“Are you there?”
My entire body feels like it's shutting down from the shock. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“I'm so... so sorry.” She starts sniffling noisily. She's crying the tears I refuse to. I'd expect nothing else. This is not just my loss. Janelle was Lisa's best friend in high school, too, and an important thread in Lisa's past. She's the one that encouraged my sister to follow her dream of becoming a social worker. If it weren't for her, Lisa would probably be working in corporate finance at my dad's old firm. In both our lives, she had been a pivotal person.
“Do you know any details?” I ask, my pragmatic mind moving on to the next logical step.
“She was found in her apartment. They haven't done an autopsy yet. They say she'll be buried next week. Do you... do you think you'll go?”
“I don't know.”
“If you go, I'll go,” Lisa says in between sniffs.
“I'll let you know,” I answer.
“Okay, I'll talk to you later.”
“Bye.”
I blink for the first time in a while. I've been too preoccupied with remembering Janelle, that I haven't noticed my vision has blurred. I sweep my sleeve across my eyes and stare down at the drawings on my desk.
Before we dated, Janelle and I were best friends. She was my first...everything. Frustration works itself in—blame, regret. Thinking back, it was entirely my fault that our relationship had degenerated. She had never said no to me. She'd never discouraged me. When my rudder jammed, she was there to blow wind in my sails, setting me back on course. That was until it came to us. When I was obsessed with studying, she didn't argue that we should split. It could have been that she was smarter than I had been. Maybe she could sense what I couldn't even admit to myself, that I didn't have the capacity to love her more than my work.
God, I was such a blind asshole. I'm guilty of so much when it comes to her. If I could tell her I was sorry, I would, but I know that no matter how much I want to tell her, I can't. Even if I scream, she can't hear me now.
I can't remember the last time I cried. I don't know if my body remembers how. It's happening whether I can stop it or not. No matter how many times I wipe my eyes, the tears keep falling. I feel a headache coming on. God it hurts. I lay my head down on the desk, my temples throbbing against the cold wood.
Life is savagely cruel. It constantly reminds you of what you're missing, regardless of whether you have the intelligence to see it. And when your eyes open to it, you're never prepared.
This is what it feels like to lose. This is what it feels like to be completely helpless—this hard desk against my warm, wet, aching head. Even though she's gone, I know her advice would be to feel it all—despite the fact that men aren't supposed to cry, despite the fact that the tears are for her, despite the fact that now there's a veil between us that nothing can pull back. There can be no third chance.
(Carmen)
What a waste of time that was. I try the therapist, and what's the first thing he says to me? He doesn't know how to treat me. “Treat me.” It's like I have some kind of unknown fever. When he told me to draw that dog, I was pretty much done. The only thing that stopped me from leaving, was the thought that everything else had failed. I'm not sure how much faith I have in him, but why not try something new?
I've never really tried my hand at drawing before, so I was surprised what I came up with. When he said it wasn't half bad, I can't say it didn't feel good. Go figure that picking up a pencil, the one thing I've never tried, relaxes me enough to think about something other than the abduction.
It's a welcome distraction because today is the day I try again. Today I drive into Portland to the Finale studio and meet with Frederico. The Finale Company's director and head choreographer has the long list of accomplishments that most would expect to find on his resume. He studied dance in London, then at Julliard. He danced for the American Ballet for three seasons, until he broke his right big-toe in a skiing accident. He ended up losing it because of the damage.
It ended his career and there's a prosthetic in its place, though nobody in our troupe has ever seen it. The loss keeps him from dancing full-time, but he can still choreograph and practice. I admire him for not giving up, for not slinking back into the shadows when his happiness was threatened. He's been a mentor to all of us.
After having gone through what I have, I feel lucky. He knows what it's like to lose a part of oneself. He's been there. When I go to the private session we scheduled for today, I'm hoping to God that he likes what he sees. I hope I can still salvage my career.
I park the car a few blocks from Finale, passing through an ancient historic strip of old bars, restaurants and dives. When I reach the studio, I'm the first from the professional division to arrive. It's four in the afternoon. Practice for the professional company's next performance isn't set to begin until five. The Finale Studio sits attached to the back of the Finale Theater. Frederico bought it from its original owners and remodeled it. After the troupe started touring, he began renting it out. Half the time it sits empty. It's in the studio that the magic happens. It's there that we sweat and count each step until the routines are perfect.
Half the entire front wall of the studio is glass windows. As I march through the parking lot, I can see Frederico teaching a young girls' class. When I open the door, he smiles at me but doesn't stop coaching. Not only do the students look like their skills are sharpening past the beginner level, but they look like they're enjoying themselves. I lean against the wall and grin. None of them have started pointe work yet, which isn't shocking in the least. Your feet get destroyed. They bleed, blister, burn. It takes years to qualify for advanced work like that.
“Alright girls, that's it for today. Very well done,” Frederico says in this thick Spanish accent. When the girls finish, they all giggle and wander off to the locker rooms. The moms that sit on the bench, swiping away on their tablets and phones, stuff the devices back in their purses and meet their daughters. I suppose that actually watching their girls dance would be too mentally taxing, maybe because the girls are speaking visual languages with their bodies that their mothers can't understand.
As the bulk of the girls return from the locker rooms, I distance myself from the group and drop my gym bag beside the practice area. Frederico smiles and claps his hands loudly. The girls' heads snap back to attention.
“Ladies, this is Ms. Andrews. She has been a principal in many of our shows and is a truly gifted dancer.” Frederico settles his hands on my shoulders.
My cheeks flush red as the fifteen sets of eyes fall on me. “Would you like to see her do a little something?” He asks.
In my panic, I laugh nervously.
“Do a little turn for us, Chiquitita,” he orders. My limbs seize up. Why am I so nervous about messing up in front of a gaggle of housewives and their daughters?
I take off my running shoes and pull out my Freed pointe shoes. Quickly, I break the shank a little in both directions, so my arch is more pronounced. There's something magical about putting on a fresh pair. I've tailored these myself, so the sides aren't bagging up and the fit is tighter.
They're all watching. The dance-illiterate mothers are giving me skeptical looks. I can only imagine how the politics of the soccer-mom society have taught them to smell fear.
I'll be fine. I just have to do a little dancing. This is easy stuff.
I do a quick stretch, take a deep breath. I balance, waiting until my stance is not quite so precarious. I do a tight pas couru over the floor and stop in the center of the room. I shift into second arabesque. Some of the girls gasp. I move into a pirouette. On the second turn, I suddenly feel my ankle grumble and give. I catch myself on all fours, pain striking my knees. Fuck. The crowd whispers, some of them giggle.
“All right! All right!” Frederico motions the girls out. “That's all for now ladies! I will see you on Thursday!” Frederico sings to them. The girls whisper as they shuffle out. I can't stop staring at the fl
oor, rage ripping through my body. When the door closes on the last of the students, Frederico bends and helps me up.
“What was that all about, Carmen?” he asks. I'm angry. Beyond angry. Just when I should have shone, my ankle gave up on me. I feel like I've spent eight hours a day in the studio for the past three weeks for nothing. I go back into my familiar hole, instead of answering. I walk over to my gym bag and pick it up.
“You're not leaving, are you? Come and do something else for me. Here,” he says, going to the side of the room and coming back with a tray. “Put some rosin on the box. Those look new.”
He's right. I know he's right. I usually rosin up the toes of my shoes so there's more friction against the floor. Like I just did, it's easy to fall on your ass if you don't. In the end, I could blame the new shoes for my failure, or I can admit to him that my ankles and my toes have weakened. Maybe he already knows it.
“Come on, run through something for me,” he says. I rosin up the boxes at the tips of my shoes, take a deep breath and try again.
This time I perform the same set of movements; drift, glide. He watches, approaches me, and places the flat of his hand against my back to straighten it. I tense up. It's so humiliating. He doesn't mean it to be, but it is. Not only are my ankles going bad, but now my posture is bad, too? In my frustration, I drop off pointe, my heel smacking against the floor. I bury my face in my hands, fighting back a rush of tears.
Am I really that destroyed?
“Oh, darling,” says the swarthy Spanish-Italian, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Don't worry. We will start out slow with you. You're still a brilliant dancer, you're just out of practice,” he reassures me. But I'm so beyond reassurance. I thought I could do it today. I thought today was the day I would come back to my old life; step back in to the light where I belong. This failure... it's like being dethroned.
I take my pointe shoes and shove them in my bag, putting my cross-trainers on again. I used to feel a displacement when changing into running shoes after dancing, like I was wearing someone else's legs. How I feel now is such a departure from that. I hate how my feet feel better once they're on. I hate that I'm comfortable in them.
Frederico says nothing to me, just watches me pack up. What else can he say? I'm a faded flower in his garden of talented blooms. Soon, I'll be uprooted and replanted in the background, where no one can see my inferiority. It's not enough. It's not what I want.
I snatch up my bag, and shove my way through the door and out into the street. I walk quickly down the sidewalk, absorbed in my frustration. It's already getting dark. People move around me fast in their duos and trios. Amid the footsteps, I hear one set padding along behind me, matching my speed. I look over my shoulder. I don't see anyone following. My ribcage tightens around my lungs. I can feel the adrenaline pumping through me. I hear the footsteps again. I stop this time and turn around. I'm breathing harder than I should.
You just need to get to your car. You need to calm down and just get to the car. Nobody's following you, Carmen. Nobody's— There they were again. What the hell is going on? I almost barrel into a couple standing on front of a restaurant as I stop to turn around again. Nobody's there.
This time, I am sure I heard footsteps. That was how it happened a year ago. My abductor came up right behind me in an alley after a performance and grabbed me. It feels enough like before to force me into a jog. My lungs seem to seize up with each step. I can't breathe. Fuck, I can't breathe! I'm getting dizzy. The car is too far away. I won't make it.
I fill my lungs and hold it, ducking into the next open door. I stop just inside the entry. My heart is going berserk. I'm standing there holding my breath when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I jump, my eyes flying open wide. A man with muscles upon muscles towers above me with a concerned look on his face.
“Are you all right, ma'am?”
I'm too startled, too scared shitless to reply.
“Would you like to be seated?”
I focus on his eyes, and it's enough to relax my breathing. He ushers me in. “We'll fix you up,” he says warmly. “Right this way.”
He leads me to a corner table, of what I'm not sure. Several round tables fill the lounge, a crisp white tablecloth over each. In the center of them are small lit candles under glass globes. I swallow hard, looking around. I don't think I was followed. In fact, it's possible nobody even saw me come in. They're all concentrating on the stage.
It occurs to me that I have no idea where I've stumbled into. The red brick walls are probably original. The wooden panels look old, too. The whole place reeks of age, dust, brandy, and smoke. I pick up the menu standing upright on my table. “The Royale Club” it says in big letters at the top.
A waiter floats up and bends. “What can I get you to drink?”
Maybe a drink would be nice. I hold up the menu and point to a cocktail with an exotic name.
“I'll just need to see I.D.,” he says, scribbling on his order pad.
I rifle through my bag and pull out my wallet, flipping it open so he can read my birth-date. He smiles and goes to the back of the establishment, where a full bar takes up an entire wall. I tuck my wallet back into my bag.
In the wings, I can see shadows moving. After a moment, a man emerges, clad in a black suit and a smart bow-tie. He takes the silver vintage mic in his hand and smiles around its body. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. How y’all doin' tonight?”
The crowd claps, a few people calling out from the crowd. The waiter brings my drink.
“Tonight, we're gonna sing y’all some blues...” he says, his grin growing wider. Music erupts from the floors. When I crane my neck, I notice there's an orchestra pit in front of the stage. It's big enough for a hand-full of string players, some brass, a drummer and a pianist. The orchestra is playing slow. I don't know much about music, but I love the way this sounds. “Oh, yes. Just like that, my man,” he crows to the pianist, humming like he's eating something delectable. “And now, without further ado, Ms. Mabel...” he beckons to the other shadow behind the red curtain and slides offstage.
An aged black woman steps onto stage and takes her place behind the mic. Her silver-streaked hair is waved over her head. She wears a long, sequined dress and a gardenia just above her heart. Sparkling rhinestone earrings dangle from her earlobes. She could have just stepped out of a time machine from the forties.
“Hey there, y’all,” she says in a raspy voice. She's incredibly at ease. That she's the center of attention doesn't bother her a bit. “Today... I Sing the Blues.”
She shuts her eyes; her face goes hard and serious.
“Without a warning / the blues walked in this morning / and circled round my lonely room I didn't know why I had / that sad and lonely feeling / 'till my baby called and said it's through / Yesterday I sang a love song / but today I sing the blues...”
She sings it with such ultimate power. Every other sound is less important. Every other feeling is secondary to her pain. For the few minutes she sings, I'm lost in the song. Her wrinkled hands grip the microphone, her eyes pinching when she hits the high notes, her mouth wide open, releasing her inner demons. The crowd sways like tall grass in a field.
“Now it strikes me kind of funny / how life can be this way / We were lovers last night, honey but not in love today / Now it strikes me kind of funny / how faith can be unfair / it seems that I'm the one / to lose in every love affair / Yes it must be written for me / That I should be the one to always lose / Yesterday I sang a love song / but today I sing the bluuuues...”
The piano tinkles a little at the end, the drummer shushes to a stop and the strings sing low until their strain dies. She's paralyzed in time, like she's praying to God. No one moves. Nobody makes a sound. When she exhales quietly into the microphone, the crowd loses it; clapping, whistling, showering her with adoration.
I clap and sit back. I've never heard live blues before. Most of my live experience has come from performances, and all of that is classical music. I
have nothing against classical music, but this has such a different flavor to it. I sit back in my chair, realizing I haven't had any of my drink. I take a sip and blink at the strong alcohol. It burns all the way down. This isn't what I need. I've had a strict no-drinking policy since I finished college. Even in college I never drank much. Dancers have to have their wits about them, not to mention most drinks are just empty calories.
Wow. It's already going to my head.
On stage, Ms. Mabel gears up for another song. She sips from a water bottle, closes, and tucks it in beside the base of her microphone. She points to the orchestra and they begin again, a warm, happier tune.
“The days of wine and roses laugh and run away like a child at play / Through the meadow land toward a closing door / A door marked "Nevermore", that wasn't there before / The lonely night discloses, just a passing breeze filled with memories /Of the golden smile that introduced me to / The days of wine and roses and you.” She sings this one at her leisure. It doesn't sound nearly as taxing as the other song. It's only a few minutes long. The main verse repeats twice and the crowd claps, murmuring happily.
“Y’all enjoy your drinks. I'm gonna take a break now,” she says into the mic. The audience applauds again as she moves offstage.
I realize I'm not angry anymore. If I ever had any reason to worry, it's gone. I feel a little silly for ever thinking someone was following me. I'm convinced the stress is getting to me. Maybe I've just been pushing myself too hard.
I just have to remember I haven't lost yet. Losing is giving up. I've just got to get back on my horse, steady my lance and charge.
Body Language Page 3
