Sparrow Read online

  I scoot over to make room for him, wishing I could hermetically seal my lunch—plain Greek yogurt, almonds and strawberries, sliced chicken, a wedge of smoked Gouda—to keep it safe from the toxic fumes wafting from Luis’s tray. It makes me nauseous. The preservatives in the meat tubes. The nuclear orange of processed cheese.

  I arrange strawberries and almonds in alternating groups of three, forming a perfect semicircle of nine above my yogurt and chicken.

  Luis does a double take when he notices Delaney, who’s wearing a camo T-shirt, a hot-pink feather boa, and round wire-rimmed sunglasses.

  “What are you supposed to be? A blind saloon girl?”

  “Aren’t they great? I got them at Lily and Isabelle on Saturday. And look!”

  She lifts her leg so he can see her turquoise cowboy boots.

  “Check these out. They’re my mom’s, from when she was a barrel racer in Texas. I’m never taking them off.”

  Luis shakes his head and pops a Tater Tot into his mouth. “It’s going to be kind of hard to do ballet in cowboy boots, unless there’s a rodeo version of Swan Lake. Which I would totally pay to see.”

  Delaney laughs and steals one of his Tots. Licking the ketchup from her fingers, she says, “You’re just jealous of my fashion sense.”

  “You’re a crime of fashion, Delaney. That’s what you are.” He picks up a hot dog and looks around the table. “So what are we talking about? My man Lucas here looks like he just ate a bug.”

  Caleb looks up from Apollo’s Angels, the history of ballet that Levkova is making us read, because, according to her, we are all “woefully ignorant children with no knowledge or appreciation of the great artistic history that precedes us.” He points at Delaney with a forkful of chicken salad. “We’re hearing all about where Sparrow sat on her first date with Prince Charmless. They went to the fancy Italian restaurant downtown.”

  “La Serenissima.” Delaney sighs.

  “Where she sat?” Luis says, shoving half the hot dog into his face.

  “Exactly,” Lucas says. “Because who gives a crap, am I right?”

  Israel, who wants to direct plays on Broadway, says, “Hey, it’s important to set the scene. I give a crap. Y’all shut up and let her talk.”

  Delaney crows, “Thank you, Iz. ‘He is as full of valor as of kindness. Princely in both.’”

  “Act four, scene three, Bedford. I claim your brownie as my prize.” Israel grabs Delaney’s dessert, a brownie the size of her face, and gives half to Luis, who eats it between the Tater Tots and his second hot dog.

  Delaney barely notices. “Spill, sister. Every juicy detail. Again.”

  “We both had fettuccine Alfredo. And we sat at that booth in the back, you know, the one by the fireplace? Dad and Sophie and I sat there for my birthday last year.”

  “The Crime Boss Booth,” Israel says.

  Delaney shakes her head. “Iz, what in the name of Sam Houston does that even mean?”

  Israel says, “You know, like in Scarface? Every single movie where the evil criminal mastermind is having dinner with his minions? They always sit close to the back wall, so they can see who’s coming at them.”

  “Wise choice,” says Lucas. “Half the people in town would love to whack Tristan King.”

  Delaney slides her dark glasses down her nose and glares at him. “What crawled down your throat and died? Tristan King is gorgeous and full of tasty deliciousness. Every day I think about pinning him down in calculus class and licking him. Pretty sure he’ll taste like butterscotch.”

  The smile spreads across my face like a sunrise. “He actually does.”

  “Oh, sweet mother, my heart.” Delaney closes her eyes and leans back in her chair.

  Lucas pretends to stick his finger down his throat and makes the puke face.

  Delaney gives him another death stare. “Zip it, Skippy. I’m warning you.”

  I lean in and whisper to Delaney. “He kissed me until I couldn’t breathe. We stayed until the stars came out and the moon was way high. He told me I was beautiful, that we’d belong to each other. He said he felt like we were meant to be together, because of the way we met.”

  Delaney twists her blond hair into a messy bun. “Bird Girl, I swear, if I didn’t love you, I’d hate you. Remember how we used to sit in the bleachers after school and watch him run? How you said he looked like a cheetah chasing a zebra? Now he nearly flattens you in the parking lot, and boom. A love story is born.”

  “Right? I can hardly believe it myself.”

  “Please, I’m begging you,” Lucas says. “Stop talking right now. If you say another word, I swear I’m going to york my breakfast all over your lunch.”

  Delaney narrows her eyes. “What is wrong with you today? Why can’t you let us be happy for our girl here? Why do you have to crap all over something so good?”

  Everybody goes quiet. Luis actually stops eating. Israel gets his pen out to take notes.

  “Nothing’s wrong with me, but you ladies have apparently lost your minds. Y’all aren’t thinking with your brains, that’s for sure.”

  Delaney takes off her sunglasses. “Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Lucas,” I say. “We’re sorry. But seriously, you need to shut up right now.”

  “Nice, Birdbrain. Thanks.”

  “Wait, Sparrow,” Delaney says. “Don’t let the little wanker off the hook. What do you mean we’re not thinking with our brains? Are you implying that we’re thinking with something else?”

  “Well,” he says, taking a bite of his sandwich and talking with his mouth full, which he knows we hate. “Since you asked, I think your brains have gone south of the border. If you know what I mean.”

  Delaney throws half a banana at him. It hits him on the shoulder and falls onto the table. He doesn’t flinch, just brushes the goo off his sweater, an expression of disgust on his face. “Wow, Laney. Way to keep it classy.”

  “You sexist turd. If I said something like that to you—”

  “You’d probably be right. I can’t believe you’re talking about Tristan King like he’s suddenly turned into someone else! Do you even remember what a jerk he was in middle school, always bullying the smaller kids? Can you possibly forget how his father was at every soccer game, every Little League tournament, trying to pay off coaches, bailing his psycho kid out of trouble? Has all that leaked out of your tiny brains?”

  Delaney rolls her eyes. “All you boys were little douchebags in middle school. It was hard to tell you apart.”

  “Maybe. But he’s the only one who actually hurt people. The rest of us were just morons. He thought about what he did. He planned it. Luis, remember how he slammed your head into the lockers in eighth grade because you wouldn’t let him cheat off your science test? Then he got Brandon and all those troglodytes to egg your house that night?”

  Luis rubs the bridge of his nose. “Oh man, our house smelled rank for days. That was my first black eye. My only black eye, actually.” He flutters his long Bambi eyelashes at Delaney. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  “But Luis isn’t sitting here holding a grudge,” I say. “He isn’t stewing about it, right, Luis?”

  “Yeah. It was a long time ago. I got over it.”

  “You’re the only one who hangs on to stuff like this, Lucas,” I say. “Can’t you just forget it?”

  I try to eat the rest of my lunch, but I’ve lost my appetite. I rearrange the strawberries and almonds, replacing the ones I’ve eaten with slices of chicken.

  “Oh, come on, Sparrow! No, I can’t forget it. I don’t believe you guys! Tristan’s been calling me all kinds of foul names since we were eight. For some reason, he needs to make sure I never forget that he’s the alpha dog around here. I’m supposed to stick to the script—he’s the manly jock, I’m the sissy dancer, and oh, by the way, he’s also smarter and stronger and richer. I’m not holding a grudge. I don’t even hear it anymore. But people don’t change overnight. Assholes don’t suddenl
y turn into angels.”

  I give up on my lunch and stuff what’s left into my bag.

  “All I know is that he likes me—and I like him. So I’m not sure what your problem is, but I am sure that it’s totally none of your business. You need to back off!” I smack the table with the palm of my hand, and everybody jumps. “I don’t know why you think you have any say in my life or what I do when we’re not dancing, but you’re assuming you’re more important than you really are. Your opinion doesn’t matter, Lucas. Can you please get that through your thick skull? Just this once?”

  Lucas’s eyes go wide. Caleb, Israel, and Luis look down at their lunches. Sam lets out a long whistle. “Owned,” he says.

  “Well, it kind of is my business, Sparrow,” Lucas says. “You know, since I see you every day and have to dance Swan Lake with you. So if you’re all of a sudden with a nasty dude who’s bound to make you miserable, it’s probably going to affect me, too.”

  “Don’t be such a narcissist. This isn’t about you. And he’s not nasty. He’s amazing. Just because you dance with me doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do. You’re not my father. You’re my dance partner, and I don’t care what you think. So just drop it.”

  Lucas goes white, then pitches what’s left of his lunch into the trash and storms out of the cafeteria.

  * * *

  Just before dawn, I dream about my mother. I’m little again, my hair in a high ponytail tied with a blue satin ribbon. Emily, my favorite bear, is in my arms, and I clutch her to my chest.

  My mother is in the living room, painting. I love to watch her work, but this time everything is wrong. The brush she’s holding is tipped with long black feathers, dripping with crimson paint. She’s wound strands of tiny river pearls through her tangled hair, and her lips are chapped and raw, like she’s been biting them. The white streak at her temple is gray with grime.

  I stand in the doorway, afraid to move, afraid to speak. But she knows I’m there. She can feel me, hear me breathing. She turns slowly toward me, her smile too wide, her teeth too white, her eyes bright and feverish. “Come here, Savannah,” she says. “I want to show you my pictures.”

  And I know, even in my dream, that I do not want to see those pictures. That once I look at them, I’ll never be able to unsee them. I’ll never be able to forget. But if I don’t go, she’ll be angry, and she will scream and scream and scream.

  I walk slowly to her side. The living room is filled with canvases. But the pictures are not of Aubrey, weeping and floating and dying. My mother has painted me into the story. I’m the one under the water. I’m the one staring sightlessly up at the night sky. All the paintings. All of them.

  They are all of me.

  * * *

  I wake, panicked and sweating, to the sound of my phone buzzing on the nightstand. It’s four thirty in the morning. Lucas sends the disco boy in the purple suit. My hands are shaking so hard it takes three tries before I can send back the flamenco dancer. I take three deep breaths, then three more. I swallow three sips of water.

  U awake?

  Yep.

  Haven’t slept all night. Sorry I was such an asshat at lunch yesterday. Like really, really sorry. I feel terrible.

  Me too. I take back everything I said. I didn’t mean any of it. Okay, I did at the time, but I was mad at you.

  Yeah, I got that part.

  You know I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. Are we cool? We forgive each other, just like always?

  Always. Forever cool.

  Can you sleep now?

  I’ll try. You too. Levkova’s going to make us hurt this afternoon.

  Nothing new.

  Truth.

  Night. <3

  Morning. <3

  * * *

  But I’m too afraid to go back to sleep. I know I will spend the entire day trying to forget that dream.

  4

  May

  Two hours into Saturday rehearsal, Lucas lifts me and whispers, “I’m begging you, stop farting in my face. You’re killing me.” He puts his hands on my waist, guiding me in a pirouette. “My eyes are watering. What did you even eat last night?”

  I snort with laughter, which earns us both the evil eye from Levkova.

  Lucas says, “Oh great, see what you did? Now she’ll be all over us like cops on a doughnut.”

  He’s right. If we don’t pull it together, we’ll be cleaning the stage floor on our hands and knees.

  Ever since last month, when Levkova announced that we’d be doing the second act of Swan Lake for the Winter Gala next March, class and rehearsals have been even tougher than usual. We spent the first three weeks learning the steps, doing them over and over again so they’d become muscle memory, so much a part of our bodies that we don’t have to think about them. Now we’re working on interpretation.

  It’s hard. Nothing prepares you for how much strength and stamina it requires. The swan arms are hard to keep going, and my shoulders ache all the time. The balances are tricky. Everything has to be crisp and clean and pure, at the same time conveying the most complicated human emotions. Love. Loss. Betrayal. Fear.

  Today, for the first time, Lucas and I are doing the entire White Swan pas de deux from the beginning, no stopping for corrections. I’m wearing pink tights, a black camisole leotard, and a rehearsal tutu. These always take some getting used to, because now the only way I can see my feet and legs is in the mirrors that wrap around three sides of the enormous studio. Lucas wears his usual gray fitted shirt and black tights and slippers.

  The twenty-four girls in the corps de ballet, the cursed swans who share my fate, are taking a break while Lucas and I dance the pas de deux. They bend to pull on leg warmers and stretch tired muscles in front of the windows that reach from floor to ceiling. Even sweating and exhausted, they look beautiful in their white tutus and pointe shoes, like a Degas painting. Behind them, the distant mountains are hazy and blue.

  Lucas and I begin, standing in a pool of sunlight that falls from the clerestory windows high on the mirrored wall in front of us. The warm light on my shoulders feels like a blessing. The music fills me up, carrying the sun’s warmth into my blood and bones. As soon as it starts, my spine straightens. I pull up, holding myself as though someone is pulling a string through my body and out the top of my head, elongating my legs, my torso, my neck.

  Madame Levkova can’t help herself. We aren’t supposed to stop, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be quiet. “No, Lucas! Sparrow, make sure you have pointe shoe on center, please. Lucas, if you are not one step ahead, you are late, and you are making her late. Other leg, Lucas! Back, Sparrow, back! Abby, begin again, please.”

  Abby Samuels, Lucas’s next-door neighbor, is our rehearsal pianist. She’s the only one who’s been able to tame the huge Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano, a gift from a wealthy donor. In the hands of some musicians, it can sound harsh and tinny, but Abby makes it sing. She plays like she’s one of us, deep inside the music, feeling it in her heart.

  At the end, we’re breathless and sweating. I know it was ragged. Lucas has tutu rash all over his face and arms. He bends and puts his hands on his knees, breathing hard. I shake out my arms, which are aching and trembling.

  Levkova is not pleased. She paces in front of us, her long chiffon dance skirt swirling around her legs. At nearly sixty, she is still every inch the Bolshoi ballerina she was forty years ago.

  Finally she stops pacing, and my entire body freezes. I tense up, shoulders rigid, jaw clenched. I clasp my hands together and tap my finger. Nine times. Nine times more. I can see Levkova thinking. Watching. Planning our evisceration.

  “You are dancing like good friends.”

  We sigh with relief. If she weren’t right in front of us, we’d high-five each other.

  “This is not a compliment, mes enfants.”

  A murmur rises behind us. Even the girls in the corps are nervous. I can hear Delaney whispering, the rustle of their tutus, the sound of their pointe shoes on th
e wood floor as they stretch out their legs and feet. After you’ve been dancing for hours and hours, it hurts to stand still.

  “Lucas, who are you?” When Levkova gets passionate in her coaching, her smoky Russian accent grows thicker. The whispering in the corps grows louder. Levkova’s face flushes, and she turns to fuss at them. “Ladies, silence, please. Watch and learn.”

  Under his breath, Lucas says, “Is it me, or is she starting to sound like Chekov in the Star Trek movies?” I elbow him in the side. If we laugh, or even smile right now, we are dead.

  Levkova repeats her question. “Lucas. Who are you?”

  “Ummm, Siegfried? I’m a prince?”

  “Your lack of conviction disappoints me.”

  His shoulders droop, and he stares at his feet.

  “Sparrow, who are you?”

  “I am Odette, a princess, under the spell of an evil wizard who preys on young women. I’m a swan in the daytime and human at night. My heart is broken.”

  When Levkova turns to me, Lucas sticks out his tongue and mouths, Suck-up! behind her back.

  “Yes, but I am not seeing your broken heart. I do not feel it. You are dancing the steps, but you are not dancing the role.”

  She takes both of us by the wrist and turns us to face each other.

  “Lucas. Your mother has told you that you must marry. It is your twenty-first birthday, and you must choose a bride at the ball tonight. You are a prince, but you have lost your way. You are searching for something, but you do not know what it is. You are in love with no one, and no one is in love with you. You have everything, yet you have nothing.”

  Levkova’s sapphire-blue eyes are shining, and when she gestures, it looks as though she’s dancing. A wave of love for her washes over me, warming me from the inside out.

  “You are all alone on your birthday, in the middle of a dark forest, on the shores of a silver lake. And you see a creature so ravishing, so enchanting that you fall instantly in love with her. But hélas! She is cursed!