The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey

Author:Meg Howrey [Meg Howrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780307949837
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-05-14T14:00:00+00:00

We worked for two hours today. Marius’s choreography is good. It’s more than good. And from the first touch, David and I danced well together. Our musicality is the same. I felt something stir in me. That feeling dancing well can give you. I was almost scared to take in that drug. It’s so easy to get hooked.

“Très bien,” Claudette said at the end of rehearsal. “Très, très bien. But, yes. Lovely.”

“I like the way you look at me,” David said. “You really look at me.”

After rehearsal, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to go to the movies, or do laundry, or steam vegetables. I didn’t want anything to intrude upon this clear space where I felt sort of safe from myself.

Cast B was on tonight, so I decided to do a thing that I rarely do anymore. I decided to go to the ballet.

Carlotta got me a seat in the first balcony, toward the back. Luckily I sort of dressed up today. People still dress up for the ballet, and this is kind of them. A party of four took their seats in front of me. Two older couples. The women’s figures were pear shaped past the point where evening dresses look elegant, and they were sensibly clad in tunic-style silk blouses and pants. Their hands and wrists were laden with enormous chunky jewelry, which rattled against the gold chains on their handbags. Their men, one with hair, one without, wore identical sports coats.

“Howard, you go in first. I know Heime will want the aisle.”

“Alice, are you sure you don’t want to check your jacket? You won’t be warm?”

“Loretta, I have your program here.”

“Alice, where are my glasses?”

Alice had an Aladdin’s cave of a handbag and handed out mints and tissues and Howard’s glasses. I was filled with tremendous love for all four of them, for their willingness to come and watch. The number of people who will accept being an audience to anything is getting smaller and smaller. Mostly people seem to want to be the person looked at, even if they don’t know what they are doing, even if what they are doing is horribly embarrassing.

Is there a better sound than when the house lights are brought down and a lowering murmur takes hold of the audience? Alice, wedged in by her coat and handbag, wiggled forward when the overture began. God! Strings! Oboes! Timpani! Are you fucking kidding me? Why, when we know what human beings are capable of doing, do we not turn our collective heads in shame at the sight of rich housewives screaming at each other on television?

The curtain rose, but I was still looking at the orchestra, swaying gently over their instruments. From them I moved to the first rows of the audience, row after row of dark heads. I could see people in my section pretty distinctly, so I watched them watch us. People’s faces become so smooth in the dark, so innocent.

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