Reece
Reece’s mom had scheduled the family counseling session without his blessing.
“If you come, great. If you refuse to come, your father and I will go anyway,” she said, putting away groceries while she talked. “Mondays, four o’clock. Your afternoon practices will be all done by then, right? We thought it would work out for everyone.”
She hadn’t asked whether or not he wanted them to come to the big show on Friday. Despite his outburst the other day, he hoped they were smart enough to know that he really did want them there. But if they didn’t come—well, that would certainly be fodder for discussion on Monday.
Did that mean he was going on Monday?
He groaned, closing his bedroom door.
He didn’t want to talk about last year. He especially didn’t want to have to replay last summer: the moment he did it, the temporary relief and enduring dread, waking to shame and confusion in the hospital.
From outside the door, he heard his mom ask whether he was planning to join them for dinner.
“Already ate!” he called back, a bag of chips under one arm and a bottle of root beer under the other.
If the family therapist forced him to, he would talk. That was the problem! Not that he would sit and glare and say practically nothing, but that he’d explode.
I shouldn’t even be at this shit school.
I would have been earning college credit while I was still in high school.
I could have been on the East Coast already!
Oh yes, Reece would give that therapist an earful.
Right fingers scrolling while his left hand dipped into the greasy potato-chip bag, lips stinging lightly with vinegar and salt and pleasurable indignation, he summoned his evidence. He looked again at the program’s admission page, which showed that the average admitted entrant had lower PSAT scores than he’d had. And he’d had a 4.0. Grades and scores were not the problem.
Maybe a clinical expert would agree with him. Maybe she’d tell his parents that they’d sabotaged him. Itching to go before the judge—therapist, rather—Reece opened the photos section on his phone and scrolled back to the videos he hadn’t replayed in over half a year: among these, the two videos he’d sent into the school as part of his failed application package.
He stared at the first unplayed video, thumb hovering.
He wanted to see himself dance, wanted to be back in that moment when everything was still possible. And at the same time, he expected some measure of disappointment. Of course, the video would be shitty quality. It couldn’t compete with an in-person audition.
The school had asked for one solo performance plus one group. For solo, he’d had Gerald record him in the school gym doing a much-simplified choreographic number inspired by Polunin’s “Take Me to Church” video, featuring the Ukrainian dancer storming around an empty barn to the sound of Hozier’s hit song. Reece winced, realizing how many other applicants might have sent something similar. But he’d been full of hope last spring. At the time, he hadn’t worried about doing something trite.
Reece wiped salt and grease onto his jeans and gripped the phone with both hands. Did he really want to do this? It wasn’t like he’d never watched the video before he uploaded it to the program website. But that day last March seemed like years ago.
He pressed play and the sound started up, his friend’s whisper audible for the first few seconds in the background—“Come on Gerald, shut up now, this is serious”—and there Reece was in the corner of the screen. Capri-length nude tights, no shoes, bare chest. Muscles more visible because he’d been leaner last spring.
It started slowly with him on his knees, head down and swaying, face hidden by dark shaggy hair until he pushed it back. Then he lifted himself up on one hand, one leg extended, foot pointed.
Collapse back onto the floor. Upward thrust of the chest, as if a hook through his sternum were hoisting him up toward the ceiling.
All good so far, as the music got going.
Then the pace picked up. He leaped, spun, dropped to the floor in plank position. Okay, a little sloppy, but it was the switch in tempos. He was just getting going.
He pushed up, rigid plank again, and flipped over, chest up, one clean line from toes to head. Taut—or it was supposed to be.
In his defense, the move was harder than it looked.
Reece swallowed hard.
In the video, he pulled his knees to his chest. Scowled. Emoted. Jumped again and swung around and leaped, using all those early years of ballet training which clearly . . . weren’t enough.
The video was just over three minutes. He was only a minute and forty seconds in.
Reece watched his younger self repeat the moves with slight variations and no improvements. His leaps were nothing like Polunin’s. His attempt to appear artfully pain-stricken just looked like a temper tantrum on the floor.
Worst of all was the unchoreographed slip—a poor landing that turned into a skid—around 2:10. Reece closed his eyes. The song was still playing. He couldn’t watch anymore.
When the video was finished, he opened his eyes and exhaled loudly through his nose.
Not good. Understatement of the year.
Had his ability to judge skill changed that much in six months? Why hadn’t he realized that this video hadn’t been the right thing to submit?
Okay, he thought, shaking his head. So that was one video. Better to aim high and fail—right? The application committee must have understood that.
For the second video he’d had limited choices, given that he hadn’t danced in a group since the start of high school. Instead, he’d asked another friend to record a short Rockets performance featuring half of the group. With luck, the tumbling and acrobatics, incorporating some dance moves, would be less shockingly bad than the solo video.
Reece pressed play.
This video had fewer surprises. It wasn’t shockingly bad. It also wasn’t shockingly good.
Reece watched his own moves, nodding without satisfaction. Raj flipped off Gerald’s shoulders and then did some hip-hop moves. Justin and Vanessa did a half-modern bolero-flamenco hybrid that didn’t quite fit the music but always captured the audience’s attention.
All fine, especially for a high-school performance, but nothing special.
We just don’t want you putting all your eggs in one basket.
We’re just not sure you’re ready yet.
They’d been at least partly right. He’d have to give them that. Which didn’t mean he didn’t still feel cheated, somehow. It would take a while to get over this. And no, he didn’t want to talk to a therapist about it.
The routine still playing in the video was so familiar and dully adequate to Reece that his mind began to wander, eyes taking in what was happening along the edges of the screen.
Two other Rockets members were visible at the back of the gym behind the main performers, clapping in sync, keeping the energy high. And there, farther off to one side, alone but not entirely alone, was Caleb. He’d started hanging out at practices and performances that spring, not yet a member, only watching in the beginning. But that wasn’t the weird part.
The weird part was the look on his face—a thin-lipped grimace.
Vorst was directly behind him, his entire head visible above Caleb’s. Reece had forgotten how much shorter Caleb had been, just last spring. Vorst had a hand placed on each of Caleb’s shoulders and his fingers were digging in, like he was pressing him down into the ground. Caleb made a shrugging motion and started to turn and pull away, but then he didn’t. Vorst had him rooted to the spot.
Maybe Caleb had been talking during their performance, not that anyone would have cared with the music blasting. Maybe Vorst was pressuring Caleb into staying to watch in support of the team and for his own benefit. Maybe they’d just had some sort of argument and this was the aftermath.
Reece’s attention went back to Caleb’s face. He enlarged the image. Caleb took a breath and held it, eyes shut, like he was at the doctor’s office waiting for a shot.
Reece’s homage to Polunin had meant to show deep pain, but none of it had worked: not the dancing or the contrived facial expressions, either. He hadn’t been able to fake agony. He’d just looked like an idiot.
Caleb’s agony, by comparison, was clear as day. The guy looked like he might puke or spontaneously combust.
It didn’t mean anything, necessarily. But Caleb looked desperately uncomfortable, and Vorst was right behind him, standing too close. Was Vorst closing his eyes, too? Reece did not want to imagine the old coach was grinding against Caleb, in a public place no less, but it wasn’t impossible.
That image would take a while to process. Then what?