“Late Girl” by Jessie Ren Marshall was selected by Joyland as a finalist in the 2021 Open Border Fiction Prize.
◆
Roman used to say that the body never lies. He probably still says this, but not to me. His audience is young girls from seven to thirteen. As you approach puberty, you approach the limits of his attention and kindness.
Like most dance teachers Roman rarely relied on praise, and when our bodies ballooned and softened, his compliments dwindled to nothing. I began to suspect he hated me. Not me, exactly, but the parts of me that were loose and untrained. My bent knees. My lazy feet. Most untrainable of all were the parts that were new: my butt, breasts, and thighs.
Each of us felt the betrayal. Beneath the comforting din of banged point shoes and tough soles scraped into submission, the dressing room girls exchanged whispers about the way our teacher had begun to look at us in class. Like we weren’t silly little fools anymore, but fully-grown idiots. We had disappointed Roman by sprouting flower bulbs of breasts and half-moon asses, fleshy protrusions in our Lycra that filled us with pride at the bus stop and in gym class but which at the studio meant we were done for.
One evening we were doing pique turns across the floor in pairs. Piques are simple to execute, but hard to perfect. Roman clapped his hands and pointed at me. Again. I trotted back to the corner and joined the next group. When I began, Roman wore his usual expression of stern alertness. His eyes sparked with cold fire and his pale mouth made a straight line. By the time I reached the other side of the room, he’d pulled his lips back into a grimace. Roman clapped his hands and pointed at the corner. Again.
Me?
Who else? You. Again.
I hesitated, then tripped getting back to the starting point. There was no one left in the corner to join me. I stretched out my arms and settled my hands into place, trying to ignore the flaming tower of displeasure—Roman—lurking in my peripheral vision.
Soft, he barked.
I brightened my face as if I were looking at thing of great beauty. A garden in France. A blue-moon snowfall.
Stop. My teacher approached me. You see, girls? Ugly.
He used a pointed foot to outline the negative space made by my parted legs. The pianist stopped playing.
Too much tension here, not enough here, and where are her shoulders?
AT HER EARS, droned the girls.
I cannot find her neck, Roman said. Where is it? For the girls’ entertainment he imitated me, folding his chin and throat like an accordion. A few of the girls giggled nervously. Roman swung around behind me, pointed at my butt, and said, Tuck this in. This is disgusting.
In my early days at the studio, I loved going to class. I loved wearing slippers and spinning in circles. It felt good to be told what to do, and then to do it again and again.
By my third turn I was very close to crying, but I knew Roman would be disappointed if I cried, so I trembled instead. It must have looked strange, this jumbled suppression of fear. But I fought it. Widened my stance and elongated my neck. Tried to smile the way a Japanese Geisha might smile, full of secrets. I told myself I loved ballet. But I could not hide the truth that escaped from my shaking body.
Tense here, Roman said, flicking a stiff wrist so the back of his fingers snapped like a ruler between my scapula. No. Tension here. Always here. He flicked at my stomach, which retracted in response. Get that big tummy out of here!
The girls giggled in their corner. For the next few days I’d walk past the dressing room and hear the echo of Roman’s words. Big tummy, get it out of here!
Roman stepped back and waggled his finger at his audience. You laugh at her. But remember! Ugly before you dance, ugly when you dance.
Roman spouted this dictum whenever we brought gossip or bad attitudes into the studio. He thought ugly behavior would poison our prettiness when we danced. But now I think he meant we ought to be pretty everywhere, at every moment. Try to imagine a prima ballerina picking her nose or wolfing down a foot-long sub; it just isn’t possible. Every human thing a dancer does, every flaw she reveals, ruins her.
As I stood waiting for his direction I became hotly aware of my thighs. For several months I’d felt they were greater—more—than the other girls’ thighs. I’d asked my mother to buy me new tights, but she hadn’t, and now the old ones stretched so thin the pink fabric looked white. But it wasn’t until that moment, trembling under Roman’s pointed finger, that I wondered if the thickness meant I was fat.
Without warning Roman clapped his hands and released me. I ran to the other side and dove behind the other girls’ bodies. Immediately I felt better, locked into the sameness of the group. A few tentative hands reached out to pat my arms and my back but I pulled away. We were not silly little girls anymore and they were not my friends. Roman had made them my competitors. My enemies.
A few months later Roman told my mother there was no reason for me to continue. I lacked the ballet body. No matter how much I tried, I would never become one of the photographs on Roman’s office wall. The wall was a map of the stars, former students who had gone to famous schools and then scattered across the ballet universe. Through their combined light, they made a constellation that looked like Roman. His picture was at the center of the wall. His beauty then, captured perhaps forty years ago, was astounding.
My mother asked him what other kinds of dance I might do. Tap, jazz, that sort of thing. In the silence that followed this question I realized how stupid my mother was. Not stupid, exactly, but uneducated. A barbarian in the house of angels.
Roman patiently explained that he had ruined me for all other forms of dance. Nothing else would be ballet. He had taught this to my body and my body would never forget it. This was Roman’s gift to me, and also his curse.
After he walked us to the door, my teacher floated one hand beneath my right breast and turned his palm upward while staring coldly at my mother. He was presenting me to her, as if she did not know me at all.
Look at this, he said. The body never lies.
◆
This is what happened, or what people tell me: during the second week of sophomore year at college, on a Saturday night heavy with parties, I stepped into the street and was almost hit by a car. The car was driven by my boyfriend Jason.
According to my suitemates Lauren and Mel, I drank too much at the French House kegger and, as a joke, dashed out into the street. Jason, who was the designated driver for his fraternity that night, approached my body but didn’t overtake it. He swerved and hit a tree. The car bent inwards like a dented sardine can. Even though I was unharmed, I leapt backwards. If I’d been sober I would have landed on my feet. Instead I landed on my back and hit my head on the curb.
The car was totaled, but the boys inside it were fine. Even the tree was fine, though it now carries a horizontal scar across its trunk. I wound up with memory loss. It turns out that modern medicine is pretty clueless when it comes to brain damage. My doctors’ opinion was that I would probably be fine, but maybe not. We would wait and see.
The university people weren’t willing to wait. They came to my hospital room, the deans and officers, the officers and deans. Although my skin was unbroken and my sentences were coherent, my damaged brain made these meetings unproductive. I couldn’t remember the accident. I couldn’t remember the two weeks prior to the accident, either. It was as if this one pebble of time had been knocked out of the jar of my brain. I didn’t remember packing my bags or saying goodbye to my mom at the end of the summer. When I tried to remember, I encountered the visual equivalent to silence.
Eventually the university let me take the blame without making me take any punishment. The school newspaper ran an article criticizing Greek life. I believe some sort of investigative committee was formed, but there were no lawsuits, no loss of freedom. The leaves in the quad began to change from green to red and I was released from the hospital.
Jason had visited my bedside every day, and every day he cried. He said the accident was his fault even though everyone knew it was my fault. I repeated what Lauren and Mel told me: Jason had been sober. Jason had been going only twenty-five miles an hour. Jason had saved me by hitting that tree.
After the fifth consecutive day of watching his performance of sorrow I began to wonder how our relationship had lasted so long. We got together in April and he stayed with me and my mom for five weeks during the summer. I remembered that just fine. We had sex twice a day and worked at a tomato farm. We ate a lot of ice cream. But after the accident it was as if an invisible window hung in the air between us. Jason’s feelings had to pass through the window to reach me, and along the way they refracted into repulsion. I did not want him. The idea of wanting him made my skin crawl. Perhaps the accident had severed some connecting nerve that ran between my desire and my brain.
I did not love Jason anymore, but I understood the fact of him. He had saved my life after I’d put his in danger. Dating him was easier than breaking up.
◆
The doctors signed my release forms on a Friday, and instead of calling Jason to tell him the good news, I walked back to campus alone. It felt strange to be in charge of my body again. No tubes, no walls. Just asphalt and grass and sidewalks. Streetlights that I could choose to obey or ignore, stores that I could enter or pass by.
When I got to Curie House, which was a dorm reserved for female students in the sciences, I sat in the lobby for a long time. I did not know which room belonged to me. Lauren and Mel had visited me in the hospital and said we’d been assigned “a killer suite,” but that was all I knew.
I first met Lauren at the start of freshman year. She drank vodka crans, owned two horses, and suffered from chronic enthusiasm. She’d been eyeing Jason at first, but after he asked me out she transformed into our biggest cheerleader. Mel was more of a mystery: a curvy, bookish Bio major whom Lauren and I met last year at the housing lottery when the three of us grouped up for a chance at one of the large and luxurious suites. Lauren told me that in the first two weeks of fall semester the three of us had become besties.
The dorm lobby remained empty. It was a warm fall day. I assumed everyone was outside, playing Ultimate Frisbee or something equally collegiate. Since I had nothing better to do I walked across campus to my counselor’s office. She was a friendly, bushy-haired woman who launched her sizeable body—three tiers of roundness, piled on top of each other like a snowman—over to a shelf to retrieve some paperbacks about surviving trauma. I refused to take the books and said I didn’t intend to take a leave of absence, either. I felt fine. My counselor frowned, her emotional state etching a perfect bell curve above her chin. She thought a leave of absence would be better. Due to “the darned system” it was too late to change my course schedule. If I dropped a class now it would appear on my transcript as an incomplete, and during a future job interview someone might ask about the incomplete, and I might feel pressured to reveal that I’d gotten drunk and endangered the lives of others. This wouldn’t reflect well on my character, she said.
I assured my counselor that I wouldn’t get any incompletes. Professors at this school handed out B-plusses as if they grew on trees, and besides, I had a note from my doctors explaining that I shouldn’t read for six weeks. Even if I didn’t keep up with the coursework, I doubted anyone would flunk a girl who had brain damage.
◆
On Monday I went to three classes, including Modern III, the most advanced dance class a person could take without an audition. For students with more than two years of training, the course description said. I had six years with Roman but zero experience in Contemporary, and I felt apprehensive when I added the course to my schedule. But it was already late September. I’d gone to six classes before the accident, and they’d left no trace on my body. My muscles weren’t sore and I had no aches other than the tender spot where my head hit the pavement. Presumably I could handle it. My counselor had fretted about the medical risks of attending a dance class so soon after a head trauma, but I assured her that I could do research projects or make dance-themed collages instead of jumping around. Although I had no intention of doing either of these things, the idea mollified her. As for my doctors, they certainly would have forbidden me to take the class if I’d told them about it, so I didn’t.
The Theater and Dance Department was in a building called Howards Hall and my class was in Rehearsal Room B on the top floor. I ran upstairs and leapt inside just as a girl was closing the door. She was small, barely five feet, with shaved sides of her head and longer blonde locks on top. She twisted her torso to frown at me.
You’re late.
I looked around at the stretching bodies. Twenty-four humans in all sorts of positions. Some on their backs like flailing beetles. Some folded over like sheets of paper.
The teacher isn’t even here, I said to the girl. She narrowed her eyes and drew back her shoulders.
EVERYBODY IN LINES. GO, GO, GO.
The girl clapped her hands and then crossed the floor and faced us. Behind her a long row of mirrors reflected the windows that looked down onto the quad. It was late afternoon. The sun bounced off the rightmost mirror and blinded me with gold. I took a spot in the back row.
I whispered to the boy beside me, That T.A. sucks.
He shook his head. I was relieved to see that, like me, he was wearing loose shorts instead of leggings or tights. Amy’s our teacher, he whispered back.
ALEXANDER, the girl yelled from the front.
Yes?
STOP TALKING.
Sorry, Amy.
AND WEAR TIGHTER CLOTHES NEXT TIME. I NEED TO SEE YOUR BODY.
The warm-up was grueling. After we completed a merciless round of push-up/butt-spin hybrids called Kill Me Nows, Amy released us to get water. We ran to the walls.
I recognized a girl from the chemistry lab beside me.
I thought this was contemporary dance, I said. When do we get to dance?
She rolled her eyes before lowering her bottle.
I know, right? It’s been like this for a week.
Like what?
Amy’s classes get harder when she’s in a crappy mood. Last March she didn’t get a grant she wanted, and she totally made us pay for it. The girl took another glug and shrugged as she swallowed. To be fair, my butt looked amazing by May.
During the next part of class we went through a combination. Everyone knew it but me, so I stood behind the others and watched.
Hooey! Late Girl!
Chelsea, I shouted back. My name is Chelsea.
Your name is Goodbye unless you run the routine.
I don’t know it.
Yes, you do. Amy clapped her hands and said to the class, Again! I stepped into the back line. My teacher called out, Late Girl, I’m watching you.
We danced without music, using the sound of Amy’s instructions to keep time. The combination began with a loping run, then a double pirouette and a slide onto the floor, hip first. Then up on our knees, then squatting like monsters, backs arched, tongues out. Contract, release, contract. None of the moves seemed to have names. As we danced, Amy chanted:
Right-left-RIGHT, left-right-LEFT!
Ba-da-da DADA-dum. Yes! Better.
Kylie, catch up!
Wha-ta-RA, wha-ta-RA.
Goopy…goopier, Alex!
When the combination ended, we did it again and again. I expected her to release us to get water, but instead Amy frowned and stretched, holding her hands behind her lower back.
Reform your lines.
Amy walked between our bodies. We heaved with breath and dripped with sweat.
Good form, Lucy. Zane, work on your core, that will help with your turns.
When Amy got to me I did not look at her. Like a cadet, I looked straight ahead.
You knew the routine.
Yes, but.
But?
I didn’t know I knew it.
You didn’t trust your body. It remembered everything.
To this, I didn’t respond.
You’re not winded, she said. Is this routine too easy for you, Late Girl?
I enjoyed a small smirk before shaking my head.
The change occurred before my brain understood it. My knees bent and I was looking at the ceiling. Amy had pushed me backwards and then caught me in the next moment. I was in her arms, my weight far from center. Helpless.
Ha, Amy said, but it was more an exhalation than a sentiment. Her hand supported my neck and her thigh supported my hips. My body imitated hers, following her breath in and out. Guided by her hands, I flew up to standing, then turned and dropped to the floor. When Amy snaked the back of her hand against my spine and tilted her head onto my shoulder, I did the same to her. We were woven together. My ponytail fell onto her neck. I was taller than her, but she was stronger and accustomed to being the smaller partner. Using her butt to scoop under my butt, she lifted me in the air and walked slowly in a circle.
Shh, ha! She set me down with a bounce. I pulled away, but Amy had anticipated this. She grasped my wrist and pulled the opposite way so we were each suspended on one foot, our new center of gravity a shared and invisible point between us.
We held this position until the moment was over. Or rather, I held it until Amy told me it was over by sending waves of energy through her hand. I put my foot down, and so did she. The class began clapping.
Amy didn’t look at me afterwards. She clapped her hands twice. Get in groups.
During the final twenty minutes of class we met in small groups to create original choreography. I joined Alex, the boxing shorts boy, and two girls. They said our midterm exam would be an original routine that we would perform together. When I asked what the choreography looked like, the girls got up and executed a jazzy combo that wouldn’t have been out of place at a basketball halftime show. With a stoic expression, Alex stood behind them and leaned forward onto the balls of his feet. Slowly, he lifted his left hand.
Tragic, said one of the girls when they were done. We didn’t tell him to do that.
You should come up with something, said the other girl. Like that thing you did with Amy.
I stood and tried to use Alex as my partner, but when I took his hand it felt like a dead fish. I pulled at his elbow and set his arm in the space between us. I tried butting my leg up against his. But Alex’s body remained locked to me. I couldn’t find a way in.
Time, Amy called out. She squatted in front of the room’s sound system and switched off the speakers. See y’all Wednesday.
Before she could leave, I jogged over. Time to get that B+.
I don’t think you know, I began, but I was in an accident and it damaged my brain.
Amy was squatting in front of the speakers and fiddling with the dials. That’s funny, she said. How do you know it was an accident if you damaged your brain?
She flicked her hair back and looked up at me with unmistakable dislike. Amy had round eyes that were probably gray, but they looked colorless in the afternoon sun.
Of course it was an accident, I said. I didn’t jump in front of a car on purpose.
But that was exactly what I’d done, according to Lauren and Mel.
I heard about it, Amy said. You could have hurt people.
I did hurt people, I said.
Amy stared at me evenly.
I hurt myself.
My teacher stood and hefted a heavy bag onto her shoulder. She asked, You really don’t remember?
I shook my head.
But you knew the routine.
That was just muscle memory, or whatever.
Amy seemed unhappy with this answer at first, but then she nodded.
Brain damage. Got it.
Anyway, I continued, I hope my absence last week won’t affect my grade.
My teacher glared at me.
You’ll get what you deserve, she said, and walked past me toward the door.
◆
I kept picturing Amy’s face, which was all curves. The shape of it was a circle, and her cheeks were two raised circles, and her lips made a small, puffed-out cupid’s bow. My face was all edges. I had a pointed fairy nose like my mom’s, a sharp chin, diagonal cheekbones, and a right-angled jaw. Usually when I saw an attractive woman who didn’t resemble me, I felt ugly in comparison. Their beauty negated mine. But when I ruminated on Amy’s looks my own features increased in value. I had this face, this body, these thighs and cheeks and hands. And the more I thought about them next to Amy’s, the more I adored this face, this body, these thighs and cheeks and hands. I remembered the way we’d moved together during class and I imagined what that must have looked like.
By the end of my seminar on Middle Eastern Politics I felt so undeniably beautiful that instead of talking to the professor after class I hurried to the bathroom where I masturbated in one of the stalls. Not about Amy, I told myself, but about me.
On Tuesday my body felt fine, but by Wednesday it was so stiff I could barely walk. Most of the soreness had come from Monday’s hideous warm-up, but I knew some of it was from the extracurricular exercises I’d been doing under the covers. On my way to my second class at Howards Hall I texted Jason to invite him to Curie House for spaghetti and something I called physical therapy. He called me back immediately, sounding excited and a little choked up.
As soon as I walked into Rehearsal Room B Amy buzzed over to me, notebook in hand.
It’s Late Girl.
Not today, I answered blithely. All that orgasming had made me feel as distant as a saint.
You seem good, Amy observed. Something different?
I shrugged. I’m feeling better.
She puckered her lips in disapproval and said, You’re lucky to be alive.
I know, I started to say, but she interrupted me.
If you’re all better, take the front line.
I did as she suggested, walking forward and standing between two girls who exchanged a tense glance before making room for me. Being in the front line terrified me, but I also felt alive in a way that hadn’t happened since Roman. I was older now. Tougher. I wanted to dance so well, my teacher would have to notice me.
We learned new phrases of the routine that day. Sliver sliver POP! Back turn splash, hit-down-kick. In between runs I studied the mechanics of my teacher’s body. Her center of gravity was generally low, caught between her hips, but for certain moves—turns, jumps, inversions—she let it rise up into her solar plexus. In motion, Amy was beautiful. She knew her instrument so well, so intimately understood its virtues and limitations, that she could extend it beyond the borders of her cells, shoot energy into the ether. She could, with a turn of her head, change the temperature of the room or make you see something that wasn’t there. Out of nothing she conjured people, walls, obstacles, gravity. I wanted to put my body near hers again so it could be transformed.
Yes, she said as we ran through the combination. The word was a secret she didn’t want to reveal, but the goodness of my body drew it out of her. Yes, Late Girl. Yes.
After that day I took the center spot in the front line as if it were mine. I had never been so bold in ballet. As a child, I was so afraid of failing that I didn’t understand how terror could make me a better dancer. But there in front of Amy, terror met desire, and my body excelled.
◆
For several weeks Jason reaped the benefits of my return to dance. By this I mean we fucked. A lot. I loved sex because it gave me another way to use my excellent, living body, which had matured into a lean and pliable weapon. Jason’s body, while nice, was immaterial to my body’s pleasure. During lovemaking I grabbed my own ass, cupped my breasts together, and bent backwards until my tummy became a bridge. All my girly softness transfigured from hollow pools and velvet mounds into thick, protruding shields.
Yet I could not squeeze another compliment out of Amy. To be fair, she did not like any of our bodies. She sometimes walked through the room and messed with them. Once she shoved me so hard that my hands stung when they smacked the wooden floor.
You’re not balanced, Amy observed, and moved on to her next victim.
With Roman, I had wanted to be a dancer because I could not imagine being anything else. Now I could imagine being anything, but I wanted to be a dancer. I stopped doing homework for my other professors. My grades dropped to Cs, which really should have been F’s. On the days we didn’t have class, I practiced Amy’s routine so much I dreamt about it, and Jason complained of getting kicked in the shins at night.
Right before our midterm exam my choreography group fell apart. The only thing Alex and the girls agreed about was their “irreconcilable aesthetic differences,” so we decided to do solos based on the theme of secrets. At the end, we’d perform the solos together and hope we didn’t run into each other.
The day of the exam I woke up feeling ill. I hadn’t choreographed anything because every move I tried felt both pathetic and pretentious. When it was our turn to perform Alex put on the music he’d chosen, a watery piece called Music for Airports, and did his slow-hand thing. Then a hip-hop song came on and the girls did a series of pep-squad kicks and spins. Then it was my turn. Because I hadn’t chosen any music you could hear my feet padding on the floor as I ran onstage. The class sat in a semi-circle with Amy at its center. I waited for my body to find a use for my terror, to distill my adrenaline into creativity. But nothing came. Jerkily, I performed a snippet of Petipa’s Sleeping Beauty that Roman taught me years ago. Passé relevé, passé relevé, pas de bourré couru. To mix things up, I stopped and performed a torso contraction a la Martha Graham. A move that Amy said I never got right. When I finished, the others repeated their routines in their own bubbles of space. I re-enacted my stolen phrases and stared at Amy, whose face remained a mask.
After my group sat down and endured a pretentious critique by our peers, Amy dismissed us. I ran over to her but said nothing. I waited for her to tell me the truth.
What? she asked.
I’m sorry.
For what?
That wasn’t my choreography.
She met my gaze, but only for a moment. Then said, Duh.
I shifted my weight and stretched one leg out, flexing and pointing my toes. This was something I’d done a lot in middle school, if I had to wait in line or felt confined.
It’s not a big deal, Amy said. She began to move past me. I’ll just give you a zero.
NO. My pointed toe caught her between the legs. I’d only been trying to stop her from leaving, but there it was. My foot, nestled against her crotch.
Amy could have brushed the foot away, but instead she stopped and looked at it.
I want an “A.” Without telling them to do it, my toes began kneading the fabric of Amy’s yoga pants. Or at least a B plus.
It was a charged moment, thick with possible outcomes.
You’re a punk, she said quietly. Without emotion she reached down and held the offending foot in her hand. In the next moment she bent her face over it, inspecting the foot as if it were not a part of me but a creature with its own language and desires. Amy gave it a gentle shove and it returned to the ground beneath my legs.
What will you do? she asked.
I blinked at her.
If I let you re-take the exam. What can I expect?
Not ballet, I assured her. I’ll make something new.
Good. Dancers should always take risks. Amy lifted her brow so imperceptibly that after she left the room I wondered if I’d imagined it.
◆
That weekend Jason surprised me with tickets to see a modern dance troupe perform in the city. I wore a daring top with an open neckline that descended almost to my navel. The shirt made Jason uncomfortable. He did not want people looking at my body as if it were an object.
But my body is an object, I told him. When I dance, it’s planes and angles. Negative space and spheres. That’s all the V of flesh was. A shape and a color. Without the interpretation of other people’s eyes, my body could mean anything.
I enjoyed the first half of the show but Jason did not. He wriggled in his seat like a toddler and unwrapped multiple packets of gum. I had to tell him to put away his phone. At intermission we filed into the lobby with the rest of the audience. It was a beautiful old theater, with velvet drapes and crystal chandeliers above a wide staircase.
We found a place to stand in front of a poster. In thick red letters, the word “AWESOME” stretched beneath the dancers’ feet.
“You guys!” called a familiar voice. Lauren, my enthusiastic suitemate, was coming over.
“What a coincidence!” Jason said, also with enthusiasm. Jason and Lauren nodded at each other and chirped, “coincidence, coincidence.”
I understood it wasn’t a coincidence. Jason understood it, too. Lauren was in love with him. He seemed embarrassed by this fact, but also pleased.
Lauren had recently turned twenty-one, so she went with Jason to get us drinks at the bar. A moment later I felt a tap on my shoulder.
Nice shirt, Amy smirked.
Nice hair, I said. In class she’d been wearing it under a bandana, but now it was lifted and hardened with some sort of product.
What do you think?
Of the dancers? Good.
Amy made a face and I laughed.
I know them, she said, spanking her program across her forearm. I danced with them for years. They’re a bunch of assholes.
A regal woman in the bathroom line was watching us. She looked at her watch, which had a diamond band that matched the chandeliers, then abandoned her spot and came over.
Amy, she said, kissing both of her cheeks. I thought you’d gone to Europe.
No, I’m still teaching. This is one of my students.
The woman looked at me appraisingly. Her gaze landed on the exposed flesh on my chest and she looked at Amy with an expression I couldn’t read. A mix of admiration and disapproval, maybe. A warning and a wink. My heart beat faster in response.
Amy, haven’t you taught her anything? This girl is a ballerina. Look at that turnout.
We all looked down at my feet. The toes faced away from each other and my hips were open and ready.
Like a little duck, the woman added.
At that moment, Jason returned with the drinks.
Lauren had to pee, he said too loudly.
This is my boyfriend, I said to no one in particular. I took a plastic cup and held it in front of my chest.
This is Regina Weil, Amy said of the older woman. She was a colleague of mine in New York.
I’d heard of The Regina Weil Company. It was known for putting dancers in unusual spaces. “Bodies in Peril,” one article called it. Men taped to subway walls, women swinging from ropes beneath a Manhattan pier.
Congratulations on the MacArthur, Amy said. You deserve it.
MacArthur! Jason repeated. Isn’t that the genius grant?
Yes, Amy said.
Regina lifted her chin and looked away. She hummed, as if talking about her own genius bored her. Yes, well. Hm.
You’d better go to the bathroom now, I said to her. The words sounded ruder than I felt. Inside, my emotions were a dark and windless cave.
Jason looked at me. I felt concern coming off him in waves.
Yes, well. Nice to meet you, Regina said to me. And then, to Amy: I’m sure she’s a lovely dancer.
She is, Amy said, and the cave inside me filled with blazing light.
When Regina was gone Jason extended his hand to Amy.
You must be Chelsea’s teacher.
Guilty. And what do you think of the show?
So great, he said. We can’t get enough of it.
Actually. I looked down into my drink. A carpet of bubbles clung to the bottom. As I watched, a few bubbles released themselves up to the surface where they self-immolated and became air. I’m not feeling well, I said to my cup.
Oh no, Babe. That’s terrible.
Do you need a ride home? Amy asked.
Jason opened his mouth.
Yes, I said too loudly. Yes, Amy. Yes.
Babe, Jason protested. I can take you home.
Don’t be silly, Amy said. You’re enjoying the show.
You can watch it with Lauren, I told him. We’ll all meet up at your place.
When I kissed him on the mouth I felt Amy watching and a subtle heat bloomed between my legs.
◆
In the car we barely spoke. I didn’t ask questions because I didn’t want to say something stupid and break whatever spell had put me there, alone in a car next to Amy.
I hadn’t told her where I lived, or where Jason lived if we were still pretending I was going there. I hoped we would go to her place, that I would get to enter her house and sit on her furniture and smell her rooms and detergent, but Amy parked the car in an empty lot on campus. She jingled a ring of keys.
Time to get that B plus.
It was a cold, damp night. As we walked to the building the campus lights drained the color from our faces and turned the soggy leaves on the asphalt into streaks of orange paint. I followed Amy across the lawn to a side entrance of Howards Hall, through a door I hadn’t known existed. A metal staircase led us up to Rehearsal Room B.
The studio was locked but Amy had the key. She crossed to the collection of supplies that were piled by the mirrors. My hand groped for the light switch, but Amy told me to stop.
I have something better, she said and turned on a flashlight. She tried to shine its beam on me but I was too far away.
Come, she instructed, and I did. Because the light was in my eyes I couldn’t see her face. That’s enough. The beam sat on my chest. Amy moved it south, over my tummy and thighs.
Turn around, Amy said, and I turned. Shadows stretched and contracted on the wooden floor as Amy moved closer.
She stood behind me. Go on, she said. Take a risk.
I closed my eyes and asked my body to remember what the rest of me couldn’t. Slowly, I began to move. At first the re-enactment felt careful and mimed. My performance was just that: a performance. But then I stuck out one foot, flexing and pointing its toes, and I realized this movement was true. I had done this.
The body never lies, Roman had said. But I don’t think this is true. The body lies, but it doesn’t lie well. If someone is watching it closely, the body will give you away.
I went through the motions until they felt right. I had been drinking. Draining solo cups and throwing back shots.
For Amy, my body did this.
People said I’d been dancing on the sofa at French House, twerking and grinding with Lauren and Mel. Trying to make the frat guys notice.
For Amy, my body did this.
They said I’d gone outside and taken out my phone. So drunk I could barely read my texts. I shouted out to Lauren, asking where Jason was. He was in the car. That car over there. Lauren pointed at it and I laughed and ran out into the street. I put my arms out so my whole body became an X and the headlights turned me white from head to toe.
For Amy, my body did this.
I opened my eyes. Knowing that for Amy, my body had done this.
My purse sat a few feet away on the floor of the studio. I picked it up and took out my phone and went through my old texts, scrolling down until I saw an unfamiliar number. I hadn’t looked at my phone after the accident. I hadn’t wanted to know.
The number said:
Fuck you
I can still taste you
What would your little boyfriend think
God your cunt
Sorry
Listen
If I was weird in class
I’ve been thinking
Not a good idea
We can’t
Don’t call me
Delete this.
Chelsea, Amy said, and the sound made me shiver.
Hey, I said. What happened to Late Girl?
I moved to the light. To Amy. And then my body did the most honest thing a body could do. It gave her this mouth, this tummy, these thighs and cheeks and hands. Wanting, as always, to please its teacher.