Authors: Meg Howrey
Gwen looked very small, bundled up in her coat with the huge fake-fur collar. Things were not good between us. There had been too many demands, too many late-night calls, summonses to her dressing room, to the apartment, to the bathroom at work.
“What is it?” I kept asking her. “What is it?” I was sick of her not being able to articulate her fears, only what she wanted me to do about them. I was tired of it never being enough. I was tired of everything. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to dance anymore. Or that I didn’t want to be with Andrew anymore. I just didn’t want to want anything anymore. I just wanted to disappear. Gwen’s train came first. I was looking at her, she was looking at her feet. Then the subway car blocked my view of her. I heard the doors clatter open, the bell ring. I watched the windows of the car, waiting to see her figure. She sat down by the window, turned her face to me, raised one hand, and waved, slightly.
The train pulled away. My train came. I didn’t get on it.
Gwen always hunched her shoulders and covered her ears when a train came into the station. She couldn’t stand the screeching noise. Even if it was a newer train, and didn’t make that horrible grinding noise, she still did it, holding her breath.
But that night she hadn’t done it. She had just stood there, dwarfed in her coat, staring at her feet. Anna Karenina might have stood like that, just before the end.
I ran up the stairs to the street and started walking not really sure of what I was doing. I called her cell phone. I called twice, three times, four times. It was freezing, and I had forgotten my gloves at the theater. The cold chopped up my hands like scissors. I pleaded into my phone. “Call me.” “Let me know you’re okay.” “I’m sorry.” “I’m here for you.” “I’m coming over.”
I let myself in with my key.
Gwen was standing on that blue chair. That blue chair right there. Under that ceiling fixture. That iron hook, right there. The rope was around her neck. Was around the iron hook.
“Oh COME ON,” I yelled, slamming the door shut behind me. “Are you SERIOUS? Get down from there.”
“Go away,” she said. “Get out.”
And she moved, just slightly forward, but it pulled the rope taut and I froze.
“Okay,” I said. “Now just stop it. This is ridiculous.”
“You think I’m playing a game? You think I’m pretending?”
No, not pretending. And yet. I knew she knew I would come after her. I knew she had listened to my messages. Knew I had a key. She was waiting for me.
“I don’t think you’re pretending,” I said to her. “But please stop this. Just. Just. Take that off.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me,” I said.
“You always say that but I know you don’t want to hear it.”
“Of course I want to hear it, Gwen. You can tell me anything. I love you.”
“You always say that too.”
“Gwen, please take that off. Here, I’ll help you.”
She moved again, leaning forward slightly on her toes.
“GWEN.”
“I’m not safe.”
“I’m right here. I won’t let anything—”
“Don’t TOUCH me.”
“Okay. Okay, I won’t touch you.”
“You think you’re better than me? You think you know everything?”
“No, I don’t think that.” No, Gwen. Never that.
“You don’t care about me. You won’t miss me. You’ll be glad when I’m gone.”
“That’s not true.”
“Go away. Just let me do it. Don’t steal this too.”
“Steal this too?”
“You steal from me. You STEAL.”
“What, Gwen? WHAT have I stolen from you?”
“You watch me.”
“You make me watch you,” I shouted, begging. “How can I NOT watch you?”
“You take everything away from me.”
“What,” I said, crying now. “What have I ever had, Gwen, that you didn’t have? What have I ever had that you didn’t TAKE?”
“JUST GO AWAY.”
“I would go away,” I shouted, “if you let me.”
“You can’t help me,” she said, stroking the rope. “You don’t know how. You don’t know what I know. You can’t ever feel things the way I do. You are just pretending to be alive.”
She stood there, swaying dreamily, fondling her rope. And I hated her. And I wanted her gone.
“Oh, just DO IT,” I shouted. “Just go ahead. Do it right now.”
“I will.”
“DO IT then. You want me to watch? I’ll watch. Do it.”
“You don’t know what it’s like.” She choked on her tears. “It’s not right. I know it’s not right.”
“And when you’re finished,” I said, “I will pull your head out of that thing and I will do it too.”
“You can’t.” She grasped the rope, possessively.
“What, you’re going to stop me? How are you going to do that? You’ll be fucking dead.”
I was screaming at this point, but Gwen suddenly got very calm. She reached up and pulled the noose from around her neck. She stepped down.
Is that it, then
, I thought.
Is it over again? Again and again and again?
“Here,” Gwen said, making the gesture for deference, indicating the vacant space on the chair.
“You’re right,” she said. “You better go first.”
I didn’t do it then. I could do it now.
I thought back then that the feeling was strong in me, the desire to disappear, but I had no idea. I had no idea it could get this big, this strong.
“Strong” is the wrong word.
Easy. The thought of disappearing feels so … easy.
She left it for me. She left me the rope, and the Xs, and she even left me Titania. All the things she could do and I couldn’t.
But she couldn’t do this.
I guess hurting yourself wasn’t enough, Gwen. It didn’t hurt bad enough. So you thought if I hurt myself maybe it would make it better?
If I did it, would you be able to feel me, Gwen? Would you be able to know what it’s like to feel me? Because I sure don’t anymore.
I left the rope coiled on the chair. For the first time since I’ve been here, I felt like I finally had something to come back to.
I went to the theater. I went to my dressing room and did my hair, grabbing handfuls and yanking them upward. I put on half my makeup. Nina was leading a warm-up class onstage. I went down and took a position at the barre. In between combinations I practiced standing like a normal person, neither too far back nor too far forward. I should get it right at the end, I thought. I realized why Wendy wanted so badly to find the Greek word for “crane.” You want to get these things right before you go. I went back to my dressing room. Selected shoes, just right, just right. I needed eyes. I needed lips. I did the work of a mortician. Mara stopped by, to wish me
merde
.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look—”
“Oh, I talked to Gwen!” I stuck a pin so hard into my scalp that tears came into my eyes.
“Hey,” Mara said, kneeling down next to me, trying to grab my hands. “Hey, tell me. What happened?”
“Oh, she’s GREAT.” I said, twisting away from her. “Turns out, it’s NOTHING. She’s fine. Maybe a little bipolar, but not
really
bipolar. She just needs to take a pill, and as long as I stick around and make sure she takes it there will be no problems at all. She’s taking CLASS.”
“Okay, slow down,” Mara said. “Kate, what’s really going on?”
“You know what my mom sounded like?” I said, twisting the ends of my hair into pretty swirls to pin down. “She sounded like ME. She sounded exactly like me for the last ten years, only now we’ve got a pill Gwen can take. Or not take. That maybe works. Or doesn’t. Or will for ten more minutes until she can get back here.”
“That can’t be right,” Mara said. “Kate, listen to me. You know that Gwen needs help. I know it. Roger knows it.”
“Roger’s been chatting away with her on the phone,” I said. “Because apparently she’s not really messed up. She has some sads and bads from time to time, some delusionals, some ickies, but that’s all of us, right? I think something is going to stab me in the eye. That’s not normal either.”
“I was there, remember?” Mara grabbed my leg. “You don’t think I felt guilty, leaving you alone with her? I pretended it was okay. We’ve
all
been pretending.”
“What if we were wrong?” I struggled to stand up, knocked the chair back, hit my wrist on the edge of the table. “All this time. All this TIME. And it turns out it’s just something you can take a pill for.”
I reached into the drawer and pulled out the bottle of Vicodin.
“These make me sick. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. My mouth feels like it’s filled with ashes and it makes me too fucked up to even dance on them anymore. But Gwen’s got a pill that makes
her feel totally fine. She’s not crazy anymore. Look at what I’ve DONE TO MYSELF and SHE’S NOT EVEN CRAZY.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your half-hour call. Half hour to curtain for this evening’s performance of
Midsummer Night’s Dream
. May I have Kate Crane and David Resnick to the stage, please. Half hour.”
“I’ve got to go,” I said, grabbing a sweater.
“You’re not dressed,” Mara said. “Wait. Let me help you.” She held out the Titania costume. I stepped into it. Mara put a hand on my back, trying to stop my shaking.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m fine. Just let me go.”
David wanted to run a few lifts, so we ran a few lifts. Marius, crossing the stage with Claudette in tow, watched for a moment. He didn’t wish us
merde
, that’s not his thing. He made sort of a benediction gesture. Last rites.
“Shit,” said David. “I totally forgot to get you flowers.”
“I forgot to get you flowers too,” I said.
Will that bother him later, I wondered. He’ll bring me flowers then. A floral tribute. Maybe a wreath.
“You don’t have stage fright, do you?”
“I feel anticipatory,” I said. “I’m really looking forward to tonight.”
Things got muddy in the wings, later, because there was Bryce, all eyes and downy shoulder blades. It would have been nicer of me to be cruel to her, but I couldn’t. It’s okay. Her mom will
explain what a horribly sad person I was. Deeply troubled. Not the person Bryce thought I was. Not at all.
I swept onto stage, summoned fairies imperiously. Since I had taken Gwen’s part I thought it fitting that I pay her a sort of artistic tribute, so I danced my first solo not as Titania but as Gwen dancing Titania. I think Gwen danced very nicely, but really only she can know what it’s like to be her.
I argued with Oberon over the changeling boy. Perhaps not totally convincingly. Oh, just take him. He needs a good home. I danced some more. Deedle, deedle, deedle! Very, very good. When you dance well, what is there to say? There’s nothing to say. There are no words. Eventually, Titania went to sleep, in a pretty little conch shell with flower-petal curtains. I lay there and listened. How funny it would be, I thought, if I just never got up. If I just pretended to be frozen, in a sort of coma. How long could you keep that up? Not long, really, because someone would stick a pin in you, or surprise you, or throw a bucket of ice water over your head, and you wouldn’t want to move, but you would.
Don’t move. Don’t move. Gwen and I on opposite walls, daring each other. What a stupid game. I’m going to win this round.
Manny fluttered the flower over my head, shaking invisible love potion, tricking me into being in love with the first thing I see upon waking. I got tricked into loving dancing. But no one ever came and took the spell away, so I had to ruin it all on my own.
Things got harder dancing with Bottom. I felt tired. I had been asleep too long. To sleep, perchance to dream, ah, there’s the rub. We should do a ballet to Hamlet. Too hard to stage? My ribs hurt. I don’t like this part anymore. I wanted it to be over. Bottom crawled into the conch shell with me, and the flower petals covered us. We were wheeled offstage.
Little problem in the wings because I unexpectedly found myself reluctant to get out of the conch shell, and, once out, I sat on the floor. I wasn’t really sure how I got there. Roger, in his donkey head, loomed over me.
“Is she okay?”
I looked up into the vacant eyes, trying to find the real eyes. Impossible.
“Kate?” he whispered. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t very good.”
Mara appeared over the donkey’s right shoulder.
“Sweetie,” she whispered, gently. “You have to get up now.”
“Is it over?”
Roger laughed.
“She’s fine,” he said over his shoulder. He boosted me up. “It was good,” he said. “I mean, I have no clue what you looked like because I can’t see a fucking thing, but it felt okay. What? It didn’t feel okay to you?”
No clue. No clue. There was something? What was it? Oh, yes. Wendy told me that the thread that Ariadne gave to Theseus, to help him find his way out of the labyrinth, was called a
clue
. That was his clue. Now it’s my cue. Words! Even now, at the end? I don’t know anything.
Mara held my hands. I hugged her, feeling the muscles of her perfect back.
“Don’t you worry about me,” I said.
A dresser came up and adjusted my little wings. We crab-walked together while she was doing this over to the tissue box duct-taped on a plinth. I blew my nose, patted down the sweat. After a bit, I got back in the conch shell with Roger and we were wheeled back onstage. Puck appeared and sprinkled the flower juice over my head that would lift the spell. I woke up. Horror! In bed with a donkey! Laughter from the audience. I could have played it a little better. Shit. Shit.
More dancing. Curtain. Intermission, and then we’ll have Act II. The marriage celebration of the mortals and the reconciliation of Titania and Oberon. It shouldn’t work, really, this staging, because all the dramatic tension has been lifted. First you have tension, and then you have release. But it does work. It’s very beautiful, this ballet that Marius has made. It’s truly enchanting. The immortals weave in between the mortals, who don’t see them, but who inspire them. The immortals are amused at the mortals. They feel tender toward them, benevolent. They’ve seen human beings come and go, and they’re not so special, this group, not so extraordinary, but it’s okay. We just go on. Falling in love, messing up, carrying on. In ballet you can get away with that sort of thing. You can also have people kill themselves at the end. Either way, as long as you do it beautifully. Either way is fine, it doesn’t matter.