Audition (3 page)

I text,
“Got a scholarship
Jersey Ballet.”

 

 

She texts back,
“Cool.”

 

 

Then,
“When?”

 

 

Then,
“Will you be gone
Before the fair?”

 

 

For the last six summers
Tina, Kari, Bess, and I
Lolled on fence posts,
Gorged on cotton candy,
Watched older girls flirt and line dance.

 

 

Promised each other that, soon, we’d be the ones
Prancing in short-short denim,
T-shirts knotted above our waists.

Promised that, when we were sixteen, we’d dare
Sneak into the tattoo artist’s trailer
To mark our friendship
In ink.

 

 

I see the penciled star
On a top September square
Of Mom’s calendar by the woodstove;
Three weeks before the weekend of the fair.
Type, “Yeah. I’ll be gone.”

 

 

It’s longer before Bess’s next reply.
“2 bad.”
Then a line
About a drummer,
Stephen,
She let get to second base.

You never pose
In baby first position.
Nor in second,
Though they teach that next.
Feet turned out but apart
Makes for an ungainly grand plié,
A few ugly jumps.

 

 

“I am going to study
At the Jersey Ballet,”
I whisper to my reflection
In the antique looking-glass
Mom hung over my bedroom dresser.
Bat my eyes
At some invisible boy.
Imagine second base
Nothing
Like second position.

 

 

When you flirt with the mirror
You pose in fifth, arms high.
Better still, arabesque.

 

 

Best of all, not posing
But spinning in a perfect pirouette.

Summer stretches its long limbs,
An unending series of parallel days.

 

 

Mom leaves for the air-conditioned bank.
Dad races to the orchard, where the peaches
Are rosy and enticing
For a tiny window of time
Before they drop from their boughs,
Helpless fodder for deer and mice,
Splendor forgotten.

 

 

I spend long hours in my room,
Reread favorite books,
Reorganize the things I will take to Jersey,
Scribble dreams into my black-and-white notebook,
Imagine the future until I am completely terrified
Or ridiculously excited
Or weary from the humid heat.

 

 

Up the road
Mrs. Allegra can always use some help
With the newest baby
In her giant, Catholic house

 

 

Where children tumble out of crevices
Like that woman in the shoe.

 

 

I can swim in their pond
Whenever I take a handful of her school-age ones along,
Lead the girls in made-up steps
Of a water ballet and
Keep the boys from swimming out too far.

 

 

In July, Ms. Alice and her husband
Visit their grown son and grandchildren in Maine.
So I plié, relevé, stretch
Alone
In the soft sand.
Try to hold on to whatever it was
Yevgeny saw in Boston.

 

 

“Hey, Sara.” Billy, the oldest,
Tosses a pinecone over my head.

 

 

We used to build sand castles on this spot
But it hasn’t been the same since that night
Just after school let out
When the moon stretched Billy’s shadow
Across the narrow beach.
I darted beneath a tree branch.

He met me around the scrub hedge,
My skin blushing in darkness,
His breath hotter than summer air.
He cocked his head, leaned in, but

 

 

He had grown taller,
Smelled like Dad’s aftershave.

 

 

Done with sophomore year of high school,
My head level with his shoulder,
The next step should have been natural
As sun ripening fruit, but,
My mind awhirl, I felt myself pull back—
Take too many steps in the wrong direction.

 

 

He straightened up, walked away
Before the glow could fade from my cheeks.
Now I watch him from the safety of fairground fence posts.

 

 

I think of Bess and the boy, Stephen.
Wonder how she let him slide his hands
Beneath her shirt.

 

 

Pick up a pinecone
But don’t throw it.

Like wet sand onto play castles,
With books and dreams of Billy Allegra
Where I am as brave
As when I wear pointe shoes.

 

 

In the evenings, Dad and I watch Mom
Make all my arrangements.
Efficient banker-mode never releases
Her hunched shoulders.
She fills out permission forms,
Piles new school supplies,
Weeds unmatched socks from my dresser drawer.

 

 

I know the suitcases I bring to Jersey
Will be packed with clothes she has chosen,
Arranged in outfits she will try to get me to wear
Even from hundreds of miles away.

Lying on blankets
In her basement bedroom.
Listening to her little sisters

 

 

Giggling in the hallway,
Listening to her parents

 

 

Begging them to settle down.
Listening to Bess’s iPod:

 

 

Jazz
Show tunes
Big bands swinging

 

 

Songs I never hear
At the ballet studio.

 

 

Bess the trumpet player,
Room painted dare-you bright blue,
Silver-striped curtains,
Giant posters of Miles Davis, Arturo Sandoval,
Taped onto the far wall.

While I,
With my pointe shoes,
Long, straight locks,
Ballet scholarship,
Feel false,
Wishing my bedroom walls shouted in sapphire,
Wishing I liked jazz
Or Frank Sinatra,

 

 

That my sound track didn’t feel
Jumbled, discordant,
Blaring from speakers outside
My heart
Or sometimes, so close
To silence.

To the sound of her mom’s voice
Calling down the stairs.
“Pancakes, girls?”

 

 

Pancakes at Bess’s house
Are studded with blackberries,
Shreds of lemon peel,
Drowning in maple syrup
Boiled down behind their barn.

 

 

I watch Bess,
Who sleeps longer,
Doesn’t crave
Her mother’s creations,
Just wonders
If she wants to call Stephen
Or if she didn’t like kissing him
All that much.

 

 

“Wanna go down?”
I whisper.

 

 

“Remember?” Bess says
As she opens her eyes, kicks herself free

Of the black-and-white quilt.
“We were gonna get tattoos
This fall at the fair.
A ballet slipper for you.”

 

 

“A music note for you.”

 

 

“Right here.” Bess giggles,
Touches a spot on her breast.

 

 

“You wouldn’t!”

 

 

“Where else?” She sits up.
“Where would you put that ballet slipper?”

 

 

Dad’s horn outside the window
Saves me from having to pretend I know
Where I’d let the bearded guy
At the fairground tattoo parlor
Drive his pen.

 

 

“Sara! Your dad’s waiting,”
Bess’s mom calls.

 

 

Bess helps me roll my sleeping bag,
Collect my brush, book, mascara.

 

 

“Good-bye!
Good luck!
Have fun!”

 

 

Takes my departure for the city
As a matter of course—
Something right as a harmonic chord—
What people like us do.
Though, all the time we traded dance and music magazines,
Talked of rehearsals, recitals,
I’d secretly thought
Bess would be the one to follow a melody
Far away from Darby Station.