Falling Over Sideways

by Jordan Sonnenblick

  When we got our schedules by email the week before classes began, everything became a nightmare. Katherine had moved up to Alanna’s level in all the classes we both took, but I hadn’t. Now they were together, and I was left behind.

  How was I going to get through the year without my two best friends, especially when they were together for everything? I had signed up for eight classes: tap, rhythm tap, ballet, pointe, lyrical, jazz, modern, and contemporary. The only two dances in which I had moved way up to the high school level were tap and rhythm tap, and Katherine and Alanna didn’t take those. And I hadn’t gotten pointe class in my schedule at all. Apparently, someone must have thought I wasn’t ready to go on pointe, which is basically the biggest moment in a dancer’s life. A dance confirmation. Dance bat mitzvah. Sweet dance-teen. Quince-dance-nera.

  This was like some cosmic joke, and I didn’t like being the punch line.

  I could see it in my head already: Katherine and Alanna would start hanging out full-time with the serious, competition dance girls, the ones who were homeschooled so they could take twenty hours of dance a week. Meanwhile, I would be stuck dancing with kids younger than I was, getting worse instead of better.

  Two days before classes started, I called an emergency meeting on my back porch to discuss this tragedy over pizza. Katherine and Alanna were both too nice to admit this would affect our friendship, of course. They swore we would be best friends forever, that we would all be in the same classes again in a year or two anyway, that we could still hang out in our free time. It was even possible that Katherine might have worked up a tiny, semi-real tear in one eye when we hugged each other after finding out about this stuff. But I wanted to scream, Give me a break! You’re going to have a million in-jokes I don’t get, your gossip won’t mean anything to me, and you won’t care about my little-girl stories when you’re up in the high school world.

  Plus, what the heck had the extra classes and lessons been for? I had wasted my summer in a blazing-hot, non-air-conditioned sweat lodge of a studio, busting my butt to prove myself worthy to the exalted Miss Nina. I had stretched when she’d told me to stretch, and planked when she’d told me to plank. I had spent half of July and August squatting in front of a wall, strengthening my core muscles.

  I was a strong, stretchy, well-cooked failure.

  That first night of class, which fell on a Friday, was the most humiliating thing ever. The higher-level pointe class started fifteen minutes before my ballet class, and my mom had to drop me off early because she had some kind of back-to-school meeting to attend. So there I was, making small talk with all these girls I used to be in class with when we were little, and probably half of them thought I’d be going into their studio with them. Katherine and Alanna wanted to know how Roshni and I were doing at school—because they both go to a different middle school across town from mine—and I made them laugh by recounting some of the horrors of Mrs. Selinsky.

  I was jumping up onto a chair and shrieking, “Be like Meredith!” when Miss Nina stepped out into the hallway and gestured for the older girls to come in.

  It couldn’t have been more awkward if I’d been shouting, “Go on without me!” and wearing a dunce cap.

  The awkward, immature fifth-through-seventh-grade girls who made up the majority of my new dance class group started wandering into the waiting room. I know it was unkind, but of course I was sitting there thinking, I’m better than you, I’m better than you, I’m better than you …

  Even my teacher, Miss Dana, must have thought so, because when she saw me in the room, she asked, “Claire, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in my Tuesday Advanced Two class with Alanna and Katherine?”

  It was amazing. We were standing in front of the full-length mirror at the ballet barre, so I could see a blush spread across my entire head and shoulders in the course of maybe half a second. I managed to choke out, “I don’t know. This is where Miss Nina put me, so here I am.” It might have come out a little bit snarky, but I wasn’t trying to be. Mostly, I was trying to keep my voice from cracking.

  Miss Dana told us to start stretching, and then she said, “I’m going to see about this. It just can’t be right.”

  I did a bunch of calf stretches and lower-back work while trying to ignore the glances I was getting from half of the other girls in the room. Depending on whether they knew how old I was, I was sure they were thinking either Who does she think she is? Why should she get to move up? or What did she do wrong to get stuck in such a low group?

  When Miss Dana came back in, she took me aside, put one arm around me, and said, “I’m sorry, Claire. You are supposed to be here. I guess we’ll just have to make the most of it. I mean … you’ll just have to make the most of it. I’m glad to have you. Again. I mean … uh, we’d better get started.”

  The thing about being thirteen is that every time you think life just couldn’t possibly get more awkward, it proves you wrong. The awkward just keeps on coming. During the class break, I was doing my Algebra II homework while three of the other girls were huddled together working on long-division problems. Long division! I wanted to die. I was just waiting for them to break out some Dora the Explorer juice boxes and animal crackers so we could have a serious class party.

  Katherine and Alanna were out at the soda machine right when I came out of a class. We said hello and everything, but I could hardly look them in the eye.

  When the night ended, a few of the little fifth graders said good-bye to me in their chirpy little voices, and Miss Dana gave me a sympathetic look. I hung my head and slunk to my mother’s car in shame. Mom asked me how class had gone, and I just buried my face in my arms against the window.

  Dance had always been the one place I looked forward to going. I loved visiting the dance store and picking out my new supplies for the year. I loved the ritual of putting on my ballet slippers, my tap shoes, my foot undies (don’t ask). But now it was just one more hellish gauntlet to walk through.

  So when I walked into my house and my father said, “Hi, honey! How was dance?” I might have been a tad snappish with him.

  “How was dance?” I spat. “I’ll tell you how dance was! Katherine and Alanna spent the night with all the advanced girls, doing millions of fouettés across the floor and learning the secrets of high school, while I hung out with a bunch of prepubescent, four-foot-tall babies and learned how to do a freaking leap for the millionth time. I don’t know why I bother showing up at that stupid place. I don’t know why I bother doing anything! I am a gigantic, failing loser. You should see me in there. When I lined up at the barre with these girls, I looked like the mother duck leading her little duckies. You should probably just kill me now.”

  “So you’re saying it wasn’t that great, then?”

  See, that was the thing about my father. He always joked at the worst times. When I was little, I thought it was really funny, but starting in about seventh grade, it just embarrassed me and made me mad. And then, when he saw me getting upset, he would joke more, because that was his standard thing to do when I was upset. It was a vicious cycle.

  “Dad! I’m serious! I threw away my entire summer trying to impress Miss Nina, and obviously the only impression I made was that I am the worst dancer in the world. She probably would have put me in the toddler group except I’m already potty trained.”

  “See, it could have been worse. At least she took that for granted.”

  “I quit. I am not talking about this with you. You don’t understand what it’s like to struggle. Every story you ever tell about your childhood is about how you got the best grades without trying, or how you were the best drummer in the school. Well, I have to work really, really hard, Dad—and it still doesn’t do any good!”

  “Honey, I’ve struggled.”

  “Well, maybe you need to struggle some more!”

  And that’s how I ended my last normal conversation with my father.

  If I had known I was dressing for the worst day of my life, I would pro
bably have chosen black socks or something. Or at least avoided the T-shirt with the panda on it. As it was, on Saturday, September 10, I woke up in a great mood because there was no school. Then I practically skipped down to breakfast, looking all cute and girly, my hair in braids. Usually on Saturdays I was the first one to come downstairs, but my mother and brother were already out.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked my father, who was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea and reading the newspaper. I remember noticing that he was using the SUPER DAD mug I had bought him for Hanukkah one year.

  “Oh, you missed all the fun,” he said. “Mom thinks your brother needs extra practice for his driver’s test next month, so she woke him up at eight. We had eggs, bacon, a battle of wills—good times! I think there’s some leftover bacon if you want to microwave it. Or, you know, eggs.”

  I made a face at him. My father knew I hated eggs with a burning passion that defied all mortal understanding, so he offered them to me at every possible opportunity. It didn’t even have to do with the fact that I had been angry at him the night before—he just loved to torment me with eggs.

  “I think I’m just going to make some hagelslag on toast.” Hagelslag is basically chocolate sprinkles, but it’s special imported chocolate sprinkles from Holland. My father once brought a couple of boxes home from a book tour when I was little, and ever since then, hagelslag with peanut butter on toast has been my preferred Saturday breakfast. And yes, I am aware that it is essentially just dessert.

  Don’t judge.

  So I made my toast, Dad read, and we sat together and chatted about nothing, but also sort of ignored each other. It was just like a million other mornings. At some point, I got a text from Alanna, so I grabbed my phone, which led to me checking out what was happening on various social media sites.

  I wasted my last twenty good minutes with my father, screwing around on the Internet.

  Then, all of a sudden, the table lurched and banged into my ribs. I pulled away and shouted, “Ow! What the—”

  Dad was standing up, leaning to his right. His mouth looked wrong, like it was melting on one side. “M-m-my tumble cat!” he said.

  “What are you talking about, Dad?” My heart started thumping that scary thump in my chest, the kind where you feel like it’s stopping between every two beats. The hair stood up on the backs of my hands, and our sunny kitchen suddenly felt cold to me.

  He stared at me as if he was trying to send me a secret message with his eyes, and barked, “Muffin bat!” Then he sat down very hard, like someone had just swept his legs out from under him. He was still tilted strangely to the right, and I was afraid he would fall off his chair.

  I didn’t know what to do. I had taken Red Cross babysitter training classes, but somehow none of the simulation activities had featured a grown man falling down while shouting, “Muffin bat!”

  It occurred to me that I was holding my cell phone. I dialed my mother’s number, but got her voice mail. This was awful, because my father had complained for years that my mom never answered her phone. I had probably heard this speech from him a thousand times. “One day I’ll be dying on the floor, Nicole. I will crawl on the floor … slowly, in great agony … to the phone. With my last, fading bit of strength, I will dial your number. And then I will gasp my last words after the beep.”

  Last words.

  Holy cow. What was I doing? I had to dial 9-1-1!

  It took me three tries, because my hands were shaking. When I got through, a calm, almost cheerful-sounding lady answered. “Hello, Lehigh Valley Emergency Center. Where is your emergency?”

  I felt like I couldn’t think. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “It’s my dad! He can’t—he’s not making any sense. And his face isn’t—”

  “Miss, where is your emergency? I need to know in case we get disconnected.”

  “Eighteen Galloway Avenue, Bethlehem.”

  “Fluffin! Tat!” my father said.

  “What is the number you are calling from?”

  “Don’t you have caller ID? I think my father is dying or something! Just come! Please!”

  “Miss, we have to get all this information before we can send the help you need. Now, what is the—”

  So I shouted my number at her.

  “And what is the emergency?”

  “Pumpkin over!” Dad chimed in. I noticed he had started to drool down the front of his shirt.

  I was like, My toaster is broken, you dolt! What do you think the emergency is? Or were you not listening to the whole “dying father” part? But I forced myself to stay calm and said, “My dad. We were eating breakfast, and he stood up, and all of a sudden, his face got weird-looking, and he keeps saying things that don’t make any sense! Now, please come!”

  “What is your name?”

  “Claire Goldsmith.”

  “And you’re a female?”

  My mouth said, “Yes,” while my brain screamed, OH MY GOD! Just shut up and send an ambulance!

  “How old are you, Claire?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “And you’re the only person in the home right now, aside from the patient?”

  “Yes.”

  “Muffin! Muffin! Mup!” Dad’s eyes were wild now. He swung his left arm across the table in front of him, which knocked over his mug and sent tea flying everywhere. The mug shattered.

  I shivered.

  “Is your father conscious?”

  “Well, his eyes are open, but he isn’t making any sense. And his face isn’t working right. Actually, one whole side of him isn’t.”

  “Is he breathing normally?”

  “I think so.”

  “Claire, I’m going to put you on hold for one moment while I dispatch an ambulance to your location. Then I am going to come back on the line and ask you some more questions. In the meantime, please try to keep your father calm and still.”

  I walked around the table to my dad’s droopy right side and sat next to him.

  “Daddy, I’m here,” I said. My voice sounded shaky and weak. I hated it. He didn’t turn toward me.

  “Stuffing?” he asked, sounding sad. Then he turned as far away from me as he could and repeated it. Then I realized: He couldn’t turn his head in my direction.

  I scurried around behind him so that my face was next to his left side and we were eye to eye. Next, I placed a hand on his left arm and said, “I’m here, and an ambulance is coming. I won’t leave you. I promise.”

  “Puppet!” he exclaimed. He looked a bit less frantic, so I knelt there, patting his arm and talking quietly. He had once found a stray puppy when he was out jogging, and brought it home with him. I remembered that the puppy was panting and darting all over the place, like it was panicking, so I gathered it into my arms and whispered to it until it fell asleep.

  This was a lot like that.

  The phone person came back on the line. “Claire, when exactly did this start?”

  I looked at the clock on the wall. “It must have been about two minutes before I called you. Wait … I can tell you exactly.” I clicked back through my phone’s call log and saw exactly when I had called my mother. “Nine minutes ago.”

  “Does your father have sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm, or leg?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he showing sudden confusion, trouble speaking, slurring of words, or trouble understanding?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  “Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes?”

  “I’m not sure. But when I went on one side of him, it was like he couldn’t find me.”

  “Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination?”

  “I think so. He sort of stood up and then tilted to one side.”

  “Sudden severe headache?”

  “I don’t think so. He doesn’t really look like it hurts.” Thank God, I thought.

  “Has your father ever had a stroke?”

  “A stroke?”

  “A
blood clot or a burst blood vessel in his head?”

  My heart skipped. A stroke—of course that was what this was. I had seen enough stroke victims in movies and stuff that I should have put it together. But they were always old people. My dad was only forty-five. That was old, but it wasn’t, like, grandparent old. It wasn’t stroke old.

  “No.”

  “Has he had any recent injury or trauma?”

  “No.”

  “Does he have a history of diabetes?”

  “No.”

  “Any other medical or surgical history?”

  “Um, he gets migraines sometimes. And my mom is always telling him not to eat stuff because he has high cholesterol. And he had sinus surgery last year.”

  “Does he take daily medications for the migraines or the high cholesterol?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, here’s what I need you to do. The ambulance is about two minutes away. Can you gather all of your father’s medications and put them in a bag? Then I will need you to open the front door of your house. Are you in a house or an apartment?”

  “House.”

  “Good. Now, get those meds and open the door. I’ll hold.”

  I ran to our front door and unlocked it. Then I grabbed a plastic bag from under our kitchen sink and swept all of my father’s prescription bottles from the counter into the bag.

  “Okay,” I said. “I did everything you told me.”

  “You’re doing a great job, honey,” the lady on the phone said.

  “Butter butt,” my father said.

  In the distance, I heard a siren.

  A minute later, a big, heavy guy my father’s age and a short, sweet-looking lady who didn’t look much older than Matthew came up to our front door, wheeling a stretcher. “He’s in here,” I shouted from the dining room, where I had been patting my dad’s back and whispering.