Audition (33 page)

 

 

In only my tank top and underpants
I point my toe,
Reach my leg back,
Move to his words.

 

 

As always,
Remington’s ideas for dancing
Burn into my heart.

 

 

I am tired of making dances in this room
Only to see them performed by Lisette.
Only to watch him tell others about his successes before me.

 

 

But I cannot stop moving.

Of Professor O’Malley’s office.

 

 

In my hand two short pages:
The story of a skeleton ballerina in a waiting room
Reading a book about a mythical, bosomy woman
And the man who cannot resist her
And the dance she dances
To try to be that girl.

 

 

My right hand will not knock on the wooden panel,
Will not try the brass knob.
My left hand clenches,
Wrinkling the sheets where dreams of ink
Are nearly as terrifying
As Yevgeny’s eyes
When I arrive late to dance class.

 

 

Professor O’Malley is short.
A flap of gut bulges beneath his sweater.
His hands are small, ink-stained, lined.
But he lets me write my own dances.

At the Medranos’.
Señora cooks wildly,
Gestures at Julio and me
With flour-white fingers,
Speaking rapid-fire Spanish
Peppered with the occasional English phrase.

 

 

We sit at the kitchen table
Rolling hard-looking cookies in powdered sugar.

 

 

Julio smirks,
Flicks sugar at my face.
“You gonna eat any of these pebbles?”

 

 

“Don’t!” I flick some sugar back,
Try not to meet Señora’s eyes,
Which is easy, given her cooking frenzy.

 

 

“Papa will make the flan,
So that will taste okay.”
He is wry, philosophical.

 

 

“Shouldn’t you be practicing guitar
Before it gets too late?”

I give Señora my good-girl smile,
Stick my tongue out at Julio.

 

 

His eyes turn from silly to serious.
I think he knows what happens before
I come back home from Remington’s
And I do not like to think
Of Julio
Imagining those things.

 

 

I shut my eyes.
Erase my smile.
Remind myself that Julio and I
Are both prisoners.
His chains are made of guitar strings
Held fast by his parents’ desires
While I sometimes rail against bars of pink satin and mirrors,
Though I’ve half forgotten
Who wants this life I lead
Or who even really chose it to begin with.

When I learned there was no Easter Bunny,
No Santa Claus.
Confronting my father in the front hall
Before we left for ballet class.

 

 

My informant was a first-grade friend, Jessica,
Whose parents were free-spirited, practical folks.
One April morning, Jess, quite matter-of-factly,
Pronounced the Easter Bunny a myth
“And the rest of that stuff, too.”

 

 

Dad looked woebegone at my certainty
As if he had not expected me
To ever be wise,
To connect
The bags of bright-colored candy in the supermarket
With the same stuff in my big pink basket
Filled with grass as fake
As all it stood for.

 

 

Still, I almost cry
At the sight of my old Easter basket.

 

 

Señor and Señora
Clap with delight at my surprise.
Mom and Dad shipped the basket
Filled with treats and presents
Down to Jersey,
Where the Medranos kept it hidden
Until Easter morning.

 

 

Not until now
Do I regret
Missing Dad’s egg hunt in the orchard,
Nannie’s suntanned arms
Enveloping me in wafts of Shalimar and Avon skin cream,
Mom’s worried musings
On if it was time to pour the glaze over the ham
Or whether the meat was still cold in the middle.

 

 

“What’s this?”
Julio picks up a small white box
Labeled NORTHERN LIGHTS SWEETS.

 

 

“Dark chocolate caramels.
Want one?”
I hold them out,
Though I don’t want to share.

There is a pair of gold earrings
Shaped like ballet slippers,
A book of poetry,
Jelly beans, licorice vines,
And those candy dots that come on rolls of white paper.

 

 

Presents fit for a girl of sixteen—or six.

 

 

Jessica’s words waft over me.
“A myth . . . a myth . . . a myth ...”

 

 

I am six years old again,
Standing dumbstruck before her
By the playground swings.

This Saturday.
I pretend it is not because Lisette and Bonnie
Are auditioning in New York.

 

 

Try to put my heels gingerly on the floor,
Warm up slowly,
Feel my hips popping in and out
Of where they are supposed to be.

 

 

Yevgeny pauses beside me,
Concerned.

 

 

“Maybe you should get some physical therapy,”
He suggests.

 

 

From Jane?

 

 

I am good at being quiet
So I do not laugh
Out loud.

Into the little studio.

 

 

“Can you help us out, Sara?”
His voice is casual.
Yevgeny stands by the stereo in the corner,
Cueing up music.
“You know a little about this dance.”

 

 

I drop my bag by the door,
Barely able to nod,
Feel like I am passing through
A mythical gateway,
Entering a chapel.

 

 

“I want to work on a bit of pas de deux.”

 

 

He leads me through steps
I pretend I have not committed
To heart. Takes my hands,
Passing them over and under his own
In the complicated pattern
We composed beside his bed.

Yevgeny watches, nods,
Makes the occasional suggestion
About helping me balance,
Smoothing Rem’s steps.

 

 

In an hour, it is done.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead,
Which can barely contain its visions
Of our passing hands illuminated by stage lights.
Run to take a sip from the water fountain in the hall.

 

 

“Lisette said she can come for a late rehearsal
Tomorrow
When she gets back from New York,”
I hear Rem say to Yevgeny
As I come back through the door

 

 

To realize I am just Coppélia, a doll,
A substitute for Lisette’s great talent.

 

 

As if what Remington does with me
Could ever be real, in his real world,
The way it is for me.

It turns out the stories of Greek mythology,
The most ancient epics that came before
Nory Ryan’s Song
The Jungle
Great Expectations

 

 

The tales of muses, sirens,
Easter rabbits, Santa Claus,
Are all true.
And, most of all,
I am

 

 

A myth, a myth, a myth.

Rifling through shelves
Of college guides, catalogs.

 

 

It seems like there are thousands.
My adviser said to look
For universities with dance programs.

 

 

I pull the Swarthmore brochure
From the section labeled ARTS.
Turn the pages, as if they could explain
How a school can grow dancers
On a green, leafy campus,
Inside grandiose buildings
Adorned with NO SMOKING signs.