Later
At our meeting spot, Sasha grabbed my elbow and pulled me down the street. We walked for a few blocks without stopping. She showed no interest in any of the stores we passed. At the entrance to an office building, an alcove formed a haven from pedestrian traffic. She halted with her back to the street and opened her pack. “Look what I got!”
A silky dress, marked down to $120, in peacock blue and emerald green. The material slid under my hand and I longed to feel it swirl around my legs. “Gorgeous.”
Sasha smiled and stuffed the dress into her backpack. That's when I noticed there was no store bag. I stiffened. “How did you afford this?”
“Boring question, Nat. You think it's gorgeous?”
“I said so. But ⦠how did you pay for it?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Sasha, answer me.”
She hummed to flaunt the fact that she was ignoring me.
“Did you steal it?”
“How would I steal it? You know the kinds of security systems they have in those places.”
“You just answered my question with a question.”
“You just answered my question with a question,” she mocked.
“Listen, Sasha. I hooked you up with a place to stay in Vancouver. We're Petra's guests and there's no way I want her to be getting a call from the cops to come and bail you out for shoplifting!”
A passerby glanced in at us, startled, and Sasha glared at me. “Keep your voice down!”
She slung the bag over her shoulder and started walking. The Choreofest posters caught my eye in the outer pocket of her pack. She had no right to represent Petra. I hurried to keep up with her. She teetered on the curb at a red light, scanning oncoming traffic for a break, her chin jutted out. Steady traffic kept her from jaywalking. A cop car idled in the left turn lane.
We turned up a side street where the crowds thinned out. “Look, Nat, I'm sick of you playing all high and mighty with me. I know exactly what you've been up to this summer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you?”
“I'm afraid so.”
We passed one sad, skinny tree after another, growing in squares of earth surrounded by pavement. The exhaust fumes made me feel nauseous.
“You've been fucking my brother.”
I reeled as if punched in the gut. She kept walking but I veered to the cement wall of a building that bordered the sidewalk. I leaned my back against it and folded my arms across my chest. She turned around next to one of the skinny trees. We stared at each other. A showdown.
She shifted her weight and adjusted her backpack. Silence pulled taut between us. “Well? Are you going to deny it?”
She might have been bluffing. “What did he tell you?” My voice trembled. It was bad enough having her call me a slut way back in my previous life, when I was a virgin. This was too much to bear.
She strode up to me and stopped, hands on her hips, her dark bangs falling into her eyes. My old friend Sasha. “Remember the night you came over, the night I told you about my mom?”
“Um-hm.”
“After that, I kept trying to call you. You never answered the phone. I needed someone to talk to, but I didn't feel like leaving messages.”
Another blow. I'd forgotten Sasha. She shared her family secrets that night and never heard from me again. Some friend. “Sash, I'm so sorry.”
She held up her hand. “I'm not done.” She bit off her words and her eyes flashed.
“Later that week, I go over to your house. Your mom's car isn't there, so I ring the bell. I'm standing there waiting for you to answer the door, and I'm thinking how nice it'll be for you and me to reconnect. I'm feeling big enough to give you a second chance after you went behind my back to date my brother. I'm remembering how my mom swore at me in front of you that night, and how you didn't freak out. You just walked with me and listened and acted like a friend. I'm thinking nice thoughts about you, like how we've been friends for six years now, how we met in that skipping tournament on the playground, doing Double Dutch. I'm just about to ring the bell again when the door opens. My brother is standing there wearing nothing but a towel! Jesus, Natalie, how could you?”
She backed up a few paces and stared at the ground. I held my face in my hands.
She turned and continued walking. I trailed behind. When she reached a small park with grass, flower beds, and a statue of some explorer, she stopped. She sat down and grasped the bench, wrists flush with her legs. Her body curved forward into a tense cat arch. I joined her.
We sat together for awhile, looking at the rose garden, at the greenish statue of a man on a horse. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I haven't been a good friend to you lately.”
“You know what I don't get?”
“What?” For a second, it seemed that all our conflict stemmed from a simple misunderstanding. If she stated her confusion and I explained, we could shake hands and make up. Best friends forever.
“I don't understand how you can be such a bitch and a slut and still get whatever you want.”
The words cut. They paralyzed me, especially the
s
word. It took something precious, filled it with hate, and bashed it. I had sex before I was ready, yes, and I've never seen Kevin again. That hurts. It hurts a lot. But to be judged and despised for what happened? The pain deepened with every breath.
After a long silence, I called up the image of Sasha crying on the ferry. It softened me enough to make one final effort. “Petra asking me to do this performance was my first lucky break all summer. Ms. Kelly kept ragging on me, remember? It was so bad that I dropped out of jazz. I really wanted to go with Paige to visit my dad, but they wouldn't let me. And my mom took off with herâ” I caught myself just in time. This wasn't the moment to “out” my mother. “âher new
best friend
. They sure didn't want me around.” There were my lonely ice-cream binges. “Andâand lots of other stuff.” Like losing my best friend, like losing my virginity. I swallowed hard.
Sasha sneered. “Never mind. I'll be gone in a couple days and we can forget this ever happened.”
Our heart-to-heart was over. She took a winding route to a distant bus stop and I followed along. I suspected she was going out of her way to avoid the store she had stolen from. A heaviness settled inside my chest, worse than phlegm.
She kept the dress. She knows I won't say anything this time. And if there's a next time, I won't hear about it.
Thursday, August 19th
Petra pushed back our rehearsal time and urged us to take class at the Dance Centre. For the coming week, the guest teacher is Lance, the man Petra introduced me to after the show last month. She calls him her guru.
He stood at the studio entrance and greeted the dancers as we filed in. He stopped me and shook my hand. “Welcome! You'reâ” He half-shut his eyes as he tried to place me.
“Natalie.”
“That's rightâfrom Victoria.” He smiled. “You're in town? Visiting?”
“I'm rehearsing with Petra for Choreofest.”
He raised his thick gray eyebrows, pushing his forehead into deeper wrinkles. “How wonderful! I look forward to seeing you perform again. Have you taken a Graham-based technique class before? No? Then just find a spot in the center so you have people on all sides to watch.”
At least twenty professional dancers surrounded me, a decent portion of them men. My neighbor to the left was six-feet tall and wore a wrestling singlet. Islanded in the middle, I followed as best I could. Class began on the floor, with contractions, releases, lifts, and leans. A live drummer made rhythm ricochet off the walls. We stood up for
tendues
and leg swings. The exercises progressed to combinations full of jumps that traveled diagonally, clear across the space. Lance encouraged and praised us all through the class. “Take the back with you. That's it. Open the chest around the heart. Beautiful!” His voice filled a hole inside.
After class, Lance said, “Congratulations, Natalie. You did very well your first time. How did you like it?”
“I feel like my spine's been through a wringer, but I loved it! There's so much more feeling in this kind of dance.”
He placed his hand on his chest. “That's my goal: to teach you to dance from your emotional center. I want to make you feel safe enough to express what's in your hearts. With passion and accuracy.” No teacher I'd ever met talked this way; even Petra wasn't quite so â¦
spiritual
.
I took a chance and said, “I feel really intimidated dancing with older people. I'm worried that Petra is disappointed in me. I think she must regret hiring me. I don't measure up.”
Lance took a breath. “It was very brave of you to take on the challenge of performing professionally at such a young age.”
Sure, if by “brave” he meant “foolhardy.”
“You've had excellent training and your technique is strong. What it comes down to now is quality. Yes, it's going to take years to develop your full potential in modern.” He spread his hands as if the future stretched between them.
“I knew it,” I said. “But I don't have years, I have
days.”
“I'm not finished.” He clapped his hand on my shoulder.
I pursed my lips and scuffed my foot on the floor.
“All you need to do is open your heart,” he said. “Let everything you're feeling spill into the dance. Even the doubts and fears. If you try to shut down your emotions, you'll look dry and academic.” He swung his arms stiffly, like a soldier. “But if you welcome them in, you'll be convincing.” He rolled his spine from side to side, contracted his stomach like he'd been punched, ran backwards, then turned and flung himself into a leap, legs and arms spread wide. He landed in a kneeling position and rolled back up to standing. He faced me. “You see?” He asked. “Make sense?”
I nodded. “I think so. I'll try my best.”
He frowned. I was confused until I realized that he was mirroring my worried expression. It made me laugh. “That's better,” he said.
He seems so wise and kind. I wonder if I could adopt him as my grandfather. I hardly remember Mom's dadâI was only four when he diedâand my Ontario grandparents haven't flown out since the divorce.
Evening
Sasha didn't show at our meeting spot this afternoon. She'd gone “postering” again. I waited for fifteen minutes, then started strolling. After a few cool, overcast days, the return of hot weather had people parading by in sundresses, tank tops, shorts, and sandals. Bright colors and flowered patterns made a human garden that contrasted with the mannequins, already draped in darker autumn clothes.
A commotion across the street caught my eye.
Against a backdrop of giant facesâposters in a window displayâa girl was running. The models pouted as she dodged and weaved, her long, dark hair and a pair of jeans streaming behind her. Sasha. In the doorway of the store, a clerk in a white T-shirt was jumping to see over the heads of the crowd. She called to another clerk who punched numbers into a phone. Sasha disappeared around the corner.
An elderly man with a canvas shopping bag in the crook of his elbow shuffled towards me. I veered to the right and a skateboarder loomed in front of me. He had a piercing in the middle of his lower lip, and round black discs stretched holes in his earlobes. He scowled as he rolled past.
I kept trying to dart through the crowd before I lost track of Sasha altogether. Finally, I rounded a corner.
“Why'd you sell my bedframe for drugs?”
I jerked to a standstill. Was someone yelling at me? A busker swung his guitar to face me. Shaggy blond curls fell over his forehead, and his eyes looked kind of sad. It was a line in a song he was singing, mostly on one note.
A passing business man bumped the neck of the guitar. “Don't block the sidewalk.” As he strode by, he muttered, “Scum.”
The busker kept right on playing. His strumming was fast and precise, like bluegrass music. He delivered the next line to the suit's back, raising the volume on the last word. “
Why'd you sell my bedframe for drugsâMOTHERFUCKER?”
He looked down at the frets. His hands spanned the strings and his fingers quivered with strength. A guitar case lay open at his feet and a few golden coins dotted the black lining. I shoved my hand into my pocket as I glanced up the street. I'd lost Sasha's trail, anyway, so I took time to fish out a coin. Busking didn't look easy. When I dropped in some change, the musician nodded and flashed me a smile.
“Friends don't do that kind of stuff. Why'd you sell my bedframe for drugs?”
I turned back the way I'd come. I didn't know what to do about Sasha. (
“Why'd you pawn off my videos?”
the singer asked.) If I tried to talk to the store clerks, they might think I was an accomplice. They would definitely want me to help them catch her. I didn't want to cover for her, but I didn't want to turn her in. So I did nothing.