There were other students dancing. I know this because the two automatic videocameras, unlike me, did their job and recorded the piece as a whole. It was called Birthing, and depicted the formation of a galaxy that ended up resembling Andromeda. It was not an accurate literal portrayal, but it wasn’t intended to be. Symbolically, it felt like the birth of a galaxy.
In retrospect. At the time I was aware only of the galaxy’s heart: Shara. Students occluded her from time to time, and I simply never noticed. It hurt to watch her.
If you know anything about dance, this must all sound horrid to you. A dance about anebula? I know, I know, it’s a ridiculous notion. And it worked. In the most gut-level, cellular way it worked—save only that Shara was too good for those around her. She did not belong in that eager crew of awkward, half-trained apprentices. It was like listening to the late Steveland Wonder trying to work with a pickup band in a Montreal bar.
But that wasn’t what hurt.
Le Maintenant was shabby, but the food was good and the house brand of grass was excellent. Show a Diner’s Club card in there and Fat Humphrey’d show you a galley full of dirty dishes. It’s gone now. Norrey and Shara declined a toke, but in my line of work it helps. Besides, I needed a few hits. How to tell a lovely lady her dearest dream is hopeless?
I didn’t need to ask Shara to know that her dearest dream was to dance. More: to dance professionally. I have often speculated on the motives of the professional artist. Some seek the narcissistic assurance that others will actually pay cash to watch or hear them. Some are so incompetent or disorganized that they can support themselves in no other way. Some have a message which they feel needs expressing. I suppose most artists combine aspects of all three. This is not complaint—what they do for us is necessary. We should be grateful that there are motives.
But Shara was one of the rare ones. She danced because she simply needed to. She needed to say things which could be said in no other way, and she needed to take her meaning and her living from the saying of them. Anything else would have demeaned and devalued the essential statement of her dance. I knew this, from watching that one dance.
Between toking up and keeping my mouth full and then toking again (a mild amount to offset the slight down that eating brings), it was over half an hour before I was required to say anything beyond an occasional grunted response to the luncheon chatter of the ladies. As the coffee arrived, Shara looked me square in the eye and said, “Do you talk, Charlie?”
She was Norrey’s sister, all right.
“Only inanities.”
“No such thing. Inane people, maybe.”
“Do you enjoy dancing, Ms. Drummond?”
She answered seriously. “Define ‘enjoy.’ ”
I opened my mouth and closed it, perhaps three times. You try it.
“And for God’s sake tell me why you’re so intent on not talking to me. You’ve got me worried.”
“Shara!” Norrey looked dismayed.
“Hush. I want to know.”
I took a crack at it. “Shara, before he died I had the privilege of meeting Bertram Ross. I had just seen him dance. A producer who knew and liked me took me backstage, the way you take a kid to see Santa Claus. I had expected him to look older offstage, at rest. He looked younger, as if that incredible motion of his was barely in check. He talked to me. After a while I stopped opening my mouth, because nothing ever came out.”
She waited, expecting more. Only gradually did she comprehend the compliment and its dimension. I had assumed it would be obvious. Most artists expect to be complimented. When she did twig, she did not blush or simper. She did not cock her head and say, “Oh, come on.” She did not say, “You flatter me.” She did not look away.
She nodded slowly and said, “Thank you, Charlie. That’s worth a lot more than idle chatter.” There was a suggestion of sadness in her smile, as if we shared a bitter joke.
“You’re welcome.”
“For heaven’s sake, Norrey, what are you looking so upset about?”
The cat now had Norrey’s tongue.
“She’s disappointed in me,” I said. “I said the wrong thing.”
“That was the wrong thing?”
“It should have been, ‘Ms. Drummond, I think you ought to give up dancing.’ ”
“It should have been ‘Shara, I think you ought’… what?”
“Charlie—” Norrey began.
“I was supposed to tell you that we can’t all be professional dancers, that they also surf who only sand and wade. Shara, I was supposed to tell you to dump the dance—before it dumps you.”
In my need to be honest with her, I had been more brutal than was necessary, I thought. I was to learn that bluntness never dismayed Shara Drummond. She demanded it.
“Why you?” was all she said.
“We’re inhabiting the same vessel, you and I. We’ve both got an itch that our bodies just won’t let us scratch.”
Her eyes softened. “What’s your itch?”
“The same as yours.”
“Eh?”
“The man was supposed to come and fix the phone on Thursday. My roommate Karen and I had an all-day rehearsal. We left a note. Mister telephone man, we had to go out, and we sure couldn’t call you, heh heh. Please get the key from the concierge and come on in; the phone’s in the bedroom. The phone man never showed up. They never do.” My hands seemed to be shaking. “We came up the back stairs from the alley. The phone was still dead, but I never thought to take down the note on the front door. I got sick the next morning. Cramps. Vomiting. Karen and I were just friends, but she stayed home to take care of me. I suppose on a Friday night the note seemed even more plausible. He slipped the lock with a piece of plastic, and Karen came out of the kitchen as he was unplugging the stereo. He was so indignant he shot her. Twice. The noise scared him; by the time I got there he was halfway out the door. He just had time to put a slug through my hip joint, and then he was gone. They never got him. They never even came to fix the phone.” My hands were under control now. “Karen was a damned good dancer, but I was better. In my head I still am.”
Her eyes were round. “You’re not Charlie… Charles Armstead.”
I nodded.
“Oh my God. So that’s where you went.”
I was shocked by how shocked she looked. It brought me back from the cold and windy border of self-pity. I began a little to pity her again. I should have guessed the depth of her empathy. And in the way that really mattered, we were too damned alike—we did share the same bitter joke. I wondered why I had wanted to shock her.