by Jones, Ayla
“Hey, consider this…” I waved before shifting to a middle finger as I drove out of the complex. In my rearview I saw her return the gesture. We had a great friendship.
I tossed the baggie to the passenger seat, next to the script. Tingles of anticipation coursed up my arms, and I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. I was almost salivating.
I was Pavlov’s goddamn dogs.
Fallon had ADHD, and I bought her pills to help me write much longer and focus better, even though I didn’t have it. Added benefits: the euphoria and barely ever needing a second wind. But insomnia was a side effect, even when the drug was out of my system, and as a consequence of that, severe sleepiness. Since the robbery, though, I’d been better about sleeping, and paying attention to how and when the pills were affecting me most. But I was still napping instead of getting a full night. Fatigue was creeping up on me now and while I loved medicated energy, I needed sleep more. Plus, I didn’t want to hear Fallon’s criticism again for a while. Had I really been going there that often? And why was the judgment of an eighteen-year-old pill pusher bothering me?
Because she was right. I caught a glimpse of the bloodshot eyes under my droopy eyelids, and one week’s worth of beard; I did look like shit. Maybe it was better that I hadn’t asked Nikki for her phone number.
Fuck. I should’ve tried anyway.
Focusing on the road as if my entire life depended on it, I drove straight home for my bed, hoping she was kicking ass at her audition. Hoping that for just a split second she was thinking of the guy mumbling about the fucking asshole.
Chapter Two
Nikki
I gave the chick next to me a weak smile. I recognized her from the last time I was standing in front of three stoic judges with a number pinned to my tank top, in a room wrapped in mirrors. “From the Lincoln Hayes tour audition, right?” she asked. I guess she knew me, too. Eyes narrowing, she stared like she could see straight through to bone. “Oooh. Tough loss. Maybe next time.” She was trying to psych me out. There were forty of us in here vying for four spots. I didn’t blame her.
But if she was here today, she hadn’t been chosen, either. Sabotage worked both ways. “Oh, is that where I know you from? A few others we both didn’t get were coming to mind,” I said. “Good luck,” I added—with resting bitchface—before I found another spot on the floor. In my new place (under a whirring ceiling fan, no less), the girls on either side of me didn’t even look my way. Much better.
God, the universe really rallied when it wanted to mess with you. I didn’t need the added stress. Not when I hadn’t told my mom about “the incident” yet. And not when cute wannabe vigilante Charlie was elbowing for space in my head, too. He was kinda rough-looking, but like those college guys who rolled into Starbucks in last night’s frat party clothes and thought putting on a baseball cap was better than using a brush. Because they were too sexy to even have to try. You scrunched your nose at them, yet somehow always thought, “I so would.” And Charlie? Tall, muscular, with a buzz cut, and really cute? I definitely would’ve. But that was presumptuous, because he hadn’t even asked for my number or if he could see me again.
Maybe I should’ve asked for his. I’d talked his ear off about my attachment to an old iPod and exposed my alcohol paranoia; what was reversing expected gender roles after all that?
A man moved to the middle of the floor and clapped to get our attention. Focus. I needed to focus. “Everyone who learned choreography from Claudia, you’re up first. All the odd numbers.” At open dance auditions like this, we were on a conveyor belt. Sometimes you danced an entire song; other times you were lucky to get a sixteen-count. Outside of auditioning, being seventeen years old and on my back on Jordan Turner’s mattress, looking up at his eyes squeezed shut and slack-jawed expression, was the only other instance when time had mattered so much in my life.
A rumble of footfalls moved to my left, and we rearranged ourselves. My heart nosedived into my stomach. It had been sitting in my throat the last hour. I clung to the hem of my tank top and my earlier freestyle performance for hope.
False hope.
Claudia walked to the center of the floor, and she five-six-seven-eight’ed herself through the routine for a futile refresher. I didn’t even try subtle mimicking gestures. If we didn’t know it by now, she was only inspiring self-loathing. The intro eight-count of a hip-hop song bleated into the air. The women on my row beamed with renewed confidence. Had it been Tchaikovsky, my pulse would’ve eased back into its regular rhythm. I also wouldn’t still be in bitchface.
I loved all music and I could handle this in a nightclub, but classical ballet was my comfort zone. And every judge, whose eyes moved from my resume to the person standing in front of him or her, knew that it wouldn’t work out. So why was I even here? Several strides and a few erratic heartbeats and I’d be at the door. At least this time it would be quitting and not rejection.
Or a dismissal.
I stared at my reflection in the mirrors behind the judges. I had my physical hang-ups but I’d always thought I was beautiful—even through my cystic acne phase and self-cut hairstyles, copied from People. What I liked most, though, was that I was strong. I loved the way I looked in a tight tank top and spandex shorts. When I could see the muscular arms and legs that years of dance had shaped. When my hair was pulled up so tight in a donut bun that it hurt. And when I couldn’t fight getting wide-eyed or a stupid dreamy smile. I always looked stronger and braver than I felt. Than I was, really. So I knew leaving would be much harder than staying. My heart was rooted in my limbs—in twisting them and moving them and defying the natural bend of my body, for the sake of telling a story the music left out. That’s why I was putting myself through an audition where I stood no chance. For a spot I wasn’t even sure I wanted.
Just to feel my heartbeat.
The silky voice of an R&B singer flowed out, and the dancers flanking me spun with their arms raised. I was already off. I spun. Oh my God! Oh crap! Arms raised! Kick-cross-step. Ass-shake. Pop and lock. Floor slide on a knee. Ass-shake on all fours. Hair-flip right. Then left. Writhe up to a standing position. And then some girl touching other girl for viewer titillation.
“You may go…fifteen. Three. Eleven…” Oh, that was my number. “Twenty-three…” None of us talked as we exited, everyone’s attention on their cellphone, fingers flying. I wasn’t texting, though, just staring at my locked screen. Ironically, communicative technology made avoiding people so much easier. We scattered in the streets like frantic ants.
I’d messed up in there, as expected. But I was still rocked by my disappointment. My shaky hands fished the keys from my bag. My vision was a watery blur. The sting of rejection from something you didn’t want could hurt just as much. Like even it couldn’t be bothered with you.
I took an aimless stroll down the block. There was no way I was going to cry in the car; this wasn’t a Lifetime movie. So I soaked in the clear blue sky and bright sun, a Miami morning just as beautiful as most of the other ones that preceded it. Eventually, I got into my mom’s Volvo. I unlocked my phone and went to the dance audition database I always used. I didn’t dare click “ballet” to filter results. It was just there because someone would’ve noticed if it weren’t. The Miami City Ballet only held auditions through the company itself. And there was no way in hell my scarlet letter from So Cal Ballet wouldn’t flare up like the Batman signal once someone started calling around.
My eyes caught the time on the dash and I dialed my best friend, Lea. Oh crap. The tears were coming. Cue the melancholy instrumental crescendo. She answered in two rings. “Hey. Are you awake?” I asked.
“Yeah…” She wasn’t. She was in her last semester of the Geography BA/MA Program at the University of Miami. She’d probably been up all night. “Are you okay? Is it the audition?”
“It was horrible. I was horrible. I never should’ve come.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Where are you? You’re still there?”
“Sitting in the car outside the building.” I sniffled.
“Oh no.”
“Yeah…”
“Lifetime?”
“Got my forehead on the steering wheel and everything.” We both laughed.
“Well, it was a onetime pay thing, right? And think about how that stupid song would’ve gotten stuck in your head after you spent all those days dancing to it.”
“I know, right? That song sucks. Ugh, and he got famous from YouTube. Whatever.” File this under “Things Bitter Bitches Say.” Actually, I thought it was awesome he’d paved his own way to stardom. He was living his dream now. While I…I was just the creator of my own misfortune. A cautionary tale. “I keep thinking I’ll finally get one of these brief gigs I don’t really want and then network my way to something steady. It’s been one small thing after the other. And now I’m shooting mostly blanks. Probably because I’m just throwing myself at every freaking one and hoping I stick. I just want something to stick…” A few weeks ago, I’d booked all of International Fashion Week as part of the entertainment for social events. It paid really well. I’d gotten comfortable with working a dance gig every night.
“I know, babe. I’m sure worrying about the break-in didn’t help any. I think you should just tell your parents, by the way. They’ll know it was a robbery, Nik. They’ll believe—”
“No. Don’t you understand that I can’t?” I snapped, without meaning to. “Not yet. It took a lot for my mom to lend me her car for this long. I want to return it like she gave it to me. Then I’ll tell them…”
“Okay. I’m sure you’ll handle it, and everything will be fine.” She sighed. “Hey…wanna meet at Starbees? We could put together a gigantic list of every dance audition in Miami, and narrow it down to your absolute best options.”
“Yeah. I would appreciate that,” I said, feeling like a terrible person for getting irritated at her unjustly. “I think I get so anxious when I do it on my own, and I don’t focus on what I should be auditioning for. How about tomorrow? I’m on my way to see your sister.”
“You know you don’t have to go today, right?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s my turn this week. And she likes it when I go.”
“She does. But you know I worry about you just as much as I do her, Nik.”
“I know. I’m fine. I’d tell you if I wasn’t. Call you later.” After I ended the call, I pulled off to the only other place I usually went on Saturdays.
The Thurston Rehabilitation Center was a small but state-of-the-art facility, so everything was white and had an iPad attached to it. I flashed my volunteer ID at the desk and continued down the hall. I still used the badge, even though my days of court-mandated visits were over.
“Nikki?” Mrs. Anderson met me where two hallways intersected. The same as the night our fates had crossed on a dark road two years ago. We hugged. “I don’t know if today is one of the good ones.”
When I pulled away, we both gazed at the glass panels of the room behind me. Her daughter, Camryn, was in there with the specialist: sixteen, and devoted to purple eye shadow and a permanent fuck-the-world scowl.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“She’s upset with me.”
“Because of the guy?”
Mrs. A nodded once. “I took her phone away because we were running late this morning. She sat in the driveway for twenty-five minutes and screamed at the top of her lungs in the car. She kicked the passenger seat so much I think she broke it. She’s texting nearly every minute, all day. Literally. She’s blown through the data in a couple of days before. Checking and rechecking for responses. Checking and rechecking. Sitting and staring at the screen in the same spot on the couch for hours. Sending more texts.” Camryn’s mind was the chaos of teenager and Traumatic Brain Injury.
Her arms were folded over her stomach. She was one more annoyed shrug away from popping out of her crop top in front of the red-faced specialist. “How did you get her to calm down?” I didn’t really like to hear about Camryn’s bad days, but Mrs. A only had Lea or me to talk to during rehab sessions. Mr. Anderson never came here. Because of me. So, I was often the unwilling confidante in the unlikeliest friendship.
“I promised she could use her cell all day tomorrow.” Her voice was low and flat. Like she suddenly realized it was a grave mistake. “But small rewards are how we get from A to B.”
“Right.” Guilt struck me. I almost said sorry. But Mrs. A had been treading my river of apologies for so long now.
“So, she’s in a mood,” she warned again with a small smile, squeezing my shoulder. “Godspeed.” Questions I never asked out loud rose in these tender moments between us. How could a woman I’d almost killed, whose child I’d changed maybe irrevocably, continue to be nice to me? Had motherhood made her biased? Did she only see me as the child of someone else? I guess even monsters had moms.
“I still want to see her,” I assured her. This center welcomed approved family and friends during sessions, as long as we weren’t disruptive. Camryn’s face lit up when I walked in. But then it was back to another brain-enhancing exercise. And the scowl. The assistant brought a laptop to her. There was an innocuous demo of an animated mouse moving through a maze on the screen, playing on repeat. The game was supposed to strengthen her problem-solving skills and boost her short-term memory.
Prickly dread slithered up my spine. The specialist’s jaw ticked. Mrs. A’s shadow slanted inside the room. Camryn was about to go into a meltdown. She was the only person who didn’t know.
The maze exercise was simple. Get the mouse to the cheese as efficiently as possible. The first time was a freebie. Then the locations of several new obstacles—mousetraps and waiting cats—appeared before your eyes. It was a sequence anyone could breeze through. Anyone who hadn’t been propelled into a windshield at double-digit miles per hour.
Camryn shifted in her chair, shock washing over her when she learned they were going to tweak the maze after the first time. Whenever she was here, she never remembered she’d heard the instructions the week before. So, she got anxious when the path she chose didn’t work. She went back to the beginning. But she selected the same path again. Frustration simmered. Then came rapid foot taps. And a growl. Mrs. A and I made beelines to her side. There was a delicate balance here—support her but don’t guide.
“Why can’t I just go this way?” Camryn said.
“It’s an obstacle, honey. Sometimes we can’t just go through them…” Mrs. A explained.
“Look at the maze, Camryn. Work through it,” the specialist said, calm. One of us had to be. “What are your options?”
“My options…” Betrayal marked Camryn’s expression. She glared and tapped the laptop screen with her finger. “This one is the easiest. It worked the first time. It should work now.”
Mrs. A cleared her throat. “Right, but in life…we have to find an alternative way to our goal—”
“It’s a maze with a fucking rat!” Camryn slammed her hands on the desk and stood. “It doesn’t have any fucking thing to do with my life!” The specialist shot up, too. The assistant lifted her shoulders as she inhaled. They stayed that way. We were both holding our breaths.
“Camryn, do not yell at me and don’t use that language.” Mrs. A was seething but she knew that no matter how mad Camryn made her, she had to focus on her daughter’s emotions. “We find other ways to communicate. You know that.” She rubbed the dark crescents under her eyes, looking emotionally exhausted, too. I thought she was on the brink of tears.
“Camryn, what are you feeling right now?” the specialist asked.
“Um, what does it look like? I’m pissed off.”
“Why?”
“Because… because you won’t just…let me—it’s hard, okay?”
“Yes, but think back to last week.” She was triggering frontal lobe functions in the brain: giving her something to focus on, a problem to solve, and calling up memories. I’d researched all of this to know exactly what kin
d of damage I’d done. “You worked through it, right? And you did great. Tell me what you did when you were here.”
Camryn took her time and explained what she could remember from last Saturday. Finally, she smiled. “I totally beat my record. Yes! You said I did.” She used to play field hockey and lacrosse for her school. She couldn’t play sports anymore because her brain was now a bomb with a permanently lit fuse; a second hard hit to the head would kill her. But she’d never stopped being a competitor. “I fucking rocked it that day. I could beat it again.” She put her hands on her hips and laughed, her eyes brightening with pride. Sometimes when she was like this, I imagined her as the girl I’d never know: who she was before the accident. Happy. Full of teenage coolness. Free.
“Camryn. Language,” Mrs. A warned. “Now, try a few more times? Please?” She forced a smile.
“Okay,” Camryn said with a sigh. I finally breathed normally again when she sat. “I can still have my phone back, right? All weekend?”
When the session ended, she and I walked to the Dairy Queen a few blocks away. Her mom didn’t like for Camryn to be too far out of reach, especially around people who didn’t know about her condition. And a few minutes after I paid for our ice cream and we sat at a table, I saw Mrs. A’s car idling at the curb.
Camryn did most of the talking, telling me about school and the guy she was dating. She was always able to put her incidents away easily. I was still on edge. I listened but the squeezing in my chest was distracting. “Oh gawd. Mom’s waving at me to come every time I look up. I have to go.”
“Yeah. All right. Enjoy the rest of your day.” I grabbed her arm when she stood. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”
“Ugh, Ni-cole,” she said, dragging out my first name, “I know.” She hugged me. “Bye. And get a life, so you have something to talk about, too. You just sit there and then…you’re kinda fucking boring. And take a shower. You stink.” When she reached the exit, she waved before hopping into her mom’s car.
My chest weighed a ton by the time I got back to the rehab center. Disgust poured over me and I cried as I sat outside. I ignored the people who asked if I was okay. I didn’t want to be consoled. I deserved to feel like this. No one liked a story where the bad guy got away.
