She moved in and wrapped herself in work. Company class every weekday at ten, in the studio on C-level, three floors beneath the Metropolitan Opera House’s vast stage. Class was followed by rehearsal: two months to learn new productions, but only three intense weeks to learn the revival operas. Sometimes she could hop the subway home for a nap and quick dinner before heading back to Lincoln Center for the performance. Other times, she had to bolt a salad and snatch forty winks in an empty dressing room or the lounge.
She danced between three and five nights a week. Some operas, she was onstage in a myriad of roles with frantic backstage costume changes. For other works, she arrived to dance twenty minutes and go home. In some of the longer productions, she didn’t dance until the third or fourth act. She often found herself warming up at ten o’clock at night and stepping onstage at eleven-thirty. Once when a crucial piece of scenery broke down, pausing the performance until the stagehands could fix it, she didn’t make an entrance until quarter past midnight.
One week her schedule was relaxed and manageable, the next was a seven-day panic attack. The lack of routine left her no wiggle room to make plans. She didn’t mind—she had nowhere to go. The company gave standing room tickets to all the artists for their off nights and Daisy always used hers. She watched and absorbed. As she wrapped her mind around not only choreography, but music and libretto and language, she found she loved it. From Bizet to Mozart to Verdi, she began to learn and appreciate the great operas, as her capacious memory cataloged the stage action.
Every role in every opera had a “track,” a roadmap of exits and entrances. For every three dancers, the Met assigned one cover—a dancer who learned all the tracks, ready to go on wherever and whenever they were needed. The pressure of learning multiple tracks cold was tremendous. Once an opera was in production, its studio rehearsals ceased.
Daisy became a cover and gained a reputation for being the one to call when the shit went down. As she discovered one day when she found herself in the elevator with Maestro James Levine himself.
“Miss Bianco,” he said with his elfin smile. “Our steel trap.”
She stared at him a moment. “I’m sorry, you are…?”
His halo of frizzy hair shook as he threw back his head laughing. “I’m the new janitor.”
“Of course.”
They kept up a running gag of her pretending to forget his name and ask if he could unclog the toilet in the ladies’ room. And whenever Levine caught her eye from the podium, he winked.
She relaxed into her work.
She started being nicer to herself.
She’d been denying everything she loved. But one day, she passed a store window with a sale on cashmere sweaters and couldn’t resist their siren call. She stopped and backtracked, gazed at the luscious softness and shimmering colors. She imagined one on her skin and how it would hug her. She bought it.
She sliced her cigarette habit in half and put the extra dollars and cents in a mason jar. She dipped into it to go for a massage or a manicure. The latter was an almost silly waste of money—she wasn’t allowed to wear nail polish in performance. Really she just liked someone holding her hands.
She started putting thought and effort into food. Growing up at Francine’s elbow, she knew her way around the kitchen. Despite anxious nausea being a constant companion, she began to eat again. Like a grownup.
You must stay alive for him.
She coaxed her body back into its optimal shape. She ate well, stayed hydrated, took her vitamins and supplements. If she wasn’t performing, she was in bed early. Sleep was up for grabs but her body was put down to rest without exception. She cheated some nights with Tylenol PM but a friend warned she would fuck her liver up if she did it too often.
She did have friends. Her reticence about herself made her a beacon for other people’s troubles and woes. She didn’t dispense much advice but she knew how to listen and validate people’s feelings. People wanted her, sought her out and included her. They were there to have lunch with and go to class with and occasionally meet for a Sunday movie or museum walk.
Whether in company or not, Daisy hit the city streets in her off time, avoiding idleness like it was jury duty. Sitting home alone only gave her time to think and dwell. She dipped into her mason jar and went on little adventures, riding the subway from Battery Park to Morningside Heights. She hit every museum, every gallery, every tourist trap. If she wasn’t flush, she walked, plugging herself into her music and criss-crossing the grid of Manhattan.
Her closest friend in the company was Julie Valente, who mentioned one day she was a volunteer cuddler at New York Methodist Hospital, holding premature babies.
“I go on Sundays, instead of church. I find it more meaningful.”
Daisy was fascinated. “You just go and…hold them?”
Julie nodded. “The physical contact is therapeutic. It helps them thrive. Their parents can’t always be there twenty-four-seven, so the hospital created this volunteer group to cuddle.”
Daisy applied, went through a background check and started giving her Sunday hours as well.
She had never gravitated toward babies. She’d held a few in her time and while they were darling as hell, none ever made her melt or coo or mentally start knitting blankets.
The first time the NICU nurses brought her a preemie, translucent and fragile, she was petrified. How was she supposed to hold this bundle of tubes and wires, a knitted cap at one end, out of which emerged a nose and mouth no bigger than her fingernail? How could her arms cuddle when it seemed her mere breath would shatter the poor thing into pieces?
The smell of the hospital was making her feel a little sick.
“You all right?” Julie said, composed and confident in a rocking chair, her thumb stroking the pale, porcelain skin of her baby’s foot.
Daisy managed to nod and lift the corners of her mouth as the nurse got the baby settled, neatly coiling the tubes out of the way and draping a blanket. The infant was a boy, Sam, born eight weeks early.
Daisy’s throat grew warm at the sight of his tiny hand resting motionless on her chest. After a few stiff moments, she dared to nestle her pinky into his palm. His fingers widened then slowly collapsed, as if he was going to take hold of her. But they stopped halfway.
“You did great,” Daisy said. “Good boy. You’re so strong.”
Little by little her shoulders relaxed and her hands became surer. A sense of purpose crept over her. A desire to do a good job. Between the hypnotic, humming and beeping noises of the nursery’s machines and monitors, and the deflection of her thoughts away from herself to another, Daisy fell into a lucid trance. Her head was empty, chest open, stomach calm.
Her arms were full.
“It was like prayer,” she said to Julie on the bus later. “You’re right, it is like church.”
She went every Sunday. As she grew more confident, she began to take more notice of the NICU. Specifically, a glassed-in room set apart where a single volunteer cuddler worked. This woman didn’t sit with her charges. She paced.
“Why are some babies alone in there?” Daisy asked Louise, the head nurse.
“Oh, honey,” Louise said. “They’re the ones born to drug addicts. They’re all in withdrawal. They need to be held the worst, but not many volunteers can handle them.”
Daisy moved closer to the glass which, she realized, was soundproof. Now she could see the baby held in the volunteer’s arms was not a preemie. It was full-term, chubby and solid. And it cried and fought against being cuddled. The body didn’t curl. The limbs splayed, the spine twisted. The little fingers hooked into claws. It didn’t want to be soothed or comforted. It wanted something it couldn’t explain. It wanted a feeling. It wanted the way it was before.
It wants what it can’t have.
“Louise.” She turned from the window. “Let me go in.”
Arms crossed, the nurse looked Daisy up and down then shrugged. “You’re the last one I figured, but all right.
Try fifteen minutes. Annie probably needs a break anyway. If you need to come out, catch my eye.”
Daisy’s courage faltered on the threshold and she fought not to show it. Other babies were in here and all of them were crying. Screaming like nothing Daisy had ever heard before.
Except inside her own head.
“This here is Job,” Annie, the volunteer, said, carefully handing off the shrieking baby. “It’s not his real name. His mother didn’t name him. I call him Job because it sure seems like the Lord is throwing everything He can think of at him.”
Daisy could barely speak. As Louise and Annie left the room, they shut the door and sealed Daisy off from the rest of the ward. Her arms tightened around Job’s angry body.
“I know,” she managed to whisper. “Oh, I know…”
She stayed an hour. Every Sunday after, she went straight into the glassed-in room. It was where she was needed.
“How can you bear it?” Julie asked. “That kind of crying cuts my heart in two. It’s torture.”
“It’s hard to explain,” Daisy said. “But I feel like I understand them.”
She didn’t want the passive, docile preemies. She wanted the ones who were turned inside-out with pain and want. They were her grief manifested a thousand-fold. She gathered them into her arms. She sang and crooned and consoled, the way she craved to be atoned. She whispered to their delicate whorled ears and spoke to herself.
“You cry,” she said, pressing one screaming infant to her breast and cupping its pulsing fontanels. “You go ahead and cry as much as you want. Nobody understands how much it hurts. I know. It hurts so much. You want it so bad. The wanting will just kill you. You’re so brave…”
SHE WAS SIGNING into Nina Popova’s master ballet class at Steps Over Broadway one Saturday morning, when a man’s voice filled with hesitation called her name. She looked up. Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes blurred with sudden tears. Her mouth formed an O all ready to be spoken when he pointed a finger and said, “Don’t you fucking call me Opie.”
“John,” she cried, flinging away the pen in her hand and throwing herself into his arms. Her feet left the floor as he pulled her hard to his chest. She crossed her wrists behind his head, buried her face in his shoulder and exhaled.
“Oh, John,” she said.
“I love conversations that start this way,” he said.
She couldn’t answer, just held on tight.
“It’s terrible to see you,” he said, one of his hands moving to the back of her head. His laughter floated through his chest into hers. He kissed her temple as he let her feet find the floor but he didn’t let go. His warm, lean strength against her body was a balm.
“Oh, John,” she said again. “I haven’t seen you in…”
“Two years,” he said. “Two years and five months. And twenty-eight days. Give or take an hour.”
He let go then, held her away from him and swept his eyes up and down. She looked him over as well. His red hair was artfully tousled. The dimple flashed in a scruffy cheek and his dark brown eyes were filled with pleasure.
“Are you taking this class?” she asked.
“No,” he said, holding a fold of her coat in his fingers and moving her away from the desk. “I’m buying you a cup of coffee and asking a thousand questions.”
Like a cavalier, he led her downstairs, steered her across the street to a coffee shop and into a booth.
“Tea, right?” he said. “Tea’s your drink.”
“Coffee’s fine,” she said.
John looked at her a long, probing moment. “What the fuck happened?” he said softly. “Where’s Fish?”
She shook her head. “Not with me. What did you hear?”
“Not a damn thing. You stopped coming to class, then Will disappeared. Kees wouldn’t tell me anything. I went by Colby Street and it was empty. I went by Jay Street and it was closed up too. I went to find David—he was a strung-out mess and looked like he’d been in a fight. He shut the door in my face. Everyone disappeared, nobody said goodbye, nothing.”
“I slept with David.”
John sat back, slack-jawed. She stared into his eyes. No excuses, no reasons, no requests for pity or understanding.
John shook his head a little and he took a long sip of coffee. “So, you’re…” His eyebrows knitted. “Are you with him now?”
She shook her head and had to smile, laughing a little into her cup. “No, I’m alone.”
“Where’s Fish?”
“He’s up in Geneseo. Finishing his degree at SUNY, I guess. I haven’t actually talked to him. I mean, I call him every few months, listen to him breathe thirty seconds before he hangs up on me. Mostly I write him. The letters don’t come back but it doesn’t mean he reads them.”
John shook his head again. “This makes no sense. So he left and it’s over and that’s it? You don’t talk?”
“No.” She shrugged. “I fucked up.”
“Yeah, no way to sugar coat that.” He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling heavily. “For what it’s worth, I never trusted David.”
Daisy rolled one of her shoulders again. “He’s not to blame. I went over there. I got high with him. I got into a situation I could’ve walked out of. Should have walked out of. But I didn’t.” She picked up her coffee, held its strong scent and warm steam to her nose.
John’s hand navigated plates and balled-up napkins and took hers. “Don’t beat yourself up, Dais. You did a shitty thing but you’re not a shitty person. Anyone could see you’re sorry as hell about it.”
She nodded over her mug. Pulled in a long, fortifying breath and tried to believe him. Across the table, he smiled at her, the dimple indenting his cheek and his eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Where’s Will?” he asked. “And Lucky?”
“Will got into the corps of National Ballet of Canada,” she said. “He did two seasons and then got an offer from the Frankfurt Ballet, so he’s in Germany. Lucky lives in Fort Lee and she’s working at a physical rehab center in the Bronx.”
“I take it they’re not together then.”
“No, about a year after graduation they split.”
John’s fingers slowly shredded a napkin. “This is heartbreaking.”
“Lucky’s seeing someone. Edward. He works on Wall Street. Young, rich workaholic. Catholic. Republican. Her mother’s wet dream.”
John laughed.
“I haven’t asked a thing about you,” she said. “What are you up to?”
“Dancing and starving,” he said. “What else is there?”
“Are you in a company?”
“I did a season with the Joffrey Ballet but they’ve relocated to Chicago.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his mouth twisting. “I was not invited to come along.”
“Ouch.”
“I auditioned for Finis Jhung’s Chamber Ballet last week and I have a callback tomorrow. If I don’t get this gig, I may have to start turning tricks for rent money.”
“Callback tomorrow?” she said. “You shouldn’t be cutting class.”
He shrugged. “When the girl you were in love with in college appears out of nowhere and throws herself in your arms, you have to make certain sacrifices. Are you gonna give me your phone number so I can call you when I’m evicted?”
Something about how his mouth stayed in a slightly parted smile made a warmth flicker through her chest. A prickle of curiosity. A cue begging to be picked up. Her own smile widened, muscles she hadn’t used in months. When was the last time she smiled enough to show her teeth and scrunch up her eyes?
“It’s good to see you,” she said.
“I’m so glad I found you,” he said. “I always wondered where you were.”
Such joy in knowing someone was wondering about her. Someone was glad to see her and didn’t think she was a horrible person. She breathed it in. Took a small, careful taste. And wrote down her number.
“Call me tomorrow,” she said. “Let me know how it went.”
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He carefully folded the slip of paper. “I’ll call you tonight.”
JOHN DIDN’T GET INTO CHAMBER BALLET but he got a tip to go audition for the revival of Carousel at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. He was cast as the ruffian boy in the dream ballet sequence, the role Jacques d’Amboise made famous in the film version.
“Damn, I had visions of you as the next American gigolo,” Daisy said.
“It’s always an option,” John said.
Fall swept over New York. The days shortened and the air grew crisp and thin. Both John and Daisy were working within the Lincoln Center complex and they began spending all their free time together. Their early mornings were free to go to class: they met for breakfast and took turns picking a venue. They hooked up for lunch when they could, and if their respective performances ended at the same hour, they grabbed a late supper and John walked her home before hopping the subway to his tiny place in Washington Heights.
“New boyfriend?” Julie Valente said, running interested eyes over John as he waited at the stage door of the Met, chatting with the security guard.
“Old friend,” Daisy said.
She found herself looking forward to supported adagio class where John was an excellent partner. He was strong and perceptive and his hands were confident. They felt good on her. He led when she needed him to, and followed when it was warranted. Not with the wordless instinct that marked her partnership with Will, but she liked talking to John while dancing. Liked how they narrated their way through mechanics and choreography, joking and laughing and learning together.
They laughed a lot. In the long hours together, John’s demeanor stayed easy and neutral. He hugged her hello and goodbye, held doors, helped her with her coat, touched her casually. Her curiosity continued to prickle whenever his ginger handsomeness caught her by surprise. When he threw or caught or crushed her against him in class, she found herself thinking about their dance turned horizontally: imagining John’s strength, perception and confidence in bed and wondering what kind of lover he was.
Winter threw a tantrum and began blanketing the city in relentless snowstorms. The novelty of Manhattan being brought to its knees was cause for a wild celebration. The streets, free of traffic, became a playground. Crowds walked the fluffy byways, flocking to Central Park to sled and build snowmen.
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