Siren Spell

by Cidney Swanson

  “Mr. Lee doesn’t have the authority to admit you into sculpture when there are students on the wait list ahead of you,” said Ms. Park, her mouth twisting into a complicated sort of frown.

  Giselle felt spots of color appearing on her pale cheeks. “It’s not fair. I’ve taken three times the requirement for performance credit every semester since I enrolled.”

  “I’m sure you’re aware of the regulations governing enrollment, Giselle.”

  The counselor paused and then added, unnecessarily, “There are three dozen applicants standing in line to take your place at All Arts. Is that what you want? To transfer to regular high school? I can call the counselor at Foulweather High right now.”

  Her hand drifted to the phone.

  “No,” snapped Giselle. She gripped the cold metal of the folding chair and looked away from Ms. Park’s accusing glare. An imposing image of Big Ben glared down at her from a poster reading, “Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.” It was supremely unfair. Giselle knew she’d invested more hours in “the arts” than most of the students enrolled at All Arts.

  “Miss Chekhov?”

  It took Giselle a moment to realize she was being addressed. Miss Chekhov was her grandmother.

  “I want to stay here,” said Giselle. She couldn’t face a new school on top of everything else. She needed Katya. She needed her friends.

  “Drama it is, then.” Ms. Park scribbled on a notepad with CLASS TRANSFER REQUEST in bold letters. “Take this to your study hall instructor first, and then have the drama instructor Mr. Kinsler sign off before you turn the form in.”

  Giselle accepted the goldenrod colored slip of paper.

  “There’s a mandatory audition,” said Ms. Park, tapping her desk calendar with a dark red nail. “Friday.”

  “Mandatory?” Giselle’s stomach clenched.

  “You don’t have to act in the play, but all students must audition whether they’re signing up for sets or costumes or—”

  “I’ll do it,” said Giselle.

  “It’s Shakespeare, so you’ll want to check the requirements for the audition.”

  Giselle felt her resolve hardening. She couldn’t transfer schools.

  “I’ll do whatever I have to, to stay.”

  Ms. Park stared at Giselle over the tops of her gold-rimmed glasses. “I believe that was the point of our meeting,” she said drily. “Miss Chekhov, I’ve got drama students in tears because they can’t complete their graduation requirements and take an additional semester of drama.”

  Drama students in tears, thought Giselle. What a surprise.

  “Mr. Kinsler is very popular. I’m sure you’ll be happy in his class.”

  Ms. Park rose and extended her hand to the door. The appointment was over.

  Giselle crossed to the door, where a final poster informed her, “In life, there is no rewind button.”

  9

  CARBS

  Katya caught up with Giselle at lunch. “I heard you got sent to the office?”

  Giselle rolled her eyes. “I got called in to see my counselor. I have to take drama for my performance credit.”

  Katya’s head tipped sympathetically to one side. “Uh-oh.”

  “I don’t have a choice unless I want to transfer schools.”

  “You can’t transfer schools!”

  “I’m not.”

  Katya grabbed one of her loose, dark braids and nibbled on the ends before realizing what she was doing and pushing the braid back over her shoulder.

  “I could help you find a monologue,” offered Katya.

  “I’ll need all the help I can get.”

  Heidi and Morgan joined the sisters and the four hiked to Carbs for lunch. The sky overhead was no longer threatening rain. Newcomers to Portland and its environs referred to the skies as simply “gray.” But the truly habituated, those who had spent more than eight or ten winters under the Rose City’s cloudy skies, knew that hundreds of variations existed under the umbrella of the dull sounding descriptor: gray.

  Alongside the girls, a woman driving an impossibly large black SUV slowed, honked, and waved at Katya.

  “You know Mrs. Fitzgerald?” asked Morgan, sounding impressed. “The Mrs. Fitzgerald?”

  Katya shook her head. “Not really. She came by the studio yesterday to talk to Babush—to talk to Miss Chekhov about buying the studio.”

  “Miss Ruslana is selling?” Heidi asked, shocked.

  “No,” replied Katya. “I don’t know why Mrs. Fitzgerald would wave at me. Not after the way Mom forcibly escorted her out.”

  Morgan spoke. “My mom says the Fitz has got a nose for good properties and she doesn’t give up easily.”

  Giselle considered adding neither does my mom, but really, she didn’t care to talk about her mother or the studio, and the quicker they moved to a new topic, the better.

  Katya, perhaps sensing this, turned the conversation to school, and the girls chattered happily about classes, patently avoiding anything that had to do with ballet. Their cheeks grew rosy as they climbed one of Foulweather’s forested hills. Carbs perched atop a hill like an observant raven ready to snatch up the loose coins of passersby.

  The girls skirted the large puddle where the sidewalk awaited repairs in front of the café. Carbs existed amidst a continual succession of repairs both interior and exterior. Gabor, the manager, announced with strict regularity that he would be out of business next month, but somehow he’d managed to stay in business for eight years. A wealthy patron rumored to have connections with Nike had purchased the facility recently, keeping Gabor on as manager and cook.

  Gabor tried to maintain his pessimistic outlook on the restaurant’s future, but it was more difficult for him now. The sudden influx of cash was alchemized into an upgraded oven and additional tables and chairs, purchased from second hand stores, and Carbs now looked as though it meant to stay open for business.

  Gabor’s taste ran to Formica tables trimmed in pinkish brass, with spindly pinkish brass legs. Fortunately for him, Portland’s hunters of things vintage preferred chrome-trimmed tables with yellow or red tops, eschewing the grays, peaches, and aquas Gabor adored. The furnishings had an altogether tacky space-age feel that Giselle loved. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t spent most of her spare change on treats at Carbs.

  Gabor greeted the four girls in Russian, not his first language, but one he’d learned as a boy in Hungary.

  “Dobriy den’,” he said.

  Giselle and her sister murmured the greeting back, slightly self-conscious speaking Russian in front of their thoroughly American friends. Morgan’s great, great someone or other gave Foulweather its Anglicized name a hundred and fifty years earlier, and her ancestors had come to America on the Mayflower, or so Morgan’s mother insisted. Heidi’s mother rolled her eyes at the claims. Only on rare occasions did Heidi’s mother trot out the fact that her ancestors had beaten Morgan’s mother’s by fourteen millennia, give or take a few hundred years.

  “School has started, yes?” asked Gabor, ushering the girls to a pink-topped table in the shape of a very large kidney.

  “Don’t you know it,” said Heidi, smiling at Gabor.

  “And we are all happy bal-yerinas once again?” Gabor smiled as he handed menus around.

  Giselle ignored the menu, which was superfluous, and her friends ignored the question, which was awkward. Gabor dashed away to greet more customers. Outside the sky began to drizzle, having shifted suddenly from a gentle dove gray to a more forbidding iron gray.

  A waitress appeared, smiling and bearing a large pot of tea and glass cups in metal holders for Giselle and Katya.

  “You want, also?” the waitress asked Heidi and Morgan. The words, deeply accented, sounded more like, “You vant alzo?” She pointed to the Russian style tea cups, eyebrows raised.

  Morgan’s exasperated, “Obviously,” overlapped with Heidi’s polite, “No, thank you.”

  Heidi and Morgan
exchanged frowns, an event that occurred with comforting regularity.

  The waitress scurried back for an additional glass cup and metal cup holder as Morgan criticized her pronunciation of English.

  “It should be illegal to work in a restaurant if you can’t communicate with your customers,” Morgan said, fanning herself with the menu. Gabor kept the interior warm, for healthy customers, yes?

  “Morgan,” murmured Heidi.

  “Bogdana communicates just fine,” said Giselle.

  “Of course she does,” said Heidi. “You’re such a … bigot, Morgan.”

  Morgan shrugged and looked up. “Those two are new,” she said, pointing to the scarves that decorated the ceiling.

  Draped in haphazard swathes, the scarves gave the café a feeling at once Bohemian and circus-like, as well as providing customers something upon which to remark, since Gabor’s wife added new additions frequently.

  “It’s like we’re on the inside of a sea jelly,” remarked Katya, looking up.

  “A what?” asked Giselle.

  “A jellyfish. Except we’re supposed to call them sea jellies.”

  “Um, random,” said Morgan, tossing blond curls over her shoulder.

  Bogdana the waitress set down another cup and cup holder for Morgan and a bowl of raspberry jam for Giselle.

  “It came up in biology,” said Heidi, also eyeing the scarves and presumably comparing the relative degree to which they resembled sea jellies. “Your mom must be hating all this coverage of the Foulweather sirens, huh, Morgan?”

  “Why would her mom care?” asked Katya.

  “Real estate values,” said Morgan. “All those river front properties.” She mimed what was presumably meant to signify crashing prices, then looked back to Heidi. “Also random.”

  “They’re related. Mr. Taylor let us discuss them in biology,” added Heidi.

  “Real estate values?” asked Morgan, dumping sugar by the heaping spoonful into her tea.

  “The sirens,” replied Katya.

  “Oh, that,” said Morgan. “I thought you talked about nudity or something.”

  “The boys did,” said Katya.

  “For, like, a minute,” said Heidi, giggling. She tucked her raven black hair behind her ears and pushed the sugar bowl away from Morgan.

  “Mr. Taylor was making the point that just because the sirens are reported as wearing ‘clothing,’ that’s no reason to discount the sightings,” said Katya.

  Giselle frowned and stirred raspberry jam into her tea. The “clothes” were one of the first things naysayers discounted. Why would creatures in the wild wear clothing? Did they have little underwater sewing machines? But Giselle knew they wore something. Something white. Translucent.

  “Mr. Taylor pointed out that dolphins are known to ‘put on’ seaweed, er, adornments,” continued Katya, “And then he showed us a bunch of pictures of sea jellies and their mesoglea. That’s the umbrella part, and it looks exactly like fabric. The order Salpida is thought to be the first chordate that led to primates—that’s us—and is also related to sea jellies and probably to the sirens. Anyway, the jellies really do look like they’re wearing some sort of diaphanous fabric.”

  “Diapha-what?” asked Morgan, blinking her blue eyes slowly.

  Giselle’s mouth quirked. Katya, assistant costumer, knew her fabrics.

  “You know, sheer,” replied Katya. “Like the tulle of a ballet tutu.”

  The other girls nodded knowingly.

  “By the way, Giselle,” said Heidi, “I loved your idea for the willis’ costumes. The distressing and the draggly bits.”

  Morgan poked Heidi in the ribs.

  “Like sea jellies,” said Katya, still staring dreamily at the scarves.

  “What was that for?” Heidi demanded of Morgan, rubbing her ribs.

  Morgan looked pointedly to Giselle and back to Heidi, who was, after all, dancing the role that should have been Giselle’s.

  Giselle sighed. “Listen, obviously you can’t avoid talking about ballet in front of me forever,” she said. “It’s fine.” The lie burned all the way down her throat and smoldered in her stomach. She slurped the last of the raspberry jam lining her tea cup and poured herself more tea, spooned in more jam.

  “Well, I do agree the costumes needed a little something,” Heidi said, glaring at Morgan. “And Giselle’s idea is perfect.”

  “If you want all of us looking like … diaphanous jellyfish,” muttered Morgan.

  This time it was Heidi’s turn to elbow Morgan.

  Giselle noted their waitress’s approach with relief.

  Bogdana held her order pad at the ready. “You are wanting?” she asked, looking to Heidi first.

  Morgan and Heidi ordered salads, dressing on the side. Katya sighed over sticky buns before ordering the soup of the day, no bread. Giselle smiled and ordered a plate of piroshki. Her grandmother told her piroshki could only be made by an entire family working together or you wouldn’t eat before midnight. Giselle imagined a family of Russians in the back kitchen, making piroshki for Gabor’s restaurant around the clock.

  “You really are giving it all up, aren’t you?” asked Morgan, referring to Giselle’s very non-dancer like choice of meal.

  “Really, Morgan?” whispered Heidi, her dark eyes narrowing.

  All three ballet students exchanged glances. Giselle knew what they were thinking: if Giselle didn’t think she had a shot getting into a professional ballet company, what chance did the rest of them stand?

  “I’m going to college instead,” Giselle said, blowing on her steaming cup of tea. “And I don’t know what you mean by ‘giving up.’” She turned to Katya. “Jam, please?”

  “You’ve always been … independent,” said Morgan. “But you might have thought about how quitting would affect morale at the studio.”

  Giselle accepted the jam from Katya. She didn’t know why she bothered with Morgan anymore.

  “Of course she thought about that,” snapped Katya. “But not everything is about you, Morgan.”

  In point of fact, Giselle had not thought about it. Was Morgan right, though? Should she have thought about it? The four at the table had grown up together sharing one dream: getting into a ballet company. Well, it was too late now. Giselle stirred jam into her tea, adding nothing to what her sister had already said.

  “Remind me what piroshki is?” asked Heidi, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Heaven,” sighed Katya. “A pillow-y white flour roll hugging a mouthful of hamburger, egg, and onion.”

  “How poetic,” remarked Giselle.

  “So, Russian mini-burgers,” said Heidi.

  “Or shooters,” suggested Morgan. “Like at Morton’s downtown.”

  “Which we’re all so familiar with, because our parents totally take us out to overpriced restaurants all the time,” muttered Heidi.

  “Whatever,” said Morgan, dumping the contents of two yellow packets of sweetener into her tea. “So, did you all hear about the new freshman kicker and Ballet for Jocks?”

  “God, Morgan,” said Heidi, shaking her head, “Can we talk about something besides ballet?”

  Giselle asked, “What about the kicker?”

  Morgan raised an eyebrow. “You mean Miss Ruslana didn’t tell you already?”

  Giselle kept her face carefully expressionless, as if Morgan’s barb didn’t hurt.

  “Stop it, Morgan,” said Heidi. Turning to Giselle, she explained. “Coach is bringing in this new kicker who transferred in from a private religious school, and apparently the new kicker’s Mom asked your mom about the icon painting at the studio and your mom said how she was an atheist.”

  Morgan nodded, continuing. “And now the kicker’s parents say he can’t take Ballet for Jocks because of Miss Ruslana’s anti-religious views.”

  “Coach won’t play team members if they don’t take Ballet for Jocks,” said Giselle.

  “Exactly,” said Heidi. “Hence the dilemma.”

  Mor
gan sipped her yellow-packet-sweetened tea. “I bet lots of the new kicker’s teachers aren’t religious, but your mom has this way of, you know, getting in your face about things.”

  “Morgan!” whispered Heidi.

  Giselle shrugged. “Mom has no problem with being offensive.”

  “So, did your mom … say anything about it?” Heidi asked Giselle.

  “Mom and Giselle aren’t talking at the moment,” mumbled Katya.

  Giselle fixed her gaze on one of the new scarves, looking for distraction and finding it. Plum. Red. Orange. Colors that shouldn’t be together but somehow looked wonderful.

  The waitress approached with a large tray that looked as if it were considering spilling its contents onto the floor.

  “One soup,” said Bogdana, passing the most precariously perched item to Katya. “Two salad,” she said, leaving off the “s.” Then she smiled and passed the piroshki to Giselle. “You vant hot mustard?” she asked.

  “No, thanks,” replied Giselle.

  Morgan giggled. The waitress’s accented English made it sound as if she was asking Giselle if she wanted hot mouse turd.

  Ignoring Morgan, Giselle requested butter, instead.

  “Butter?” Heidi covered her mouth in shock as the waitress retreated.

  “You vant butter?” asked Morgan. “You vill become fat, like peeg.”

  “Shut up, Morgan,” said Heidi.

  But Giselle only laughed at Morgan's awful attempt at the Russian accent she knew and loved, and somehow the laughter dispelled the tension, for the time being.

  “I can be whatever size I like, now,” Giselle said, smiling at the new thought.

  “Unlike the rest of us,” murmured Heidi, grabbing Morgan’s salad dressing and placing it on the far side of the table.

  “Hey,” said Morgan, reaching for the dressing.

  “You want to be a fat willi? White costumes add ten pounds,” said Heidi. “And that romantic length tutu hides your long legs.”

  “I love the long tutus,” said Katya. “They’ll look amazing onstage with the artificial moonlight. So dreamy….” She seemed to catch herself and her worried eyes darted to her sister.

  In her head, Giselle heard the violin refrain of the Grand Adage. She felt a yearning ache inside. Sternly, she told herself nothing was hurting, as if by repeating the lie over and over, it would become true.