The Art of Falling (9 page)

Angela lived in a row home on an ancient cobblestone street. Hers had been divided into a first and second floor apartment. When we stepped inside her building, the woman on the first floor stuck her head into the hall to greet us.

“Hello, Mrs. Pope,” said Angela. “Penelope Sparrow, meet my landlady.”

Mrs. Pope was a squat woman with no neck, like a jack-in-the-box lowered into its container. A
Sentinel
lay on her doormat, rolled and rubber-banded. I waited for a look of recognition—MacArthur had, after all, splashed my name and picture across the front page of this woman’s newspaper—but the woman flashed a wide smile that was at once comical and endearing.

“Listen, Angela, I’ll be at my son’s for a week, starting on Tuesday. Could you stop in and feed Shakespeare?”

“Cat-sitting?” I said, after they’d made their arrangements.

“Shakespeare is a parrot. She taught him to say, ‘To be or not to be.’ And then—”

“Let me guess. ‘A rose by any other name’?”

“No—”

“‘To thine own self be true’?”

“Believe me, you won’t be able to guess. His other phrase is, ‘Spread ’em, baby.’”

I laughed. “Former owner?”

She flashed a pixie smile. “Something like that. We’re heading up this way.”

We stood on a landing at the top of the stairs while Angela unlocked her door. She entered; I remained in the doorway to take it all in. Wrapped around two walls of the apartment, a mural in an earthy palette suggested a dune-filled desert. The effect added expanse to the efficiency, whose interior had been transformed into an oasis of self-expression. Amber track lighting illuminated two platform beds installed at different heights against the wall and accessed by a set of shared stairs. The first bed, about waist high, was along the left wall and had built-in dresser drawers beneath it. The other was a few feet higher and angled across the corner, creating a spiral effect toward the high ceiling. Within the cubby beneath it Angela had nestled a desk.

“Eight more steps and you’re done with the tour—the kitchen and bathroom are back here,” she said, pointing around the corner of the back wall.

“This is amazing. It’s so—you.”

Practicality and whimsy lived here in happy relationship. A rug of woven pine and turquoise fabric warmed the center of the room like a heated pool. Gauzy curtains framed a shelving unit to my right. A stereo and miniature television broke up its rows of colorful books. Large velvety pillows in greens and blues, with tassels evocative of an Arabian harem, were piled on the floor near a low glass table, filling in for pricier and less fanciful furniture. I felt giddy, as if experiencing a world more fertile than any I’d ever known.

“You can see how difficult it is to find the right roommate. Shared bedroom, constant coughing, quirky décor…” With a butane lighter from the bookshelf, she lit several votives floating in a bowl on the table. The room filled with the scent of eucalyptus. “I hope you don’t mind. It helps clear my sinuses.”

Angela disappeared around the corner while I explored an oddity in the front corner: freestanding pipes that would otherwise be an eyesore were painted like bark in striations of brown and gray. Thick copper wire wound up the pipes, then separated overhead into corkscrew branches, from which dangled feathers and a variety of other ornaments—including the piece of cardboard I had signed in the hospital. She had threaded a length of yarn through a hole in order to hang it. Grease stains surrounded my signature.

“My Tree of Life,” she said, stepping back into the room.

“Where did you get these feathers?”

“The yellow came from Shakespeare’s cage. I found the grays around the city. They’re probably all from pigeons.”

My breath set the feathers in motion, revealing an unexpected shimmer of purples and greens. I touched a white baby shoe, not much longer than my thumb. “Was this yours?”

She shook her head. “My sister’s. She died young to CF. My mom has its mate.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I keep it to remind myself how lucky I am.”

I turned around to take in the room again. It felt positive, creative, and complete—like Angela. “I don’t know if I’d have enough perseverance for a project like this.”

“I work like a tortoise.”

She pulled the piled pillows away from the wall. Beneath a thin coat of primer on the exposed patch, I could see the greens and blacks of a former design. “This used to be a rainforest. I’ve been working on the desert for two years.” I found the disguised incompletion endearing.

“If I’d worked for so long on something like that jungle, I don’t think I could cover it up and start over,” I said.

She shrugged. “You would if you wanted to keep painting.” She finished restacking the pillows and her buzzer rang. Opening the door tossed the feathers on her Tree of Life.

“Anyone hungry?” Kandelbaum said.

“What’s in the bag?” Angela pointed to the package balanced on top of the pizza box.

It was not my requested salad. “Wine. I didn’t know, white or red, so I got both.” He set the bottles on the table, went into the kitchen, and reappeared with a wine opener and three jelly glasses.

When we laughed at his choice, he said, “You only have two wine glasses. I thought it better that our glasses match. White or red?”

He poured white for Angela, but I put my hand over the mouth of my glass.

“Oh come on, Penny,” Angela said. “This is a celebration.”

“It’s nothing personal, it’s math. Dancers only have so many calories to work with, so the ones I take in have to count for something. I never saw the point in drinking.”

Kandelbaum looked at me calmly, with a smile I couldn’t discern. “You are quite hard on yourself.” He uncorked the red and poured it into his glass.

I tried a lighter approach. “And pizza? My hips threaten to swell at the mere mention of it. Everything that goes into my mouth rushes through my stomach and gets dumped in the landfill of my thighs.”

He raised his hand with quiet command. My best material, and he sat through it like some sort of Zen master. “You falsely assume the calories are empty. Wine is an important part of many transformative rituals. It carries our wishes for success, and good health.”

“No matter what you say, I won’t believe wine is a significant source of vitamin C.”

Finally, he laughed. Angela and I took pillows off the pile and sat down on them next to the low glass table. Kandelbaum stacked two—he’d clearly done this before.

Oh, what the hell. It’s not like I was off to an audition in the morning. “I’ll try the white.” The liquid was cool on my tongue, yet almost immediately heated the center of my body. Pretty magical alchemy. Angela opened the pizza box and put a slice on a paper plate for me. When the dance company used to go out for pizza, I’d suck on mentholated cough drops so I couldn’t smell it. The gentler scent from Angela’s candles couldn’t mask Italian spices. My salivary glands responded.

“I only want half a slice,” I said.

“Then only eat half,” she said.

“A toast.” Kandelbaum raised his glass. “
L’chaim
. Where there is life, my friends, there is hope.”

“
L’chaim
,” we repeated, and sipped from our jelly glasses.

“Now me.” Angela raised her glass and called out, “
Tusherekee
pamoja!
”

I froze with my glass halfway to my lips. “What the hell was that?”

“It’s Swahili,” she said, and took a bite of pizza. “I think.”

Everyone cracked up. “You had me there for a minute,” Kandelbaum said, his words bouncing along on his chuckles.

Angela coughed a few times and said, “No, really, it means ‘Let’s celebrate together.’”

“How would you know?” I said.

We looked at her expectantly. “I can’t remember!” We melted into giggles once again.

The wine, the jelly jars, the mouthwatering oregano, the forbidden cheese, the way the mushrooms curled their lips atop the pie, the fact that I was touching something called pie, the sudden rush of alcohol and simple carbs and fats into a bloodstream unaccustomed to them sending my hormones into a frenzy, the fact that we were sitting on the floor like dancers but with pillows to keep us comfy, the smiles, the foreign wordplay—it was all freakishly intoxicating.

I looked down at my plate. Somehow I had eaten the entire slice. I drank straight from the bottle of white to wash away my sins.

“Whoa, you forgot to toast!” Angela said.

“
Putyourtushinmycheeky!
”

“No, seriously. You have to give a toast of your own.” She smiled and waited, a sheen of sweat on her upper lip.

“Then how about this.” I sat straighter and held up the bottle. “
Cent’Anni
, Angela. One hundred years.” I took a swig and passed the bottle to Kandelbaum.

“
Salud!
” He drank and passed off to Angela.

“Um, um…Clinkies!” We laughed until Angela no longer had breath enough to cough.

• • •

The next morning, a warm glow invited me to open my eyes and gaze out across the desert. When I turned over to look down at the other bed, Angela was looking back at me.

“The lights are on timers,” she said. “I wake to a sunrise every day, even on days as rainy as this one.”

“Thith plathe ith tho cool.” The inside of my lips were sticking to my teeth. When I tried to sit up, an entire corps de ballet pounded boxed toes into my brain.

“When you decide to do something, you really go for it,” Angela said. “So, which did you like better, the red or the white?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t remember,” I said.

“You’ll feel better after a muffin and some coffee.”

My stomach lurched as I sat up. I couldn’t quite imagine eating for, say, another week. “I can’t believe I ate pizza.”

“I love Vito’s. Yum.”

I rested my hand against the front of the tee shirt I’d borrowed from Angela. “I can still feel it sitting in there. All in a lump.”

“But the lump is in your stomach, not the landfill of your thighs?”

“Cute.”

After a shower, I started to feel better once I found I could still pull my sweatpants up over my hips. As I flipped my hair forward to work Angela’s comb through its wet, tangled strands, a memory formed. Not in my head, but in my abdominal muscles: laughter. Angela’s bright eyes and freckles leaning toward me, her tapping my knee to make a point, the warmth of Kandelbaum’s arm against mine as we rocked back and forth.

I hadn’t had so much fun since my early days with Dance DeLaval. Back then, it felt like we were all traveling coach into the same storm of possibility—enjoying the jar and jostle, together in dance and life. Until Dmitri bumped me to first class by promoting me to rehearsal assistant. Perhaps it appeared to the others that riding up front by Dmitri’s side gave me an unfair advantage. An added layer of job security. And it was a more comfortable ride, while it lasted. But didn’t they know the survivors in a plane wreck are usually found near the tail?

I stared at the rehearsal schedule, sure for at least a few heartbeats he’d made a mistake. Our first post-tour performance, at the Arts Bank in Philadelphia, and Dmitri had cast me in only one piece. Why would he do that? Dancers improve with use. They thrive on it. I needed to dance like I needed to breathe. He knew this, didn’t he? As rehearsal assistant, I deserved more. Or did I deserve any of this? I was so grateful to finally have a job. Oh no. What if my size had finally become a factor? Our kinesthetic synergy wouldn’t mean a thing if he no longer knew what to do with me. This wasn’t a partnership, after all. Dance DeLaval was his company; the rest of us were expendable.

Tina popped in front of me to see the schedule. “Shit.”

“What?” I struggled to escape the suction of my emotional mire.

“I’m in every single piece.” She threw her dance bag over her shoulder and sighed. “It’s going to be a tough couple of weeks.”

I watched her grow ever smaller as her figure receded down the long hallway.

A few minutes later, I regained enough control over my voice to drop by Dmitri’s office to oh-so-casually question his casting. He waved me in. Before him, a laptop played a DVD of material he and I had developed in rehearsal. I watched over his shoulder for a minute. Dmitri gently ran a finger down the computer screen. “I love your dancing, Penny. You are my muse.”

Had I heard right? This stunning dancer, born of ballet royalty, saw me as inspiration? Penelope Sparrow was to Dmitri DeLaval what Nijinsky was to Diaghilev, what Suzanne Farrell was to Balanchine? As a child, fancying my future on the stage, I never dreamed I’d be so utterly appreciated.

The conversation had taken such an astounding turn I struggled to remember my reason for opening it. “Then let me inspire you by doing what I do best. Let me perform.”

Small movements of Dmitri’s eyes followed every nuance of my body—on the recording. “You are the one to dance if others get injured.”

I spun his chair around. “An understudy?”

“This makes sense,
oui
? You know all roles. You will dance much, I promise.”

Fear began to obscure my view from the top. I worried about the knee starting to bother me. That I’d lost so many years finding this company, I might not have many left. All dancers fear aging, even Dmitri. The subject was too volatile to broach.

Besides, he wouldn’t realize the immediacy in my case. I’d shaved three years off my age on my performance résumé.

“So this constant reduction of my performance time.” I sensed my career teetering on a fulcrum, but had to know. “It has had nothing to do with my body?”

“Of course,” he said. He actually looked confused. “It is always about the body.”

Unused to being discussed openly, my body almost contorted with tension. I said, “Use more words.”

“Your body brings to life my movement and adds many ideas.”

He stopped, as if seeking vocabulary. I waited. This time he could damn well come up with the words himself.

“You are beautiful.”

He stood, cradled my face, and kissed each cheek. “I depend on you much now. In Washington, when we open at the Kennedy, you will perform
Puma
with me.”

“Really? Promise?”

He closed out of the DVD player and opened a file with his proposed Kennedy Center cast list. And there it was.
Duet: Dmitri DeLaval and Penelope Sparrow
.

“I’ll make you proud, Dmitri.”

“You do every day.” He touched his finger to the end of my nose. “I was wise to choose you.”

I did get my opening at the Kennedy Center. The stage was larger than the space in which the piece had been first set, requiring we make constant readjustments to pull it off. I loved that kind of sharp challenge, and appreciated the opportunity to meet it. Right up until my entrance, when I smelled the Jameson on Lars’s breath. I shook off my concern, hoping he’d simply taken a quick shot to quell his nerves.

In the middle of the piece, after the duet I performed with Dmitri, a series of turns took me offstage—for the audience, the effect is that the dancer continues to turn into the wings and beyond, in perpetuity. Since the stage was broad, I had to perform additional turns, which rendered me a little dizzy as I neared the blinding sidelights known as “shin busters.” In the dress rehearsal, Lars and I went over and over the timing: he would enter early and slightly downstage so I would have a clear shot into the wings.

His buzz apparently trumped all that painstaking negotiation. Because as I spotted those turns into the wings, I also spotted Lars, again and again, blocking my way. By the time I realized he had no intention of moving, I had no time to decelerate and I hit the base of the shin buster. I knew by the crack that I’d broken my big toe, but without a moment’s hesitation, I stood in the wings and taped it to the toe beside it, masked the tape with a few dabs of makeup, and re-entered without missing my cue. Adrenaline saw me through because I was not Penelope Sparrow, I was part of the dance, and the dance needed me. The next night, the dance would need Karly.

I hobbled into the star-studded opening night reception, late, in a $260 dress accessorized with a pair of flip-flops and a cane from the local ER.

When we got back to Philadelphia, my mood was as black as my toe.

“You need to fire Lars,” I told Dmitri. “His drinking is a liability I should not have to pay for.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Dmitri promised. I don’t know what he said. Maybe they shared some sort of guy-to-guy backslapping. Because the next night Lars was back in the studio—and everyone was swinging wide. Fine by me. My foot was swollen and sore, and I didn’t want anyone stepping on it.

For the next several weeks, while my toe was taped, I spent more and more time alone with Dmitri developing new work in the studio. Finally, weeks after my toe healed completely, he gave me a small role in his largest group piece,
Arena
. My relationships with the other dancers, however, never truly healed. Even Tina, who had thought of me as a sort of mentor ever since we auditioned together, made an unwarranted comment about me shacking up with the boss.

I had traded friendship for leadership, and was no longer one of them. I missed the camaraderie, but creative time with Dmitri fed my spirit in a way that kept me coming back for more.

At the time, it seemed worth it.

• • •

“That smell—I’m in heaven,” I said.

Angela looked up from the low table, where she had been simultaneously reading the paper and squirting whipped cream from a can onto her oatmeal. “Nice hair.” She pointed to my chest, where hairs from the right and left sides of my head were knotted together.

“I didn’t want to break your comb. You’re out of conditioner.”

“Why don’t you wear your hair short, like me? It’s so easy to take care of. It would look cute on you.”

“I can’t. Dmitri wants it long enough to pull back.”

Angela waited for my brain to catch up to reality. “You miss him, don’t you?”

I nodded. I missed everything he had brought to my life. He had connected with my purest form—my energy—and honored the way it moved through my body and the company and his life. How had I lost that?

My heart ached from emptiness. And my stomach growled—it was probably still wrestling that pizza. I pointed to her oatmeal sundae. “That stuff will clog your arteries, you know.”

“That is a long-range consideration. Off my radar.”

I pulled up a pillow and sat down across from her. “Is that why you’re dating a married man? Because you’re running short on time? I’m not judging, you and Kandelbaum are adorable together. I’m trying to understand.”

“You’re misreading his interest.” Angela stood up. “I’d better get my pills.”

“Don’t you need a roommate?” I asked when she returned. “You know, for the thumping?”

“You mean the chest PT? It helps, for sure, but I can do it myself if I have to. Over at Presbyterian they have this vibrating vest that can do it, but my insurance company has given me crap about it and I can’t afford it on my own. I put a ‘Roommate Wanted’ sign up over at Presby. The right person will come along eventually.”

“Maybe I’m the right person,” I blurted.

She said, “I meant someone with CF.”

“Are you prejudiced or something?”

“But…you’re living at your mother’s.”

“I don’t know about the living part—I’m staying there.” I thought of the rectangular impressions lining the emptied hallway. “The house is haunted by the ghosts of dancers past.”

“Dance was an important part of your life.” She looked over at the unfinished section of mural, exposed again now that we were sprawled on the cushions that had been stacked in front of it. “You can paint over it, but it’s still there, underneath.”

“I don’t think I have a choice. It’s time to start fresh.” Angela’s apartment made going home to my mother’s a drab alternative. This place was alive with art. I wanted more time here. To smell it, to taste it, let it soak into my skin. Although it was too small to allow for much movement, I felt freed here—as if I were one of my mother’s dancers, broken from its glass cage. A daughter freed from her mother’s comparisons, a dancer liberated from the studio mirror. This room invited me to just…be in it. I’d made such a long trip across my own creative desert. I was thirsty for what creativity Angela nurtured here.

The phone rang. Angela said, “It’s probably Marty, wondering whether you lived through the night.”

It was her night he cared more about, I was sure of it. Angela had desecrated what was left of the oatmeal, so I sipped the coffee and sliced off a piece of Kandelbaum’s bread. Its orange and green flecks assured me of vegetable content.

Angela put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s my manager at the Bibliophile. She wants me to cover an extra shift. Noon to six. I’d say no, but I could use the money.”

“We’ll still have the morning.” I pinched off a bite of bread and tasted it.

“So what do you think?” she asked, after she hung up.

“Crusty outside, moist inside.” I took another bite and pushed the plate away. “He did good. That was delicious.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“Did I not use the word ‘delicious’?”

“You only ate a third of a slice. It’s health bread, for goodness’ sakes.”

“Healthy or not, unneeded calories are still unneeded. And I have last night to make up for, thank you.”

“Dang. Eating is serious business with you, isn’t it? How can you stay healthy?”

“It takes some planning,” I said, reveling in one of my few remaining strengths.

“If I ate that little, I’d be dead. CF complicates nutrient absorption. Doesn’t eating so little—you know, mess with your head?”

“Believe me, I know what anorexia looks like—the skeleton showing through, the fainting, the amenorrhea. I just have to stay on the right side of that line. And I have—I’ve always gotten my period, I have plenty of muscle—”

“I can’t argue about your bone strength, that’s for sure.”

“It’s all about self-control.”

“But a slice of health bread won’t—”

“You saw my mother. Genes are not on my side. She eats like—well, like you do.”

“Okay, okay.”

I hadn’t meant to hurl the words quite as hard as I had, and I apologized. But the damage was done—Angela took one last look at her calorie-enhanced oatmeal and dumped it.

While I cleaned up the breakfast dishes, she asked if I wanted to come to the gym with her. “You can burn some calories as my guest. I have a pass right here.” She lifted the pass from the Tree of Life, where it had hung behind my autograph.

I thought of her arm, her lungs. “Don’t hurt yourself on my account.”

“I’ve been doing a modified workout all along, even with my cast.”

“But you’re sick—”

“Not now,” she said. “CF applies certain parameters to my life, but I’m not always sick. I need to stay strong as much as the next person.” She flexed her bicep and a cute little walnut popped up.

• • •

The gym was only a block away. The Adonis who scanned Angela’s card at the front desk greeted her by name; she called him Joey. We warmed up with a beginner aerobics class, during which our bombshell instructor offered specific encouragement to Angela. I sampled the machines at the same low weight settings Angela used. While others asked her how she was doing now that the cast was off, I quietly tested the limits of my strength. The workout wasn’t so different from physical therapy, except one thing: here, I wasn’t a patient. Working out alongside Angela and these other women increased my physical confidence.

By the time we got to the butt blaster, Angela looked ready to drop.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” I said. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to conserve your energy?”

“You wouldn’t say that to a dancer, would you? My spirit needs a strong house or else it leaks out all over the place. Whirlpool?”

“Seriously?”

A half hour later, Angela and I parted out on the street. My spirit felt lighter, as if I’d whitewashed the dark jungle of my past. Feeling more myself, I recalled that I, too, once frequented a place where people knew me and treated me with warm regard. A lifetime ago, yet only a few blocks away. I had some time to kill before my therapy appointment, so decided to stop in.