Up to This Pointe (24 page)

His face changes.

“What
is
it, Ben?”

“This is the Irish kid we're talking about, yes?”

“Yes,” I sigh.

Ben looks, for a moment, truly reluctant. But he says it anyway. “Do you know he left?”

“Left where?”

“On the Winfly plane. He's gone.”

“No, he's not.”

“He is. I watched him get on the bus for the runway. Tagged his bags and everything.”

“You are an ass.”

“Kid, I'm just telling you what I saw….”

“I'm not a kid.”

“Harp.” Vivian, out of nowhere. “Forgot to ask for orange juice.” She looks from me to Beard. “What's up?”

“Scott's upset because her boyfriend's gone.”

I can't move. The salmon stream of people crowding around the dining hall entrance is pushing, moving in closer. Everything is suddenly very quiet. Someone, Vivian, takes my arm and guides me firmly away from the crowd, from Beard, up the stairs, to a door and knocks.

“Are you sure Ben's not just messing around?” Vivian muses.

I hadn't thought of that. “How would we check?”

“Go ask the kitchen staff! Look at the flight record!”

“I'll go,” Vivian offers. She's back in three minutes. Shakes her head.

“Jesus Christ,” Charlotte whispers. “Do
all
men suck today? What the hell?”

“He wanted me to go with him,” I whisper. “When winter's over. We were going together.”

“He
said
that?” Vivian asks.

I nod, mopping my face with a wad of tissues.

“When?”

“Last night.”

“That's a dick move,” she says.

“For sure.” Charlotte nods.

Vivian's sitting beside me on my bed, and all at once, as if I've completely lost control of my mind and limbs, I put my head in her lap and cry until I can't breathe.

And she
lets
me.

She pets my short hair. “I'm sorry,” she says. “Harper, I'm sorry.”

“I don't…I don't even…” I choke. “Why would he leave without me? And early. Can he even do that? Doesn't he need a compelling reason? I'm so stupid!”

“Harper,” Charlotte says from Vivian's bed.
“Harper.”

“What?”

“You are not stupid. His reason is…he's a little boy.”

I pull myself together enough to sit up. “Oh, Vivian,” I choke-breathe. “Your sweater's all cried on.”

She shrugs. “It's not one of my favorites.”

“Harp, I didn't realize you liked him
that
much,” Charlotte says.

“I don't think I do!” I wail. “Do I? It's not even—Now what do I do?”

“About what?”

“I was going with him! I didn't know where, but it was a direction to go, and not alone, with a person who knew me as
just
me, not…” I stop short of
ballerina.
“I knew where I was going. I'm lost again.”

They both sit and look at me, bewildered.

“Why not go home?”

More tears.

“Hey,” Vivian says over my sobs. “Off topic, but can we tell the doctor now?”

Charlotte shakes her head.

“Will you tell them soon?”

“Sure.”

“It's making me really nervous.”

“Ugh, me too!” I shout, flopping back onto the bed. “That goddamned plane left hours ago. Say something! Go see the doctor.”

“I'm waiting for just one small storm, make sure they don't send a plane right back.”

Vivian and I exchange a look. “You've got two days,” I say. “And it'd better storm. Otherwise we're going there and telling them ourselves. I can't take it anymore!”

“Fine,” Charlotte crabs. “But I'm hungry. Can someone…”

Vivian stands. “I'll go,” she offers. “What would you like?”

“I'll go with,” I sniffle. “Might as well keep eating.”

We take Charlotte's grilled cheese order and fight through the crowds together.

I am searching for solitude in the wrong place. So many people, all excited to be on The Ice. The afternoon after Aiden leaves, I practically run to the top of Ob Hill, alone at last but breaking the rules. I've memorized the climb, and each time I'm faster.

At the cross I watch the sky glow mostly gray-pink. That's all it's doing and it's enough. Still beautiful. But freezing.

“You okay?”

I nod.

“Don't seem like it,” Shackleton says.

“I'm such an idiot.”

“Eh. I wouldn't say that.”

“He was so…honest.”

Shackleton smiles. “Don't know about that, either.”

“Okay, well, no, not in retrospect.”

“Listen. You've only got to trust one person to know where you belong. And clinging to the coattails of some dumb kid who stands by and angles for a
sleepover
while you drink yourself sick? And give me a break with the ‘Home is where you hang your hat' nonsense. That will get you nowhere. Thank goodness he left.”

I turn to him.

“Seriously!” he says. “Listen. It takes patience and love and bravery to have a home. To not just run off to the next place when things are hard. Or frightening. Or lonely. I'm not saying you stay stuck in a place you don't want to be if you can get out. And obviously I'm a huge fan of exploring this glorious planet. I'm speaking to the fact that nothing good can ever come from leaving something you love, simply for an asinine notion you're not good enough for it. Or him. Or anyone.
Make
yourself good enough and don't start with me. I get the body structure stuff. I'm saying, you know who you are. You do. The path is in front of you; be brave and take it.
Now.
”

“I can't see it.”

“Don't have to.”

“How did Worsley navigate the boat to South Georgia?”

“If I knew how, I would have done it myself and not risked his life—I'm the leader, not the captain. I was smart enough to hire the very best crew, each man the best at his job, and
that
is why they lived. They saved themselves.”

We look up at the diamond dust of stars in the darkening sky.

“Feels impossible.”

“Harper Scott! There is an important distinction between
difficult
and
impossible
—one requires a huge amount of effort,” he says. “And the other requires more.”

“I had a place to start,” I say. “Someone to go with. Maybe I'll go anyway. Alone.”

“No more relying on others for the good. Or God forbid blaming others for the bad. Forgive. Trust yourself.”

I nod.

He smiles.

“Harper.”

I nearly fall off the mountain.

Vivian.

“Talking to yourself is a clear sign of T3.”

I nod.

“Except here. Which is so cold you have to persuade yourself out loud not to freeze to death,” says Vivian.

I nod.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. No.”

Wind is picking up.

“Some Indian tribes, when they're in mourning, the women cut off their long hair. Sometimes they bury it with a person who died.”

Tiny shards of ice swirl around us. I am hypnotized by the stars.

“
Harper.
Are you in mourning?”

I nod.

“I'm homesick,” she says, and jumps lightly, trying to warm up. “I hate going to bed alone. I'm used to sharing with three of my sisters. I can't sleep. So I listen to Garrison. I was glad to move into your room. I sleep a lot better.”

I smile. “Me too.”

“Where
are
you going? When it's done?”

I shrug.

“You're not going back to San Francisco?”

“Can't.”

“What if Charlotte does have the baby on The Ice? Will it be Antarctican?”

“It should be.”

“Want to take a walk?”

I nod.

We huddle together and make our way back down Ob Hill, past the power wires bending beneath the soft weight of snow, past work sheds and buildings to the front steps of the Chapel of the Snows.

The sturdy white chapel is squat and symmetrical, featuring a tall steeple. We fall, pushed by the wind, into the unlocked door and climb out of our frozen parkas and mittens.

The church is lit and warm. The vaulted, beamed ceiling is dark wood, the altar backlit (or would be, on a sunny day, probably) by a window with a stained glass image of the continent of Antarctica embedded with symbols of various religions. And a penguin. The seats are basic wooden, padded office chairs arranged in rows, big American and Antarctic flags on poles. I'm surprised it gets any business, what with all the scientists. I think a lot of the people who come here worship mostly at the Altar of Keeping Warm.

Vivian is in a seat halfway back from the altar. I hug myself warm and walk down the aisle to sit beside her.

“This thing burned down,” she says. “Twice.”

“In all this ice and snow. Perfect.”

“What do you miss most?” she asks me. “Like, when you lie in bed awake, thinking about your life before you came here, what comes up first and most often?”

It is so hard to parse this excellent but dangerous question. Because as I mentally Rolodex through what makes me cry into my McMurdo pillow, it seems to all be wrapped in one all-encompassing ache.

“What do
you
miss?”

“My sisters. Brothers.”

“How many?”

“Well. I'm sixth.”

“Wow.”

“Of eleven.”

“Wow.”

She nods. “My favorite thing about being here has been that no one knows me as number six. Or anyone's sister.”

“Do you all love science?”

“No. They're in the Future Farmers and Girls Scouts, and they like math, some of them. My older sisters have a pottery shed and a kiln out back.”

“They must be
so
proud of you. Two students in the entire world, and they chose you!”

She smiles.

“I miss San Francisco,” I say.

“
That's
what you're breaking your heart over? Get on a plane, problem solved!”

“No, not
just
that! Partly, though.”

“Sure.”

“Have you even been?”

“
This
is the first place I've ever been outside Minnesota. Traveling with eleven kids is no picnic. And not cheap.”

“You've never left home in your entire life, and the first time you do, it's to New Zealand and Antarctica?”

“St. Paul folks don't half-ass anything.”

“Clearly.”

“Where have you been?”

“Oh,” I say. “I've been…” And it occurs to me—I haven't. Been anywhere. One trip to New York to meet Dad's parents when Luke and I weren't even potty trained. Mom and Dad and Luke have been lots of places. I've always begged to stay home with babysitters, happily giving up travel opportunities to never miss class, rehearsal, performances. “I haven't been anywhere, either!” I say. “I never cared. I love home—is that weird?”

“Not to me.”

“You know what I miss?
Knowing.
Knowing exactly what I'm doing every day, working as hard as I can and harder, toward a very well-defined goal. Not this nebulous, lost…”

“Grant writing. I'm telling you,
that's
your calling.” She smiles.

She gets up and goes to the rows of white candles below the window, beside the altar. “I have always been embarrassed that I'm not jonesing to get out of Minnesota—not even St. Paul—the second I graduate. Am I lazy? Or boring?”

She strikes a match and lights a candle. “Or maybe it's as simple as I love where I live, and who gives a crap what anyone thinks of me? They can live where they want and leave me the hell out of it.”

And
that
is the news from Lake Wobegon: She
is
a badass.

Work in the lab the following days is much less like work. Vivian and I chitchat like old ladies, and Charlotte has taken to wearing giant headphones to drown out our gabbing. A raging storm blew through the ice shelf, and Charlotte let the medical center know what's up—that she's
knocked
up, as she fondly refers to the situation, and no one's panicking. No one's in trouble. And we're nearly done with the grants, the research; Charlotte's thesis is basically complete. So we're free to openly ferry deliveries back and forth from the kitchen to the lab when Charlotte
must
have three slices of American cheese
or I will cut someone.

Which I'm on my way out the door to get when a mail guy puts his head in the room.

“Harper Scott?”

“Yeah?”

“Package. Last of the pile, took a while to sort.”

A box. Wrapped in brown paper, addressed to me in black Sharpie. Inside there is another wrapped box, and a folded letter.

Harper Scott,

I've been reading up on Robert (Millennium) Falcon Scott. And I came up with some interesting observations:

He was a scientist. The last letter he wrote from inside his tent before he and his men died, he wrote to his wife about their son, “Make the boy interested in natural history if you can; it is better than games.” I'll try not to take offense at that last part, but the thing about wanting the kid to like science? Dude loved science.

So why kill himself and his entire crew trying to get to the pole first? What's that got to do with science? He was broke. His family was broke, and getting there first would have meant a regular income. Had he just gone there to do the research, no one would have died, people! Apparently he was a great researcher. The writings they found with the bodies are apparently still really useful.

That whole story seems unrelated, but stay with me. I think my point is this: You love ballet. You are a dancer. A really amazing dancer. Find a way to make it your life. Don't give it up. But also? Please don't die for it. There has to be another way to keep it. Isn't there?

Yours,

Owen

There is a DVD. Our
Nutcracker.

I unwrap the smaller box.

My audition shoes. My Maltese Cross Yuan Yuan pointe shoes. There is a note tucked in them.

Please don't throw this out before you read it. I begged Simone to ask San Francisco to come see me. They weren't scouting. I wanted to come home. I need to be with you. You're the only family I have, the one I want. I need you. I love you. I think Owen does, too. I'll do anything. Please forgive me. Please come home.

Kate

Vivian reaches for the shoes. “What
are
these?”

“They are mine.”

“Are you a
dancer
?”

I reread Kate's note. Owen's letter. I hold the shoes to my heart.

In the movie room, where people usually watch horror movies about isolation in the snow, I put the DVD in the player, settle Vivian and Charlotte in chairs before the screen, and ask them, for the hundredth time, to “Please just tell me what you see.”

They nod. I leave the room, but listen at the door to the music, still more familiar to me than anything else in life.

“Where is she?” I hear Charlotte say. “It's a crowd of skinny white girls all dressed the same, doing the same steps—how can you even tell which one is her?”

“Concentrate.
Right there
—see? The left? And then…there, turning, see?”

“Okay, okay, yes. I'm moving closer. I'll lose her in that—what the hell is that, snow? Is this
The Nutcracker
?”

I hear Vivian heave a huge sigh. “I am deeply concerned for your child. Pay attention!”

I love them both. So much.

It ends at last, the parts I'm in, and I go in and pull up a chair beside them.

“Tell me.” I ask.

Scientists. Neutral. People who observe, ask questions, gather information, come to conclusions. Objectively. People kind enough to tell me the truth.

“You're amazing,” Charlotte says. “So beautiful!” She is crying. Hormones.

Okay. Maybe
one
of them is objective.

Vivian takes a breath.

“There's a difference that I see,” she says carefully, “between you and the other girls. I have no idea if it's good or bad—better or worse. But definitely you're not like them.”

My stomach and my heart unclench.

“Okay.”

She nods. “Even if I wasn't watching just for you, I would have seen it.”

I eject the disk.

“What does that even mean?” Charlotte cries. “She's stunning. Did you see her doing all those turns? What is wrong with you?”

“I'm not saying she's not really great,” Vivian yelps. “Harper, that was really and truly amazing. I think you're a beautiful dancer—I'm saying there's something different. That's all. It's an observation.
Science,
” she says to Charlotte. “What she asked us for.”

Charlotte sits, pulling at the raggedy edge of her sweater sleeve. “I saw it, too,” she says. Quietly.

“Really?”

“Just…different—but isn't that good? Unique!”

“Depends,” I admit. “Not always.”

“Are you all right?” Vivian asks.

“I think so.”

“Have I said the most horrible, mean thing ever?”

Were my throat not tight for crying, I would be able to tell her the truth. Which is that, in a little over twelve minutes, here in Antarctica just in the nick of time, she and Charlotte have set me free.

“Want to be alone?”

I do.

I close the door and sit. I put the disc back in.

I see it.

What Mom and Dad could never see through a mucked-up lens of way too much love and no dance experience of their own. What Simone was seeing and didn't want to. Wished she wasn't. What I should have seen and didn't. Or maybe, like Mom and Dad, so much love made it unclear, made it not matter.

And there is Kate. Still, always the way I've seen her all my life, even more. Perfection. She could not be more beautiful, and more than that,
her love is evident.
She is born to it.

I rewind to watch us both, just once more, and accidentally rewind past the start of “Snow.”

Here are my angels. Here is Willa.

Their faces turn toward the wings where I know I am smiling, demonstrating the steps, whispering at them to “Look at the audience! Have fun, turn, turn!”

They are concentrating so hard. Heads high, feet turned out, arms strong. Listening carefully to their music, loving every second of every movement.

I walk alone to the basketball court. People are milling around, walking past. Some poke their heads in the open doorway to take a look.

I tie my Maltese Cross shoes securely on unstockinged feet.

I turn carefully across the floor, my head light with no hair, familiar stretch and pull in my legs and arms, in my abdomen. People stand and watch me. I keep dancing. They walk away; they walk on and don't stop. I'm alone—now I've got an audience—now alone. Alive, at last, in every second of every movement. I am home.

“Okay,” I say quietly to Shackleton. To myself. “Okay. Understood, Captain.”

I dance every day, and the last winter weeks fly by. My legs are stronger, arms tighter every moment. I eat vegetables, and cheese, and anything I want. Except white bread and butter. My body is lean and strong, no longer bony. And my boobs stick around. Bonus. The sky is lighter every day until at last, all four hundred of us rush outside, and it happens; the fiery light edges over the mountains. It is a new year. Winter is over. The light is glorious and beautiful and hopeful. We laugh and cry and jump around, strangers and friends. We yell at Charlotte not to jump too much, for crying out loud, the poor baby,
jeez!

In the crowd, a familiar face is near in her red hood. Allison hugs me.

“You look good in natural light,” she says. “How do you feel?”

Months of people—of myself—asking me that, but I like it from her.

“Better,” I say. “Not so…” I gesture around my head. She looks into my eyes.

“Definitely better. I need to ask you something.”

Oh, ick…I hate it when people preface things with that phrase, makes me feel like I'm in trouble—just ask!

“Do you think about the pole still? Would you want to go?”

I am mute.

“Because I'm on a flight that's going in the next couple of days. If there's an extra spot, I've been told I can fill it. You'd need to be ready within minutes when I tell you it's time. What do you think?”

I hug her so hard she seems concerned about fractured ribs.

“Hey,” Vivian says. “Will you help me with something?”

“Anything,” I promise. “Anything in the world.”

“I am
not
doing this!” I yelp. “This is horrible. Do it yourself!”

“Oh my gosh, you big baby,” Vivian huffs. “You said you'd do it!”

“Because I didn't know you meant
this
!”

She's sitting on a stool we've borrowed from the kitchen, facing the mirror in our room, urging me to grow a spine and stab her earlobe with a needle.

“No one in my entire family has pierced ears,” she says. “No one. I want them. I'm scared to death, and if I don't do it now, I never will…please!”

“But shouldn't you be numb?”

“How?”

“I don't know! Ice or some shit!”

“So go get some!”

I run to the dining hall to find even the drink machine line snaking around the room.

Ice.

I stomp back into the room wielding a fistful of Antarctic ice, chipped off the side of our home, Building 155. I mark perfectly even ballpoint dots on her ears, and I take a huge breath.

Vivian is now the only member of her entire extended family to have holes in her ears.

“Oh, oh my God, oh oh…” She moans. “That's awful! Let me see!”

I wipe the blood away with some hydrogen peroxide, and the tiny silver studs Charlotte gave her for this venture sparkle in Vivian's ears.

“I love them.” She breathes through the pain. “Hurts like a mother, but aren't they so pretty?”

“Absolutely,” I agree.

“Want me to do yours?”

“That's all right.” I smile. Simone never, ever allowed any kind of “nonsense” with our bodies—no tattoos, no hair color, no painted nails.

“My hair will grow back,” I say. “But absolutely no piercings. I am a dancer.”

“Thank you,” she says. And she turns to hug me.

“That was horrifying. But you're welcome,” I whisper. “Thank
you.
”

In the gym room, I push Charlotte's head slowly toward her knees. “This is going to help, I swear,” I tell her, and she holds the position as long as she can.

“My back is killing me,” she whines. “How much longer is this kid going to torture me so?”

“Seriously,” Vivian says from her own stretch, deep into the floor. “Mother of the year.”

“Scott,” someone yells into the open door.

Beard.

“Allison's on the phone from the fire station. I'm not your personal errand boy.”

Lovely.

But my heart is smashing around—this is it. My chance. I run to Beard's desk, and nearly screech into the receiver, “Allison?”

Fifteen minutes to gear up—half an hour to get there, twenty minutes at the pole, half hour back. “And it's gorgeous weather!” Allison reports. I sprint, breathless, to the stairs.

“Harp!”

Charlotte's face is pale, she and Vivian are stumbling from the dance room together. Charlotte has sadly peed her pants.

Or not.

“Harp, I can't have a baby on The Ice!” she cries.