was more like Grandmother Kumar did something to our relationship that can’t be repaired.”
He took my hand in his again, tucking it underneath his arm. We were going through another canopy of pine trees.
“Do you know who Maja Resnik is?”
He shrugged. Noncommittal. Perhaps. Perhaps not. I didn’t like when he played this game, setting a piece of cheese out that he knew I’d follow, but I continued on despite my reservations.
“Maja Resnik is a stage name for Maja Kumar, my grandmother. She’s still considered one of the most beautiful, graceful, dramatic ballerinas to ever grace the stage. Sometime during her beautiful years, she married a famous composer, Dragotin Kumar, who was my grandfather, and they had my mother.”
I waved a small tendril of hair from my face that kept tickling my skin with the wind.
“My mother is Maja’s only daughter. I’m certain that when my mother was born, certain expectations were put on her. It was assumed that she would be the next Maja Resnik, or at least a shadow pulled from the same bright light. But my mother didn’t have the same abilities, even though she trained harder than most. I think that was a precursor to what my grandmother knew was not my mother’s destiny. Something Maja could do as a young girl, my mother couldn’t do as a young adult. I’ve even heard people say that she wasn’t built for it.”
I waved my hand again, an intense fire catching when I thought about those words. I hated that a ballerina had to look a certain way. One of the most astounding attributes to my grandmother, apart from her dancing, was her build. She was average height, the same as me, 5’4”, lithe, and she also had a shape that most admired. Though her curves were subtle, they were noticeable. It had been said over and over that I had been sculpted from her mold. Even her costumes fit me without having to be altered.
In the ballet world, her build was known as the “Resnik Silhouette.”
“My mother married my father and decided to become a clothing designer instead. Enter Charlotte. The same expectations were put on her. The desire was there, inside of Charlotte, to a degree that almost equaled to madness. She tried, but she’s more like my mother. She continued on, though, fueled by a vintage expectation and a bar that was set too high.”
I looked up, straight into a strong beam of sun, and closed my eyes, blinking back the bright bursts left behind.
“Not that she couldn’t reach the bar with hard work and determination, but it was more that Maja Resnik didn’t see the potential, therefore, she’d raise the bar higher and higher, until it became unreachable. That would infuriate Charlotte.
“You accomplish a grand feat, but it’s never grand enough. My grandmother is a good grandmother, but as a ballerina, she’s fierce. I’ve never admitted this aloud, but I think she weeded out my mother and my sister because she knew that if she didn’t, someone else would.”
“You continued on.”
“Yes,” I nodded. “There’s a difference between me and Charlotte. She kept raising the bar and I kept meeting it. Without complaint.”
Brando cleared his throat and the noise surprised me, as well as his next words. “Enter Scarlett Rose—named after her paternal grandmother, Evelyn Rose—Poésy. A natural born dancer, a prodigy, taking after her maternal grandmother, Maja Resnik. All Scarlett Rose had to do was watch, and she could surpass the master’s steps without ever trying the move before. She had a natural way of moving that surpassed the woman who had broken so many records, her grandmother. At six years of age, her teacher recommended—”
“Five,” I corrected. “But my mother wouldn’t allow it.”
“—that she could move on to the coveted pointe shoes. It took her two months instead of three years to get to ‘en pointe.’ She had three different teachers—one from Paris, one from Russia, and one from New York. Not to mention her famous grandmother, Maja Resnik. At the age of ten, she went to Russia to audition for the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet. She broke every record set. They wanted her, more than anyone.
“She refused.” He emphasized the word refused. “She was even offered a spot at the Paris Opera Ballet School. She refused that offer too. But she stayed in Russia for a year. Another year in Paris. Before she came home and continued her training with three teachers from around the world.