “I think you would. I think you’d hit anyone if you thought it’d earn you points somehow.”

  “Magnolia, come on,” Rio says, softly. She pulls my arm away. “It’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.”

  Jacks laughs again but he backs off. He turns his head but I see him touching a fresh-looking cut on his neck, just over his collarbone. He sees me staring. Turns away, covering the cut with his hand. I think of what he said about his dad. I wonder if those marks and scars are from him. I wonder how far Jacks went to provoke them.