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Authors: Kimberley Freeman
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to give me an artificial joint. As for dancing . . . well, that was not going to be possible.
The bottom fell out of my world.
* * *
The very worst had happened, and I was constantly surprised that life kept going. That, in fact, I had to accommodate this very-worst into my life as it continued on without pause. As the traffic kept moving outside my window. As the season of
Giselle
went ahead with another, younger dancer in the lead. My heart didn’t stop, my body didn’t forget to draw breath. In my apartment, with all the curtains drawn against the summery brightness, I continued to live.
I longed to dance. I longed for it so intensely that it caused my chest to hurt, sometimes even more than my knee hurt. I wasn’t ready to stop dancing; but then would I ever have been ready to stop dancing? In truth, I couldn’t deny the increasing caution with which I’d been offered roles, the microscopic stiffness in my hips at the beginning of rehearsals, the bunions on my feet and ulcers between my toes caused by years of wearing unforgiving shoes. Last year’s production of
Swan Lake,
with its infinite
pas de bourrés,
had filled my legs with cramps. I’d had to ice my feet to get my shoes on. In reality, perhaps I’d had only two or three more years left of dancing professionally. Some dancers did go on forever, I knew that. I might not have been one of them. But if I stopped, I had nothing left. Nothing.
At night, when sleep took its time coming, I refused to dwell on these things. Instead, I imagined myself dancing. So far, I could only hobble, but I hoped to be able to walk by the end of the month. And then . . . well, why should I believe the doctors? If I could walk, I could run, if I could run,I could jump, if I could jump, I could dance. It might take a year, or two, or . . .
And then I would clutch my pillow in the dark, afraid of the emptiness that lay in wait for me.
By mid-September, I was packing boxes and preparing myself to say goodbye to the rooftop terrace. Managing the rent by myself would be tough under ordinary circumstances, but in the wasteland between my last paycheck and my insurance payout, it was impossible.
Adelaide, bless her, came by to help. I suspected that she felt bad about the accident. If she had made me go home that evening, I wouldn’t have stayed until after dark and fallen. But I didn’t blame Adelaide, or the janitor, or anyone else. I understood entirely what was happening: I had been heaped with bad luck, the blackest kind, and I waited—tensed like a cat—for the next bad thing to happen.
For surely it would. I had lost my lover, my career, my home. Next it would be something worse. I worried obsessively about cancer, car accidents, abduction, terrorism, the warming of the planet, the possibility of a new ice age, the extinction of the species. I never stopped worrying. It gave me something to do in those long hours between when the sleeping tablets wore off and when it was safe to take them again.
“Where are all your books?” Adelaide was asking. She had organized me a serviced one-room unit at Holborn, whereI would stay until I could find a more permanent place. Ground floor. No stairs.
“I don’t have any books,” I confessed, wrapping another dancing trophy in tissue paper. “I read them, then give them to Oxfam. They take up so much room.”
Adelaide feigned horror. “Once you’ve read a book, you and it belong to each other for life. Did you not know that?”
“Even the pulpy ones?”
“Even the pulpy ones.” Adelaide looked around. “In fact, you really don’t have much . . . stuff. I came prepared for hard work and lots of dusting. If the furniture isn’t even yours, there’s really only your clothes and—”
“I know,” I said. “It’s all dancing awards. Josh used to say the same thing. He once bought me a photo frame and put a picture of us in it. I knocked it over and cracked the glass, put it in my bedside drawer. It’s
The bottom fell out of my world.
* * *
The very worst had happened, and I was constantly surprised that life kept going. That, in fact, I had to accommodate this very-worst into my life as it continued on without pause. As the traffic kept moving outside my window. As the season of
Giselle
went ahead with another, younger dancer in the lead. My heart didn’t stop, my body didn’t forget to draw breath. In my apartment, with all the curtains drawn against the summery brightness, I continued to live.
I longed to dance. I longed for it so intensely that it caused my chest to hurt, sometimes even more than my knee hurt. I wasn’t ready to stop dancing; but then would I ever have been ready to stop dancing? In truth, I couldn’t deny the increasing caution with which I’d been offered roles, the microscopic stiffness in my hips at the beginning of rehearsals, the bunions on my feet and ulcers between my toes caused by years of wearing unforgiving shoes. Last year’s production of
Swan Lake,
with its infinite
pas de bourrés,
had filled my legs with cramps. I’d had to ice my feet to get my shoes on. In reality, perhaps I’d had only two or three more years left of dancing professionally. Some dancers did go on forever, I knew that. I might not have been one of them. But if I stopped, I had nothing left. Nothing.
At night, when sleep took its time coming, I refused to dwell on these things. Instead, I imagined myself dancing. So far, I could only hobble, but I hoped to be able to walk by the end of the month. And then . . . well, why should I believe the doctors? If I could walk, I could run, if I could run,I could jump, if I could jump, I could dance. It might take a year, or two, or . . .
And then I would clutch my pillow in the dark, afraid of the emptiness that lay in wait for me.
By mid-September, I was packing boxes and preparing myself to say goodbye to the rooftop terrace. Managing the rent by myself would be tough under ordinary circumstances, but in the wasteland between my last paycheck and my insurance payout, it was impossible.
Adelaide, bless her, came by to help. I suspected that she felt bad about the accident. If she had made me go home that evening, I wouldn’t have stayed until after dark and fallen. But I didn’t blame Adelaide, or the janitor, or anyone else. I understood entirely what was happening: I had been heaped with bad luck, the blackest kind, and I waited—tensed like a cat—for the next bad thing to happen.
For surely it would. I had lost my lover, my career, my home. Next it would be something worse. I worried obsessively about cancer, car accidents, abduction, terrorism, the warming of the planet, the possibility of a new ice age, the extinction of the species. I never stopped worrying. It gave me something to do in those long hours between when the sleeping tablets wore off and when it was safe to take them again.
“Where are all your books?” Adelaide was asking. She had organized me a serviced one-room unit at Holborn, whereI would stay until I could find a more permanent place. Ground floor. No stairs.
“I don’t have any books,” I confessed, wrapping another dancing trophy in tissue paper. “I read them, then give them to Oxfam. They take up so much room.”
Adelaide feigned horror. “Once you’ve read a book, you and it belong to each other for life. Did you not know that?”
“Even the pulpy ones?”
“Even the pulpy ones.” Adelaide looked around. “In fact, you really don’t have much . . . stuff. I came prepared for hard work and lots of dusting. If the furniture isn’t even yours, there’s really only your clothes and—”
“I know,” I said. “It’s all dancing awards. Josh used to say the same thing. He once bought me a photo frame and put a picture of us in it. I knocked it over and cracked the glass, put it in my bedside drawer. It’s
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