entire package, all three essentials that make a ballerina near perfect. Perfect proportions—the ‘Resnik Silhouette’—musicality, and coordination. She makes people feel, makes them weep and smile. She’s art in motion.”
He stopped and I stopped. As we turned to each other, a gap between our two bodies, a strong beam of light filled the space and lit his face in a soft glow.
It felt inane to even ask, but curiosity had me in its clutches. “Brando. You memorized all of that—why?”
“I’m proud,” he said, simply. His eyes searched mine. “Was it desire?”
I shook my head, ran a hand over the flat part of my hair. “No. Not at all.”
“Tell me, Ballerina Girl.”
I took a few deep breaths, allowing the cold air to filter into my lungs, before I exhaled and released. “Simply put…” I paused. “I put on ballet shoes and whatever magic had reached Maja Resnik reaches me too.”
“You love it?”
“What’s love got to do with it?” I laughed bitterly, shook my head, and then sighed. “That sounded bitter. Let me try again. At times, I do.” The look on his face made me want to clarify, to keep offering up old wounds for his attention. “Just because I can, doesn't mean that I want.”
Irritation seemed to propel me forward. Offering up didn’t mean that the wounds didn’t burn and itch. He kept up without issue, neck and neck with the frustration.
“I put those shoes on and I move without instruction or direction. I know what my body was born to do, Brando. The irony of it all is that Charlotte has the desire. I have the talent. Talent can get you far, but it leaves you feeling restless, lonely, when there's something...more. It has been drilled into me since birth that ballet is my destiny, that dance is enough. It’s never felt like the be-all to me though. I can do, and I will, to high praise, no one the wiser. Except for me.”
“Tell me what your heart wants.”
“It’s of two sides. One belongs to dance. The other belongs to a mystery. My sister hates me because I have something she wants. My brother adored me because he recognized that my lack of love was similar to his lack of hearing—in a way. He used to come over to the studio and force Maja and my mother to give me a break.
“He’d take my hand and lead me outside just to show me frogs! He'd encourage me to jump around like them and I would do my best to show him what sounds they made. I’d take his hand and make the ribbit ribbit sound on his skin. It was wonderful. I felt free, being with him, and the emptiness never felt as hollow, the hole never seemed as wide, my blood never felt as thin.”
My pace had reached a crescendo. He seemed to be taking a leisurely walk in the woods, which we were, or that’s what it felt like before he brought up the ugly in my life.
“You have the opportunity to leave, to do something people only dream of—”
I stopped short, the air in my chest frigid to the point of burning. "Who told you that?" My voice went so low that for a moment I wondered if he had even heard me.
He had. His face hardened into an unreadable mask. “It doesn’t matter.”
I forced my lips to stay shut and my head to nod. I didn’t trust my already egged-on temper. It did matter, to me.
He shrugged. “A friend of a friend.”
“That’s it?”
The hard look on his face was confirmation. He wasn’t giving me another clue, end of story.
“All right,” I said slowly, quietly, but the volume rose as I continued. "What about you? I let the reason you stayed here slide, but what is your heart about? The scholarship...where and what for?” I yelled. The sound seemed to bounce around the trees, and then finding an out, echoed for miles.
“Baseball and swimming.”
“Baseball and swimming.” I repeated the words like they were foreign, like they were incredulous, like Brando and baseball and swimming could never be mutually exclusive. He was so rough, so tough, that it never dawned on me that he would do either. Sports seemed too organized, too restrictive with rules. “Baseball and swimming.”
The tension cracked. He laughed. I laughed with him, at myself.
He pretended to throw a fastball. “Baseball. But I prefer swimming.”
“Full scholarships? And to where?”
He looked up to the sky for a moment. “Yes to the first. LSU, Vanderbilt, Tulane,