Various Positions (30 page)

SEVENTEEN

Sixty and I get up the next morning and move around the room without looking at each other. It’s like a choreographed ballet, three meters of space wedged between our bodies as we pull on our clothes and gather our stuff for class. I wonder whether we’ll make a point of leaving separately too, but we’re ready at the same time and neither of us has the energy to be that childish. We go down the hall. I am like Manon, my face too tired to show resistance, moving through the desert to my death. There are lots of other girls in the stairwell. Ballet is still canceled, so everyone has their hair down. I can smell it, fruity shampoo and fresh laundry, but something else too, girl smell, a tang of musk and citrus. In the lobby, people gather under the bulletin board. We cut across the room. There’s a notice on the board that everyone’s reading. Veronica and Anushka are directly beneath it. Anushka says something and Veronica slaps her lightly on the arm, throws her head back laughing.

Sixty gets up to the sign first. I read over her shoulder. It says that all grades are scheduled to participate in gym classes at Eastern Collegiate, the local high school, until ballet resumes. The grade-nine class begins in an hour and the girls are to make their own way to the school’s backfield. Anushka tugs on Sixty’s shoulder bag, then throws her arms around her neck in a languid hug.
This is so perfect
, is what I think I hear her whisper. Sixty smiles politely and disentangles herself like she’s been caught in a net.

I take a step away from the crowd, rest my weight on the railing over the benches. Veronica is talking to Sixty too, looking as happy as a maniac. I see Sixty take a step away. I know she wants to come over to me, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have the guts. I avert my gaze down the other hallway and hear footsteps, teacher footsteps, the click-clack of high heels. The shadow comes first, long and lithe like a dancer, and then a woman steps into the lobby. It’s Beatrice Turnbull.

The girls notice her immediately. They respond by dispersing a little, as though space between their bodies is a sign of respect. I’ve never seen the principal in the lobby before and I assume no one else has either. She stands on the landing as though she’s onstage, watched by everyone but unbothered by it. Her head is a perfect oval and her clothing drapes in heavy folds, like a Greek statue come to life. She scours the group of us, looking for someone. The dread creeps through my body. I try to catch Sixty’s eye so that she can see how upset I am and feel terrible about it, but she’s the only one who’s not watching.

“Hi, Georgia,” Beatrice Turnbull says. “I’d like to speak to you in my office now. Will you follow me?”

I wonder if she expects me to be surprised or defiant or to ask her what’s going on. She walks back up the landing and I follow, keeping just a foot away. As we pass into the hallway, I look over my shoulder. Veronica and Anushka are frozen, staring. Sixty averts her gaze, eyes coasting over her own shoulder as though something more interesting is happening behind her.

The principal’s office is off the reception area near the academy’s entrance, not on the third floor with the other faculty offices. Beatrice Turnbull walks without turning around, but even from the back she exudes something stern and foreboding. She’s from a different era, which I know will make her hate me even more, see me the way they saw girls back then. We zigzag through the desks in the reception area and I walk with my nose in the air, refuse to check if any of the secretaries are looking at me. Beatrice Turnbull opens her office door and holds it. I step inside.

My dad is sitting at the far end of the room. He faces me and there’s a coffee table between us with two piles of things on top of it. I force myself to look down at these things even though a part of me knows what they are. I drop my eyes the way you shove yourself off a diving board. One pile is my zebra thong. It’s been folded neatly, straps tucked inside the material so that you can’t even tell it’s a thong at all. The strangeness of this makes me feel off, almost dizzy, and I realize I’m rubbing my forehead back and forth with my whole palm. I picture unknown fingers on that little bit of fabric and it makes me want to throw the thong in someone’s face. I try to breathe to calm myself and look at the other pile. It’s computer paper, the images facedown like they’re too horrible for the light of day.

The numbness I felt the night before comes back, a gassy feeling like nothing around me is real. I take my seat where I’m instructed and Beatrice Turnbull sits down in the only other spot left. I look at my lap and wait for someone to start talking.

“We need to know what happened now, Georgia,” my dad says. “Everything.”

I might be shrinking, my organs shriveling a millimeter at a time. My face is hot and the heat eats at my neck, like a candle burning up its stem.

“Where’s Mom?” I manage to ask.

“Your mother couldn’t—” He starts to answer but stops himself, annoyed, jostles his head as though a fly has landed on the tip of his nose. He reaches out and lifts the top piece of computer paper. His hand turns in infinitesimal increments and it seems like it takes forever for him to flip the picture faceup. It’s the one of my bum pressing up into the camera so that the rest of me—spine, waist, shoulders—tapers away in the background. My dad pushes it toward me, as though making me look at it is a punishment in itself. His thumb is flat on the white of my thigh and it’s like I can almost feel it, the roughness of his hand on this impossible part of my body.

“Did Roderick take these photos?” he says. “Did he ask you to take them for him?”

I can’t believe this is happening. My dad’s voice, his words, the picture in his hand. I cover my face with my hands.

“Georgia,” Beatrice Turnbull says, “you need to be honest with us.”

I breathe into my hands. It makes a pocket of warm air. I squeeze them in tighter and shut my eyes. Why did they have to bring the pictures here? They could have just told me that they had found them. It seems too cruel that they’re right here in front of me, shoved in my face.

“That’s enough.” My dad’s voice clenches. “Move your hands away and tell us exactly what happened!”

His anger scares me and my hands weaken, fall from my face. It’s like I hear it in his body, the sizzle of rage as it fries his blood.

“Right now, Georgia. We’re waiting.”

The trademark wrinkle cuts his forehead, the one I believed was a fossil of great thought. Something is happening as I look at him. He’s furious at me, but I think about my mom. I see that image of her again, as young as Isabel and dressed in her clothing. He thinks Roderick’s a perv but what does that make him?
Can you tell me what happened, Dad, what you did to your own student?
My hands tremble but I do something that surprises both of us. I shake my head.

He raises his eyebrows, holds them up. His face takes on an expression that’s supposed to make me feel stupid. Normally my dad’s disapproval would elicit unbearable shame in me, but not now.

“You won’t tell us?”

“No.”

He inhales very slowly and his chest expands. He scratches the back of his head as he exhales, and looks across the room at Beatrice Turnbull.

“Well, we’ve already discussed what needs to happen, then. It’s clear that this environment isn’t helping you. We think, and Mrs. Turnbull agrees, that you need a break from ballet.”

I stare into his eyes. My heart isn’t racing. It’s pounding at a regular pace, but the pounds are so fierce that they shake my whole body.

“No I don’t,” I say.

“We aren’t trying to be mean, Georgia. We’re trying to protect you. Since we really don’t have a clue what happened here, we have to take extra caution. If you were willing to cooperate a little more, well, that might change our approach.”

“Talk to us, Georgia.” Beatrice Turnbull’s voice is dead flat, her eyes like dangling marbles.

I look down at my feet. I can’t feel my heart at all now and I wonder if it’s stopped. “I took them.”

“
You
took these pictures?” she asks.

I nod.

“Why did you take them?”

“To give to Roderick.”

There’s a pause. “Why did you want to give them to Roderick?”

I shut my eyes for a second. I need to answer her but the difficulty is bigger than my embarrassment. “I thought he’d like them.”

“What in Roderick’s behavior led you to believe that he would like them?”

There’s a tickle in my eyes. I’d hate myself for crying. I could tell them all the things that happened between us, but I know they won’t even make sense. How can I explain it? Fury twists inside me again, because it’s not fair that I have to do this. No one talks about private things this way.

“Take your time,” she says. “Start at the very beginning.”

Even though I’m getting angrier, I try to do this. I try to think of the very first thing that Roderick did. I know he’s the one who started it, but what was it? What was that first move? I clench my fists and try to sort through my thoughts. Every second makes me more desperate. I need to tell them or they’ll take away ballet, and the hugeness of this, the unjustness, rises like steam in my body. And in a moment, it’s swallowing me, burning my nostrils, my throat, the backs of my eyes. I turn away from them so they can’t see me crying.

There’s silence in the room. I must be sobbing but I can’t hear it.

“Okay,” Beatrice Turnbull whispers gently. “That’s okay, Georgia.” I hear her get up. She places her hand on my shoulder. “That’s okay.” Her voice is different now, nicer. “This is difficult for you. We know.”

I keep my back to them. They tell me they’re going to have a quick chat outside the office and ask if I mind waiting for a minute alone. I shrug. As soon as they’ve left the room, I stuff the photographs and my thong into my knapsack and zip it up. I hear the drone of voices outside but I don’t even try to make out words. After a moment they return.

“We’re going to arrange a couple of appointments for you,” my dad says. “We’re going to have you speak to a psychologist. There’ll still be lots of questions to answer, but this should help.”

Beatrice Turnbull glances at her watch, a wiry thing that looks a hundred years old. “If you hurry and go straight to Eastern Collegiate, you’ll catch the end of the gym class.”

They clear a space for me so that I can get to the door. But I don’t move.

“What about ballet?” I direct the question at my dad, but when he doesn’t answer I look at Beatrice Turnbull.

“We’ll discuss it, Georgia,” my dad says. “Ballet is still canceled here, so we all have time to give it some thought.”

“What does that mean!?”

“It means…” He rubs the back of his neck. “We’ll see. It will depend on a lot of things and your cooperation with the psychologist will certainly help you.”

I stare at his sea-sponge face and feel a loathing creep up from my bones. The sensation is unbearable, as if all nice things in me might explode. I reach for the doorknob, but Beatrice Turnbull puts her hand out to stop me, her eyes on the coffee table.

“Where are the … did you take those items?”

“They’re mine,” I say.

She frowns. “They’re not yours anymore, Georgia. They’re in our custody now.”

I’m mad enough that I can imagine storming past both of them, my things buried inside my bag. But pissing them off any more isn’t going to help me. I unzip my backpack, take out the stuff, and hand it to Beatrice Turnbull. My thong slips off the top photo and lands on the floor. I step on it as I walk out of the room.

I leave the academy and turn right along the sidewalk. The sky is overcast, like the inside of a seashell, and the air smells like wet exhaust. I remember Beatrice Turnbull telling me to hurry, so I stop dead in my tracks and try to take the slowest step imaginable. I take another one exactly the same way. A car passes me and I can just imagine what I look like to the people inside, a weirdo impersonating an astronaut. I wonder if this is what it feels like to go crazy. I turn down Jarvis Street, tip my head back so that I can watch the clouds as I walk. Moving with your head like that distorts any sense of balance and I can feel myself zigzag but I don’t care. The word
how
plays over and over again in my mind, like a CD that’s all scratched and skipping. There’s something about the repetition of the question that I like, how it evokes the vastness of my disaster. How has everything crumbled so quickly? The clouds shift into things, giant bugs and flattened hearts, and I try to convince myself that I’ve forgotten what clouds are, what purpose they serve in the universe. I reach down and squeeze my thigh. I haven’t danced for three days now. I haven’t even stretched. It’s the longest I’ve gone without stretching in two years, and the thought slows my heart.

Eastern Collegiate is just a few blocks south of Wellesley. Out front are clusters of kids. I pass three girls first, each holding a takeout coffee. They have long hair and deep side parts; two have leather purses that cross their bodies like camera cases and they’re wearing leggings that get swallowed into their snow boots. The one on the end brings the lid to her mouth, tilts it back hard, and instantly buckles sideways, spitting. The other two bend over her and laugh. She wipes her chin with the back of her hand, yells at them, laughs too. I don’t really know how I’m supposed to get to the backfield, so I figure I should just go in the main door. There are kids lining the railings. Some wear big headphones and others have cigarettes tucked like pencils behind their ears. I weave my way around a clump of them, squeeze by a girl with blond hair and realize that it’s Veronica. She’s talking to a few guys. I see their heads over her shoulder and I notice Anushka beside her now. Then I see Sixty. She’s on the edge of the clump and she’s already spotted me. She hoists her shoulder bag out of the way and comes over.

“Hey,” she says quietly. “Did everything—I mean, was it okay?”

I can’t believe she has the nerve to ask this. Everything would have been okay if she’d kept her promise. I turn around and am walking back toward the curb when I think I hear my name. Then I hear it again. It’s a male voice and I turn around. There’s a guy looking down at me. He rubs his hand over his whole head and his hair doesn’t move at all because it’s thick as a rug and an inch from his scalp. He’s pretty tall and he has smooth skin the color of a coffee stain.