Ruminations of Tchaikovsky

BY: KATHLEEN BAUER

The R train was running two minutes late, and in the space of those hundred-odd seconds, Alice Morello-Denton slid the two silver-and-diamond rings off and onto her finger fifty-one times. A nervous habit; she was going to have to fix that. As the train’s headlights appeared over the end of the subway tracks, she made a mental note to discuss this extra annoyance with the good man, Dr. Liu, at her appointment next Thursday. 

There were two men Alice kept in her life, and only two. By her better judgment it would be none, but who was she to hold such impossible standards?  

For now, she could separate them into their respective roles they played in her life: the good and the evil. The evil man, Roth, would be gone from the house by now, picked up by one of his friends she never cared to meet or driven out on his own into the night. He’d call her from some bar at midnight and she’d tell him he’d better sleep somewhere there wasn’t a twelve-year-old in the room next door. It was a Friday night and she was gone. Who was she kidding? He’d be well on his way to the casino where he worked by now. Rather, he’d never have left. 

That was a problem for Dr. Liu, the good man, to deal with. With his seventy-one years of experience in this rock-and-metal cage called Earth, he’d tell her to practice breathing, to have open conversations. To calmly express her worries to her husband until the two of them were just well enough off to kiss on the creaking back porch and say how much they each could never survive another day without the other. That was how it always went, how it always would go. Even Dr. Liu had told her it was better to keep up with the endless cycle than to let it devolve into a rage, or a fist, or a home forced to break. 

If she slipped on a puddle and her ring dropped down onto the yellow line tracks, Alice wondered, would she be entitled to compensation? 

The train blurred past before halting with its doors directly across from her gaze. Other, more pressing tasks were worth more of her energy than intrusive thoughts. 

*** 

The flight from Chicago to LaGuardia had put Alice’s daughter, Lily, to sleep but kept Alice herself up the whole time. First by the reruns playing on her screen, then the turbulence in the air, and finally by the turbulence of her own thoughts, Lily’s ballet music, the black swan variation swimming through her mind on a never-ending loop. The competition was at eight the next day, so they’d have to leave the hotel at seven-thirty, or would seven give enough time for them to walk if the subway was too crowded? Lily would hate to wake up that early, but she needed time to warm up, anyway. 

Alice looked to her side. Lily sat in the window seat, her blonde head buried in the dance studio jacket she’d curled up between the wall and her headrest. She’d get a better sleep at the hotel, but for now, she managed to let out a soft snore that merged softly with the noise of the thrumming jet engines. 

  Alice finished the last swig of water and the last bite of cinnamon cookies the flight attendant had given her. Of course, her daughter could sleep here, in the back of the plane on a windy night. She’d been going to bed a wall away from a madhouse for the past six years. 

  Would Lily even be able to sleep tonight, in the odd lighting of the hotel room, in the particular quiet that made one so aware of the background noise? 

  Alice tossed her crumb-filled napkin into her empty plastic cup and set them at the edge of her tray table. Roth still hadn’t texted her back about the car, but that was a faraway issue. At least that meant he was most likely busy using it for something a little better than crashing it into a streetlight again. 

*** 

Twelve hours later, Roth still hadn’t replied and the subway was hurtling towards Broadway faster than any of them could have thought of what to do. The good man could help Alice out; he always did. Always he sat open-eyed, open-eared across from her in his office, two floors above Lily’s studio. When the girl left ballet practice, the family she went home with was always one that embraced her energy together, lips tightened into smiles.  

It was similar to how Lily acted onstage, Alice thought. The subway car was crowded with too many people, too many of them men, too many of them too loud for comfort. Lily would do so well here, making a story out of everything, making a playground game of the dust-topped seats and the flickering lights above them. She’d run to Alice to tell her about the persona she was going to play, the persona she would act out at the dining table for the next two weeks to learn the character before she would dance the role onstage. 

  What persona was the drunken Roth, the stubborn Roth, the Roth who called her for money because he totaled his Chevy? What was the Alice who drove to pick him up from the roadside, the Alice who sent him off with a soft kiss to the cheek every morning and welcomed him home with a repression of rage every night? 

  Who were the Roth and Alice Denton, mother and stepfather of Lily Morello-Denton, who walked out of that office building with their daughter in hand every weeknight? 

It was a balancing act to get off the train, maneuvering around the groups of tourists that congregated too close to the doors and businessy locals that kept to their cell phones, unobservant, unamused. Roth would have navigated the station with ease; New York was much more suited to his style, his taste. Alice could imagine his quick gait through the tunnels, natural enough to belong. Why was she the one here, anyway? 

* 

“Daddy, I’m going to New York!” Lily had run into the living room, where Roth was seated on the couch. She hadn’t even unzipped her coat before rushing inside. “I got runner-up, and they said that’s enough to go to the finals!” 

Alice stood smiling from the doorway, feet crossed like an observer. 

“That’s my girl, Lily!” Roth hugged his soon-to-be stepdaughter as she laughed, her knit hat falling to the side, jumping and squealing. “New York, uh-huh?” 

“Oh, and I have a medal!” Lily continued. “Mom can show you, Mom? And Miss Martha was there, she said I looked so beautiful, and my tutu, oh—” 

Alice turned away to hang up her own coat and Lily’s dance bag. For some reason, the bag’s polyester straps felt heavier than before, and the glittery L on the front pocket was beginning to peel up around the edges. 

“When’s this competition, Alice?” Roth called from the living room. 

“Last weekend of March,” Alice said. “That’s three months from now.” 

“Yes, we know how time works,” Lily said. 

Later, after Lily had gone to bed and it was only her and Roth in the living room, Alice asked, “You’ll get three paychecks?” 

Roth nodded. 

“And three means three?” 

“If you take her,” he said quietly. “I’ll get us the money.” 

“Three paychecks, Roth. Don’t make me budget your own cash for you.” 

* 

On Broadway, the sidewalks were beginning to fill up in anticipation of the Saturday matinees. The address Lily’s ballet teacher, Miss Martha, had given her was a block to the right, just past the Winter Garden. Alice held her purse tighter against her hip, slipping her right hand over the top of the zipper because Roth had warned that the pickpockets were out in hordes wherever the tourists were. Not that her off-brand crossbody contained anything worth taking more than itself. 

She should have known that Roth never meant his next three paychecks would be enough to save up for the trip. Even without him going, the two plane tickets alone were more than either of them had managed to save in a long series of paychecks. As it was, Roth’s money had been going to fix the car and Alice’s ever-slimmer earnings from the salon had been going to cover the loss in her fiancé's.  

“Don’t worry about it, my love,” he had told her over the roar of the sink as they washed the dishes, Lily doing her homework a room away. 

But she had to worry. She was engaged to Roth Denton; it was practically in the job description. Without Roth’s carelessness, her methodical energy had nowhere to go. And without her, Roth would be on the streets by now. 

“Do you not believe me?” He said, handing her a few hundred in cash. 

“Where’d you get that?” Alice asked, brow raised. 

“It doesn’t matter, love. It’s yours now.” 

Just like every time, Alice glanced over at her daughter to remember why she ever did anything, ever, in her life. No, it didn’t matter how many hands of poker Roth had sat through the night before. Lily was going to New York and that was that. Those who had already blown their opportunity to build a life for themselves couldn’t complain. 

*** 

Was that what Alice was now, a failed opportunity? Scrounging up the last of her and Roth’s money just to return to the same ever-present cycles of life two days later? 

Dr. Liu would tell her it was all in her head, but there was something else, some feeling Alice had only noticed here in the city. Maybe she was a fluke, broken, destined to fly past any chance of getting better. Or, maybe, a break is only a break so that it can be made whole again. 

Lord, she needed a break. 

Landing in New York, she had seen why her daughter’s joy was so contagious. It was a Friday night, and the skyline glowed through the airplane window, capturing Lily’s awe. There was something about getting away, wasn’t there? Something about the thrill of being suspended in the air above a city they only knew of superseded the stress of the weekend. Alice had to admit, it was beautiful. So was watching Lily skip through the walkalator on their way to baggage claim, humming Tchaikovsky. 

“It’s this way!” Lily pointed to the sign above them, pointing forward for carousel number four. 

“Go find your purple suitcase,” Alice said. “I’ll find your dance bag. Let’s race!” 

Lily squealed. It was a race, like in the old times when they still had the money for vacations. How long had it been since they had done this? 

But after thirty minutes, the flight number on the television screens was replaced with that of some United plane from San Francisco. Lily had begun going over the steps to her variation, practicing arabesques and pirouettes in the empty space where all the other passengers had left. Alice stood by the metal conveyor belt, holding Lily’s dance bag, looking over to where the luggage had been steadily flowing out for the past half hour. 

There was still no purple suitcase. 

“Lily!” 

“Yeah, Mom?” 

“What was in your suitcase?” 

Lily shrugged. “Clothes, I think. I just put everything that was on my bed in there.” 

“Anything you need for tomorrow?” 

“I don’t think so.” 

A flight attendant came by with a rolling bag, but it was black and too soft to be Lily’s. “You two need anything?” She asked. 

“Actually, have you seen a plastic suitcase? A purple one?” Alice said. 

The flight attendant squinted her eyes, but hesitated.  

“Let me go check for you and I’ll be back, okay?” 

Alice nodded, but Lily stood uncertain. 

“My shoes were in there,” Lily whispered. “I think.” 

“You can just wear your boots from today.” 

“No, my pointe shoes.” 

“Your pointe shoes? You’re sure?” 

Lily nodded. The flight attendant was walking back towards them from the airline desk, looking more than a little distressed. 

* 

The address Miss Martha had written down was that of Bruno’s Dance Supply, an unremarkable storefront in an unremarkable brick building set among the Broadway cityscape. It was one of many dance stores in the city, yet the only that claimed to carry Lily’s preference of shoes and could hold them for her over the phone.  

“We have every shoe in the city,” a man with a thick Italian accent that reminded Alice of her father’s had told her. “If the shoes you need are anywhere, they are here.” 

“Does your store do holds, by chance?” Alice asked, ignoring the wave of unwanted nostalgia that passed over her. 

“We do, ma’am. What’s your name?” 

“Alice Morello,” she said, and in the fight-or-flight state she had suddenly reverted to, she hadn’t even noticed that she forgot to add the second last name.  

Waiting in line, Alice began tapping her foot along with the classical music that crackled out of old speakers. Behind the register was a display wall so covered in pointe shoes, it appeared to be made of them. Someone had arranged them to form the shape of a pink silk heart, and Alice could only imagine the time and effort one required to hang a thousand pairs of shoes in such a precise order.  

An employee came up to the left edge of the heart and grabbed a pair of pointe shoes, leaving a sudden white gap before replacing them with a pair that had a slightly wider tip. The line, in its quiet fashion, moved one step closer to the cash registers. 

Alice began to twist her rings again. A new pattern this time: rather than slipping it off and back on, she brought it up just below the knuckle, twisted it around until the diamond faced her again, then slid it back down into place before repeating the action. Behind her, a toddler in his mother’s arms fidgeted with plastic keys to pass the time. His eyes met Alice’s and smiled, the way Lily used to when she caught Alice and Roth’s faces in the crowd at her first recitals.  

“Next?” 

Alice stepped forward. “I believe I have a pair of shoes on hold.” 

“For Morello?” Asked the cashier, an older man whose deep voice she recognized from the phone. 

Alice’s features jolted slightly at the mention of her maiden name, and instinctively, she reached for her rings. Nothing. Her hand felt unnervingly bare. 

“I— yes, Morello—” 

“Looking for this?” The toddler’s mother reached up from where she had bent over to the tile floor. In her left palm lay a ring, silver with a singular diamond. In her right she held a band studded with a row of reflective stones. Together, they radiated an almost foreign beauty. 

“Oh, thank you.” Alice sighed with relief. Turning to the cashier, “Yes, Alice Morello.” 

The cashier reached below the counter to take out a small black shoebox with Morello scribbled in ink on a Post-It. “That’ll be one fourteen ninety-nine.” 

Alice nodded. She hadn’t even realized she’d been slipping the rings on and off her finger again, fully tossing it onto her other hand. Sliding it back into place, she reached down into her purse to take out a credit card. 

“These are the right shoes, yes?” The cashier asked. 

Alice glanced down at the box on the counter. Size seven, medium shank. These were the shoes someone else was carrying through the city, somewhere, in a purple plastic suitcase. After all, the airline never had been able to locate the bag. Alice began twirling the loss in her mind, rings spinning again, brought back only by the familiar sound of Swan Lake wavering out through the old speakers. 

“Yes,” she said, swiping her card. The cash register beeped in response, as if to say, wrong. 

“I swear these are—” 

“Ma’am, I am afraid we can’t accept this card.” 

  “Roth.” Alice whispered, stepping out of the line. The mother behind her gave her a soft smile as she walked away. 

That was the thing about Roth: one could never guess what he was thinking or planning. By day, he was the model parent, the perfect father for Lily and the only one she had ever known. Waking up each morning he was never quite the same as he had been before; more docile; maybe the monster that had haunted her home in the night was a figment of Alice’s imagination. He’d drive Lily to school as he drove to work at the casino’s finance office, business casual ironed and clean, starched sleeves hugging her goodbye. He’d drive back home later, calling Alice all the way, I love you, I love our little family, and then those same sleeves would lift her up in an embrace the moment he walked inside. This was the Roth who was charismatic, who apologized and swore he never remembered coming home from the bar, who cleaned up Alice’s messes in the kitchen before her shaky hands had even spilled her drink. That was the Roth she had fallen in love with, the one that had placed the silver-and-diamond ring on her fourth finger and the reason she kept lowering it down, up, spin, down.  

But of the two Roths, which was sincere? 

  It was the worse Roth who still hadn’t responded about the car, whom Alice split the bank account with, and whose decisions were the ones that set the credit limit.  

She walked back through the afternoon crowd on Broadway. Three men sold knock-off Louis Vuitton bags in front of a convenience store, one of them playing “Landslide” on an acoustic guitar. It was a beautiful rendition, one of those that reminded her there were other souls in the world just as exquisite and hurting as her own. Alice slipped a single into the musician’s guitar case, eyes darting to the ground and then up again as to avoid meeting the sellers’ gaze altogether.  

  Past the street performance was an offshoot street with a sign for a pawn shop lit in neon despite the daylight. Alice began to twist her hands less than consciously, fingertips revolving around the rings rather than them around her fingertips. This rotation continued, growing only more intense until Alice had reached the shop and was grasping the diamond from fist to fist. She was like the toddler in Bruno’s, who had tossed his plastic rings between hands while his mother was busy picking up after Alice’s absentmindedness. Truly, who had she become? 

  The good man, the bad man. Both would tell her she was out of her mind. That was the quick, simple answer to the resounding chaos in her mind. 

  Alice, however, had a quick, simple answer of her own. She tossed the heavier ring up a few inches from her palm, its diamond catching the light from beneath the jewelry cases. There was something entertaining about it, enthralling, free, a feeling like flying. Approaching the counter, she tossed it once more and it landed with a small ping on the slick glass. 

  “How much do you loan for a one-carat diamond?” She asked.