Long Bright River(13)

I, for one, was delighted.

I had worn a dress that day, my only dress, which Gee had brought home from Village Thrift in a rare moment of frivolity. The dress was beautiful, I thought: a blue cotton summer dress with white flowers on the bodice. But it was two years old by then and far too small, and over it, Gee had forced me to wear a boy’s blue parka that had belonged to Bobby, a cousin of ours on our mother’s side. It hadn’t ever been washed, this jacket. It was salt-stained and slightly acrid-smelling, like Bobby himself. Beneath it, the dress looked stupid: I knew this even then. But I had never been to a ballet before, and I don’t know why, but I wanted to demonstrate my respect, to acknowledge in some way the gravity of the occasion. So I wore it, and I wore the blue parka on top of it, and after lunch I waited in a long school hallway for the buses to arrive, standing in line with everyone else, reading my book.

Kacey, just ahead of me, was as usual surrounded by friends.

When it was time to board, I followed my sister up the steps of the vehicle, and then followed her toward the back of the bus, and sat down one seat behind her. It was a choice meant to assure my peers of my independence and myself of Kacey’s proximity. Her presence in any situation, familial or educational, tended to reassure me.



* * *



—

There was a bright and funny music teacher that year, Mr. Johns, who had orchestrated the whole thing. He was young—probably younger than I am today—and the next year he was snatched up by a better school in the suburbs. As the buses approached City Hall, he stood up at the front of ours and clapped his hands twice and then held his right hand up in the air, two fingers extended, the sign that was supposed to mean quiet. Everyone was then obliged to return the salute. As usual, I waited until someone else did it first, and then raised my hand into the air, relieved.

—Listen up, said Mr. Johns. What are the rules we talked about in class?

—Don’t talk! someone shouted.

—One, said Mr. Johns, holding up a thumb.

—Don’t kick the seat in front of you! said the same person.

—Okay, said Mr. Johns. Not one of the ones we mentioned, but true.

Tentatively, he held up a second finger.

—Anyone else? he said.

I knew an answer. It was Wait to clap until you hear others clapping. I didn’t say it.

—Wait to clap until you hear others clapping, said Mr. Johns.

—Number four, sit still, said Mr. Johns.

—Number five, no whispering with your friends, said Mr. Johns. No giggling. No squirming around in your seat like a kindergartner.



* * *



—

He had told us all the story of the ballet in music class the week before. In it, a little girl lives in a mansion, he said. This is in the olden days, he said, so everyone onstage will be wearing old-fashioned clothes.

He paused to think.

—Also, the men wear tights, he said, so get over it in advance. The little girl’s parents have a Christmas party and invite her spooky uncle, who’s actually a good guy, and he gives her a doll. It’s called a nutcracker, and you can go ahead and get over that too. That night she falls asleep and has a long dream and that’s the rest of the ballet, he said. The nutcracker doll comes to life and becomes a prince and he fights off giant mice, takes her to a land of snowflakes, and then takes her to a place I forget the name of. It’s like Candy Land. The little girl and the prince watch while a few different dances are performed. The end, said Mr. Johns.

—Does she go back to real life after that? asked a boy in my class.

—I forget, said Mr. Johns. I think so.



* * *



—

    We had grown up less than three miles from the center of Philadelphia, but we only went there once a year, on New Year’s Day, to watch a dozen of our cousins and uncles and uncles’ bosses and uncles’ friends march in the Mummers Parade. It is possible, therefore, that I had laid eyes on the Academy of Music before—it’s right on Broad Street, part of the parade route—but I had certainly never been inside it. It’s a pretty brick building with high, arched windows and old-fashioned lanterns that burn unflaggingly near its front doors.

As we filed off the bus, our teachers lined up along the edge of the sidewalk, inserting themselves between the students and the traffic, ushering us with mittened or gloved hands into the lobby.

Again, I trailed Kacey, who, I noticed, was scuffing her feet: I could hear it on the sidewalk. Gee would be mad at her later. Kacey was like this, always: doing what she shouldn’t do, demanding a rebuke, daring the adults in her life to come down harder and harder on her, testing the limits of their anger. Whenever I could, I tried to distract her from this pursuit, hating to watch the punishment she inevitably received.

We entered the lobby and were stopped by the crowd. Today, what I remember most is the number of little girls who were there with their mothers, right in the middle of a school day. They were the same age as us, or a little younger. Every one of them was white. In comparison, our school group looked like the United Nations. They’d come in from the Main Line: I knew this even then. They were wearing beautiful knee-length coats in bright colors and, beneath them, dresses that looked like they were made for dolls: frilled, satin, silk, velvet, lace-trimmed and puff-sleeved. In them, they looked like jewels or flowers or stars. They wore white tights and black, polished, patent-leather Mary Janes, all of them, as if they were following some rule that only they knew about. Many of them had their hair pulled back tightly into buns, the kind I would later see the ballerinas wearing.