Abigail: Nice Girls Finish Last (6 page)

But there is no correction, no confusion, no waking up and discovering this is a dream. She said it, she really said it. Sammy's been killed in a road accident.

All the air's sucked from the room as everyone stands frozen by the news. Except for me, I can't stay here or I'll suffocate. As I run for the door, I can feel a hand on my arm. Miss Raine trying to stop me, calling my name but I can't stay, I won't stay. I run, I don't know where or why but I will not stay in that room where I heard that news.

The next thing I sense, it's hours later and I'm sitting somewhere, feeling cold. I'm wet and my teeth are chattering. I look up to see Tara and Kat with their hands outstretched, reaching to pull me up.

Sammy's funeral doesn't make sense. It's not that the service is in Hebrew. It could be in any language and I wouldn't understand it. All we can do is go through it, observe the ritual, hoping that something at some point will make sense. But I can't imagine any event less like Sammy, dark, formal, structured … on time. It's like he isn't even there. But he has to be. He has to be somewhere. There can't be a world without him.

Afterward we are at the Academy in the dance studio. I can't remember the number of times he's dropped me, fumbled a hold, mistimed a turn in that room. We're still in our funeral clothes, carrying his funeral with us. Miss Raine addresses us. ‘Out of respect, the Prix de Fonteyn committee has decided to postpone the remaining sections of
the competition for a week … And we're cancelling our production of
Peter Pan
.'

Suddenly I am angry. Why assemble us in the dance studio and tell us we can't dance? It doesn't make sense. I need things to make sense.

‘He wasn't even in it. So what are we doing here?' I ask.

Miss Raine says the school is still running classes but, ‘it's up to you whether you feel like attending.' Miss Raine making classes optional – this world is not right. I won't have it. I need sense. She starts talking about grief counsellors but I don't hear her.

I move over to the
barre
, slip my heels off and begin doing
pliés
. I don't care if I'm in a black dress. This is what we do in this room. This is what makes sense, the first exercise of any class. Tara joins me, then Kat, Ben, Christian and Ollie. Soon all the students are at the
barre
. Doing what we do. Doing what we have to do to get through this.

That night, Tara sleeps in our room. Only she doesn't sleep. She and Kat are pouring over the funeral, no detail too small to repeat constantly.

‘A couple of prayers, some bad sandwiches,' says Kat for the tenth time. ‘How can anyone expect that to give you closure?'

‘Today just felt formal. Like it was for one Sammy. But not our Sammy,' says Tara.

Kat turns the light on and announces that we'll hold our own memorial. ‘A proper Sammy Lieberman tribute'.

Do they have to? How is anyone supposed to deal with this, when they won't stop talking?

‘Do you guys know what he would have wanted?' Kat asks. I do, but I'm not torturing myself or them by obsessing.

‘There's no point dragging it out. That's all anyone has done since it happened,' I say.

‘You're bored of the grieving talk?' Kat asks.

‘It's morbid.'

Then her phone rings. It's Ethan calling for the thousandth time to see if she's okay.

 

The next day I'm in the studio practising. It's what I would do. It's what a normal day in the real world is. Miss Raine comes in and asks how long I've been there but I can't tell her.

‘The fact you've cancelled
Peter Pan
doesn't mean I have an interest in sacrificing technique.'

‘In that case, Sydney Dance is doing a regional tour over Christmas. Rafael's asked to see some third years who didn't get contracts, but I thought maybe you …'

I stop. ‘Yes. I'd love to audition.'

‘It is tomorrow, so if that's too soon'

‘Tomorrow's perfect,' I say. And a tour would be perfect. A chance to be a real dancer. Something to focus on.

I finish my practice and head to my room to pack. After the audition, they'll want to go straight away. I don't have any time to waste, I need to be ready. I'm pushing clothes into my suitcase when my mother comes in.

‘Packing already?' she asks as if I'm presuming too much.

‘You don't think I'm better than the third years?'

‘Of course I do. You have had a big knock though sweetheart. Maybe, right now, you should be …'

Not her too. I take more leotards from my wardrobe and put them in my case.

‘… sobbing on the bathroom tiles? History dictates you should be pleased I have my priorities back in order, mother.'

 

The next day, Rafael Bonachela, the artistic director of Sydney Dance Company is waiting for me in the rehearsal studio. There's a male dancer there too. This is a huge break. A chance to tour with Sydney Dance Company, perform with people who are really talented. It makes
Peter Pan
seem like child's play. Rafael kisses me on both cheeks. So European.

‘Thanks for coming in. I imagine it's a difficult time,' he says.

‘No, I'm thrilled to be auditioning. I have a solo to show you,' I say and hand my CD of music to him. When the music starts I have a second's doubt, that I'm not going to be able to do this, but the music urges me. I dance. Dancing is such an escape, I don't want to ever stop.

When I finish, Rafael seems pleased. He asks me to partner with Richard, the dancer he brought with him. ‘You'd be working with him on the tour.'

Richard puts his hand on my waist. There's a confidence in the way he moves. He's not afraid to touch me, not like Sammy was. I've never danced with someone so good. He anticipates my every move, knows exactly where he should be. He holds me, lifts me. I don't doubt for a second he'll catch me. He's perfect. I'm not used to perfect. Suddenly all I can think about is Sammy and his clumsy fumbling
and I can't believe I'll never have to put up with it again. I can't believe that it's what I want more than anything in the world. How can I be so stupid as to want that? Why did Rafael do this to me?

‘Is there a problem?' he asks and turns the music off.

‘Yes. Why would you make me dance with someone so good?'

I'm not prepared for that. How could I be when I learned the basics with a crap partner.

‘Everyone wants to talk about how amazing he was but he wasn't. He was indescribably terrible. As a
pas de deux
partner. And as a boyfriend. And then he got his own boyfriend. And then he kissed me. And then he died.' Suddenly tears are streaming down my face. ‘What sort of a person does that?' I'm angry. More furious than I've ever been before. I run from the room. Mum's outside. She catches me and holds onto me as I cry so hard I can hardly get the words, ‘I hate him, I hate him so much' out.

The audition is over, I can't go on tour. All I can do is cry. I cry with my mother for hours. Washing away my fury one tear at a time until there are no tears left and the anger's gone. Instead I'm just sad. Sammy's gone. No amount of practice can make this perfect. I have to deal with this.

After the storm of tears, I finally begin to feel some sense of calm. Nothing could ever replace that clumsy boy, and I don't want anything to. Mum wants to stay with me in my room, but I tell her go. I need to be with Sammy's friends. My friends.

I find them in the sitting room. They've been trying to organise his memorial, trying to sum him up on a whiteboard of plans. They've got nowhere. Tara, Kat, Ben, Christian and Ollie are all there, frustrated, exhausted, lost.

‘I know what he wanted,' I say. ‘He told me. Energy drink incident. He thought he was going into cardiac arrest.' They smile, recognising their Sammy.

 

We gather before dawn on the beach around a bonfire. It's cold, we need blankets to keep warm. We've got his favourite lemon poppyseed cake and a big picture of him smiling pegged to the sand. We surround ourselves with candles in bags, creating a circle. Just before we start, Kat sees someone coming in the distance. Ethan. For all Kat telling him she was fine, he didn't believe her and came home. Timing was always his strong point, he should be here.

I share a blanket with Tara, her face is drained and her eyes dry as she stares into the fire. Her hand clutches mine, needing to hold onto something as Christian begins to read out Sammy's list of 50 things he wanted to accomplish in life. It's the most I've ever heard Christian speak. His voice cracks with pain. I can see how hard this is for him, but nothing's going to stop him leading our tribute. The list is pure Sammy: funny, moving, stupid, annoying, heart warming. We all remember items on the list he did with us. I almost lose it at number three: ‘Fall in love so my heart takes over from my head.' Tara's hand squeezes a little tighter as tears roll down my face. Didn't he know his heart was so big, it was always getting in the way of his head? Why didn't I tell him? All the times I was so hard on him, so sharp, dismissive and yet somehow he always came bouncing back. Can't he do it one more time?

After the list, Kat gets up to play the favourite song from the list on his laptop. We sit in silence as Christian's words echo through our minds, with the gentle breaking of waves in the background. The moment is shattered by the cheesiest bubble gum pop ever.

‘Wow, that's …' Ethan can't find the words, nobody could.

‘And it was definitely his favourite?' Ollie asks.

‘He played it 836 times,' Kat reveals with a laugh. Even here, even now, Sammy can make us all shake our heads and laugh. ‘We're skipping to the ninth favourite,' Kat adds.

As the music plays and dawn breaks, one by one everyone goes into the water, dancing for Sammy and each other, just like he would have wanted. Only Tara and I are left on the beach.

‘I haven't cried since it happened,' she says. ‘I don't know what's wrong with me.'

I look at her and feel connected for the first time. Not rivals, not enemies, friends. ‘Trust me,' I say. ‘It'll happen.'

I take her hand and we join the others to dance in the cold morning water.

There's no
Peter Pan
, no tour with the Sydney Dance Company, all I have to focus on is keeping up my technique and the Prix de Fonteyn – which I'm not even competing in. The break in the competition for Sammy's death is over. The finals of the world's biggest dance competition are about to take place and Tara's supposed to be competing but now Grace is back, she's scared. Grace has made it clear to Tara she wants to beat her in the Prix and do it by dancing
The Red Shoes,
the piece Tara was going to perform before Saskia tormented her over it. Tara's still sleeping in our room and I see that every night she has the same nightmare involving that dance.

 

We're having a picnic for Christian's eighteenth birthday. It's as happy as we can make it, but Christian's present reminds us of Sammy. He got us all to chip in for a motorcycle jacket for Christian. When Ben arrives to speak to Tara, I can guess what it's about. He was ranked third in Australia for the competition. It's only logical that they'd ask him to compete.

I bring some drinks over to them in time to hear Tara saying that competing would be ‘dancing on his grave'.

‘Ignore her Ben,' I tell him. ‘You'd be moronic not to compete. Tara's feeling guilty because she's using Sammy as an excuse.'

‘Am I?'

‘Grace declared war, but now you're going to use the grief card and never stand up to her.'

‘That's not fair,' she says. She's right, but none of this is fair.

‘Nothing is going to make us feel better. But extinguishing Grace, like the pterodactyl she is, that'll help you sleep at night.'

Even if she doesn't know it, Tara needs to dance. She needs to dance for Sammy and for all of us. If I can't compete for myself, I want to make sure she competes, and competes at her best.

 

It's the contemporary dance section for girls that morning. I stick with Tara to make sure she doesn't back out. I can tell she's feeling overwhelmed by the Opera House, the competitors, her memories of Sammy and the threat of Grace.

‘This is your revenge plot. I was happy with my decision to back out,' Tara says, wanting to leave. I won't let her.

‘You beat Grace in the Nationals. You can beat her again here.'

‘She let me win in the Nationals.'

‘So she said. And you didn't have me then. I've studied you for two years. I know every strength. Every weakness. All you need to do, is get your edge back.'

As we enter the dressing room, Grace is there, holding court with the other competitors. She's wearing a ridiculous headband with a bow that makes her look like a polka dot rabbit. ‘He was one of those truly beautiful souls. I rang his parents and told them I'm dedicating my solo to him.'

She's daring to talk about our Sammy like she cared about him. ‘How noble,' I say. Grace is shocked to see Tara. Good.

‘I thought you weren't up to competing?' she says.

‘I wasn't. I am now,' says Tara. Grace doesn't take long to recover.

‘Yay. Wouldn't have been a fraction as much fun without you.'

But I saw her vulnerable moment. She's scared. She knows Tara has something she doesn't. And now she has me too.

 

It really isn't easy being Tara's backbone. Even with the world's biggest dance competition and
pointe
to
pointe
combat with Grace she still has time for boy drama. I literally have to drag her away from Christian and make her run to the stage to be there in time to compete. My entire life, I will never understand that girl.

She dances her contemporary piece well. She's got that emotion thing that I'm always being criticised for lacking. And technically she's good, until Grace waves at her from the wings and distracts her. Tara misses a couple of steps. Allowing herself to lose focus like that makes it too easy for Grace.

‘I don't think anyone noticed,' says Ben afterwards.

‘They're not blind. You handed her at least four marks,' I say.

Grace goes on and dances brilliantly.

‘Shake it off,' I tell Tara as she watches Grace. ‘She was always going to have the upper hand in contemporary.'

‘She will again tomorrow with
The Red Shoes
,' Tara says. ‘You should see her.'

She's almost determined to psyche herself out. It's time she learned how to compete – if you want to win, you face your enemies head on. Beat them exactly the way they think they can beat you.

‘Why don't you do
The Red Shoes
as well?' I suggest. ‘You want to dance that solo so much you're dreaming about it.'

‘It's bad luck. I haven't done it since the Preliminaries and Saskia was right then. I could never do it justice.'

‘Saskia said you didn't have enough life experience. You want a tally of what you've gone through this year?'

Then I think of it, I didn't spend years studying the history of each ballet for nothing. ‘There is another version. Not the one Saskia did, the original. It would suit you.' It will mean a lot of work to
get the new choreography right, but it could really give Tara the edge she needs. The original version is softer, more lyrical. It suits Tara's dancing. She could make Grace look brittle, like the fake she is.

We've got one evening to get it right. Kat tries to help but in no time she's asleep on the dance studio floor. I talk Tara through her performance. She gets through the happy deluded part where Victoria thinks she can have everything and then we move into the dark, competition-winning territory. Victoria's supposed to be grief stricken but Tara simply acts some tears. It's not good enough.

‘Actual tears. Grace will exploit the melodrama. You have to be real.' She stops dancing.

‘I can't cry. I told you that,' she says, sits down and starts to undo the ribbons on her red
pointe
shoes. ‘Which is why I'm dancing Aurora as originally planned.' I sit next to her.

‘You cry every time you step on an ant. You're a cryer. Why the blockage?'

We sit for a moment and then Tara speaks. ‘When I broke my back it was like falling into a hole. I didn't know how to get out. This is a million times worse. I'm scared if I start crying, I won't be able to stop.'

We've never really talked like this before, but I know she's stronger than that.

‘It's not the reason,' I challenge her, swallowing hard. It's not easy being this emotional.

‘Then what is?' she asks. I can feel tears creeping into my eyes again.

‘If you cry, it's real. And if it's real, he's gone.'

 

The next day, competition is on. My
protégée
needs all the focus and direction she can get. I'm putting her make-up on in the changing room when Christian comes in.

‘Hey can we …' He wants to talk. Moments before competition. Really?

‘No Christian, no you can't. Because if you break her focus, I will pierce this mascara stick through your skull cap.'

But Tara wouldn't be Tara without the last minute boy trauma.

‘It's fine,' she says. ‘Just thirty seconds?'

I leave them alone, stand in the corridor and count out thirty seconds precisely. I go back in on the dot. My timing is never off.

‘Time's up. Evaporate,' I say to Christian.

 

Grace performs
The Red Shoes
first. Tara and I watch in the wings with Kat and Ben. Grace puts in a great performance. She's brilliant, but it's still a performance. She's never felt a genuine emotion in her life and it shows. As Grace runs off, Tara tells her it was beautiful.

‘I think it was a nine. Nine point five,' Grace says. ‘How does it feel? To go out there knowing I've already taken away what you want most?'

I'm worried Tara will let Grace psych her out again, but she doesn't. She's focused and determined as she's called out to the stage. As Tara begins to dance, she's good but not brilliant. Then something happens. It's like her mind goes to another place and her movements become real. Her emotion is so intense, so genuine. It's no performance, she's living the part, feeling, expressing. It's one of the greatest dances I've seen. I can see the tears streaming down her face and I know the pain she's feeling. She's letting Sammy go. It's not just the dance that's real, it's her grief, it's our grief.

She finishes crumpled on the stage floor, sobbing as the audience erupts into deafening applause like it has done for no other performance in the entire competition. I realise it doesn't even matter if she
wins the Prix. She won
The Red Shoes
. She owned it, and I helped her.

We join the audience for the boy's contemporary in time for Ben's performance. I sit down next to Ethan. ‘Quite the coach now aren't you,' he says with a smile.

‘I bet they don't dance like that in Barcelona,' I say.

‘They don't dance like you either,' he answers.

Ben is called to the stage. He comes out with a microphone and announces that he is going to dance the piece that Sammy was going to perform. The judges interject.

‘I'm sorry Benjamin. But all choreography has to be approved in advance.'

‘I know,' he says. ‘You'll have to disqualify me.'

The stage goes dark, Sammy's montage appears and then we hear his voice.

Every dancer knows that being technically perfect is not enough. We need to know why we dance.

Even though I've heard the words before, listened to them in this very spot, my heart jumps. Sammy's most brilliant, most beautiful performance and I was the only person who got to witness it. I'm the one who'll carry it in my memory for everyone, forever.

Ben begins the dance but then pauses. ‘Guys? Leaving me on a limb here,' he calls out.

Sammy's inspiration was to have all his friends on stage with him when he performed. He can't perform any more but he can have all his friends on stage. We can give him that, at least. One by one we go up. Tara and Kat, Christian and Ollie, Ethan and me, dancing with Ben to Sammy's piece. On Sammy's list of 50 things he wanted to do, his number one was ‘Make a group of friends I'll know for the rest of my life'. He didn't just do that for himself. He did it for all of us. It's for him that we've been brought together, for him that I could watch Tara dance earlier and be proud to call her my friend, for him that I can smile at Kat's goofy steps as she cavorts on stage now. If only he could know how much he's given me.

On this stage, as the balloons that were supposed to be for the competition winner cascade down, there's only one way for me to express my feelings, only one way for all of us to do it, through our dance – not formal, not structured, not competitive, just moving to our joy and our sorrow.

There are no rules, there is no form, the Prix de Fonteyn is just a bunch of tired flowers and
glitzy trophy. This moment is more important, we are more important, the ways we loved Sammy are more important.

We're dancing to celebrate his life. Dancing for the gift of his presence. Dancing for my Sammy.