Avalanche Dance (7 page)

“Yes, Your Honor.”

I feel my parents stiffen behind me. I ignore it.

The judge folds her hands and gazes at me. “It was a very foolish and wrongheaded thing you did, to use someone’s property without permission, and in such a reckless and careless manner. You are lucky to have escaped with your life, not to mention the fact that you endangered the lives of those who lived nearby.”

She pauses. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say anything. And what can I say, anyway? I know I’m lucky. I’m so sorry that my sorriness is as big as the world. How do I put that into words?

Thankfully I don’t have to. She goes on, “However, in light of your age, and the fact that you have no previous record, and
the fact that the Torrances are not pressing charges and have agreed to compensation, I am placing you on probation and sentencing you to thirty hours of community service, to be served at the discretion of the Torrance family.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means that you will report to the Torrance home and do thirty hours of work for them. You’re too young to get a job, so you can’t repay them financially. But this will, in small measure, provide compensation to them.”

“What kind of work?”

“That’s entirely up to the Torrances. I understand that the cabin has been demolished, with no chance of salvage. And in any case, it would be too dangerous to have you working in the ruins. But I’m sure there are other chores you can do. Gardening. Housework. I’ll assign you a youth court officer, who will work out with them what they’d like you to do.”

I can’t face them
, I think. But of course I don’t say it.

Judge Peters leans forward. “I hope you’ll learn from this, Molly. Reflect on your behavior, your safety, your sense of responsibility. And, even though they don’t exist,” she adds drily, “the people you choose to call your friends.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

With my parents I go upstairs and find the office number Judge Peters gave us. I knock.

“Come in,” a voice calls. It sounds familiar.

I open the door.

Damn
. My youth court officer is Cal Robichaud.

He’s the father of my friend Susie. My former friend Susie, that is. We used to be friends, but we drifted apart. Now she’s Gwen’s best friend. But I’ve been to Susie’s house dozens of times, jumping on her trampoline, going to her birthday parties. Her dad is a big, hefty guy with a round, kind face and the same reddish-blond hair as Susie, only he’s going bald. I remember that he has one of those rumble-from-the-belly kind of laughs. I always liked him.

I knew Cal had something to do with the law, and that he went up and down the coast and sometimes worked out of an office at the police station in Thor Falls. But I never knew he was a youth court officer. Now I’m going to have to report to him? God, how embarrassing.

He looks surprised when we come through the door. “Larry … Lynn … Molly … what are you doing here?”

“Trouble, Cal, I’m sorry to say,” my father says.

Cal gives him a puzzled look. I hand him the papers Judge Peters gave me and he reads them over. His cheeks turn pink. “I see,” he says, avoiding my eye. “I’d heard about that fire, but I had no idea … . Well, Molly, it looks like we’re going to be spending some time together.” He seems even more embarrassed than me.

We sit down, and he explains how my probation will work. For starters, I’ll have a curfew. It’s to be set by my parents – I can
just see myself in by seven every night. I’m not to consume any alcohol or nonprescription drugs. As for the thirty hours of community work service, he’ll accompany me to the Torrances’ house and discuss with them – or, since Andrew’s in the hospital, with Bridget – what kind of work she’d like me to do. From time to time, Cal will check in with my parents to make sure I’m obeying my curfew, and with Bridget to make sure I’m doing my service. When the thirty hours are done, my probation will be finished. And I’ll have a record.

He makes arrangements to meet me at Bridget’s the following afternoon.

And so begins my sentence.

G
wen came home. The first thing she did was take all of her dance clothes – her leotards and tights and yoga pants and jazz shoes – stuff them in a bag, and throw the bag onto the floor of her closet.

Then she went from room to room and gathered up all the pictures of herself dancing.

There was one taken at her first recital, when she was six. The children were dressed like mice, with pipe cleaner whiskers and felt ears. In the picture, they stood in a row, their mittened hands held up in front like paws. Gwen was in the middle, Carley beside her. Taking the framed picture down from the mantel, Gwen remembered that performance. The dancers were supposed to go down the line, repeating a movement one at a time: first a jump, then a turn, then a wiggle. But when it was Carley’s turn, she just stood there, dazzled by the bright lights and people watching. And Gwen had to wait for Carley to jump before
she
could jump – because that was what Mrs. Truman
had said. So Gwen waited. But Carley didn’t move. Gwen began to fret. Everyone was waiting. The sequence was stuck. Carley still stood there, smiling vaguely at the audience. Finally Gwen leaned over and whispered loudly, “Jump!” Startled, Carley jumped, then turned, then wiggled, and Gwen was able to perform her jump. It was only years later that she understood why the audience had burst out laughing.

On through the house. Pictures of her leaping, arms upflung; leaning forward in a graceful arabesque; stretching to the ceiling, the sky, the stars. Photos of her as a swan, as a clown, as a flamenco dancer in a black lace mantilla, as the fog, draped in a blue-gray cape. Her favorite picture captured her performing the dance she herself had choreographed to the passionate Brazilian music of Heitor Villa-Lobos, caught as she was about to turn, body twisted, arms curved back across her chest, head turned to look over her shoulder as if facing into the forever-parabola of that turn. She gathered them all, from the living room mantel, the hallway, the fridge, her parents’ dresser, her own bedroom wall, and she stashed them, facedown, next to the bag on the floor of her closet.

Her mother fixed her a bed in the spare room on the main floor so she wouldn’t have to climb the stairs. Even with the cane she had brought home from the hospital, though, her leg still ached. Only when she was sitting or lying down did the pain go away. So she sat. She sat in the easy chair in the living room, looking
out the bay window at the sea below, watching the waves roll in, roll out, watching clouds gather and blow away, watching fishing boats appear on one side of the window frame and disappear behind the other. She sat very still, her only movement her fingers touching the shaggy, uneven ends of her hair, and tried not to think about what was hidden in her closet.

It didn’t work.

Sitting there, she remembered the first time she knew she wanted to be a choreographer. She was seven years old and had been taking classes with Mrs. Truman for about a year. One day after class she’d realized that she’d left her mittens in the dance studio and had gone back to get them. Mrs. Truman was still there, alone, with some music on, dancing. Gwen had stayed in the doorway, not realizing she was hidden.

The music was lively and loud, and Mrs. Truman, watching herself in the mirror, took big, swooping steps, swinging her arms. Then the music got soft and light; it made you want to go on tippy-toes. Mrs. Truman did little, quick turns, first one way, then the other, always watching herself in the mirror with a small frown on her face.

Gwen stared. Was Mrs. Truman practicing a new dance? Would she show it to her students sometime? And why didn’t she look happy? Gwen didn’t know the answer, but she could tell that Mrs. Truman was concentrating, and she knew she shouldn’t interrupt. She stayed where she was, quiet.

Mrs. Truman started the music again. This time, instead of
the swooping steps, she traced a circle of joyous leaps all around the room. At the open doorway, she stopped short. “Gwen! What are you doing here?”

By now Gwen had forgotten all about her mittens. “What are you doing, Mrs. Truman?”

“Choreographing.”

“Chor – ee – what?”

“Making a dance.”

“Making a dance,” Gwen repeated. Didn’t dances just exist, ready-made, waiting for someone to pluck them out of the air and dance them? She felt a pang of disappointment. It took away some of the magic to learn that dances were
made
.

But then a new thought came to her. If Mrs. Truman could make up dances, other people could too.
She
could. She had all these things inside her – leaps and skips and twirls, silly wiggles and graceful swoops – and she’d never known what to do with them. Until now. She could pull these things out of herself and put them together in a real, proper dance. She turned to go.

“Gwen?” Mrs. Truman was holding up her mittens. “Forget something?”

Gwen giggled. “Oops.”

That evening, speaking carefully so she would correctly say the new word Mrs. Truman had taught her, she announced to her parents, “I am going to be a chor-e-o-gra-pher.”

She hadn’t stopped making up dances since. In the living room, on the street, at the playground. One time, she and her
dad had been grocery shopping, and she was making up a dance about a tornado. As she twirled down the cereal aisle, she’d knocked down an entire display of corn flakes, boxes and boxes crashing down from a carefully arranged pyramid. The store manager had hollered. Her dad had apologized and, playing the stern parent, scolded her. But once out in the parking lot, they had looked at each other and burst out laughing.

A couple of years later, she’d read Carl Sandburg’s poem “Fog,” and the words “The fog comes on little cat feet” had made her feel like creeping, pouncing, tiptoeing. She’d made up a dance, all stealthy movements floating on air. Mrs. Truman liked the dance so much that she asked Gwen to teach it to the class, and they performed it at their final concert. Gwen still remembered when Mrs. Truman announced, “And now we’d like to present ‘Fog,’ created by our very own young choreographer, Gwen Torrance.”

Choreographer
.

And Dancemakers was going to take her to a new level.

But Dancemakers was gone. She was no longer a dancer. Now she was a gimp with a cane.

A few days after coming home, Gwen sat in the living room, looking at the rain outside. That was all it had been doing the last few days; the snow was nearly gone, almost as if it had never existed.

If only
, she thought, watching the downpour.

There was a tap at the kitchen window. Percy was upstairs, and her mom was asleep, having arrived home from Vancouver late the night before. She’d asked Gwen if she wanted to come, but Gwen had begged off, using her leg as an excuse. There was no way she could have faced her dad.

Gwen pushed herself up and limped to the door.

“Sally!” she said as her neighbor came in, swathed in a rain poncho with a strange hump on her back, the two boys crowding around her legs. She held a large pot in both hands.

“Gwennie,” Sally panted. She put the pot on the stove, kicked off her rubber boots, and whipped off the poncho to reveal a sleeping Tanya in a baby sling on her back. Turning to Gwen, Sally opened her arms. Tears briefly stung Gwen’s eyes as she felt the warmth of Sally’s chest, the tug of her embrace.

Paul yanked on the hem of Gwen’s sweatshirt. “Percy here?”

Gwen nodded. “Upstairs.”

Paul grabbed his little brother’s arm. “Come on, Jasp!”

“Percy might not be in the mood –” Sally began, but they were heading to the stairs before she could finish. She grinned at Gwen. Then her smile faded. “Holy, Gwennie, you look awful.”

Gwen looked down at the shapeless sweatshirt and baggy sweatpants she’d taken to wearing around the house.

“I don’t mean your clothes,” Sally said, giving Gwen an exasperated look. “I mean
you
. Have you been eating?”

Before Gwen could answer, her mother came into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “Sally! What’s up?”

Sally indicated the pot. “Brought you some clam chowder.”

“Oh, Sal, that’s so kind.”

“Kind my behind,” Sally said, laughing. When she laughed, her round belly shook and her eyes disappeared as her cheeks bunched up. “Simon took the boys down to the beach so I could have some peace, and they brought back such a haul of clams, I didn’t know what to do with them.”

Gwen’s mom took the lid off the pot and sniffed. “Mmm … I love your clam chowder.”

Gwen did too. Sally’s chowder, made according to her grandmother’s Coast Salish recipe, was more stew than soup, loaded with clams, kelp, potatoes, and wild onions.
Too bad
, Gwen thought,
I have no appetite these days
. A couple of pieces of toast, a few cups of tea, the odd pear or banana – that was about all she could manage.

Tanya stirred in the sling, her tiny booties kicking to either side. She squeaked, growled, then straightened, her fine black hair sticking out every which way. She was screwing up her face to cry when she popped her head over Sally’s shoulder and saw Bridget and Gwen. Then she burst into a smile. “Ga!” she said, raising her arms.

“I’ll take her,” Gwen said, unzipping the sling and lifting Tanya out.

“Whew,” Sally said, rolling her shoulders. “That kid takes after her mama.” She laughed again.

“Here, let me make tea,” Gwen’s mom said, but Sally pushed her into a chair.

“Sit,” she said. “You look beat.”

“I am beat,” Bridget said.

Sally filled the kettle. “So, how’s Andrew?”

Gwen froze. She started to edge out of the room with the baby. Surely Tanya needed to play on the living room floor, right away.

Before her mother could answer, though, there was another knock on the kitchen door. Sally, who was closest, answered it. “Robert,” she said, grinning. “Come on in.”

Her brother-in-law, Simon’s brother and fishing partner, stared at her, shaking the rain off his canvas jacket. “What are you doing here?”

“Same thing you are,” Sally said, pointing at the parcel in his hands.