Various Positions by Martha Schabas

Author:Martha Schabas [Schabas, Martha]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780374380861
Publisher: Anchor Canada
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

There were two weeks of school left before the Christmas holiday and I had my work cut out for me. I needed to find the perfect balance of focus, a way of working effectively on my dancing while all the time charting Roderick’s moves. The two were not unrelated; improvements in my dancing would only make him like me more. This made my job easier. I worked as hard as I could in ballet class, holding my legs in the air until the muscles trembled like moth wings, letting sweat rain down the gully of my spine. I would show him I had all the strength to master the MacMillan choreography, that I possessed the stamina for the demanding partner work, the presence to carry the role. At the same time, I watched for any changes in his behavior. On the surface there appeared to be few. He directed class with the same casual scorn, stopping to pick on unassuming victims before retreating to his corner of the room. Occasionally our eyes would meet and he’d acknowledge me in the ritualistic way we’d established, a shared look like a silent alliance, pitting him and me against the rest of the class. When I turned to face away from him, the pleasure would linger, sticking to my face the way gum does if you blow a stupidly big bubble.

Once, Sixty caught me midway through one of these expressions and gave me a weird look.

“What’s so funny?” she asked after class.

“Oh, nothing.”

“But you were laughing about something in the middle of adage.”

“Was I?”

She bugged her eyes. “Yeah.”

I took a step away from her, longed to tell her the truth. But this was impossible. How could I explain my special situation with Roderick? I could barely make sense of it myself.

I followed Sixty to the change room. Everything was quieter since Molly had left school. The entire subject felt bandaged in something gauzy and thick, like a mess of blood would leak everywhere if we unwrapped it. People checked the bulletin board regularly, worried about themselves. We laughed less in the change room and Veronica generally left Chantal alone. Today was different, though. Veronica whined about how bored she was and fell back on the cushioned bench like a heroine in a play.

“Boredom striketh!”

Anushka climbed on top of her so that her legs straddled Veronica’s waist and the two of them pretended to have sex. Everyone howled with laughter.

“Let’s see what the Coffee Time guys are doing after school,” Veronica said. “I would kill for a beer.”

“Hell, yes,” said Anushka.

Veronica sat up and looked over at Sixty and me. Sixty nodded enthusiastically.

“Should we say hi to your boyfriend?” Veronica called out in Chantal’s direction.

Chantal didn’t look at her, didn’t say anything at all.

I turned back to my locker. I had to get out of this Coffee Time trip. I’d planned on going to the academy’s library after repertoire class to borrow the DVD of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon and to print out the food schedule that I’d made up for Chantal.

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