Meanwhile in the World where Kennedy Survived

by Lacey Ann Carrigan

  Chapter Fourteen

  Later that afternoon Dorina sat in her desk, vacantly staring at her keyboard. The activity around her resembled a beehive but Fridays were always like that. She wanted to call Jacy Rayner, but not necessarily for the reason Mitch and Wayne wanted her to. Without making a complete fool out of herself, she wanted to discuss last night’s dream with her. And she had to admit that what her boyfriend and his business associate had to pitch to her had possibilities.

  In the end it came down to two simple choices. She could elect not make the call to Jacy and continue on doing the same thing she did, week after week: crunch numbers and do ad contracts. Now, if she made the call to Jacy, well...who knew? Just before three o’clock she checked her email for the tenth time that day finding nothing but the latest blurb for donations and a memo about office supplies. When the clock on the lower right side of her monitor flipped to 3:00pm, she felt little creepers run up and down her arms. It was the ringing of the bell for the end of school and the beginning of her life as an adult. Anxious, heart beating faster, she positioned the ear pad more securely and poised her fingers over the numerical keypad.

  She hit F6 for the dial tone and input the number then flicked enter. One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Four rings. She considered hitting F4 to disconnect but then someone picked up with the same rustlings and clunks as earlier that week. “Hello?” a voice at the other end answered. She could tell, just from that one word that the voice was crisper, higher pitched, and more nasal than Jacy’s.

  Dorina straightened in her chair. “Hello. This is Dorina Pettit. Am I speaking with Josette?”

  A short silence. A small sigh. And then “Yes.”

  “Is your mother home?”

  “What’s your business?”

  Dorina inhaled and counted to three. “I wanted to get her approval on some items of the piece I’m working on. Could I speak with her, please?”

  She thought she heard a soft groan at the other end of the line in response. “I’ll see if she’ll take your call.” Along with the clunk there was also a clattering and rustling which told Dorina that Josette may have picked up the French phone in the study. During the wait she listened closely. There were footsteps, gradually diminishing, then the sound of a door creaking open. She heard Josette call out to someone but couldn’t make out the individual words. Then two voices. Like the volume switch of a stereo receiver had been turned up, she heard Jacy’s inimitable throaty, sophisticated alto along with Josette saying something about getting ready to leave.

  Jacy’s voice came over the line “Hello?” and she managed to stretch the two syllable word into three melodically lilting syllables.

  “Hello Jacy Rayner, this is Dorina Pettit.”

  “Oh, good! I’m so glad you called! I was trying to reach you earlier, but you know you did not leave a business card and Spectrum is not listed in the telephone book.”

  She was right. It was listed under the parent corporation, most likely as an attempt to keep crackpots from burning up the lines after every issue. “Good. That’s nice to hear,” Dorina said, realizing that she’d have a lot of explaining to do had Jacy been able to get through somehow. “Anyway, I have a few questions for you if I could just have a few moments of your time.”

  “Certainly! Tell me, Dorina, have you ever studied ballet? Or taken any ballet classes?”

  Dorina thought back to the plastic smell of brand new nylon and hand chalk, the roots of her hair burning from being twisted up into a severe bun and the first few strains of the violin during the Nutcracker suite. “Sure,” she said. “When I was eight years old.”

  “Well I’ve got an idea. Josette and I are attending a class tomorrow afternoon at Madame Grigoriev’s. Would you like to come join us?”

  Grigoriev, Dorina thought. She was probably one of the principals in the Bolshoi ballet. Gad, the Russians were into everything! “Sure. That sounds like fun.”

  “Good! You own a leotard, don’t you? Well I’m sure that even if you don’t you can obtain one quite easily.”

  “As long as you don’t mind me being a klutzy beginner.”

  “Oh, you’ll do fine. You already move like a dancer. And I noticed that you’ve got lovely insteps and a graceful neck line.” Jacy gave exhaustively detailed directions on how to get to the ballet studio. It was in an older, rehabbed part of town and she explained that the building was a converted warehouse and one of her family’s real estate holdings.

  “Thanks for inviting me,” Dorina said.

  “No problem a ‘tall my dear. We’ll have you en Pointe by the end of the session.”

  Dorina shook her head. “Excuse me?”

  “Just kidding. Till tomorrow!”

  She disconnected and then spun her chair away from the monitor to ponder what she was getting herself into. At that same moment Vic passed the entrance to her cubicle. When he saw her he stopped and looked down at her quizzically out of his beady eyes. He said “What are you looking so puked out about?”

  Dorina told him. “I assure you I’m anything but puked out at this point.”

  Vic raised his eyebrows and walked away, shaking his head.

  A couple of short hours later she was free to start her weekend. She would have Friday night completely free as Mitch had already told her he would be spending time with his buddies. Her best friend Tracy would be going to Anaheim to watch an Angel’s game with her boyfriend. Dorina began her weekend by grocery shopping for a few staples and a frozen dinner. On the way home she stopped at the video store.

  The Portals Beyond movies took up an entire rack in the science fiction section of the store. The “Television Memorabilia” section contained most of the old Galaxian episodes including those featuring Empress Tigra. Dorina was about to rent two of the movies and one of the Galaxian episodes but then stopped short. She decided that she would serve herself better by limbering up and making sure she had something suitable to wear the next day.

  It turned out that she still owned a pair of ballet slippers that fit. Her first thought after that was to go with a crop top and bike shorts. She knew that Jacy would probably think the bike shorts were too constricting for lateral leg lifts so she dug more deeply into her wardrobe. Then she found the jazzercise electric blue color block leotard and a pair of footless suntan shimmer tights that might have been part of her high school wardrobe. They would be perfect for ballet.

  For the rest of that night Dorina worked out wearing her improvised ballet outfit. First she put the yoga tape on. By the time she’d gotten to the cat poses, she decided that yoga was too staid and serene for her mood that night. She took that tape out and put in the INXS “Live Baby Live” recording someone had once given her. While the late Michael Hutchence strutted, pouted and dramatically sung to her soul the band behind him played their special brand of “sway-along” rock and roll. Dorina just moved her body in the directions the music took her to, losing her in the moment. By the time the tape ended she lay down on the couch, spent, mindlessly watching an old Molly Ringwald movie.

  Before she nodded off completely, she wiped her face free of makeup and hand washed the leotard and tights in the sink. As she hung them up to dry on the tall lamppost, she wondered again what she was getting herself into. More importantly, when she decided to turn in early, she wondered what type of a dream she would have while she slept.

  It had been a trying week and Dorina slept through the night, the way she had as a little girl. She did not remember any dreams but as she learned from her psychology class that did not mean that she did not have any.

  Samantha had been sleeping on the pillow beside her when she woke. This was another sign that she had slept unusually soundly. When Dorina would ordinarily toss and turn, the cat would get discouraged and walk off to find her own bed. Bright rays of sunlight sliced into her room from the east. That Saturday morning had been more beautiful than any she had remembered in awhile. It seemed to hearken a new beginning for her and she leaped out of
bed to begin the day.

  Jacy said that the dance class began at two o’clock p.m. and it was only seven-thirty. She would have to wait until much later in the morning to call Mitch. His Friday nights out with his buddies usually involved a lot of drinking. It was best to let him keep that part of his life separate. That week he hadn’t specifically said that they would go anywhere Saturday night and Dorina wondered if she should let the answering machine pick up all day to let him sweat a little. She had seen an unfamiliar side of him during the lunch with Wayne, the drab, driven, money-grubbing side. While she had met him at the office for lunch dates before and had met all of his co-workers, she had never seen him in action. The Thai lunch was the closest she’d come to seeing him perform his job.

  By the end of her breakfast of cocoa crispies and an orange, she had decided to do something else that Saturday night, without Mitch. She wondered what Tracy was doing. It would be nice to hear her viewpoint about the whole matter involving the mysterious Jacy Rayner. By nine o’clock she decided that it was time Tracy should be up if she wasn’t up already. When she called her friend’s number, the answering machine picked up. Dorina sighed. Tracy had probably spent the night with her new boyfriend.

  Dorina decided to perform mindless chores and let Saturday night take care of itself. If that meant she was just going to stay in and watch chick flicks on DVD or play computer games, so be it. She cleaned her bathroom from the top of the mirror to the floor using the vinegar solution she’d learned about on the Sierra Club website. Then there was lots of dusting. Just one cat pawing the litter could make clouds of the stuff, dropping sediment on her bookshelves and dresser tops.

  With the excess energy she vacuumed the living room, hallways and bedroom, wiping down the TV and computer screens. Finally, it was on to the kitchen, where she used baking soda and an old toothbrush on the tile grout of the countertop. After the floor was swept and washed she decided that she may as well tackle the one job she had avoided for weeks. She completely cleaned out the inside of the refrigerator. At about twelve noon she was ready for a cheese sandwich and leftover salad.

  There was still time for a short nap before her ballet class. When she lay down on the couch, Samantha curled up beside her. Dorina asked her cat “What am I getting myself into here?’ and Samantha just blinked at her before they both took a cat nap together.

  An hour later she decided she was ready to set out for the converted warehouse and her ballet class. Checking her hair and makeup one last time, she put on her sweat pants and left the apartment dropping a butterfly hair clip into her purse on the way out. When she left the parking lot she once again marveled over how the hustle and bustle intensified on Saturdays rather than dying down. Families going shopping. People scrambling around to take care of personal business they’d neglected during the week.

  She thanked her angels that traffic moved well, if in thick swarming patterns. Dorina sped by all the cars in the electric lanes. The dance studio was a twenties era building that had been sandblasted and re-molded nicely, along with receiving some fresh new landscaping. When she arrived there, it was one forty-five. She didn’t want to risk walking into the door before Jacy and Josette so she stopped at a yogurt store for a tropical cooler. When she sat down at a flimsy table in there to sip it, she lavished it, letting the nutrients in, imagining they were infusing all her cells with energy.

  By the time she left the yogurt parlor it was a minute after two. It would take awhile for her to park the car, walk to the door and find the studio. By then, she decided, she would arrive safely behind the woman who’d invited her to the class. They’d added a prismed atrium to the outside of the building and potted, lush tropical plants awaited her when she pushed through the doorway. She entered a wide corridor with brand new carpeting and painted murals on the walls of feet en Pointe in toe shoes. A young woman with flat hair, wearing glasses sat at a desk with a small lamp. She noticed Dorina glancing around at her surroundings and said “Can I help you, miss?”

  Dorina walked toward her. “I’m supposed to go to a dance session,” she said. “I guess there are several different studios in here?” She could hear piano music down one hallway and what sounded like a rousing orchestra reverberating from upstairs.

  “Do you know which teacher is holding the session?” the receptionist asked softly.

  “Madame Grigoriev, I believe.”

  At the mention of the name, the woman nodded knowingly. “You’ll find a door down at the end of this wall, on the right. When you open it you’ll find stairs leading up to Studio D, where that session is taking place.”

  Dorina followed the wall with its layers of textured paint. She could hardly believe that the building she’d entered may have once housed pallets full of machine parts or kegs of beer, grunting men on forklift trucks moving them about in the dust and grime, the smell of propane in the air. The door at the end of the wall did lead into a metal stairway painted bright orange. She expected to hear music playing, growing in volume as she climbed further and further toward the top. The rousing orchestra music must have come from one of the adjoining studios.

  When she’d almost reached the landing, she could hear women’s voices talking inside. The door had a glass pane imbedded with old-fashioned wire netting but before she even opened it she could see that sunlight from high windows flooded the studio, giving it a cheery feeling. She could see Jacy standing against a barre bar on one wall, speaking with another woman in her sixties with her salt and pepper hair swept up into a tight bun. Dorina decided that it must have been Madame Grigoriev.

  Jacy had been facing the door and apparently keeping one eye on it. She had pulled back her hair into a pony tail, securing it with a colorful scrunchy. Her willowy frame and still spectacular torso had been dressed in a classic black leotard, high cut at the thigh to accentuate her long, sculpted legs, encased in matte pink. By the time Dorina twisted the doorknob, Jacy’s features brightened and she called out to her.

  Dorina entered the room and Jacy called out “There you are! You made it!” She walked gracefully along the gleaming hardwood floor to greet her. When she reached her, she gave her arm a quick squeeze, and then surveyed the room. “Before we get started, I want to introduce you to everyone. Josette you already know.” She pointed to the far corner where her daughter, who was fumbling around in an equipment bag, smiled meekly at her.

  Josette was wearing a stylish teal and gray crop top and coordinated Capri tights outfit, her lush hair gathered neatly upward in a butterfly comb. Then Jacy pointed out a group of girls who appeared to be in high school or early college, dressed in crop tops and shorts or t-shirts and Capri tights. She said “That’s Marta, Jasmine, Jennifer, Nicole, and Brooke.”

  After Dorina nodded greetings to all of them she considered herself lucky that this was probably a beginner level practice session. None of the high schoolers looked like accomplished ballerinas. She glanced around the room and saw practice mats and equipment bags. In the opposite corner a small table held a Bose Wave music system and an assortment of CDs. Jacy led Dorina across the room to the Russian instructor. Age had thickened her middle and left her face matronly fleshy but she still carried herself with youthful grace, wearing a serene expression. “This is Madame Irina Grigoriev, prima ballerina with the Bolshoi Company.” Dorina delicately shook the woman’s hand. Jacy said “Dorina, I guess you can lay your things over there next to Josette and we can get started.”

  The session started out slowly. Madame Grigoriev spoke in halting, heavily accented English about the aim of the ballerina, to fly. The girls all looked on casually, shifting their weight, glancing out the window or staring ahead blankly. In a sequence Dorina barely understood the instructor spoke about the need for “quiet, delicate strength,” while Jacy stood beside her, nodding in agreement.

  They would first perform floor stretching and bending exercises and all the students reached for practice mats to cushion them from the hard wood floor. At first there were
the catlike movements. Dorina and the other students got down on their hands and knees while Jacy and Josette also followed along with the instructor. They were all told to arch their back and lead forward to the floor with their face, pushing back up with their arms. For a pattern of three repetitions the small class arched and lifted through the movements again and again.

  From there it was the side stretches and arm stretches. Madame Grigoriev told them to sit upright and then spread their legs outward, toes pointed. The exercise then concentrated on the upper body and arms. They would all have to lean forward over one leg and reach for their toes, trying to touch them or an ankle if they could. The next repetition called for them to bend sideways toward the left leg and lead with the right arm, stretching it as far as possible along the leg. Dorina glanced over in Jacy’s direction, amazed that the woman had executed a perfect split. Her legs were so long that her ankles cleared the edges of the mat by several inches. She noticed that Josette was able to split, also, but not quite as cleanly as her mother. In addition, Jacy was able to bend completely at the waist so that the side of her face rested against her knee. She reached forward with her hands and cradled her foot with them.

  Both actions were repeated on the other side while Madame Grigoriev kept exhorting her class to bend, stretch, and reach. Some of the high school and college girls grunted and moaned, whispering among each other. Dorina was already getting to feel quite limber and loose from the stretching and reaching. She realized it was all part of an elaborate warm-up and expected the prima ballerina to ask them to stand and head for the barre bar next. Instead, she kept them all on the floor.

  The next exercise was a reverse of the cat routine. They were all told to form what was known as a “bridge” posture, which called for them to sit, and then rise up, table like by bending their knees and pushing against the floor with their hands, buttocks suspended. She asked them to hold there for several moments and “breathe, breathe, breathe.” The next command surprised Dorina: “Rise up on your toes!” and she somehow found the energy to rise all the way up, lifting her knees high in the air. Jacy, who was working out at an angle to Dorina, was able to turn her head and glance back at her. “Very good Dorina!” she said, her voice not strained in the least.

  They were allowed to drop their heels, which she was glad for since all the toe raising had started to burn her calf muscles. That was not the end, however. “Lift your right foot,” the prima ballerina said and Dorina strained to bring it up, struggling to keep her knees together. She thought that if she did this type of exercise every day she would quickly lose what little of the “secretary spread” she had.

  “Point your toe,” the ballerina continued and Dorina realized that she got an uncanny burst of energy from straightening her limb, as though it served as a divining rod for a wellspring to healing. She called for them to hold that posture for several moments, after which they were free to let their foot drop. Again, Dorina heard a few exasperated gasps and sighs around her. It was time for the other foot, and she was glad that lifting that one, on her left side, was much easier. She also pointed the toe on that foot, along with all her other classmates and got the same type of invigorating rush as she’d had before.

  What was next? Would the prima ballerina make them balance on only one arm and one foot? She realized that it would be good for endurance and stamina, but would tire her out greatly. Dorina belonged to a gym, which she attended at least a couple of times a week, either for a spinning class, some aerobics, or a little weight lifting. From time to time she also boarded the treadmill or the Nordic track and place her hands on the metal sensors for her heart rate and tested her fitness level. The machines had always fed her back scores as “Good” and on at least one occasion “Excellent.” She was more fit in her estimation than the average woman her age, and definitely more fit than the average office or desk worker.

  Yet, ballet exercises were tough!

  Madame Grigoriev finally called for an end to the floor exercises. The girls to the right and behind Dorina struggled to their feet, apparently feeling more spent than she did. Jacy and Josette sprang to their feet, Jacy smiling broadly. Her complexion glowed as the exercise seemed to fuel and nourish a deep need in her. The ballerina stood at the front and asked the women to form a circle so she could see them all equally. “Time to check your line and foot positions,” she said.

  Dorina had forgotten the foot positions, as she realized that it had been about fifteen years since she performed them. To her surprise, Josette showed up beside her and showed her the repertoire. “Watch me,” she said. “First, second, third, fourth, and fifth.” Dorina watched Josette’s narrow feet swivel and point through side, heel to ball, heel to toe, heel to arch, and feet spread and apart.

  “Thanks,” Dorina said, “but that was a little quick for me. Could I get you to slow that down a little?”

  She expected Josette to sigh in exasperation but instead she cheerily said “No problem and performed the motions slowly, pausing at each of them to show her as she said “First, second, third, fourth, and fifth.”

  Dorina set her feet apart in first position. Then Josette asked her to try them. She slowly, deliberately shifted her toe and heel and shuffled her foot to execute the positions.

  Josette said “Very good! You’re doing it!”

  At that moment Madame Grigoriev called out for Josette to put in a CD, something ending with the word “fifth” and soon the sounds of piano and violin filled the room. “Ladies it’s time for the plie.” Dorina did, at least remember that movement, in fourth position, which was a bending of both knees while attempting to keep a good “line.” This time the instructor executed the movement along with them as they kept bending and lifting, bending and lifting. Dorina realized that she was keeping time with the music, as if her bend and recovery were following the rhythmic sway of a metronome.

  Their next real movement was an “arabesque,” where, standing in first position all the women were told to stand in first position. All at the same time, they were to raise their arms, lift onto the ball of their left foot and point backward with their right toe. “Glide, glide,” the instructor told them. Dorina glanced over and saw that Jacy was rising to a perfect Pointe when lifting, raising her arms and eyes high heavenward. She was so taken with Jacy’s total immersion into lifting her body skyward that she lost her balance for a moment and teetered.

  Josette must have been watching her because she said “Be careful! We don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Their next step was considerably easier. They were simply to stand and lift one foot out, tracing their toe on the floor. Dorina felt herself getting progressively stronger and at the same time more delicate as it became easier for her to approximate the movements. The music accompanying changed timbre and she thought she recognized Mozart. She was not sure whether or not that composers melodies were conducive to ballet or not. Madame Grigoriev called out to Josette to change the selection once again, reciting what sounded to be a list of numbers. The exciting crescendos were quickly replaced by the more delicate rising and falling piano melodies.

  “Everyone to the bar,” the instructor said.

  At first the instructor positioned all the students along the bar. She put Dorina beside Jacy, who was placed near the end, toward the window. The bar was wood and ran parallel to the wall, about eight inches from it. Metal brackets connected it with the wall joists at several different locations. Still, Dorina wondered how the bar, which was not thick at all, could withstand the stresses of eight women leaning against it.

  Madame Grigoriev was helping all the other students ready themselves for using the bar and Jacy was helping Dorina. She placed a hand gently against her back and said “Okay, now let’s get your leg up there. Come on, you can do it.” Dorina steadied herself and lifted her left leg, from the hip.

  “Good,” Jacy said. She then set about patting Dorina at several points. For a moment she felt like an airplane traveler selected for a securit
y check, but Jacy’s movements were quick and light. She caught her under both of her arms and straightened her then gently patted her on the midriff and small of her back, to straighten her in that direction as well. “Good, very good,” she said. Dorina glanced down along the bar and saw that everyone, including Josette at the very end of it, had put a leg up.

  Dorina glanced behind her and saw that Jacy had fallen in also and had sleekly placed her leg up on the bar with the rest of them. What Madame Grigoriev taught next was a movement she had seen in ballet many times over the years, either in short spots on television or in movies with ballet scenes. They were told to lean back, extending their left arm, and then slowly bring that arm forward, bending, reaching, trying to touch the toe raised on the barre bar. They continued on, keeping time with the music, languidly reaching forward, falling back and Dorina felt like a lily on a long stalk swaying in the breeze.

  Their session was an hour long. “That’s all we have time for today,” Madame Gregoriev said. A few of the five girls started talking to each other. One of them, in a U.C.L.A. t-shirt approached Jacy.

  “My friends want to see you do the Firebird Suite,” said the girl Dorina thought she remembered as Marta.

  She wasn’t sure, but she thought she detected a blush on Jacy’s cheekbones as she smiled shyly and covered her eyes. “Come on Miss Jacy, lets see the Firebird,” another one of them said.

  Two others started repeating the words “Firebird, Firebird, Firebird,” gaining gradually in volume until it sounded like a cheer at a football game.

  “Come on mom, go ahead,” Josette said. Madame Grigoriev stood back and smiled.

  Dorina was puzzled. She remembered “The Firebird Suite” by Stravinsky as a frenetic piece that was more suited as a movie soundtrack accompaniment to a chase through the streets of London rather than as a dance piece.

  Another of the girls poked Dorina and said “You’ve got to see this. It’s really cool.”

  Jacy said “Okay.”

  The girls picked up mats from the floor and placed them in a neat pile along the wall.

  Quickly, Jacy took her place at the center of the floor, standing tall but with her head bowed slightly. She appeared to be deep in concentration. From the corner, Dorina could hear CD boxes clattering. Jacy broke concentration and looked up across the room, smiling wryly at Josette.

  “I can’t find the friggin’ CD,” she said, rummaging through the thin plastic cases more frenetically. “Oh, hear it is.”

  Jacy took a few deep breaths and resumed her stance, waiting for the music to begin. When Josette had finished queuing the track and the first notes of music came out of the small but powerful stereo system, Dorina realized that she had forgotten all about the majestic final movement of the piece. It began with a few beckoning notes from a coronet during which Jacy slowly, tantalizingly rose to Pointe. Outside the window clouds gathered overhead and momentarily dimmed the sun, then receded and allowed it to shine fully once again. Dorina was in awe as the expression on Jacy’s face became beatific, otherworldly.

  Her movements were fluid, frozen in time while she stayed en Pointe and even wavered back and forth drawing a hand back and forth with a graceful flourish. The next notes came from cello strings and a lilting flute while violins gently built to a crescendo.

  Jacy lowered down, appearing to draw into herself, reaching inward. Then the triumphant brass sounded and she sprang into a spin, covering the entire floor in two indescribably sprightly steps slapping the soles of feet on the second bound. The action of bringing her feet together twisted her around in mid air and, swanlike, she flew downward her right leg gracefully extended behind her.

  She finished by making a quick, whirling run around the perimeter of the room before spun down and around into a full split, her legs pin wheeling around. Her chin and face had drifted only inches from the floor while she brought her movement to a close with the music and she sat astride her legs, straightening her back, looking over her shoulder at Dorina and the girls. When they all realized that the music stopped and so had Jacy, they applauded wildly for her.

  And Dorina understood why some people, when describing an outstanding ballet performance said that “Time seemed to stop.”