Chapter 15 Nutcracker #3
“I was thinking of going back part-time,” said Heather.
Debra thought, Aren’t you working part-time now? Somehow Youth Director at the temple did not seem like a full-time job—but that was her own prejudice again. “You’ll see how you feel,” she said.
“I’ll know more once I have the baby.”
Debra nodded slowly, but she tried to sound encouraging. “The girls are excited!”
“Yes!”
“Do they eat at your house?” Debra picked apart the giant scone.
“Yes.”
“Sophie too?”
“I think so.”
“Her dance teacher is pressuring her,” Debra said.
“What do you mean?”
Debra told Heather about no bread and salad salad salad.
“That’s terrible,” said Heather.
“What do you think I should do?”
“I don’t know,” Heather said nervously, as though Debra were asking a trick question.
“I mean what should we do?” Debra invoked the team.
Heather shifted her weight. She sipped her juice. “I think,” she said at last, “maybe that question is for Sophie.”
“She’s sixteen,” said Debra.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Heather said. “Now that she’s sixteen, maybe our job is just to give her tools to make decisions for herself?”
Debra stared at Heather. You have perspective, she thought. That’s why you talk like this. You have distance. You see Sophie as a young adult with agency. Good for you. At the same time, she thought, Wait till you have your own kid. Wait till it’s your baby.
—
Richard understood. Righteous indignation he could get behind. He called that night after Heather had briefed him about Nastia and said, “How dare that woman even look at Sophie?”
“Right?” said Debra.
“Yes, get the kids out of there. Obviously.”
This was a relief. It was a huge relief to hear her ex-husband’s certainty, until she mentioned the slight complication that the girls loved MBA.
“What do you mean love it?”
“They don’t want to leave.”
“Well, they might need to leave.”
“And Nutcracker is in a week!”
“Okay,” Richard said. “They’ll do Nutcracker and then they won’t come back after winter break.”
“You aren’t listening. They won’t leave the studio ever.”
“Have you asked them?”
“I don’t have to ask.”
“So you know exactly what they’re thinking?”
“I do! And it’s impossible to change their minds!”
Richard’s voice tensed. “Oh, okay. Then can I ask why we’re having this conversation?”
“Because I’m trying to parent with you!”
“How is this parenting with me? You tell me they have to leave the studio. I agree. You say they can’t leave a week before Nutcracker. I say okay. You say actually they’re never leaving. So, is there a reason you’re asking my opinion?”
“I’m trying to have a discussion!” Debra burst out.
“But you’ve already made a decision.”
“That’s not true.”
Silence. Then he said, “Maybe we should talk over winter break after the performance is over, and we have time to think.”
“We need to make a plan.”
“Okay, Debra.”
This was maddening to hear. The voice of appeasement, as though she were hysterical (not true) for no reason (not true either). “I just don’t understand,” she said, “why even now I can’t have an actual conversation with you.”
“Maybe it’s because you do all the talking,” he said. “And the editing. And the revisions afterward.”
“Maybe it’s because you aren’t interested in what I have to say, and you speak to me as though every problem is imaginary.”
“I never said this problem is imaginary.”
“You implied it.”
“This is what I mean by editing.”
“Listen,” said Debra. “I’m trying to explain!
” Because she was talking about the whole world, and the weightless ideal of femininity.
The dewdrop sugar plum fairy of it all. The pointed toes and arabesques and silver filigree.
And the auditions in the spring, and the vanishingly small chance that any of the girls at MBA would end up dancing for a living.
She was talking about youth sports. The little soccer players and the tennis academies and, yes, the studios and skating rinks and gyms. What were they but puppy mills?
“I’m worried about the girls. They’re pawns!
They’re victims in this culture where women starve themselves to look like waifs—all for a dream that—”
“I get it.” Richard cut her off. And that right there was why they were no longer married.
—
It’s not worth it, she told herself at the dress rehearsal. It’s twisted, this kind of training. She was waiting with the other moms backstage at the high school theater, rented for the occasion, and she could hear the silvery music and the sound of Nastia screaming, “Upupup! NO!”
“What is it now?” Debra asked Joy.
“Who knows?” Joy answered.
“It sounds bad,” said Debra.
“I’ve heard worse.”
“Gogogo! Arms!”
“What does she want from them?” Debra muttered. “These girls are not professionals. And they aren’t going to be.”
Now the other moms looked up from their phones. Joy and Chelsea and Brodie’s mom, Lauren. They stared at Debra from the shadowy benches outside the dressing rooms.
No one spoke, but Debra felt a chill. She, who had given up her career for motherhood, felt her own commitment questioned.
Because what was she saying? That she wouldn’t take her daughters to New York and live with them if necessary?
That she wouldn’t spend weeks in a hotel while her girls competed in YAGP (Youth America Grand Prix, in case you were wondering)?
That she wouldn’t fly to Spain so that Sophie could try out for European companies?
Did she really think her daughters—their daughters—were not worth it?
And that Nastia’s studio was built on lies—when several of her students had won competitions and were indeed dancing professionally in Latvia, Atlanta, Philly?
“Seriously. It’s just wrong,” said Debra.
But this was heresy. The other mothers turned away.
Strange to feel shunned. Even stranger that it had taken Debra so long to speak.
How had she become one of these mothers waiting at rehearsal?
That was not her. Not her at all. She was a feminist. Outspoken.
How then had ballet lured her? Six years of Nutcrackers and summer classes, and pointe shoe fittings, and tutus.
This was not what she had set out to do!
But that was the nature of the beast. Mothering.
Caregiving. It sucked resistance out of you.
You woke up with a start and realized your daughters wanted to be princesses onstage—and you were financing gauze skirts and rhinestone crowns, even though you used to read them Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls.
Debra covered her ears as Tchaikovsky played on.
No! She knew she was opposed. Not to excellence, not to technique, not to dance itself—but to pursuing it this way.
If only her daughters felt the same. They bounded backstage and linked arms with their dance friends and laughed and pranced and posed for photos in their lovely costumes. They did not know their mother was recanting.
—
The day of Nutcracker, Debra arrived early with her parents and six tickets, and she made sure she was standing near the front of the line when the doors opened so that everyone could sit together.
“Not the front row,” she told her mom. “That’s too close. And those are reserved.” Sure enough, Nastia had taped Reserved signs to a block of seats where she would sit with the teachers. Nastia’s husband, who owned a video business, was setting up to film the show.
“How about here?” Debra’s dad said, standing midway among empty seats.
“No, too far back,” she told Ed. “This is good.” She chose the sixth row and then she and her parents spread out their coats and bags to save the seats. “Leave this one on the aisle for Heather.”
“When is she due?” Cindy asked in the hushed voice she always used when talking about Richard’s future wife.
“Next month I think? You guys sit down there,” Debra said. “I’ll sit next to them.” It was still half an hour before curtain, but the audience was streaming in. Chelsea and her husband, along with Emma’s brothers. Joy with her in-laws. Brodie’s mom and Maddy’s mom and Sabrina’s mom.
There were siblings doing homework and grandparents visiting from Utah. There were several families speaking Russian. Debra had always thought the American moms were jealous of those who could speak to Nastia in her native tongue—as though they had an in.
“Should you leave the other tickets at the box office?” Cindy asked. “Where’s Becca?”
“I’ll go out and watch for everybody. Save these seats.” Debra strode up to the lobby and as she went, she smiled at Chelsea—just to see what she would do. Chelsea didn’t smile back. She was busy settling her kids, and obviously she hated Debra forever. Yes, this was high school.
“Hello. How are you?” Debra tested Joy in the lobby.
Joy smiled, but that was all. She did not answer.
What a relief to see Becca hurtling through the door. Wide-bodied, bright-eyed, Debra’s sister blew past Joy. “Hey! How are you holding up? How are they treating you?”
“Okay, I guess.” Becca was asking about their parents, but Debra was gazing at Nastia as she swept by in full regalia, a long gown with an oversized ruffle across the top—although it was two-thirty in the afternoon.
“Is that her?” Becca whispered.
Debra clutched Becca’s arm, and they both burst out laughing. Oh, it was good to have a sister. What did other people do?
Becca sat on Debra’s left as the lights dimmed in the theater. She held Debra’s hand and passed out peppermints to Cindy and Ed while Nastia stood in front of the curtain. “Welcome, everyone.”
Becca whispered, “How come Richard and Heather aren’t here?”
“Parking?” Debra whispered back.
“Thank you for coming to our Nutcracker.” Nastia looked small and nervous, nothing like her fire-breathing self.
“We are so proud of our dancers and what they have done. We hope you will appreciate them. I would like to thank our preparatory teachers. Miss Megan Tanaka, Miss Gwen Sorenson, Mister Joshua Jackson…”