Shiny Broken Pieces

by Sona Charaipotra

  “You’re hardly one to judge.” She tosses away my concern like garbage in a nearby street bin. “Look, I know things haven’t been easy for either of us. And I know this thing with Adele, it’s eating you up. But it’s not your fault, okay?”

  That’s the thing, though. It is. “It was meant for me. I know it.”

  “No,” Eleanor’s saying again, and now she’s got her arm around me, the weight of it familiar and comforting, like a heavy winter blanket. “You’ve got to let it go. Focus on ballet. You’ve got a second chance. You know how rare that is?”

  “That’s just it.” I don’t know if it’s the cold bite of the wind that’s stinging my eyes or tears, but either way, I let them fall. I just want to be in this moment, to maybe fix all the things I broke. “I’m finally getting exactly what I wanted. What I’ve always dreamed of. But none of it feels like I imagined it would. Adele. You. I’m like little hurricane Bette, taking out everyone in my path.”

  “You haven’t ruined me, Bette.” She sighs. “I’m right here. And Adele will be fine.”

  “But you and me . . . we’re a mess.”

  “I know,” Eleanor whispers. She looks down at her phone again. I start to walk toward the building, heading inside and out of the cold.

  “Wait, Bette.” She slips the phone into her pocket. “I’m so tired. Popcorn? Movie?”

  I smile at her. “Only if it’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

  Damien will be watching our ballet class today. With Adele out and cast lists shifting, he’ll probably hire early, like he did last year. Aiko Yosidha left the conservatory last November to join ABC’s corps de ballet and start her professional career before graduating. The same thing happened with Adele. But they were both clear standouts, proving themselves over and over.

  That’s what I need to show: that level of technique, that level of commitment. I have to be perfect. I have to be like my sister. I slip into a new leotard and tights and give myself a flawless bun. I open the jewelry box where I keep my locket hidden away. I open its usual drawer to find empty red velveteen. My heart thuds against my rib cage. Sweat beads my brow.

  I comb through the other compartments, then go to my dance bag. I tear through it, throwing everything out onto the floor. The locket is tangled with pointe shoe ribbons. The clasp is open and the pills have scattered throughout the bag. My heartbeat drums through me, making my fingers all wobbly and anxious. I dump everything out of the bag and fish the pills from the mess, one by one, returning them to their safe space inside my locket. The familiar little halo makes everything slow down.

  I swallow one pill, then decide to take one more. I need to be extrafocused during rehearsal. I race downstairs to warm up early.

  Damien watches as we do the movements, Morkie barking at this girl or the other. “Extend. Higher. Soft arms. Long, lean lines.”

  I can feel the sweat seeping through my leotard and dripping down my face. I try to tune Morkie out, focusing instead on my toes, which burn so badly I think they’ve burst. I let the pain wash over me, pushing me harder. But then all I can hear is the pounding of my heart in my ears, like the bass in a club. I try to slow my breathing, to relax.

  Everything is making me anxious: my own reflection, the sound of the variation music, the lower-level dancers drifting past the window, Damien’s pen scribbling across a page, the weird smile Cassie keeps flashing my way.

  The room swirls around me. Reflections twist and warp in the mirror.

  Calm down, Bette. Relax.

  I put my hand on the mirror to keep from falling. My head feels like it’s floating away, and my chest tightens. I know it’s nothing but panic. It has to be that.

  “A tarantella, Viktor,” I hear Morkie saying. He plays a few chords on the piano, and she stops him to give directions. The noises all blend together into one droning glob of sound. My legs feel like they’re going to give out from under me.

  Cassie rushes forward. She puts a hand on my shoulder. I can’t move away from her. It’s like we’ve plunged under water. Each movement is slow and watery. “Are you okay, Bette?”

  I try to answer her. I try to jerk away from her. I try to tell her to get away from me.

  Cassie leans in and whispers in my ear: “How does it feel to lose control? To not know what the things you put in your body might do to you?” She smiles and pats my arm, but I don’t hear what she says next, because black dots stamp out my vision and the studio goes dark.

  When I wake up, an EMT hovers over me, a stethoscope cold against my chest. I’m wearing an oxygen mask.

  I try to tell them I’m fine. The words get caught in the plastic. Nurse Connie pets my arm. “Stay still. Rest,” she says. “Your mom is on the way.”

  My mother? That’s the last thing I need.

  One of the EMTs riffles through my bags—and he comes across my locket. “Pills.” He flashes the contents at Connie and Mr. K. The other Russian teachers try to clear out the room, but I can still see faces behind the glass walls, staring in at me.

  “What are these, Bette? Diet pills? Help us out.” Nurse Connie’s looking at them now, frowning. Mr. K is pacing. I can hardly keep my eyes open. They droop and flutter.

  I pull off the mask. “They’re my prescription. It’s in my chart. Nothing I haven’t been taking forever.”

  “Okay,” the EMT says. “Ideally, we should take her in. It’s protocol. But there’s a note in this chart documenting all her meds.”

  Another one checks my pulse and flashes a light in my eyes. I can barely stay awake. I feel pulled under again. I just want to curl up right here and sleep.

  “Her pupils are dilated, and she’s barely awake.”

  They collect all the pills from my bag. I try to watch everything, but I dip in and out of the room. The lights, the voices, the sounds go on and off.

  “Bette.” Nurse Connie shakes my shoulder. “Are you sure these were just Adderall?”

  My mouth goes dry and my brain tries to put this all together. I look up and see Cassie standing directly in front of the glass studio wall. She blows me a kiss and smiles. I try to stand. My legs are too weak to hold my weight. I want to confront her in front of everyone. I want her to get caught for this. I want it all to be over. We’re even now.

  “She should go to the hospital,” one of the EMTs says, holding an ice pack to my forehead. “She needs blood work.”

  “Her mom is on the way, and doesn’t want her moved until she arrives,” Nurse Connie says. “She’s got a knot on her head that will need examining. Also, we should give her a CAT scan.”

  “Cassie did . . .” I slur out.

  Nurse Connie frowns. “Did what?”

  The words sound ridiculous out loud. I look back up. Cassie’s not there anymore. The crowd thins out. No one cares about what’s happened to me. Ballet class has resumed in a different studio.

  “Cassie helped me is what I meant.”

  “Morkie said she caught you before you hit your head even harder,” Nurse Connie says. “What a nice girl.”

  I clench my teeth.

  The EMTs hover, the gurney ready to go, still insistent on taking me to the hospital. When my mother arrives, raging, they start packing things up, and taking out refusal-of-medical-treatment paperwork.

  She storms up to Mr. K. “Just what has happened here?”

  Mr. K looks stricken. He can’t afford to mess with my mother. Not now.

  “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Abney,” he says, resting a hand on her arm. “We’ll have this all taken care of in just minutes.”

  She touches my cheek, and her eyes get a little watery. A tiny swell blooms inside me and I try to keep from crying. I don’t remember the last time she’s looked at me like this.

  “I think I took the wrong prescription. One of my sleep aids,” I say. “It was an accident.”

  “Still, you need to go to the emergency room, just to be sure.”

  “I will take her,” my mother says.

  “I will go w
ith you. I want to ask the doctor about clearing her to dance,” Nurse Connie says.

  “Oh, you’ve done enough,” my mother says, helping me to my feet. “And not to worry, she will be fine to dance.”

  “But—”

  “She’s an Abney, she’ll always be fine.”

  In that moment, I actually love the woman.

  33.

  June

  “I THOUGHT YOUR MOM WOULD have told you.” It’s after lunch, and I’m dressed in my black, long-sleeved Tuesday leotard with pink tights, ready for class. But Nurse Connie’s waiting for me in the hall, her face grim, with a medical pass for Morkie—one I didn’t know I needed—excusing me from afternoon ballet. For a minute, I’m scared that someone told them about all my missed appointments with my therapist, Taylor, and the fact that I’m still hovering around 102 pounds. “Did you eat?”

  I kind of want to say yes. I wonder if that would get me out of whatever this is. But I shake my head. “What’s this for?” I peer at the paper, but it doesn’t reveal much.

  “You have a doctor’s appointment. A bone scan.”

  A bone scan? I don’t know quite what that means, but I know it’s scary. I snatch the pass from Nurse Connie’s hands, and head down to the front office.

  My mom is seated on the leather bench in the administration office. I’m about to ask her if I can go change when she stands. “Good, you are on time. I don’t want to be late.” She pauses, awkward. “It takes weeks to get these appointments. I had to call in a favor.”

  I know what she’s not saying. My father’s the one who called in a favor. So he knows about all of it—the auditions, the eating, the not eating. The bile rises in my throat, knowing that he’s in on something so close, so personal, when he hardly knows me at all.

  I go change, and we’re in a cab headed east five minutes later. The driver goes through the park, which is a major mistake, because traffic is at a standstill. I turn to face my mother, tapping away on her phone. Usually, I would be, too. But the idea of this is freaking me out too much to focus on anything else.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice seems to startle her, like she forgot I was sitting next to her.

  “It was last-minute.” She looks up and around, frown lines forming fast and furious as she realizes we’re blocked in. “You should have gone down to Central Park South,” she tells the cabdriver, as if it will do any good now. “We’re already behind.”

  “I know you think I need this stuff.” I catch her off guard again, the way she looks at me, surprised. “But I’m almost eighteen. I’d like to be in on the decision-making.”

  “When you show me you are well enough to handle yourself, we can talk about that,” she says, touching my leg. “For now, though, you will do as I say.”

  She taps away on her phone again for the next twenty minutes.

  We’re half an hour late. The doctor’s office feels cold and metallic, with the AC going, even though it’s barely March.

  “Just another minute,” the tall, scrub-suited woman at the front desk says before she turns back to the computer. She’s brown, with dark hair and dark eyes. “We’re short staffed, and you were supposed to go in fifteen minutes ago. I need to get another nurse.”

  My mom nods, and I focus on the small flat screen in front of me that’s tuned into the cooking channel. It’s a chubby, redheaded chick who talks about life on the ranch and cooking for cowboys. She’s making fried chicken, potato salad with globs of mayo, and cupcakes for dessert. “Things that will stick to your ribs,” she hollers through the screen.

  Do real people eat this stuff?

  “Can I go to the bathroom?” I ask no one in particular, and when my mom nods, still on her phone, I take off. I walk through a long corridor, with patient rooms off either side. The bathroom is to the right. I head straight for it.

  The tall, scrub-suited lady spies me just as I reach the door. “Oh, did they call you already, E-Jun?” She extends both the e and the uhn, so my name sounds stretchy and loose.

  I’m so panicked, I want to cry. I want to curl up on the floor and go to sleep.

  “Bathroom.” I point.

  “Oh, then take this.” She hands me a cup. “We need a sample before we start.”

  When I get into the bathroom, I pee first, filling the cup halfway, the acrid scent of urine overwhelming the small room. I flush, and carefully wipe down both the bowl and the floor. Getting down on my knees, I listen to the swirl of the water, and seconds later, the bile comes up naturally, friendly and familiar. There’s not much to it—mostly water, since I’ve yet to eat today.

  But just the act is comforting. I heave again, trying to be as quiet as I can, but someone’s knocking, then pounding. My vision is teary, so I flush and stand, washing my hands as fast as I can. My throat still throbs. I have to swallow and breathe to press down the rest of the liquid in my stomach. “Just a second.”

  I splash my face and look away from the toilet. I nearly knock over the pee cup as I pull open the door.

  It’s the scrub-suited lady. Dr. Neha Arora, her name tag reads. All this time, I assumed she was a nurse.

  “E-Jun.” She pronounces my name more normally this time. My mom walks into the corridor, too. She’s wringing her hands, which means they’re onto me, although no one’s saying anything yet. “The nurse is ready for you now.”

  The nurse stands behind her. She’s a youngish black lady, also in scrubs, with hot-pink spiky hair. “I’m Ericka. I’ll be administering the radiotracer for the bone scan.” She doesn’t look like she’s graduated college yet, let alone whatever else she needs to legally pierce my arm. She settles me into a lumbering metal chair, my feet flat on the floor for now, checking my heartbeat and temperature. My mom stands around, observing. I wish she would leave—that is, until the nurse brings in a few tubes and a long, skinny needle.

  “It’ll only pinch for a second,” the nurse says, and I grimace.

  “Want me to hold your hand?” my mom asks, then takes it without waiting for an answer.

  The nurse ties what looks like a supersize, superflimsy rubber band around my bicep. I try not to watch what she’s doing—tempted to close my eyes like I used to when I was a kid—but I can’t take my eyes off her.

  “Try to relax.” She taps my arm, looking for a vein. When she finds one, she sticks the needle in. It burns and pinches, like the time I got bitten by red ants at the beach in Coney Island. Ericka hums to herself as she attaches a tube to it. She draws a small vial of blood—dark and thick—and then attaches another needle hooked to a metal tube. As soon as she’s done, I feel something cool and creepy climbing through my veins—like someone is freezing me, part by part. I want to pass out then so I don’t have to be in the room anymore. The nurse must sense it, because she tapes the tube in place, then pushes a button and the back of the chair slides down, so it’s almost like a bed. “Just breathe and relax. You can close your eyes if you’d like.”

  I do for a few minutes. I can hear the nurse coming in and out of the room, and sense my mom still sitting in the other chair. I bet she’s on her phone, which annoys me to no end, so I lift up my head to look. But she’s just sitting there, staring at me. She immediately comes over, puts her hand on my forehead. “You okay, boba?”

  I nod but don’t speak. She hovers. She wants to say something, I can feel it, but it’s all bottled up, like a shaken can of soda, ready to burst.

  “What?” I finally say.

  “I had a bone scan. Back when I danced.” It’s the first time she’s ever brought up her dancing history herself, so my ears perk up. I’ve tried to ask her about it a dozen times, but she usually won’t talk about it. “Back then, it was so different. That massive machine felt like death, like a coffin.”

  That’s what I have to look forward to? I must seem stressed out, because she rubs my face, her fingers gliding over my eyebrows as she smiles. “You’ll be okay. They have open-air machines now, like a tanning bed.” Not that either
of us have ever been in a tanning bed. The thought of my mom lying in one, in her skirted one-piece and compression socks, makes me giggle.

  She smiles, then frowns. “I had shin fractures—tiny little ones that would’ve gotten worse. Then I got pregnant, and had you.” She smiles, a bit happy, a bit sad. “I knew by then dance was not happening anymore.”

  The defeat in her voice makes me want to cry. For the two of us, our tiny little fractured family. But she’s rubbing my cheeks again, and though her eyes are wet, she’s still smiling. “I’m not disappointed, E-Jun. I never had the same love for dance. For me, ballet was an escape—from Korea. And, back then, I was so, so happy, so in love. With a baby, I thought it meant—”

  She goes silent there, but I know what she’s thinking.

  “I know you struggle, that this is hard. But, believe me, having you, I was happy.” Her papery fingers are on my arm now, not far from where the needle has pierced me, where the coldness begins. “But you like this—here, the needles, so skinny, I can’t take it. It’s killing you, this dream. And it’s killing me.”

  She’s holding my hands so tightly, I know what she says is true. If I don’t fix this now, I could lose everything. Dancing, I realize, slowly but surely, is not worth giving up my life for. I nod, and I hope she can see the clarity in my eyes, the determination. I may never be cured, like Nurse Connie said, but I can take control. I can stay the path, and do what I need to do—for myself, for my mother, and for the others who choose to love me.

  Two hours later, the bone scan begins. They lay me down on a flat bed, one that I know will go into the huge machine that’s been whirring and spitting in this room for the past half hour, as they prepped me. With its screens and the tunnel-like cavity, it looks like a face with a large gaping mouth, one ready to swallow me whole. Dr. Neha is by my side now, and Ericka is on the other side.

  “Shhhh,” Dr. Neha says again. “Relax.”

  I am relaxed, because they’ve clearly slipped me some kind of sedative. Everything feels so slow, so soft, the sharpness gone from it all. As the flat bed moves forward, I know I should be panicking. But I just feel tired. I close my eyes and let the machine do its thing, knowing what it will reveal—the things that the physical therapists have been warning me about for months. The miniscule stress fractures in my shins and feet, the ones that cause me those tiny agonies on a weekly basis. The ones that have been getting progressively worse since freshman year. The ones that might eventually end my dancing career. The lack of strength in my bones from poor nutrition.