by Ellen Litman
The two of them sit amidst flowerbeds, at the most central point of the campus. It’s May 24, and the play is tomorrow. But today is the school’s anniversary, the day when former students come back. They start arriving shortly after nap time, a stream of dressed-up girls, some elegant and staggeringly healthy, others stumpy or hobbling or visibly misshapen. Kat’s been to enough of these reunions to know how the conversations go. The teachers will ask them how they’re faring, and the girls will talk about their families or jobs and say that their backs often hurt and they wish they’d kept up with their therapy. Still, each one carries herself with a certain sense of boldness, and each one has a story to tell—a child or two, a marriage that’s thriving or collapsing, a flourishing career, ailing parents who need help. Even the youngest of the lot, the ones who are still in high school, seem to be living full and busy lives.
“A year from now this could be us,” Jules says.
Kat says, “I think I might be staying.” She’s been afraid to tell her, afraid of how Jules will react, though now it seems she’s heard the news already.
“I know you think it’s stupid,” she hurries to add, “but honestly, Jules, I’ll be all right. Plus I’ll have Serge to keep me company.”
“Provided he’s here next year.”
“Where else would he go?” Kat asks.
Jules stares off into the distance. “He’s going in for surgery next year. He and your dad made a deal.”
“A deal,” Kat repeats.
Jules says, “It’s simple, really. Serge agrees to surgery if Misha agrees to do the play.”
“But why—” Kat begins.
“Oh please. Don’t pretend you don’t get it. It’s exactly the sort of thing he’d do. He’s totally besotted with your family. With you, in particular. Don’t look so shocked—it couldn’t be clearer. Besides, it’s not a bad thing. Your dad might actually keep his job, and the surgery, well, you know how much Serge needs it.”
“But what about complications?” Kat’s thinking of infections, damaged nerves, the horrible months of recovery, the pain that has flattened the gaggle and sapped their very souls. And Serge? He will have no one to see him through this agony.
“Just do the goddamn play,” Jules says.
“Are you upset?”
Jules turns away, says she’s got something in her eye and that she needs a minute. The unflappable, sensible Jules, who once swore she’d never show her feelings, is wiping her face with the cuff of her sleeve. “You two,” she says. “Such idiots.”
FOR HER first scene Kat is dressed like a regular schoolgirl, in a brown dress and matching pinafore, not unlike the ones her parents purchased for her almost nine years ago. The uniforms have changed for high school girls, so this is Kat’s last chance to look like she once was supposed to. White ribbons, white knee socks, white lacy collar. Her hair in two braids.
It’s just minutes before the performance, and she is sitting out on the landing, hunched over, her head between her knees.
“Got the jitters?” Serge asks when he comes outside and finds her there.
She says she’s just feeling light-headed, that’s all.
He sits on the step above her, and she sees that he’s also nervous. He’s breathing with effort and shivering. “I shouldn’t be on stage,” he says. “I mean, look at me, Kat. I’m a freaking hunchback. I should be playing Quasimodo. Rigoletto. A court jester maybe, or someone out of Dickens, some poor deformed little chap.”
She can’t believe what he’s saying. A troubled, broken boy, a barely-scraping-by student who last year almost got expelled, he’s about to star in a new play, the play he himself has adapted from a story. How can he doubt this triumph, this almost inconceivable success?
She says, “It doesn’t matter what you look like. That’s the whole thing with acting: you can convince the audience of anything. That you’re short or tall, a child, or even a woman. I know you can do it, Serge. I’ve seen you in rehearsals. We go up there and make all those jerks shut up.”
“What if they laugh?”
“They better laugh. It’s mostly comedy.”
“I’m scared,” he tells her.
Kat says, “I know. Me too.”
She grips his hand, and that’s how they enter the assembly hall, both petrified with stage fright, yet soothed and even bolstered by the knowledge that they’re doing this out of gratitude and love, and that they are together, if only for a short time.
THE ASSEMBLY HALL is packed. All the students and teachers are there, plus some matrons, a few doctors, and other members of the staff. Misha sits in the third row, and next to him is Anechka, who has returned to the school for the first time. He is hopeful, boyish, clean-shaven, his hair neatly cut, and it’s tempting to think that not all is lost between them, that he might win her over somehow, that they might reinvent themselves, become lovers, or outlaws, or champions of the disadvantaged.
And then the lights are switched and Kat forgets about them. She steps onto the stage for her soliloquy and waits for Serge to join her there—her charge, her former nemesis, her friend. She marvels at him as they go through their paces. Her own part is paltry in comparison. Her job is simply to embody her character’s misguided hopes and flagging self-esteem, while he must totally transform himself—from a lackluster, troubled student to an undiscovered genius.
He does. And when it’s over, the play gets a standing ovation.
Professor Fabri makes his way to the stage. He presents Kat with a bunch of roses and gives her a kiss on the cheek. “Our mannequin girl,” he calls her, “if ever there was one.” His hands smell of the same good soap as they did nine years ago.
Her parents come over. Anechka says, “You were great.” And Misha hugs both Kat and Serge and says, “You’ve really taught me something, you devils.”
Jules rushes toward them calling, “Thespians!” She is happy because it’s the last day of school. The future is now. The future is theirs. Tomorrow she’s throwing a party and she says that she’ll kill them if they dare to not show up.
A handful of teachers hover around Serge, saying how good he was, how proud he’s made them. They say that they believed in his abilities. They knew that he had it in him. In this flurry of praise Serge’s face stays strangely unresponsive. He answers them in grunts and monosyllables, marking time in an ungainly way, and slinks outside at the first opportunity.
Kat means to go look for him, but the assembly hall has almost emptied and then her parents ask her to stay behind.
“You did good,” Anechka says.
“Better than good,” Misha adds. “Serge told me about theater school. Your mom and I had a chance to discuss it, and we think you should try for it, even though it might be a long shot.”
“Based on what we’ve seen today, you’ve got the potential,” says Anechka.
“Yes, and your mom can help you practice for the audition. She’s almost a professional, your mom.”
“And if you don’t get in, you’ll come to my lyceum.”
It suddenly looks so easy. They’re giving her a road map, a plan. Here it is, they seem to be saying. Here’s everything you ever wanted: our faith in you, our love. All yours for the taking. They haven’t given up on her. No, just the opposite. They want her to go out and shine. A mannequin girl, said Professor Fabri. So brilliant. So exceptional.
Except, Kat knows, it won’t happen. Because being exceptional is nothing but a trap. It makes you obsessed with your own significance, and also, it riddles you with doubt. You do harsh things when you believe yourself one of a kind. You push away those who love you and sneer at those you deem not good enough. She’s seen it up close. She’s done it herself all her life—believing that she had some sort of promise.
She’s had a chance to think about her future—she lay awake all night—and now she tells Anechka and Misha exactly what she has in mind. She’ll go to a local school, one where nobody knows her. She’ll start alone, from scratch, with nobody to
please and nobody’s path to follow. She’ll have to discover what she’s good at and what it is she likes. Math, geography, history—who knows? She’ll read a lot and study hard, and try to be a kinder person—
“But they’re so pedestrian,” Anechka blurts out, meaning the local schools around where they live.
Kat doesn’t tell her that she doesn’t mind pedestrian, that pedestrian is what she needs right now, that she herself, she knows, is only a regular schoolgirl but that doesn’t upset her in the least. She has no more wish to stand out, to be either a mannequin girl or a freak. She wants to be normal, unnoticeable, average.
She doesn’t explain this to Anechka, though—because Anechka would never understand. Instead she says, “I’ll make it work somehow.”
“I think you’re being rash,” says Anechka, still disappointed by Kat’s choice.
But Misha, who gets it, says, “No. She’s being rational.”
FROM THE window of Misha’s classroom, Kat looks at her parents. The two of them stand in the yard, having a silent conversation there, and for a while it seems like they’re okay. They might be discussing what’s for supper or who’s getting the groceries today, except they stand facing each other and there’s an awkward space between them. Now Misha is speaking and Anechka is listening, adjusting the strap of her bag. Kat wills for him to reach for her, take her hand, touch her shoulder, lean in and brush away her hair—anything that would erase that space. But he doesn’t. He keeps it. He says something else and Anechka nods in agreement, and you can see from the way she’s gathering herself that she’s about to turn away from Misha. One moment and he’s missed it, because now she’s leaving and he, in turn, sits down on the steps.
“You can’t change them,” says Serge, and Kat says no, she can’t.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll walk you out.”
“I know about the surgery,” she tells him as they stroll through the campus.
“Yeah, well, it’s just something.”
She says, “It’s going to help.”
“A grave is what cures the cripple. But sure, I’ll get to miss some school. Next year will be rotten without you or Jules or Misha.”
“Maybe Misha will stay?”
“Nope,” Serge says, “he won’t. So you better keep in touch and visit.”
For a moment it seems they are back in their play, in the farewell scene at the bus stop, and she’s afraid of what he’s going to say.
“You’re the best guy I know,” she tells him preemptively.
He says, “I get it. No sweat.” He takes her hand and looks at it, as though he might tell her fortune. “I just don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t ever lose me,” she says.
They are walking again, holding hands for the second time today. Beside the elementary school block, a group of first graders are playing. “Bride and groom,” someone is chanting, though not about them. On the last day of school everything is allowed. The girls are playing hopscotch, tag, elastics. They are restricted to the small paved square where they do morning calisthenics, the rough empty lot at the back of the block, and the short distance to the entrance gates. Not that it troubles them. Today everything is allowed—as long as they remain within these gates.
Serge stops and says, “It’s time,” and Kat lets go, reluctantly, though she knows he will stay and watch her take these final steps. “I’ll see you,” she says.
Alone she turns and walks toward the outside.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I WOULD LIKE TO THANK everyone at W. W. Norton, especially my editor, Jill Bialosky. My deepest gratitude to my agent, David McCormick, who helped every step of the way.
I am grateful to the Rona Jaffe Foundation for their recognition and generous support.
A special thank you to my colleagues in the English Department at the University of Connecticut for their support and encouragement and, most of all, to my friend and mentor, V. Penelope Pelizzon. Thank you to Darcie Dennigan. Thank you to Suzy Staubach and the UConn Co-op Bookstore.
Thank you to Thomas Yagoda and Dossier journal for publishing a short story adapted from an earlier draft of this novel.
Thank you to my wonderful writers group: Rebecca Morgan Frank, Jane Roper, Jessica Murphy Moo, and Jami Brandli. Even though we rarely see one another in person these days, you remain my most trusted readers and I am grateful for your wisdom and help.
Thank you to the Vertefeuille family, and especially to Laurie and Steve Vertefeuille and Samantha Huhn, for your friendship, love, and all the tremendous help and care. We’d be lost without you.
Thank you to my family. And most of all, thank you to my husband, Ian Fraser, for always believing in me. I am so lucky to have you in my life.
ALSO BY ELLEN LITMAN
The Last Chicken in America
Copyright © 2014 by Ellen Litman
All rights reserved
First Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or business establishments is entirely coincidental.
The play in Part II of the novel is inspired by The Last Days by Mikhail Bulgakov. The play in Part III is adapted from a short story: “The Same Old Dream…” by Dina Rubina.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Litman, Ellen.
Mannequin girl : a novel / Ellen Litman.—First Edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-393-06928-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-393-24274-4 (e-book)
1. Young women—Moscow (Russia)—Fiction. 2. Jews, Russian—Moscow (Russia)—Fiction. 3. Parent and child—Moscow (Russia)—Fiction.
4. Scoliosis in adolecen—Moscow (Russia)—Fiction 5. Successful—Fiction. 6. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.I866M36 2014
813'.6—dc23
2013041207
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