Sari Wilson - Girl Through Glass

“He’ll just need a little time,” she says.

Mira’s desire to be a dancer has become synonymous with being seen —with being chosen . But looking at Judy right now, she has a thought, almost rebellious in its insistence. The thought goes like this: maybe Judy can see something neither her father, nor her mother, could see? Judy gathers them for dinner under chandeliers, while Mira sleeps in her white room and dances. Judy puts people together the way Mira is learning to put steps together. Judy raises her glass and smiles, and Mira returns the smile.

I wake up in Felicia’s guest room feeling weirdly great. I stare at the burnished wood ceiling fan, at the desk across from me. I roll over and stretch. I take the envelope, finger the letter inside, then tuck it back into my bag.

I hear voices next door, a door closing. I look at the clock: 9:03, late for me. Time to get going.

In the bathroom, I brush my teeth and wash my face and do the ritual with creams. In the light of Felicia’s mirror, my freckles stick out. They make me look, I think, not younger, just preposterous. I’ve often thought of my face as existing on two planes: the under-plane, pale as the palest river rock, and the top layer, gravel or silt washing over it. The top layer floats over the bottom layer. Which one is more visible, I never know.

A man’s travel bag — black, leather — is open on the sink.

The hallway carpet is plush on my bare feet and a shock of pleasure goes through me. How must it feel to live surrounded by such luxury? What permissions does Felicia give herself that I can only imagine?

Back in my room, looking through my suitcase, I realize I’ve brought mostly black things. A few brown, and beige, and one taupe cardigan sweater. Middle-age colors. At the bottom of the suitcase, I find a bright scarf that a married lover once gave me as a gift. I’ve never worn it. I lay the scarf out on the bed. It feels soft in my hands, generous. My old lover’s bearded face comes into my mind. I hold it there for a second. It was good for a while, wasn’t it? I remember his face, his eyes — they were kind, sometimes. I treasure you, Kat. You are my secret treasure. I hoard you. I pull on a pair of black Banana Republic pedal pushers and a black long-sleeved button-down top, the black suit jacket, and a pair of green leather flats. I put on some simple pearl earrings and then tie the scarf on.

I take the old business card with me, as well as Maurice’s letter. I put everything in my backpack and leave the room, shutting the door quietly behind me.

In the living room, Felicia sits on the couch next to a man. They sit side by side, comfortably, as if they are a married couple. The man — a handsome, very dark-skinned man — reads a paper, his coffee in front of him. They both wear white robes, bright white, and their feet are bare. On the table is a pot of espresso and a set of black china cups and a box of Italian biscotti. A newspaper in French called Il Est Midi is folded in quarters, well creased, belonging to someone used to traveling. Light spills into the spotless living room.

Felicia turns to me. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” I say, suddenly shy as a girl.

The man looks up over his spectacles and smiles.

“Kate, Alain. Alain, Kate. Kate is an old friend.”

“Ah,” he says. He stands and offers me a warm, dry hand. “Old friends are gifts.” His voice is deep and resonant. He has a strong French accent, with a rolling undertow of humor.

“She’s a professor now. A professor of dance. Here on academic assignment.”

“Ah,” he says again, sitting again.

Alain, I learn, is Senegalese. He went to school in Wisconsin. He is a diplomat who works for much of the year at the United Nations. He has two wives in Senegal and a place in New York near the U.N. However, he prefers to stay with Felicia. He finds it “utterly satisfactory.” Felicia smiles and doesn’t miss a beat.

“Felicia and I saw the recent Mark Morris at BAM. I found it somewhat disappointing.”

“He’s incredibly talented,” I say, “but spread thin.”

“I agree,” he says.

“His operas are best.”

“ Dido and Aeneas is an accomplishment.”

“When in doubt,” I say, “turn to the Greeks.”

“The African myths rival those of the Greeks, you know.” He is smiling.

“My great Western ignorance.” I smile.

“I will fill you in.” He winks at me, picks up his newspaper.

Felicia has gotten up and is pouring more coffee; a cup has appeared for me and then I am sitting with them, engulfed in their casual intimacy. Felicia goes to the kitchen and comes back with a plate. “Please, join us.”

“No thanks,” I say. “I’m off on assignment.” I try a smile.

“Kate is researching — a woman choreographer — who exactly is it again?”

“Bronislava Nijinska.”

He smiles and lowers the newspaper. “The great Nijinksy’s sister? And likely the true genius?”

“If I can sufficiently resurrect her.” I strap on my backpack. “The Performing Arts Library has a great selection of archived works by Bronislava. And a state-of-the-art screening room. Great footage of her early pieces, which I’ve been teaching.” This much is true at least. What would they say if they knew? Bronislava is a red herring, a ruse.

The streets, the canyons of buildings, are less cavernous than I remember them. The temperature is in the fifties, the sky a slate blue and cool, but underneath there is a softness to the air, the same harbinger of spring I felt yesterday. People are in overly optimistic fashion choices — shirtsleeves, light jackets, hatless. They look vulnerable, unadorned.

There is something in the air in New York that makes my blood pound the way it did when I was a child. At Columbus Circle, the explosion of people excites me after the mostly unbroken quiet of Ohio streets. I head up Broadway, then cross over to Lincoln Center.

Before I realize it, I’m standing in front of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, another building of glass and steel, this one built in the 1960s. I do something strange: I wave the business card around in the spring air, as if to summon something. But what? There is nothing. There is only the past, my past, the detritus of it all around me. What can I do except wade through it, picking up pieces and examining them? I stare at the card, and the name on it. Suddenly, now, it all seems too real: this half-baked plan of mine to find out if he is still alive and how much guilt I should bear for his life — and my own.

On the morning of the SAB auditions, Mira wakes early to a city that spits and shines like jewels. Outside her window, the sky is bright with early white light.

She pulls on her favorite pair of tights — Capezios, three washings — and a black tank top leotard. Then she pulls off the tank leotard and puts on a new spaghetti strap one that Judy had bought for her just for the audition.

It’s a warm day, late summer. She pulls on a cotton dress and packs her dance bag. She looks around. Her room feels smaller. She sits in the squat brown living room chair that smells of shampoo, waiting. She can hear her father snoring through his half-closed door.

Leaving her father sleeping, she gets up from the chair and lets herself out of the apartment.

Outside the city explodes with light. She sinks into the light, not running from awning to awning for the shade but taking the middle of the sidewalk.

She walks to the Lincoln Center fountain, bright, parched concrete. Maurice is waiting by the fountain. He wears the same black cape and a black top hat, which he removes when she arrives. Girls in buns with their mothers file by. He says, “Remember the Russian Tea Room when we saw Mr. Balanchine?”