Falling Over Sideways

by Jordan Sonnenblick

I could practically hear her crying through the phone. I looked up from the screen, and found my whole table staring at me.

  “Well?” Roshni said. “Are you okay? Is everything all right? Because I know pneumonia can be a disaster. And my mother said a lot of the common antibiotics aren’t working anymore because of resistant bacteria. Not that your father’s pneumonia is necessarily a disaster. And he might not have a resistant infection. He could be just fine. I mean, forget I said anything. Just go ahead with your story.”

  I swear, I love the girl, but I might have to start carrying around a roll of duct tape so I can slap a strip across her mouth when she gets nervous and starts babbling.

  “He’s fine,” I said. “At least, I think he is. In fact, he just started talking in sentences for the first time since September.”

  “Maybe he could take some of your extra sentences, Roshni,” Regina said. “Then you could talk a normal amount, and everybody would be happy.”

  That Regina really knows how to sweeten a moment, doesn’t she?

  You can’t imagine what that night was like. Dad was still kind of sick, and very weak. Still, his color was better, he wasn’t sweating all over the place, and his fever had broken, so those were all great signs, apparently. Mom told me that the oxygen tube clipped to his nose had been turned down so that it was pumping only something like half as much per minute as he had needed the day before, and his feeding tube was gone.

  But of course, the biggest deal was the talking. When I first walked into the room, I was almost afraid to say anything, because it seemed too good to be true. I kind of tiptoed in, and then edged my way along the wall until I was next to my mom. She squeezed my hand and smiled at me.

  Then Dad looked up at me, and both of his eyes were completely locked in on mine. I can’t really explain it, but I felt like he was really there again. “Claire,” he said.

  I went to him, put my head on his chest, and cried like a baby.

  “Oh, my Claire. You … saved … me.”

  Two days after that, Dad came home. He had gained three pounds in the hospital, which was apparently an exciting development. We had strict orders to keep filling him up with food, and to follow a new exercise plan that came complete with weights and workout equipment in our basement.

  Unfortunately, his good mood didn’t survive the short journey across town.

  He didn’t want to eat. He didn’t want to exercise. He didn’t want to work with his therapists (although at least I continued to miss most of that action because it happened while I was at school). All he kept saying over and over was “Let me sleep.”

  Mom said that maybe he had been wanting to say it for months, and now he needed to get it all out before he could get back to being his old self. That was typical Mom: “Look on the bright side! He’s saying completely miserable stuff over and over, but at least he’s talking!”

  Matthew just muttered curses and left the room whenever the complaining started. Matthew had always been Mr. Go-Go-Go. If he had to study, he studied a million times harder than everybody else. If he was going to train for a sport, he was on the field until they turned the lights off and yelled at him to go home. The same with trumpet. I remember when I was little and he first got his horn for Hanukkah. The next morning, he’d played the C scale over and over—through breakfast time, through lunchtime, through dinner—until our parents took the instrument away for the night.

  It must have driven him crazy to see our dad acting like a quitter.

  As for me, I didn’t know how to handle it. All I knew was that my father had been the one person in the family who was most likely to make me smile, but now if I heard him say, “Leave me alone, I’m tired,” one more time, I was going to smash my head through a wall.

  At my last private dance lesson before Christmas break, Miss Laura was in an extra-good mood. Three younger girls had just come in and given her candy and cookies, and she was tapping one foot and humming along with the warm-up music while I did my stretches. I guess that’s why I decided to shoot my stupid mouth off. “Miss Laura,” I said, “is there any chance I might ever move up into the advanced classes with my friends? I mean, I’m still really hoping there might be.”

  Her foot stopped tapping so suddenly, it was as if she’d just stepped on a nail. Actually, the look on her face was what you might expect from somebody whose foot had just been impaled. “Well, do you think you deserve to get moved up?”

  Eek. “I don’t know. I’ve been taking privates with you since September, and I do my core exercises at home. Plus, I try hard in my classes, I think.”

  Miss Laura stood there for the longest time and stared me down while I attempted to figure out what to do with myself. Was I supposed to keep stretching? Stop stretching and bow down before her? Run out of the room and try to find a crowbar for her foot?

  When she spoke, I immediately felt nostalgia for the good old days of standing around like a moron. “Claire,” she hissed, “here’s a hint. If your answer to whether you deserve to get moved up starts with ‘I don’t know,’ you probably aren’t going to get moved up.”

  “But—”

  “Honey, I know you’ve been through a lot this year, with your father and everything. And I know it’s hard when your friends move up without you. But here’s the thing: Your friends are better dancers than you are. Remember when you all used to giggle and mess around at the barre, and your teachers used to tell you to pay attention? At some point, those girls figured it out and you didn’t. Sooner or later, what you do or don’t do at the barre shows up out on the floor.”

  “But I’m trying so hard now.”

  “That’s great, but some of the girls in the next level have been trying hard since they were five years old. They take more classes than you do. A few of them have amazing natural talent, but basically it just comes down to work. How hard are you going to work? If you work really, really super hard from now until June, we’re still not talking about moving up in the middle of this year—but you might have a shot at being in your friends’ classes in the fall.”

  My eyes were burning, but I didn’t want Miss Laura to have the satisfaction of seeing tears roll down my face. I turned away from her, and pretended I’d developed a sudden fascination for the dorky ballerina clock in the far back corner of the room.

  “Claire,” she said, “you can cry, or you can hold it in. But either way, the only way you’re going to get what you want is to bust your butt until the dancer you are is the dancer you need to be. Now wipe your face and let’s see some of the combinations we were working on last week. And keep your shoulders back. You look all shlumpy.”

  Great. In the lovely world of Dance Expressions, it’s okay to be depressed, abused, and heartbroken. But you’d better not be shlumpy.

  Over the break, I have to admit I came really close to just quitting dance altogether. I think the only reason I stayed was to prove Miss Nina and Miss Laura were wrong about me. I wanted to show everybody I didn’t deserve to be in the Puberty 101 classes. So yeah, hooray for bitterness, the Great and Noble Motivator.

  I wasn’t the only bitter member of my family. Matthew was stomping and fuming his way through the holiday season like a junior version of Ebenezer Scrooge. We celebrate Hanukkah, because Dad was raised Jewish, and Christmas, because Mom was raised Catholic. Hanukkah was sad enough, because Dad had always been the one who lit the candles, and this year his hand wasn’t steady enough. But Christmas was worse.

  The night before Christmas, in the middle of decorating the tree, Mom was getting all nostalgic like she always does, telling the story behind each ornament, getting all misty-eyed about the ones Matthew and I had made when we were little. Dad was struggling to help by attaching hooks to the ornaments, which I guess must be pretty hard when you’re right-handed but your right hand is shaky and weak. I was doing my best to act like everything was fine, for Mom and Dad. But Matthew was just tapping his foot, sighing, looking at his phone over and over, and gazing longingly at
the stairs that lead up to our rooms.

  Finally, not even Mom—who is basically the most relentlessly fake-cheerful person I know when she sets her mind to it—could ignore the blatant disrespect. I mean, personally, I would probably have cracked about fifteen minutes before she did. Anyway, she said, “What is it, Matthew? What do you want? What is so important that it can’t wait until we are done decorating our tree?”

  “What do I want? I want to go upstairs and study.”

  “Oh, Matthew, who studies on Christmas Eve?”

  “I do. Look, do you know what I want for Christmas, Mom? I want my soccer season back. I want my girlfriend back. I want my life back. But since I can’t get any of those things, I thought it might be nice if I could at least salvage my grades, or possibly pull out some half-decent SAT scores.”

  Dad looked up at Matthew. “You … didn’t play … ball?” he asked.

  “Uh, no, Dad.”

  “Because of … my head?”

  “Well, yeah. But it wasn’t your fault or anything. I’m not blaming you, I swear. It’s just something that happened. I’m not mad at you. I’m just mad. Oh, God. I’m sorry. Crap!” Matthew sat down on the couch next to our father.

  I was shocked. Matthew never said even the mildest bad word. For him to say “Crap,” he had to be right at the edge of a breakdown, leaning out and possibly kicking a few pebbles over the side.

  “Me, too,” Dad said. “I am too mad.”

  “So … who’s up for some eggnog?” Mom asked.

  Dad’s therapy exercises were brutal. He had to balance on his weak foot atop a weird rubberized half globe; do all sorts of small, intricate movements with string, using his weak hand; lift weights; stretch his weak side for long periods of time; and even do modified versions of push-ups and sit-ups. The therapists said he had to work on his tone, flexibility, and control. Every time he complained about the work, Mom would say those three words over and over to him: Tone, flexibility, control.

  Dad would reply, “Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.”

  So one day, when he was down in the basement, sitting in the middle of all the equipment, I tried to make him a deal. I started to explain about my dance problems, but he cut me off, and said, “I know about your … dance … thing. I couldn’t talk, but I was not … the thing when you can’t hear.”

  “Deaf.”

  “Deaf. I was not deaf.”

  “Well, anyway, I want to get better, and you need to work out. I’m off for the next ten days. Why don’t we work out together? Maybe it will make us both work harder.”

  “I don’t want to work harder. Working harder is … not sharp. Untippy. Unpointy.”

  “Pointless?”

  “Yes! Pointless. I get tired, and at the end, I am still slow … and weak.”

  “But it’s not pointless, Dad! I mean, if you don’t get in shape, you’re going to look kind of silly when it’s time for the Dads’ Dance.”

  “What?”

  “The Dads’ Dance. At Expressions. You know? I’m going to be fourteen this year. It’s time for us to dance together.”

  “Claire, I can’t dance. I can’t even walk right. I can barely stay … not asleep.”

  “Awake.”

  “I can barely stay … awake.”

  I had assumed for months there was no way he would be able to do the Dads’ Dance, but then when he’d started talking better, I had allowed myself a shred of hope. Stupid.

  “You’re right, Dad,” I said. “Why don’t you just sit and rest? I’ll work out. I have to do the recital anyway, whether you’re in it or not.”

  I ignored him for a while then, and worked on my splits until I could put one foot up on the first step of the stairs and still get my butt all the way down to the floor. The move was called an oversplit, and it was a new skill for me. The year before, I hadn’t even been able to do a split consistently.

  Next, I did planks and squats until my calves, arms, and thigh muscles were trembling and the sweat was starting to run down the back of my neck. At that point, I figured I was loose enough to practice some turns. Our basement isn’t really big enough for major dance practice, and the addition of Dad’s equipment hadn’t helped, but I had just the right amount of space for a turn or two if I was careful not to get too crazy with my arm extension.

  Oh, and the ceiling is low, so forget about those hands-over-head ballerina swan moves. But I could leap if I remembered to keep my arms down.

  Whatever. My house was what it was, and the low ceiling was the least of my problems. I did what I could with what I had, while pointedly ignoring my father. I thought that maybe if he saw how hard I was working, he might be inspired to join in and start his workout.

  Then he would get hungry, eat a ton of nourishing food, gain lots of healthy weight, get all better, never have to go back to the hospital, start writing again … my pliés, relevés, and tendus would save our family! And I would be the greatest dancer ever! Miss Nina would cry at my feet and beg forgiveness! But I would laugh and step over her quivering body, gracefully kicking her in the teeth as I bent over to gather up the flowers thrown to me by my adoring fans! And—

  My fantasy was interrupted by a buzz-saw sound behind me. Dad was slumped over on his special stroke-patient yoga mat, snoring.

  The next day, though, when I said I was going downstairs to work out, he followed. I started stretching my hamstrings, and he stood on the odd half-globe ball. I switched to squats, and he moved over to his knot-tying toys. Halfway through my planks, I noticed he was still bent over a big plastic board with strings attached to it, mumbling and cursing.

  “Dad, do you need help?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “If you help me, I’ll never get my knot-tying … merit … badge.”

  “Wow, did you just make a joke?”

  “I might have.”

  I jumped up and hugged him. “Dad,” I said, “that’s the first time you’ve made a joke since September!”

  “Well, it has not been a very funny time.”

  “Yeah, but I missed you.”

  “I missed me, too.”

  I squeezed his neck.

  “But,” he said, “don’t think this means I’m ready to go on the … place where everybody watches you.”

  “The stage.”

  “Yeah. Don’t think I’m ready to go on the stage. I can’t even tie a shoelace knot. And my joke wasn’t that good.”

  “I think it was amazing, Daddy.”

  My father shrugged my arms off from around his shoulders, and said, “Okay, enough for one day. Tired.”

  “Okay, but this was a good first day together. Think positive thoughts. Miss Amy at dance always says, ‘If your thoughts are light, your feet will be light.’ ”

  “Well, maybe my … left foot will be light, at least.”

  Two jokes in one day. It was a start.

  Things were pretty strange in science for a while after break. Mrs. Selinsky went out of her way to be super-duper normal. She didn’t scream and yell, she didn’t rant about Meredith, she didn’t even jump onto any desks. It was like she had been warned to be on her best behavior.

  Truthfully, class was kind of boring.

  I felt sort of guilty about the whole thing. Mrs. S had been really mean, but so had we. And then, once I found out about her terrible secret, all I could picture was her going home alone every night to an empty house and crying herself to sleep. I had no idea whether there was a Mr. Selinsky around, but if there was, she never mentioned him, and he didn’t seem to be doing a very amazing job of keeping his wife happy.

  So one day, I stayed behind after everyone else left. We had taken a quiz, and Mrs. S was packing up all the papers into her bag as I approached her desk. When she looked up and saw me standing there, she looked hostile for a split second, but then her eyes just became kind of neutral.

  That was almost worse.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “Umm … I just wanted to say I’m sorry. For
what I said about you in the principal’s office.”

  She looked at me for a long time, and then said, “Thank you. But you were right. I was being … Well, I’m just going to say you were right.”

  Wow, there’s something you don’t hear every day, I thought.

  “Don’t get me wrong. Your class had gotten out of control, but that was my fault, too. When I was a young teacher, just starting out, my department supervisor told me, ‘Never forget that you control the weather in your classroom.’ She was right, but I forgot, and let a little storm develop.

  “Anyway, it’s over. I’m sorry for my part, and you’re sorry for yours. Let’s just move on.”

  “Uh, okay,” I said, but I wasn’t sure whether we were done talking. Mrs. Selinsky might have been in “sane” mode, but I still couldn’t figure her out. Everything she did was always kind of jerky and sudden.

  “You can go now, by the way.”

  I opened my mouth to say something else, then lifted a hand to wave, then just settled on turning and starting to walk out of the room. Smooth, I thought.

  “Oh, there is one other thing, actually.”

  I turned back around in the doorway.

  “I hope you appreciate how lucky you are to have the friends you do.”

  “Oh, you mean the kids in my group? They’re not really my friends. Actually, we don’t even get along a lot of the time.”

  “I don’t care about that. Look, Clarise—”

  “Um, it’s Claire.”

  “Look, Claire, each of those children deliberately stood between you and me. And I’m a pretty frightening teacher, if you stop and think about it. Anyone who would do that certainly sounds like a friend to me.”

  Ryder was waiting for me by the lockers. “Hey, Claire,” he said. “Chair auditions for jazz band are coming up. If you want, I could ask Mrs. Jones to postpone them for the saxes so you have more time to get ready. I mean, I don’t mind or anything. Your mom told mine how you’ve been spending all your extra time helping your dad, soooo … ”