Audition (23 page)

Even though the chance
To run away from all this mess
Holds a certain appeal
And I am just a little curious
About these universities
Katia and Anne
Discuss with bright eyes,
Damp with anticipation,
As if they see that paradise
Milton claims we all have
Lost.

Mom throws up her hands,
Mutters about a business trip.

 

 

Dad escorts her away
Right after an early breakfast.

 

 

I watch him drive,
His eyes fixed on the road
So I will not see the sadness
I know they hold.

 

 

I am like him:
Drive, drive, drive,
Afraid of the dark,
Even more terrified to stop
To think what it all means.

 

 

I am the proud owner
Of three new pairs of tights
To save me so much washing,
Two expensive leotards,
No more because Mom says
That soon there will be changes

(In her mind, college;
In mine, that I will move up a level).

 

 

Buying too much
Hunter green
Will be a waste.

 

 

I hold a giant file of college brochures
That I have told them will also be a waste.
But I took them anyway.

Since waiting is a giant feature of ballet.
Waiting for your ride—
Your class—
Your rehearsal—
Your turn.

 

 

Yet somehow I begrudge
The beautiful professional ballerinas
Their stupid, time-killing romance novels.
It seems to me
There must be something more.

 

 

Would it be strange to offer
A Tale of Two Cities
,
The Moon and Sixpence
,
Ragtime
?

 

 

They think I’m weird enough already.

This time.
Swathes of mahogany in view
Between the sheaves of paper.
A silver cup filled with pencils
Red and blue.
A delicious, musty smell
Like Ireland in my imagination.
The place where George Bernard Shaw was born;
Wrote so many words
About poor and rich, people
And saints,
Plays, novels, criticism.
Refused recognition,
Knighthood,
Even the money that came with a Nobel Prize.
Died from injuries gotten from falling
While pruning an apple tree.

 

 

This time,
Professor O’Malley speaks of the story
I wrote about
The Nutcracker
And the little children peering from under the skirts
Of Mother Ginger.
Tiny lost souls

Who do not yet understand
That they are on a stage,
That beyond the footlights
People are watching;
Who only dance
Because their bodies are so light,
Because the music carries them.
The lilting melody
To which they dance
Is a Pied Piper’s song.
And, like the children of Hamelin,
They do not know
That they are prisoners.

 

 

It is strange to hear my words
Read back to me.

 

 

I don’t think I wrote them
To have them ever leave the page.

 

 

I think I only write
What happens across my brain
When my feet are too weary
To dance anymore.

Professor O’Malley
Says that it is more than that,
That I have something to say.

 

 

I shake my head to disagree.
My hair, not in a bun yet,
Shoots down my back, clean and slick.
My maroon blazer lolls over my arm.
A ruffled, white shirt, another legacy of Mom’s visit,
Gives me a certain shape.

 

 

“No. No, Sara,
Do not diminish yourself like that.”
He puts his fine, girl-like hand on my shoulder.

 

 

I feel something
In the air
That makes me think of Remington.

So he sleeps.
“Not now, Sara.”
Remington’s response to my wriggles
Beside him.

 

 

He tells me I don’t understand the pressure
Of choreography competitions,
Artist-in-residence applications,
Fighting for opportunities to shape his dances
Onto ballerinas.

 

 

The words “explain it to me”
Catch in my throat.
I have heard him tell Paul and Don, Jane,
About his worries.

 

 

If he fails,
Will he blame
His muse?

For a student retreat
With his music school.

 

 

“Think Simone will miss me?”
He winks.

 

 

But Simone is full
And ripe with gossip, friends,
Unafraid to tease and crush,
To ask for things she wants

 

 

More than what the teachers,
The mirror, tell her.

Julio’s electric razor
Sits forgotten on a shelf over the sink.
Sometimes when we play cards,
I search his face for the need
For that razor.
See only a fine, soft stubble
Over his lip—
No hairs to create
Evening shadows on his chin, his neck,
Like Remington’s.

 

 

When we laugh together,
Perhaps I should flirt with Julio,
Playful,
Like Remington still flirts
With Jane.

 

 

Is it fair to like apples
and
peaches,
Steps
and
letters,
More than one boy ...
Are you allowed to love like that?

Dinner is a torturous affair but
For some inexplicable reason
I don’t want to go to bed
With Remington.

 

 

Give my Saturday to dancing.
Half the night, reread
Professor O’Malley’s scrawls
Commending my language, imagery, ideas,
My ear for the lyrical movement of words,
Something Yevgeny has flatly said
My dancing lacks.

 

 

Sunday, exhausted, nap,
Fan the pages of teen magazines,
Where I read about unwanted pregnancies, STDs,
The kinds of protection Rem taught me to use.

 

 

These things are less real
Than my loneliness
When I slide out from beneath Rem’s sheets,
Watch him chatting on the phone
With Jane, who has agreed
To be “just friends.”

Sex is a price to be paid
For company.
For a second I consider whether Professor O’Malley
Would trade it for kind words
About my worth.