Sari Wilson - Girl Through Glass

“You know, sometimes I sit in the dark and watch you dance in my mind’s eye.” He turns on the small overhead light above them. It lights one side of his face. He gives her his stones-on-a-ledge smile. “If you are not afraid of the dark, you will fear nothing and no one. Most people are afraid. You can take cover there. You can speak from it, move from it. They won’t find you there. They won’t even look there,” he says. “Listen.” He turns off the light again. The night envelops them.

“What?”

“Shhh.”

“What?”

“Shhh.”

“I can hear it,” he says. “Something’s coming. Something big.”

She does hear it — a suspension of all noise. In the middle of the tumultuous city — beeps, blares, sirens — all recede. For a few seconds, there is in the midst of Seventh Avenue evening rush hour, a total, profound silence.

“I’ve felt it since I was your age. Do you hear it?”

“Yes.”

And she did.

“The angels are passing,” he says. He takes down the glittering swan ornament attached to the mirror. “You are going to be wonderful. I am so proud.” He looks at her, feline, glowing. She wants to be held like a bird in his hands, eaten, loved, devoured. She closes her eyes.

“You will come to see me perform as Flower Princess, right? Are you coming with anyone?”

“Ah,” he says. “Just my memories and my dreams.” He hands her the heavy glass ornament. “This belonged to my mother. Beat your wings. Fly into the night. The dark will always get us. Make it your friend. Envelop it . Let it envelop you . If the dark is coming, make it your friend.”

And then, just like that, suddenly, it’s over. The crush of sounds returns: the flux of traffic, the wheezing of buses passing, the clatter of foot traffic. Just then, someone thumps the car’s roof. A man gesturing at something they can’t see. His face is twisted in anger. He shouts, “Move your car, bozo! You’re in a no-standing zone!”

“Ah, yes,” he says and smiles. “They are never far behind.” He hands her a card that she puts in her pocket. “Keep this,” he says. “It may come in handy.”

Later, when she takes it out in the garish fluorescent lights of the subway, she’ll read: FOR MY MIRABELLE — MAURICE DUPONT, BALLETOMANE, and a phone number.

“You must go.” Maurice leans to one side and adjusts the lever that controls the pedal for his bad leg. Reluctantly, Mira climbs out.

“Mirabelle.” He calls her back over to the window one more time. “You will be wonderful. I can’t wait! A star is only a star because it burns brightly in the dark night. Against the dark night. At home in the dark night.”

Then he turns the ignition and she steps back. She watches from the well-lit sidewalk as the sleek black car bucks and shoots down Seventh Avenue.

The next morning, I know what I have to do. I find Bernadith in her office, in Birkenstocks, her feet planted firmly on the floor, and a new bobbed haircut. She seems relaxed, pleased to see me. She assumes I’ve come about the Pell, and after she has me sit, she reaffirms that they will not have a decision until after spring break. I decide not to mention Bill and his application.

“What happened to your hand?” she asks.

“Just a cut.” I examine my hand. My homemade bandage is already ratty-looking and stained, which gives me a strange satisfaction. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I say. My voice wants to rise into the squeaky registers. I give her what I hope is a disarming smile.

“Ah,” she says. I can’t tell if her expression is bemused or concerned. “You have to take care of yourself. None of us are getting any younger.”

“Yes, I know, Bernadith.” I’m embarrassed to find myself slapping my knees a few times like Bill had done with me, a blunt-edged cudgel for a finesse moment if there ever was one. “Bernadith,” I say. “Unfortunately — there’s been an indiscretion.”

She looks at me with what I can only say is — this is clear, even without my contacts — alarm. “Are you talking about yourself?”

I nod. “A student.”

“How many times?”

“Once only.”

She clicks something on her computer. Her face has grown more voluminous and is dangerously close to purple now. Something twitches near her eye. She sits back. “I know how to dig up something if it’s there. There was nothing on your record. Not a smudge—”

I examine my hand. “I am disappointed in myself — beyond disappointed.” As I say this, I realize how true it is. My hand throbs. Suddenly tears well up behind my glasses.

“I know this may affect my chances for the Pell—” I add.

“Forget the Pell. This is bigger than that.” Her face has gone from beet-colored to pale. “I like you, Kate. But I don’t understand you.” Some timer goes off on her computer. She clicks the mouse a few times and waddles over to her window. Her office is on the ground floor and looks out into an underused courtyard. Concrete benches no one ever sits on, patches of sparse grass, and some spidery indistinct-looking bushes around the edges. Birds flit back and forth from bush to barren bush. On one of these bushes by her window some sort of creeping berries, like pox.

I have to twist around to see her. “I’m sorry,” I say.

My vision is blurring even more. I take off my glasses. “I really, really want this job,” I say, choking on my words. How could I have fucked up like this? I dab at my eyes with my bandaged hand.

She turns to me, her back against the window. Her face has resumed its normal color. Somehow I can see it better now, even through my tears. Her mouth softens. It’s not a smile, far from it, but something has loosened. Then the ghost of a true smile emerges. I can’t tell if its source is kindness, bemusement, or irony. This is by far the most intimate time I have ever spent with her. Previously, she had been like pretty much every boss I’ve ever had — friendly and remote in equal degrees — concerned most of all with efficiency and bureaucratic issues.

“Kate,” she says. “I know the life of a visiting professor is not easy. I know the life of a woman alone is not easy. I know sometimes it’s all just too much — the loneliness, the work, the keeping up. . ”

“I make no excuses for my behavior.”

“Do you like teaching?” she asks suddenly.

I remember the time, after I followed him through the streets of New York City, when Maurice asked me if I wanted to be a dancer. I remember the energy of that moment, the knowing that I was at a crossroads. That what I answered meant something. Meant everything. Then the yes had rushed out of me, the force of it surprising myself. I hadn’t known the force of my own desire. Now I know I will say yes again, but I tell myself to wait a beat. I think of walking through a circle of students, their faces on me, pulling ideas out of them, their faces opening at the dawning of their own knowledge. Building castles in the air . I let the “yes” out slowly, almost reluctantly, as if saying this truth will bring some new curse on me.

Something quizzical and sly comes into her face. She glances over at her office door, which I closed on entering. “You know, there are procedures for these things.” She looks away. “But it’s a tenuous situation. As you know, this is not perhaps the best time to be telling me this — officially.”

I understand that in the midst of my truth telling, she is giving me a chance to preserve my secret. She is offering me a way out. “Your evaluations are excellent, your scholarship is the kind that I really want to support. . ” She rubs her hands and claps suddenly. “Will he report it?”