Up to This Pointe

by Jennifer Longo

Dad stands there, wiping his hands on his apron.

  “Harp.”

  “What.”

  “Go home.”

  “What?”

  “Baking’s done, and Luke and I can handle the afternoon. Go. What’re you up to today, Owen?”

  “Not a thing, sir,” Owen says.

  “Oh, Owen, cripes, call me Dave.”

  “Not a thing, Dave.”

  Dad nods. “Owen, want to walk Harp to the bus for me?”

  “Absolutely, Dave.”

  “Uh, Dave, I’m on the schedule till three,” I say, low.

  “Now you’re not. You don’t sleep anymore. Go take a nap. Or something.”

  “I’m staying. I need the money.”

  “Good Lord, Harper,” Dad says, pulling some cash from his wallet. “I am paying you to take a day off, okay? Come on.” He hugs me, covered in flour and sugar, and now I am, too. “You’re bony,” he whispers into my hair. “Go eat a burger. Please.”

  I take off my counter apron and hand it to Luke, who is talking with Owen, and I go in the back to wash my hands and face, run water over my hair, and then give up. I look ridiculous.

  “Ready?” Owen says when I come out.

  “Sorry?”

  “I’ll walk you to the bus.”

  “Oh, that’s—no, I’m fine,” I say. “Thanks.”

  He follows me out, calling, “See you, Luke. Bye, Dave!”

  The bells ring. Outside, the sun is shining cold. I pull my coat on.

  “So. Off to nap?” Owen asks.

  “No.” I walk away from the park, toward the N-Judah Muni stop.

  “Going home?”

  “No.”

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “I’ve got errands.”

  “What kind?”

  I stop walking. Owen does, too.

  “Did you ask Kate out and she said no?”

  “She asked me.”

  “Oh.”

  “I said no.”

  Thin clouds move swiftly from the ocean, hazy in the bright blue sky. The sea air is clean and cold. Seagulls float above the Jordan almond–colored row houses; blackbirds sit on the telephone wires.

  I love this city.

  “I have errands,” I tell him again. “Really boring ones.”

  He smiles.

  - - -

  We get off on Market Street in the Financial District. Owen follows me out of the cold winter sunshine into San Francisco Dancewear, the place nearly every penny I earn ends up.

  It’s busy. Little girls with their mothers, older girls alone, and chattering groups in the racks and racks of leotards. Tchaikovsky blasts from wall speakers: “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.”

  My chest hurts. I’ve never been here without Kate. She’s not at Saturday breakfast anymore, no more slumber parties.

  The staff of willowy, long-haired current and former dancers are up and down ladders and stairs, in and out of the curtained stockroom.

  “Harper,” my favorite, Mirielle, calls above the chaos. “Where’s Kate?”

  “Home,” I say. “I need shoes.”

  “Sit and hold on a minute.”

  Owen tags along to the square of parquet flooring in the center of the room, mirrors on every wall and freestanding barres to stretch and rise with. I sit in a wooden chair. Owen sits beside me, hands on his knees. The music plays, and we watch girls try on slippers and shoes, model leotards, throw tantrums. Owen is the only guy in the store. He smiles. Nervously.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’s just…do the male dancers have a separate store or something?”

  I laugh.

  Owen beams.

  Mirielle brings a stack of narrow shoe boxes, whips off the lids, and offers them to me one by one, in case I’ve changed my mind since last month. There are so many brands of pointe shoes—some last longer, some are more flexible, some have stiffer shanks, some are more salmon than pink. But I’ve found the ones that fit my narrow feet and arch, the kind I can make last nearly a week before they’re destroyed and ultimately fail me, and I’ll never switch.

  “Freed, please,” I say. “Three pairs.”

  Mirielle smiles. “I’ve got a surprise for you.” She pulls from the stack a Freed of Londons box, my Classics, and stamped on the leather sole is a familiar maker’s mark.

  “Maltese Cross,” I whisper. “How many?”

  “Just the one,” she says, “Let’s see.”

  I move to pull my boots off, but see Owen watching, and I turn to him. “Look away.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look. At my feet.”

  He frowns. “Why?”

  “You like this girl?” Mirielle asks him.

  That smile. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

  “Then trust her,” she insists. “Do not look.”

  He rolls his eyes and covers them with his hand. I ease my boot off.

  He gasps.

  “Owen!”

  “I’m sorry!” he yelps. “You can’t tell a guy ‘Don’t look’ and then think he’s not going to look! A guy is always gonna look!”

  “Yeah, at, like, boobs or something. This is different! Now you’ll never see me the same way. I’m a monster!”

  Mirielle laughs. Owen looks completely horrified.

  But also impressed.

  “Whatever, dude,” I sigh. “I was just trying to help you out.” I wrap a wad of lamb’s wool around my ruined toes and slip my feet in the Maltese Cross shoes. I rise to demi, then full pointe. In the mirror, I catch Owen wincing.

  “She doesn’t feel a thing,” Mirielle assures him. “Nothing but calluses.”

  He nods, eyes wide.

  “Thanks, Mir.” I sigh.

  “You’re welcome. If those are good, I’ll grab two more—save the Maltese for San Francisco. Need anything else?”

  “Extra ribbon?”

  “Yep. Meet me up front.”

  I pull my socks and boots back on before Owen gets any more time to ogle.

  He follows me to the register, where I pay in cash—$328 with tax—for the three pairs, which will last me, if I’m careful, till the beginning of February. Once I’m in the company, maybe San Francisco will be buying all my shoes. I take my bag, and we are on the sidewalk in the chill wind.

  “Want to walk?” he says.

  He’s seen my feet. Might as well.

  We walk past the tall buildings of the Financial District, toward the bay, two blocks before he speaks.

  “Is there wood in there? In the toe—is that how you balance on it?”

  “Flour-and-water plaster,” I say. “And satin.”

  “And why do you like the ones you wear?”

  “They fit.”

  “They all looked the same.”

  “No. These have a short…it’s called a vamp, and a wide box, full shank, not too flexible…”

  “Ohhh, right, the short vamp, I totally missed that. Well, no wonder, then.”

  Oh my God, this guy is…Kate’s. Hos before bros. Even if you hate the ho.

  I don’t hate her, and she’s not a ho.

  “And what’s the Maltese Falcon about?”

  “Maltese Cross.” I almost smile. “There are thirty people in the Freed factory who make the shoes by hand and bake them dry. That’s why they’re so expensive. They each have their own mark they stamp into the leather when they’re done to keep track—my favorite dancer uses these shoes, Freeds, but only the Maltese Cross maker is allowed to build hers. Sometimes you’ll find them in the stores. It was lucky I got these. It’s a sign. Feels like a sign.”

  He nods. “What are you auditioning for?”

  We walk. “Why are you pretending not to be bored by all this?”

  “It’s not boring. At all.”

  “Because I will admit, if I had to go to the video game factory, I would never stop complaining.”

  “The factory probably would be boring. But LucasArts is fun.”

 
; “Are you aware what you’re getting yourself into, living with Luke?”

  “Can’t be any worse than the other three of us. It’s a big house. Lots of space to hide from each other.”

  “You’ll need it.” I smile.

  We walk. Seagulls cry and we are at the piers, crossing at the light to the Ferry Building. Students from the Conservatory of Music are playing “In the Bleak Midwinter” on cello, harp, and mandolin, and it is so beautiful that I stop, and Owen stops. The strings echo all around the cavernous marble hall.

  Kate won’t come over for Christmas Eve. What if her mom is at a party? Will Kate be alone? What about Christmas Day?

  I drop my last twenty dollars into the open cello case.

  “You okay?” Owen asks.

  I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. The sleeve of my ratty old Sunday-at-the-bakery hoodie. My hair, sloppy at the start, is now a total falling-apart mess thanks to the San Francisco wind and two Muni rides.

  Owen, on the other hand, I have a feeling came to the bakery for a reason. He is wearing clean jeans. A really nice wool sweater, blue and gray, striking against his warm complexion, his brown-black eyes. Hiking shoes that look like they’ve never once seen the dirt of a trail.

  Kate doesn’t even own any ratty clothes. Once they’ve been worn a few times, she gives them to me or to the West Portal Goodwill.

  Kate asked him? He said no to Kate?

  “Harper?”

  “Yeah.”

  He offers me his strong, lean arm. I wrap my own around it.

  He smiles. “Let’s walk.”

  - - -

  We sit on a bench on the dock beneath the Bay Bridge. We watch the ferryboats come and go, the sun on our faces. Owen’s eating a sandwich from one of the Ferry Building deli counters, and without my asking, he’s brought me a huge salad. Dressing on the side.

  I wolf it gratefully.

  “Who’s the Maltese Cross ballerina?”

  I chew, swallow. Drink some of the water he’s also brought to me. “Yuan Yuan Tan. San Francisco Ballet.”

  “Sugar Plum Fairy.”

  “Yes! How do you—”

  “Bus ads,” he says. “She’s on every single Muni shelter near the Presidio. My mom loves her.”

  “Does she dance?”

  “My mom? Oh God, no.” He laughs. “She just likes that Yuan is Chinese.”

  “Oh.”

  We eat.

  “She became a ballerina on the flip of a coin,” I tell him. “She was a little girl and she loved ballet, but her dad wanted her to be a doctor. Her mom was okay with her dancing. So they flipped a coin.”

  “Huh. What is up with Chinese dads and the doctor pushing?”

  I smile. A little.

  Ship bells ring. Tourists and bikers get off the Sausalito Ferry; another group boards. The ferry backs out, chugs toward Alcatraz.

  “You and Kate in a fight or something?”

  I sigh. “Or something.”

  “What’s the audition for?”

  I swing my feet. “San Francisco Ballet. January third.”

  “Oh, wow, with Yuan! So the shoes really are lucky.”

  “I hope.”

  “You auditioning alone?”

  I nod.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh.” He tosses our trash into a can, sits back beside me. Moves closer. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It sucks. You seem lonely.”

  I nod.

  “You miss her.”

  “Yes.”

  “So call her! Say you’re sorry and she will, too.”

  “I’m not sorry.”

  “Say it anyway.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Really? So you’re fine never seeing your best friend again, ever? I just watched you balance all your weight, which, granted, is not a lot, but still, your entire body held up by one sad, thrashed toe, and it didn’t even hurt—but you can’t call your best friend and say two words? Just text her, then.”

  “Okay, Dr. Phil, you don’t even…” I can’t finish my half-assed attempt at pithy. My throat swells, and weeks of missing Kate unleash their misery. So I tell him. Everything. The Plan, Kate, Simone, the failed auditions. The New Plan. All of it. This guy I don’t know except that he’s best friends with Luke.

  And that, in a group of girls all dressed alike, dancing all the same steps around Kate—he saw me.

  And he listens. Doesn’t say anything for a long time. We sit. Knees touching.

  “You really wouldn’t want to teach?”

  “No.”

  “That Willa kid seems to think you’re really good at it.”

  I nod.

  “Free trip to England, at least?”

  “No.”

  He picks my hand up in both of his.

  In the midst of this sadness—butterflies.

  “You’d never know, with these perfect hands, that your poor feet were so abused.” Not exactly holding hands, but he’s pressing the warmth of his into the chill of mine.

  “You know what?” he says. “Maybe Simone’s on glue. And those Oakland people, those auditions—because I know I don’t know anything about ballet, but oh my God. You are amazing.”

  I shake my head.

  “You know why I wanted to come see you? You understand I came to the show to see you, right?”

  My heart thumps. “Why?”

  “My parents are real big on people having a hard-core work ethic. Like, obsessively. Luke would talk about his family, about you—everything you do to pay for classes, the teaching and babysitting on top of rehearsing and performing and graduating early with honors—by comparison, my entire family seems super lazy.”

  “I have a Plan.”

  “I know. That’s what I’m saying. I like that.”

  A seagull strolls to us, cocks its head, and studies us. Owen smiles at it.

  “I have to go home,” I say.

  “Okay.”

  He walks beside me to the bus stop. The wind is cold.

  “Luke is in love with Kate,” I say.

  “Is he?”

  “Did you ask her before you knew?”

  He frowns. “I already told you, she asked me.”

  “You said no. To Kate.”

  He stops walking. “Harper. Of course I did.” He takes my hand and holds it.

  I hold his back, and we walk to the bus shelter. He waits with me.

  “No one else knows,” I say.

  “Knows what?”

  “Anything. Any of this. Not my parents, not Luke. They don’t know, because I haven’t told them, and I’ve been wanting so badly to tell someone….” My throat’s tight again.

  He’s looking so intently at my eyes, so close. “You told me.”

  “I’ve needed…Thank you so much. For listening.”

  “Thank you.”

  The bus is approaching. We step out of the shelter stop to the curb.

  The doors open. He lets go of my hand.

  “Harper.”

  “What?”

  “Can I call you Harp instead?”

  “What?”

  “Everyone else does!”

  I climb the steps.

  “Hey, Harp—call Kate. Text, email, something.”

  “Why?”

  “You miss her. And I bet she needs you. I don’t blame her; I’ve spent maybe three cumulative hours with you, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never known a better person.”

  I stop on the top step, my hands tingly, and say to the driver, “Hold on just one second. Please.”

  Owen sees me lean out the door, he moves close to meet me, and I do not think, I do not tell him the words ricocheting around my head, my thumping heart: No one has ever said anything so kind to me, ever.

  I hold on to the bus and my pointe shoes with one hand, his shoulder with the other, and kiss him. For one moment he seems stunned, nearly as stunned as me—then his hands move to my hair. He pulls me even closer and kisses me back, takes over, seawat
er salt on his lips. I’m light-headed, and he keeps kissing me until I pull away, until the bus is pulling away.

  Dazed and ignoring laughter from the other passengers, I stumble to a window seat. I watch Owen stand on the curb, breathing hard, staring after the retreating bus until I can’t see him anymore.

  And I do not text Kate. I call her.

  I have fearless hair, and it is dragging the rest of me, kicking and screaming, into fearlessness. Starting with reading the emails that have been piling up since the day I left home.

  I take a breath and begin with Willa’s.

  >>>Dear Harper,

  I am saying this letter and Mom is typing it. I am almost seven, but she says if I type it, you will be home before I get done, so I wish I could type it. Please come home. I’m sorry you were so sad you had to go to Antarctica. Lindsay teaches Saturday and she uses boring music. Also, we are at the barre for almost the whole time! [Note from Hannah: She wanted ten exclamation points. I’m keeping it simple. I love you, Harp.] We never get to turn or jump or anything fun! Mom says if I clean a litter box, we will get a kitten, but I have to show I can do it first, but if I don’t have a poop box to clean, then how can I show her? [That’s not happening, BTW.] If I do get a kitten, I want gray stripes and to call it Foggy, or if it is a girl, I will name it Harper. Because for you. I love you. I miss you so much I am typing this part this is me please come home please don’t be mad at Madame Simone she loves you too I miss you SO SO SO SO SO much I love you.

  Love, Willa Emaline Moore Jr. Esq. MD PhD DDS

  [She’s been reading the phone book for fun and is fascinated by acronyms lately. Love you and miss you. Call your parents more, okay? XOX Hannah]

  I stupidly, wrongly assumed that out of everything in my crowded in-box, Willa’s email would have the least chance of breaking me. What was I thinking? When did she become a dentist and a doctor, and what the hell is an esquire? And why is Lindsay not letting them do floor work? They’ll lose their center of gravity if she doesn’t let them use it—they can stretch on the floor, for Pete’s sake—let the kids spin a little!

  Gah. This is exactly why I cannot read any more. I close the laptop.

  My tenth Sunday on The Ice, and I have become a woman. A banner day, one worth journaling. May 10: Wore a bra today. Because I had to.

  Cinnamon rolls, butter on my bread, and no ballet have made remarkably rapid changes to my body. There is a softness in my shoulders, my hip bones are not so sharp, and I no longer use a pillow to cushion my knees when I sleep. I’m regretting owning only two bras. I’m in for a lot of hand-washing of delicates in the sink.