Pointe (6 page)

“Then it's not dumb.” He gives me a small smile. Similar to the one he flashed us his first day at the studio, but this one lingers.

And perhaps it is the cool air passing through the night, but deep down I know the shiver travels down my spine because that smile was just for me.

He taps his clove against the gazebo, spills ashes through the rails and onto the ground. I inhale and hold mine out in front of me, see how long I can go without breaking the long tube of ash that has grown on the end. I let out a stream of smoke and lick my lips. Nobody I know smokes cloves besides Hosea. I've only smoked them once, a long time ago, but I've never forgotten how they make your lips taste like sugar.

Our gazes gradually shift to the house in the distance. Joey Thompson has muscled his way into the crowd of fringe people and is lording over a keg with one of his football cronies, David Tulip. There's a ripple in the crowd and Lark Pearson breaks through, grabs Joey by the forearms, and shouts something incoherent in his face. Everyone on the patio cheers, then Joey and David each grab one of her legs and up she goes. Kegstand time.

I tried it once and lasted about two seconds. Something about the unique combination of being upside down and chugging beer doesn't mix for me.

Lark makes me think of Ellie, which makes me think of Trisha, which makes me think of what I was supposed to tell Hosea when I first saw him.

“Klein was looking for you.”

“Yeah, I know.” Hosea shakes his head. “He's been texting me all fucking night.”

I don't know how he deals with basically being at Klein's beck and call. I guess you're supposed to bend over backward for your customers, but Klein gets off on pushing people to their limit. Even his best friend.

The color in his face deepens in the light cast down from the moon. “Listen, would you mind not saying anything to Klein or Phil or . . . anyone about my gig at the studio?”

I bite my tongue against asking him why he doesn't want people to know one of the best parts about him. “Sure.”

“Cool,” he says, his eyes moving back out to the lawn.

The lawn, where another person is walking in our direction. A girl this time. Short, with legs that travel very fast. Ellie Harris.

I should have known she wouldn't be far behind Lark. Who has been released from the kegstand and is now wiping her mouth, burping into her forearm before she goes up for round two.

Ellie plants herself in front of Hosea, one French-manicured hand holding on to a bottle at her side, the other smoothing down the fabric on her hip.

“Klein's been looking for you everywhere,” she says in one of those false-bright voices that makes it apparent nothing about the situation in front of her is okay.

“So I've heard.” Hosea stands and stubs out the clove on the bottom of his boot. “I needed some air.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Sara-Kate:
Where are you?
I write back that I'm in the gazebo, put out my clove, and stand up, too.

“You guys know each other?” Hosea motions in my direction as if Ellie's stare was not already boring into me like hot fire.

“Mmm. Thea, right?” She turns away before we can make eye contact and pulls on the bottom of her skirt, trying to tug it down to cover more of her bare legs. The fabric hardly budges and she gives up after a while, takes a long drink of cider as she looks at Hosea. She lowers the bottle and rakes her fingers through her chunky blond highlights. “Babe, we should go see what Klein wants.”

He takes her hand and I stare too long. At their intertwined fingers, how things are so easy between them. I wonder if I could have that, too.

They start to walk away but I don't want Hosea to leave without a goodbye, so I blurt out, “Thanks for the clove.”

I'm not talking to her but Ellie turns her suspicious eyes on me and I don't care. Trisha may be a burnout but at least she never pretends she doesn't know who I am when we've been going to school together our entire lives. One day, I'll leave girls like Ellie and Lark behind, and then they can't say shit because I'll be touring the world with a professional company. Lark is smart—National Honor Society, academic scholarships, the whole deal—so maybe she'll do something worthwhile with her life when she leaves the kegstand phase behind.

But I don't think Ellie has a whole lot going on behind the makeup. She coasts by on her looks and Trisha's popularity and one of these days that has to catch up to her, right?

Hosea glances back at me and kind of nods. “Yeah, sure. Later, Theo.”

I sit down again to wait for Sara-Kate, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around myself as I inhale the sweet smoke that clings to my jacket. And for the tiniest moment, I let myself imagine Hosea's arms are wrapped around me instead of my own.

CHAPTER FIVE

I WALK DOWNSTAIRS IN MY PAJAMAS THE NEXT
morning to find my father sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. He used to bring work to the table sometimes until Mom forbid it. He's good about sticking to her rule. Even if it means that some days he eats breakfast in record time or goes into the office absurdly early so he can work on spreadsheets over a doughnut and coffee.

He looks up as I approach, pushes his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. He looks cozy in his green-and-navy flannel robe with the cuffs rolled up. “Morning, babygirl. Ready for ballet?”

I nod as I stifle a yawn. Saturday mornings always come too early, whether or not I went out the night before. And I'm never hungry for breakfast. I know it's important because it sets the tone for the day and blah blah blah. But most days, the thought of food before 11:00 a.m. literally turns my stomach. Especially rich breakfast foods like fatty bacon and runny eggs and the worst of it all: syrupy French toast.

But I can't skip it. That's a promise I can't break or even bend, because one slip-up and they'll be on the phone with Marisa, who could help them decide it's time for me to go back to Juniper Hill. And I can't go back there. I won't.

So I make my way to the refrigerator and push aside the leftover baked spaghetti, reach for a carton of plain yogurt. I dump a few large spoonfuls into a bowl and sprinkle fat-free granola on top. Leaning against the island is my favorite way to eat. Standing up, taking in slow, deliberate spoonfuls so no one can accuse me of cheating.

Dad looks up in my direction, but not really
at
me. He does this for a while and I've opened my mouth to ask him what's wrong when he says, “There's news about Donovan.”

I almost drop my spoonful of yogurt on the floor. “More news? Is it bad?”

He looks right at me now. “He's not talking, Theodora.”

My father is the only one who calls me that. His mother was Theodora, too, but I never met her. Usually my full name is attached to fairly innocuous sentences
(How was your day, Theodora? Isn't your mother's tomato sauce delicious, Theodora?)
, so it takes a bit for the weight of this one to sink in.

“Not talking?” I set my bowl down on the counter. “Like, at all?”

“Not at all,” he says to me with sad eyes. Then: “And they've released information about the suspect.” He rubs a hand over the thinning hair at the back of his head before he folds the front page of the paper in half, highlighting the mug shot on the front. “The person who took him is . . . a man. Thirty years old. His name is Christopher Fenner.”

I take the paper from my father, scan the story in front of me. Christopher Fenner's name floats across the page, along with the kidnapping and child endangerment charges. My eyes travel to the picture that accompanies the article.

Fuck.

Christopher Fenner has bright eyes and a defiant mouth and dark hair that curls over his collar. Even with a scruffy beard, he doesn't look thirty. He seems like the kind of guy whose worst offense would be pounding too many Bud Lights and passing out in his truck, not someone who would kidnap a child and drag him thousands of miles from his home so he could—

No. I can't think about the images that have been swimming through my mind for so many years. He's only a suspect. Maybe there was a mistake. Or maybe that's what I'll tell myself until we know more, because it's easier than putting a face to all the abuse I've imagined that Donovan endured.

Donovan was—

No match for someone like this.

The suspect's flat, still eyes stare into mine until I can't take it.

Fuck.

“They say he worked at the convenience store a few months before the abduction, that Donovan probably knew him.” Dad is talking again but I can't look at him.

I try to swallow the bile in my throat but seconds later I'm rushing toward the sink, leaning over, vomiting what little breakfast I've had into the basin. I stay hunched over for a while, rasping out breaths and wiping my eyes, even after Dad jumps up to stand behind me. He sort of pats my back and says, “Oh, Theodora” over and over in this sad voice.

A couple of moments pass before he adds, “I didn't mean to upset you. I wouldn't have shown it to you if—”

If he'd thought I couldn't handle it.

I turn on the faucet to wash away the mess, then cup my hands under the water, rinse out my mouth.

“No, it's okay. I wanted to know.” My voice echoes back up from the sink. I straighten up and wipe my lips with the striped dish towel sitting on the counter. “I needed to know.”

“Why don't you stay home today?” He says it like he's doing me a favor, like he's suggesting I skip school on the day we're scheduled to dissect fetal pigs.

“I can't.” I haven't missed a dance class in three years, and the times before that weren't by choice. He knows this, which is why he doesn't challenge me.

I dump out the rest of my breakfast because I don't think I could get down another bite.

“You're sure you don't want to take the morning off?” Dad removes his glasses to look at me. He only needs them when he's working or reading. “I could call Marisa and explain. I'm sure she'd understand if you need to stay home today.”

“I should go,” I say. Throat burning. Tongue sour. “I'll miss the train if I don't leave soon.”

“Theodora, you know you can always talk to me, right?” He's standing next to the island and he could be the father in one of those feel-good coffee commercials right now if he didn't look so
sad.
His eyes, they kill me.

“Of course, Dad.” I start making my way to the door. Hoping he'll get the hint. Hoping he'll drop it.

He doesn't.

“Or you can talk to your mother. Or someone . . . professional, if that's more comfortable for you.” He clears his throat once, twice. “I know this is hard, Donovan coming home after all this time when we thought . . . And now this. It's . . . it's really hard and I want you to know you can talk to us, babygirl. Anytime.”

“Sure. I mean, I know.” I've almost got one foot out of the room now. “I do. Thanks, Dad. I'm going to class now, okay? I'll come home right after and rest.”

He nods. “Have a good class.
Merde.
”

I've told him dozens of times that dancers say that to each other only before they go onstage—the ballet world's answer to “break a leg”—and that if there's no performance, he's simply saying “shit” in a poor French accent.

But as I walk up the stairs, I can't help thinking he's inadvertently described how I feel about this day.

CHAPTER SIX

BALLET IS SUCH A UNIVERSAL, RECOGNIZABLE ART FORM THAT
people always think they know more about it than they do. I've endured more than my fair share of goofy fathers pirouetting in place as they pretend to be me. And the guys who don't realize that they're the millionth person to ask where I've hidden my tutu. Or girls who say, with such
authority,
that they used to dance and then sheepishly admit to only taking classes for three or four years.

Ballet is my life. I'm powerful, untouchable when I'm out on the floor, and one day I'll hold the titles I've dreamed of since I was a little girl: Soloist, then Principal Dancer. The Misty Copelands and Julie Kents and Polina Semionovas. The cream of the crop, the best of the best, the dancers
nobody
can fuck with. I started to think seriously about a professional career when I went on pointe five years ago, and that's when I truly realized just how few black dancers are performing in classical ballet companies. Sure, sometimes you can find them in the corps, but that's not the same as having your talent highlighted for everyone to see. I can't let that stop me, though. I'll keep training as hard as I can, become such an amazing dancer that the companies will
have
to judge me based on my talent instead of my skin color. I want to be the best, plain and simple.

But today, I feel like a beginner. I'm sluggish and the taste of bile coats my mouth and it's affecting my dancing. Not to mention the face of Donovan's kidnapper is everywhere I turn.

His smirk dances across the top of the barre as I stand in first position and bend my knees into a grand plié, my heels rising off the floor. I see his eyes in the mirror as I extend my leg straight behind me; they follow me around the room as I promenade in arabesque, daring me to break my slow, controlled balance. Usually, dancing calms me when I'm upset, but those goddamned eyes won't let me go, and I'm starting to wish I'd never left my bed this morning.

Donovan was found nearly 2,000 miles away with an older man, and that's reason enough to believe he could've been abused. But I can't stop thinking about how inexperienced he was when he disappeared. How scared he must have been. I'd had sex by the time he was abducted, but neither of us knew much about anything until he found that book a few years before he was taken. We were aware of the mechanics, of course. How babies got here. We knew that kissing led to touching, which led to sex. We knew that people in our class had kissed, though having a boyfriend or girlfriend back then mostly meant holding hands at recess for a couple of days and sharing your lunch without complaining. We just didn't know about the whole “touching” part and certainly nothing about how sex actually worked—not beyond the occasional glimpse of a watered-down scene on one of the shows our parents watched when we were supposed to be in bed.

But all that changed the day Donovan told me he'd found something I had to see. It was the winter of our fourth-grade year and we were in his room on a Saturday afternoon, forced indoors because of a snowstorm. I was bored at home, so I'd bundled up in my boots and coat and walked two houses down to be bored with Donovan.

I was sitting cross-legged on the rug, paging through one of his Avengers comics, when he said, “T, I have to show you something” in a low voice that promised secrets.

His door was closed, but his eyes kept darting toward it, as if someone would burst into his room at any second. We were safe. His sister, Julia, was just a baby, and she was down for her afternoon nap. Mr. Pratt was kicked back in the den with a tumbler of scotch, watching the Bulls shoot for victory, and Mrs. Pratt was in the kitchen, slicing apples for a cobbler.

Still, Donovan put a finger to his lips as he reached behind his bookshelf and pulled out a heavy-looking book with strange writing on the cover and an illustration of a man and woman facing each other. Bodies intertwined, the man's hand cupping her naked breast.

I gasped. The people weren't real, but I was nine years old and it was the most explicit thing I'd ever seen. And from the look on Donovan's face, I knew the pages inside had to be even worse. He sat down next to me, placed it on the floor between us.

“What is that?” I brushed my hand across the title and the people, then snatched my fingers away as if someone would go dusting for prints later.

“The
Kama Sutra
?” He said the beginning of
Kama
like “cam” and I thought that was how it was pronounced for years. Not that I ever advertised I'd been up close and personal with a copy.

“Where'd you get it?” Now
I
was looking at the door, listening for footsteps, plunging my fingers into the carpet to keep from opening the book.

“I found it in the garage last night,” Donovan said. His jeans-clad knees were drawn up to his chest, his chin resting on top. He eyed the book warily, like it was going to stand up on legs, walk downstairs, and announce its presence. “I was looking for my old glove and there was a box . . . It looked really old, like they hadn't opened it for a long time.” He paused to scratch his nose. Maybe to stall. “Do your parents have books like this?”

“Um, I don't think so.” My parents were sweet to each other;
they snuck kisses when they thought I wasn't looking and shared glances that made me know they were very much in love. But I'd never come across anything like
that
in our house. I pushed away the Avengers comic. “Have you looked in it?”

He nodded, and it's like that was the permission I needed, because I inhaled long and deep and then I opened the book to the middle and began to flip through it. More soft, full bodies. More illustrations that made me do double, triple takes. Some of them I just stared at, sure there was no way two humans could possibly put themselves in those positions. Or that they'd actually like it once they got there.

I could feel Donovan looking over my shoulder, but he didn't touch the book again. All he said was, “Pretty gross, right?”

“It's just . . . weird.” I didn't know how else to put it.

I noticed boys, but every time one of my friends mentioned kissing or even holding hands, I felt like that was so far away for me, it was beyond comprehension. And clearly, Donovan was even less interested at that point. He'd much rather toss around a baseball with the other boys in class than spend time worrying about girls.

I looked away from the book after a couple of minutes. I felt warm all over, though I'd barely moved except to turn pages with the very tips of my fingers. It all seemed weird and a bit wrong, but I also felt a sense of relief. At least now I'd know what people were talking about whenever sex came up. Sort of.

• • •

That was the last time we looked at that book. The last time we discussed it, too, but sometimes over the next few weeks I'd notice Donovan zoning out and I didn't know how to explain it but the look on his face was how I felt when I was paging through the book, and I was sure he was thinking about it. Every time.

I need to get my shit together now because I swear, Marisa seems to be watching me more closely than usual in class. She knows our bodies almost as well as we do, what each of us is capable of doing. But the more I worry about disappointing her, the harder it is to concentrate. To stop thinking about the guy who took Donovan.

I use the extra seconds between combinations to close my eyes and breathe in deeply, and then, just when I think I'm safe, the memories of my ex-boyfriend come flooding in.

I remember how we used to drive out to the abandoned park because nobody would think to look for us among the overgrown paths and rusted swing sets. He'd always bring something for us to share—a small, flat bottle of whiskey, a fresh pack of Camel Reds. Anything that might relax me, make me feel better about the things we did when we were alone.

So many firsts happened in that park. My first taste of strong liquor. The first time I was touched between my legs, the first time a long, slow path was kissed along my breasts. The first time I saw a guy completely naked and held him in my hand.

It was also the first time I told someone “I love you.”

It was easy to believe he felt the same way. Especially when his mouth curved into a small smile, when he kissed me long and deep. Those times, the sex was sweet. Slow.
Making love,
he'd say as he held my stare.
I love making love to you, Theo.

Then there was fucking. Hard and fast and no time for kissing. Just grunting and grabbing. Eyes squeezed into slivers, lips tense with effort. I was surprised the first time because I still responded to him. My body didn't mind the new way of doing it. But I felt used afterward. Disposable. He never looked in my eyes when we were fucking.

I yearned for him to look at me, to make that connection. His eyes were hypnotic enough to captivate me, even as he lay on top of me, sweating and drowsy after I'd given him what he wanted.

It's those eyes that cause me to stumble on a double pirouette a few moments later. Marisa notices. So does Ruthie.

It doesn't help that she's a machine, Ruthie Pathman. She barely seems to break a sweat during class, but she always works her ass off. She may roll her eyes when Josh and I talk about our careers and she may pretend like she doesn't want it as much as we do, but she
does
.
If I wasn't sure before, the determined set of her jaw, the spark in her eyes lets me know how true it is now.

At the end of class, Marisa asks me to stay behind and I'm cursing myself for practically falling apart until she calls Ruthie and Josh's names, too.

I glance at the piano, where Hosea slides the day's sheet music into a single stack, slings his backpack over one shoulder, and nods in our general direction before filing out of the room behind the rest of the company. I feel Ruthie's eyes on me as he leaves, but I look down at the floor, stare at the scuff marks that swoop across my pointe shoes.

Marisa closes the door behind Hosea, stands in front of the mirrored wall, and gestures for us to sit down in front of her. She's wearing her standard outfit—a black long-sleeved leotard under a thin white wrap skirt, black leggings, and plain ballet slippers.

“I don't think I have to tell you why you're here. But just in case . . . Well, you're my best.” She smiles big, stops to look at each of us. “You have my full support if you'd like to audition for next year's summer intensives.”

A professional career has always seemed so far away, but one day, Josh, Ruthie, and I will headline our favorite ballets.
Coppélia. Giselle. Sleeping Beauty. Swan Lake.
Josh was damn near tailor-made for the role of Prince Siegfried and every little girl pictures herself dancing Odile at least once in her lifetime. We don't kill ourselves practicing all those fouettés for nothing.

But first, our sights are set on summer programs, at one of the best schools in the country. It's the next logical step if you're on our path. The word is that Marisa recommends summer intensive auditions to only a couple of her students each year, if that. And we don't need her permission to audition, but Marisa doesn't make mistakes.

I try to bite back a smile, but I can't help it. Even my sick stomach and weak legs can't ruin this moment. These are the words I've wanted to hear from Marisa since I first went on pointe.

“I'm afraid this is also where it becomes more of a job.” Marisa's smile fades just a bit as she paces in front of the mirror, the piano to her left, the door on her right side. “If you decide to audition, it will be a huge commitment. Less time with friends, more days and nights here at the studio.”

We nod in unison, our faces turned up to her like we're three years old again. Josh, especially, looks nearly the same as he did back then, with his wide eyes and the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose. I cross my legs and lean forward with my elbows on my thighs, catch a quick glance in the mirror to evaluate how much of me has changed and how much has stayed the same. I can't see a big difference and I wonder if I've changed more on the inside or the outside over the years.

“You'll have to make some difficult decisions, but I won't waste my time working with anyone who doesn't want this, so think hard before you decide to audition. Professional ballet is incredibly difficult. It's physically and mentally taxing, and this is just the start.” She hesitates and then slowly, her smile returns. “But I know all of you can handle it and then some. You wouldn't be sitting in front of me if I didn't believe it.”

She says our training will increase and we'll need to list the pros and cons of each program, from type of instruction to tuition payments. It's strange to think we may not be auditioning for an identical list of schools, that there will be a day I won't dance next to Ruthie and Josh. But it's even weirder that the only reason we're friends at all is that we've been training for a career in which we'll compete against one another for as long as we're dancing. We haven't discussed it outright but I know we'll end up auditioning for some of the same programs.