How It Feels to Fly (15 page)

And Omar whimpers. “I can't do it,” he says, ripping off a green petal.

“You're doing fine. The whole point of this is to try something we've never done before and to figure it out as we go along.”

It's like he doesn't hear me at all. “I can't do it. I can't do it!” His face twists, and I know he's going to cry.

I lean in close. Put my hand on his hand, where he's tapping the table. “Hey. It's okay. It doesn't have to be perfect.”

“I can't do it,” he repeats, looking miserable.

I pull two sheets of yellow paper from the stack. I set the instructions flat on the table where we can both see them. “We'll do it together, okay?”

“You're not supposed to help me.”

“I'm not.” I sneak a glance at Dr. Lancaster. “I'm making my own flower. It just happens to be next to yours.”

Maybe this is his version of Elmer's glue. Or maybe his moment of panic was just that—a moment. But side by side, folding slowly, checking our work again and again, we end up with matching golden daffodils.

He holds his up, giving me a watery smile.

“Gorgeous,” I tell him.

“I feel really dumb right now.”

“You're saying that to the girl who almost cried when her house of cards fell down.” I look around the room. Dr. Lancaster is crouched with Katie and Zoe by the VCR, and the jump-rope squad is in their own world. Focused. Keeping time. “Do you want to talk to someone?” I ask Omar. “I mean, someone who isn't me?”

“No. I'm okay now. Thanks.” He furrows his brow. “I hate when I freak out over things that don't matter.”

“Me too.” I set my paper flower down next to his.

“But in the moment, when it's happening, they feel like they matter. So much.”

“I know.” I think about stepping in that hole on Monday. How I wasn't hurt—not even a little—but it felt like the end of the world. “It'll get better.”

For him, maybe. Not for you
.

I shake my head, wanting my inner voice gone. And I say it again, hoping this time I'll believe it: “It'll get better.”

THAT AFTERNOON, WHILE DR. LANCASTER HAS A meeting with Andrew and Yasmin, Jenna and I set up our chair-barres in the Dogwood Room. Katie starts doing crunches and push-ups nearby. Dominic joins Katie on the floor, matching her move for move. Omar gets his graphic novel and sits with Zoe on the sofa, where she's watching a horror movie at low volume.

We're together. At the end of week one, that feels important.

When we're stretching out on the floor after finishing our barre exercises, Jenna scoots closer to me. “You said on Thursday you think you and I have some stuff in common,” she says, keeping her voice low.

“Yeah.”

“Do you find yourself comparing your body to everyone else's all the time?”

Yes. Always. And you always lose.

“Um. Sort of. Why?” I open my legs into a straddle split and lean forward, resting my stomach on the floor.

“Because that's what I do. I look at pictures and videos of myself on the ice, and I look at other skaters doing the same move, and I can't stop comparing us. Down to the littlest things. Like, how my fingers look. I'm never satisfied.
Never
.”

I turn my head to rest my left cheek on the carpet. There's a frayed area on my right ballet slipper where my big toe is about to poke through. It makes me think about how frayed I feel. Every day the threads holding me together are fewer and farther between.

“That's kind of it for me,” I say quietly. “But kind of not. I know where my technique is. I know what I'm good at and what I'm still working on. I believe in my dancing. So when I compare my body to other people's bodies, it's not like they're doing something I wish I was doing. Something I could work on, or fix. They're just luckier.”

“That makes sense.” Jenna nods. “It sucks, but it makes sense.”

“My body used to be perfect for ballet, and then—it wasn't. But that's not about anyone else. It's about me.”

“Are you jealous?”

I think about Bianca. How I've been keeping her at a slight distance for the past few months—maybe even since
Nutcracker
. In a way, she represents everything I've lost.

On Monday, she starts her summer ballet intensive.
She'll be at The Washington School of Ballet in DC for the next five weeks. We both auditioned for that program, back in February. She got in; I didn't. She offered to wait to accept her place until we found out where I'd be going, but I told her not to be silly. TWSB was her top choice. She had to go.

We did all our auditions together this year. I think back to the one I thought I'd danced best at—the one where the teacher and the intensive director stared at me in the hallway afterward. I don't think Bianca ever feels those prickles at the back of her neck. I don't think she has any idea what it's like to be looked at as if you don't deserve to even walk down those hallways.

“Yeah,” I whisper to Jenna. “I'm jealous.”

I don't like thinking about Bianca like this. I don't like realizing that I'm the kind of person who is jealous of—even a little bit angry at—my best friend for something she can't control. Especially when, as Dr. Lancaster pointed out, Bianca's been nothing but supportive. It makes me feel like a terrible person. A terrible friend.

I need to change the subject. Lighten the mood.

“But as far as jealousy,” I say to Jenna, “you don't have to worry about me, like, whacking you on the kneecap or anything.”

Jenna blinks at me. “I'm sorry, did you just make a Nancy Kerrigan joke?”

“Too soon?”

“Yeah, you know, 1994 called. . . .” She gives me a tight
smile. “What's the equivalent for ballet? Don't you all, like, put glass in your rivals' pointe shoes?”

“Oh, all the time. I see a mirror or a window and I'm like,
Must break and sprinkle fragments in pointe shoes
.”

Katie overhears this last part. “What are you two talking about?” Her voice comes out strained; she and Dominic are in matching push-up positions, staring each other down.

“Sabotage,” Jenna says.

“Speaking of which, would you two mind sitting on Dominic's back right now?”

“I'd still win,” Dominic says through gritted teeth.

“Keep . . . telling . . . yourself . . . that. . . .” Katie shifts from one arm to the other.

“I'll give you this,” Dominic says. “You're pretty tough for someone so small.”

“Thanks.”

“My money's on the kid,” Zoe calls from the couch.

In the end, it's a draw. They have us count to three so they can drop at the same time. And then Katie looks at Dominic and says fiercely, “Rematch?”

He laughs. “Another time.” They shake on it, and then we all join Zoe and Omar on the couches. “So what's this movie about?” Dominic asks.

“There's this ghost—she died, like, fifty years ago,” Zoe says. “And this family moves into her house without knowing it. . . .” On-screen, a hot twenty-something playing a teenage boy waves a baseball bat at sharp objects that are flying through the room toward him. “You know
what? Just watch it,” Zoe says.

So we do.

DINNER'S A COOKOUT.
Andrew's at the grill, wearing a “Kiss the Cook” apron. Omar and I sit nearby with our notebooks. I'm trying to work on the body part lists Dr. Lancaster assigned me yesterday, but it's hard to concentrate. It's Andrew's presence—and the smell of the hamburgers on the grill.

Maybe it won't kill me to have a burger. I could ask Andrew to make me a miniature one. Like, four bites. It would be so worth it.

Slippery slope, Sam
, my inner voice chides.

I put pen to paper. What I dislike about myself:
Wide hips
. What I like about myself:
High arches—feet look great in pointe shoes.
What I dislike:
Stomach—how it pooches out even when I hold it in.
What I like:
My hair. I have good hair.
What I dislike:
Thick thighs.
What I like: . . .

“How's it going?” Andrew drops into the rocking chair next to me. He pinches his tongs in my direction.

“It's going okay,” I say, frowning at my list. How can I have already run out of things I like about my body? What about my eyes? I write that down.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?”

“You can stay. I don't mind.” I look up at him. He's backlit; there's a halo of early-evening light surrounding his sandy hair and the red-brown polo he's wearing. “Honestly, I think I—I think I'm better with you.” I say the last part fast
and soft, so Omar won't hear.

“I'm glad,” Andrew says, just as soft.

I return my focus to my notebook. I try to let all the distractions fade away. The smell of cooking meat. Katie and Yasmin laughing in the kitchen. Omar humming to himself as he writes. Dominic jogging laps around the house, passing us again and again. The buzzing of insects and the calling of owls, getting louder as we drift toward sundown. The fireflies flickering on the lawn.

And Andrew. Next to me.

HE'S NEXT TO
me again the next day, as I'm standing in front of the largest dining table I've ever seen. It has to seat at least fifty people. The place settings are immaculate. The wax fruit centerpieces look good enough to eat. There are more plush velvet chairs around the sides of the room, underneath enormous tapestries. A huge pipe organ covers one of the side walls, and two circular chandeliers hang from the high arched ceiling.

This room makes me think of fancy dinner parties where the women wear gloves and the men wear tuxes with tails. If I were invited to a party like that, I don't think I'd have any problem eating. I'd finish every bite and ask for more.

Of course, I'd probably also be wearing a corset, which would limit the bites I could fit in. I'd have to be smart. One taste of each delicacy—

“Sam? Andrew? We're moving on,” Dr. Lancaster calls. I leave the Banquet Hall reluctantly, looking back over my
shoulder before I turn the corner.

We continue on the self-guided tour, winding through room after extravagant room. The Biltmore House was built in the late 1800s by George Vanderbilt, the heir to the Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune. It's the largest privately owned home in the United States, with 250 rooms. Basically, it's like someone plopped a European castle in the middle of North Carolina.

Apparently I'm not the only one visualizing myself living here, because when we reach George Vanderbilt's bedroom, Omar announces, “I'll be sleeping here tonight.” He turns to Andrew, his voice taking on a posh British tone. “I don't want to be awakened before ten a.m., my good man. I'll have breakfast in my dressing gown.”

Andrew laughs and bows to Omar. “Very good, sir.”

After that, it's a free-for-all. Jenna calls Edith Vanderbilt's room, which is decorated in bright gold and deep purple. Dominic takes a room that's kind of a rusty brown, because, in his words, “at least it looks like a dude's room.” Katie squeals when we enter an oval room with printed peach fabric on the walls, cushions, and bed. Yasmin claims one that's equipped with two twin beds. “It's not like I have anyone to share a bed with right now, anyway,” she laughs. Dr. Lancaster shoots her a look.

“Zoe, Sam, and Andrew—you still have to pick,” Katie says.

“I need one that speaks to me,” I joke. “This is really important, you know.”

“I know which one I want,” Zoe says. “I've been here before.”

“Well, you won't beat my room,” Jenna says firmly.

“Wait,” Katie cuts in. “If Omar is George Vanderbilt and Jenna, you're Edith, does that mean you two are
married
?”

Omar links his arm through Jenna's. “Shall we continue touring the house, my dear?” Jenna shakes her head, looking amused.

Eventually we enter a room that I want. Red damask walls. Gold curtains. Lots of space and light. There's a tea service set up on a table by the windows. “This one's mine,” I say. “Definitely worth the wait.”

“And I'll take this one,” Andrew says as we step into an adjoining room with blue walls and dark wood furniture. It's pretty much the definition of “handsome.” I can picture a man—Andrew—in period hunting gear, complete with tall boots and a top hat, standing by the window. His faithful golden retriever lies at his feet.

As everyone else moves on, I peek back into “my” room. I imagine waking up there every morning. Having tea—or black coffee—by the window, looking out over the grounds. Then I return to the blue room. Real-world Andrew is waiting for me. “Hey, neighbor,” he says.

Our bedrooms adjoin. Does that mean they were meant for a married couple? I look down at the Biltmore House brochure to hide how flustered I suddenly feel.

Andrew. And me. Married.

Now the picture in my head is of hunting-gear-wearing
Andrew kissing corseted, kid-gloved Sam. Which is nuts.

And nice. Really nice.

What are you thinking?

It doesn't matter if you like him. There's no way he's into you—

But what if he is? Why can't I stop feeling like he is?

Ahead of us, Zoe is crowing about her choice—the Louis XV, one of the most luxurious bedrooms in the whole house. I hear laughter. I hear a shush from one of the uniformed guards who stand in every other room, making sure no one touches the priceless furniture and fixtures.

I need to say something. Anything. Before Andrew walks away.

I blurt, “I got dumped two weeks ago.” And then I want to go crawl in a hole. Not because of body image or anxiety or whatever, but because that is the most pathetic thing I could have said.

“I'm, um—I'm sorry,” Andrew says. “That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“Was it mutual? Did you see it coming?”

“Nope and nope.”

I didn't cry when it happened—I was too good at not crying in front of people by then. But I couldn't help asking Marcus why. We'd been together for nine months. We'd had fun. He was my first kiss. I'm pretty sure I was his, too. And the only thing he could come up with to tell me was “You've changed. You're different than when we started going out.”

Different. Code for fatter, softer, uglier.

I'd been right, that day at the ballet studio. He wasn't attracted to me anymore.

“I think I'm better off without him,” I say to Andrew, not because I believe it as much as because it seems like what I should say.

“That may be true, but that doesn't make it suck any less.” He runs his hand through his hair, that gesture he does whenever he's thinking about the best way to say something. All of a sudden, I want my fingers in his hair, too.

What is wrong with you?

“I probably shouldn't tell you this, but”—he hesitates, looking around the blue room at everything except me—“it's just that we're not supposed to give y'all too much personal information about ourselves. Dr. Lancaster's rules.”

Now I
have
to know. “I won't tell.”

“It's not even this big scandalous secret. All my friends at school know. My girlfriend, Caroline, and I—we're going through a rough patch. I keep wondering if we should . . .” He fades off. “Anyway, I kind of know how you feel.”

“Oh.”

See? He has a girlfriend. Too bad for you.

But . . . they're about to break up? Is that what he's telling me?

“Did your guy give you a reason when he dumped you?”

“Yeah.”
You've changed
—I hear it over and over and over and over.

“Have you talked to him since?”

“No. It was only a week before I came here. And then Dr. Lancaster took our cell phones. . . . Why—do you think I should talk to him again?”

“I guess I think it's important to get closure when a relationship ends, so you can move on.” Andrew finally looks at me. “Bigger and better things on the horizon, right?”