She grimaces. “That’s… grisly.”
“But that priest didn’t represent the whole church, any more than I represent every Catholic. He made mistakes. I made mistakes. We were both hypocrites. It would have made me even more of a hypocrite if I rejected the church the moment I was in its worst graces. That would be like when a child loses a race and then says she doesn’t care and didn’t want the medal anyway.”
Now Penelope smiles. “Very true.”
I set my Nativity scene down on the floor tile. “Your turn.”
Her smile turns stiff, almost catlike. I can tell she thinks I’m going to ask her about her crimes, whatever they might be. As much as I’d love to, I don’t want her to think I’m too eager to know; it would be better for her to volunteer that information than to feel I’m prying it out of her. I’ve already seen that impulse in her, and just need to wait it out. So instead I ask, “Is it true what they say about black men?”
She blurts a laugh. “That’s your question? Seriously?”
“I’ve always wondered.”
Her eyes narrow with glee. I catch a little twitch at their far corners, a conspiratorial little glance. “In Kevin’s case it is,” she tells me. “He’s pretty big.”
“Well, that’s good to know. Rumor confirmed.”
“What about Ricky?” At my hesitation she says, “C’mon, he’s a celebrity. I’d love to know that kind of dirt.”
“I don’t have enough experience to judge whether or not he was big. But he was good in bed.”
She nods approvingly. “And that’s what matters, anyway.”
“It sure does.”
We both grin. She arranges another length of clay to form part of a cage above her bird, and she looks happy when it holds.
After dinner I find a package on the floor just inside my cell with a pink form taped to the top. Four times a year we’re allowed to receive special packages, but except for the one Annemarie sent me recently, I never get them. It’s open, of course. Penelope isn’t back yet, and I’m locked in alone. I glance over the form—Application for Special Exception: Personal Property, it reads, with scribbled text and check-off boxes. I pull back the cardboard flaps and immediately suck in my breath.
It’s a pair of pointe shoes.
They’re pale pink silk, their long pink ribbons spilling across the brown cardboard like soft candy. I can tell they’re not new, but I couldn’t care less. I pick up the envelope tucked in beside them and take out the card. Thinking of you, it reads in a winsome font, with a drawing of a mouse holding a very large daisy. I flip it open.
Clara,
After you told me you didn’t have ballet shoes I went looking in the closet. These were my daughter’s. Don’t know whether they will fit but when she was still dancing she was about your height. Hope you can use them.
I enjoyed the visit. Even if I did let you win at Scrabble. To tell the truth I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I know it sounds corny, but I have you in my prayers. It took me a lot of years not to be haunted by my seven months and I don’t know how anybody survives twenty-five years. You are strong and I admire that.
If these don’t fit, trace your foot on a piece of paper and send it to me so I can figure out how to get you some better ones.
I set the card on the desk and pull off my sneakers and socks. Penelope is out at a meeting with her lawyer, and it’s such a relief not to have her present—I would feel the need to hold back my excitement if she were here, and I don’t know how I could. Seated on the desk stool, I hold up one of the pointe shoes—it feels stiff but slippery in my hand—and slide it onto my foot. It’s a half-size too big, and so I look around frantically until I see the stack of our blue toilet-cleaning gloves. Those will have to do. I roll two gloves into the toe box of each slipper and put them on my feet, lacing the ribbons up my calves and folding the legs of my jumpsuit pants at mid-thigh.
I click on the radio. Afternoon Classics is over, so I turn on the oldies station. Olivia Newton-John is belting out Twist of Fate—a song from a movie I remember that Ricky and I disdained seeing. I walk to the bars, my gait awkward from the strange feeling of the shoes, and begin to limber up. Roll up into it, I think, and let the music’s bouncy rhythm feed my confidence. My ankles feel strong, my feet tough but flexible. Just go with the music. At the swell of the chorus I hold my breath, I hold it tight, and then curl my arches to the balls of my feet to—up!—the tips of my toes.
I crack a smile that feels dazzling. My back is board-straight, my right arm curled before me in fourth position. I mince forward on my toes, then come down for the pure joy of rising up a second time, a third, a fourth. I feel like leaping across the room, spinning in fouette turns from one end to the other. My heart feels wide open, as if all the world is a never ending field to run through singing, and it holds not a single thing to fear. Without any effort my feet and body move to the radio music, sweeps of the leg and compact turns, elegant arms, and my toes, oh, my toes. They are strong enough to hold me, and the muscle and bone of my ankles stake my weight and balance as if they were made for this, as if they could do it all along.
I dance until I hear the thud of doors and the clank of chains, and know that the laundry workers are heading back now. Even as I sit down on Penelope’s bed and untie the ribbons, in my mind I am still dancing. Today is not like any other day I have ever lived. It’s an entirely new kind of day, when the surprise that arrives is not from the past but from the future. I am here to meet the person I will become, and welcome her, because she is good.
The pointe shoes offer a welcome distraction in the week that follows. Saturday is Annemarie’s wedding, and even though I can’t attend, I’m dreading the day’s arrival. More than anything else, anything in the world, I want her to reach out and reconnect with me. To forgive me for being such a disappointment, such a coward when my back was to the wall—and yet I can’t blame her even a little. I didn’t want to hurt her with the truth, no, but mostly it was pride. I didn’t want her to feel disappointed with me.
On that Saturday Forrest arrives with a thin envelope of photos, just like Annemarie did many weeks earlier. But he apologizes for them right away. “Turns out they don’t let you bring much in,” he explains. “Not gifts, not food, not flowers. I don’t remember the rules being so strict way back when.”
“They seem to change them every few weeks. They threw out all my cassette tapes a while ago. But they let in the package you sent me, which was a very nice surprise.” I smile at him. “Thank you.”
His forehead creases up. “Yeah, I called and they said I had to fill out some special form. Did they fit?”
“Yes. I love them. You have no idea. I really wanted pointe shoes. I never imagined I would get them.”
Now he smiles. I try to put my finger on how to describe the element I like in that grin, and I’m surprised by the word that comes to me. Sexy. I can’t tell whether that’s a reasonable thought or if it’s simply been much too long since I saw a man who isn’t wearing a C.O. uniform.
He goes to the vending machine and buys us two cans of soda. It’s been ages since I had a Coke. They used to sell them in the canteen, but don’t anymore. We sit at a table, and he sets down the envelope. “How’re things with the new cellmate?” he asks.