Sari Wilson - Girl Through Glass

Mira catches the door on the backswing. Her overburdened dance bag on her bony shoulder, she avoids the elevator, climbs the stairs.

She stands at the door to his apartment. She has never had to ring the bell before. She does so now. She hears it chime inside. Soon she hears voices — Maurice’s high, peevish voice that makes her tremble, and another voice, lower and ready to chuckle.

Maurice stands in front of her in a black-and-white striped button-down shirt and matching string tie. His hair is slicked back. Behind him is another man.

“Mira!” says Maurice. He does not invite her in. The other man appears at his side. He has a cropped beard on his long face.

“Hello,” he says. “I’m Rob.” He holds out his hand. His eyes are glittery and kind. She looks down. He wears no shoes, only socks.

“I—” she says.

The man turns to Maurice. “I assume you know this young lady.”

Maurice looks like he has come out of a dream. He lowers his chin, and his eyebrows pinch together. This is the Maurice she recognizes. “Of course,” he says. “Mira. I’m sorry. I should have called.”

Called? she thinks. When did he ever call? She called him once — years ago — the night it snowed. But never has he called her. And where would he call her, at her father and Judy’s? Impossible. She’s never even given him her number there.

As they all walk to the living room, Rob rests a hand on Maurice’s arm. Who is this man?

The living room is brightly lit and smells of cigar smoke. There are two glasses of wine on the glass coffee table and a game of Monopoly in progress.

Maurice disappears into the kitchen.

Rob sits on the brown leather sofa. “You’re a dancer?” His laugh is big and warm. It makes her want to like him, though she knows her only real option is to hate him.

She nods.

“Maurice and I have overlapping interests.” He smiles. “Opera, dance. Anything that was around during Louis XIV’s court.”

Maurice comes back with a bowl of cookies. He places the margarine-colored bowl on the coffee table with the same collection of cookies that Mira has not touched in a year.

“Cookies!” says Rob. “Maury!” Maury! Maury?

Maurice retreats to the kitchen.

“I think Maurice hates me,” she whispers to Rob.

“Oh, no,” he says. “He’s not the type. He’s a pussycat. . ”

She smiles as Judy would when you’re saying something she doesn’t believe. “He was supposed to meet me tonight. For dinner.”

Maurice reappears with a plate of sliced apples and celery and a small, metal tin of soft cheese that immediately stinks up the room. He puts the plate down but does not sit down. He stands gazing down at them, his face greenish, and working. Some of his slicked-back hair has come undone and stands up on his head like tufts of grass. Mira has a violent surge of hate for him. Or is it love? She feels like crying. Why does he hate her so much?

Rob seems to be chewing something over. He looks back and forth at Maurice and Mira. “Well,” he says. He stands. “I think I have interrupted something—”

“No!” says Maurice.

Rob puts down a Monopoly piece he holds in his hand. It’s the tiny, rearing stallion that gleams metallic. “Maybe you can continue for me, Mira. I own all the railroads.” He takes a card from his wallet and places it on the coffee table next to the gleaming horse. “In case—” he begins.

But he doesn’t finish. Instead, he smiles, slips on his loafers and sports jacket and walks toward the door.

Maurice follows him. Mira can hear low voices in the hallway. She can’t make out what they are saying.

Mira reaches out and picks up a piece of an apple, already browning around the edges, and takes a bite. It is waxy, too soft. She has a weird sense of hovering above herself and the room, staring down at it. She sees herself holding the apple, the piles of paper money, an ashtray ripe with ashes, and the beaten-up end of a well-used cigar. She has never really thought of this apartment as a place Maurice lives. No, she thinks of it as their place they inhabit together, where she dances for him in dark and silence and so becomes again the only dancing girl in the world.

She takes the card Rob left on the table and, without even looking at it, slips it into her pocket. Then she picks up the little horse and examines it. It’s heavier in her hand than she would have thought for something so small. She studies it — the tiny piece is well fashioned. The features of the horse are distinct, but those of the rider are vague, only hollows in the metal that suggest eyes, nose. She shivers, clutches the thing so tightly in her hand, its sharp edges dig into her skin, making her eyes burn.

After too many moments, Maurice comes back into the room. He stares at her with a ghostly paleness. His eyes burn with something new. She doesn’t care. He is hers again. She will do what he says. She will dance for him. It will all be okay. After all, she’s still a Mr. B girl. She’ll still be in The Nutcracker —if not Marie, and not Head Angel, at least a Polichinelle. Then she’ll dance in Workshop, maybe Aurora from Sleeping Beauty . Then she’ll be a company apprentice. She opens her hand to show the figurine, then slips it into her back pocket. “Your turn,” she says.

He lunges at her, grabs for her pocket. “Give that to me,” he says. He’s shouting. His mouth is open.

“You’ll have to get it,” she says, turning to run across the room. He grabs at her pocket, circling her body with his arm. He smells different, not like oranges and cinnamon, but like moist air, like a wild animal. He tries again, but she squirms away and runs, squealing, to the other side of the room, then onward, through the dim rooms until she gets to Pavlova’s pointe shoe. He’s breathing behind her. She hears herself laugh as he catches her and then, in the next instant, he’s yanking at her pants. She has no leotard and tights on today; what emerges is just skin, the skin of her belly, her thighs. She’s on the floor. She grabs his shirt, saying, “I am afraid.” But it’s too late.

“Is this what you want?” he says. She is quiet now. He bends her knees up to her armpits and shoves himself inside her. It is a stiff tent in there. He pushes himself into her again and again, destroying everything he has built.

She sleeps, or something like it. They are on the floor of the room with the old photos of dancers. Like two trees’ branches tangled up together. A forest. Together they make a forest of limbs. She is trembling like dry leaves in a heavy wind. He is bony, ancient, gray, and powdery. She is young, white, and sinewy. Her legs like steel covered in flesh. The corners of her mouth curve upward in a smile, but it is not a smile. She is like a thing falling — in space falling — to the ground. A dried leaf, a twig, a piece of dried skin, discarded, passed over even by the street sweeper’s brush.

After leaving Kevin’s office, I walk, a particle in the bloodstream of the city. I let myself drift. Something comes to the surface in me. It is sadness, a deeper sadness than I can ever remember feeling.

I am carried over east, past brick buildings, a flag, stained glass. These side streets that are always full of surprises. I’d forgotten that about New York. Between the fortresses of Park Avenue and the helter-skelter of Lexington, anything is possible. Maurice lived on a side street, farther east, past Lexington.

What is Felicia doing now? Is she just coming home from some event? How many Lucky Charms would she have to eat to take in this news? I imagine telling her, her vicarious excitement. Drama!