After I put them on we proceeded immediately to the barre and I noticed that Celine had wheeled herself into the corner of the room, where she sat with her hands folded on her lap and watched.
Dimitri went right into a warmup drill and for a moment all I could do was watch. He didn't seem shy or nervous to be dancing in front of us. It was as if he was in his own world. His legs moved with such grace and speed while he held his body in a perfectly vertical line.
"Begin," Madame Malisorf said, and I approached the barre, standing just a few feet from Dimitri. "No, don't hold the barre that tightly," she said. "See how Dimitri uses it only for balance."
I tried to relax and we began a series of exercises that included the plies, the tendus, and the glisses, all that she had shown me the day before. From there we moved to the fondus and then the rands de jambe a terre. First, Madame Malisorf would describe what she wanted. Then Dimitri would demonstrate, always with a proud look on his face as if he was dancing for an audience of thousands, and then I would begin, usually followed by Madame Malisorf's quick, "No, no, no. Dimitri, again. Watch him, Janet. Study the way he is holding his back and his neck."
Sometimes it took me so long to satisfy her, I was practically in tears before she let me go on to something else, always with the conditional statement, "We'll work on that." There wasn't anything I wouldn't be working on, seemingly forever and ever, I thought.
When we got to the turnout again, the pain of rotating my hips nearly made me cry out in pain. I was sure my face revealed all my new aches. Madame Malisorf seemed merciless, however. Just when I thought there would be a short break so I could catch my breath, she was on to something new with Dimitri demonstrating and then me trying to mimic his moves.
The session lasted longer than the one we had the day before. I was sweating so much, I felt the dampness in my leotards, which were now glued to my skin Finally, Madame Malisorf did give us a short break and I collapsed to the floor. Madame Malisorf went to talk to Celine and Dimitri finally looked at me for the first time since we'd been in the room.
"Why do you want to be a ballet dancer?" he asked immediately and with a sharpness in his tone that made me feel guilty.
"My mother thinks I should be," I said defensively.
"That's your reason?" he asked with a smirk. He wiped his face with his towel and then threw the soggy towel at me. "You're dripping," he said gruffly.
I found a dry spot on the towel and wiped my face and the back of my neck.
"I think I'll like it," I said cautiously. Again, he smirked.
"Ballet requires complete and utter devotion, a total commitment of mind, body, and soul. It becomes your religion. An instructor like Madame Malisorf is your high priestess, your god, her words gospel. You have to think and walk like a dancer, eat and breathe it. There is nothing else that is half as important. Then, and maybe then, you have a chance to become a real dancer."
"I don't expect to become a famous dancer," I said and wondered why this boy made me feel like I had to defend myself . . . especially when I wasn't so sure that I even wanted to be a dancer.
He looked quickly toward Madame Malisorf and Celine and then back at me.
"Don't ever let Madame Malisorf hear you say such a weak, self-defeating thing. She'll turn and walk out of the room forever," he warned.
My heart, which was pounding madly from our exercises anyway, stopped and then pounded even harder, Celine would be devastated. She would hate me, I thought.
"Madame Malisorf will tell you what you will and will not be," he continued and then he shook his head. "Another spoiled rich child whose parents think she's someone special," he commented disdainfully.
"I am not," I said, nearly in tears.
"No? How many kids your age have a studio like this in their homes and a teacher who costs thousands of dollars a week?"
"Thousands?" I gulped.
"Of course, you little idiot. Don't you know who she is?" He groaned. "This isn't going to last long. I can just feel it," he said with a knowing shake of his head.
"Yes, it will. do what I have to do and I'll do it well," I fired back at him.
I didn't want to tell him that I thought my life depended on it; that the woman who wanted to love me as a mother had her heart set on my success as a dancer and that I would devote all my strength and energy toward making her happy.
"My mother was going to be a famous dancer until she was in a terrible car accident. That's why we have this studio. It's not here just for me."
He smirked.
"You shouldn't look down on someone who is just starting out simply because you're a good ballet student," I added.
He finally smiled.
"How could I do anything but look down at you? What are you, four feet eight?"
This time tears escaped the corners of my eyes. I turned my back on him and wiped them away quickly.
"Are you really nearly thirteen?" he continued. His voice had softened and I wondered if he was sorry he'd hurt my feelings.
I began to answer him when Madame Malisorf returned and told me to take off the leg warmers. It was time to move away from the barre to repeat everything we had done, but this time without the aid of the barre. I couldn't help being tired and making mistakes. I knew I was looking very clumsy and awkward. Every time Madame Malisorf corrected me, Dimitri shook his head and smirked. Then, as if to drive home his disdain, he would do what she asked so perfectly, showing off, his spinning turns so fast he became a blur. Occasionally he would break out of the spin and do a leap that seemed to defy gravity and land without a sound. Whenever he demonstrated something for me, Madame Malisorf would cry, "That's it That's what I want. Study him. Watch him. Someday you must be as good as he is."
His face filled with arrogant pride as he puffed out his chest toward me.
I wanted to say I'd rather watch a dead fish floating on the top of our lake, but held my breath and my words and tried again. Finally, mercifully, it seemed, the session ended. Celine clapped and wheeled herself to the center of the studio.
"Bravo, bravo. What a beautiful beginning. Thank you, Madame Malisorf. Thank you. And Dimitri, you make me want to get up out of this chair, forget my crippled legs, and dance in your arms."
He bowed.
"Madame Malisorf has told me how
wonderfully you danced and what a tragedy it was for ballet when you were injured, Mrs. Delorice."
"Yes," Celine said softly, her eyes taking on that faraway, distant look. Then she smiled toward me. "But my daughter will do what I can't do anymore. Don't you agree?"
He looked at me.
"Perhaps," he said with that crooked smile on his lips. "If she learns to be dedicated, devoted, and obedient"
"She will," Celine promised and I wondered if just her command would turn me into a ballerina as easily as it had turned a cloudy, gloomy day bright and beautiful.
I tried not to look as tired and as sore as I was, but Dimitri saw through my mask and smiled cruelly at me. When I entered my room, I threw myself on my bed and let my tears burst forth freely.
I'll never be the dancer Celine dreams I'll become, I thought. I may never be the daughter she wants, but I'd rather die trying than disappoint her.
Once again at dinner all our conversation centered around the dance class and my progress. Celine talked so much she barely ate or took breaths between sentences. Sanford tried to talk about other things, but she refused to change the subject. He smiled at her and at me, his face filled with amusement. Afterward, he pulled me aside to tell me that it had been some time since Celine was as animated and cheerful.
"Thank you for making Celine so happy, Janet. You're a wonderful addition to our family. Thank you for just being who you are," he said. He smiled a genuine smile and I couldn't help but think that this smile looked so much better than the tight, grim one he usually wore around Celine.
Celine caught up to us in the hallway and noticed Sanford's beaming smile. "Why are you grinning l
ike an idiot, Sanford? What are you two discussing?" Suddenly her eyes narrowed and turned dark and cold. "Janet, go to your room. You need your rest. You're obviously going to need all the help you can get to keep up with Dimitri."
I couldn't help but feel that Celine had scolded me and I moped up to my room to collapse.
The first two weeks of my new life flew by so quickly, they felt like hours. I was sure it was because each and every moment of my day was full of things to do. Unlike in the orphanage, there weren't long hours of emptiness to fill with distractions and daydreams. Here I was working on my school assignments, taking dance lessons, recuperating from them, and starting over again. I went to sleep early and ate from the strict dancer's diet Celine had designed. Although I thought it was too early to see any real changes, I believed my legs were stronger, my small muscles tighter. I even thought I was doing what Dimitri claimed I would have to do: walk and move like a dancer, even when I wasn't in the studio.
Because my after-school time was dedicated to dance lessons, it was hard to make new friends and Celine wouldn't permit me to join any teams or clubs.
"All we need is for you to sustain some sort of injury now," she said. She even tried to get me out of gym class, but the school wouldn't permit it and Sanford argued that it wouldn't interfere with my dancing lessons.
"Of course it will," Celine snapped. "I don't want her wasting her physical energies on nonsense."
"It isn't nonsense, darling," he tried to explain, but Celine would have none of it. She hadn't gotten her way and she didn't like it one bit.
"Don't do any more than you have to," she advised me, "and do what I used to do whenever you can: claim you have cramps from your period."
"But I haven't gotten my period yet," I reminded her.
"So what? Who's going to know? Lying," she said when she saw the expression on my face, "is all right if it's for the right cause. I'll never punish you for doing something to protect your dancing, Janet, never, no matter what," she said, her eyes so bright and big, they scared me. I wondered where she went when that look came over her.
Like most of the girls and boys my age at the orphanage, I used to fantasize about the people who would become my parents. I filled my head with dreams of fun things like picnics and trips to the park, and I saw myself holding my father's hand as we walked through the gates of Disneyland. I imagined big, beautiful birthday parties, and I even dreamed of having little brothers and sisters.
How empty and different the big house I now lived in seemed when I compared it to the house in my dreams. Yes, I had expensive things and a room bigger than I'd ever seen, and there was a lake and beautiful grounds, but none of the family closeness or trips or fun and games that I'd imagined. Sanford wanted to spend time with me, to show off his factory, but Celine just seemed to come up with one reason after another why I couldn't go. Finally, she realized how silly her arguments sounded and relented. I went to work with Sanford on a Saturday and saw the machines and the products. I met some of his workers and his executives. I was amazed at how pleasant and eager he was to show me things and how sad I was when our time alone ended. I think Sanford felt the same way--on the ride home neither of us spoke and for the first time that day the mood between us was gloomy.
When we returned home and I started to tell Celine about our day, she grimaced as if in pain.
"We need the factory so that we can afford the luxuries in life," she said. "What we don't need is to acknowledge its existence. And we certainly don't allow it to take up one iota of our time or thought"
"But some of the things that are made in the factory are beautiful, aren't they?" I asked.
"I suppose, in a pedestrian sort of way," she admitted, although I didn't understand exactly what she meant, and I saw it displeased Sanford. She didn't become animated and happy again until Sanford told her he had gotten us tickets to the Metropolitan Ballet's performance of The Four Temperaments.
"Now," she cried, "now you will see your first real ballet and understand what it is I want you to do and become."
Celine had Sanford take us to buy me a formal dress. I chose a long royal blue taffeta and Celine even had Sanford buy me some jewelry--a set of sapphire earrings and a matching teardrop-shaped necklace.
"Going to the ballet is a very special thing," she explained. "Everyone wears their very best clothes. You'll see."
She brought me to a salon where they styled my hair in a French twist and showed me how to apply makeup properly. When I gazed at myself in the mirror, I was amazed at how grown-up I looked.
"I want you to make a statement, to be noticed, to be someone everyone will look at and think, 'There's an up-and-coming star, a little princess.' "
I had to admit I was finally swept away in Celine's world. I permitted myself to dream the same dreams, to think of myself as a celebrity, my name up in lights, and when I saw the theater and all those rich and elegant-looking people in the audience, I was filled with excitement, too. By the time the curtain lifted, my heart was pounding. The ballet began. I gazed at my new mother beside me in her wheelchair, saw the happiness and radiance in her eyes, and felt as if I was leaping and soaring alongside her. During the first act, she reached through the darkness until she found my hand.
When I turned to her she whispered, "Someday,
Janet, Sanford and I will be coming here to see you. "Someday," she whispered, lost in her dream. And I dared to believe it could come true.
Seven
Although I didn't hear them referred to very much, I couldn't help wondering when I would meet my grandparents, Celine's mother and father. I never heard or saw her talking to them on the phone and neither she nor Sanford mentioned speaking to them recently or on any regular basis. During the week, Sanford and I usually ate breakfast without Celine since it took her much longer to rise and dress. knew Sanford would tell me about my new grandparents if I asked him, but I was having trouble getting up the nerve. Finally I decided I would settle into my routine and wait for Celine to bring up the subject of her parents again--then I would ask to meet them.
As the days wore on, my dance lessons seemed to be going better, and although I couldn't imagine myself ever liking Dimitri, I couldn't help being flattered when he complimented me on my technique.
Madame Malisorf didn't go so far as to say I was a special student, but she did offer that I was better than average, which was enough to make Celine happy and even more confident.
"I think," Celine said one night at dinner, "that it's time for my mother to see Janet. Janet's made significant progress. I'll have mother stop by during one of her dance lessons."
Sanford nodded without speaking, but I saw something strange in his eyes, a look of concern that I hadn't seen often before. Of course, I couldn't help wondering why I hadn't met Celine's parents before now. I knew they didn't live very far away. Why didn't we ever visit? I kicked myself for not having the courage to ask Sanford earlier since it was obvious from the look on his face that he had strong opinions about them.
"Isn't your brother returning from his holiday tomorrow?" Sanford asked her. His face didn't relax at all, and I wondered what it was about Celine's family that upset him.
"I don't recall. And what do you mean, return from his holiday? When isn't Daniel on holiday?" she asked and laughed a high, thin laugh.
Nothing else was said about Celine's family, but two days afterward, right in the middle of our dinner, the doorbell sounded and Mildred hurried out of the kitchen to see who it was. Minutes later, I heard a loud laugh.
"Mildred, you're still here! Wonderful!" A loud voice boomed from the entryway.
"Daniel," Celine moaned, shaking her head. Moments later, Celine's younger brother burst
into the dining room. His light brown hair was long and tossed about his head and face as if he had been running his fingers through it for hours. Not quite six feet tall with an athletic build, Daniel had hazel eyes set in a face much more chiseled than Celine's. I saw resemblances
in their noses and mouths, but there was a sly smile on his lips that I would discover to be a habitual characteristic. He wore a black leather jacket, faded blue jeans, and black boots, as well as black leather gloves.
"Celine, Sanford," he cried. "How are you?" He started to take off his gloves. "I'm in time for dinner. What luck. I'm starving."
He slid into the chair across from me and reached for some bread before anyone could respond.
"Hello, Daniel," Celine said dryly. "Please meet Janet."
He winked at me.
"I heard you guys were finally parents. Mother gave me an earful." He studied me. "How are they treating you? Has Sanford negotiated your allowance yet? Better let me represent you. Ah, a veal roast," he said, stabbing a piece of meat. "Mildred's quite a good cook." He shoved the meat into his mouth and chewed.
It was as if a strong, wild wind had blown into the house. Sanford was so obviously stunned by Daniel's appearance that he sat with his hand frozen in the air, his fork full of peas.
"Hello, Daniel," Sanford said, his eyes softening. "I see you finally got that motorcycle you've been threatening to buy."
"You bet I did," Daniel said. "I seem to remember you used to throw around the idea of getting one of your own."
"I was never really serious," he said, glancing at Celine.
"How about you?" Daniel asked me. "You want to go for a ride after dinner?"
"Of course she doesn't," Celine said quickly. "Do you think I would place her in such danger?"
Daniel laughed and continued to eat. I was still too surprised and overwhelmed to speak. He winked at me again.
"I bet you'd like a ride," he said, and he stared at me so intently it seemed like he could see into my soul. I wondered if my soul wore biker leather!
"Stop it, Daniel," Celine ordered. He laughed again and shook his head in defeat.
"Where were you this time?" Sanford asked. Although he meant it to sound critical, I saw a look of envy in his eyes as he waited for Daniel to tell about his adventures.