Pointe
Page 6
But today, I feel like a beginner. I’m sluggish and the taste of bile coats my mouth and it’s affecting my dancing. Not to mention the face of Donovan’s kidnapper is everywhere I turn.
His smirk dances across the top of the barre as I stand in first position and bend my knees into a grand plié, my heels rising off the floor. I see his eyes in the mirror as I extend my leg straight behind me; they follow me around the room as I promenade in arabesque, daring me to break my slow, controlled balance. Usually, dancing calms me when I’m upset, but those goddamned eyes won’t let me go, and I’m starting to wish I’d never left my bed this morning.
Donovan was found nearly 2,000 miles away with an older man, and that’s reason enough to believe he could’ve been abused. But I can’t stop thinking about how inexperienced he was when he disappeared. How scared he must have been. I’d had sex by the time he was abducted, but neither of us knew much about anything until he found that book a few years before he was taken. We were aware of the mechanics, of course. How babies got here. We knew that kissing led to touching, which led to sex. We knew that people in our class had kissed, though having a boyfriend or girlfriend back then mostly meant holding hands at recess for a couple of days and sharing your lunch without complaining. We just didn’t know about the whole “touching” part and certainly nothing about how sex actually worked—not beyond the occasional glimpse of a watered-down scene on one of the shows our parents watched when we were supposed to be in bed.
But all that changed the day Donovan told me he’d found something I had to see. It was the winter of our fourth-grade year and we were in his room on a Saturday afternoon, forced indoors because of a snowstorm. I was bored at home, so I’d bundled up in my boots and coat and walked two houses down to be bored with Donovan.
I was sitting cross-legged on the rug, paging through one of his Avengers comics, when he said, “T, I have to show you something” in a low voice that promised secrets.
His door was closed, but his eyes kept darting toward it, as if someone would burst into his room at any second. We were safe. His sister, Julia, was just a baby, and she was down for her afternoon nap. Mr. Pratt was kicked back in the den with a tumbler of scotch, watching the Bulls shoot for victory, and Mrs. Pratt was in the kitchen, slicing apples for a cobbler.
Still, Donovan put a finger to his lips as he reached behind his bookshelf and pulled out a heavy-looking book with strange writing on the cover and an illustration of a man and woman facing each other. Bodies intertwined, the man’s hand cupping her naked breast.
I gasped. The people weren’t real, but I was nine years old and it was the most explicit thing I’d ever seen. And from the look on Donovan’s face, I knew the pages inside had to be even worse. He sat down next to me, placed it on the floor between us.
“What is that?” I brushed my hand across the title and the people, then snatched my fingers away as if someone would go dusting for prints later.
“The Kama Sutra?” He said the beginning of Kama like “cam” and I thought that was how it was pronounced for years. Not that I ever advertised I’d been up close and personal with a copy.
“Where’d you get it?” Now I was looking at the door, listening for footsteps, plunging my fingers into the carpet to keep from opening the book.
“I found it in the garage last night,” Donovan said. His jeans-clad knees were drawn up to his chest, his chin resting on top. He eyed the book warily, like it was going to stand up on legs, walk downstairs, and announce its presence. “I was looking for my old glove and there was a box . . . It looked really old, like they hadn’t opened it for a long time.” He paused to scratch his nose. Maybe to stall. “Do your parents have books like this?”
“Um, I don’t think so.” My parents were sweet to each other;
they snuck kisses when they thought I wasn’t looking and shared glances that made me know they were very much in love. But I’d never come across anything like that in our house. I pushed away the Avengers comic. “Have you looked in it?”
He nodded, and it’s like that was the permission I needed, because I inhaled long and deep and then I opened the book to the middle and began to flip through it. More soft, full bodies. More illustrations that made me do double, triple takes. Some of them I just stared at, sure there was no way two humans could possibly put themselves in those positions. Or that they’d actually like it once they got there.
I could feel Donovan looking over my shoulder, but he didn’t touch the book again. All he said was, “Pretty gross, right?”
“It’s just . . . weird.” I didn’t know how else to put it.
I noticed boys, but every time one of my friends mentioned kissing or even holding hands, I felt like that was so far away for me, it was beyond comprehension. And clearly, Donovan was even less interested at that point. He’d much rather toss around a baseball with the other boys in class than spend time worrying about girls.
I looked away from the book after a couple of minutes. I felt warm all over, though I’d barely moved except to turn pages with the very tips of my fingers. It all seemed weird and a bit wrong, but I also felt a sense of relief. At least now I’d know what people were talking about whenever sex came up. Sort of.
• • •
That was the last time we looked at that book. The last time we discussed it, too, but sometimes over the next few weeks I’d notice Donovan zoning out and I didn’t know how to explain it but the look on his face was how I felt when I was paging through the book, and I was sure he was thinking about it. Every time.
I need to get my shit together now because I swear, Marisa seems to be watching me more closely than usual in class. She knows our bodies almost as well as we do, what each of us is capable of doing. But the more I worry about disappointing her, the harder it is to concentrate. To stop thinking about the guy who took Donovan.
I use the extra seconds between combinations to close my eyes and breathe in deeply, and then, just when I think I’m safe, the memories of my ex-boyfriend come flooding in.
I remember how we used to drive out to the abandoned park because nobody would think to look for us among the overgrown paths and rusted swing sets. He’d always bring something for us to share—a small, flat bottle of whiskey, a fresh pack of Camel Reds. Anything that might relax me, make me feel better about the things we did when we were alone.
So many firsts happened in that park. My first taste of strong liquor. The first time I was touched between my legs, the first time a long, slow path was kissed along my breasts. The first time I saw a guy completely naked and held him in my hand.
It was also the first time I told someone “I love you.”
It was easy to believe he felt the same way. Especially when his mouth curved into a small smile, when he kissed me long and deep. Those times, the sex was sweet. Slow. Making love, he’d say as he held my stare. I love making love to you, Theo.
Then there was fucking. Hard and fast and no time for kissing. Just grunting and grabbing. Eyes squeezed into slivers, lips tense with effort. I was surprised the first time because I still responded to him. My body didn’t mind the new way of doing it. But I felt used afterward. Disposable. He never looked in my eyes when we were fucking.
I yearned for him to look at me, to make that connection. His eyes were hypnotic enough to captivate me, even as he lay on top of me, sweating and drowsy after I’d given him what he wanted.
It’s those eyes that cause me to stumble on a double pirouette a few moments later. Marisa notices. So does Ruthie.
It doesn’t help that she’s a machine, Ruthie Pathman. She barely seems to break a sweat during class, but she always works her ass off. She may roll her eyes when Josh and I talk about our careers and she may pretend like she doesn’t want it as much as we do, but she does. If I wasn’t sure before, the determined set of her jaw, the spark in her eyes lets me know how true it is now.
I glance at the piano, where Hosea slides the day’s sheet music into a single stack, slings his backpack over one shoulder, and nods in our general direction before filing out of the room behind the rest of the company. I feel Ruthie’s eyes on me as he leaves, but I look down at the floor, stare at the scuff marks that swoop across my pointe shoes.
Marisa closes the door behind Hosea, stands in front of the mirrored wall, and gestures for us to sit down in front of her. She’s wearing her standard outfit—a black long-sleeved leotard under a thin white wrap skirt, black leggings, and plain ballet slippers.
“I don’t think I have to tell you why you’re here. But just in case . . . Well, you’re my best.” She smiles big, stops to look at each of us. “You have my full support if you’d like to audition for next year’s summer intensives.”
A professional career has always seemed so far away, but one day, Josh, Ruthie, and I will headline our favorite ballets. Coppélia. Giselle. Sleeping Beauty. Swan Lake. Josh was damn near tailor-made for the role of Prince Siegfried and every little girl pictures herself dancing Odile at least once in her lifetime. We don’t kill ourselves practicing all those fouettés for nothing.
But first, our sights are set on summer programs, at one of the best schools in the country. It’s the next logical step if you’re on our path. The word is that Marisa recommends summer intensive auditions to only a couple of her students each year, if that. And we don’t need her permission to audition, but Marisa doesn’t make mistakes.
I try to bite back a smile, but I can’t help it. Even my sick stomach and weak legs can’t ruin this moment. These are the words I’ve wanted to hear from Marisa since I first went on pointe.
“I’m afraid this is also where it becomes more of a job.” Marisa’s smile fades just a bit as she paces in front of the mirror, the piano to her left, the door on her right side. “If you decide to audition, it will be a huge commitment. Less time with friends, more days and nights here at the studio.”
We nod in unison, our faces turned up to her like we’re three years old again. Josh, especially, looks nearly the same as he did back then, with his wide eyes and the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose. I cross my legs and lean forward with my elbows on my thighs, catch a quick glance in the mirror to evaluate how much of me has changed and how much has stayed the same. I can’t see a big difference and I wonder if I’ve changed more on the inside or the outside over the years.
“You’ll have to make some difficult decisions, but I won’t waste my time working with anyone who doesn’t want this, so think hard before you decide to audition. Professional ballet is incredibly difficult. It’s physically and mentally taxing, and this is just the start.” She hesitates and then slowly, her smile returns. “But I know all of you can handle it and then some. You wouldn’t be sitting in front of me if I didn’t believe it.”
She says our training will increase and we’ll need to list the pros and cons of each program, from type of instruction to tuition payments. It’s strange to think we may not be auditioning for an identical list of schools, that there will be a day I won’t dance next to Ruthie and Josh. But it’s even weirder that the only reason we’re friends at all is that we’ve been training for a career in which we’ll compete against one another for as long as we’re dancing. We haven’t discussed it outright but I know we’ll end up auditioning for some of the same programs.
Josh will be all, “This doesn’t change anything between us, Cartwright,” because he’s sweet and earnest like that and it’s true—it wouldn’t change us. But I don’t know about Ruthie. She’s talented and competitive, and there’s not always room for friendship when those two come into play.
“I want to see you all push yourselves,” Marisa says before we go to the dressing rooms. “Think beyond the summer. If you’re admitted to a summer intensive that has an affiliated school and dance for them the way you’ve been dancing for me all this time, you could very well be invited to attend their preprofessional program.”
Year-round ballet school—which could lead to a contract at a major company someday.
I’d be away from home but it would be nothing like Juniper Hill, with its drawn-out therapy sessions and ridiculous art shed. They would understand why you can’t throw everything away just because some woman in a caftan doesn’t like the number on your scale.
My skin is peppered with goose bumps. The last time I got them like this, I was being fitted for my first pair of pointe shoes. If I were in a professional company, I don’t think they’d ever go away when I was performing. Not even if I were only in the corps.
Josh gives me a look, the same one I am already giving Ruthie.
We had faith in ourselves, but now it’s official. We’re ready to move on.
Ready to move up.
• • •
The house is empty when I get home. Mom left a note on the kitchen island in her loopy cursive. They went to a matinee.
The paper lies on the kitchen table next to Dad’s empty coffee cup but it’s been turned over so Chris Fenner’s mug shot is facedown. My hands shake as I pick up the paper, slowly turn it over so I can see his face again.
I don’t know why I want to look at him. Once was all I needed and it doesn’t change anything. Not the fact that his face is deceptively friendly or that his smirk is playful. Almost cute. It doesn’t matter that he looks young and normal and maybe even charming.
His eyes peer at me, like he’s alone with me in this room. The twist of his lips is so bold.
His eyes.
I leave the Tribune lying on the kitchen floor, pages tented haphazardly over the tiles. I take the stairs two at a time until I reach my room and flip open my laptop, type Chris Fenner’s name into a search engine. I don’t know how my hands stop shaking long enough to pull up the associated images.
His hair is longer now, his face a bit older, his jaw concealed by the beard.
But it’s him.
He told me he was eighteen. But if he’s thirty now and we were together four years ago—that means he was twenty-six then.
My boyfriend was Trent and Trent is Chris and Chris is the person they think kidnapped Donovan.
Abducted him. Drove him across the country. Violated him.
But would he do that? Could he do that? He was my boyfriend, but Donovan knew him, too.
They were friends.
Or maybe they were more. Donovan had a good family and a nice house and friends who cared about him. I don’t think he’d have run away to live with Chris if he didn’t want to be with him.
I squeeze my eyes shut, try to think about this with a clear head, but it doesn’t help. Nothing can help. There are only two options, and I have to find out the truth as soon as possible.
Because either Donovan ran away with my boyfriend after he abandoned me, or I was charmed by the scum of the fucking earth.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MY ROOM AT JUNIPER HILL WAS PAINTED THE COLOR OF CELERY, which is funny because that was a safe food for my roommate, Vivian. Sometimes I’d catch her staring at the walls almost dreamily, like she was fantasizing about her old meals of celery and rice cakes and apple slices.
Juniper Hill accepts only a few patients at a time and costs a lot of money. I didn’t know this when my parents dropped me off, and the counselors and Dr. Bender wouldn’t discuss money with me. Once I came home, I snooped until I found the bills and felt bad that they’d spent so much on me. Especially when all I’d needed was some time. It’s not like things were easy back then. Trent stopped showing up to his job, stopped answering his phone, stopped loving me. Then Donovan disappeared.
They said I was a restrictor—that I was trying to lose weight by severely limiting
my diet. All I know is that Donovan consumed all of my thoughts and I lost my appetite each time I imagined him dead in a ditch somewhere—or being abused. And I thought about those things every single day. Multiple times a day.
And Trent. Was he with another girl, telling her all the things she wanted to hear? His favorite food to steal from the convenience store was packaged snack cakes, the sticky, chocolate kind loaded with preservatives. We’d shared them as we sat on the hood of his car and the taste reminded me of his kisses, so I couldn’t eat them after he left. Then chocolate was banned altogether because it reminded me of him, too. Same with foods that were baked or sweet or wrapped in cellophane. Soon I could hardly eat anything without thinking of him, and by the time Marisa forced me onto her office scale in front of my parents, I was finally down to double digits and that much freer of Trent.
I was thinner than anyone else in the junior company. Even Ruthie, who’d been more or less the same size as me since we were toddlers. I was probably thinner than every student in my class at school, too. Sometimes I caught the other girls glancing at me too long when we changed before gym class, and I wondered if they knew how marvelous it felt to truly take control of your body, to possess the kind of daily discipline most people won’t know in a lifetime.
But Mom and Dad trusted a bunch of Middle America hippies over me telling them I was fine, so I spent the summer before my eighth-grade year at a yellow Victorian house in Wisconsin. The director of the program was named Dr. Lorraine Bender, but she didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever seen. None of them looked even remotely like they worked in a place that treated medical issues. They wore flowing linen pants and ratty overalls and Jesus sandals. They harvested their own fruits and vegetables and purchased milk, meat, and eggs from local farmers because they wanted to show us how beautiful food can be when it’s lovingly produced.