SHORTLY AFTER my sister moved back to Coeur d’Alene to start her new job at the Kootenai Health Clinic, she called me to complain about our parents. Penny had gotten herself into a bit of money trouble and thought they were overreacting.
“Mom and Dad are freaking out, they’re being total jerks about it,” Penny told me over the phone. “I just overspent a little. They’re acting like I’m a criminal over a couple hundred bucks.”
There was a subtext to the accusation, something that always simmered just beneath the surface of our relationship: Mom and Dad spent so much on you growing up, Mom and Dad love you best, and now, you owe me, you need to take my side. So I agreed with her that they were blowing things out of proportion; I told her I’d talk to them.
I called my dad to try to get him to see reason. I knew this was why Penny had told me, to recruit me—in her eyes, the favored child—to be her ally. And she had a point, after all. A few hundred bucks? Not even enough for a pair of ski boots.
As a rule, my parents didn’t discuss Penny’s issues with me. They wanted to preserve their relationship with her, and our relationship with each other. Looking back, I see that they wanted to avoid her becoming the “bad” one.
“Dad, I just got off the phone with Penny. What’s going on with you guys?”
“She shouldn’t be putting you in the middle of it, Katie.” My dad sounded exasperated.
“It just seems like you guys are being really hard on her over a few hundred bucks.”
“A few hundred dollars?” My dad’s voice was uncharacteristically angry. “Your sister ran up eight thousand dollars on five different cards! We only found out because we started getting calls from debt collectors!”
I was horrified not just that my sister could do something so stupid, but also that she’d lied to me about it so coolly and deliberately. I called her on it, and instead of being embarrassed, she immediately went on the defensive.
“You know what, Katie? Screw you. You have no idea what real life is like. I’m sorry I don’t have a rich benefactor like Tad Duncan to pay for all my expenses. But, of course, side with Mom and Dad. Always the golden child!”
She hung up on me and ignored my calls for the next two months.
I was only able to get back in her good graces by needing her. I caught my arm on a gate and tore my rotator cuff. I was terrified that it could be serious and called her crying. She was working as physician’s assistant by then, so I habitually presented her with any and all medical queries. For Penny, to be needed was to be loved, to be valued, to exist. She calmed me down about my injury, reiterated what the team doctors had told me. And, like that, I was forgiven. But the brief period of not having my sister in my life shook me. Regardless of how little we might have had in common, she was my only sibling, my touchstone. Without her, I was unmoored.
I had to hand it to Penny. I didn’t necessarily see the appeal of most of her boyfriends, but the one thing they all had in common—with the exception of the scripture-peddling Brandon, who evidently only had eyes for Jesus—was their boundless devotion to her. She wrapped men around her finger, and though she often wasn’t terribly nice to them, they showered her with gifts, and praise, and seemingly did whatever she wanted. I can’t pretend I wasn’t slightly in awe of it, and all of a sudden I wanted some of that for myself.
Penny’s beau of the moment was Jon—he worked as a plumber and drove a truck jacked up to the hilt. Penny had broken up with her last boyfriend mere weeks before meeting him. As always, the moment one man disappeared, another came immediately to take his place. This was extraordinary to me. Other than the horrible kiss with Matt, there’d only ever been Luke. The idea of the parade of men who came through Penny’s life made me feel faint.
It was good advice that Emily and Penny had given me to be direct with Luke, to make him choose. The stakes were too high. If he really broke my heart—and I was somehow certain that it would be him and not me doing the breaking—what then? I’d seen it happen with other skiing couples, and it was a mess. We lived together and trained together, we were best friends, and what about poor Blair, who would be caught in the middle? A week after my conversation with Emily and Penny, when Luke crept in my room, rather than open the covers up to let him in, I sat up in bed and pulled my knees to my chest protectively.
“What’s wrong?”
“We have to stop,” I said.
The moonlight was refracted by the blankets of snow outside my window, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, Luke’s features became clearer. My heart surged. Maybe we could go on forever like this. Didn’t I want, in some ways, to keep these ecstatic nights but maintain our friendship in the light of day too?
“Why?” Luke seemed baffled and a little bit pissed off. He reached out and put his hand on my knee, and I smacked it away. I meant to do so playfully but it felt aggressive.
“You know why, Luke. You’re my best friend, we train together, we live together. How could this possibly be a good idea? What if Blair finds out? What if Tad or Coach finds out?”
“How is Coach going to find out?” Luke asked, smiling.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’re stopping. You can find some other girl to mess around with, you’ve had no trouble with that before.”
He looked hurt, and I felt him retreat from me on the bed. I hadn’t meant to come off quite so harsh; I realized only as he was sitting there that it was already too late for me. I had feelings for Luke—I didn’t quite want to put a name to them just yet—but knew I was on dangerous ground. And messing with my head was going to mess with my performance, and I couldn’t risk that.
“Jesus, Katie.”
I shrugged. “What, Luke? Don’t act like you’re all heartbroken. You don’t care.”
And this was the root of it, I realized, the way he’d dropped my hand when we saw our teammates on the street. If Luke was going to reject me, I would beat him to it. We were always racing each other, it was our whole thing.
“How do you know?” he said softly. “How do you know what I’m feeling?”
Slowly, he looked back up at me, and by now his face was clearly illuminated in the blue light of my bedroom. My heart was in my throat. Mortifyingly, I felt tears coming to my eyes: I was overcome. Fear—my old friend, my wonder drug—but so different now with no place to go.
“Katie.” He reached out and took my hand, which was clammy in his. “Do you want to be with me?”
Instead of waiting for an answer, he kissed me.
After a long moment, I pulled away. “But . . . what about . . . everything?” I was furious at myself for losing my composure. “I’m scared,” I said.
“It’s okay,” he said with a laugh. He’d seen through my tough talk, and maybe that’s what I’d been counting on. If he’d wanted the out, I’d given it to him. If he stayed, it meant he didn’t want it. “I am too.”
I felt frozen in place.
“What does this mean?”
He chuckled. “I have to spell it out for you, don’t I, Bomber?”
I forced a smile. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
“Katie Cleary, I’m in love with you. I don’t know exactly when that happened, but here we are.”
With the words in the air between us, Luke’s leonine confidence faltered at last.
“Look, maybe you just need some time to absorb all of this, so I’m going to just let you . . .” He started to get up off of the bed, and I grabbed his arm and pulled him back to me with all of my strength.
“Me too,” I managed.
He shook his head. “Say it.”
It was sweet, unexpected that he’d need to hear the words. It was the most vulnerable I would ever see him.
“I love you too, Luke.”
Liz with Her Eyes Closed
THE SUN is shining and the tourists are cheerful as I walk them through the sprawling necropolis of Recoleta’s famous cemetery. From here, we take a quick trip on the Subte to Puerto Madero, and from there, eve
rything is in walking distance. I’ll show them the Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo—stopping for gelato, which I know will delight them—and then to the Caminito in La Boca and on to the Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada. My group today consists of three middle-aged couples: two from the States and one from Vancouver, B.C. It hurts to think of Vancouver; the opening ceremonies are only a few weeks away. There’s some tiny part of me that still thinks I’ll be there, that can’t accept that it’s over. I keep dreaming about missing my flight, running for the plane in my travel uniform only to watch it taking off. I shake it off and let myself get reabsorbed in my role as tour guide, explaining some of the notable people who are buried in Recoleta. Evita, of course, several Nobel Prize winners and Argentine presidents, Napoleon’s granddaughter. I gain my bearings once again and the tour goes smoothly until we reach the Plaza de Mayo, our final stop.
As we make our way up from the Avenida de Mayo, I see their white head scarves bobbing together, their banner with its family photos unfurled at the helm of their sad parade. I’d forgotten it was Thursday, when each week for the past thirty years the Madres de la Plaza—mothers of young people who were disappeared by the military junta—march here. They’ve been coming here seeking answers and justice since the junta was still in power, though at first they marched in pairs to avoid being arrested. I feel my stomach drop at the sight of them. What could be more sympathetic than a mother who has lost her child? Whose grief could ever be more potent? They are the living embodiment of every parent’s worst nightmare: both terrifying and sainted in their grief. I can barely look at them. What must it be like to be here still, after all these decades? They’re hollow-eyed, carrying signs that read NIÑOS DESAPARECIDOS; some of them old women now, wheelchair-bound. It occurs to me that Argentina is a bit like the United States in that it’s forever trampling its own history in the name of relentless forward momentum. Is it admirable or pitiable, the way these women refuse to move on?
“What are they protesting?” one of the Americans asks me. It seems unfathomable that the atrocities that happened here so recently aren’t more well known. And yet, I didn’t know either until I came here. A regime that killed thirty thousand of its own, and yet the story lacks the grandeur of World War II, so it doesn’t register with us. The United States was not the hero, so we don’t care.
I give my tourists the rundown but see by their faces that even the little I tell them is too much to absorb in this moment. Here? I can feel them thinking, in this civilized friendly city?
At last one of the men says, “Sad,” and it’s as though it gives everyone permission to move past this uncomfortable digression. They are on vacation, and it’s not as if they’ve come to Berlin; they were not expecting to have heavy hearts, and I don’t imagine they’ll think about any of this again. We circumnavigate the plaza and I pause to look at the map. I can’t imagine why they’d take any notice of me, but I feel that if one of the Madres looks directly at me, I might burst into flames.
“So,” I say, stopping in front of the Casa Rosada. We’re back in safer territory now, beneath the iconic balcony that’s the one part of Argentina’s history Americans do know, the chapter in which Evita asked the country not to cry for her. “As we reach the edge of the Plaza de Mayo, you’ll see one of the most famous buildings in Argentina. Does anyone know this one?” People become like schoolchildren when they’re on a tour: anxious to share the right answer.
“That’s the Evita building!” the woman from California exclaims.
“Correct!” I say, and it is, sort of. “Many of you will recognize the Casa Rosada from the famous film scene where Madonna sings ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’ from the balcony.” I go into my speech about the building’s historical significance, and, all the while, I see from the corner of my eye that the male half of the couple from Vancouver has a strange look on his face. I wonder if the Madres have unsettled him and feel a sudden flash of kinship for him. When we walk away from the site, back across the Plaza de Mayo, he falls in next to me.
“Hi, Steve.” Thankfully, I’ve always been good at remembering names; a small thing that leads to happier tourists.
“Hi, Liz, listen,” he says. “I don’t suppose you follow ski racing?”
I feel the blood drain from my face. I glance down at my map to hide my expression. “Oh, not really. Why?” I hear my own voice as though from the bottom of a well.
“It’s been bugging me all afternoon, trying to figure out who you look like, and it just hit me. You’re a dead ringer for that gal, Katie Cleary. Do people ever tell you that? She was a silver medalist last Olympics, I think.”
Bronze, I think, and it was the Olympics before.
“Oh,” I say, turning my face away, as though checking a landmark. I fear that if he looks at me close up right now, he’ll know. It isn’t rational. Katie Cleary is a minor figure in this man’s life. “What happened to her?” It’s masochistic, but I can’t resist.
“You didn’t hear about it? It was a huge news story in the U.S. Canada too for a bit.”
“Well, I’m so disconnected down here, you know.” I tell tourists I’ve been here for five years, playing the role of a full-on expat.
“I don’t remember all the details. Georgia, you followed that story like it was a soap opera. What happened to that poor skier girl?” he asks as his wife sidles up to us. “Don’t you think Liz looks just like Katie Cleary?”
“Oh goodness, but you do! Yes, the Penny Cleary-Granger trial. So awful!”
“That’s right. I gather it ruined her career, suppose it would have anyone’s.”
I nod my head, for a moment unable to speak. I take a deep breath, forcing my eyes to be bright. I notice that even when asked directly, this nice Canadian couple can’t say out loud what Penny did.
“Well,” I say, clasping my hands together, bringing us all back to the moment: far removed from the tragedy of a stranger they think they’ll never meet. “That brings us to the end of our tour. Are there any questions I can answer for you all?”
There are so many questions, today of all days.
At last, I wrap up, telling them I have an appointment to get to and that I enjoyed meeting them all and hope they have a fantastic rest of their stay.
I should never have scheduled the lesson with Gianluca back-to-back with a tour, I realize as I haul ass to the studio. By the time I arrive, I’m a sweaty mess and my nerves are frayed.
“I’m so sorry, my tour ran late,” I say, crashing into a chair to change my shoes.
“Relax,” he says. “I’ll let it go this once. Only once though, Tiger. Tango takes discipline. And my time is valuable.”
I feel a hard stab of shame. There’s nothing I hate more than being late for a coach. I nod and furiously fumble with the ankle strap on my shoes. It’s hard to believe that G, the debauched bon vivant, has anything on me when it comes to discipline.
“Now,” he says, getting down to business once my shoes are on and I’m standing at the ready, “let’s see what we’re working with.”
He puts music on and leads me through a few basic moves. Both he and the studio seem to change every time I see them. First, there is the studio during class, when the place is full of strangers all feeling the same thing at once, hanging on G’s every charming, authoritative word. At the social, when the didactic energy has cleared and the place has become a milonga, everyone revolving around G like lost planets. And now, I’m alone with him for the first time, and, undiluted, his presence, the weight of his focus, is almost unbearable.
“Okay,” he says after a few moments, turning the music off and standing back from me. “You’ve got the basic steps down, that we knew, but tango is not about steps, it’s about connection. And, Liz, being a follow requires patience, receptiveness. You need to open yourself to what your partner is doing, rather than trying to anticipate it.”
I make a face. I don’t like the idea of being a passive partner, someone to be moved around by an external fo
rce. The idea of a partner is already outside my comfort zone. The solitude of my sport is what I loved about it. I only had to rely on myself: it made me brave and strong, whereas the idea of opening up enough to let G—or anyone else—lead me, makes me vulnerable.
“Come here,” he says, pulling me in so that there’s only a sliver of space between our chests. “When you follow me, it’s not your feet following my feet. The communication is translated from here.” He rests his hand on my sternum; the touch feels startlingly intimate. I hear myself make something like a gasp, and he lets it pass without acknowledgment. “The heart. If you don’t learn to feel it here, you’re not really dancing.”
To be taken apart in this way feels comforting and familiar. I want to be dismantled. I was always eminently coachable; I could always convert instruction into action. The opposite of Luke, who barreled down the hill in his hell-bent way, reckless and reliant on his extraordinary instincts, tucking in ever closer to the fall line. Blair was more like me: the good and eager student. We were patient and willing to learn someone else’s way well enough to make it our own.
“Okay, un momentito,” G says and walks away, leaving me feeling exposed.
He returns a moment later, having fetched Angelina from wherever she was, and leading her to the middle of the floor. My stomach drops at the sight of her. She and I exchange a weak smile.
“Hola, Leez.” I’m surprised she knows my name, though G certainly reminded her.
“Now, as Angelina and I dance this song,” G says, “I want you to watch our chests, rather than our feet. That’s where the dance is really happening, that’s where we communicate and connect.”
Angelina trots to the stereo to put the music on. She looks so at home here, so at home next to him. It’s like her connection with G remains even when they’re not dancing. He smiles at her approvingly, and jealousy constricts my throat.
They settle into each other’s arms, and I watch them exchange a glance that feels intimate. The lurid thought crosses my mind that Angelina follows G so well because he’s been inside her.
We Came Here to Forget Page 11
