The Cranes Dance

by Meg Howrey

  “It’s nothing,” I said quickly. The extent of its nothingness was shameful. What right had I to be doping myself to the gills? Detaching myself from what? From what?

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to come and see you dance Dream.” Wendy sat up a little straighter. “I wish I could. I wish I could see you dance so many things.”

  “It’s okay.” I leaned forward on my cushions, almost pulling the chair up with me. “No, no. It’s okay.”

  “When I was a little girl,” Wendy said, closing her eyes, “my father used to go into his study and listen to the baseball games on the radio. He would draw a grid on a piece of paper and he taught me how to keep score. I would mark it all down. K, for strikeout. F8 was a fly ball to center field. P6, a pop-up to the shortstop. I haven’t thought of that in years. Oh, how I loved doing it.”

  For a second I saw in her face, which didn’t look ill at all, a ghost of her childhood. Of a whole life, a whole person, about to go forever. I couldn’t speak.

  “I’ll be thinking of you dancing,” she said. “I’ll be imagining how lovely you are.”

  She looked at me, with something like a plea on her face. I swallowed.

  “It’s too bad,” I said, “that they don’t air ballets on the radio. That way, you could follow along and keep score.” I switched into a sportscaster voice. “Titania successfully dances the first solo. A little wobbly on the pique turns, but nice tight fifth position on the bourrées. She makes it into the downstage left wing safely and now … it’s Oberon, who’s been having a rough season so far, let’s see what he does tonight!”

  “Yes, that’s just what I mean!” Wendy said. “You understood me perfectly.”

  But I didn’t understand. I don’t understand anything.

  Karine came in, not with Wendy’s cumbersome silver tea service but with two mugs, tea bags hanging off the sides. I wanted to tell her that’s not how we do it, Wendy hates teabags, but I was cowed by her air of competent authority. I could never do that. I could never pull back the covers and scoop a dying woman out of bed, set her gently on her feet, fold her arm under mine to help her walk.

  “Oh, I’ve got my energy back,” said Wendy, patting Karine on the arm. She walked by herself, upright and stately as she rarely was in … in what? In life?

  Wendy made it to the terrace, stood in the sunshine. Her face, when she turned to look at me, was radiant and smooth, not the face of the woman I have known for the past ten years. It was the face of a woman I have never known.

  Will never know, apparently.

  When I left Wendy’s I walked across the park. The path I took when I was a student, when none of what has happened had happened.

  The other night I thought I wouldn’t want to go back, but now it’s all I want to do. Or stay forever now, with things only as bad as they are, not worse. Not gone.

  I can’t imagine a Gwen returned who I could live with. And yet I also can’t think of how she will ever be gone enough.

  And Andrew. Of course Andrew left me for someone else. I gave him nothing. I gave him the shell. Now I can’t even remember why it seemed so important to not need him.

  Wendy said she is not gone yet. But she is evacuating, I could feel it. And she is afraid, I could feel that too.

  I wanted to sit down on the grass. For what? To say to myself, I am sitting on the grass and grieving for my friend? I don’t have the right to sit down. Not with all the time that I’ve wasted standing.

  I went to the theater. Tonight I danced Leaves Are Fading for the first time. There is a synopsis of the ballet in the program, although in this case it’s not necessary. It’s simple. A woman walks on the stage and looks thoughtful. Men and women appear and dance, in groups, in pairs. The lights dim and the woman comes on again and walks across the stage, satisfied. The dances have been her memories, and they have been good, they have been filled with love.

  In my dressing room I told myself that I would dedicate my performance to Wendy. I would offer it up to her as a gift, I would send her grace for wherever it is she is going next. Let her exit gently across the stage, satisfied.

  But I couldn’t hold on to that. Things kept getting in the way. I was fussing about my shoes, which felt a little too soft, so I changed them for a harder pair and those were a little too hard. I hadn’t taken any Vicodin, so I was worried about seizing up with pain in the middle. I could tell in the opening that our timing wasn’t as good as it had been in dress, people were rushing, Marius would have a fit. And, at a certain point, my desire to dance well was just simply my desire to dance well. I could say that it was a desire to dance well for Wendy, but it wasn’t that. What I was thinking, in that strange way you can think without words while you are dancing, think in glyphs, think in numbers, was how stupid it is that any of us are here, living. What an absurd game we play with ourselves, as if it mattered. We are all mad, all insane, all deluded. It is all for nothing, really, in the end.

  The woman, at the end of Leaves, she shouldn’t walk serenely across the stage. That’s sentimental drivel. She should run. She should get off as quickly as she can, and not look back.

  23.

  I took Gareth’s class today. As I was going to take Gareth’s class I said to myself, over and over, I am going to take Gareth’s class. Sentences are trenches you can take cover in. They are not wildly comfortable. They are not bulletproof. But they can give you the illusion of safety.

  I am going to take Gareth’s class today and here I am at the place where Gareth’s class can be taken.

  There were a group of girls in the changing room. Teenagers, maybe fourteen, fifteen years old. One had her fingernails painted yellow with blue daisies. A little Thai girl with plump shoulders was chomping hard on a wad of strawberry gum. The blonde had an angry dash of acne across both cheeks. A thick-calved brunette dabbed the wrong shade of pink lipstick on her lips.

  The girls chatted, which meant I could listen to them and stop repeating, I am going to take Gareth’s class.

  “Oh my gah, it took me like, forty-five minutes to get my hair up today.”

  “I love your hair.”

  “Elle’s always like, I love your hair, I love your hair, and I’m like, please, it’s a hot mess.”

  “I need Starbucks.”

  “I totally need Starbucks.”

  “I want that maple scone thing they have.”

  “Oh my gah, I was totally thinking the same thing. Like, right as you said it.”

  In the hallway outside of class, more students clustered in little groups on the floor or benches. I spotted two in the corner who, indignities of adolescence aside, had the imprint of serious dancers. Sleek hair, perfect bodies, the self-absorption of hungry animals. One of them pulled an elastic band out of her bag and stretched out her Achilles tendon. The other worked a pointe shoe between her hands, softening the box, flexing the sole. Achilles Tendon Girl looked up, saw me, tapped Pointe Shoe Girl with the side of her foot. They widened their eyes at each other, and one of them smiled tentatively at me.

  “Hi,” I said. Somewhat aggressively.

  They looked a little startled.

  The class before Gareth’s finished and I took my spot by the window, trying not to gag on the haze of sweat. I looked out the window at Broadway. See how it all goes on, I said to myself. See how it all goes on. See how it. See how it. See how it all goes on.

  Gareth tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Darling,” he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

  He is a kind man. His T-shirt smelled like Tide.

  “So, I’ve a friend in town from Stuttgart and he got tickets to opening night of Dream,” Gareth explained. “But I want to see your Titania too. So I’ll come back.”

  “Oh!” I said. “Oh, gosh. You don’t have to. I mean, it’s no big deal, really.”

  “This is your season,” Gareth said.

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, by default, maybe.”

  Ga
reth put his hands around my throat and pantomimed strangling me.

  “I got standing room for Look At Me. You broke my heart. And Leaves the other night? I’ve never seen you give more onstage.”

  Gareth looked at me expectantly. What would Kate say? Oh, yes.

  “You should have been there opening night,” Kate jokes to Gareth. “I think I actually gave birth.”

  “That’s my girl.” Gareth laughs. “Diffidence does not become you, darling. You’re not going to turn into one of these head-case dancers, are you? That would be too tragic.”

  “Not me,” I said, as if in horror. Tragic? I don’t get to be tragic.

  Gareth nodded. Over his shoulder I saw Klaus and Maya entering class, and, right behind them, David, who spotted me and pointed to the space at the barre next to mine, claiming it.

  “See, we’re all needing your class today,” I told Gareth.

  “Only by default,” he mocked, over his shoulder. “People must have overslept Wendell’s class.”

  A few more members of the company filed in. Rochelle, Gillian, Tyler. People probably had slept in.

  Except for me. I just couldn’t get out of bed. Mostly because I was repeating the phrase “I can’t get out of bed” over and over. This is pretty much how I’ve been doing everything for the past week. First I say, “I can’t do this class/rehearsal/performance,” over and over until it’s time to do it and then I somehow do it. A second performance of Leaves. A second performance of Look At Me. I didn’t think I could do them until I was onstage, and then they were over too quickly.

  Before I left Wendy’s apartment, I gave Karine my cell phone number and asked her to call me, anytime, if there was any news. Yesterday she called to tell me that Wendy was in the hospital, but should only be there for a day or two. She suggested that I visit once Wendy is back home. There was not, she told me, so very much time.

  “Is she in pain?” I asked.

  “I can give her morphine for this pain,” Karine said. “I tell her that she does not have to be strong, now. She must be easy.”

  “What about her family?” Wendy has a sister, she has nieces and nephews. She has a couple of cousins.

  Karine sighed.

  “They are asking her if they should come, but of course she says no. She does not want to trouble nobody. This is how it is, for some people. But her friend, from Greece, she does not ask. She just comes. She will be here tomorrow. I will call you. Maybe Friday? This is the time to just come. Not to ask.”

  My mother called me. Gwen is doing better. She is on a different medication. She was having trouble moving well, her joints were stiff, possibly from the previous medication, possibly from muscular atrophy from not dancing.

  “Is she in pain?” I asked.

  “Your father can explain it better. Something about dopamine and if you have too much, that’s bad. But it also helps a person’s body move fluidly. So if you take away the dopamine, it might hurt their, what do you call it?”

  “I don’t know. Grace?”

  “Something like that. I’d like to see her get off medication entirely.”

  “How can that be the goal?” I asked. “You wouldn’t say that to a diabetic. You wouldn’t say, ‘Well, the goal is to get you off insulin.’ ”

  “The new medication is much better,” Mom said. “She’s taking class now, with the Grand Rapids Ballet. I think that’s helping more than anything. Some normalities!”

  “Well, that’s good,” I said. I couldn’t picture any of this. I tried imaging Gwen doing better under new medication, or even a Gwen who would consent to taking medication. A Gwen chemically engineered to be normal. It was like having a dream where you know who someone is but they don’t look at all like themselves.

  “Now, let’s see,” Mom chirped. “You’ve got two more weeks left of the season?”

  “About that, yeah.”

  “And so then you have six weeks off …”

  “Yeah.”

  I’ve been avoiding thinking about the break. I should’ve tried to book myself some guest artist gigs or something. What the hell was I going to do? Gwen and I usually went home for a week when we had the long break. Andrew and I had talked about going to Paris, seeing Keith play in the French Open.

  “I should probably come there, right? If Gwen is okay with that. You probably want me to come there?”

  “We can talk about it when the time comes,” my mom said.

  “That’s almost now, though,” I said, feeling pinned somewhere in my rib cage.

  “So, what’s new in your life?” Mom asked.

  I flailed about on my pin and I kept talking even after I knew Mom’s interest was gone. I didn’t say the thing she was wanting to hear. If she was wanting. If any of us knows what it is we want anymore.

  Keith called me. He had to pull out of the tournament in Madrid because of a strained gastrocnemius. He wants to be ready for Rome, and then the French Open. He’s frustrated. Clay is his surface, a chance to boost his ranking. He can’t be injured for Roland Garros.

  “Are you in pain?” I asked.

  “Nah. It’s more a question of like, holding up. And I don’t want it on my mind, you know. I don’t want to be thinking about it.”

  “So maybe you should totally rest before the French?”

  “It’s like, a mind thing. I have to stay mentally tough, you know? I think of you guys a lot.”

  “What guys?” I asked.

  “You and Gwen. It’s this thing I’m working on with Gary. We’re collecting like, images of heroism. Watching all these tapes.”

  Gary is Keith’s coach. Gary is way more intimate with my brother than I am. But then, I’ve always had Gwen.

  “So I was telling Gary, remember when I came to New York and saw you guys in Swan Lake that one time?”

  “Years ago, you mean?”

  “Yeah. At the end of your thing, you held this pose, and Dad had given me the binoculars so I could see really close. And you were both just like, totally drenched in sweat. Standing on one toe with the other leg all up. It looked fucking hard! And then I put the binoculars down and it was like—bam!—it looked easy. Like, no one else watching would know that you were trying hard.”

  “Oh. Huh.”

  “I always tell people like, ‘Yeah, my sisters are ballet dancers, and that’s like an extreme sport, you know?’ ”

  “I’m really proud of you, Keith,” I said, trying to concentrate. “You know that, right?”

  Keith laughed a little bit at this. It was Dad’s laugh, the one he gives after he puts down his violin and you tell him how amazing he just played.

  “I was going to ask Mom and Dad to come,” he said. “You know, to Roland Garros. I know it’s France and everything and Dad is working, but I kind of … I kind of wanted them to come.”

  “Did you ask them?” I always assumed that Keith was like Gwen and me in this respect, so totally into his performance in a private way that it didn’t much matter who was watching.

  “I feel bad, ’cause you know … Gwen and everything.”

  “Have you talked to Gwen?” I held my breath, waiting.

  “Just stupid stuff. Jokes. Is she really okay?”

  I shook my head, knowing he couldn’t see this.

  “You there?” Keith’s voice sounded really far away. Probably because I had dropped the phone onto the bed and was sort of swaying over it.

  “Kate?”

  I knelt on the bed and curled myself around and in between everything on it.

  “I’m here,” I said, picking up the phone. “Listen. Keith. Don’t worry about Gwen. She’s going to be fine. You just concentrate on you right now. This is your time, buddy.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. It’s kind of weird, right, because you have to seize the moment, but you also gotta be in the moment.”

  “It’s better when you’re just doing it,” I agreed. “The hard part is all the stuff before you’re doing it, and all the stuff after you’re doing it.�
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  “Right,” he says, sounding relieved. “That’s what I mean.”

  “Life,” I say, clarifying.

  “Yeah,” Keith agreed.

  But if life is what can be called the time you spend preparing for the event, and then dealing with how the event went, then what would you call the event itself? Is that not life? Is that not the best part? Except sometimes, of course, it isn’t. Sometimes it’s the place where you injure yourself. Sometimes it’s the horrible mirror of your inadequacy. Sometimes it’s just sweating and running from one side of the stage, or the court, to the other, trying not to fall down, or start screaming.

  “Life,” I said again, uncertainly.

  “Fucking life, man!” Keith laughed.

  David dumped his bag down behind the barre and gave me a kiss. I thought, I can’t possibly make small talk with David.

  “Isn’t today a day off for you?” I asked.

  David pulled on an extra T-shirt.

  “Yeah, but I had yesterday off. We went to Home Depot. And Bed Bath & Beyond. And then I played Princesses with Jayla. Which was cool because I got to lie on the couch and just wave a wand at Jayla every few minutes. Thank god she’s still too young to be telling friends at school that Daddy is a Fairy King. Anyway, you’re not on tonight, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  “What are you doing today?”

  I shrugged.

  “Awesome,” said David.

  Class began. And IN, IN, IN, and OUT. And IN, IN, IN, and OUT.

  There were enough company members that Gareth had us all go as one group in the center. We were celebrities there in the dingy studio, sweat fogging the windows, the sounds of taxis and buses from two floors below punctuating the pianist’s plonk-plonk-plonking of the stuff all accompanists play for class. When I wasn’t working, I watched those two serious students, who were both very good. Like whippets: lean, muscled, focused. Watchful. I glanced over at the group of girls from the dressing room, who weren’t bad, but who were soft and sloppy. The little Thai girl was a turner, though. Strawberry-gum girl had nice feet. Oh, what will become of us all?