Various Positions Read online

  I got to school and walked along the parking lot to the first classroom, trying to crush the maximum number of salt crystals beneath my boots. The school was being renovated that winter and our classes had been transferred to a row of newly delivered portables. They were white rectangles, big metal shoeboxes that extended all the way to the school’s back fence. I walked up the steps of the first one, the grade-eight math portable, kicking my boots on the final ledge to knock off snow and pebbles. The lighting was fluorescent, and I breathed in the familiar smell of something plastic and squeezable, a bit like a rubber duck. I took my usual desk in the middle and muttered hello to the kids around me.

  I pulled my binder out of my knapsack and listened to their conversation. They were talking about a party they’d been to over the weekend. Julie Chang’s party. I hadn’t been invited, but that was okay because I would have had to miss a ballet class to go. They were discussing Chicken, the game where male hands wandered up female bodies until the owner of the body decided she’d had enough. I had never played Chicken before; the idea made my stomach feel like it was rotting. Everyone would be watching. I looked down at the small bumps that barely lifted my sweater. Inadequacy slithered up from my groin.

  The lesson began and my eyes drifted from the blackboard to the window. It was snowing now; fat white flakes disappeared into the mud of the soccer field. What would I do if I were forced into a Chicken situation? What I needed was a plan. I sucked in my stomach so that my ribs puffed out. I sucked in even harder until it hurt. It would be a tricky position to maintain for more than five minutes, but it made my chest inflate with a buoyancy that might be mistaken for boobs. It did more than that, too, taking me away from my body, lifting me out of the disgrace.

  At four o’clock, I took the bus across Bayview Avenue toward the Wilson School of Ballet. The buildings shrank and lost their color, becoming low concrete blocks on either side of the road. The final landmark was a church with gray bricks and a bulging chimney. You wouldn’t know it was a church if it wasn’t for the thousand pieces of broken gold glued to its far side in a big Jesus mosaic. The ballet school sat next to it, separated by a snowbank that, today, made the shape of a long, bumpy creature, maybe a humpback whale. I pulled open the door and walked into the foyer.

  A group of older girls were stretching on my left. I loved the older girls, especially the ones with long hair. A few of them were going to make it as professionals, that’s what all the parents said. I looked at their legs, long and muscled on the floor. I wanted to wrap my hands around them. A red-haired girl called out my name and waved. Her name was Emily and she liked me. Once, when I was leaving the studio, she’d tapped me on the shoulder. I felt her slender fingers on my bare skin. “You’re soooo skinny,” she said sweetly. Her friends agreed too. They shook their heads and smiled reprovingly. “Do you eat anything?” a second girl asked me. “She’s so cute,” a third one said. Another time, I found a chocolate bar taped to my locker. A Post-it note was stuck to the wrapper. Eat up! it advised in permanent marker. You need it.

  I waved back at Emily. A smile was wriggling up inside me, but I stopped it with my lip muscles so that I wouldn’t look dumb. I went down the hallway to the change room. I pulled on my tights and leotard along with the other junior girls and coiled my hair into a bun. Then I walked toward the studio. As I approached the two steps of its entrance, Mrs. Kafarova glided into the doorway. She crossed her arms over her spandex bodysuit and peered at me beneath two turquoise eyelids.

  “You hev your letter?” Mrs. Kafarova frowned. She normally frowned as she spoke, as if language itself was distasteful to her.

  I nodded and told her the time and date of my audition. Her frown deepened. Auditioning for the Royal Toronto Ballet Academy had been her idea. She’d pulled me into her office a few weeks ago and stared at me menacingly from her swivel chair.

  “Georgia, it iz time you were in proper akedemy.”

  I looked up at the posters on her wall. They were from the Soviet Union and the images looked smeared, blue backgrounds that bled into the dancers as if the paper had been held under water.

  “Yes of course my school, iz very good.” She closed her eyes for a second, bowed her head, as though accepting applause for her school. “But you will hev future. And to hev riel future, you must hev riel training. Many hours, every day. And then every day, many hours, all again. Yes?”

  I nodded solemnly. I knew I was experiencing the kind of moment that people talked about, one I’d remember for the rest of my life.

  Now I stepped into the studio toward her. Mrs. Kafarova grabbed my arm and squeezed. She wore enough rings to handicap an average hand and they pushed against the underside of my wrist.

  “You must hev good picture for zhe application. You must hev your hair perfect. You must make your lips pink.” She stared hard into my eyes. “Promise me you will hev your lips pink.”

  I promised her I would. I joined the other girls at the barre.

  “Please!” Mrs. Kafarova commanded the pianist with one dictatorial foot stamp.

  Class started slowly, the first piano chords soft, bendable, as we eased our muscles back into familiar tensions. In the wall-length mirror beside me I saw fifteen bodies moving in unison, charging the air with silent effort. The chronically uncomfortable person that possessed me in ordinary life let go of her spindly arms and Tinkertoy legs. A volt buzzed up my spine and I grew between each vertebra. My small day was officially over.

  “Girls!” Mrs. Kafarova stopped the pianist with another foot stamp. “Enough.” She dismissed us with the back of her hand, walked away from the barre. “You stretch. We do center.”

  As we pulled our legs around our bodies on the floor, Mrs. Kafarova tidied herself in the mirror. She smoothed two hands on either side of the yellow hair that contoured her head like a travel pillow. She reapplied lipstick on her skinny leather lips. She adjusted the sash on her black teaching frock and turned sideways to examine her profile, nodding at what looked back at her. I imagined she saw herself not in this reflection, but in the framed forty-year-old photos that hung in the school’s main hall. There, in black and white, a fire-eyed blonde in a sequined tutu soared across the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. Two white legs scissored the air, her back arched onto a tilting crescent foot.

  * * *

  My mom helped me fill out the application form over the weekend. We sat at the kitchen table and she watched as I entered my height and weight into the spaces provided, moving the pen slowly to keep my writing neat. When it was time to take the required photo of me in tendu à la seconde, I asked if I could use her lipstick.

  “It’s a picture of your body, sweetheart. No one’s going to be able to tell whether you’re wearing lipstick or not.”

  I nodded as though this was sensible. Then I asked her again in a slightly more desperate tone. She laughed and sighed. She produced a black shiny pouch that whined when I scratched my fingernails along it. I unzipped the top and rummaged through the plastic capsules.

  “Lipstick?” My dad had stepped into the doorway. He was wearing a tie and his plastic ID badge; he had just come back from the hospital. “I thought we were in the business of raising a feminist.”

  My mom didn’t look up. “It’s stage makeup.”

  He moved behind us, peered over our shoulders. I wanted to cover the application with my hands. I knew what he thought of ballet. It was even worse than what he thought about lipstick.

  “Oh. Your ballet school application.” He moved around the table to the fridge, where he pulled out the Brita water pitcher, poured himself a glass. “Ballet,” he repeated, shaking his head. “God knows how I ended up with a ballet dancer for a daughter.”

  I wanted to laugh at this with him, be a really good sport. It burned, though, the disappointment in his voice. The worst part was that I understood it. Things like ballet tripped on his heels, slowed the world down from more meaningful pursuits. He took a big sip of water. I wished I had some bri
lliant revelation that drew on history and philosophy to explain why ballet was okay.

  “There are musicians on Mom’s side,” I said.

  My dad gulped back the rest of his water, ruffled my hair with his hand. “Didn’t you want to become a doctor?”

  My mom looked up at him now. “She can still become a doctor, Larry.”

  “What are the academics like at this ballet school?”

  “Excellent.” My mom smirked. “They’re excellent.”

  “Really?” My dad opened the dishwasher and fitted his glass into the upper tray. “Well, great then.” He pushed on the dishwasher door and it snapped shut. He walked out of the room.

  My mom sat very still. I waited for her to say something. Finally she pushed her chair back and left the room too. In a minute I could hear their voices in the living room. I pulled all the lipsticks out of the case and uncapped them. The tubes made a forest of iridescent trunks, plastic, titanium, and mother-of-pearl. I twisted the bottoms one by one. My mom’s voice was louder now, shrill even, but I was going to focus on the lipstick. They looked funny together, like a flock of reddish creatures poking out of their shells. I chose a bright pink one with a sharp summit and a clean slope down one side. In the hallway mirror I pressed it firmly into my mouth. It was satisfying, the pull of the waxy edge on the skin of my lips, the sudden invasion of fuchsia.

  My parents were quiet now. It always went like this. Fights melted into their opposites, as though somehow the two were related, maybe even different ends of the same thing. I tiptoed into the alcove of the dining room. My parents were sitting in the taupe armchair. My dad’s back was to me and my mom sat sideways on his lap. I could see her foot dangling off one armrest. Her gray sock had a hole at the heel, and she was moving slowly through her instep, keeping her toes flexed. Her head dangled off the other side of the chair, as if she were leaning back to laugh. But then she moved her face toward the back cushion where it met my dad’s in a kiss. I stepped a little to the right so I could see them better. The kiss continued, their faces moving around in flattened figure-eights. My dad’s hands went to my mom’s bum. She made a sound, moved in closer. I looked away because I couldn’t watch this part, the way she slipped her anger into something silky and attractive, like she was putting on a lacy nightgown.

  We took the photos of me about an hour later. I attached them with a paper clip to the top right corner of the form. I tested the paper clip’s snugness, shook the pages vigorously with my fingers pinched over the metal edge, slid the clip on and off several times. I was almost satisfied. But then I worried that the tests themselves had compromised the clip’s tightness. I considered using a stapler, but thought that might disqualify me, sort of like using the wrong kind of pencil on a Scantron test. So I pulled a fresh paper clip from the small cardboard box, hyperextended each side with a quick tug, and fitted the clip over the assembled form.

  TWO

  The day before the audition, Phil Dwyer was having a party and he invited everyone in the class. It was a parent-supervised deal in the afternoon, pop, chips, pepperoni pizzas, maybe a rented movie in a basement with the lights dimmed just enough. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to assemble and conserve every available molecule of energy for the next day. But my mom said this was a bad idea. I was putting too much pressure on myself and it’d be better to relax and have a good time. Otherwise the pressure might backfire.

  I didn’t want the pressure to backfire. I went to the party, stood in the basement in the jean jacket I’d worn underneath my parka, took a paper plate from the collapsible bridge table, piled my plate high with Doritos. I chewed them attentively to keep myself busy, taking one mouse-sized bite at a time.

  “What’s your problem?” It was Kareem Talwar. He was leaning past me to grab the blimp-shaped bottle of 7UP. He unscrewed it and poured some into his plastic cup, which was already half filled with Coke.

  I looked at his T-shirt. “Enema of the State” was scrawled in drippy letters across his chest, the font trickling onto an image of a nurse fitting her hand into a plastic glove. He took a giant swig of his pop cocktail, wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, and beamed at me.

  “Tear yourself away from the chips, G. Come join the real party.” He cocked his head toward an open doorway that led to another room.

  I followed him, holding tight to my plate of chips, watching his skinny brown arms wag with each step of his Converse All-Stars. We passed through the doorway. A clump of kids were gathered in a circle, and we leveled ourselves side by side onto the only available patch of carpet, dividing the oblong plot between our two bums.

  “It’s just stupid,” Hannah McAdorey was saying, a hand flung on her hip. “I mean, it’s not that I mind going again or anything, but isn’t the whole point that different people get picked?”

  “It’s Spin the Bottle, reject,” Phil Dwyer laughed. “The whole point is that the bottle does the picking.”

  “Yeah,” Kareem said. “It’s not a free-for-all or anything. It’s not like … pick your tit.”

  There was a chorus of appreciation for this, not quite laughter but breathy chuckles. I turned toward Kareem. My face flushed with betrayal. I looked at the center of the circle and saw a dented can of Dr Pepper. I had to get out. I put my hand down on the carpet beside me and started to lift my bum. What would be my excuse?

  “Pick your tit.” Phil snapped his fingers. “Good one.”

  “Except it’s a can.” Elinor Leung smirked. “Tradition’s already been like,”—she paused, chewed prodigiously on her lower lip—“massacred.”

  “But it is kinda stupid that Hannah just went,” Sara Lowe said.

  “Elinor went twice at Robin’s party,” Phil objected.

  “How about new players have to go first?”

  The suggestion came from Hannah and everyone was suddenly quiet, considering. My heart started to pound. What would happen if I left? Everyone would laugh for hours, talk about it for weeks at school. My stomach was liquid with fear. I burrowed my fingers under my thighs, rocked from one hand to the other.

  “Spin it, Georgia.” I turned my head to Hannah. She was holding out the stepped-on can and smiling a toothless smile. “Spin it,” she repeated.

  The dread was everywhere now, spiraling up from my middle. I scanned the circle quickly, hoping someone might object on my behalf. But faces were smooth and impatient.

  “Umm, like today might be an idea,” Elinor sneered.

  I took the can, felt the ruptured aluminum spikes on either side, pressed the pad of my thumb into the sharpest edge. What could I do? The pressure of tears was thickening behind my eyes. I bit down hard, pushed molar into molar, felt the strain radiate into my jaw. I placed the can back on the carpet and spun it.

  “Hey, hey.” Phil was nodding hard and nudging Kareem. “Looks like you’re the man.”

  The top of the Dr Pepper can was facing the little patch of carpet that Kareem and I were sharing. I looked at him. His eyes simulated shock and he sucked a long inhale for the benefit of his audience. I swallowed hard, ordered myself not to cry.

  Kareem moved toward the center of the circle. I followed his cue, letting instinct lead me in an awful, brain-dead way. We sat down on either side of the can, folded our legs beneath us. Kareem looked hard into my eyes and didn’t hesitate. He placed a hand on my jean pocket.

  “Chicken?” He dropped his voice low into his chest.

  Hate congealed in my stomach; it felt like a hard ball I could whip at his head. In a demented second, I imagined his face shattering into a million shards, like a Christmas ornament cracking on a tiled floor.

  “Nope,” I said quietly.

  There was murmuring from the audience. Kareem ducked his head closer. Red dust stuck beyond the contours of his lips. I could smell ketchup. He placed his hand under my jean jacket and flat across my lowest rib. I could feel its clamminess through my cotton shirt.

  “Chicken?” he asked a little more softly.

&nb
sp; Sweat gathered on the small of my back. The next hand would be boob territory. I looked around at the circuit of faces again, caught Hannah squinting in her satisfied way. I could imagine what was coming, Kareem’s palm over my sports bra and how he’d be able to feel my nipple underneath. The shame made me dizzy.

  “I think…” I stood up and wiped my hands on the sides of my jeans. “I think I actually have to go.”

  Elinor looked at Hannah and both of them burst out laughing.

  “No, I do. I forgot that I have this … thing.”

  “Thing?” said Phil Dwyer.

  “A family thing.”

  I told myself to turn around and just walk back into the other room, where I’d left my parka, but for some reason I kept standing there. Maybe I needed to see if they believed me. Hannah’s lips were up against Elinor’s ear and Elinor nodded.

  “You should really go,” Hannah said.

  I turned around, looking down at the carpet to make sure I didn’t step on Kareem’s hand.

  “You shouldn’t get involved in games like this if you’re too immature,” Hannah continued. “It’ll screw you up emotionally.”

  “Too late for that!” Phil said.

  Everyone laughed, but Hannah kept going. “No, seriously, though. Have you been to the doctor, Georgia? You should probably get checked out.”

  Something slapped my chest. I took a step back so that I wouldn’t fall over.

  “Nothing to check out!”