Sari Wilson - Girl Through Glass

Robin’s face looks beautiful in the weak, dusty light of the space — long and pale, big eyes, and a strange grimace. Her voice — which Mira realizes she has never heard — is a whisper. “In the fall? Sure. But just for SAB this time. I haven’t heard such good things about the ABT school.”

“Me, too,” Mira says. She can’t believe that she’s speaking to Robin. She pictures the old man with the glittering woman on his arm.

Then another whisper from inside a see-through undershirt Mira has seen men but never women wear: “How many times have you tried before?”

“None,” Mira says.

“Really? Most girls start auditioning at five or six. When I was your age, I had already auditioned four times.”

Mira sees what her mother’s lack of vigilance has cost her — all the missed opportunities. At the same time, she’s amazed that Robin, perfect Robin who had played the Flower Princess for two years in a row, didn’t get in. Her face fills with blood. She doesn’t know where to look.

“Look,” Robin says.

In her palm, Robin holds a purple plastic square the size of a Cracker Jack box prize. Robin is looking at her searchingly, but Mira does not know what is expected of her. Is she supposed to touch it? It looks like a toy, but she knows it’s not a toy. Printed on the puffy plastic is a silhouette of a helmeted head, like a Greek warrior’s, and beneath it is the big word TROJAN. Mira looks up. Robin blows at the wisps of fine hair that have fallen around her eyes, hair so fine it looks like the thread of spiders. She still hasn’t put her shirt on. “Well, anyway,” Robin says. Robin closes her hand and the plastic square disappears with a crinkly sound. Robin begins to back up and Mira knows something has changed. Robin has shown her something she wanted to. Something important. But Mira doesn’t know what.

That night, in her room, Mira strips naked and looks at her body in the mirror. She imagines Maurice looking at her. What would he see? A child? A woman? A girl? A dancer? The sticking-out ears, the too-wide mouth, the knobby knees are those of a girl. Her flat, muscular stomach and long, lithe arms belong to a dancer. On her long torso she sees the hard nipples like swollen insect bites that don’t go away. But they are pale, not rosy. She sees they belong to a child.

She takes out the eyeliner and uncaps it. Using one of the cigarette lighters Gary left downstairs, she burns the tip like Christopher said to do. It softens and becomes gooey. She draws a line underneath each eye, but it comes off in too thick, liquid globs. When she tries to rub it off, it smears and streaks and she can’t get it off with her hands, no matter how hard she rubs. After a while, she is just transferring the black smears back and forth from her fingers to her eyes.

She goes downstairs in her pajamas for a cup of milk before bed. Her mother and Gary are sitting at the kitchen table playing cards. As she passes, Gary tosses his cards down. “You’re cheating again, Rachel,” Gary says. Her mother laughs and says, “My way or the highway.”

As Mira passes, carrying her milk back upstairs, her mother grabs her. “What’s that on your eyes?”

“Nothing,” says Mira.

“Little Cleopatra,” says Gary.

Her mother pulls Mira closer. Her mother’s expression is too small for her big features. Her mother’s eyes settle on her in that rare way, really lock in. Mira’s right up against a landscape of flushed, freckled skin. Gary laughs. “Shut up,” her mother says. Her mother grabs a paper napkin lying on the table and wipes Mira’s eyes hard with it. The black smudges are on the old balled-up napkin that her mother tosses on the table. Her mother looks at the napkin, then from her to Gary, tosses her cards into the center of the table next to the napkin, suddenly stands — the chair tilts back and forth before it rights itself — and says, “Game over.”

Today her dad is taking Mira to the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Her mother gets up early and makes Mira some Cream of Wheat. She can hear Gary thumping around upstairs. She’s grateful that he doesn’t come down. The cereal is so thick that her spoon sticks up straight. There are lumps in it, so Mira does not eat much. She watches the sky lighten to a peevish gray and then stop.

Her father parks on Eighth. They walk over on Thirty-eighth to Broadway, where they find a crowd pressed against police barricades, spilling over, bundled in blankets and coats, with their own stepladders (her father’s secret weapon!) and chairs and even giant ladders. A great crush of paper cups and thermoses. She and her father stand amid the throng. Everything in the damp, gray air.

They are pressed in next to a short, pretty lady and a boy a few years older than she is. The lady has short brown hair on which she wears a puffy pink hat.

“We’re from uptown,” the lady says to Mira’s father.

Her father begins chatting with the lady. The wind blows, scraping Mira’s bones with its teeth, through her jeans and jacket.

“We rarely get below Forty-second,” the woman is saying. “It’s such a treat for Sam.” The boy looks at Mira doubtfully and turns his head back to the wide avenue. A giant cacophonous Snow White float has just passed. Now a single clown is walking by, waving tiredly. His red nose and floppy feet bounce up and down at the same time. Occasionally, little paper squares tumble from his spiky black hair.

Despite herself, Mira laughs.

The boy looks sharply at her.

“It looks like he was electrocuted.”

“He’s supposed to look like that. Some people think it’s funny. Electricity is not really funny.” She looks at him more closely to see if he is joking, but he doesn’t appear to be.

She pulls on her dad’s sleeve, but he doesn’t turn. He’s too involved with telling the lady something. The lady is laughing and he is waving his arms, and he knocks the lady’s hat to the side and she laughs harder. “Best restaurant north of Forty-second Street,” he’s saying.

“I’m Judy,” the lady says, reaching out a tiny gloved hand to Mira’s dad. Her mother would hate this woman and her ready smile, her sparkly lip gloss, her pink fuzzy hat.

The boy leans closer. His flushed cheeks are bright with the cold, his eyes are clear and thick-lashed. His dirty blond hair is thick and tousled — also blond, but different from Christopher’s honey-pale hair. Despite the cold air, his jacket is flung open, and his flannel shirt untucked. He looks like an athlete, someone who hits or kicks balls and someone who has lots of friends. She turns away.

“My mom is hitting on your dad,” he whispers. “It’s so sick.”

“Mira is a ballet dancer,” she hears her dad say. “She’ll be performing in their school production this winter.”

“Oh really ?” says Judy. “ The Nutcracker ? I love The Nutcracker . The tree, the party scene, the Dew Drop Fairy. I cry during her solo. I love ballet. It’s so beautiful.” She gives Mira another look. “Does she go to SAB?”

“The Little Kirov,” says Mira.

“Sam has some girls at SAB in his class.”

“They’re snobs,” says the boy.

“Sam, please, attitude. .” She rolls her eyes. “My son is très sportif .”

“What’s your sport of choice, son?” says her father. She’s never heard him call anyone “son” before. The boy looks at her dad. “Lacrosse.”

This boy is too old, too handsome for her. She doesn’t know what to say. She says nothing. The clown has passed.

The lady points down the avenue. “Here comes Mickey Mouse!” She looks at Mira and the boy as if they are six years old.