"Then don't ever leave me! Forget about being a doctor! Stay with me! Don't go and leave me! I'm afraid of myself without you! Sometimes I do crazy things. Chris, please don't leave me alone. I've never been alone, please stay!"
"I have to be a doctor," he said, then groaned. "Ask me to give up anything else, and I'd say yes. But don't ask me to give up the only thing that's held me together. You wouldn't give up dancing--would you?"
I didn't know, as I responded to his demanding
kisses, the fire between us growing larger, overwhelming us both and taking us to the brinks of hell. "I love you so much sometimes I don't know how to handle it," he cried. "If only I could have you just once, and there would be no pain for you, only joy."
The unexpected parting of his hot lips, his tongue that forced my lips open, shot through me with a jolt of electricity! "I love you, oh, how I love you! I dream of you, think of you all day." And on and on he went, while his breath came faster, until he was panting and I was overcome by my body ready and willing to be satisfied. While my thoughts wanted to deny him, I wanted him! I gasped with the shame of it!
"Not here," he said between kisses. "Upstairs in my room."
"No! I'm your sister--and your room is too near Paul's. He'd hear us."
"Then we'll use your room. Carrie can sleep through a war."
Before I knew what was happening he had me in his arms and was racing up the back stairs and into my room where he fell with me on my bed. He had my gown off and his pajamas too when he fell down beside me and started again to complete what he had begun. I didn't want this. I didn't want it ever to happen again! "Stop!" I cried, then rolled away from under him. I fell to the floor. In a flash he was on the floor with me, wrestling. Over and over we turned, two naked bodies that suddenly collided with something hard.
That was what stopped him. He stared at the box with Oreo cookies, a loaf of bread, apples, oranges, a pound of cheddar cheese, a stick of butter, several cans of tuna fish, beans and tomato juice. Out spilled a can opener, dishes, glasses and silverware. "Cathy! Why are you stealing Paul's food and hiding it under your bed?"
I shook my head, fuzzy about why I had taken the food and hidden it away. Then I sat up and reached for the gown he'd tugged off, and modestly I held it before me. `Get out! Leave me alone! I don't love you except as a brother, Christopher!"
He came to put his arms about me, and bowed his head on my shoulder. "I'm sorry. Oh, darling, I know why you took the food. You feel you have to keep food handy--you're afraid someday we will be punished again. Don't you know I'm the only one who will understand? Let me love you just one more time, Cathy, just one more time to last us our whole lives. Let me just once give you the pleasure I didn't before, just once to last us both all our lives through."
I slapped his face! "No!" I spat. "Never again! You promised, and I thought you would keep that promise! If you have to be a doctor, and go away and leave me--then it will always be no!" I stopped short. I didn't mean that. "Chris. . . don't look at me like that, please!"
Slowly he drew on his pajamas. He flashed me a hurt look. "There is no life for me if I'm not a doctor, Cathy."
I put both hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. What was wrong with me? I couldn't demand him to abandon his dream. I wasn't like my mother, making everyone else suffer so she could have her way. I sobbed in his arms. In my brother I had already found my everlasting, forever-green, springtime love that could never, never blossom. Later, as I lay alone on my bed with my eyes open, I realized from the hopeless, flat way I felt that even in a valley without mountains the wind could still blow.
The Audition
. It was the day after Christmas. At one o'clock I had to be in Greenglenna, die home of Bart Winslow and Rosencoff School of Ballet.
We all crowded into Dr. Paul's car and we arrived with five minutes to spare.
Madame Rosencoff told me to call her Madame Marisha, if I was accepted. If I failed, I need never address her again, by any name. She wore only black leotards, which showed up every hill and valley of her superb body, kept trim and slim though she must be nearing fifty. Her nipples poked through the black knit material hard as metal points. Her husband, Georges, was also wearing black to show off his sinewy body which was just beginning to show age with the small protrusion of his belly. Twenty girls and three boys were to audition.
"What music do you choose?" she asked. (It seemed her husband was never going to speak, though he kept his bright bird eyes on me constantly.)
"Sleeping Beauty," I said meekly, believing the role of Princess Aurora the greatest of all testing pieces in the classical repertory--so why choose a less demanding part? "I can dance The Rose Adagio all alone," I boasted.
"Wonderful," she said sarcastically. Then added with additional scorn, "I guessed, just by your looks, you would want The Sleeping Beauty."
That made me wish I'd chosen something lesser. "What color leotards do you want?"
"Pink."
"I thought so."
She tossed me a pair of faded pink leotards and then, just as casually, picked at random from a triple row of many dozens of pointe shoes. She threw me a pair that fitted perfectly, unbelievable as it sounds. When undressed and donned my leotards and slippers, I sat before a long dressing table with a mirror to equal its length and began to bind up my hair. I didn't have to be told Madame would want to see my neck cords, and any epaulement I'd perform was sure to displease her. I knew that already.
Hardly had I finished dressing and doing my hair, with a gaggle of giggling girls surrounding me, when Madame Marisha put her head through a partially opened door to see if I was ready. Critically her jet black eyes scanned me. "Not bad. Follow me," she ordered, and off she strode, her strong legs heavily muscled. How had she let that come about? I was never going to be on pointe so much my legs would look lumpy like hers--never!
She led me out into a big arena with a polished floor that really wasn't as slick as it appeared. Seats for onlookers were lined against the walls, and I saw Chris, Carrie, Henny and Dr. Paul. Now I wished I hadn't asked them to come. If I failed, they'd witness my humiliation. Eight or ten other people were there too, though I didn't pay much attention to them. The girls and boys of the company gathered in the wings to watch. I was more afraid than I'd thought I'd be. Sure, I'd practiced some since I escaped Foxworth Hall, but not with the same dedication as in the attic. I should have stayed up all night and exercised, and arrived at dawn to warm up more--then maybe I wouldn't feel nervous enough to be sick.
It was my desire to be last, to watch all the others and see the mistakes they made and learn from them, or to see their accomplishments and benefit from those. In this way I could size up what I should do.
Georges himself sat down to play the piano. I swallowed over the lump in my throat; my mouth felt dry, and butterflies panicked in my chest as my eyes raked over the spectators to find the lodestone I needed in the blue of Chris's eyes. And as always, he was there to smile, and telegraph his pride and confidence and undying admiration. My dear, beloved Christopher Doll, always there when I needed him, always giving to me and making me better than I would have been without him. God, I prayed, let me be good. Let me live up to his expectations!