Tapping his foot.
I imagine his car’s thick, safe metal,
Airbags,
Clean, leather seats.
From the corner of my eye,
I see Remington
Joking with Paul and Don.
He nods at me.
“I’ve got a ride. I’ll meet you there.
Text me the movie you pick.”
I ride on the back of Rem’s motorcycle.
Try to forget my fear
Of the wind
Turning my sleek braid
Into a messy ponytail
Set behind a frazzled halo
Of escaped brown strands.
“... if we make a quick stop at a party?”
He hollers into the wind.
In answer, I can only squeeze him tighter.
Rem turns up a narrow road,
Stops at a house as big as mine in Vermont.
Dark wood and stucco decorate the front.
A dusty chandelier lights the grand entry hall
Bedecked with a tattered Persian rug.
Bamboo shades slant over the windows.
Rem saunters through a crowd of faces
To a kitchen with dingy tile floors,
A glass-and-iron table with mismatched chairs,
A dark gold refrigerator.
He takes out a beer,
Lights a cigarette,
Deftly twists the flame toward his palm,
Offers it to me, saying,
“You shouldn’t smoke.”
I take the thing.
Hold it in my hand a while.
Hope that I look sophisticated.
Remember the myriad cancer threats
Spoken like mantras by Mom to Dad,
A constant refrain of my childhood.
Draw the smoking tumor to my lips.
Hold it there long enough to look courageous.
Satisfy myself by striking a studied pose,
Left arm across waist
Right elbow balanced on left knuckles
Right palm up, cigarette pointed coolly,
Safely
Away.
The party is crowded.
Rem nods at people,
Taps his foot to the pulse of the room.
The music is loud.
Ballerinas look all wrong
Bouncing and thrusting
To beats driven by drums
Instead of the sweeping bows of violins.
I think of Variations class
Just hours ago,
Safe under the eyes of Yevgeny and Señor Medrano
Trying to meld my body
To Tchaikovsky’s lilting tune.
I could not hear the music quite right,
Felt like Señor wanted me to take the first step
A moment before each measure began.
Felt my solid, even strong, fouetté turns end
Always a moment too late.
Now I resist
Spinning a circle of fouettés
To try to see if I could do them
To this music,
So loud it pounds into my gut.
How could I fail to follow?
The snaking cigarette ash
Threatens
To fall onto the carpet.
I wander,
Open a door looking for the bathroom—
A place to flush away the cigarette,
Try to repair my ravaged tresses—
Only to find a bedroom,
Paul and Don
Kissing.
I am jealous of the dance they do.
Steps already learned.
Timing right.
No test to pass.
Audition over.
With Remington
I am back at the studio in Boston—
Sun glinting sharp
Against giant mirrors,
Turning my reflection
To a harsh, uncertain glare—
Wondering how I came to this place.
If Remington has given Jane’s part
To me.
Rem’s giant palm
Cupping the back of my neck
Erases my fleeting urge
To remind him of my plans.
“Still wanna see a movie?”
He surprises me.
I nod, grateful.
Pull my phone from my pocket.
Bonnie has texted
A time and title.
“We’ll have to hurry.”
“Why?”
Rem swirls his denim jacket
Around his shoulders,
Pushes his arms through both sleeves
In one gesture.
“The movie starts in ten minutes.”
I hold up the phone.
“Not at the mall.” He laughs.
“Let’s stay here, okay?
So we can talk.”
His fingers walk
Down the knobs of my spine.
I follow him.
To a giant porch sprawled across the back of the house.
Along one side, a yellow sheet hangs—
A makeshift movie screen.
People loll on wicker chaises
Wrapped in blankets.
The laughter gets loud.
Rem draws me down
To an oversized wooden chair
A little bit behind the group,
Which does not stop someone
From passing back a joint
Nor Rem from inhaling deep,
Right arm across my shoulders,
Hand dangling over my breast.
He offers it to me
But I shake my head,
Watching
For the inevitable policeman
To catch us all,
To change me from good girl to bad.
I have no idea what is playing on the screen.
“R U coming?”
Bonnie texts.
“Can’t get there in time,”
I send back.
Put the phone on vibrate,
In my pocket,
Away.
Even without smoking,
My head grows cloudy
From the waves of sweet-smelling smoke all around.
Rem gives me a silly grin,
Rolls his head back.
His straight brown hair
Makes half a halo over his eyes.
Grabs my thighs with big, hot paws.
“You’re so beautiful,” he mumbles.
Now I hear the music
Scratching through dusty speakers
Beside the back door.
I was never very tuneful,
Don’t have Lisette’s lyrical ear.
I choke down dry mouthfuls
Of salty, yellow popcorn.
Rem’s words sink slowly
Into my addled brain.
Beautiful?
Wish for Paul and Don
With their tender domesticity
To take me home,
Because here there is chaos
Inside and outside my mind.
On the screen a vampire
In black and white,
A screaming girl
In stiff satin.
I dive into Rem’s hungry arms,
Let his sliding fingers
Bury all my fears.
When the credits roll
I am drunk with touch and kisses.
“Take me home,”
I whisper.
Rem steers me quickly past clumps of people,
Cluttered furniture,
Out the door.
On the motorcycle behind him,
Arms wrapped around his muscled waist,
I am not certain to what home Rem thought
I had asked to be delivered.
Rem’s apartment is three flights up,
The paint in the hallway
Chipped and grim.
He bounds up the stairs,
Holdi
ng my hand.
My other hand fingers
The cell phone in my pocket.
Should I call Señor Medrano?
And what would I say
If he answered the phone?
“What is it, Sara?”
He is all quiet concern
As I hesitate in his doorway.
I look round at the art museum posters
Thumbtacked to the walls,
The couch draped with a tie-dyed blanket,
Two wooden armchairs with orange seats.
All so much more inviting
Than slippery poppies
And damp-smelling rug.
“Why were you so cold to me
Before class today?”
Maybe the lingering pot
Has made me brave.
He grimaces, then grins.
“Do you think Señor would approve?
I’m older than you
And you’re one of Yevgeny’s precious scholarship girls.”
I do not stay in the doorway long enough
To ask myself
Or Remington whether
Señor’s or Yevgeny’s disapproval
Is worth a second’s thought.
All I hear is precious.
The buttons on my shirt
Are easy to undo.
“Beautiful,”
He breathes.
But I know he has stolen this sight
Before—
Backstage on tour
In the poorly curtained dressing room.
He peels off his sweater,
Leads me to the couch,
Where the tie-dyed blanket
Turns out to have a dusty smell
Of its own.
His body presses me down
Into the unresisting cushion.
His hand slides
To that place on my neck
That makes me shiver.
His other wraps my naked waist.
Kisses take on a rhythm of their own,
Heads twisting side to side.
My back arches.
His lips are still too wet
But I love the feel of his skin against my skin.
My vibrating cell phone
A jolt of interruption
I cannot make myself ignore.
Could it be my mother calling with tragic news?
My father with a question about my bank card?
It is Julio,
His voice low.
“Dad is asking where you are.
I can’t stall him forever.”
“That was Julio.
I’ve got to get back.
I’ll be in a ton of trouble.”
I pull on my shirt,
The buttons suddenly a challenge.
Push my hair
Into something like order,
Pick up the motorcycle helmets
From the floor.
Rem sighs,
Tumbles himself off the couch.
I blink
At the sullen look that flashes
Across his eyes.
But it disappears
As he turns his sweater
Right side out,
Takes a helmet from my hand,
Moves toward the door.
“No more dancing for us, tonight.”
I follow him again, unsure
About the rest of the steps to this dance
We are doing
Or maybe
If there should be
Any more.
The name of the little girl
Gifted with the Nutcracker doll
Varies from ballet company to ballet company,
Production to production.
Clara or Marie,
Alone onstage as the ballet begins,
Cherished and protected
By the dancers in the wings,
Beautiful in her ballet slippers,
Soft, white dress.
Lisette played her when she was nine,
Madison at ten,
Bonnie, too.
A rite of passage for the best girls
At the Jersey Ballet,
Who count their way
Through the grand costumes of the Christmas ballet
That marks the years
Better than birthdays.
“Oh, remember when we were Bonbons
Under Mother Ginger’s skirt?”
“I had to be a boy in the party scene for three years!”
Bonbons
Party Children
Mice
Candy Canes
Twenty-odd December nights
Onstage
Eyes bright
Remembering why they dance.
Then on to Snowflakes
And beyond.
Dew Drops,
Chinese Tea.
Until finally, a chosen few grow up to dance
The longest solo, full of pirouettes and daring balances,
Escorted by the noblest partner—
The principal role in the ballet world’s star production—
The Nutcracker’s Sugar Plum Fairy.
In elegant pink tulle, elaborate tiara,
She mesmerizes the audience
And little Clara in her simple frock,
Who hopes, dreams of a candy-perfect world
Where nightmares turn to
Dreams come true.
December leaves little time
For stolen kisses.
At Upton, my adviser
Asks if I am getting enough sleep.
As if there were time between school, dance class,
Rehearsals, homework,
Bus rides, car trips.
Envying Julio and Simone,
Paul and Don, Katia and Barry.
Daydreaming about what might happen
Between Remington and me.
I just sigh, eyes down, say,
“The Nutcracker is a busy time.
But fun!”
Force a smile bright enough
To make him ignore
The nap I try to take
While our advisory group
Discusses Secret Santas
For the party I will miss
Because of the matinee that day.
The Nutcracker has stolen Christmas.
It is the villain Drosselmeyer
To my undanced Clara.
My parents are coming to see me dance on Christmas Eve.
I will sleep in their hotel room,
Trade presents under the Marriott tree,
Eat at a breakfast buffet
Dressed with fake mistletoe.
Then back to the theatre, the Snowflake unitard,
The tight silver cap.
Lisette has been given the chance
To dance the Dew Drop Fairy.
Madison and Bonnie
Take turns in the Chinese variation.
I am a baby,
Stuck with Simone and younger girls.
No beribboned tulle skirt
No lacquer red jacket and black eyeliner
No chance to be anything but first in an anonymous row
Of clinging, colorless
White.
I know rows and rows of people
Sit beyond the glaring lights of the Nutcracker stage,
Ooh and ahh at costumes, virtuosic steps,
The precision of straight lines.
But from the cavernous raft of the stage,
I see only an ocean of murky shadows before me.
The music moves the dancers together.
Hours of rehearsal breed a warm familiarity.
We each do our part.
In the wings, the soloists and principals
Stretch their calves, adjust their shoes.
The corps dancers scramble to dressing rooms
To change from one costume to another.
The younger dancers stand in awe—
Hope some magic
&nb
sp; Will drip from the sweat of the real dancers’ brows,
Some whispered secret
Will tumble from their lips.
It is all exhausting,
Occasionally exciting,
Sometimes strangely mundane.
Turning my mind
To memories of solos performed
Before a too-close row of folding chairs
In Ms. Alice’s basement,
Where I could see every approving face
In a human-sized space.
I have never kept a New Year’s resolution.
Never been good at studying for tests
Or brushing my teeth every morning before school.
Before I came to Jersey
My mother did my wash and folded it
Audition Page 9
