The Standout (30 page)

Nick throws out his arms in frustration. “You were willing to end it before, Robin. Now, after everything that’s happened, you should just let go!”

Deep sentiment bottles up in my chest. “I will
never
let go of you.”

Nick rolls his eyes toward the ceiling, breathing hard and trying not to break down. I place my hands on his shaking shoulders and he captures me in a hug, squeezing me so hard it becomes difficult to speak. “It’s going to be okay,” I whisper into his ear. “We’ll get through this. I promise.”

I feel his body relax, tension escaping through his skin as he exhales. He tilts his head back and his lips find mine, brushing them with a quick, gentle kiss. Then he breaks away and speaks to his sister. “You’re coming with me to Dad’s,” he says. “Now.”

“I’ll come too,” I say.

“No.” Nick squints, rubbing his forehead and trying to find the right words. “Please, let me take care of this. I can’t handle giving him any more chances to hurt you.”

I swallow roughly. “Fine,” I tell him. “But I reserve the right to confront him later on if I feel like it.”

“Understood,” Nick answers. Then he gestures toward Andrea, signaling it’s time for them to go. She stands, wipes her face with the back of her hand, and looks at me.

“Thanks for being so understanding.”

I just nod.

“We’ll be home soon,” Nick tells me.

“I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”

“How did it go?” Tina is standing in the middle of our kitchen when I walk in, eating a salad from a deli container and drinking juice. I notice that the salad has feta cheese and bacon bits, which I consider a victory. There aren’t any croutons, but Tina would need a gun held to her head before she’d ingest carbs.

“I think I did okay,” I answer, standing next to her and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“Did he ask you all sorts of probing, self-reflective questions?”

“Of course,” I laugh. “Isn’t that the point?” Tina and I started couple counseling two weeks ago, but as soon as our therapist heard about her eating issues and my rooftop episode, he insisted that we also come individually. Today was my first solo session.

Tina throws her fork in the sink, closes the lid to her salad container, and places it in the refrigerator. “During my session he asked me about the kids, like he was sure that all my issues stem from motherhood.”

“Huh. No, he didn’t ask me much about the kids.”

“See, that’s so sexist. I suppose you talked about your career.”

“Or my lack of one?” I am now officially unemployed but I still have health insurance, for a few months anyway. Tina and I are going to bleed our mental health fund dry.

She flicks away a stray blonde hair that is clinging to her fitted black T-shirt. “Well, we didn’t talk about
my
lack of career, and it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about.”

“So talk to him about it next time,” I say.

“I’m talking about it to you.” Tina leans against the refrigerator, arms crossed. “I really liked working at Robinson Health before the kids were born.” She looks off, like she’s envisioning her days as a physical therapist, helping people rehabilitate after major accidents. “So I called them and they actually have openings. I have an interview tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“And it’s with Angie Sampson, who still remembers me. It sounds promising.” Tina crosses her fingers, then looks around our kitchen, trying to find some wood to knock upon and settles for our granite countertop.

“That’s great,” I say.

“Ted, if they hire me, the hours will be long. You’ll need to be available for Miles and Mason. But I was thinking. . .maybe you could use the time? Decide if you want to be a P.I. or. . . I don’t know; whatever it is you want to do.”

I run a hand over the back of my neck, making the tiny hairs along my skin stand up. My mother used to rub along the top of her spine in the same way, whenever she was deep in thought or feeling tense. I can hear her now; “You can decide, Ted. Whatever it is you want to do.” We were standing at the gate to a roller coaster ride during a family trip to an amusement park. Ian, who barely met the ride’s height requirement, was already eagerly in line but I hung back, unsure.

My mother, with her unconditional love and acceptance, stood there, rubbing her neck and letting me choose, letting me find the strength and courage to take the plunge.

“Tina. . .”

She looks at me sideways. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Thank you, Sugar. I’d love to have time to decide.” I hug her and she hugs me back. It’s one of those magical moments when the world has slowed down. “Hey,” I say. “Do you mind if we move that watercolor of my mother’s? It’s so pretty; I’d really like to see it every day.”

Tina shrugs. “The Mats Gustafson? How about into the living room?”

I smile. Yes, it’s time to let some memories live again, to bring that shadowy lady into the light.

I can’t stop thinking about Julie, and that hurts. The blow she took to her head must have been an explosion of pain. And the loss that her parents feel? It has to be a knife twisting endlessly in their hearts. Still, I tell myself that I did the right thing, that I shouldn’t feel bad about choosing Yuri or letting Yuri choose me.

I imagine Julie alive, dancing as a Wili in
Giselle
, dressed as a dead spurned bride and pirouetting her anguish away. But it’s actually me who is doing that, performing in my summer repertory role and watching my weight by eating cauliflower for carbs and egg whites for protein. And it’s nonproductive, wishing that Yuri was here playing Albrecht, wishing that we rehearsed together, wishing that we spent our free time together too.

Refusing to move on is a form of self-betrayal. I can’t miss him; that’s practically sacrilegious, because it tarnishes the indiscernible bottom line of who I am. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that life is just a series of small choices combined with big choices, and I must try to make the right choices.

So I am starting now.

I grab my course guide and find my mother in her bedroom, reclined in her new sleigh bed and reading a tattered copy of
Anna Karenina
.

“What’s up?” she asks when I enter.

“I applied to Penn State,” I tell her, without prelude. “And I got in. I want to live on campus this fall and study economics with a dance minor.”

I actually applied months ago, that’s how long this has been in the works. Julie must have seen the brochures in my dance bag, which is why she chose to tease me about it. But I don’t plan to get date raped at my first college party. Besides, losing my virginity that way is no longer possible. Yuri took care of that. I make these arguments inside my mind but what I’m really doing is bickering with a dead girl.

Now my mother looks at me. Her mouth and nose are twitching, arguing with her eyes over what emotion to communicate. She inhales deeply. “What about your internship with American Ballet? Do you know how many girls would kill for that?”

I sit beside her in her bed. “So let someone else have it! Mom, I love dancing, but I’m tired of all the backstabbing, and the dieting, and the sore, blistered feet. I want to dance for fun, because I love it, and if that means I can’t do it professionally, then I’d rather do something else.”

She closes her eyes like she’s praying. “Do you have any idea what you’re giving up? This is your only chance to be a dancer, Zelda. You are so close—but if you quit now and then change your mind, it will be too late. Meanwhile, it’s never too late to go back to school and study economics.”

She says “economics” like it’s something distasteful, smelly, not worthy of consideration.

“I want to be normal, Mom. And pretty soon it will be too late to enter college as a freshman, to live in a dorm and meet people, to go to parties and join clubs. I want to make friends who know more than the calorie count in a tablespoon of peanut butter or the best way to wrap their feet.”

“You want friends who are different than me? When you say normal, what you really mean is, you don’t want to turn into me.”

Shame burns my cheeks when I can’t contradict her. She sits up and grasps my shoulder. “Zelda,” she says. “’Normal’ doesn’t exist. That’s lesson number one in your advanced education.”

I nod, staring down at her satin comforter instead of into her sad blue eyes. “I still want to go to school.”

I can feel her studying me; perhaps she’s looking for some sign that I’m her daughter, like I bite the inside of my cheek when I’m nervous, just like her, or we breathe in the same irregular rhythm. There must be some deep, blood connection, or maybe she just loves me and that, in the end, negates all our petty disputes. With a sigh of resignation, she takes my course guide and leafs through it. “Then we’d better start choosing your classes. I don’t want you taking something stupid, like ‘Dumping Ground 101.’”

I laugh. “Mom, you just made a joke!”

She smirks, not letting go of her pique. “I used to be a lot of fun, you know. Blame your father if I lost my sense of humor.”

I reach across carefully, like she might break, and gently capture her in a hug. “Thank you, Mom.”

Ted and I sit out on his deck, swatting away mosquitoes and drinking beer. Tomorrow he will drive me to NYC, with my entire collection draped across the back seat of his car. The fact that he’s willing to brave that kind of traffic for me is either testament to how much he’s changed or to how little I knew him in the first place. Either way, Ted’s still a stranger but I’m glad we’re becoming acquainted.

“I can’t believe you’re selling your house.” I look around their gorgeous yard. The twilight only enhances its appeal, with the big oak trees, stone circled fire pit, meticulous garden, and manmade stream that ends at a bubbling fountain. “I feel like I’m at an exclusive resort.”

“Exactly,” replies Ted, draining his beer. “We don’t need all this and we really can’t afford it. We’re going to find something smaller, same school district and all, but the change will be good.”

“And Tina’s okay with it?”

“It was her idea.” Ted stretches in his patio chair, letting his legs extend like two straight poles. “Ever since she’s gone back to work the weight of the family rests on her shoulders. Her practical side is shining through, which is good, because my practical side has sort of disappeared.”

I laugh. “See, I didn’t know you had any other side besides practical.”

He peals back the label from his beer, examining it like it’s an artifact that holds some ancient truth. “Don’t get lost in all the crap, Robin. It’s the easiest way to lose yourself, or your marriage, or just . . .” he trails off, unable to finish the thought.

I take a moment, really considering Ted’s advice. “I’m more worried about Nick getting lost than myself. He’s the responsible one. I can see him getting buried by all his obligations and forgetting who he is.”

“Don’t let him,” says Ted. “You’ll balance each other out that way. He’ll keep you steady, and you’ll keep him. . .” he waves his arm around, searching for the right word.

“Unsteady? With all the drama I seem to attract?” I lean forward and rest my feet against the seat’s rim, hugging my knees to my chest.

“I guess this time the drama was Nick’s fault. Are you guys going to be okay?”

I scratch at my ankle, where I think a mosquito got me. “Yeah. I mean, I’m still coming to terms with a father-in-law who hates me; that this angry man is partially responsible for creating Nick. So I can’t hate Saul and I’m trying to forgive him, even though he never asked me to.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath, waiting for an apology.”

I nod. “But I’m glad we’re not pressing charges. It was Nick’s idea, making Saul use that $40,000 for Andrea’s dorm expenses. In a way, it’s counter-intuitive, like she’s being rewarded for her involvement in the whole thing. But Nick said that it’s time to cut the cord, and living together, just the two of us, will be really nice.”

“I’m sure it will,” Ted murmurs.

For a moment we’re silent, listening to the cricket’s nighttime serenade, but my chest feels heavy with unsaid words. “I never really thanked you for all those years that you looked after me. I was probably pretty bratty about it.”

“You weren’t so bad. And it’s not like we didn’t have Dad, looking after all of us.” Ted rubs along the back of his neck. “We all did okay, given the circumstances.”

“Yeah.” I swallow back a burst of nostalgia. “So I noticed you moved the Mats Gustafson.”

“Yeah.”

“Any more notes fall out of it?”

Ted shakes his head. “That’ll probably always be a mystery. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. Because, for the life of me, I can’t remember where I put the note. It’s just gone.”

“Get yourself together, don’t be afraid, and jump.” Ted’s eyes meet mine after my recitation of Mom’s words. “You don’t need the note,” I tell him. “Her advice is pretty easy to remember. Just don’t take it too literally.” I get up, stretch, and then go over and give my brother a kiss on the cheek. “I should probably turn in. Big day tomorrow!”

“Good night.”

I go upstairs to the guest room, which now has a big blank space on the wall where the painting once hung. I get ready for bed and fall asleep easily, but in the middle of the night I wake, open my eyes, and see the Mats Gustafson hanging where it once was. The shadowy lady is walking towards a dream, so I let myself drift back to sleep, thinking of her.

In the morning when I wake, she’s no longer there.

Ted pulls up to the curb at The Empire Hotel, where a camera crew is waiting to capture my arrival. Luckily, they’re not so interested in me hauling garment bags onto a luggage cart, so I can hug Ted and thank him in relative privacy.

“You’ll be there for the show, right?”

“Are you kidding?” he asks. “I can’t wait.”

I got to invite a half dozen friends and family to sit in the front row during my showing at Fashion Week. Nick, my dad and Catherine, my brother Ian, and my best friend Isobel are all flying out. Ted will take the train into the city. The idea of having everyone there feels like eating chili, warm and gassy all at once.