Drama

CHAPTER FIVE

Carly limped from the dance wing, dragging her burdensome dance bag behind her. She moaned with each step on the twelve block trek home. Home was the third floor of an old brownstone that had been renovated and split into six separate apartments. The three bedroom apartment where Carly co-existed with her parents was just large enough not to be a complete source of humiliation when people came over, but just small enough to make Carly consider jumping out the window to get away from her parents at least once a day.

By New York City standards, they were living in a palace. Over 1000 square feet in their trendy neighborhood was currently worth about ten times what her father had paid for it back in the early eighties. He had bought it, he said, for the light that streamed through the wide and plentiful windows, and for the sacred third bedroom that he had immediately converted into a no-trespassing zone office.

Mr. Rusk had enjoyed some celebrated success in the late seventies in the literary world. His books of poetry had come too late to be considered a part of the true beat movement, but he had made a name for himself with his obscure, virtually indecipherable verses. They were the sort of poems that were beloved by the uber-rich society matrons of the day, as they could discuss it with their noses held high, making their own insightful-sounding observations while not understanding a single word of what it truly meant. Rusk poetry meant something different to everyone who read it, so it was all subjective, and impossible to be wrong.

But as the popularity of challenging poetry had died down, so did the great Karl Rusk's appeal. So he had taken the logical next step for any artist who, for whatever reason, can no longer create; he became a teacher. His cushy tenure position at NYU was more than most poets could ever dream of, but for him, it was resignation to a life of mediocrity.

Mr. Rusk had met his future wife during the downturn of his illustrious career, in those early years of teaching. They had fallen in love right away. She was a failing dancer who couldn't get hired, he was a tortured poet who couldn't sell so much as a limerick. They were both basking in the dimming light of former glories when one night, they got careless. Nine months later, they were married with a lovely little girl whom Mrs. Rusk swore was born with perfect dancer feet.

As Carly slammed the front door and tossed her bag carelessly down in the entry hall, she heard pretentious classical music pouring out of her father's office. She made her way through the cluttered living room, grateful that she didn't see her mother there or in the kitchen where she grabbed a diet soda from the fridge.

The lock Carly turned on her bedroom door sent a jolt of relief through her tired mind. All she needed was a little alone time. She caught sight of her reflection in her dressing table mirror. Dark circles surrounded her big brown almond shaped eyes and her thick, blunt-cut bangs were crusted to her forehead from sweating all afternoon. A quick, familiar motion pulled the pins from her bun as she shook her shoulder length black hair, too tired to even feel like washing the grime out. She plopped down on her unmade canopy bed and pressed the unopened can of soda against a throbbing muscle behind her left knee. She couldn't even begin to face her homework just yet. The reading for her AP English class would have to wait.

Dance class had been exactly as Carly had expected. Exactly as it had been the day before, the year before, and the year before that. Pliè, and stretch. Pliè, and stretch. Grand Battement, and stretch. Watch the turn-out, and pliè. As she rolled on her bed, crushing her thumbs into various sore spots on her body, she felt a shock in realizing she was the oldest sixteen year old she knew. Not only did she have the sad hip joints of a geriatric case and a total dependency on the stinky relief of heat gel, she was also jaded beyond even her own recognition.

A faded poster on her wall showed a still frame of the incomparable Margot Fontaine, Carly's favorite dancer and childhood idol. A dancer so great that she had brought entire audiences to tears and entire countries to their feet. A dancer who had once inspired Carly so much that she would sit crying while watching old, sketchy video footage of her impeccable movements. But now, just a dancer who represented a world Carly would never fully live up to. That poster used to remind Carly what it was all for – the sacrifice, the suffering, the sorrow. It was all so she could someday fly like Margot. Now, all the sad poster did was mock Carly and her aches.