“Depends,” Kirby had responded. “What is it?”
“I want to do some exercises,” Nancy said, “with my mind.”
“Well, start with pliés,” Kirby told her, laughing, “and think about them hard—bend slowly down, down, down—” She broke off the joke at the look on her sister’s face. “Are you serious?”
“More serious than I’ve ever been in my life,” Nancy said. “I want to develop my gift the way you work to develop yours. I want to be able to use it and make it as strong as I can.”
“How?” Kirby asked. She was serious now, too. “Are you going to work with Dr. Russo after all?”
“No,” Nancy said decidedly. “I don’t want outsiders in on this. I want to do it at home. But I’ll need your help.”
“I don’t know what I can do,” Kirby said. “I’m not an expert. I wasn’t even sure what ESP was until you started reading up on it.”
“But you can help me exercise,” Nancy said. “It won’t take very long. We can do it in the mornings before school if you want to, or after dinner at night. You’re not supposed to be dancing then, anyway, on a full stomach. Please, Kirby? You’re the only one I can ask!”
“All right,” Kirby agreed, already regretting the time it would take and yet unable to refuse.
So from then on, for a short time every day, she and Nancy had closed themselves into their bedroom with pencils and paper. Kirby would sit at one end of the room with her back toward her sister and draw figures on her sheet of paper—boxes and circles and sometimes real objects like trees and dogs and houses. On the other side of the room Nancy would sit silently, her brows knitted in concentration, and then she would begin to draw, too.
In the beginning, the results hadn’t been very exciting.
“Where did you get the idea for this silly game?” Kirby asked.
“It’s not a game,” Nancy told her. “It’s one of the experiments they do with people who have ESP. I read about it in that book I got from the library. I’m supposed to make my mind blank and look at the inside of my eyelids and see the same things that you’re drawing.”
“I don’t draw well enough for you to be able to know what those things are even if you do see them,” Kirby commented, but surprisingly, after that conversation, she had drawn a tree, and when she had looked at Nancy’s paper she had recognized, not a tree exactly, but a pair of vertical lines with other lines reaching off from them with the same general shape as a tree with branches.
After that, Nancy had seemed to improve rapidly. Many times she was actually able to draw the same thing Kirby had and even to place it on the same part of the page.
Occasionally, for an experiment, they tried it the other way around, with Kirby making her mind blank and Nancy projecting. This never got very good results. Kirby wasn’t able to see any images against the wall of her eyelids, and there was nothing for her to draw on the paper.
She did have an odd, prickling sensation, however, as though something was pushing at the edges of her mind.
“I can feel you,” she said. “At least, I think I can. Maybe it’s because we’re twins.” It was disconcerting and not very pleasant to have somebody’s mind poking at you. It was always a relief when the practice sessions were over and she could get to her barre work.
There was something about it that she didn’t like. There was something that she didn’t like now about Nancy.
“What do you mean, you’re going to teach Ms. Green a thing or two?” she asked warily. “You’re not going to start a petition against her or something, are you? That’s sort of immature.”
“What I’m going to do won’t be immature,” Nancy told her.
Kirby had no desire to ask her anything more. It was a relief, as always, to get down to the studio. There was a tap class going on in one of the side rooms, and the rhythmic click of toes and heels blended with the music from the upright piano, and Miss Nedra’s voice, from another room, called out positions. Kirby felt her tensions ease the moment she was through the doorway.
What Nancy does is her own business, she told herself. I can’t spend my own time worrying about it.
So shoving all thoughts but dancing out of her mind, she went into the dressing room to get changed. Arlene was there, putting on her toe shoes. She glanced up at Kirby, and a shadow slid across her face.
“My mother wants to know how much extra you have to pay to get private lessons from Madame Vilar,” she said.
“How much extra?” Kirby was surprised. She paid nothing extra and had never really thought about it. Now suddenly she realized how strange the situation was. Here she was, a newcomer to the studio, studying privately with Madame, while Arlene, who had been taking lessons for eight years and also worked as a demonstrator, was still in a group class.
For a moment she stood silent, looking at Arlene’s discontented face. Then she said slowly, “A lot. It’s costing a fortune.”
“That’s what I thought,” Arlene said. “I told that to my mother. I could be studying privately, too, if we had more money.”
“It doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Kirby said as she put on her own toe shoes. She had the satisfaction of seeing Arlene’s face lighten before she got up and left the room.
Poor Arlene! It wasn’t the first time she had thought it. Still, she had raised a good question—why wasn’t Madame Vilar charging more for private lessons? Kirby knew what her mother paid the studio, because she’d seen the bills. It was the minimum charge for two weekly class lessons. Kirby not only had private lessons, but she went over daily after school and used the practice room. On Saturdays, she brought lunch and spent the entire day at the studio.
Maybe there’s a mix-up in the bookkeeping, she thought worriedly. Maybe Madame doesn’t realize that we’re not paying what we should.
Of course, she should ask her. But what if she asked and Madame raised the bill? Could her mother afford to pay the gigantic amount that private lessons must surely cost? She had never thought much about money before, but it did seem that money was always a problem in divorced families. She had no idea what her father sent them, but she did know that her mother’s job at the library must pay very little. There were all kinds of expenses now that they hadn’t had before, a lot more regular bills to pay.
I’d better not bring it up, she thought, and then she walked into the third practice room, where Madame was waiting. But as soon as she saw her, she knew that she could not dance a step until she had spoken.
“Madame,” Kirby said, “did you know that you aren’t getting paid for these extra lessons?”
The woman in the black leotard regarded her in silence for a moment. Then she shrugged her winged shoulders.
“You are mistaken,” she said crisply. “I am not a person who gives away something for nothing. You can be assured that for whatever I do, I am paid in full.”
“But—but, I know—” Kirby began, and then she saw that Madame had turned her head. She followed her gaze to the top of the piano, where a gray glass swan glared fiercely out over the room.
“How did you know,” Madame asked quietly, “that that was my final ballet?”
“I-I don’t understand,” Kirby said in bewilderment. “I didn’t know anything. I just saw it—and—and somehow it looked like something that ought to belong to you.”
“Strange,” Madame said. “It is the symbol of my last professional performance. I was dancing in Swan Lake at the Opéra in Paris. That is when I met Charles Vilar.”
“Your husband?” Kirby asked. It was hard to imagine Madame ever having had a husband.
“He was a mathematics professor,” Madame said with a little smile. “Romantic, yes? A mathematics professor?”
“Well—” Kirby said hesitantly.
“Not the profession,” Madame answered for her. “But the man himself—oh, that man!” Her smile deepened and the sharp face softened in a way Kirby would never have guessed was possible.
“He was handsome and good and s
trong, a man to be dreamed of. He had been educated in America and was teaching there at a small college in the South. He was in Paris visiting his parents when I met him. He came backstage after the performance and invited me to have dinner with him and his family.
“I was twenty-six years old and dancing lead roles with my company. I had never known love before. There had been no chance for it. From the age of eight I had been studying—only studying and dancing. Charles took me to dinner that night and the night after and again the night after. For a week we saw each other, and then it was time for him to return to the States.”
“And you went with him?” Kirby asked softly. She was afraid that even the sound of her voice might break the spell.
“No, I stayed with the tour,” Madame told her. “I stayed for two months longer, but the dancing was not good anymore. My teachers knew it—the rest of the company knew—even the audience. My legs were dancing, my body was dancing, but not my heart. So at the end of that time I came to America and became a faculty wife.”
She laughed suddenly. “You cannot imagine what that was to someone who had lived such a different sort of life. Still, there was Charles. He made it worth it. And when he died, ten years ago, I came here to Palmelo, where we had often vacationed together, and I started my studio. I had a dream, I think, of finding someone among my students who would carry on beyond me—who would be the dancer I might have been if I had continued.”
“And in ten whole years,” Kirby said, “there hasn’t been anybody?”
“There has been talent, yes, but there has not been fire.” The dreamy look left Madame’s face, and she turned to look squarely at Kirby. “You can be the dancer that I was not, Kirby Garrett. You have the gift—the magic something—that makes the difference. And you have the thing that I did not have—the determination. There will be nothing for you, ever, except the dance.”
“My sister thinks that’s a bad thing,” Kirby told her. “She thinks I’m crazy and abnormal and maladjusted.”
“She is probably correct,” Madame said, nodding. “Most dedicated people are all of those things, and selfish besides. How old are you, Kirby? Sixteen?”
“Fourteen.”
“Good. You look older. Each year makes a difference.” Madame Vilar paused a moment, thinking. “You are wasting your time here in a studio like this one. You need to study someplace where there is a company connection. You have heard of Ballet South?” She did not wait for an answer. “I think you must go there just as soon as it is possible.”
“Ballet South is in Atlanta, isn’t it?” Kirby asked in confusion. “How could I go—how could I study—”
“You would live there, of course. That is one of the best young ballet companies in the country. You would attend a private boarding school associated with the company. You would do schoolwork in the mornings and the rest of the day there would be dancing. There is nothing there—nothing—but study and dance. After a few years, perhaps, there would be the chance to dance in the corps de ballet with the company. There are tours in the summers.” She regarded Kirby questioningly.
Kirby’s heart was pounding. Her face was hot with excitement.
“It would be wonderful!” she gasped. “It would be—heaven! But do you think they would take me? And the cost—it must cost a fortune—”
“There are scholarships. The school sends their representatives around the country looking for talent. One of them will be here in the spring at the time of the exams.”
“Do you really think I’m good enough?” Kirby brought out the question in a whisper. “I’m too big. You know I’m too big. I don’t look like a dancer.”
“But you are a dancer,” Madame said softly, and she went to the CD player and turned on the music.
Ms. Green had been absent from class the first two days of the week, and a substitute teacher had taken her place. The substitute had been young and pleasant and inclined to giggle. The contrast when Ms. Green came back again was shattering.
Wednesday afternoon when Nancy walked into social studies class to find that withered, pinched-up face waiting for her, she shuddered all over.
I can’t stand it, she thought. I just cannot sit through her class one more day.
The week had been insane for Nancy even without Ms. Green’s coming back. First of all, there had been an e-mail from her father. It was addressed to their mother, but it was to all of them, and it told about skydiving. He was going to take his camera and jump from a plane to get pictures behind enemy lines. Another correspondent, a woman named Maggie Courtney, was going with him.
A sick feeling gripped Nancy’s stomach when she read the e-mail.
“I don’t like it,” she said. “I don’t like him doing that. Something’s going to happen.”
“It can’t be too dangerous,” Brendon said. “Not if some lady’s doing it with him. Dad wouldn’t let her do something too risky.”
“Maggie Courtney does what she wants,” Elizabeth said. “She’s a rather special kind of woman. I met her once when she was just back from doing a piece on mountain climbing. She made the whole climb herself, carrying her own photographic equipment. Her camera fell into a crevasse, and she almost lost her life trying to climb down after it. It was a terrifying story, but she laughed about it when she told it. I’d say she’s a good person for your father to have with him on any assignment.”
The feeling of apprehension stirred in Nancy more strongly.
“Even so,” she said, “I wish he weren’t going. I feel—wrong—about it. I don’t know why exactly. It’s just that there’s something.”
Elizabeth turned to give her daughter a hug, and there was sympathy in her voice.
“You shouldn’t worry about your father, Nance,” she said. “That’s the thing that was so hard for me to learn throughout the years of our marriage. You just love him and enjoy him and trust in God to take care of him. If you’re going to worry every time he does something dangerous, you’ll be a wreck.”
But Nancy did worry; she couldn’t help herself. And then Kirby had added her own contribution to the week that was already ruined. She had come home from the dance studio Monday evening with the idea that she was going off to live at some ballet school in Atlanta.
“The Ballet South representative will be here in the spring to interview students,” she explained. “Madame Vilar thinks I could win a scholarship.”
“But Kirby!” Elizabeth gestured helplessly. “You’re so young!”
“Not for dancing,” Kirby said. “I’m old for dancing. You have to start young, Mom, to become a professional. And I have to—I have to—become one! It’s the only thing I want in the world!”
Kirby’s face was radiant and her voice was leaping with excitement.
Don’t let her, Nancy felt like screaming. Mom, don’t let her!
Couldn’t her mother see what would happen if they let Kirby get away from them? She would go twirling off into the clouds someplace, and they would never, ever have her for themselves again!
Why can’t she be normal? Nancy thought. Why can’t she giggle on the phone and get a crush on Jessie’s brother and go to parties?! She could—she would—if it weren’t for this dancing! I wish there were some way we could tie her down and never let her put on her toe shoes!
But she could tell from the look on her mother’s face that Elizabeth did not feel that way. When the time came and Kirby was offered a scholarship, her mother would let her go because that was the way Elizabeth was. She would never bring herself to withhold anything from her children that she thought would make them happy.
So it was a miserable Nancy who walked into class on Wednesday to find the substitute gone and Ms. Green glaring out from behind her desk.
Oh, no, Nancy thought. I can’t take it. I just can’t.
She took her seat with a sigh, and the boy in the seat behind her leaned forward and gave her hair a tug.
“I see the old Green Bag is back with us,” he whispered. “I won
der what was wrong with her Monday and Tuesday.”
“She couldn’t have been sick,” muttered Emily from across the aisle. “She’s too mean to be sick.”
“She was, though,” Nancy said. It was at that moment that the idea began to come to her. She had told Kirby that she would “teach Ms. Green a thing or two,” but the statement had been made impulsively. She hadn’t known at the time how she would carry out her threat.
Now she did know, and suddenly she was filled with a dawning sense of excitement.
“She has a disease,” she said in a low voice to the classmates within hearing range. “She has something called dropsy.”
“Dropsy?” Jessie glanced up from her own seat, where she was belatedly trying to finish her homework. “Is it contagious?”
“I’ve heard of it somewhere,” Emily said. “Don’t you swell up or something?”
“Silence!” Ms. Green’s voice broke through the whispered conversation.
“The bell hasn’t even rung yet,” grumbled the boy behind Nancy. “We can talk until the bell rings!”
“Bitch,” Emily mouthed silently, and Nancy nodded in agreement.
The bell rang.
Ms. Green spoke sharply. “Nancy Garrett, I will have no whispering in this classroom!”
“I wasn’t whispering,” Nancy said. “I was just nodding my head. And anyway, class hadn’t started.”
“You will not speak unless asked!” Ms. Green’s voice was icy. “I have not been well, and I am not in any state to put up with insolence. If I hear one more word, I will ask you to leave the classroom. If your desire is to bring up your grade this next semester, I would not advise this as a way to begin.”
Nancy dropped her head and stared down at her hands gripped into a knot in her lap. She was so angry that she felt herself shaking. Her jaw ached with the effort she was making to keep from shouting in outrage.
All right, she thought, you asked for it! For the first time in her life she focused her mind hard on a person who was not a member of her family.
She would never have attempted it a month ago, or even contemplated the fact that it might be possible. A mind was a thing to look with, not something with which you did things. Yet during the past weeks of working with Kirby, a strange realization had begun to come to her. Sometimes it seemed to her that she had a picture in her mind even before Kirby started drawing.