The Long Distance Playlist

by Tara Eglington

  She’s looking out towards the lupins, where the lavender and pink meet the blazing turquoise of Lake Tekapo. Her arms are raised to the sky, her right leg extended way up behind her. She’s dancing, like she always does when she’s happy.

  I’m booted out of Tekapo and back into now when the ‘low battery’ reminder pops up on the laptop screen. I turn my head to look at the power socket to the left side of my bed. The switch is off.

  I don’t want to get up because of the carefully arranged pillow-and-sheet scenario, so I stretch for it. I just manage to flip the switch, and then I sit back up. ‘Sorry, all good now.’

  Issy smiles at me, and for a second I’m so busy studying her dimple again, I don’t notice that her eyes aren’t focused on my face any more. She’s staring to the left of me. Her smile disappears.

  Left. I’m facing her, so her left is my right . . .

  I look down and I see that the sheet has slipped off my knee. I pull the sheet back over as fast as I can, but I know it’s too late. Isolde’s eyes have snapped back to my face. Her cheeks are pink, even through the heavy stage makeup. I can tell that she knows I’m studying her face because she drops her gaze and pretends to fiddle with the strap on her right shoulder.

  I don’t want to look at her any more. I don’t want to, but I can’t stop. I try to open my mouth to say something, but there’s nothing there.

  All I can think is: She’s freaked out by it.

  It. My leg. My stump.

  Me. She’s freaked out by me.

  And then things get even worse – she hangs up on me.

  Okay – she didn’t actually hang up on me – she said, ‘I better get off the phone, curtain call’s in ten minutes,’ and added something like, ‘Thanks for calling, let’s chat again soon,’ but the words were rushed, and her eyes looked . . .

  ‘Rattled’ is the only word that comes to mind.

  I managed to get out a ‘Good luck with the rest of the show’, and then immediately realised I should have said ‘break a leg’ because ‘good luck’ is bad luck in the ballet world. Normally, she would have corrected me, but she just said, ‘Thanks,’ and ended the call.

  It’s the virtual equivalent of sprinting out of the room to get away from me.

  Now I’m lying here on my bed, feeling like someone’s punched me in the guts.

  It’s the vindication that’s making me feel the sickest. After all, this is what I’ve been expecting all along. I’ve said it a million times in my sessions with Claire.

  No-one looks at me the same any more. No-one ever will.

  GIRLS never will.

  What I don’t understand is: if I was expecting this – why do I feel like I did the time that my flight from Auckland to Singapore dropped three thousand feet in two seconds, every time I visualise Isolde’s face? Like all the air inside my lungs has been expelled, all at once, and I need to take another breath because my chest is burning for it, but I can’t.

  Maybe the shock is due to me convincing myself that because of how things have always been between us – how I feel about her and how she feels about me – that when she finally saw my leg, she’d be different.

  And she wasn’t.

  I guess when it comes down to it – cynic, realist, whatever you want to call me – who wants to be right about these things?

  Isolde

  Saturday 1 December

  I shouldn’t have picked up the call. For one thing, it was intermission, and even though I knew Ms Morris was out in the auditorium chatting to throngs of parents, she’d probably be along at the five-minute mark to make sure all the dancers were ready to go as soon as the curtain drew up for the third act.

  Skyping someone backstage didn’t scream committed, did it?

  The last few weeks, ever since Ms Morris had that concerned conversation with me, I haven’t let anything distract me. I’ve gritted my teeth and squashed Aidan and Steff right down to the basics – two dancers I happen to be sharing a stage with. I won’t let either of them have the satisfaction of thinking they’re able to throw me off.

  Think about opening night, I kept telling myself. The performance.

  I can’t explain the way I feel whenever I take those first few steps onto the stage. The heat of the lights on my face, the absolute quiet outside of the swell of the music, the way my heart seems to fill to bursting point.

  Dancing goes beyond steps – beyond right or wrong – to something else. It’s an expression without words, as if I’m casting some raw part of my spirit out beyond the stage, sharing it with whoever is watching. From that moment, until I return to the wings, the audience has every bit of me.

  After the last few months, where everything’s felt off – to be able to feel that way again has me euphoric by the end of the second act. So when my phone lights up at intermission with Taylor’s call, I pick up. Even if it’s just a few minutes, I want to share what I’m feeling with my favourite person. What we’re talking about – lupins and me and Tekapo – has me smiling like crazy.

  And then I see her.

  Well, her photograph.

  And then everything I felt last year comes rushing back at me.

  The worst thing is that Taylor has this funny look on his face, like I’ve seen something I shouldn’t have. That pushes me over from uneasy to something I can’t handle.

  Even though I feel rude doing it, I rush off the phone.

  After I hang up and put my phone back down on the dressing table, I close my eyes for a second.

  Hold it together, Isolde. You’ve had a great first and second act. Don’t let the third go out the window.

  Dance is what matters.

  So a few minutes later, when the curtain goes up, I pretend the grand sweep of velvet is wiping my mind clear. When the curtain falls again later in the night, and all the dancers rush towards the applause, I’m smiling. I know I’ve given the performance all I’ve got. The best of me as a dancer. After all the stupid mistakes of the last few months, the way that the breakup with Aidan unsettled me and my dancing, it’s a huge relief.

  Normally on a show night, I fall asleep fast. My body’s always lighter, as if I’ve shed layers on stage.

  Tonight’s different.

  I keep thinking about Taylor.

  Instant Messenger Conversation

  Sunday 2 December, 12:54am Sydney time, 2:54am Queenstown time

  Isolde Byrne: Are you awake?

  Taylor

  Sunday 2 December

  It’s 2:54pm when my phone pings.

  For a second, I don’t want to reply to her. I feel hurt and rejected, and I want her to feel the same way.

  And then comes:

  I’m sorry if I seemed weird on the phone earlier. I don’t know how to say this . . .

  I want to type back, ‘Just spill it, Isolde. Seriously.’

  When we were talking . . .

  Looking at ‘Isolde is typing’ is doing my head in. Part of me wants to turn my phone facedown on the bed so I can’t see the pulsing glow that tells me I have a message.

  I shouldn’t have been looking, but . . . I’m just going to spit this out. I saw Natalia’s photograph by your wardrobe, and I was thrown. Okay, I was . . . upset. Ugh, this is so embarrassing.

  I stare at the last few lines of her message.

  Well, now I feel like a total jerk.

  Natalia’s picture. That’s what she’d been staring at.

  Before I can second-guess myself, I pick up the phone and call her. I don’t video-call because it’s the middle of the night and I don’t want to risk switching on my bedroom light and waking my parents.

  She answers on the first ring.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Sorry about before,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know what to say when I saw the picture. So I kind of . . . politely hung up on you. And of course, three hours later my brain is spilling over with all the things I should have said. Typical Isolde, right? You know me.’

  ‘
I do,’ I say, and I feel even worse because I do know her, and I’d been way off base.

  ‘I guess I always wished . . .’ Her voice is so serious.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is going to sound dumb.’

  ‘Saying something dumb doesn’t mean you’re dumb. Spit it out, Is.’

  ‘I always wished . . . you hadn’t fallen in love with her.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say drily, and we both start laughing like crazy.

  ‘What I mean is,’ Issy continues a few moments later after our laughter has died down, ‘you know how I feel about her.’

  ‘You’ve never been subtle about it.’

  ‘So, to see her photo in your room tonight and wonder if you had feelings for her after all this time . . . I just . . . felt furious at her all over again. And kind of furious at you as well, even though I know that’s stupid.’ Issy lets out an annoyed sound. ‘I guess I want you to be over her because . . .’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because ever since the breakup, all anyone seems to tell me is “time heals all wounds”. But what if that’s just one of those clichéd things people say, like, “there’s plenty more fish in the sea”. Well, what if there isn’t? What if you just continue to feel like crap for years because of ONE stupid fish? So seeing her picture in your room karate-kicked that bit of faith that had started to build up in my chest over the last month that maybe time does help—’

  ‘Issy, just so we’re clear,’ I interrupt, worried she’s never going to take a breath and let me get a word in. ‘Natalia’s picture was in the corner next to the big box because that box is full of crap I’m getting rid of. She’s literally going out on the kerb tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Good.’

  And we both start laughing again.

  We don’t talk about Natalia for long.

  What is it about talking in the darkness that makes you feel like you can say anything? That the secrets you’ve been holding on to, the ones you’d never let slip in the light of day, can be handed over in the quiet safety of 3am whispers?

  I tell her what I thought she’d seen tonight.

  ‘I didn’t see your leg at all.’

  ‘I have a bit of a . . . thing . . . I guess, about it.’

  ‘I get that. Wait, no, that’s a really stupid thing for me to say, it’s an insult to everything you’ve been through. What I mean is, sharing some part of yourself with someone else – in any way – doesn’t come with guarantees. The world isn’t always what we want it to be, and neither are the people we love sometimes.’

  I go quiet. She’s quiet too for a few moments.

  ‘Tay?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘That wasn’t . . . brutal . . . or depressing . . . was it?’

  ‘No, it was real,’ I say. ‘Thank you for being real.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to think that I’m saying people reacting in a bad way is a given.’ She lets out a huge breath. ‘I’d hate myself if I made you think that.’

  ‘I know you’re not saying that,’ I reply. ‘You’re saying that I can’t predict what they’ll do, or say, or think. And that’s the truth. I hate when people say, “Don’t stress about going out. No-one’s going to look at you funny.” That’s a lie. I mean, let’s face it, not every experience of meeting someone new is going to be good.’

  I tell her about the party and Nathan and his hand on my leg.

  ‘I’d always been scared I wouldn’t be able to handle something like that. But I did. I guess you know one of my biggest fears now.’

  ‘Liability, right?’ she teases.

  ‘Can I trust you?’ I’m part-joke, part-serious.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re a safe bet – given how well you hide your own secrets.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ Her words sound curved at the edges, like a smile.

  ‘So, what’s your biggest fear?’ I ask. ‘The last time we did this, lying out on my trampoline, you were seven and it was spiders. I’m betting it’s changed since then.’

  I can just hear her soft breath over the phone.

  ‘I guess I’m scared that deep down, my parents don’t love each other any more. No . . . not that . . . I’m actually scared that they don’t like each other any more, which is worse.’

  Isolde

  Sunday 2 December

  He listens as I tell him how it’s like something else moved into our house this year. Something different to annoyance or irritation, which has always lived side by side with us. It’s bigger, with a huge shadow, one that makes everything cold. You can’t brush it away, or forget that it’s there. It’s over the whole house. There are only slips of warmth in a few tiny places and not where you used to find them.

  He listens, and he doesn’t tell me I’m being silly, or not to worry any more, or to stop listening in on Mum and Dad’s fights. He tells me he used to hover outside his parents’ door, back when his dad was first diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Because he was worried they’d try to hide stuff from him, like how far the cancer had spread. How if his dad was dying, he wanted to know.

  We’d never talked much before about those years his dad was sick. It had always been off limits. I’d ask of course, say, How are things right now, and he’d always say, We’re keeping on keeping on, which was what Maia would say to Mum when they skyped.

  He says people always used to tell him not to think the worst. He had to be positive as his dad started chemo and his hair fell out, as he’d crawl across the bathroom tiles to vomit in the toilet because he was too weak to walk sometimes. Be positive when blood would stream from his dad’s nose and the first round of chemo didn’t work, nor the second, nor the third. Be positive when some of the tumours were still there, growing just as fast.

  Tay tells me fifteen months in, he gave up thinking there was any type of God or ‘reason for things’ and he believed that even more now, especially since his accident. But he doesn’t want to talk about the accident tonight, just his dad. That these last few months, as the second anniversary of his dad’s remission date rolls closer, this is the first time he’s allowed himself to hope.

  There’s this moment where his voice trembles and I wonder if he’s crying, but I don’t ask because there’s a huge lump in my throat and words can’t slip around it.

  Then he changes the subject and asks me about the show.

  I tell him about the last few weeks. About the talk with Ms Morris, which had made me feel embarrassed.

  I tell him about how I felt on stage tonight and that I don’t understand why it’s not like that all the time. That I don’t understand how I can feel confident performing and then wind up second-guessing myself through all my classes.

  I tell him I’m scared I’m not talented enough. That I don’t have it in me. That everyone can see that I don’t have it in me.

  I don’t tell him I’m scared ballet doesn’t make me happy any more because I don’t think I can admit that out loud yet.

  Maybe I’ll tell him one day.

  Taylor

  Sunday 2 December

  I don’t tell her about step fifteen. I don’t say that I’m worried I won’t ever have the courage for that – that maybe I’ll just avoid ever having a relationship, just so I don’t have to risk it.

  I feel like I could tell her, I just can’t right now.

  Someday.

  Isolde

  Sunday 2 December

  I fall asleep with my face against my phone. We don’t say goodbye, we just drift off separately. I don’t know at what point in the night Tay realises he’s still on the line and hits the ‘end call’ button, but I like it better that way.

  He knows me well enough to know I hate goodbyes.

  Skype Conversation

  Saturday 8 December, 9:30pm Sydney time, 11:30pm Queenstown time

  Isolde Byrne: Do you ever miss her?

  Taylor Hellemann: Oh. Not really. Not HER anyway. It’s more that I miss th
at, every so often, I guess.

  Isolde Byrne: That?

  Taylor Hellemann: Kissing. Closeness. The love stuff. Do you still miss Aidan?

  Isolde Byrne: No, because I hate him.

  Taylor Hellemann: You know the opposite of love isn’t hate, right? It’s indifference. Or in less fancy-pants terms, it’s ‘meh’, as in you see your ex, or think about them, and you just kind of shrug, like, OH YEAH, THAT GUY and then get on with whatever else you were doing or thinking.

  Isolde Byrne: Can’t you just say that me hating him is healthy?

  Taylor Hellemann: No, because I want you to get over him properly.

  Isolde Byrne: I WANT to get over him. In fact, I want it to happen faster. Everyone always says it takes half the time you were with someone to get over them, and by that rule, I should have been a hundred per cent over Aidan a MONTH ago.

  Taylor Hellemann: Stuff what everyone says. I was with Natalia eight months and I reckon it took me another eight months to get over her.

  Isolde Byrne: I’m doing better – I’m not crying any more, and I’m not staring at pictures or unable to sleep.

  Taylor Hellemann: All great signs.

  Isolde Byrne: I don’t want to be with him any more. Now that I know what kind of person he is, the idea is just gross. But little things trip me up sometimes. Like that stupid song. Okay, if I’m being honest, it’s not stupid – it’s beautiful and SAD, and every time I hear it, I think, I’m getting nowhere with this moving-on thing.

  Taylor Hellemann: Song?

  Isolde Byrne: T. Swift.

  Taylor Hellemann: ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’?

  Isolde Byrne: No. ‘All Too Well’, you know, the one that everyone says is about her and Jake Gyllenhaal. It still kills me inside, every single time I hear it, because I’m worried that I’ll be that person, the one that keeps the scarf in the drawer forever.

  Taylor Hellemann: Oh far out.

  Isolde Byrne: What??!!

  Taylor Hellemann: That song is a heart-wringer. It kills anyone who listens to it, post-breakup or not. We need to set you a new over-him marker.