Audition (21 page)

Authors: Stasia Ward Kehoe

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Stories in Verse, #Love & Romance, #Performing Arts, #Dance

BOOK: Audition

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“Bonnie, she work hard, too.
Get arms very soft. Steps steady.”
Señor grips the wheel tight
Like Dad.
Stares out at the dimming road.

I know the meaning of averted gazes.

On my dresser is a postcard

From Ms. Alice:
A Russian ballerina in black and white,
Arms open, reaching forward,
Leg behind in arabesque.

“Anna Pavlova.”
Ms. Alice’s handwriting loops in even curves.
“She reminds me of you.
Keep working hard!”

I sit on my narrow bed
In the dank room
Where only strains of Julio’s guitar
And his occasional muttered curses
Filter through the door.

I think of Ms. Alice, Mom, Dad, eyes full of pride.
Bess, the practical genius, sending me off.

Wish there were no photographs,
No mirrors in the world to record
Anna Pavlova
Or Lisette or Bonnie or Rem,
But especially my own reflection.

“C’mon. Get up!”

Remington grabs his rumpled jeans from the floor,
Gives them a shake.
“We’ve got to get back to the studio.”

“Five minutes,” I mumble.
The lunch break during Saturday rehearsals
Is plenty of time
To steal away to Remington’s
And be back in time for subtle, separate entrances
Through the studio door.

So no one will suspect
What everyone knows.

But I am tired.
The bed is warm.
I luxuriate in the lack of music,
The pile of blankets,
The soft shards of sunlight
Slanting through the venetian blinds.

He fumbles for his sneakers.
“C’mon!”

“Okay. Okay.”
I draw my knees beneath me,
Arch my back upward,
Head still on the pillow,
Bun still half pinned in my hair,
Arms stretching up and to the sides.

“Sara!”
Rem squawks.

My head shoots up.
“What?!”

“Do that again.”
He is whispering now.
“That stretch in the bed.”

Barely remembering
But frightened by his tone,
I put my head back down,
Wriggle my knees underneath,
Try . . .

I feel his arm
Lightly
Over me.
He takes one of my outstretched hands.
Draws it beneath my stomach.

“One more time . . .”

This is not sex,
Not friendship.
Something
Strange
Special
In the stillness of his breath,
The waterlike way he moves.

He is making a dance.

We are making a dance.

I do not care about Aurora anymore

And her mincing variation.
Princesses are weak
Compared to the force
Of a muse.

Now
I intoxicate him.
My body a song,
Magnetic as the voices
Of the sirens from Greek mythology
I studied in eighth grade.

We dance behind his couch,
Around the orange chairs,
Over the bed. And after
The sex is something
That I did not know
Before.
He watches me sleep.
Waits for me to stretch, bend.

In the studio
I feel his eyes on my back,
Protective, searching.

I nestle in the clouds
Of his obsession,
Thick, enveloping round
My bright star.

Though sometimes
The density of his gaze
Chokes my lungs,
Weights my feet.

And, other times, I worry
I am giving away something
More precious
Than what Rem has already taken.

I try to write about the creation

Of a dance

In words I can safely say
To Professor O’Malley.

Try to describe
The pressure,
The lightness,
The relief when hands touch,
Legs extend,
Movement flows through music
Or without it.

Milton’s
Paradise Lost
,
That ceaseless poem
Of beginnings and mistakes,
Takes shape in my mind
As two ballerinas
And I understand
Why the poet
Needed to write those words.

But my words feel weak.
Everything has shifted
From my pencil
To my feet
To Remington’s eye.

So I am almost relieved
To hear about Rem’s five-day intensive
For young choreographers
In New York City.

He tells me as I lie
Obligingly exposed
Across his narrow mattress
While he packs his things.

Still, it is hard to go to the studio

Without Rem there,
To watch Bonnie and Lisette
Rehearse their solos.

So at last I stop
At Professor O’Malley’s door.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Sara, yes, one moment if you please.”
Irish accent, as usual,
Turns my name to poetry.

He fumbles with the stacks of paper.
“Your essay on Milton.”
His hands search the towering piles,
Fan through thick folders.

“I brought my copy.”
I take it from my backpack,
Set it on a tiny, exposed corner
Of mahogany.

“Yes.” A grin spreads.
He skims the pages.
“It is very good,
Like your essay about dancing.
You write well.”

He lilts on
About connecting ideas
To events,
To images.
About capturing movement
With language.

I feel my weight release
Against the doorframe,
Consider the possibility
Of making myself
A nest of the stranded papers
In this cluttered room,
And never riding the ogre bus
To the studio today.

Yevgeny’s eyes are black.

They watch not just the muscles
But the bones inside.
Dissecting every step.
Looking for flaws
For missed potential
For what might ultimately be unattainable
By this shape, this form,
This girl.

Today they smoke
In my direction.
I was late to the studio,
My bun unkempt.
I can feel my period coming,
My stomach a swollen mass
Of pressure and foreboding.

I forgot to eat lunch.

The studio turns starry.
I grab the bar,
Feel my leg plummet downward—
Grand battement
Defeated by gravity.

“Sara?”
Yevgeny’s voice is sharp.

“I’m okay!”

I run to the dressing room,
Throw up in the nearest toilet stall.
Curl into a ball
On the cool, black-and-white tile.