I am not a ballerina girl. I soil white shirts, trip over size ten
feet. I refuse ground pepper at restaurants to avoid wearing
jack-o-lantern smiles.
I question that Caroline and I come from the same parents. I imagine
that our mother had an affair with a man who became tangled in his
pant legs before his bumbling sperm fell full-force into my mother's
graceful egg, dominating my genes with the inability to get through a
day without shutting my fingers in cabinets, tripping over
non-existent ruts in sidewalks, staining my arms, legs and hips with
new bruises, purple to green to neon yellow.
From the side of the ice-skating rink, I watch her pick up speed,
jump, twirl and land, arms outstretched like in the Olympics. Some
people clap; I use my arms for balance.
Carrie likes an audience. She requires my presence to add one more.
Our well-coordinated parents persist in their well-intentioned efforts
to include me in our family's legacy of poise.
I could be the daughter of a scientist. My math and science are
ballerina perfect. My equations and reasoning are clean and airtight.
Beautiful, really. Nobody claps.
I study her movements, the distribution of limbs, torso, feet. We
took the exact same number of ice-skating and ballet classes. I enter
her territory, discovering yet again that logic does not produce my
sister's talent.
I negotiate internally - three times around the rink and I'm done. I
make choppy strides, pasted to the wall with terrified kids just
learning to skate. When I finish and move to leave the ice, Carrie
skates toward me. Targeted, I startle and fall.
She does not help me stand. Jesus, Angela. Get up, she commands,
smiling. Her public observes; I am a liability. I leave her ice and
collect my backpack.
My teachers call me gifted. I use advanced college textbooks. No
gold medals or twirly skirts or bleachers for cheering. I have a
private skill in a family of public achievers. I wonder if my dad
shares my suspicion of my mom's infidelity.
I drink cold hot chocolate and work equations. I move forward and
back, picking up speed, jumping, twirling, nailing my landing. With
invisible effort and agility, I glide.
Lauren Becker lives in Oakland, California. Her work has appeared in Pindeldyboz, Storyglossia, Wigleaf, PANK and
Word Riot. She is a fiction editor at DOGZPLOT.
