Looking Inside

“We don’t have to watch the video,” Eleanor said after a moment, picking up a magazine from the table and pretending to be interested in the cover. “I’ll tell her it’ll upset me.”

“Will it?” her dad asked, his green eyes going sharp on her behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

“No. I just meant . . . if you don’t want to.”

Her dad smirked and looked back at the television screen. “You don’t have to make excuses for me, bug.” Eleanor flipped randomly through the pages of the magazine, her dad’s pet name for her ringing in her ears and making her eyes burn. “But thank you for the thought anyway,” her dad added gently after a moment.

She glanced up and they shared a smile.

“Dad, have you been to see Dr. Chevitz recently—”

But her query into her dad’s health was cut off by the entrance of her mother.

She came bustling into the living room, a box cradled against her body. She set down the box and pulled an old video tape player from it. While she talked, she quickly hooked it up to the television.

“You’re going to love this, Eleanor. You’ve never seen it before. It’s of Caddy’s sixth grade recital. Your dad and I didn’t record it; Mrs. Kandiver did,” she said, referring to Caddy’s and her childhood ballet teacher. “She gave it to me years ago because she said she thought I’d like it more than anyone, but I didn’t pay much attention. I thought she gave it to me because Caddy was the star of the show, but I knew Dave was filming from a better angle than Mrs. Kandiver. So this tape got stuck in a box in the attic. I just rediscovered it last night, when I was pulling down the Christmas decorations.”

Her mother hit a button and an image resolved on the screen of eight tutu-wearing little girls moving in an approximate synchrony to the beginning of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. Mrs. Kandiver was filming the recital from stage right. Jeez . . . that old, polished oak stage they’d performed on at the dance studio on Dempster Avenue, those dusty red velvet curtains . . . and there was Caddy, front and center, skinny as a rail but uncommonly graceful for an eleven-year-old.

“I thought you said Eleanor was in it too,” her dad said.

“Just be patient and watch,” her mom said with a smug smile.

It was about then that Eleanor realized that the camera angle allowed them to see all the way across to stage left. There was a little girl with a brown ponytail and bangs sitting on the floor between two curtains, her knees drawn up and a book in her hand.

A smile flickered across her mouth at the unexpected image. It was her—Eleanor—six years old and staying after her kiddie lesson to watch her big sister’s recital. Mrs. Kandiver had allowed her to observe from behind the stage. Unlike the girls adorned in white on the stage, Eleanor wore a black leotard and tights along with a pair of white Keds and a bright red sweater. As the dance progressed, the little girl huddling in the curtains put down her book.

“Do you remember it, Nora?” her dad asked, and she heard the smile in his voice.

She nodded. “Vaguely. Some of it clearly. I remember the music perfectly and Caddy’s dance. She practiced it nonstop for the whole summer. I even remember what book I was reading,” she mused wistfully. “Eloise in Moscow.”

“Just like you to remember the book. Do you know what happens next?” her mom asked to the left of her.

Eleanor shook her head, bemused.

As the music built, the little girl across the stage stood up.

“Look how serious you are,” her dad said fondly.

Eleanor grinned. Little Eleanor clearly had no idea she was being filmed. She wore the kind of serious, yet faraway look a child gets when she’s dreaming.

And suddenly she recalled what happened next . . . or rather, she recalled what that little girl’s dream had been. It’d been to be the star ballerina, like Caddy.

Little Eleanor leapt into life, twirling and going up on her toes in her Keds, all within the confined space between the curtains. Her dad laughed at her impromptu little performance. Her mother crowed.

“Isn’t it priceless? I told you two you’d love it. Look how talented you are, and only six years old!”

“Seriously, Mom,” Eleanor muttered repressively.

“Do you

remember learning the dance with Caddy?” her mother asked.

Eleanor shrugged. “I guess. I told you she practiced it every day for a whole summer. I was always with her. It’s only natural I soaked up parts of it. I always wanted to do whatever she was doing, always wanted to be as good as her . . .”

She faded off, suddenly feeling self-conscious. One furtive glance told her that her mother was giving her one of those sad, meaningful looks Eleanor dreaded. She recalled her mother’s allegation that she’d been dressing like Caddy lately, playing the carefree, sexually confident, bold female because it was her way of mourning Caddy.

“Look at you,” her mom prompted. Against her will, Eleanor glanced back at the screen. “You were every bit as talented as your big sister.”