Jersey Tomatoes are the Best Page 13

  Point to Miss Lloyd.

  “What?” I said, willing myself to sound nonchalant. “Nobody can see in. The windbreaks are like privacy curtains.” He gestured toward himself.

  “Am I nobody? Jeez, Henry.”

  “Oh, c’mon. I turned my back. And besides. You’re already familiar with this bra.” I picked up my racket and started walking back onto the court. When I got to the baseline he hadn’t budged. He stared at me, hands on hips.

  “What?” I repeated.

  “You play mind games. You are completely, totally awesome at it, aren’t you? It’s one of your weapons. It has to be. I’ve never seen anyone more expert at getting under another person’s skin.” There was no trace of a smile on his face when he said this.

  Game over, Hen. You overplayed that one. What must he think now?

  I was silent. I hadn’t intended to make him mad. I was only joking around. Okay … flirting. I should have stopped. He’d asked me, at breakfast, to stop.

  I walked back to the bench.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. He didn’t reply. Just looked at me with this quizzical expression like he was trying to sort something out.

  “You’re right. I’m the queen of mind games. It’s, like, this really, really bad habit.” His face relaxed.

  “Apology accepted,” he said.

  “I shouldn’t have changed in front of you,” I continued. “You must think I’m some sort of teasing slut. God. I don’t know why I did that. I’ve never …”

  Once I got started, it was hard to hold back. There’s something about being forgiven so easily that greases the skids for further confessions. David finally held both his hands up in “I surrender” mode.

  “Whoa. Stop, Henry. Stop.” I stopped.

  “There is a time and place for mind games. Just … not with me. Let’s make you and me a game-free zone, okay?”

  You and me. I nodded, incapable of speech at the moment.

  “And let’s … compartmentalize. Right now, tennis. Later, we’ll talk about all your outrageous flirting. Deal?” That sweet corner of his mouth turned up for the second time that morning.

  Oh, who’s playing mind games now, David?

  “Deal,” I managed to say.

  “Then get to the baseline,” he said. “I’m gonna shoot some hard ones at you.”

  * * *

  I wish I did it on good tennis alone, but the fact is the mind games were what finally pushed Jonathan Dundas over the edge.

  The guy didn’t suck. He had a great second serve, really mean kick. I had a tough time returning it, but he didn’t seem to notice, and kept trying to blast me off the court with a big first serve, which, unfortunately for him, rarely landed in. Then, if he couldn’t slam a winner off me within the first few balls, he’d lose his composure and do something stupid to blow the point. So I won the first set 6–3.

  As we toweled off between sets, I moved in for the kill.

  I walked over to his end of the net. His face was beet-red and he was sitting.

  “Wanna quit now?” I said. Loudly. Most everyone was watching from the Overlook, draped over the balcony rail, spilling in and out of the lounge, where the staff had set up cool drinks and snacks. But a few of the pros and coaches were sitting courtside. They whooped when they heard my comment. “Hey man, don’t let her get away with that!” someone said. “You tell him, Henry!” another called, laughing.

  It was circus time, and I had decided to give them a show.

  Dundas wasn’t having any of it.

  “Just go back to your side of the court,” he said between his teeth. No trace of his usual attitude. Oh, yes, Henry, this one’s yours.

  “Would you at least like me to tell you what you’re doing wrong?” I replied sweetly. He jumped to his feet.

  “Would someone please make her go back to her side of the court?” he demanded, looking at the coaches. Missy motioned to me to walk away. I complied, but as I sauntered off I turned toward the crowd assembled on the balcony and gave them all a royal wave. One of those pivot-at-the-wrist jobs. Screams of approval, especially from the girls.

  David was standing not far from where I’d parked my water bottle and tennis bag.

  “Okay, Attila. Enough,” he muttered. I looked at him. The expression on his face caught me up short.

  Disapproval. Disappointment. I felt something leaden in my gut.

  “Play it pure, Henry,” he said. “You can beat him on your game alone.” He gave me one short, reassuring nod. Then David went to sit with the coaches.

  All I can say is I must really like this guy. Because even though a million little snarky comments and crowd-pleasing, mind-game-playing moves popped into my head, I buried them beneath killer forehands and point-ending overheads. I made my face impassive on every stroke. I forced my tone to be neutral every time I called the score, and as I watched the Perv self-destruct on the other side of the net, I focused on finishing him off with the best tennis I’ve ever played. When it was over, 6–4 in the second set, and we shook hands at net, Dundas didn’t make eye contact. He looked sick, literally.

  I didn’t care. I was too busy trying to catch David’s eye. When he did look my way, he didn’t just smile. Didn’t just wink, or flash me a thumbs-up. He stood up and started clapping. Standing ovation, totally, and within seconds the whole crowd joined in.

  It was a sweet first for Mark Lloyd’s daughter.

  * * *

  Someone pounds on the door. We had slipped in here, the kitchenette off the Overlook snack bar, so I could hear myself talk to Eva. Now the natives are restless. They want to party. Celebrate my straight-sets win over Jon “the Perv” Dundas, my overturning the repeated humiliation of number one girls losing to number one boys, and throw me, still in my tennis whites and sneakers, into the pool.

  I would so prefer to be kissing David Ross in the kitchenette, but … duty calls.

  “We should go before they break it down,” I say. He sighs but doesn’t argue, which is … disappointing. Maybe I want him to say, “Let them all go to hell; I’m here with you.” But he doesn’t, and when we open the door to a wall of chanting people and pointed wolf whistles, I have to confess: I feel a little drunk on the energy.

  “Grab her!” somebody yells, and I’m swept off my feet, lifted and somehow carried. Hands all over me, but I’m laughing too much to really care. I feel like one of those concertgoers who falls back into the crowd and gets passed over everyone’s heads.

  Out of the Overlook, down the stairs … “Do not drop her!” I hear Missy’s voice … across the campus to the Olympic-sized swimming pool, and with an enthusiastic “One! Two! Three!” I’m hurled into the deep end. I make an enormous splash, I sink beneath the aquamarine chlorinated coolness, and once I get over the weird sensation of being fully clothed, with shoes, underwater, I realize what a welcome break the silence is. I open my eyes. I can see them, above me, ringing the pool, and while I can’t hear them, I can tell they are chanting, jumping, yelling. I hold my breath, savoring the final seconds before I emerge from this baptism. Because when I come out, everything will be different.

  Chapter Eighteen

  EVA

  I know something is wrong the instant I land. I know it’s not possible to hear the crack, but I swear, I hear it. The infinitesimal, unmistakable crack of small bone travels from my toe to my ear, the way an electric current travels along copper wire. It’s instantaneous, invisible and true. A light flickers on, and hidden objects reveal themselves.

  It’s already been such a not-great day.

  It began with breakfast in the canteen with the zombie ballerinas from hell. They came, as usual, splay-footed and bunned, into the big, fluorescent-lit room, wrapped in leggings and loose, soft sweatshirts. They lined up, yawning, for egg-white omelettes, filled cups with black coffee and selected their grapefruits. They watched each other chew and swallow, measured and compared each morsel the others put in their mouths, not unlike the way they measured and compared th
e height of each other’s jumps.

  For some reason the Three Musketeers (Marguerite, Anna and Caitlin, thus named by moi because they are as laughable and lethal as the original Dumas trio) have decided to adopt me, so even though I’d gotten down to breakfast before everyone, and had assumed my most convincing Do Not Disturb posture, engrossed in my coffee and magazine, down they sat. Wonderful. Every damn morning. It’s always the same: Marguerite eats yogurt and granola; Anna eats toast, eggs, juice and fruit; Caitlin eats a sizeable portion of everything, getting up three or four times to refill, then bolts from the table before the rest of us have cleared our trays.

  While she’s off worshipping the porcelain god, the remaining two zero in on yours truly. And the morning of the not-great day, they had their knives out. Freshly sharpened.

  That’s because the day before, Madame DuPres made an example of me. We were practicing chassé, this step where one foot literally chases the other foot out of its position. Like ballet skipping, with graceful arms making a round, open sweep over your head while your tutu bounces. Of course, in Madame’s class, no one wears tutus. But when I was a little girl in Sonia Fleisch’s class, I wore tutus and loved chassé.

  Madame was frustrated. You could hear it in her voice. Sighing with exasperation as dancer after dancer skipped inexpertly across the studio. Finally, she called my name.

  “Eva, step forward, please.” She called me out of sequence. A choice not wasted on the other zombies.

  “Chassé across the room.”

  Obediently, I chasséd. I thought, Light! Bright! Arms sweep! My imaginary tutu bounced. I could feel my own smile.

  I could feel the eyes bore into me.

  “Yes!”

  Madame’s excited voice.

  “Precisely! Eva, again, please. I want you to watch her arms. In one sweeping, fluid motion she tracks her progress across the floor. Even down to her fingertips, she is one complete thought.”

  Once more, across the room, and I couldn’t help it: I showed off. I skipped higher, kicked one foot before the other just a bit more sharply, and for effect, doubled the length of the run and circled my arms completely, twice. I turned to Madame when I finished, I leveled my gaze at her and I allowed myself to think, to speak, with my eyes.

  She smiled back.

  “Thank you, Eva.” She didn’t need to say more. I rejoined the clutch of staring dancers, willing my face to appear neutral. Eyes downcast, demure. But irresistibly, I looked up, where I knew Marguerite stood.

  Let’s just say, if looks could kill, I’d have been a splattered, gory Capezio mess on the hardwood floor.

  I managed to evade her the rest of that day and evening, but there’s no escaping them at breakfast. Especially not after chassé day.

  “So,” Marguerite begins. “I wonder what Madame will have you teach us today.”

  I am dissecting my first egg. I tap it gently against the table until hairline cracks, like a web, spread across the shell.

  “Excuse me?” I say politely.

  “Frankly, I don’t know why she didn’t ask Hillary to demonstrate chassé,” says Anna. “I think she does it best.”

  “So do I,” agrees Marguerite. She waits for a response from me. I give her none.

  Tiny shell fragments fall from the egg as I run my thumb over the smooth surface of the white. I skim the rubbery flesh until it is absolutely clean. Not a pinhead of shell remains. I place the egg in an empty white bowl and move on to egg number two.

  “Where did you study before coming here, Eva?” Anna asks. “Donna tells me you went to Nutmeg.”

  “No, I’ve never done a camp before this,” I say. Tapping, tapping. Little cracks begin to form. We all watch my egg.

  “Really? Donna swears she saw you there last summer,” Anna insists.

  “Must’ve been my stunt double,” I say, without thinking. It’s the type of comment that would make Henry laugh.

  The zombies don’t even attempt a smile. Meanwhile, egg number two is deposited in the bowl. Next comes the surgical removal of the dastardly yellow. The source of all evil, artery-clogging fat. I take a knife and run it longitudinally down the egg, a perfect slice from tip to toe. The egg splits neatly in half, and the yellow falls out in two intact demi-spheres. I deposit them in a second empty bowl.

  Sitting with these people makes me want to scream, but it’s like I’m glued in place, and as I sit I feel my thighs spreading over the plastic, institutional cafeteria chair. I need to get out of here, need to move.

  You fat pig! You pathetic, sorry excuse for a dancer. You tub of lard. That yellow is like the flab hanging off your big fat butt.

  “I didn’t know Donna went to Nutmeg,” I struggle to say. “That’s really cool. Why’d she come here this summer?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Marguerite says. Like she can’t believe how stupid I am. “This place is the best. Everyone wants to be here.”

  I shrug. I take one tiny, mouse-sized bite of egg white. I can’t swallow.

  “I guess,” I say. I have to get out of here. I pass a napkin over my lips and spit out the white. I start to gather my things, but my indifference to the unquestionable greatness of the New York School of Dance is too much of an affront to Marguerite. My shrug has had the effect of waving a red flag in front of a gored bull. And yesterday my chassé gored her good.

  “You guess?” she says. “You know it. Here’s what I don’t get about you, Eva. We’re trying to be your friends, but you avoid us, you’re practically rude, and you hide the fact that Madame has singled you out. I mean, be honest. Has she invited you to the full-year program?”

  Ha! What a joke! Who would invite a gross loser like you?

  The primal scream that has been building at the back of my throat is so close to emerging that I feel actual, real panic. Screw the tray; if I don’t vacate this room immediately, I’m going to totally lose it. Now. I pull myself into a stand, heave my thighs off the chair.

  “Since you’ve been here for three summers, you know those decisions aren’t made until August. So don’t accuse me of being dishonest.” I grab my magazine and push my chair back with my foot. “See you in class.” I leave the canteen before she has a chance to reply.

  The three of them don’t speak to me from then on. They don’t change with me in the locker room. They whisper and glance my way until the moment I look their way. Then they turn their heads.

  I want to hurt them in ways that show. Like, with a machete.

  Instead, I dance.

  I flash Madame my brightest smile and loudly say, “Good morning!” to her when we all file in for class. The sphinx startles. Who is this putty, she wonders, addressing me? This clay, meant only to be twisted into lovely shapes of my design? But then our eyes lock and she reflexively replies, “Good morning, Eva.” A smile begins to form before she catches herself and smooths the lines of her face back into expressionless.

  I’ve hurled my first grenade. And when I glance at Marguerite and Co., I can see it was an accurate throw.

  It goes on all morning. A glorious morning of dance. The sun shining through the high studio windows is bright, one of those perfect, cloudless New York summer days when light glints off the skyscrapers like diamonds, city birds soar and colorful banners flap outside the Met, along Fifth Avenue, in front of Lincoln Center. New York is the city of dreams on mornings like this, and I’m in the zone. I’m there, but not there. The space I inhabit is pure movement, insulated from every competing noise: from Marguerite’s sneering questions; sounds of traffic on the streets below; the relentless, CNN-like ticker tape of doubt and fear that plays inside my head all day.

  I don’t think I’ve ever danced like this before, and I allow myself to feel Madame’s approving gaze. I allow myself to imagine that come September, I’ll be one of the chosen. Granted a coveted spot in the full-year program, the gateway to the corps de ballet. A brilliant career. A brilliant life. I allow myself to relax in the promise of my abilities, and dance as if
I’m already there.

  Then it cracks. Of course. Who was I kidding?

  The pain, and the freakish sound that I swear I hear but that everyone later tells me could not possibly be heard by the human ear, take me right out. I collapse like a fistful of little sticks dumped from a bag: inelegant, askew. I hear my bones rattle on the smooth wood floor. Fresh pain shoots up my elbow. The room starts going dark, then light, then dark again, and bees are buzzing. Miraculously, I don’t faint. But everything from that point on seems dreamlike.

  I remember sounds: the muffled staccato of pointe shoes and high-pitched exclamations; Madame strident, ordering, asking me to tell her my name, count to five. Strong arms scoop me up, carry me from the studio. There is a cab ride, and I’m taken to a hospital.

  By the time Rhonda arrives from Jersey, the verdict is in: I’ve broken the big toe on my left foot. And not just a hairline fracture. This baby’s broke good. The doctor suggests that perhaps there already was a hairline, and the pressure of dancing on it simply made it worse. Of course, there is good news: it will heal and it’s not serious. There is also bad news: I have to stay off it for it to heal correctly. And worse news: I probably won’t dance for the rest of the summer.

  And finally, the worst news, contained in lab results the doctor holds. Papers which have caused this worried crease to form on her forehead. We’re still in the emergency room, where I sit on a high hospital bed, my foot elevated, my toe securely wrapped. Rhonda, poker straight, sits in a chair beside me. The doctor speaks.

  “The X-rays confirmed that the toe is broken,” she says. “Then, because she complained about pain in her elbow, we x-rayed her arm. Good news there: no break. But I saw things that concerned me, so I ordered a bone-density test.” She pauses. The crease deepens.

  “Eva is suffering from a condition known as osteopenia, or low bone density. It’s a precursor to osteoporosis, and it makes her more susceptible to breaks.” Rhonda gasps.