The Art of Falling (19 page)

“Of course it hurts, darling. Use it! It’s what artists do. Life has wisdom of its own. It dumps shit on you and stirs you up until your soil is fertile. Accept the challenge and plant some seeds. This is how artists grow.”

• • •

I knocked softly on Mrs. Pope’s door. From the other side, I heard Shakespeare squawk, “Spread ’em, baby,” before his owner answered.

“How’d it go?” I said. If I was going to take time for myself to dance, someone needed to know where to find me. I chose to confide in Mrs. Pope. I figured her expectations about my dancing would weigh less than anyone else’s.

“You’re back,” Mrs. Pope said. “Did you enjoy your class?”

“Shh.” I pushed my way into her living room and closed the door behind me. I didn’t want Angela to overhear that I was dancing again. I still needed to sort out my motives and goals in my own mind. “I’m not limping. Yet. How’d things go here?”

“The world didn’t stop spinning because you took some time to yourself. Marty came to pick her up about an hour ago.”

“Oh no. Did she need to go back to the hospital?”

“She told me earlier she was feeling much better this evening.”

That was Angela-speak for “don’t you dare pity me.” The knot in my gut would not release. “I don’t know…”

“I do believe she wore a spot of makeup. Honest, Penny, they looked so nice I snapped a picture. Marty wore a suit! I’ll make a print for you.”

When I got home, I gave waiting up for them my best shot, but my body wouldn’t hold out. I sank into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

• • •

Early the next morning, before moving from my bed, I tested my range of motion in the dark. From my huge quads to the threads articulating my hands, my muscles had organized a revolt. I made my way to the bathroom in herky-jerky fashion.

I either had to dance regularly or never, ever do it again.

I left the bathroom light on and cracked the door so I could get ready for work without waking Angela—allowing enough light into the room to see that her bed was empty. I lurched to the phone to call Presbyterian. As I was dialing, I thought I heard footsteps on the stairs, then giggling and coughing. By the time I reached the door, Angela was opening it from the other side. I felt a blast of cool air from the outside door down below.

“You scared me half to death.”

Angela crossed over to her bed, sat down, and reattached her oxygen. When I flipped on the track lights, she was holding up her finger, signaling for me to wait until she got some air into her lungs. She sat with her legs folded beneath her—when her slacks rode up I could see her best black socks. I sat down beside her. One thing I could intuit: she was not in dire straits. She had a big smile on her face.

“Is that a new bracelet?”

She waved her wrist, now wrapped by interwoven strands of pearls held together with a heart-shaped clasp.

“Marty gave it to me. Isn’t it wonderful? But that’s not all. I am bursting and I’ve gotta tell someone and you’re the someone I want to tell…”

No wonder she needed oxygen. That was the biggest bundle of words I’d heard from her in one breath in a long time.

“Go ahead.”

“I feel kind of bad, because Marty and I were out having fun and here you were home by yourself—”

“You’re straining your lungs. Spill.”

She took a few more breaths. “Last night this used-up body of mine was the source of mind-blowing pleasure—”

“How much morphine did you take?”

She laughed, coughed. “Come on, Penny, I was with Marty.”

“Right, he wouldn’t do drugs—”

“I mean, I was
with
Marty.”

“I know, I was just teasing.” I grabbed her hands. The brightness in her eyes blew a hole in my heart. “Did you go to his place? I’ve slept on his couch too, you know.”

She pushed at me weakly. “He took me to this beautiful bed and breakfast up in New Hope. The whole night was so…magical. I never would have met him if it weren’t for you.”

Her breathing turned rapid and shallow.

“Angela? Are you okay?” I started thumping on her back, just in case, until I realized she was crying. I put my arm around her. “What’s going on? Tell me.”

“I feel…insane. Cracked open. Like air is reaching new surfaces deep inside me that I’d walled off. It hurts and it tickles and I’m scared and it’s wonderful all at the same time. Look at me.” She held up a shaking hand. “I am completely out of control.” She sobbed and coughed until she brought up some phlegm. I handed her a paper cup so she could spit. “I’m sorry, I’m going on and on, but this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And it happened in
this
body.”

I knew exactly what she was talking about. I’d felt that same frightening euphoria myself.

In this body.

Last night—when I danced.

• • •

After my shift, I returned home to find Kandelbaum pounding on Angela’s back.

“Call 911, she can’t breathe.”

He said the words calmly, but the frantic beating of his cupped hands revealed his heart. I pounded the numbers into the keypad, Angela’s eyes bulging, her skin a scary purple. A paramedic intubated her right in front of us. It looked like a collapsed lung and another trip to the hospital. As they wheeled her out the door, I told Kandelbaum I’d take over if he needed to get back to work.

“I need to be with her,” he said. I gave him a hug. “And you look exhausted, Penny. A little unsteady on your feet. Why don’t you lie down and take a nap. I’ll follow the ambulance and make sure she gets settled in okay.”

“Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be right behind you.”

When I next opened my eyes, it was after four-thirty in the afternoon and the sun was starting to set. I jerked up, swung my legs off the bed, and slid to the floor—but my legs gave way and I landed in a clump. I rolled onto my back and tested my joints. Everything functional. I grabbed my cell phone and called Presby as I stretched. When they connected me to Angela’s room, Kandelbaum answered the phone.

“How’s she doing?”

“It was pretty frightening for a while. She’s quiet now.”

“I’m so sorry. I overslept.” I could take the fire in the hamstring I was stretching; it was letting Angela down that had me struggling to push back tears. “I should have been with her.”

“She hardly knew I was there. Quite a team surrounded her, and then whisked her into surgery. She has a chest tube that will have to stay in a couple of days.”

“Oh my god.” I rolled over and reached for my shoes. “I’m on my way.”

“There’s not much point in coming tonight. They suspect she’ll sleep through till tomorrow.”

I felt like such a loser.

“And Penny? She knows you love her.”

I checked the time, put on my shoes, and then did my best impression of someone capable of jogging to the Market East station to catch the train to Manayunk.

André’s Manayunk class was athletic and taxing. While walking to work Friday morning, my muscles complained so loudly I was surprised others on the street couldn’t hear them. Joey noticed the hitch in my step. “You look like Frankenstein in leg braces,” he said. “What’s with you?”

“I think that’s obvious.” Muscle soreness was always worse on the second day. If I could get through my shift at the gym and keep getting to dance class, I should feel a little better each day.

“You working with a trainer someplace else? Because if you want to compete, I’m your man.”

“Compete?”

“Weightlifting. I know you’re doing it, the squats always give you away. That’s how I bulk up my thighs, too. But they hurt something wicked until the muscle tears heal.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Why the hell would anyone want to bulk up her thighs?” I made a grab for my paycheck, but Joey pulled it out of reach.

“I said, I want to know what you’ve been up to.”

I looked around me. People were filtering in for early morning workouts, but I didn’t see MacArthur.

“Are you checking for spies? What kind of secret is this?”

“Have a heart, Joey.” Saying this was big for me, and felt as intimate as sharing my sex life with him. I braced myself against the front desk. “I’ve started dancing again.”

“Oh, is that all.” He tossed me the paycheck. “I guess that’s good timing.”

“How so?”

“Suzie’s ready to come back to work. I can only afford to keep you on for the early morning class, so I’m glad you’re—” He looked both ways and whispered. “
Dancing
again
.”

I was too embarrassed to tell him that my dancing was no longer an income stream, but an added expense. With Angela so sick, though, she needed my support now more than ever. “Could you keep me on another month? Until I find something else? Please. I need the money.”

He shook his head. “I appreciate all the new clients you’ve attracted, but I can only stretch the payroll so far. You can finish out the month. If short words will do, I’ll be glad to write you a recommendation. Oh, and wait.” From beneath the front counter he retrieved an ivory envelope, hand addressed. “You have mail.”

I decided to skip the stairs. Once alone in the elevator, I opened the envelope. It was lined in gold, and an inner envelope was addressed to “Miss Penelope Sparrow and Guest.” I pulled out a card from beneath tissue paper protecting its embossed lettering. An R.S.V.P. card and envelope were enclosed.

As an esteemed member of the Philadelphia Arts Community

The Philadelphia Dance Alliance

cordially invites you to attend a luncheon

at one in the afternoon on December twelfth

Rose Garden, Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue

honoring

Margaret MacArthur

Critic for
The Philadelphia Sentinel

In celebration of her thirty years of service to the dance community

R.S.V.P. by December 1

Was this a joke? I wondered how many other aerobics instructors would be breaking tofu with the Philadelphia dance professionals. When the elevator doors opened, I stuffed the invitation deep into my bag.

• • •

After my shift, I went to Presby to see Angela. I packed her favorite things into her wheeled suitcase to make her feel more at home, and in deference to my sore muscles, treated myself to a taxi.

I sensed that talking was painful for her, so I kept up the chatter while I redecorated her room. Soon she was covered with her own quilt and illuminated by her own reading lamp. I’d also brought a new item—the photo of Angela and Kandelbaum that Mrs. Pope had taken, now framed. I held it out to her. “Look.”

Their arms were around one another, their cheeks pressed together in a pose so full of life and hope that anyone coming across such a picture in the engagements section of the newspaper would predict a long and happy life.

She smiled.

I gestured toward the bedside table. “Shall I put it over here, where you can look at it?”

She shook her head no and pressed the picture to her body. Not to her heart, which was way too close to her chest tube placement, but low on her belly, right above her center of gravity.

“Thank you,” she said. Her face twisted into a grimace.

“Shh,” I said. “Don’t cry, sweetie. It wasn’t any trouble.”

She shook her head. “Mrs. Pope hasn’t asked for the rent in two months. I’ll pay you back.”

My chest seized. I kissed her forehead. “Of course you will.”

“This is—it’s a tough stretch.”

“I know.”

From its emaciated tube, I squeezed what remained of her moisturizer. Rubbed it on her arms. Sought, with long strokes, what remained of the meat beneath her skin.

“I can apply my own lotion, for god’s sake.”

I smiled. “I know.”

• • •

Bebe stood by the door of her studio, shopping bags balanced in both arms while fiddling with the lock. I heard her curse as I approached.

“You tell it, Bebe. Need help locking that?”

Bebe looked at me, let her load slip to the ground, and tried the lock again. “Oh, Penny. I’m going in, not leaving.”

“Did you forget something?”

“I live here. I moved back into the little apartment.”

“But you loved your brownstone.”

“Well. I never needed that much space.”

A VACANCY sign hung in the window where the Chen laundry used to be. My hopes for a job took a nosedive. Bebe was their landlord. “Is it money problems?”

“I’m simplifying my life. And you can’t argue with the commute.” She took a deep breath and picked up her packages.

“Let me get those.” I was surprised she had struggled with them—the packages held nothing heavier than cotton balls and light bulbs.

“Thanks, darling.” I pretended my thighs didn’t find the steps a challenge. “A few health issues have crimped my cash flow, and I haven’t been able to swing some needed repairs—”

“Are you all right?” I turned on the stairs to look down at her.

“It’s nothing fatal. What did you stop in for? I’ve never had a Friday class.”

Bebe’s face looked puffy. A two-inch spot of silver on her crown gave away an uncharacteristic lack of hair color maintenance. Her movements were more cautious. It occurred to me she could use my help at the studio, maybe on a per-student commission, but it would take time to rebuild her class schedule to its former glory. I needed something full-time, and now. I set that goal aside. “I need a class tonight. Something not too expensive.”

She stopped at the second floor landing. “How does free sound? Go in and use the studio. You still have a key—come whenever you want.”

“Just me, and all that space?”

I waited for Bebe at the top. She continued to speak as she climbed the stairs.

“You don’t need a teacher to tell you what to do. Your body knows. I could sense your vision maturing within you as a teen. For the life of me I can’t figure out why you don’t have the courage to use it.”

She squeezed past. Cramped as we were in the narrow hallway with the added bulk of winter clothing, I grew painfully aware of my size.

“That’s because your body is perfectly acceptable to the dance world. Mine isn’t, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.”

“My talent isn’t as great as yours and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about that, either.”

I leaned against the wall behind me. “You taught me almost everything I know.”

“Because I am a teacher. That is my gift. But you are an artist, Penny. Are you so blind to your own talent you never noticed when I stopped teaching, and started nurturing, instead? Didn’t you sense the shift from listening to me to listening to your own inner voice?”

“Whatever voice that was went silent. At Dance DeLaval, I had these perfect dancers at my disposal and Dmitri’s permission to choreograph my own work on them, and I couldn’t think of a damned thing.”

“Perfect, you say? That was your problem. It is our imperfections that make us endlessly fascinating.”

I loved what she said and recognized the truth in it. Privately. But I was shocked as hell to hear Bebe utter the words aloud. Wasn’t striving for perfection the very basis of our efforts, in all my years of training?

She unlocked the door to my first apartment, the place she now called home. I handed Bebe her groceries.

“You’re stronger than you think, Penny. Look how many times you’ve been tested, and yet here you are. Go downstairs and dance.”

I tried not to let her see the way my sore muscles’ spastic contractions jarred me as I descended the steps.

I chose the back studio for its relative intimacy. Since the night of my fall, space and I had had an uneasy relationship. Too much of it and I feared I might disappear.