Spin the Sky

by MacKenzie, Jill;

  But that’s how the cameras are, I guess. They’re filming all the time but not everything makes it to the screen, and even what does doesn’t convey what really happened. I think of that first YouTube video with George. The cameras caught our fight all right, but they didn’t capture our friendship, beaten, bruised, torn, wrecked, destroyed. There’s no way they could have caught any of that.

  The clip finishes and suddenly Gia’s shaking my arm. I guess she didn’t need to see Rio’s pain on the screen because she was there, in person, doing her part to ruin Rio’s career in dance.

  “Magnolia,” she says. Her voice is cold but her eyes are hot. “Remember who you need to be to get this done.” She pulls me toward her. Takes hold of my shoulders and stares into me, igniting me. “You can do this. Do it for yourself.”

  Camilla’s voice rings out, welcoming everyone to the Week Four performance episode of Live to Dance. And then I hear her say, “Please welcome Magnolia Woodson to the stage.”

  Gia pushes me forward.

  I glide on stage, and the music starts.

  Inside of me, a small earth grew.

  Kissed by the moon, it grew. Lit by the sun, it smiled.

  The lyrics pour out. Gia’s words bleed in. Dig deeper, Magnolia. I let them flow through my ears and into my lungs, my liver, my heart. Dig deep. I close my eyes but the only image that comes, the only one that beats through my soul and pumps through my veins, is the same one I’ve seen since I left Summerland. Mom and Rose on our beach. Digging deep. For razor clams.

  Mom thrusts her shovel into the sand when the bubbles pop up. In her eyes, love glows.

  “Dig!” she says to us. “Dig deep!”

  I whirl, I curve. The music feeds me.

  I think about home. I think about clamming and Mom’s shovel and that damn gun. I think about Deelish and Urban Outfitters and Rose’s damn boss.

  The music picks up speed.

  But you tore at it with fingertips until it was no more.

  You cast out my heart. You cast out my breath.

  I stretch and I leap and I bend, and bend again. I think about Colleen. How she must have looked, lying lifeless in my living room, no one helping her.

  I live in your darkness.

  I think about Mayor Chamberlain, his house. Dark. Desolate.

  I dream in your shadow. But your shadow, I won’t be.

  I spin and I point my toes so damn hard. I think about Mom’s face, the second to last time I saw her. The day before she left us. We got up that morning early to clam, the sky unusually clear, sunny almost. Mom was in good spirits. Her daily therapy sessions were working, she had said. She was feeling better, she had said.

  “Looks ripe for razors.” She pointed to the horizon, flanked by bits of pink and gold.

  “Yeah.” I rubbed my arms because they were cold, even though I had two sweaters on. Mom took off her jacket, torn under both armpits. Draped it over my shoulders.

  “You should keep that on,” Rose said. “You’re so thin. You need the warmth.”

  Mom shrugged, her face light and happy, like the air. “I don’t feel anything.”

  We clammed a bit, pulling three or four moderate-sized ones. Tossed them into the bucket, proud each time we heard the gentle thud of the shell touching metal. None of us talked much, but it was okay because things were getting better, just like Mom’s group therapist said it would. And I could feel it, too. Or at least, I thought I could.

  “What are you three doing out here?”

  I was the first to turn toward the voice. Mom froze, her face motionless, staring out to sea. Next to her, Rose stopped sifting.

  “It’s only been a couple of weeks,” Mrs. Perkins said. Her face was pinched, puckered by too many cold mornings clamming all alone. She had never been all that friendly to us in the past and we knew to avoid her. For the most part, she avoided us too. Until recently. “You should be ashamed of yourselves for being out here, in public. His family is still wrought with grief. You have no right to do this to him. To us.”

  We’d heard the whispers before, but nothing until that morning had been so clear. No one, until that moment, had said it outright.

  Mom grabbed the sleeve of my coat so hard, the hole under the right pit tore bigger. She seized Rose’s elbow too, pushed us both toward the house, not stopping, until we were inside with the door locked.

  Rose went straight to her room and slammed the door. I stood in the hall not knowing what to do. Even from there, I could hear Mom’s soft cries that started on the beach, growing louder and louder and louder with every passing second. Rose turned her music on and up. I left, went to George’s, and stayed there until my shift at Deelish began.

  When I came home that night, she was still there, in her room on her bed, still crying. Making that huge wet spot all over her pillowcase.

  The beat drops.

  I listen for your voice, but only hear the rain.

  I call for you, but the water is our wall.

  I throw my head back and beat my chest and think about George.

  I fall back, but you don’t catch me.

  I will beat in your heart once again.

  How much I loved him. Will always love him.

  I hear your songs,

  But you never hear mine.

  I think about the people of Summerland. Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Miller. The freshman. The others. I can’t picture any of their faces anymore. It’s like they’re gone. It’s like they never were.

  I rise. I fall. I twist. I fly. I spin the sky.

  The release. My release.

  I spin the sky.

  I am the darkness. I am the night. I am the raven. Black and smooth. Poised and perched. Wings spread. Ready to soar, high, against the muted sky.

  I will ascend. Because in my eyes, love glows.

  Now there is dawn and with it, light.

  I do everything Gia told me to.

  Stretch my arms and legs to the ceiling, crawl along the floor and cover every inch of it with my body. I do it perfectly because I have no choice other than to do this, to break free, to fly, to be the raven. I do it all. Because I have to.

  I’m in your shadow, but your shadow, I won’t be.

  I leap, my last leap of the routine, and finish with my C jump. I do it perfectly. Head back, arms back, legs bent behind my body. And then I land.

  But I don’t hear the soft, collapsing whoosh my feet should make against the polished floor. Instead, I hear a loud noise. Crashing metal, no. Cracking glass, no. Screaming. Screaming.

  But it takes my brain a second to figure out that the screaming is coming from inside of me. Knives shoot up from every bone in my left foot, up, up, all the way into my throat. My chest, my armor, my legs, my foot, my bleeding, broken heart.

  I’m in your shadow, but your shadow I won’t be.

  “Help her! Christ. Help her.”

  “Get her up! Someone get her up. She needs a medic.”

  “Where’s her family?”

  “She’s here alone.” Something smashes. A camera being pushed out the way. Booming footsteps. “I’m staying with her. She doesn’t have anyone else here.” A boy’s voice. Quiet, soft, almost unrecognizable. Jacks.

  Voices echo all around me. Backstage. Front stage. Camilla Sky. Hayden. “Someone call for help! She can’t move!”

  Olivia.

  More footsteps. Feet scuffling, screeching against the floor. “Get this out of her face!” Floor that feels so different than the floor at Katina’s studio.

  “I need to see her. I need to make sure she’s okay.” A different girl’s voice. Pleading. Rose? Pleading. No. It can’t be. Pleading. She never came.

  “Let us through,” a woman says. Mrs. Moutsous. “We’re with her.”

  “You can’t be up here,” a man’s voice says.

  “She’s my sister,” the girl says. “Stop! Get away! Leave her alone!” She puts her face to mine. “Magnolia. Please get up. Please help her up!”

  Your
shadow, I won’t be.

  I feel something—someone—on top of me, wrapping their body around mine, shielding me, encasing me, protecting me like the outer shell of a razor clam. “Get those cameras out of here, now!”

  “George, help her. Please,” Rose whimpers.

  The same arms that shield my limp body lift me off the ground. My right arm wraps around his strong neck. My head rests against his chest. His heart pounds into my cheek.

  “Leave her alone. Get away from us.” His voice quiets. “Mom. Stay here and make sure none of these people follow us out of here. Rosie, let’s go through the back and call for an ambulance.”

  I hear them with me, feel him with me, but it doesn’t matter. Because it’s over now. It’s over.

  This shadow, I’ve become.

  “You can’t go,” Camilla says to George. “Let the sister take her. Our staff will call an ambulance. But you stay here. You’re up next.”

  I feel his body immobilize. Against my skin, his heart races. “I’m going with her to the hospital.” He growls at someone else, “Don’t you dare try to follow us.”

  Camilla comes closer. I smell her breath—her poison spreading between us. “They need to film this. If you leave now, you’ll be disqualified, too.”

  George strokes my hair and for a brief second, my eyes open and look into his. They’re so damn blue, his eyes. Fresh and real, like our ocean in Summerland. Not aquamarine. Not like the sea here in LA. Black-blue and endless. I picture myself swimming away in them—in those eyes—for eternity. I let my own fall closed again.

  “I don’t care,” George says. “I don’t care about this. I’m getting her out of here.” He rests his chin on my head and whispers, “I’ll get you out of here.”

  “It’s okay, George,” Mrs. M. says. “Go with her. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  George nods and whisks me and Rose offstage. “It’s going to be okay, Mags,” he breathes into my chest. “I’m here now.”

  Next to him, Rose’s hand squeezes mine.

  “You came,” I say.

  “Shh,” she whispers into my hair. “Of course I came. You were so beautiful, baby sister. You made us all so proud.”

  But my brain barely registers his words or her words that would have changed everything fifteen minutes ago. Now, it doesn’t matter. It’s over for me here. After days and weeks of doing everything I could. It’s over it’s over it’s over.

  I’m going home. I’m going back to Summerland.

  THIRTY-TWO

  When a stone-faced nurse shoves a third rock-hard pillow under my head, I wake up with a jolt. “You can’t sleep your life away,” she says. “You need to sit up for a bit. It’ll do you good.”

  “I don’t want to.” I swat the pillows out from under me and hide my face with my elbows.

  Rose hurries into the room in time to see me pull the covers over my head. “Mags! You’re awake!” She shoves a flimsy paper cup filled with ice chips and tap water toward my mouth. “Here. Drink some of this. You must be thirsty.”

  I push it away. I’m not thirsty. I’m not anything. I shut my eyes and think of Rio, disqualified. Karma is a bitch.

  No matter how much I don’t want to, I think of last night. George carrying me in his arms. George saving me from Camilla and those cameras and those people. I never want to see any of them again. Now I’ll never have to. The only person I want to see George, and he isn’t here.

  Rose sits on the edge of my bed and waits for the nurse to leave, her rubber clogs clonking across the hollow floor. When she’s gone, Rose peers over her shoulder and then back at me, her eyes sparkling. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  I try to sit up, but the pain holds me down. “George? Where is he?”

  “Someone else,” she says.

  I turn my head. “I don’t want to see anyone else.”

  Rose hops off my bed and skips to the door. She flings it open and in walks Mark, looking more sheepish than I think I’ve ever seen him.

  “What are you doing here?” I say, and he smiles.

  “I watched every show on TV. And tonight, I saw you on stage. You were amazing.”

  My heart beats unsteadily.

  He seems sad, dark circles under each one of his eyes. But the rest of him looks so good, like always. I search for the right words like I always do when he’s anywhere near me. I know it won’t matter. He’s never judged what I say or don’t say. What I do or don’t do. I can’t believe he came here for me.

  He points to the foot of my bed. “Can I sit?” I nod and he holds a paper bag out to me. “I bet you can’t guess what’s in here.”

  “More coffee for your mom?”

  He laughs, but shakes his head. Inches himself closer to me and dangles the open bag under my nose. Behind him, I spot Rose backing out of my room. She closes the door behind her, quietly. I reach for the bag. Mark snatches it away, with this mischievous look that I don’t think I’ve seen on him before.

  Even through the paper, the smell of pure heaven hits my nostrils like nothing else. “That’s not what I think it is in there, is it?”

  “I knew that would get you,” he says. “You can take the girl out of Summerland, but you can’t take Summerland out of the girl.” He sets the bag on my lap. “See for yourself.”

  I stick my nose through the top. Razor clam fritters, wrapped in newspaper just the way they’re supposed to be to maintain optimal freshness. He didn’t just come here to see me. He came here to bring me a piece of home.

  He grabs an envelope from his back pocket and hands it to me. “This is for you, too.”

  I take it from him and open it, carefully. It’s a card. On the front is a really good hand-drawn picture of a dancer en pointe. But instead of arms, the dancer has big, sprawling gray wings. Like Odette in Swan Lake.

  “She’s beautiful,” I whisper.

  “She’s you,” Mark says.

  I flip it open and read the words scrawled in blue pen.

  Your heart is what you are. And what you are is everything.

  “Did you draw this? And write this? For me?”

  He frowns. “It could have been better, I know. There’s so much I wanted to say. I wrote about twenty lines and then started over and ended with this one.”

  I flip it over. I didn’t even know he could sketch like that, with so much talent and heart I could cry. I know what George said about him loving me, but I didn’t feel it then. And our phone call. I could tell that he cared about me and I know I cared about him but that wasn’t anything new. We’ve always been friends. And friends care about each other. But everything feels different now. Everything feels like maybe I haven’t felt anything the way I should. Until now.

  “Why me?” I whisper.

  He inches closer. Closer. So close I can almost hear his heartbeat, like I did that day in his house. “This is how I see you. Strong. Powerful. More determined than anyone I know. The girl who won’t let life get her down because she can rise above it all. You don’t just dance.” He shakes his head, his eyes watery. “You’re not like anyone else. You don’t ever just dance. You fly.”

  “I didn’t fly on stage. I—” My voice breaks. “I fell.”

  “Your body gave out. It’s not your fault.” He twines his pinky finger in mine.

  “Is it online? The clip of my dance? I want to see it.”

  Mark bites his lip. He shakes his head, which is how I know that I shouldn’t see it, wouldn’t like what I saw if I did. “The show’s not everything.” He takes my hand and places it over his heart. “You’re so much more inside of dance than this. You always have been.”

  I nod. Can’t speak. Because if I do, I won’t be able to stop my tears from coming. But he must sense it. Sense the crumbling inside of me, so near the surface. He pulls me closer. I lay my head against his chest. My whole body fills with warmth. I want him. I do. I don’t know why I haven’t known I did until now.

  He smoothes my hair. “They’ve offered me a
place in the company at the California Ballet School, in San Diego. I went there to check it out. It’s a great school. A great opportunity.”

  My chest aches. He can’t go. Not now. Not when it’s just beginning. “I’m happy for you.”

  “Magnolia,” Mark says. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, would you consider coming with me?”

  I pull away. “You don’t need to do this. I’ll be fine. You don’t need to make me feel better.”

  Mark takes a deep breath. “I want you to come with me. I already know they want you.”

  I pull away. Shake my head. I want to be with him. But it can’t be like this. “I can’t leave Summerland. Not like this.”

  “I know you think you can’t,” he says. He gathers both my hands in his. “But you can. The question you should be asking yourself is, do you want to?”

  My mind swirls, my head hurts. A school in California that wants me. A boy that wants me, too. I let my eyes close and think about what it would be like. To be in the warmth of this place all the time, dancing at school and deserving to be there. To be with a boy who thinks I’m everything. With a boy who makes me feel like I am everything.

  I hold Mark’s hands. I should know better than to turn my back on him, on any of what he’s offering me. But I came here for a reason. I came here to win the show and change things and now it’s over.

  I open my mouth to tell him that no matter how he feels about me and makes me feel, I can’t have him. Not like this. Not when I have to go home now and everything will be the same as when I left.

  But before I can get any of those thoughts out, Mark leans in toward me and kisses me so softly and warmly and it makes me know that things have changed. I have changed. I might be going back to that same place with those same people, but the girl who came from Summerland isn’t the same girl as the one who left.

  Rose strolls in and sits next to Mark at the foot of the bed. I feel so tired. So worn. So hungry that I don’t even care that the only place in town that sells fritters like these, packaged like these, is Miller’s Bakery. I tear through the paper, rip off a corner of one of the fritters, and shove it into my mouth. The taste is total liquid gold. There’s just no other way to describe it.