by Meg Howrey
“We hang them upside down,” I explained. “So they dry out. That’s what my sister and I always do. Even when they are dead, they’ll keep their shape. They’ll be these like, perfect little dead things.”
Jane looked a little alarmed, as well she might.
“I haven’t done anything special,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “We’ve just chatted a few times. I like her.”
“It makes a difference.” Jane shook her head. “Just your noticing her. She’s had a problem lately, with self-confidence. I guess that’s why I’m a little worried. About the dancing. It’s so intense. It puts such unreasonable stress on—” Jane broke off, shook her pretty head ruefully. “God! Two glasses of champagne and I’m explaining the stress of being a dancer to an actual dancer. Arrrgh!”
My mind leapt far ahead, and also off to the side, and on the diagonal.
“Well, Jane,” I said. “There are girls who take ballet class and then go get the maple scone thing at Starbucks. And there are girls who don’t.”
“The maple scone?” Jane puzzled it out. “Oh, discipline, you mean? But that’s sort of my point. There’s no reason why any of these girls shouldn’t eat whatever they want. It’s hard enough when you’re just a regular woman to feel good about your body—”
“I don’t mean discipline.” How does anyone ever explain anything? “I ate all kinds of shit when I was a student. I mean talent. Real talent. I don’t mean being good, or really good. I mean being gifted. I guess every parent wants to think their kid is gifted, but actually, pretty much nobody’s kid is gifted.”
“I’m really not that kind of parent,” Jane protested.
“Yeah, but Bryce probably is gifted.”
Jane bit her lip.
“I can’t totally tell,” I said. I knew I should stop talking to Jane, but the Vicodin and champagne had me all revved up and I couldn’t find my verbal brakes. “At her age, it’s mostly about having facility for movement. Which is totally rare, by the way. You can take a million dance classes and never have it. And then there’s the right body, which she obviously has. How tall is your husband?”
“Oh, um, about five eleven.”
“She’s not tall for her age, though.” I found the conversation technically interesting, which was a distraction from the collision I was about to have with my own head. “That’s good. If nothing drastically changes, she should be okay.” I looked at Jane’s cleavage, which, in her wrap dress, seemed fairly substantial. Of course that might be fake, or padded. But she didn’t appear to have wide hips or anything bad like that.
“Well, however it turns out will be okay with me,” Jane said, a little defensively. Poor thing, I’d made her hunch her shoulders forward and suck in her stomach. “I’m certainly not … invested in her becoming a ballet dancer.”
“Sure.”
“If she really loves it, I’ll always be supportive,” Jane said, hastily.
“Love chooses you too, though.” I spotted Marius’s head in the corner, surrounded by patrons and admirers. “You don’t say, ‘I am going to love this.’ It just happens.”
“But you must really love it, to do what you’re doing,” Jane insisted. “I mean it doesn’t seem possible that you could work so hard and give up so much without really loving it.”
“What am I giving up?” Stop, I told myself. Stop it.
“No, no.” Jane again almost took my elbow. Was she afraid I would break at any normal human contact? Does she know something I don’t know? “I don’t mean … give up,” Jane said. “It’s a wonderful thing, what you’re able to do. I just mean … well, you had to make sacrifices, right?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t make them because I loved dancing. I made them because … because …” I looked around for someone to rescue me from the conversation. Gwen, behind me on the poster, hugged an ass.
“You were meant to do this,” Jane interjected smoothly. “I get that. And obviously, it was all worth it, because you have this wonderful career. But there’s no telling whether Bryce will have that opportunity. And if she gives everything up to pursue dance, and it doesn’t happen for her …”
“Then what?” Somewhere, my sister was battling invisible demons. Somewhere, Wendy was acknowledging that visible demons had won. And there Jane was, anticipating heartache like it was a thing you could avoid. And there I was, not knowing the difference between visible and invisible, demonic, angelic, winning, losing.
“We just want her to have every opportunity available to her,” Jane said.
“You’re trying to cheat it.” I was tired. I needed to go. Somewhere. Else. “You can’t take it back now. It could happen that she succeeds as a dancer and she still wants to kill herself. My point is it’s too late, Jane. You had her. You brought her into this world, which is mostly suffering. She’s going to be in pain no matter what, and you can’t do anything about it.”
Jane looked at me like I had slapped her, which I guess I sort of had, but it seemed important she get some correct information. Wake up, lady.
“Maybe one day you’ll understand what it’s like …” Jane said, clearly trying to keep her voice level. “To love someone and want to protect them.”
“Maybe one day you’ll understand what it’s like,” I said, “to try to do that and fail.”
I set my champagne glass down and started to walk away from Jane, but now it was Bryce coming toward me, followed by Mr. Five Eleven. Shit.
Bryce looked fragile, in her blue dress. It’s not that I don’t get it, Jane. I can barely look at your daughter’s exposed arms, so unmarked, so pale, without wanting to cover them up. Bryce had a rose tucked into her ponytail.
“I just put your bouquet in the car,” she explained. “So it wouldn’t get hurt. But see, I put one in my hair.”
“Beautiful,” I said. I looked up and Bryce’s dad was looking over my shoulder at Jane. Probably reading her face and trying to decode what he should be doing. Snatching his child up and running away from the mean, nasty ballerina?
“They have a TV monitor in our dressing room,” Bryce said. “But I couldn’t really watch you do Helena. But I know you were perfect. And when you dance Titania, I’ll be onstage with you!”
“Well, don’t get so busy watching that you forget your moves,” warned the dad. Jane moved around me to join her family. I felt Bryce’s embarrassment, Jane’s embarrassment. My own.
“This. Is my husband. Steven.” Jane introduced him to me without meeting my eyes. Steven, guy-like, oblivious, shook my hand.
Bryce moved next to me.
“Is it okay,” she asked shyly, “if my dad takes our picture together? Dad, do you have my phone?”
Jane looked like she might throw up.
And just at this moment, Marius appeared, with Abby in tow.
“Ah, picture time,” he said. “Perfect. They want one with me, and a member of the company, and a student. May I enlist you two?”
And so Jane and Steven watched as the company photographer took a picture of the three of us, Bryce in between me and Marius, like she was our daughter. Abby entered Bryce’s name in her BlackBerry. “It would be for the school website,” she told them. I could feel Bryce vibrating from the attention. Marius thanked her, in his best courtly manner, for being in his production.
I glanced over at Jane’s husband. He probably just lost his daughter to Marius in like, that exact second. No “Your moves were spectacular” from him will mean as much as anything Marius says to her for at least the next seven years. The love we have is never as desirable as the love we want.
“Satisfied?” I asked Marius.
“With you?” He smiled. “Yes.”
Bryce smiled at Marius, smiled at me, a mini victim of Stockholm syndrome. But I saw Bryce’s face onstage tonight. She didn’t even know how happy she was. You only know that kind of joy by its absence. And sometimes even when the curtain falls and the audience goes home and so do you, the perfume of that joy will linger. Like dead but
still perfect roses.
25.
I took Wendell’s class this morning. I just couldn’t face Gareth and his approval and expectations and kindness and all. I needed something unforgiving and cold and critical.
Wendell gave me a nod of acknowledgment as I took a place at the barre. I couldn’t have my usual spot in the corner by the window, because it was already occupied by Mariya Orekhova. She was a guest artist with our company a few years ago, and then went back to the Kirov. I think I exchanged about four sentences with her during her entire tenure with us, which is probably about three more than anyone else did except for the other Russians in our company. There are Russians, and then there are Russian ballerinas from the Kirov. Just looking at Orekhova, her ridiculously attenuated limbs and her icy, impassive face, made me feel fat and junky and clumsy. I watched her pull her leg to her ear (or rather, her leg just went there of its own accord, her hand merely along for the ride) and flex and point her remarkable feet. On another person this would look like stretching. On Orekhova it looked like she was issuing a threat. I massaged my neck. Wendell came up behind me.
“Pain?” he said.
“I’m doing something wrong,” I said. “I keep hurting it.”
“I’ll watch,” he said crisply, moving away.
About halfway through barre, he approached me again and stabbed at my collarbone with two fingers.
“Too far forward,” Wendell said. I tried to bring my upper body back.
“Too far back!” Wendell shouted. “Don’t exaggerate.”
I stopped doing the combination in order to try to find the right position.
“Not forward, not back,” Wendell said.
The combination ended, so now we had an audience.
“Just stand like a normal person. If you can.”
Wendell smiled around at the class so everyone would know he was “being funny,” and there were the usual sycophantic twitters.
I tried standing like a normal person.
“Fine, then just keep that, but dance,” said Wendell, to another appreciative murmur of his wit. I glanced over at Mariya Orekhova, who raised one of her alabaster arms in a queenly gesture, turned her head, looked in the mirror to note blandly her own magnificence, and then turned back to the barre.
Why am I here? I thought. I should leave.
Except that Wendell was sort of right. I could feel the subtle adjustment work something different in my back. Stop caring, I told myself. It doesn’t make a difference.
• • •
During center, Mariya passed by me, did a double take, smiled, and kissed me on both cheeks. I remembered Roger’s joke that you could tell Mariya was a robot because if you got really close to her you noticed that she had no smell whatsoever.
Gwen, when I repeated this to her, laughed, but then asked, “Why do you think she’s a robot?”
“Well, you know, because it’s sort of alien, her dancing. She’s so freakishly perfect, all the time.”
I was curious, actually, as to what Gwen’s opinion of Mariya was. Gwen was so used to being the local phenom. Gwen was freakishly perfect, but you could argue that Mariya was even more so, with her exaggerated extensions, her insuperable control.
“Is she?” Gwen asked.
“Have you ever watched her?”
Gwen thought.
“I guess she is,” Gwen said. “But I haven’t really thought about it. I mean, I can’t tell. I don’t know what it’s like to be her, so I can’t really tell about her dancing.”
I put it down as another of Gwen’s superpowers—her sometimes astounding lack of acuity that acted as a kind of protective shield. But there was something more to it. I couldn’t think, because it was class, and I was still trying to hold my body like a normal person, but something tugged at my mind. It wasn’t just that Gwen had difficulties assessing anything that wasn’t herself, it was that it didn’t even occur to her to do so. And while I was probably the one person Gwen could, in some sense, see, she couldn’t actually feel me. I was feeling her all over the place, wearing her like a too-tight skin, sweating and tearing and twisting at her. And she couldn’t feel that. She had no idea.
I watched, along with everyone else in the room, whether covertly or not, Mariya execute the grande allegro. Kirov dancers can jump. Mariya needs almost no preparation for elevation. With very little down, she can get very high up. I was easing my way to the door, head turned to watch, and bumped into Wendell, who was blocking my path.
“What can you say about that?” he asked me, pointing with his chin at Mariya.
I shrugged.
“That’s right.” Wendell nodded. “You should have something to say.”
I didn’t know if he meant me, or one in general, or if he was complimenting Mariya, or denigrating her talent as being too far beyond praise.
“Thank you for the correction,” I said, mimicking the finger jab at my chest. “That was helpful.”
“Give my best to your sister,” Wendell said, walking away.
Dream again tonight. Helena. My moment of sharp clarity had passed and I was feeling somewhat unsteady, like I had been on a boat for hours and hours and was now on a dock, wondering at the earthquake happening in the still ground below my feet. I tried sitting down, but it didn’t really help.
I was listing at my dressing table, pinning Helena’s little cap into my hair, when I heard the text message alert from my phone go off. Once again, I was sure it was Gwen, but this time I felt grateful that she had at last signaled me back. I waited until a swell had passed and then grabbed my phone.
Drink tonight?
It was from Gwen’s boyfriend, Neil.
Drink tonight?
In a way, taken out of context, it was mysterious. Would I drink? Would there be a tonight? Even without the question mark it would have been compelling: Drink tonight. That had an urgency, a compulsion. Tonight. You must drink. Within context though, it was a scumbag move. Neil and his big dick. I care about both of you. I swallowed some nausea.
Onstage, I clung to Klaus in a way that was not entirely feigned, and actually worked very well. And his sturdiness was genuinely appealing. I hadn’t given any thought to why Helena loved Demetrius, because it seems like part of the point of this piece is that love is a potion and it’s quite arbitrary. When someone has anointed you with jus d’amour, you love whomever you see first. But tonight my careening, stubborn, determined little Helena physically needed Demetrius.
But then it was over again. Step, step, step forward. Right leg swings behind left, acknowledge the audience, curtsy. Step, step, step back, left leg swings behind right, acknowledge your partner, acknowledge the audience. A beat. The audience is still applauding warmly so step, step, step …
Back in my dressing room, I was truly lost at sea, with no horizons. Also a distinct sense that there was water coming in the boat, that there were too many holes to stop it.
Drink tonight?
Drink tonight.
You did hurt me sometimes, Gwen. You didn’t mean to, but you did. Did I ever hurt you? Why would I want to do that?
No, I think sometimes you did mean to hurt me. Sometimes you meant it.
There was a knock on my door, Klaus stepped in, all leather jacket and freshly washed blondness.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Going home to bed,” I said.
“Want some company?” he asked.
Klaus shut the door behind him. There was an awkward moment when I knew he was going to kiss me, and then he kissed me. It was soft though, so I couldn’t feel it.
“Whoosh,” said Klaus, after I pulled back. “That’s just how I imagined it would be.”
Something. Adrenaline? Klaus kissed me again, this time pulling me to him harder, holding my head with both his hands.
Lift it off, take it off me.
“Stefan and James and I are going to grab a quick drink at Luxembourg,” Klaus said. “Do you want to j
oin, or can I come to you after? Or will that be too late?”
“No, no,” I said, thinking about Gwen’s apartment and how there was a mountain of my stuff piled on her bed, and, oh god, all those masking-tape Xs. “You guys go ahead and I don’t know … maybe text me when you’re done and if …”
Klaus kissed me again, this time grabbing my ass with both hands, although I was wearing a dressing gown and the silk didn’t give him much purchase. Klaus reached inside it and grabbed my waist, but he’s had his hands on my waist nearly every day for weeks now. It occurred to me that I had felt pretty much every part of Klaus’s body except his dick. Was it going to be enough?
“I’ll text you,” he said. “Don’t fall asleep on me.”
Why not? I said to myself, over and over. Why not why not why not. It’s something to share with my invisible movie audience. Why not? Give them a little thrill, poor dears. It’s been such a dreary season.
I took a taxi, jolting carsickness made worse by the stupid TV monitor. I turned the volume off and lowered a window. “Thank you, miss,” the cabdriver said. “It’s so terrible, to listen to this all night long.”
“God,” I said. “God, yes, I would kill myself.” I laughed.
Back at Gwen’s I scooped everything off the bed and shoved it into the closet. It was like a comedy, things were falling, and I was tripping and I had one shoe off and was trying to find candles and then thinking that lighting candles was ridiculous and should I put on music, and if so, what, and wondering if I had time to wash my hair, no, hair wasn’t crucial, but I should shower, but then what should I put on after, and should it include underwear, or just a robe, and throughout all of this Klaus was texting me updates:
At Café Lux.
Finishing up.
Getting check: what’s yr address?
I combed my wet hair, brushed my teeth, found a pair of Gwen’s yoga pants and a thin T-shirt that made my boobs look good, sort of. Well, this is life, I thought. No one can say I haven’t tried. I thought about the last time I had sex, then the last time I had sex with someone that wasn’t Andrew. I poured myself a glass of wine and hastily tried to imagine having sex with Klaus, who was apparently about two blocks away from having sex with me.