Julia Pierpont - Among the Ten Thousand Things

Ballet III began at 1:10 in the Barnard Hall Dance Annex two days a week. Deb watched in the mirror as the girls trickled in, clinging to each other and giggling. These past few weeks their arrival could be timed by the sun, the hour it chose to angle itself through the high windows, warming the dark floor and bouncing off the corner mirrors. College girls, some carried their leftover lunches with them, salads in plastic bowls.

Deb set Delibes spinning on the stereo. “Legs turned out. Keep them out,” she called, walking down the aisles of them. She saw her presence recorded in ripples where she passed, backs straightening, chins lifted a little higher. “Nice. That’s good.”

A joke to try and do both, college and ballet. With modern dance you could, maybe. Five years of teaching, and not one of her graduates was still dancing. Not that they kept in touch. She liked the girls, they seemed like such good girls, but she never let them get close. She had the best résumé on faculty — City Ballet spelled success — and so her classes were always full. But she knew her reputation: accomplished, chilly.

“Okay, now remember your legs. Turn. No twisting.”

Sometimes they asked about Isabel Davey. Did she know her? A little.

Deb and Izzy were at SAB together. They entered the corps the same season, danced the same shows. They shared an apartment in Chelsea before it became expensive and climbed the ranks together, though Izzy climbed higher and faster and, unlike Deb, never broke. When Deb quit, she was about to turn twenty-seven, and we all have to quit sooner or later. But Izzy was still dancing. She’d grown a career as old as Simon, and she was a star now — her name appeared in bold type now.

“That’s good, Hannah. And, arms arabesque.” The girls lacked form, discipline. Even the few who’d shown promise as first years, the serious and naturally turned out, were worsening. That was why Deb kept her distance. She corrected their arms, tapped together their heels, but rarely did she learn where they were from, what dorm or what state, and when they asked her advice, she had a hard time meeting their gazes. To encourage them would feel like a lie, because really, she didn’t approve, wanted to whisper in their ears: Quit now. Better off spending their time in economics or history, pre-med, pre-law, pre-anything. To watch them try depressed her. They’d compromised, with their families, with themselves, their ambition. They had lives outside these rooms. Whereas when Deb met Jack, she was virgin enough to still be proud she wasn’t one.

She’d known since Christmas, when they’d gone to see Jack’s mother and stepdad in Houston. Their last day, while Charles was showing model trains to his not-quite grandchildren in the attic and Phyllis was popping tubes of crescent rolls in the kitchen, Deb listened to Jack hold half a conversation on the other side of the bathroom door. Half had been enough. She raised her arm and hit the door three times, hard, not with her fist but the flat of her hand, like a POW tapping out code, blows that echoed in the quiet wood after. There was a pause, and when Jack opened the door her eyes were hot but there wasn’t time to scream or say anything, because there was Phyllis, her hands in a dish towel, asking if something had dropped.

In Houston, then, Deb hadn’t been able talk to him. Her anger became unspeakable in that house where Jack was everywhere, in picture frames, in mirrors. She’d excused herself from dinner, citing a headache, and in so doing found it was true: Her head did hurt. Then on the plane home, they sat apart, their seats two and two. Only when they were home could she tell him, with perfect calm, to get the hell out.

But by then Jack too had had time to prepare, and his counter was a triumph, deft in just the way she should have known it would be. He had been immediately grateful. Thank God she’d found him out, to shepherd him from all he had already come to regret. He’d been on a wild horse, and she’d lassoed him in. Thank you, Deb, for saving us.

That night, he answered the questions she wished she didn’t have. Questions made it seem like the answers could matter, if they were the right ones. Still, there were things she couldn’t help wanting to know. Do you love her? (No.) How long has it been? (Less time than you think, but too long.) And you’ll give it up? (Yes, I will, yes.) How’d it start? (She’s a kid. She just wanted to talk to me.) When did you know you would? (I didn’t, honestly. I never meant to.)

—

She tongued the corner of her mouth where she could feel a cold sore coming. “Arabesque now. Reach.”

Deb envied everyone. She envied Izzy and she envied these girls, looking to her now out of the corners of their eyes, gripping the barre, their arms bent in fourth position. They had no idea yet how old they were in the dance world, just as Deb, at their age, had had no idea how young she was in the real one. At twenty-two and twenty-three, at parties with regular people, nondancers — they’ll coo over you like a rare bird. Which you are, to them. You are sinewy grace and bone, everywhere tight, from your tied hair to your pointed toes. And you’ll feel yourself a liar there too, because in the corps you are one of so many. Your own mother needing binoculars to pick you out. The only time Deb didn’t feel like a ballerina was at the theater. That’s the rude surprise. Like your father used to say, a pinhead in the crowd.

“Good, ladies. Again.” She thought they had so little in common, yet here she was, in the room with them.

Was it after a fight, or some night I said I was too tired? (No, Deb, no, don’t do that to yourself. Who knows anymore?) Were there others? (Nothing, nothing that mattered.) How many? (It doesn’t matter.) How many, a number. (I don’t know.) What is it you do with them that you can’t do with me? (It’s nothing like that, Deb. There’s no comparison. I don’t compare them — Hey, don’t — what, Deb, Debby, shh.)

—

The period did somehow pass, and as class was ending, Deb’s cellphone rang. It was an unknown number, and she didn’t want to answer it, but that was the thing about having kids.

“I don’t get it — you never call, never write. You get my email?”

“How are you, Gary.” Gary was Jack’s old roommate from the Rhode Island School of Design. There was the long-told story of how they met their first year in an experimental film class. Gary had nudged Jack awake during a screening of Brakhage’s Mothlight, which was actually a mass of insect wings taped together and run through as a filmstrip. Now I know what life is like for a bug zapper, Jack had said.

“I’m good.” Gary was always good. “I’m just looking at my calendar, thinking of making it down to the house.” The two men had bought a ramshackle house together while they were still in school, a fixer-upper where they both could paint and Gary could go fishing. Gary had since married and divorced a wealthy woman, and then another wealthy woman, and lived mostly alone now, mostly in Boston, halfheartedly selling real estate. In the summers he was always trying to get them out to Jamestown, to the vacation he was always on.

“It’s just been a little crazy these days.”

“I know, Jack’s opening coming up!” Gary had left the art world, or it had not come to him, but still he liked to keep track. “He nervous?”

“Listen, can I call you back?” Behind her the girls were filing out, texting, eating their salads. They shoveled leaves into their wide-open mouths like brontosauruses, or was it brachiosauruses.

“Real quick — I tried your husband.”

“Oh?” Though it wasn’t unusual these days for Jack to ignore Gary’s calls. At some point the history between the two men had hardened.