Balancing Acts Read online

  When she had passed them downstairs just now, carrying her oranges from the kitchen, Wanda was lazing on the sofa across from Josh, her feet up and her robe falling open to expose long white legs, her nipples pointing through the thin nylon. ‘Come here a minute, Alison.’ They had something to tell her. ‘The doctor said to stay off my feet as much as I could the first few months,’ Wanda said, ‘because I’ve already lost two. It was years ago, you wouldn’t remember, Alison. But that shaky stage should be over now.’ They hadn’t wanted to tell her before, Josh said; in case anything happened, she would be disappointed.

  Him on top of her. Putting it in. She stared at her bare body in the mirror. She never would.

  Straightening up, she ran her brush through her hair. Wanda kept nagging her about paying attention to her appearance. She tried bangs. The fine brown hair hung down to her chin: a curtain. ‘The famous star of stage and screen traveled incognito, her lustrous hair shielding her identity.’ Then she crushed the curtain aside and made braids. The high school girls with thick black hair looked exotic in braids, like Indians or gypsies, but she looked like an overgrown baby. It was no use. She brushed them out and got her pajamas from under the pillow.

  She hadn’t known what to say to them, so she had stood numb as in a game of statues, clutching the oranges to her chest. ‘I’m sure you’ll be as happy as we are, after you get used to the idea.’ Josh sounded disappointed. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her, waiting. ‘But you used to want a baby brother or sister,’ Wanda said. Then Josh got up and came towards her; she stepped quickly back to the stairs. ‘We’ll still love you, Allie. Is that what’s bothering you? We’ll still love you the same as before.’

  The same as before. A hollow space spread inside her. Picking up two oranges from the bed, she began the simplest routine, tossing them up one at a time, not more than a foot in the air. They made a nice smack as they hit her palms, and they smelled good too, sharp and sweet. When you can do that much, he had told them in gym, try to keep both in the air at once. That was easy. She tossed them up together, fast. Then switch hands, he said. See if you can cross them. That’s it, very good. Take it easy, keep it going. Orange X’s blinked in the air before her. She heard the quick smack against her palms. Faster! Her forehead wrinkled up tight, her eyes darted from right hand to left. Fifteen minutes a night, he said. At least. She caught them against her chest and breathed deeply, sitting down on the bed. ‘What do you do with those oranges anyway?’ Wanda had asked as she was going up the stairs. ‘Oh, juggle.’ ‘Juggle! That same old character?’ Josh said. ‘What next?’ And he gave her the broad silly smile.

  She picked up a third. Three at a time was much harder. The trick was to keep your mind off somewhere, quiet, he said, and let your hands and eyes do the thinking for you. Her hands and eyes pulsed with the effort: not an instant to rest, endless curves. Don’t hang on to them, he said. Send them right back up! And stay in one place. Don’t dance around. That’s it, keep your balance. It’s the oranges that move, not you. Her eyeballs were aching from tracking all three. The moment the head gets into the act you’re finished, he said. You kids all think too much! Be a pair of eyes and a pair of hands. Faster! She was doing it: four times round, five times. Her tongue was glued to her upper lip. If she could make ten...But as soon as she thought that, one orange dropped and rolled under the bed. A second rolled across the floor to the desk. Well, pretty soon she would get to do it as casually as he did. She would practice every night till she was so good that she could run away and join a circus.

  It was midnight on the Raggedy Ann clock on the window sill. Wanda had given it to her for her birthday almost three years ago. The face of Raggedy Ann was gross, with the hour and minute hands radiating from her nostrils. When the alarm went off, a nasty girl’s voice whined, ‘It’s time to get up for work and for play, Now get out of bed and start a new day.’ She glared at it with the look of disdain, then set the alarm for six-thirty and turned out the light. Gathering the quilt around her, she moved toward the wall and slipped a hand inside her pajamas. She knew from friends’ houses what babies were like. They took over the household, with their bottles and putrid diapers and plastic toys strewn everywhere. They sat in highchairs doing revolting things with mushy food. They puked on your shoulders—Hilary’s baby cousin did it to her last year, when she was over there doing math—sour-smelling white stuff like watery cottage cheese. When they got older they destroyed your property. Franny’s best piece of sculpture, a life-sized clay frankfurter in a blue roll, that she had worked on for a week and glazed and baked in the kiln, was smashed to pieces by her two-year-old brother. She would have to keep all her papers under lock and key. They would never look at her once it was born. They hardly did now. Once they had the baby to hold they would forget she existed. Mother, father, and baby—what a cozy little group they would be.

  The insides of her legs were hot. She edged her fingers slowly up to the place. That book Hilary snowed her last summer at the town pool. They were sitting together, she and Hilary, on the grass near the fence, reading the chapter with the page turned down. Then Franny had run over, dripping wet, to see what was so funny, and the three of them sat in a circle, rocking in hysterical laughter as Hilary read it out loud, stopping at every other sentence to gasp, ‘Oh, my God!’ and clap her hand over her mouth. Later it didn’t seem funny any more—she couldn’t get it out of her mind. A girl of twelve, not even as old as she was, from a poor family, meets a man in the balcony of the movie theatre she goes to every Saturday afternoon. He gives her a dime to let him feel between her legs. She keeps going back every Saturday, and while he does it she pays no attention and watches the movie—she just wants the dime. But one Saturday he manages to get his fingers inside her. She squirms around and opens her legs wider for him-she knows it’s wrong, but she can’t help it. In the dark, he wriggles his fingers slowly all over, inside her pants, inside her, while the movie about cowboys and Indians goes on, and meanwhile something is happening, a slow fire creeping through her thighs, her stomach, and before she knows it her eyes are squeezed shut and she cares about nothing else in the world except that feeling, the slow fire. It pushes through and grows and spreads, a fire gone out of control and frightening, but Alison didn’t even care, she just had to keep it going till it got so fast and immense it was everywhere and had to burst through. It burst like her insides exploding, and then died away.

  Her face was flaming as she pulled the covers back up. She could have stopped if she had really tried, but she always gave in. The books in the library said most kids did it. Years ago people used to think it was evil and gave you pimples and rings under your eyes, but now they had discovered it was natural. Her fingers were wet and sticky—she wiped them on the quilt. Lots of things they said were natural were disgusting. Her eyes felt hot, as though she had been crying. She turned over on her side and burrowed into the pillows. All the errands she would be sent on: shopping for bottles and rubber pants and teething rings. Hold the baby, Allie, while I find a pin. Give the baby his bottle while I get his sweater. Love the baby, will you, for just a second. Her body was heavy, blurry, near sleep. If only Wanda would sometimes...But they thought she was too big. Not lovable, like a baby. Must figure out how to act towards this baby. Early June, they said—six more months. She clutched a corner of the quilt in her fist and her open mouth wet the pillow, as sleep came close enough to take her, and she yielded.

  It was twenty after six when, waking to the gray light of early winter, she switched off the alarm and reached under the mattress for Alice.

  The white-haired woman with harlequin glasses leads Alice down a wide dusty street past a bunch of brawny cowboys lounging in front of the town’s one movie theatre. ‘Hey, kid, how about coming in for the afternoon show?’ one calls out. Alice ignores them. Right in front of police headquarters the woman says, ‘Remember, it’s for the best, dear.’ Alice nods obediently. But then, pretending to have left something im
portant in the car, she runs off and dashes through a maze of side streets till she reaches the railroad station. She grabs a pole and hops aboard just as the silver train starts moving. Although she is tired and hungry and hasn’t the slightest idea where she is headed, she feels wonderful. She has her freedom. It is not bread and water I fear...Do you think life is nothing but not being stone dead?...When the train stops in Arizona she finds the town filled with Navajo Indians. The women all wear turquoise rings, and many have fat drooling babies tied to their backs. She strikes up a conversation with two of them; they seem extremely friendly, and in fact invite her back to the reservation, where she learns to set up tepees and make jewelry. For a time she is content in their simple village, disturbed only by the nightly wails of the babies, till one evening a traveling circus caravan passes by. The lure of that life is too powerful. Hastily, Alice gathers her few belongings, leaves a note of thanks for the Indians, and hitches a ride; when she catches up with the caravan she hides out in the acrobats’ trailer.

  It was seven-thirty already. She couldn’t be late—she needed to speak to him. She raced to get to the gym before the others arrived.

  ‘Mr Fried, I have trouble with three oranges. I get all mixed up and I can’t keep hold of the inner center, like you said.’

  ‘You’ll get it in time. It takes patience and practice, and then it comes all of a sudden. Remember to toss them very low at the beginning, and don’t think about it too much.’

  ‘I was wondering if you would have time for any private lessons after school. I’d like to prepare for a career. All the really great artists started their work when they were very young.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes. Mozart, Anna Pavlova, Picasso. I looked them up.’

  ‘But this is not an art, Alison. It’s a trick, a skill.’ He tossed an orange high in the air and swiveled around. It passed his left shoulder, went behind his back and ended neatly in the palm of his right hand. He smiled down at her. ‘Now when you get to the trapeze, that, maybe, is an art.’

  Hilary and Franny and Karen came up and clustered around him, then Bobby and Elliot. Nick, small and timid, hung back at the edge of the circle.

  ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. How is the juggling coming? Are you practicing every night as I told you?...Ah, I’m glad to hear that.’

  He had not answered her question about the private lessons.

  ‘This morning I thought I might show a few intrepid volunteers how to jump off a rising seesaw.’

  She followed his sideward glance, as they all did. He and Fats must have put it together before class. It was a long plank of plywood on a thick base that stood about a foot high and tapered up like a bullet. He stepped on to the low end of the plank and walked uphill with easy strolling steps. Past the halfway point it tipped beneath him. He strolled down to the other end and then back again, in the same nonchalant way. If she looked only at the upper half of his body she could never guess a seesaw was tilting up and down underneath: he moved as if on flat ground. The balance was inside him, separate from the board. He stepped off and spread his arms in a wide, expansive gesture. ‘Simple, isn’t it? All it is, is walking. You always have the earth under you—that’s the thing to remember.’

  She gazed at him and her eyes slipped out of focus; he became blurred and circled with a fuzzy shimmering aura that made him seem larger. A vibration of light radiated from him. His voice took on a richness she had never heard before. She didn’t grasp the sense of his words, but the deep timbre sent a shiver through her. There was something magical about him—he could control things. She had had a feeling that very first day. She needed to get at that power in him. The need was an ache in her throat.

  ‘Okay, Nick,’ he was saying. ‘You stand on the edge of the seesaw. No, with your back to it. Now jump off. Yes, that’s all I mean. A one-inch drop. Good boy. Not too hard, is it?’

  Nick shook his head, puzzled.

  ‘Any of you could do that blindfolded, right? You even think it’s funny. Now what if I pushed down on the high end while Nick, or any of you, was standing on that edge. Of course—that low end would pop up. And there you’d be, popping with it. But if you were off fast enough, you’d be on your own, up in the air. Oh, and remember, you always jump up, not down. What you’ve got to do is use the impulse of the pop, of the surprise, but not let it control you. Once you’re up, you’re all alone and you’re in control. That’s the beauty of it.’

  They listened, entranced. Again he strolled back and forth across the tilting board, and stopped dead center to face them. With the board resting perfectly parallel to the floor, he stood, arms spread wide and head cocked, as though on a pedestal. Then he stepped down.

  ‘Okay, Nick, get back on the seesaw. I’ll push down the high end and you jump. Up, not down. And fast. The minute you sense the vibration in your feet. We’ll see what happens.’

  Nick gaped, nervously brushing a lock of sandy hair from his forehead.

  ‘This is not a high seesaw. You can jump a foot to the ground, I’m quite sure.’

  He pushed down hard. The board flew up; Nick jumped up and out, to land, smiling, on his feet. They all applauded.

  ‘Wonderful!’ He patted Nick on the shoulder. ‘Nothing to it if you concentrate—I’ve seen some of you fooling around outside doing much trickier things. And remember, the mat is very soft. Once you can do this we’ll raise the seesaw. Then you can learn to aim for a specific place when you land. And after that, to land on top of someone else. But they probably won’t let me go that far.’

  Her turn came last. At the first faint pressure under her feet she willed herself up and out. For a glorious instant she soared. As she landed on the mat her legs gave way. Down on her knees—and it had looked so easy!

  ‘That’s fine, Alison,’ he said. ‘Next time concentrate on your legs. Tell them to hold you straight up, just like you told them to lift you off the board.’

  ‘How did you know I told them?’

  ‘I know because I know how it feels. I’ve been there. It’s okay to topple over at the beginning. Then you can—’

  ‘Hey, Max!’ It was Fats Fox, trotting over from his volleyball game across the gym. ‘Are you sure that’s safe? We don’t want any broken necks around here.’

  Their voices rose to defend him.

  ‘Calm down, all of you. There won’t be any broken necks, Fox, I assure you. This is nothing; it’s no more than they do by themselves in the yard, only we’re taking it seriously. With precision. Besides, there’s a mat.’

  ‘But if they miss the mat—’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Max moved to the other end of the seesaw. He held out his palms as if making an offering. ‘I’ll stand here to catch them. Is that enough? Hilary, you push the seesaw down, please. A swift sharp push will do.’ He pressed his hands together as if in prayer and rocked them slightly back and forth. ‘I am the net, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said with a crooked grin. ‘Pretend I am the net.’

  ‘Max.’ Fats’s voice curled with doubt. ‘Are you really strong enough to catch them?’

  ‘Mr Fox.’ He seemed to expand as he pulled back his shoulders and eyed Fats steadily. I could catch even you. It’s all in the legs and the pelvis.’ He slapped his thigh hard. ‘Oh, and as long as you’re here, help me raise the seesaw, would you? They’re ready. A very talented group.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fats.

  ‘I told you I’ll catch them. Come on, Frank, lend a hand.’

  Max brought over another foot-high cylindrical block, with a hole in the center. Grudgingly, Fats raised the plank while Max attached the new piece. He placed a long wooden peg through the board and the two blocks. The center of the seesaw stood two feet off the ground.

  ‘Alison,’ he said, ‘try again, from this height. Don’t worry, I’ll be here, if necessary. Up and out, so you clear the plank. Now this time, get an image of yourself, first in the air, and then landing straight up on your feet. A beautiful image of h
ow you will look, so precise that you could bring it out again, any time you need it. Hang on to that. Become the image. Do you understand? Become your own image.’

  But standing on the plank, she saw no image. She saw nothing except the familiar faces of the others, watching her with expectation. The coming leap was out of her control—it was Max controlling her, and she was in his power. Maybe she would fall, and find out how it felt to be caught in his arms, blue-veined below the rolled-up sleeves of his work shin. Suddenly she felt a vibration tremble through the board. She flung herself up and out, flying. One keen instant of suspended joy, unconsummated before it was over—and she hit the mat and fell to her hands and knees. No pain, only a soft thud shuddering through her, to ripple outward and settle, ringing, in her ears. Max bent down to help her up. He lifted her by the shoulders and pretended to dust her off. He smiled at her, encouraging, his face a benevolent, god-like blur.

  He worked till twelve on Fridays, she found out from the schedule on the gym bulletin board. She didn’t go down to the lunchroom at noon but leaned against a tree outside, keeping an eye on both the front and the side doors. It was chilly, with a soft feel of coming snow in the air. She zipped up her down jacket and unwrapped her sandwich. At ten after twelve he came out, wearing a dark-green corduroy jacket and carrying a brass-tipped walking stick, along with the black attaché case. Except for the beret, he could be any ordinary person on his way to an office. No one would guess that the case contained not papers but plastic pins and colored rubber balls. He set off down Broad Street with a quick, intense stride, the stick tucked under his arm. Crumpling her paper lunch bag, she followed.