Butterfly (11 page)

Once Celine and I began working weekends on ray dancing, it became a regular part of my schedule. A number of times, Sanford tried to plan family outings: day trips, shopping, movie matinees, or just a ride and dinner in a nice restaurant. Celine not only rejected his suggestions; she became annoyed and angry at him just for making them.

After my birthday party, I was invited to other girls' houses, and one night I was invited to a pajama party at Betty Lowe's. Celine always had a reason why I shouldn't go, the primary one being I would stay up too late, be too tired, and start my dance practice too late.

"Parents don't watch their children very well anymore," she told me. "I can't be sure you'll be well chaperoned, and I know what happens at these all girl parties. Boys always sneak over and then . . . things happen. Not that I ever went to any sleepovers, I knew enough not to be distracted," she added.

I tried to explain my situation to my new friends, but after I had turned down half a dozen invitations, the invitations stopped coining and once again, I felt a gap growing between me and the other students at the school, Even Josh began to lose interest in me because we never had a chance to be alone. Once, and only because Sanford had talked Celine into permitting me to go with him to the factory after my dance lesson on a Saturday, I was able to meet Josh at the custard stand. Sanford knew that was why I wanted to go along with him and he permitted me to stay there for nearly two hours before coming around to bring me home.

"It's probably best for you not to mention this to Celine," Sanford told me. "Not that we want to keep any secrets from her. I just don't want her worrying."

I nodded, but he didn't have to ask. I wouldn't have dreamed of mentioning it.
I did my best to explain my situation to Josh., but he couldn't understand how my dancing prevented me from doing nearly everything any of the other kids could do. The crisis came when he formally asked me to the movies. His father was going to drive us. Sanford said yes but Celine said no and they got into the worst argument they had since I had arrived.
"This time it's only a night at the movies and ice cream afterward, ice cream full of fat that she doesn't need. Tomorrow it will be a whole weekend day and night. And then she'll be wanting to go on weekend jaunts with girls who have nothing but bubble gum brains and two left feet."
"She's only thirteen, Celine."
"When I was thirteen, I had performed in twelve programs and I had danced in
Sleeping Beauty
at the Albany Center for the Performing Arts. You've seen the news clippings?'
"That's you. Janet's Janet."
"Janet has opportunities now she would never have had, Sanford. It's practically sinful to do anything that would frustrate or detract from them." She would not be dissuaded,
"But---"
"Haven't you done enough damage to ballet for one lifetime?" she screamed at him.
When Sanford came to my door that evening, I already knewwhat the decision was.
"I'm sorry?' he said. "Celine thinks you're too young for this sort of thing."
He said it with his head down, his eyes on the floor.
"I'll think of something nice for us to do soon," he added, and left me crying tears into my pillow.
Josh's face dropped and actually turned ashen when I told him I couldn't go with him that Friday night. I tried to give him an explanation, but he just shook his head.
"What is it, your parents don't think I'm rich enough?" he shot back at me and then turned and left me standing alone in the school hallway before I could deny it.
I felt as if I were entering Celine's private world of shadows now. One of my girlfriends called to tease me and sang, "All work and no play make Janet a dull girl." The world that had become filled with sunshine and color began to turn shades of gray. Even when it was a clear sky, I felt as if clouds hung over me. My moodiness seeped into my performances at lessons. Madame Malisorf's eyes narrowed into slits of suspicion. Celine had made me promise never to tell Madame Malisorf how hard she and I worked on the weekends, but my master teacher was too perceptive.
"Aren't you resting your legs'?" she asked me directly one afternoon. Celine was in her usual corner observing. I glanced her way. Madame Malisorf followed the shift in my eyes and turned
"Celine, are you working this student seven days a week?" she demanded.
"On occasion, I go over something with her, Madame Malisorf. She's young and--"
"I want her to have a full twenty-four hours of rest. Those muscles need some time to rebuild. Every time we work out, we break them down. You, of all people, should know that," she said, shaking her head. "Make sure she has the rest required," she demanded.
Celine promised, but never kept her promise, and if I mentioned it, she would go into a rage and then a depression, backing herself into one of those dark corners in the house to stare sadly at the pictures of her former self. Sometimes, she simply read and reread a dance program and I'd find her asleep in her chair, the program in her lap, clutched tightly in her fingers. I didn't have the heart to put up any real resistance.
I tried to do better, to be sharp, to hit my marks. Now, without any friends calling me, I did my homework and went to bed early. I even did what she had asked me to do when I first enrolled in school. I pretended to have cramps and got myself excused from physical education class a number of times. I needed to conserve my energy. I had grown terrified of being tired or sluggish.
Summer was drawing closer and with it was the promise of attending a prestigious dance school. However, money couldn't buy someone a place in the school. Everyone had to audition and Celine's new obsession was getting me prepared for that audition. Madame Malisorf agreed to help win me a spot. She thought it was a good idea for me to go to the school because she was going to spend most of her summer in Europe as she usually did. My lessons became reviews of fundamentals. Dimitri rarely came to practice anymore. He had already been accepted to a school for dance in New York City and was preparing himself for the new training.
We had to travel to Bennington, Vermont, where the audition for the dance school was being held. I was actually excited about it because I would be spending eight weeks at the school and I had read the program and schedule and seen that there was more rest and recreation time than I now had. Of course, almost anywhere would give me more time. At the end of the school's brochure were testimonials written by former students and many of them talked about the social events, singing around the campfire, their weekly social dance, and short bus trips to museums and historic sights. Not everything had to do with dance. The school's philosophy was that a more rounded person makes a more complete artist. It was very expensive to go there and it amazed me that so many people would compete to spend so much money.
At my final lesson before the audition, Madame Malisorf put me through what she predicted would be the school's test. She stood back alongside Celine and tried to be an objective judge. At the end she and Celine spoke softly for a moment and then Madame Malisorf smiled
"I would give you a place in my school, Janet," she said. "You've made considerable improvement and you have reached a quality of performance that would justify the investment of further time and effort," she claimed. Celine beamed.
I was happy too because I really wanted to get into the school I think a part of me, a strong part of me, wanted to get away for a while, and not feel so guilty about every misstep. Before she left, Madame Malisorf warned Celine not to wear me out.
"She's a fragile commodity now, Celine. We've taken her far, too far too fast perhaps, but she's there. Now let's let her develop at a normal pace. Otherwise. ." She looked at me. "We'll ruin what we've created."
"Don't worry, Madame. I will cherish her as much as I cherished myself, if not more."
Despite the hard days and the difficult lessons, despite her critical eyes and often harsh comments, I had grown to appreciate and respect Madame Malisorf. I was even a bit afraid of what would happen without her overseeing everything, but she left assuring me that my teachers at the school would be of the highest quality.
"I'll see you in September," she told me and left.
"I knew it," Celine declared once we were alone. "I knew she would come to see you as I do. We must continue to prepare This is wonderful, wonderful," she said and for the next few days, she was as animated and excited as she had been when I first arrived.
Sanford, however, looked more troubled by it all. Problems at the factory took up more and more of his time and he continually apologized to me about it. It was as if he was sorry he was leaving me alone with Celine so much. Celine wasn't the least bit interested in the factory and didn't have the patience to listen to anything Sanford said. She was so focused on my audition, it seemed that she thought of nothing else from the moment she rose to the moment she fell asleep.
And then, the week before my audition, there was a new family crisis. Daniel had run off and married a woman he had gotten pregnant. My grandparents were overwrought. They held a family meeting at our house. I wasn't invited, but they spoke so loudly, I would have had to have been deaf not to hear.
"Both my children just go out and do impulsive things," Grandmother cried. "Neither of you thinks about the family name anymore'
I heard them all trying to calm her, but she was beside herself. They talked about Daniel's new wife and how she came from a lower class of people.
"What sort of a child would a woman like that produce?" Grandmother asked. "We should disown them both. We should."
If they did that, what would happen to the baby? I wondered. Would he or she become an orphan like I was?
The sound of discussion turned to the sounds of sobbing. Soon afterward, my grandparents emerged, my grandmother looking distraught, her eyes bloodshot, her makeup smudged. She gazed at me, then turned and hurried out of the house.
Daniel was the main subject of conversation at the beginning of dinner that night, but Celine put a quick, sharp end to it.
"I don't want to hear his name anymore this week. I don't want anything to distract us from our objective, Sanford. Forget about him."
"But your parents. ." he began.
"They'll get over it," she said, and turned to me to talk about the things we should sharpen in my presentation.
Finally, the day arrived. I had trouble sleeping the night before, slipping in and out of nightmares. In most I either fell or got so dizzy in my pirouette, I looked clumsy. I saw heads shaking and Celine shrinking in her wheelchair.
The moment I moved my legs to get out of bed that morning, I felt the pain in my stomach. It was as if there was a fist closing inside me and then my lower back ached so hard and deeply, it brought tears to my eyes. I crunched up and took deep breaths. The warm trickle on the inside of my thigh sent chills of terror shooting down to my feet and bouncing back up through my body to curl in my head and make my brain scream. Gingerly, inches at a time, I reached down, and when I saw the blood on my fingertips, I cried.
"No, not now, not today," I pleaded with my insistent body.
I swung my legs around, but when I put my weight on them, they crumbled and I found myself on all fours, the pain growing worse, nearly taking my breath away. I went on my side and lay there in a fetal position, trying to catch my breath. That was when my door burst open and Celine wheeled herself in, her face full of excitement as she cried, "Wake up, wake up. Today is our day. Wake . .
She froze, her hands glued to the top of her wheels as she stared down at me.
"What are you doing, Janet?"
"It's . . . my period, Mother," I said. "I woke up and I was bleeding. I have such cramps and my back aches. I have a terrible headache, too. Every time I lift my head a little, it feels like steel marbles are rolling around inside me."
"Why didn't you put on the protection I bought you?" she demanded. "You should always be anticipating this. I told you," she insisted when I shook my head.
No, you never told me to do that before I went to sleep every night."
"This is ridiculous. Get up on your feet. Clean yourself and get dressed. I'll have Mildred change the sheets on your bed. Get up!" she screamed.
I heard Sanford pounding his feet on the steps as he charged up our stairway.
"What is it, Celine? Why are you shouting? What's wrong?" he cried and came through the doorway, stopping just behind her. "Janet!"
"It's nothing She's only gotten her period."
"It hurts so much," I wailed.
"Don't be ridiculous," Celine insisted.
"If she says it hurts, Celine . ." Sanford began. "Of course it hurts, Sanford. It's never pleasant, but she's just being melodramatic."
"I don't know. I've heard of young girls practically being incapacitated. My sister had to be brought home from school. I remember--"
"Your sister is an idiot," Celine said and wheeled herself closer to me. "Get up this minute," she ordered.
I struggled into a sitting position and then, using the bed, started to rise. Sanford rushed to my side and helped me stand.
"You're going to ruin the rug. Get into the bathroom. Don't you have any pride?" Celine screamed.
"Stop yelling at her," Sanford urged. He helped me into the bathroom and then stepped out while I cleaned myself and found the sanitary napkins. I had to sit on the closed toilet seat to catch my breath. The pain didn't lessen.
"What are you doing in there?" Celine called. She came to the bathroom door.
I reached for the sink and pulled myself up. Every step brought more pain. I opened the door and looked out at her.
"It hurts so much," I complained.
"It will go away. Get dressed. We're leaving in an hour," she said and spun around.
I started out of the bathroom. The cramps kept me clutching my stomach and leaning over. I tried to move around the room, get my dress from the closet, put on my shoes, but the pain just got worse. The only position that brought any relief was lying on my side and pulling my legs up.
How would I ever dance today? I wondered. How could I perform those leaps and turns? Just the thought of going on
pointe
brought more pain to my back and stomach. My head was pounding.
"What are you doing?" I heard Celine cry. She was in my doorway. "Why aren't you dressed?"
I didn't reply. I clutched my stomach and took deep breaths.
"Janet!"
"What's happening now?" Sanford asked.
"She's not getting dressed. Look at her," Celine demanded.
"Janet," Sanford said. "Are you all right?"
"No," I groaned. "Every time I try to stand, it hurts."
"She can't possibly go today, Celine. You'll have to postpone it," he told her.
"Are you mad? You can't postpone this. There are so many girls trying out. They'll choose their quota before she has a chance to compete. We've got to go," Celine insisted.
"But she can't even stand," he protested.
"Of course she can. Stand up," Celine ordered. She wheeled toward the bed. Sanford held out his hands to stop her.
"Celine, please?'
"Stand up, stand up, you ungrateful urchin. Stand up!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.
I had to try again. I rose and put my feet down. Sanford stood and watched as I made the effort. As my body straightened, the pain in my stomach shot up into my chest. I cried, folded, and fell back to the bed. "Stand up!" Celine shouted.
Sanford forcefully turned her around in the chair.
"Stop this. She has to go. Stop it, Sanford. Stop it," she cried. He continued to wheel her forcefully out of my room.
"She probably needs some kind of medication. I'll have to take her to the doctor," he said.
"That's ridiculous. You fool. She won't get into the school. Janet!" she cried, her voice echoing in the hallway.
My body tightened. I was so frightened. I squeezed my eyes shut to clamp out the world around me. There was a buzzing in my ear and then a darkness, a comfortable, easeful darkness in which I no longer felt the pain and the agony.
I felt like I was floating. My arms had turned into paper-thin wings. I was drifting through the darkness toward a pinhole of light and it felt so wonderful, so easy. I glided and turned, dove and rose, fluttering.