Ridiculous/Hilarious/Terrible/Cool (18 page)

Anais Blake did not get into Juilliard. She danced well in her audition, her ankle was fine. Her tights were not. During the group callback, Anais wore black tights, not the pink ones she was supposed to and which other dancers were wearing. Now she's wondering if that could be the reason.

She
knows
it's not the tights, she knows she's being paranoid, but
still
. If it
were
the tights, that would be heartbreaking. It's a week after she found out and Anais is still going over every detail and gesture of her performance, stressing about what must have not measured up.

“You have to accept failure, you have to overcome it. I don't know, part of me . . .” She drifts off.

When Anais dances, she feels she gives her entire self. Not just her body, but her soul. It's a
whole
thing. So when someone criticizes her dancing, she finds it particularly painful, as if the deepest part of her has been judged and found lacking. It is so difficult because it is so personal.

As disappointed as she is with the rejection from Juilliard, they weren't even her first choice. Still, it doesn't feel good to not be asked to dance by
the
premier dance school in the country. Seven other dancers from the Midwest were asked.

One of them, a boy from Minnesota, was one of Anais's best friends from Juilliard's summer camp. They even hooked up. They talked about being together in New York, and now that won't happen.

Anais feels doors shutting all around her, or opening for others. Other dancer friends have been deciding where they're going to be next year. Anais's friend from Miami was offered a position with the Boston Ballet.

“I'm so happy for her,” Anais says, not looking happy at all. Then she admits, “I'm jealous of her knowing what she's going to do. She has it all set.”

Nothing feels set for Anais. She still has her audition for Indiana coming up, along with an audition for NYU. She has no idea where she'll end up.

Yesterday was especially terrible. Both her feet were throbbing. After dance class, her instructor hinted that if her dancing didn't start improving she wouldn't be a lead in the spring show. All her auditioning and performing has also meant that her friendships at Payton are pretty much nonexistent, especially now that Maya has mono and hasn't been in school. Last weekend, some high school friends called but she didn't go out. Though, when dance friends called with tickets to the Joffrey Ballet, she went.

Her dance friends understand the pressure Anais puts herself under. Like the boy from Minnesota. They relate well, though they haven't talked as much since the summer. Minnesota is far away. She's thinking of asking the boy to prom.

It would be awkward. Anais's little brother and sister are constantly underfoot and that would be embarrassing. The boy from Minnesota would have to stay in the basement.

“Everything's up in the air . . . The whole thing is really tricky. . . . Actually, the situation is a little more complicated,” she says, face flushing. “He has a girlfriend.”

At one end of the cafeteria, a girl with stringy blond hair and thick black glasses sits at a table studying. Her left hand is covered with handwritten song lyrics and random thoughts:

At the other end of the cafeteria there is less studying and more shouting.

“The wife went and got
milk!
Left the husband, left the
kids,
left with the
milk man!
”

It's the girl who is always preaching at Anthony.

“He starting to
realize
. He still a
little
hooked. Ain't that right,
'Tone
.”

Anthony nods but he's not really listening. He's playing with the preaching girl's cell phone, punching its buttons. He doesn't have his phone since his parents confiscated it along with his iPod.

“I ain't got
nothin',
” he mumbles. Anthony does have a brand-new White Sox hat, complete with silvery MLB sticker on the brim's underside. Leaving the sticker on, he explains, shows pride of ownership. As he texts and talks, the preaching girl sees she's not getting Anthony's attention and cracks open a history book with a friend.

Last Friday, Anthony went to a party and lost track of time and came home late. That's why his parents took away his iPod. Then his mother searched him and found a blunt in his jacket pocket, so they took away his cell phone. Anthony is failing almost all of his classes. Last month he tried to transfer out of Payton, but no other high school could take him at this late date. He'll have to stay where he is.

His mother also guessed that something happened between him and The Girl. A few days ago, Anthony's younger brother (who recently got kicked out of
his
school for “gang-related activity”) was teasing Anthony about how he preferred skinny girls and how The Girl was skinny but “she ain't going to be no more!”

That was a clue.

Saturday morning, The Girl called Anthony and said she was thinking about him. Saturday afternoon she called and said she was going to have an abortion. Saturday night she called and said she wouldn't have it, or wouldn't without telling him. Sunday morning she didn't answer the phone when Anthony called, and when he eventually reached her that afternoon she told Anthony she'd been to the doctor and didn't feel well.

At first, Anthony was angry.

“I had gotten attached to the situation,” he explains. He would have helped with the baby. He would have been a great father.

“I could've handled it.” He nods. The two girls across from him don't look up from their history textbook, but raise their eyebrows. Anthony responds.

“For real, for real, for
real
.”

He felt relief, though. And doubt. The whole time he suspected The Girl was not telling the truth, inventing a pregnancy to keep him jumping. She's the type of girl who would do that. But the result is the same: no more baby, even a hypothetical one.

A boy walks past selling chocolate for some program. Anthony flips a rumpled dollar at the kid, then gives the bar to the preaching/studying girl across from him.

“I got some chocolate! I got some chocolate!” she squeals, jumping up and down. Anthony jumps up—for someone who spends so much time hunched inside a jacket he moves with surprising speed—and gives her a hug. He gives her something else too.

The girl screams.

Anthony flops back in his seat, a little smile pushing up the fuzz on his upper lip. During the hug he squeezed her rear end.

“I was in fear of my life!” the girl yelps as she unwraps the chocolate bar and takes a bite. Then she fans herself with the wrapper, face flushing, and dives back into her history book, taking periodic breaks from memorizing the dates of Civil War battles to look across at Anthony, who's looking at her looking at him, back and forth, on and on.

“This is most unfortunate!” she cries.

Later that day in physics, Anthony is talking with the same girl when he's supposed to be working on an experiment involving a roller coaster and a marble to calculate potential energy. The students use rulers to make measurements, but Anthony uses his to scratch his back, and to tap the girl's backside. She punches his arm in response. He mouths
ouch
and taps her again, ignoring the small black marble in front of him rolling down its narrow wooden groove.

Overnight, the Payton atrium is plastered with posters for the student treasurer election:

MARCH

The singer looks like Zef Calaveras but he's not. It's Andy, the more talented half of Ben&Andy. Guitar in lap, he takes a seat on the stage, peers up through his bangs into the spotlights, and clears his throat.

“This song is going to be a bit derivative,” he says. The audience shrieks. His words aren't really heard. He starts playing, with lots of wailing and guitar reverb. The audience shrieks
more
. Talent does not have to be understood.

Tonight is talent night and the recital hall is packed, the darkness pricked by a constellation of cell phone screen lights. After Andy, three girls in tight American Apparel-ish shorts and bulky Nike knee pads dance to a medley of recent hits. A girl from the audience struts down the aisle and starts dancing next to the stage. Then another. The aisles fill to the point where there no longer really is an audience or a performer.