The Sugarless Plum: A Memoir (4 page)

Aside from the dancing itself, I loved the sense of order and control I experienced in the studio because life at home had become chaotic. There I had no control at all.

I was nine years old when my parents decided to get a divorce. No one ever told us what was happening, so I couldn't understand why my mother was so angry, why my father seemed so confused and was sleeping on the couch, or why they weren't speaking to each other. Then one day my father moved out and into a one-bedroom apartment where all four of us kids often spent weekends camped on the recliner, two or three chairs pushed together, as well as the kitchen and living room floors. I remember trying very hard to rein in my emotions and not do anything that would upset them further or add to their problems. I just wanted to make things better, but this was one situation over whose outcome I didn't really have any control.

It wasn't until many years later that my mother told me they had never really learned how to communicate their needs to
each other. I believe now that there was never any one precipitating event, but that my mother was simply harboring a lot of resentments they'd never discussed. By the time my father was aware of it, it was too late.

After the divorce, my mother went back to work full time and we became latchkey kids. We returned from school every day to a house that was empty except for our animals. Needless to say, the house was a mess, and so were our lives. No matter how much newspaper we put down, we'd wake up in the morning to discover that the dogs had relieved themselves all over the rug. We did our best to keep things clean, but we were just kids, and Mom invariably came home to find the sofa stripped of its cushions and the four of us hiding in the “fort” that we'd made. “Jeez Louise,” she'd scream as she walked through the door. “You kids are driving me crazy!” But she never punished us. I think that because she had been brought up so strictly she never wanted to put the same kinds of restrictions on us, but she was exhausted and overwhelmed, and she just wished we'd work with her to create some kind of order in our lives.

Much as I loved playing with my sisters and brother, and was certainly part of the mess, I hated seeing my mom so unhappy and I wanted her to be okay. As a result, I began taking it upon myself to create order out of the chaos. I became hyper-responsible and began ordering my siblings around, constantly telling them to pick things up and clean up after themselves—to the point where they started to respond by saying “Yes, Mom” or “Yes, boss.” Because I felt such a profound sense of responsibility for
alleviating my mother's stress, I hated it when the others seemed reluctant to get with the program. I could understand why they might resent obeying my orders, but that didn't stop me from issuing them. In truth, the chaos was getting to me, too, and bossing around my brother and sisters was just my way of exerting some modicum of control.

Besides the pleasure I found in my classes with Sheila, the one activity that gave the whole family a bit of happiness and a break from our never-ending squabbles was horseback riding. Ever since she was a little girl, riding had been my mother's greatest love, and now it was something we could all do together. Being on horseback and being in the studio were the two places where I felt happy and that I belonged.

That said, however, accidents happen. One day when we took a trail that went around the golf course near the stable, the horse I was on got hit in the foot by a golf ball, which caused him to buck and rear, throwing me off his back and into the air. I landed on my ankle, spraining it badly. For some reason the doctor I went to put me in a cast and I was unable to dance for the rest of the summer. When the cast finally came off, the arch on my right foot had flattened out and the foot had stiffened up so that I would never again be able to point it as well as my left. That foot would give me trouble for the rest of my dancing life.

My favorite pony was Gent, a chestnut with a black mane and tail and white spots on his back that gave away the tiny bit of Appaloosa in his gene pool. He stood just under fourteen hands, which made him a quarter inch short of being a horse. He was
calm and sweet, as befitted his full name, Sir Gentleman. I had ridden many horses, but none as special as Gent. After we had been paying for our rides for a couple of years, the owners of the stable offered to sell us our favorite horses for a price so ridiculously low that even we could afford them. I bought Gent for the $150 in allowance money I'd been stashing away in a teddy-bear-shaped bank for two years.

What I didn't realize was that the reason Gent was so calm was that as a stable horse he was being ridden every day. I rode him only a few hours on weekends, and he wasn't used to being cooped up in his stall for such long stretches of time. While his gallop was still magical, his boundless energy was more than my tiny frame could handle. Heading out, he was as calm as ever, but the minute we turned back toward the stable he was transformed into a demon. No matter how hard I pulled back on the reins, within seconds he'd be flying so fast that all I could do was squeeze my legs hard and cling to his neck for dear life. As it turned out, Gent's temperament was as wild as my own; we were made for each other.

Eventually we moved our horses to the ranch owned by my mother's younger sister, Rhonda, and her husband, Michael. This was a great move for two reasons. First, because the ranch was much closer to home, so we could ride more often. And second, because Rhonda and Michael were my favorite relatives and they, in turn, thought I was really cool. In fact, they enjoyed my company so much that they'd call my mother and ask if I could come and stay for the weekend. Children of the sixties, they had
lava lamps, beanbag pillows and tarot cards, and they'd named their infant daughter Raynbow. Unlike my uncommunicative parents, they demonstrated their fondness for me and for each other and I could talk to them for hours about esoteric things like past-life experiences, out-of-body experiences and UFOs. We read tarot cards together, and Michael even did faith healing with a laying-on of hands. Secretly, I wished that they could be my parents.

As time went on, ballet became the most important part of my life. I had friends in the neighborhood and I was working hard in school, but I was also spending more and more time at the studio either taking a class or waiting for the next one to begin.

Each January, ballet schools around the country sent representatives to audition students for their summer programs. When I was thirteen, Sheila decided I was old enough to try out for Balanchine's School of American Ballet and for the school of the San Francisco Ballet. The previous year, Michele had attended SAB, and I remember devouring her letters and imagining what it would be like to ride the bus or walk with her to class. Now, if the audition went well, it would be my turn.

Hundreds of girls from all over the state gathered at a local ballet school. For the San Francisco audition we were crammed into a studio with a number pinned to our leotard just above our chest. As two judges looked on, a teacher put us through the usual steps, starting with pliés at the barre and moving on to balanc
ing, jumping and turning in the center of the room. After each group of combinations, the judges called out the numbers of the girls they were eliminating. Those who made it to the end had a good chance of receiving an acceptance letter. Michele and I were both still standing at the end.

The audition for SAB was entirely different. We were separated into age groups with twenty girls in each group and again given numbers to pin to our chests. Sheila had instructed us to wear white leotards and dance skirts to give us a clean, professional look. I had pinned little pink flowers in my hair. After waiting literally hours, my group was called into the studio.

The person in charge of the audition was Susan Hendl, a soloist with the New York City Ballet who would in time become one of the dearest and most supportive people in my life. Now she asked each of us to point first our right and then our left foot to the side as she assessed the curve of our arches. In ballet, a properly curved arch determines not only how your feet will move but also how they will look in pointe shoes. It was the lack of that arch that had prevented Sheila from becoming a ballerina, and I was now nervous that the right foot I'd injured in my riding accident would prevent me from being chosen.

The next thing Susie asked us to do was to lift one leg in the air, first to the front, then to the side, then to the back. At the height of the extension she took the leg in her hand and slowly stretched it to the ceiling to see how high it could potentially go. Mine went high.

In the end, both Michele and I were given full scholarships to
the San Francisco Ballet School's intensive summer program. Since, much as I loved to dance, I had no sense that there was anything special about me, I wasn't really surprised or upset that I hadn't been offered a place at SAB.

For six weeks that summer, Michele and I really did ride the bus together. We also shared a room, and we took classes three times a day with girls from all over the country. At thirteen, I felt independent and grown-up.

In class, it was obvious that the teachers noticed me, but I had no idea whether I was getting their attention because I was good or because they noticed how hard I was working. It still didn't occur to me that I might be particularly talented.

 

When we returned to Sheila's class that fall, she was thrilled to announce that the New York City Ballet was going to be performing in Los Angeles, and Peter Martins, the gorgeous, Danish-born star of Balanchine's company, had agreed to teach one of our classes while they were in town. Of course, we all knew who Peter was, not only because he was such a big star but also because he was the lover of Heather Watts, a principal dancer with NYCB, who was one of Sheila's former students and perhaps her greatest success story.

On the appointed day we all dressed in our best leotards and anxiously awaited his arrival. When he didn't show up at the appointed time, Sheila started class without him. I had a sinking feeling that he wasn't going to come at all, but then the room suddenly grew silent and I turned to see a Greek god in white
shorts standing in the doorway. I was stunned by Peter's physical presence, but even more stunned that he was going to be teaching my class.

To my amazement, he singled me out at the barre and encouraged me to turn my leg out even farther. He took a dime from his pocket and placed it on my heel while my leg was extended in front of me. If the dime didn't fall off, he said, I could keep it. I focused with all my might, and he actually laughed at how determined I was to keep that dime, but it stayed where he put it. For the first time I had a sense that there was an exciting world of ballet beyond Sheila's studio that I wanted to be part of. Needless to say, I hung on to that dime and stashed it away in my jewelry box for safekeeping.

 

By this time my younger sister, Romy, was also studying with Michele and me, and even though she was only eleven, the next year Sheila decided that all three of us could audition for the summer programs. We were thrilled when we all received scholarships to the San Francisco program, and I also got a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet.

As sisters, we decided that we'd all go to San Francisco together, but Sheila had other ideas. She called my mother and me into a conference and said that she thought it was time Michele and I were separated. I should go to New York while my sisters went to San Francisco. It seemed strange and a bit daunting to be going off without them, but my mother and I trusted Sheila, and ultimately I decided this was too much of an opportunity for me to pass up.

Oddly enough, even at fourteen, and in spite of all the warnings I'd heard about how dangerous it could be, I wasn't intimidated by being in New York. Just the opposite; I fell in love with the city. I was living with a woman who had rented me a room in her apartment on Central Park West just three blocks from Lincoln Center, and five other girls who had studied with Sheila and were also attending the summer program lived nearby, so I never really felt alone.

Monday through Friday we took two or three dance classes a day, but we had weekends off, and we were determined to experience as much of the city as we could cram into five short weeks. We saw the original Broadway production of
A Chorus Line
and went to Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes. We walked up and down Fifth Avenue and splurged on brunch at Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center.

What did intimidate me, however, was the School of American Ballet. In San Francisco, the teachers had all known my name and
always made sure that I had a place in the center of the studio. At SAB it was entirely different. Once we finished at the barre and moved to the floor, everyone had to scramble for a good position, and the most confident girls always made sure they were front and center where the teacher would notice them. The classes were huge, and if you didn't get a prime spot, there was no way you'd be seen. I knew that, but I just didn't have the confidence or the nerve to push my way to the front.

In addition, as I looked around me, I could see how much better than I the other girls were. While I could barely turn twice and didn't jump very high (at least in my own mind), they all seemed to turn like tops and leap like birds soaring across the sky. These were the girls who had always dreamed of being ballerinas. They had smooth, straight hair held in perfect buns and stage mothers waiting for them outside the classroom. In that milieu I knew I wasn't going to stand out, but I was happy for my New York experience—and even happier to be going back to Sheila's at the end of the summer.

 

Sheila's studio, however, was just about the only place I was happy. My situation at home and at school was not going well.

About three years earlier my mother's boyfriend, Dave, had moved in with us. He shod horses at Rhonda and Michael's ranch, and they'd thought he and my mom would get along, so they introduced them. At first we were all happy to have him around. A big, six-foot-five, burly guy, Dave not only loved to go riding with us, he was also my mom's folk-dancing partner and a perennial
fixer-upper. He came over to fix things around our house and was always available to drive me to Hebrew school or ballet class. By the time he moved in, it seemed as if he were already part of the family. But that's not exactly what Dave had in mind.

One evening after he'd been living with us for a few months, he sat all four of us kids down and, with his arm around my mother, announced that they were moving to Alaska and we would be going to live with our dad. We all sat there quietly waiting for Mom to say something, but she didn't.

Afterward, Michele and I went outside to meet our friends as we did every evening, only this time we told them that we'd be moving. I knew my mother had been totally devoted to us for years, and I wanted her to be happy. But I also wanted her to stay.

In the end, they didn't go. (Later she told me that she'd never have gone through with the plan, but she never did say why she'd allowed him to make the announcement in the first place). Dave was stuck with us and he resented that. He let his anger show to the point where it was dangerous to provoke him in any way. Michele was already sixteen and able to simply ignore him. Gary and Romy were basically nonconfrontational kids, but when Dave started to boss me around, I lashed out, reminding him in no uncertain terms that he wasn't my father and had no right to tell me what to do.

The more I resisted him, the more we fought. In addition to being verbally abusive, he'd hold me under the cold water in the shower when he thought I was being too temperamental, and once when we went riding he whipped me with the reins. What
made his behavior even more confusing was that he could also be incredibly supportive. He drove me to ballet class, beamed at my performances in Sheila's year-end recitals, and had been the only one in my family present when I got a reward for receiving straight A's on my report card. The stress of coping with his Jekyll and Hyde personality was getting to me, and I was also starting to fight with my neighborhood friends, many of whom had problems of their own. The only place I had to feel good about myself when I wasn't with Gent was at Sheila's studio, and I started to spend more and more time there.

By now I was in Sheila's most advanced class, which didn't begin until seven in the evening, but Sheila allowed all students to take as many lower-level classes as they wanted free of charge. Since I was fighting with my friends, I couldn't hang out with them, so I did my homework in the library during my lunch hour, and because I didn't want to go home after school, I took the bus directly to Sheila's. Some days I took as many as four classes in a row, including my sister Romy's.

By this time, Michele was less interested in ballet and more in cheerleading, but Romy was becoming more interested and more serious about her dancing.

At night the two of us practiced in the kitchen, using the counter as our barre and trying to lift our legs as high as we could without hitting Mom in the head while she cooked.

 

My ongoing battles with Dave came to a head early one Sunday morning. I was supposed to go to Sunday school, but that was the
only morning of the week when I could sleep late, and I just didn't want to get out of bed. My mother kept yelling at me to get up, until she finally came back into the room one more time and screamed, “I'm not going to tell you one more time. Get up!”

Still, I pretended to be asleep. Then, suddenly, I heard a huge roar, like that of a wild animal. The next thing I knew Dave's enormous body was on top of mine. His hands were around my throat, heaving me up and down as I gasped for air. I went limp, certain that I had just taken my last breath when I heard my mother screaming, “Get off her. Get off!” Finally, somehow, she pulled him away as I lay there shaking.

Half an hour later, my mom was driving us all to Sunday school. We were silent in the car, and it would be many years before we ever talked about what had happened. The next day Dave drove me to ballet class. He acted as if nothing was wrong, but he must have known that he'd finally gone too far.

Up to that point, even though he'd been abusive, I wasn't afraid of Dave—at least not afraid enough to keep quiet when I was angry. That Sunday, however, with his hands around my throat in a blind rage, I was shocked into the sudden realization that he really could have hurt me. Without ever coming to a conscious decision, I stopped speaking up after that. I also prayed that my mother would ask Dave to leave our house. A few weeks later, while my sisters, my brother and I were on a camping trip with our dad and his new wife, Lynn, I got my wish. When we came back on Sunday night, the house was quiet and Dave was gone.

 

That year, I was again awarded a scholarship to the SAB summer program, and all three of us—Michele, Romy and I—also won scholarships to San Francisco. For me, SAB was the major leagues, but I still wasn't convinced I was good enough to be there and I didn't really think my teachers liked me. So again, I decided to go to San Francisco with my sisters. And again, Sheila would have none of it. This time, when she called my mother and me into her office, she announced that I
had
to go to SAB. “I've never seen a dancer as talented as Zippora,” she said. “I know she belongs in New York. I've never felt so sure about anything.”

I was stunned. I knew Sheila thought I was good, but I had no idea she thought I was so special.