Sari Wilson - Girl Through Glass

I’m out of the apartment by ten thirty. There’s no sign of Felicia. I leave her a hastily scrawled note on a notepad in her kitchen. It has silver bells in the corner and Latinate lettering across the top. I rip off the sheet of paper, and write Thanks for the flowers, underlining thanks . Then add a fragment— beautiful. I leave the note on her immaculate kitchen counter, and tuck the pad into my purse. Leaving my backpack, I grab my coat and rush out, closing the door softly behind me.

Outside, it’s still unseasonably warm. The sky the same blinding white, the breeze as balmy as yesterday afternoon. A spooky gentleness to the air. Like after a catastrophe. I duck into a diner on Ninth Avenue and order a giant breakfast of eggs, toast, home fries, and coffee. I eat the whole thing, even the pile of blackened home fries. I sip my coffee, wait for the check. The bill arrives, I pay up.

I’m going back to Lincoln Center. It’s my only option. Rob told me that Maurice gave money to SAB. He was giving me a clue. Maybe he wants me to find something? As I retrace my steps from yesterday, I try to order my thoughts. Rob also told me that there was a young man, someone who Maurice introduced as his son, who was a lawyer. I just want to know if Maurice is living or dead and if he sent that letter or not. I am here for information and information only, I remind myself. The past, while critical, is also just incidental.

If he wrote it but did not send it, that would be one thing. If he wrote it and sent it, that would be more worrisome. He would then want something from me. But what can he want? I gave him everything a long time ago. What I have managed to salvage for myself — my career, my students, my ideas — suddenly seem like nothing more than crumbs. It seems on this trip all roads lead back to Lincoln Center, that citadel of my childhood. Is it guarded as fiercely now as it was then? Will they give me a donor’s contact info? I know some institutions are on a more secretive relationship than others when it comes to the source of their funding.

I need a plan, I think as I walk across Columbus Circle and turn up Broadway.

The SAB studios are on the fifth floor of the new Juilliard building, a spacious glass and steel building just to the north of the plaza. I take the skybridge, cross the gray stone plaza, and join a group entering the lobby. The lobby, long and narrow, of a golden tomblike marble, is divided by a line of turnstiles. Against the back wall, a line of security guards sits behind what look like old-fashioned bank teller windows. The group ahead of me files through the turnstiles and heads to the security guard windows. They are being asked to show their IDs. To the left of us, through a little gate, passes a steady stream of long-necked girls with their hair coiled up on their heads — ballet girls. We inch forward toward the guards. I watch the river of girls flow through.

Now it’s my turn. I slide my ID under the grate and tell the tired-looking guard that I am here to pick up my daughter. “Where’s your family pass?” she says without looking up. She’s making notes. “I’m sorry, I left it at home,” I say. “Shoot. But if I go back and get it, I’ll miss her. She’s waiting for me.” My heart is pounding. The guard raises her eyes and gives me her full attention, then nods. “Don’t forget it next time.” I thank her and follow the bunheads to the elevators before anyone can stop me.

When I get off the elevator, I’m overwhelmed by the diffuse light and by the minimalist, corporate chic of the decor. The entrance to the school is filled with a white marble boat of a desk flanked by bronze busts of Balanchine and Kirstein. Gone are the glass doors to the School of American Ballet of my era. Gone are the architectural prints on the walls. Gone are the studious faces of musicians you would pass in the hallways outside the dance studios.

Then the busts of Balanchine and Kirstein pull me back in. They watch me warily, like heads of Cerberus. I must know the password. I have forgotten the password.

Just being here makes my palms sweat. I rub them on my pants. An odd, dizzy feeling — of unreality — moves to my knees. I am blinking too much.

I approach the desk. I smile.

“What can I do for you?” says the woman behind the desk. She is a thin and heavily lipsticked woman of indeterminate age. She has an air of intense politeness that promises nothing. My eyes snap into focus. Desperation makes me bold.

“I’m here because of my. . daughter,” I say. “I’m visiting from Ohio and. . well, it’s her dream, really. To study here.”

She gives me a professional smile. “Our Web site has everything,” she says. “We really don’t accept general queries like this. We do offer occasional tours. They should have stopped you downstairs. . ”

“Oh, I am sorry,” I say. “Yes, they were kind enough to let me upstairs. I’m just in town for a few days—”

A small smile appears on the gatekeeper’s mouth. “Oh, heck,” she says. “How old is she?”

“She’s eight.”

“We start at six.”

“Oh! How does it work?” A woman wearing ponderous shoes and a thick utility belt — a security guard? — has appeared behind me, by the elevators. I’d better hurry. Into my mind springs an image of the girl I’ve been speaking of — this pretend child — a girl with dark hair and sparkling eyes, braids with ribbons in her hair. Cute, energetic, boyish. No hips, high instep, long flexible legs that shoot up and take a long time coming down. She would — I judge the apparition through the receptionist’s eyes — get in.

The gatekeeper goes back to paper clipping what appear to be letters. “Well, as you must know, we are extremely selective. Admission to any of our courses is only by audition. There are separate auditions for winter term and summer course. Students may audition specifically for winter term in September. Auditions for summer course are held in April and May.”

I slow my breathing, wipe my palms on my skirt again. “I know that many, many girls want to come here.”

The receptionist puts aside the stack of papers and takes off her glasses. She leans forward, as if to tell me a secret. I bend over the partition to catch whatever she will tell me.

“We accept only one in a hundred.” A smile cracks open her face. She’s older than she first appeared, this gatekeeper. “But perhaps your daughter is that one in a hundred?”

At that moment I see something. Her ramrod-straight posture, her tight smile, her too-red lipstick, her overly sinewed neck and big-knuckled, short-nailed hands, which she articulates with unusual care; she’s a former dancer. Of course. A bunhead! They live on after their dance careers are over.

I nod. A phalanx of chattering girls enters. Their bodies are just on the cusp of change — long legs and tiny torsos filling out ever so slightly. They look about the same age I was when I started coming here. Bunheads here haven’t changed much. They still wear buns high on their heads, they walk like ducks, carry themselves like little queens — with a grim regalness that still startles.

A woman with a short, stylish haircut stops at the desk. I step back to make room for her.

“Excuse me, Ms. Harrington,” she says to the gatekeeper. “We’ll have our form in on Monday.” A genteel southern accent. So the mothers still come with their girls, making the pilgrimage, setting up house close to the citadel of beauty, biding their time, training their sights. Where are the fathers in all of this? Hasn’t that changed either?

Harrington? This might be the bit of luck I need. When the hubbub passes, I lean over the counter. The security guard stalks the lobby behind me. “Please. I’m sorry.” I lean farther in and whisper, “Can I tell you something? I used to dance here. I was a student here, back in the day, you know? Oh, of course it was ages ago. But you know you never forget being a student here.”