The Art of Falling (6 page)

“Believe me—I wanted to climb to the top of a New York high-rise and shout to you. But my success felt too fragile. As if it still might disappear. But guess what?”

“What?”

“Last night was our opening night and—”

“Damn it, Penny! I don’t suppose it occurred to you that I only live sixty miles away. I would have driven three times as far to see your debut with a major company. After all the crappy recitals I sat through—”

“Crappy? You loved them—”

“I’m just saying. The stairs look rickety when you look back on them from the top.”

The top—she’d said it. While I’d never dared to give them credence, I’d always secretly enjoyed my mother’s lofty expectations. They gave me the confidence needed to try and try and try again. Someone would one day recognize my brilliance! But as the wait grew long and my youth grew stale, my dreams lost focus. I was no longer sure that if I reached the top, I’d recognize it. And if I reached the top and fell down the mountain, what would my mother have to show for Penelope Sparrow, her lifelong project? She’d have to measure her success in conveyors full of perfectly glossed chocolates. And if she were so proud of that accomplishment, she wouldn’t have pushed me so hard to have a different life. I’d needed time to hang out with the company on my own, and get a new sense of my potential here, before raising her hopes.

“So are you going to tell me how the performance was or not?” my mother said.

“Pick up a copy of today’s
Sentinel
and you can read all about it.”

“I will. But tell me—how did it feel?”

“Dmitri was proud of us. He said if our next performance goes as well—”

“I want to know about you, Penny. Are you happy?”

“Oh, Mom.” I was literally beside myself, watching Penelope Sparrow tell her mother she was living their dream. The feeling it and the watching it and hearing her affirm it overwhelmed me and I couldn’t say anything more.

My mother said, “Are you nodding, or what?”

Laughter cracked the gridlock in my vocal cords. “Dmitri’s movement is like a song rising from my bones—as if it’s always been a part of me. The company has international potential. I’m in exactly the right place.”

• • •

My mother drew her song to a close with a long, unresolved chord, quietly dropping in the final note. Angela was the one who finally broke the spell.

“On the way up here, Marty and I heard a commercial about this pianist who’s going to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra next week. We should all go.”

An auditorium full of artsy types who might recognize me. Who might have read about me in the paper. My heart started to agitate. The dark house, the spotlights, my mother suggesting I go backstage to commission a score…. “I couldn’t afford it.”

“I could drive you down, and treat you,” my mother said. “It would be good for you. After all, Balanchine listened to music all the time.”

“Balanchine?” Kandelbaum said.

“George Balanchine, the founding director of the New York City Ballet,” I said. “One of the greatest ballet choreographers of all time.” One of the great incomparables meant to goad me into international prominence. Even now, while my career lay splat on a Philadelphia sidewalk and every movement still pained me. “She knows all about him because he came to dinner last night.”

My mother emitted such a sigh it increased the pressure in the room. “You know damned well he’s been dead for twenty years. But the man knew something about success, Penny. You could give it a try.”

Rage reared within me, but I bit down on it—any friendship still possible with our unfortunate witnesses would not survive its expression. I let two words leak out: “Stop pushing.”

Angela came over to me. Face to face, our injuries mirrored one another. She caressed my good elbow with her good hand, as gently as if it were a leaf she feared might drop from a February poinsettia. As if she knew that tenderness was the only weapon that could take down the beast inside me. She spoke softly. “I’m sure none of us knows the right thing to do. But we care. Right, Marty?” He offered a sad smile. “I’ll write down my number, and you call me when you want to get together.”

A trail of orange specks littered the pale carpet where they had fallen from Kandelbaum’s lap. Hansel and Gretel had not only survived their trip to the tangled forest my mother and I shared, they’d left a trail of breadcrumbs so I could come find them when I was ready.

As I lay on my bed that night, I tried to re-create the wordless communion I’d shared with Angela and Kandelbaum while my mother played. When, for a moment, I had not felt so profoundly alone.

Then finally slept, at peace, all through the night.

The words shocked my ears; I hadn’t planned to ask. But while my bruises faded to splotches of yellow and green over the next several weeks, physical therapy had developed muscle fibers and nerve pathways that, stitch-by-stitch, reattached body and mind. All my senses were reawakening—when Mauricio leaned over me to adjust the tension on the pulley stretching my shoulder, I could smell the soap he used on his hands.

I suddenly found myself asking, “Will I dance again?”

Mauricio’s lopsided smile tightened. He paused a little too long.

“I don’t want to discourage you—the human body never fails to amaze. But at this point, I’m only hoping to restore normal function of the shoulder and spine.”

“Oh.” I suddenly felt dizzy.

Mauricio pressed the back of his hand to my cheek. “You’re clammy. Maybe you overdid it. Sit tight—I’ll get you some water.”

My hands clenched the edge of the bench I sat upon. I had never let go of my former life. Not completely. I remained dangling from it, holding on with all my might. And now Mauricio, the man charged with my healing, added to the jeers:
You
might
as
well
let
go. You won’t have the strength to hold on anyway.

He came back and handed me the water. “I want you to start taking daily walks. Just fifteen minutes or so, don’t go nuts, but the alternating contractions will help your back.”

Walks. Ha. How could a connoisseur of fine movement ever be satisfied with baby food? I hungered for more intriguing textures—a cup of swing, a spoonful of salsa, a dash of syncopation. My muscles twitched at the ready, begging for more.

• • •

Two weeks later, after returning from a forty-minute walk, I heard my mother at the piano. I slipped off my damp shoes, left them by the door, and paused to listen. Splayed fingers exploring full octave chords over most of the keyboard, my mother rocked back and forth on the bench, her eyes only sometimes open. I wasn’t sure she knew I’d come in.

She was playing “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” a waltz she used to sing to me when I was little, after I changed into my nightgown. She’d intended it to be a lullaby, I suppose, never realizing the music’s opposite effect. My dad knew, though. He’d put out his hand and say, “One more dance, Penny?” I’d put my hand in his, hold my skirt out to the side, and curtsy. Without skipping a note, my mother would chastise him, but with a big smile on her face. She couldn’t resist the performance to come. My father couldn’t dance. She’d laugh as he took me in his arms to trip around the room, with me squealing as I hugged his waist and tried to keep my bare feet on top of his moccasins.

Today the notes conjured my father once more. I felt him here, in the room, inviting me to dance. My muscles, warm and eager to respond, lifted me into a gentle triplet step—down, up, up; down, up, up. Just a slight flexion of knee and ankle. Jerky, at first, like my father. But soon I’d traversed the living room, made a half-turn at the piano in the corner, and continued my ellipse moving backward. My toes found dents in the carpet from the legs of the coffee table my mother had moved to make room for my exercise mat. My arms swayed in breathy swirls. I cocked my head and…yes, there it was…that stirring against my cheek, an acknowledgment from the air in the room that is always as sweet as a lover’s kiss.

A wisp of memory, a trace of the movement I had loved, that imagined kiss: something hibernating in the darkness within me awoke and reached tentatively for the sun. The fierce beauty of it stilled my step. Tears streamed down my face.

My mother stopped playing, her lips parted in a hopeful smile. “Penny.” She left the bench and reached for me, but accepting her touch felt dangerous. The frond unfurling within me was too tender; I didn’t want her to smother it. I turned and walked away.

• • •

It was a few months after Dance DeLaval’s Philadelphia debut when Dmitri first singled me out to work with him in the studio. Dmitri had promised us a few days off to recoup after our tour of the Northeast, so when Mitch parked our used van by the Terra Building at ten p.m., we grabbed our luggage from the back and prepared for the first time in a month to go our separate ways.

Dmitri was antsy, though. While we unpacked the van, he paced the sidewalk beside it. I could almost see the new ideas surging beneath the surface of his skin. Still, when he called to me, I was surprised.

“Penny.” He always said my name as though the “y” were leading to something more.

All of us turned as one.

“Just Penny. Could I see you? Inside?”

This singling out inspired a sudden stillness around the van. “Sure.” I turned to the others. “Guess I’ll see you guys in a few days.”

After we climbed the stairs, he paused before entering the studio. “You are probably tired, but…”

“It’s okay. I’ll be out in a minute.” I went into the bathroom, splashed some cold water on my face, and changed into the ripe-smelling leotard and knit pants I’d balled together in my dance bag. I’d been sure their next stop would be a sink with some warm soapy water.

I re-entered the studio. Dmitri wandered the room, marking a floor pattern. He was already in a zone, and I kept an eye on him as I slipped on a pair of leg warmers and coaxed gentle movement from joints confined for hours to a van whose heater was broken. At one point Dmitri sank into a deep, twisted lunge and lifted his dark eyes to the mirror before him. I knew that look: time to begin. I mimicked his position.

“Watch,” he said. “I go…” He unwound as he rose, so that in the next move he could leap high into the air, turning on an angle as would a parasol over a woman’s shoulder. “I stay…” He landed again in a crouched pose and glared at the mirror. “I go like…” He raised his arms to the sides, his fingers talons that had dropped their prey. “Then, pop, pop, pop.” He said each word as he leapt around the edge of a small circle.

“Do together now, we?” Or maybe it was “Do together now,
oui
?” It was hard to tell with Dmitri. But to me it didn’t matter; his intention unfolded in the movement. On the tour I’d begun functioning as an interpreter. He’d try to explain something, fail to find words, then say, “Penny?” I’d ask something like, “Is it like a huge ball of energy that moves upstage on the diagonal, hitting one, then another, until we’re all affected?” He’d relax and smile. “Yes.”

Now we ran through the movement again side by side. Untwist, spring, parasol, talons, pop-pop-pop. “Now what?” he said.

“Solo? Duet? Group?” I fired back in similar shorthand.

“Ah, duet.” I held my position, waiting. Eventually he turned to me and said, “Run in a circle. Around me. I stay here and turn, turn…”

I tried. But the day’s earlier inactivity had taken its toll, and I’d been holding my crouched position for too long. When I tried to do his bidding, my right foot was asleep. My run took on a syncopated gimp.

“Yes, Penny, better!” he said. “Wounded, yes.”

The studio lights blazed long into the night, and Dmitri’s signature work,
Puma
, was born. The whole experience was exhilarating, but fatigue claimed us by four a.m.

He locked up the studio and said, “It is late. Where is your place?”

“Over on South Tenth.”

“Too far. Crash with me.” Inappropriate as it seemed, the offer tempted. His penthouse was luxurious compared to my little room at Bebe’s, where you could simultaneously sit on the toilet and spit in the sink. It was all I could afford, but I didn’t elaborate on that with Dmitri.

“It’s only seven blocks.”

“You were a help to me.
S’il te plaît. Pozhalusta
. Please.”

It was his eyes. They seemed to see beyond the glow I absorbed from him, and recognize a light source of my own. They seemed to say thank you and please and I value you and you’re safe. Okay, it was his ponytail, too, and the way it revealed soft dark hairs that curled against the back of his neck. As he led the way down the stairs, it was all I could do not to touch them. Once out on the street, I tamed my thoughts by bringing up a subject I hadn’t had enough time alone with him to broach during our jam-packed tour.

“Dmitri—you know that review of our first performance, where the critic was trying to find meaning in the size difference between Tina and me?”

He must have tensed; there was a slight hesitation in the rhythm of his footfalls. “Why?”

“Before the tour, I was talking to my mother about the review. She thought it might be interesting to experiment with a role reversal the next time we perform it here—I’d dance Tina’s part and she could dance mine.”

“You talked to your mother about this?”

“It’s more like she talked to me about it, but yes. I thought it would be a neat idea. MacArthur could see for herself whether she still felt the need to create meaning from the size difference. Her perspective would change—”

“You never told me your mother is choreographer.”

“Oh, she’s not. But don’t you think it might be interesting to try?”

“Just a dancer, then.”

Just
a dancer? The put-down felt personal. “Who?”

“Your mother.”

“No, no—she works in a candy factory,” I said. “And she’s a pianist.”

“And a dance critic.”

“Not officially.” I chuckled. “But I think she has a pretty keen artistic sensibility. I was wondering if we might try it.”

“Penny.” He turned to me. His expression, once blurred by shadow but now etched by the streetlamp, told me I had overstepped a previously unmarked boundary. “I trained for dance my whole life. All around the world, from the best teachers and artists. And you want me to take career advice from candy factory worker?”

“Well, she’s not a ‘worker.’ She runs the place.”

“My mother was the most famous ballerina, and she cannot tell me how to be an artist. Critics cannot tell me how to be an artist. Ideas must come from here.” He put his fingertips low on his chest. “True artists must listen for the voice inside, not for the words of others.”

“I-I’m sorry.” We walked on for a bit before I spoke again. “But you and I were working together—you do believe in collaboration?”

“Among artists, yes. You have an artist inside, too. I see this. Let her grow without your mother or a critic to tell her what to do.”

He offered me the couch, but I couldn’t sleep. My stomach felt uncomfortably full, as if I’d overfed on bad advice. I’d always thought my mother nurtured my artistry. Bebe may have instilled the discipline that kept me on the path, but without my mother, I wouldn’t have had a path. I wouldn’t have known what artistry was, or why it was worth striving for. But maybe Dmitri was on to something. At this new level of professionalism, my mother did not have the experience to serve as my adviser.

When we gathered again to rehearse a few days later, Dmitri conducted a quick business meeting. “I am building onto my new solo,
Puma
, to give roles to other dancers.” He looked to me. “Penny, you describe.”

So he wasn’t angry with me—I was so relieved. And by choosing me to communicate on his behalf, wasn’t he seeking my continued collaboration? Honoring my inner artist? I stood and marked through the material he and I had come up with, allowing the movement to inspire my description of the predator and prey themes it evoked. As the music played along in my head, once again I lost myself in the dance. I snapped back to the present when my body came to rest. I heard Dmitri saying something about hiring an assistant.

In the mirror I saw the stupefied expressions of the other company members behind me. Certain I’d missed something important, I said, “Excuse me?”

Dmitri looked at me and smiled. “You are already so busy you do not hear. I promote you to rehearsal assistant.”

I clutched my hands to my heart and turned to the others. Their faces gave away little. Perhaps they were as stunned as I was. Or maybe they were waiting for me to say something. But I was not accustomed to speechmaking, and although I gave my voice a chance to burble up from within me, no particular inspiration arose. “Thank you,” I said, at last, and gave Dmitri a quick hug. As he pulled away, he kissed me once on each cheek.

I ran into Dmitri’s office, shut the door, and called my mother.

“Rehearsal assistant already? Penny, that’s great.”

I kept my voice low so the dancers on the other side of the door wouldn’t hear. “I’m still trying to work through his reasoning myself. Of course Tina and Karly are much younger. Lars has this big, powerful body and he’s as affable as a big floppy dog, but half the time I think he comes to rehearsals hungover. Mitch, though, is closer to my age. And he’s responsible, as well.” Had Mitch been overlooked because he stood up to Dmitri over wearing his wedding ring onstage? I’d have to watch my step.

“Penny, stop. I know why you got it. Because you deserved it.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Buoyed by my mother’s pride, I dared to think it may have been more than a numbers game that landed me in Dmitri’s company. Maybe the Great Artist had a reason for carving my soul in the shape of a dancer—even if his chisel slipped when shaping my body. “Mitch has a family to support, is all. He could have used the raise.”

“That kind of thinking is why you’ll make a great leader. But wait—do you think you’ll be able to support yourself with your dancing now?”

“Looks like you’re finally off the hook.”

“Oh, Penny, congratulations! And I was never on the hook. Most artists need help somewhere along the way.”

Even my mother was now calling me an artist. “I’ve appreciated your support. I know it’s been a long countdown, but our project succeeded: Penelope Sparrow has finally launched. So let’s talk about you for once. How are things at the candy factory?”

“Don’t you change the subject on me. Now that you’ve won Dmitri’s trust, we should figure out how to leverage it.”

“This promotion wasn’t a prize I won for entering some contest. I didn’t even apply for the job. As you said, I earned it. And you don’t have to plot and plan. I can chart my own course, you know.”

“Of course you can. But we’ve always talked about this kind of stuff together. Hey, did you ever ask Dmitri about switching yours and Tina’s roles around to see what MacArthur writes? I’ve been thinking more about how it would call meaning into question—”