The Cranes Dance

by Meg Howrey

  Wendy shook her head.

  “No, I think she is.”

  Karine reached for a dropper on the plastic tray beside the bed. Gently, she placed it inside Wendy’s mouth, holding her cheek.

  “Ativan,” Karine said to me. “For the anxiety. There now.”

  “It’s fine,” whispered Wendy. “But. Kate?”

  “Yes?”

  “The letters? For ‘crane’?”

  I leaned over the bed. Our faces were almost touching.

  “The first one is like … is like a small-case y, and the second one is like a capital E with an accent aigu and then a small—”

  “Geranos,” Wendy said. But she didn’t sound relieved. “That’s it. Geranos. Why couldn’t I remember it?”

  “We all forget things,” I said, hating words, hating them. “It’s not important. You knew it right away.”

  “I think I might sleep for a little now.”

  “It’s all right now, Mrs. Hedges?” said Karine. “You sleep for a little and when you wake up you will see the nice flowers your friend bring you.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Wendy, very formally, shutting her eyes. “That’s very kind.”

  27.

  It was still too early to go to the theater. It was too early, and too late. I walked back to Gwen’s across the park again, but this time quickly, not looking up or around or seeing anything at all. Life is just what is physically in front of you. I walked fast, as if I might catch up to what was in front of me, run smack against it, stun myself.

  My phone was ringing as I let myself into the apartment. “Mom and Dad,” said the screen. I wanted to let it go to voicemail, but I guess some part of me thought, “Mommy.” It was the part that was still with Wendy, still holding her hand.

  “Kate, it’s me.”

  Gwen’s voice. I pressed the phone hard against my ear.

  “Kate?”

  “Yeah. I’m here.”

  “It’s me.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t think you’d answer,” she said. Nervously? There was something. “I was going to leave a message. To wish you merde for tonight. Titania. You’ll do great.”

  “Oh.” For a second it occurred to me that it wasn’t actually my sister who was talking. It was someone else, doing an impression of her, playing a trick.

  “Kate, is that you?”

  “It’s me. You don’t sound like you either.”

  “Yeah, well.” The sound of a big breath. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to call.”

  Still not really her.

  “You want me to call back? You could not answer and I could leave a message.”

  “No,” I said. “No of course not. Don’t be silly.”

  “I just didn’t want to do the big talk,” Gwen said. “You would not believe how much talking I’ve been doing. I kept thinking that you sort of knew, in some way, that it was okay or something. Also I thought I’d save talking to you until it wasn’t like, this huge thing.”

  Okay, that did sound like Gwen logic, where time erased everything and there were a thousand clean slates to be found amidst all the spoiled ones.

  “Can I ask how you are?” I really was asking this of myself. Can I ask Gwen how she is? Can I do that? But Gwen answered.

  “I’m about to go into my therapist’s office,” she said. “I’m sitting in the car with Mom. I just wanted to call and wish you merde. I wish I could be there. I miss you!”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “You want to talk to Mom?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. Bye, Kate. I love you.”

  “I—” I started, but I could hear Gwen saying something to Mom, and Mom saying something back, and the sound of a car door slamming. I felt unsteady.

  “Hi, Katie-bird,” sang my mother.

  I walked into the bedroom. The sheets were still kicked around, things on the floor, Gwen’s sweatpants in a crumple. I sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Hi Mom. How are you?”

  “Well I’m just fine and dandy, how are you?”

  Happening? Not happening? It was hard to tell. I rotated my ankle until it popped.

  “So, wow. That was Gwen.”

  “She wanted to call,” my mom said. “It was her idea. We were driving and she said, ‘I want to talk to Kate,’ and I said, ‘Well then you should.’ ”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How did she sound to you?”

  “Mom, you were right there.”

  “I know. But didn’t she sound good?”

  “It was so quick.”

  “Well, she had her therapies to go to, but it’s been on her mind. Because I know there are some questions about how she’s going to manage things once she goes back to New York, and she just needed to talk to you about that. We all want to talk to you about that.”

  “Well, that’s not my decision, though.”

  “Okay, I guess that answers my question,” Mom said, somewhat sharply.

  “What question?”

  “Your sister is doing much better,” Mom said. “Much better. But she needs to stay on this medication and keep up with all her therapies and be healthy in her choices. We just weren’t sure if she could do that all on her own.”

  “We?”

  “I think it was more of an episode that had been building up,” Mom said. “I know that’s controversial of me, and I know she needs to take some medication, but I think she had all the feelings and they all just built up and overflowed and maybe even, in some way, she was wanting there to be a big thing so she could just get it all out. I don’t know all the psychologicals, obviously. But, honestly, after listening to these doctors, I’m feeling like nobody knows what they’re talking about.”

  “Do they have a … a diagnosis, or whatever?”

  “Oh, well, obsessive-compulsive is a thing, or what they call psychotic depression, or dissociative personality, but that’s just a name, and anyway the first two medications were not right, and were way too much. I think the antianxiety medication has worked the best. But she has to take it. That’s what everyone says. She has to take it. We have to think of it like … oh, like any medication if you have some sort of medical condition.”

  “She does have a medical condition, though. Right?”

  “Nobody really understands these things very well, Kate.”

  “Does she not want to take her medication?”

  “Well, she wants to take it now. It’s apparently a problem, sometimes people just decide they are okay without their medication.”

  “So someone needs to make sure she’s taking it.”

  “She is responsible for herself,” Mom said firmly. “That’s what a lot of the work she’s doing now is about. But, yes, I know your father and I would feel a lot better knowing you were there, when Gwen goes back to New York. We just wanted to make sure that was okay with you. Because you and Gwen lived together before, but maybe you don’t want to do that anymore.”

  “Does Gwen want to come back and live with me?”

  “She doesn’t want to ask it of you, honey. But yes, I think she does. I don’t know. Maybe the timing is right, since you and Andrew are taking a break. You two could look after each other!”

  “This would be … when? When does she want to come back?”

  “We can talk the ins and outs when you come home. You’re coming home, right? When the season is over? My goodness, that’s next week!”

  “Yeah. Yes. Next week.”

  “Are you excited about dancing Titania tonight? We read the Times review online. Sounds like you and your partner stole the show!”

  “Did it?”

  “You didn’t read it? There was a whole paragraph on you and that Klaus person. Gwen said the reviewer is hard on women, so that him saying you did good is really good.”

  “Did she?”

  “She was so happy for you. We’re all happy for you! I don’t want that to get lost in all this. I know it’s been … whew!�
�

  Rage overtook me.

  “It sounds like it’s going to be okay, though!” I said, standing up. “It sounds like Gwen is really going to be just fine and it’s all going to be okay!”

  “One day at a time, still,” Mom said, her voice gratefully swinging up. “But I just want you to go out there onstage and just dance your little heart out and know that we’re all so proud of you!”

  “Oh, that’s so sweet!” I said, opening up the bedside-table drawer and yanking out the rope.

  “And I’m glad you and Gwen talked. I think that was a big hurdle!”

  “She really sounded good!” I said. “And she’s been taking class and everything?” I walked back into the living room, looking at the ceiling.

  “Yep! Well, listen, honey, I know you’ve probably got to get going.”

  “I probably should!”

  “Have a wonderful performance tonight! I know you’ll be just … wonderful!”

  “Thank you very much,” I said, formally. “That’s very kind.”

  I dragged the desk chair into the middle of the room, under the lighting fixture. It’s a nonfunctioning lighting fixture. It’s not wired. There’s a hook. Over the years, things have been threaded through that hook. Gwen and I used to hang dried flowers there sometimes. It was a place to string lights across at holiday time. Once, for a joke, I hung my bra up there. That was funny, wasn’t it, Gwen? Are you amused?

  It wasn’t so very long ago, really, that Gwen and I left the theater together and walked to the subway. We said good night at the corner, and Gwen walked down the steps to the train. I crossed the street to descend on the opposite side. I was going downtown, to the apartment of Andrew’s that I lived in. Gwen was going uptown, to this apartment that we shared and where I had abandoned her. We stood on the platforms of our sides, waiting for the trains, tracks and rails and columns between us. Gwen stood way back from the edge of the platform, as did I. Neither one of us could bear the sight of the rats scurrying across the tracks.

  Gwen looked very small, bundled up in her coat with the huge fake-fur collar. Things were not good between us. There had been too many demands, too many late-night calls, summonses to her dressing room, to the apartment, to the bathroom at work.

  “What is it?” I kept asking her. “What is it?” I was sick of her not being able to articulate her fears, only what she wanted me to do about them. I was tired of it never being enough. I was tired of everything. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to dance anymore. Or that I didn’t want to be with Andrew anymore. I just didn’t want to want anything anymore. I just wanted to disappear. Gwen’s train came first. I was looking at her, she was looking at her feet. Then the subway car blocked my view of her. I heard the doors clatter open, the bell ring. I watched the windows of the car, waiting to see her figure. She sat down by the window, turned her face to me, raised one hand, and waved, slightly.

  The train pulled away. My train came. I didn’t get on it.

  Gwen always hunched her shoulders and covered her ears when a train came into the station. She couldn’t stand the screeching noise. Even if it was a newer train, and didn’t make that horrible grinding noise, she still did it, holding her breath.

  But that night she hadn’t done it. She had just stood there, dwarfed in her coat, staring at her feet. Anna Karenina might have stood like that, just before the end.

  I ran up the stairs to the street and started walking not really sure of what I was doing. I called her cell phone. I called twice, three times, four times. It was freezing, and I had forgotten my gloves at the theater. The cold chopped up my hands like scissors. I pleaded into my phone. “Call me.” “Let me know you’re okay.” “I’m sorry.” “I’m here for you.” “I’m coming over.”

  I let myself in with my key.

  Gwen was standing on that blue chair. That blue chair right there. Under that ceiling fixture. That iron hook, right there. The rope was around her neck. Was around the iron hook.

  “Oh COME ON,” I yelled, slamming the door shut behind me. “Are you SERIOUS? Get down from there.”

  “Go away,” she said. “Get out.”

  And she moved, just slightly forward, but it pulled the rope taut and I froze.

  “Okay,” I said. “Now just stop it. This is ridiculous.”

  “You think I’m playing a game? You think I’m pretending?”

  No, not pretending. And yet. I knew she knew I would come after her. I knew she had listened to my messages. Knew I had a key. She was waiting for me.

  “I don’t think you’re pretending,” I said to her. “But please stop this. Just. Just. Take that off.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Then explain it to me,” I said.

  “You always say that but I know you don’t want to hear it.”

  “Of course I want to hear it, Gwen. You can tell me anything. I love you.”

  “You always say that too.”

  “Gwen, please take that off. Here, I’ll help you.”

  She moved again, leaning forward slightly on her toes.

  “GWEN.”

  “I’m not safe.”

  “I’m right here. I won’t let anything—”

  “Don’t TOUCH me.”

  “Okay. Okay, I won’t touch you.”

  “You think you’re better than me? You think you know everything?”

  “No, I don’t think that.” No, Gwen. Never that.

  “You don’t care about me. You won’t miss me. You’ll be glad when I’m gone.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Go away. Just let me do it. Don’t steal this too.”

  “Steal this too?”

  “You steal from me. You STEAL.”

  “What, Gwen? WHAT have I stolen from you?”

  “You watch me.”

  “You make me watch you,” I shouted, begging. “How can I NOT watch you?”

  “You take everything away from me.”

  “What,” I said, crying now. “What have I ever had, Gwen, that you didn’t have? What have I ever had that you didn’t TAKE?”

  “JUST GO AWAY.”

  “I would go away,” I shouted, “if you let me.”

  “You can’t help me,” she said, stroking the rope. “You don’t know how. You don’t know what I know. You can’t ever feel things the way I do. You are just pretending to be alive.”

  She stood there, swaying dreamily, fondling her rope. And I hated her. And I wanted her gone.

  “Oh, just DO IT,” I shouted. “Just go ahead. Do it right now.”

  “I will.”

  “DO IT then. You want me to watch? I’ll watch. Do it.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like.” She choked on her tears. “It’s not right. I know it’s not right.”

  “And when you’re finished,” I said, “I will pull your head out of that thing and I will do it too.”

  “You can’t.” She grasped the rope, possessively.

  “What, you’re going to stop me? How are you going to do that? You’ll be fucking dead.”

  I was screaming at this point, but Gwen suddenly got very calm. She reached up and pulled the noose from around her neck. She stepped down. Is that it, then, I thought. Is it over again? Again and again and again?

  “Here,” Gwen said, making the gesture for deference, indicating the vacant space on the chair.

  “You’re right,” she said. “You better go first.”

  I didn’t do it then. I could do it now.

  I thought back then that the feeling was strong in me, the desire to disappear, but I had no idea. I had no idea it could get this big, this strong.

  “Strong” is the wrong word.

  Easy. The thought of disappearing feels so … easy.

  She left it for me. She left me the rope, and the Xs, and she even left me Titania. All the things she could do and I couldn’t.

  But she couldn’t do this.

  I guess hurting yourself wasn’t enough, Gwen. It d
idn’t hurt bad enough. So you thought if I hurt myself maybe it would make it better?

  If I did it, would you be able to feel me, Gwen? Would you be able to know what it’s like to feel me? Because I sure don’t anymore.

  I left the rope coiled on the chair. For the first time since I’ve been here, I felt like I finally had something to come back to.

  I went to the theater. I went to my dressing room and did my hair, grabbing handfuls and yanking them upward. I put on half my makeup. Nina was leading a warm-up class onstage. I went down and took a position at the barre. In between combinations I practiced standing like a normal person, neither too far back nor too far forward. I should get it right at the end, I thought. I realized why Wendy wanted so badly to find the Greek word for “crane.” You want to get these things right before you go. I went back to my dressing room. Selected shoes, just right, just right. I needed eyes. I needed lips. I did the work of a mortician. Mara stopped by, to wish me merde.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “What happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look—”

  “Oh, I talked to Gwen!” I stuck a pin so hard into my scalp that tears came into my eyes.

  “Hey,” Mara said, kneeling down next to me, trying to grab my hands. “Hey, tell me. What happened?”

  “Oh, she’s GREAT.” I said, twisting away from her. “Turns out, it’s NOTHING. She’s fine. Maybe a little bipolar, but not really bipolar. She just needs to take a pill, and as long as I stick around and make sure she takes it there will be no problems at all. She’s taking CLASS.”

  “Okay, slow down,” Mara said. “Kate, what’s really going on?”

  “You know what my mom sounded like?” I said, twisting the ends of my hair into pretty swirls to pin down. “She sounded like ME. She sounded exactly like me for the last ten years, only now we’ve got a pill Gwen can take. Or not take. That maybe works. Or doesn’t. Or will for ten more minutes until she can get back here.”

  “That can’t be right,” Mara said. “Kate, listen to me. You know that Gwen needs help. I know it. Roger knows it.”

  “Roger’s been chatting away with her on the phone,” I said. “Because apparently she’s not really messed up. She has some sads and bads from time to time, some delusionals, some ickies, but that’s all of us, right? I think something is going to stab me in the eye. That’s not normal either.”