En pointe

At the end of Act I, Albrecht abandons Giselle for another woman, and she goes mad with anguish. Her heart can’t bear the strain. She sinks, dying, to the ground, her mother weeping over her.

As a kid in the Sixties, I fantasized about starring in Giselle. Of all ballets, it was the most stylish—I craved one of those floaty gowns, and I wanted my hair middle-parted and my eyes kohled. I pictured my fans, out there beyond the footlights, weeping into their hankies and, later, rising to their feet, shouting, “Brava! Bravissima!” as they flung roses at my toe-slippered feet.

First, though, I had to take classes, which I did every Saturday, starting when I was nine. My dad, whose eyes teared up whenever he watched me dance, chauffeured me to my teacher’s house in downtown Kingston, Ontario. My field marshal mom, who didn’t have a driver’s license, stayed home, mobilizing the forces.

“You’re going to be late.” Mom yanked my leotard out of the laundry basket and tossed it to me.

I rolled my eyes. “It makes me look like a baby.”

“Tough. Put it on.” She crossed her arms, staring me down.

“Leigh and Peggy have new ones—with long sleeves.”

“But you don’t. Now get moving.”

Leigh, Peggy, and I were comrades in tights. Leigh was sprinkled all over with adorable freckles, and Peggy sported the last word in pixie cuts. They were gifted dancers—both as long-legged as fillies and as flexible as Gumby. I wasn’t jealous of their to-die-for arches or their superior extensions, even though in photos they looked graceful while I looked more Nutcracker Gnome than Sugar Plum Fairy. In my heart I was a dancer, and that’s all that mattered.

 I made sure everyone else knew, it, too.

Our Grade 5 yearbook editor gazed at me, eyebrows raised, pen at the ready. “What’s your ambition?”

“Ballerina.” As if she even needed to ask.

“Right. Probable fate?”

I scowled at her. “Ballerina.”

“Can’t put that. I’ll think of something. Maybe stumblebum understudy? Or professional pratfaller.” She wrote something down, hyena-laughed, and went on to interview another classmate.

It was important to rise above the nay-sayers. To that end, I read every single dance-themed book in the school and city libraries. My public speaking project was on the lives and careers of ballet legends Margot Fonteyn and Maria Tallchief. The eyes of my classmates glazed over as I prattled on, but I didn’t care; I was a dancer, not an orator.

In June, Leigh, Peggy and I took our first Royal Academy of Dance exam. Before the big day, my mom sewed the mandatory uniform. There was an official Vogue pattern for sale at Simpsons-Sears but I think she followed a secret design, passed from one ballet mom generation to the next. My outfit consisted of a belted, white cotton tunic that ended inches below my butt. Underneath, I wore puffy white bloomers on top of my day-of-the-week underwear. On my feet, ankle socks, and soft-toed ballet slippers, to which I attached strips of white elastic to keep me from dancing right out of them.

“Kneel down.” My mom stretched out a measuring tape. She gauged the number of inches from floor to hemline. “Okay, I think this is just about right.”

I rose and studied myself in the mirror. “Dorky.”

Mom snorted. “A thank you would be nice.” The flimsy pattern pieces on the sewing table fluttered as she marched out of the room.

 It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate her hard work. But when I turned sideways and inspected myself in the mirror, I looked like I was diapered. When, oh when, would I get my floaty Giselle dress?

At least I got to skip school on exam day to get my hair done, my corkscrew curls being too much of a challenge for my mom. She took me to a salon, where a stylist deployed all her skills and products to sculpt the required bun. I got high on hairspray, but the knob on the top of my head was perfect—as hard as a stale bagel and completely immovable. I could dance czardas until the end of time and not one strand would come loose.

“Let’s go.” I tugged at my dad’s arm. He’d taken time off work to drive me to the exam.

“Stand still. I need to take a picture.” My mom hoisted our Brownie camera.

I smiled the way I imagined a prima ballerina would—dignified, allowing only a glimpse of teeth. My eyes were calm and courageous. It remains the most serene, out of character portrait of me, ever. My dad carried it with him for years.

We got there on time. I stood, feet out-turned in first position, arms at my sides, fingers elegantly curved. It was strange to be in the studio alone, without the usual hubbub of classmates jostling for elbow room. The walls stretched for miles, and the hardwood floors gleamed with menace.

The examiner was a thin woman with a pinched English accent. She sat behind a desk at the front of the room, and looked wretched that it was her lot in life to assess the talent of bumbling hicks in Kingston when she should have been headlining for Balanchine in New York. Across from her, against the wall, a pianist hunched over the Heintzman upright, cracking his knuckles. He didn’t say a word, but he winked at me. I decided he was an ally and winked back.

“We will begin with pliés.” The examiner waved me to the warm-up area.

By now my nerves had kicked in, and I held onto the barre for dear life. My pliés were wobbly, but I swept my hand gracefully with each dip, gaining confidence. Développés followed. One side, then the other. Next, moving into the center space, I did my assigned dance. It was a merry little number: a one and a-two, a three and a-four, and jeté, jeté, jeté, step and curtsey. I could do it in my sleep; still can. Following that, there was an improv section in which I had to dance-mime a specified scene. I was told to pretend I was hanging washing out on a line, only to be taken by surprise by the arrival of a sudden storm. My frantic capering did not appear to impress the stern examiner, but the pianist smiled and clapped silently.

I passed the exam with the official rating of Commended. That was two steps up from failing and two steps down from actually being any good. For some reason, I was satisfied with mediocrity; it didn’t affect my self-image of greatness. Even when Peggy and Leigh got Honours I just thought it was because they were better mimes, destined for careers in character dancing, while I personified pure dance.

After another year of ballet instruction, with so-so results for me and brilliant ones for Leigh and Peggy, we approached our most cherished childhood goal. At last, it was time to purchase toe shoes.

“I shouldn’t let you do this.” My teacher, a round-faced young woman of Scottish descent, shook her curls at me. “Your feet are too flat.”

“No, they’re not. Look!” I strained my toes to induce an arch. Not much happened.

Next to me, Peggy and Leigh were flexing their flawless feet. They could practically bend theirs in half. I wanted to scream.

Instead I begged. “Please, oh please. You’ve got to let me get toe shoes. I’ll die if you don’t. Like, literally, die.” I raised a hand, palm out, to my forehead and sighed.

In the end, my teacher gave me the go-ahead, but she made me promise to do arch-strengthening exercises every night. These consisted of using my toes to pick up marbles, stolen from my brother, while I watched Man from U.N.C.L.E. on television. I was diligent.

My new shoes, ordered specially from Toronto because of my narrow feet, were gorgeous—peachy-pink satin perfection, with the coveted hard toe boxes. Peggy and Leigh and I darned the tips of our new footwear with matching yarn, just like the older girls did, to keep us from wiping out while trying to bourrée across the room. We sewed on satin ribbons that we wrapped around our ankles and calves, gladiator style.

Dancing on our toes was excruciating, but insanely glamorous. I’d dreamed of doing this every day for what seemed to be a lifetime. Ignoring the pain, I persevered.

At this point in our dance careers, we went to two classes each Saturday, with a lunch break in between. The studio was located near a greasy spoon that served deep-fried everything.

“What’ll you girls have today?” The aproned, middle-aged man behind the counter asked just to be friendly. Our order never changed.

“Cheeseburgers, fries, and vanilla shakes!”

“Coming right up.” He hustled away, as if we were his most valued customers, not kids who left meagre piles of nickels and dimes for tips.

As the year progressed, we all gained weight. After lunch, the floor thundered as we grand-jeté’d diagonally across the studio. Run, run, grand-jeté; run, run, grand-jeté played the pianist as we hurtled by, as sylph-like as cattle being driven through a canyon. Our teacher winced at each thud.

Finally, it was June—exam time, again. I decked myself out in my white tunic and ballooning over-underpants, cinched with the regulation belt. At least this year I was allowed to wear tights under the bloomers—an improvement over the hated ankle socks. Best of all, on my feet, I wore my beloved toe shoes. I was woman; they were going to see me dance.

A new examiner presided. She was sharp-featured and made up floridly as if about to appear onstage in a drag revue. The pianist was a mousy woman who peered at her music sheets over demi-moon eyeglasses. No moral support there, I wagered.

 “Don’t just stand there. To the barre!” The examiner gave me the full force of her baleful glare.

“Yes, Madame.” I skulked over and launched into my warm-up exercises.

Throughout the half hour ordeal, she barked instructions that I followed to the best of my ability. I executed a series of pas de chat that my pet cat Frisky couldn’t have bettered. The examiner glowered. I bourréed across the room on my tiptoes, sweeping my arms in willowy arcs and only going over at the ankle once. She sniffed. Still, I’d seen my share of sour-faced examiners before. Maybe I was a trifle shaky en pointe but, overall, the whole thing went rather well.

We had to wait a month to get our results. Reports were usually sent to our teacher, who would distribute them with congratulatory words, but this year was different. She called a full school meeting.

 “I don’t know how to tell you this.” Her voice faltered. She looked at our parents with pleading eyes. “This has never happened before.”

As gently as possible, our teacher broke the news. The examiner had decided our dancing was crap. Most of us, including me, flunked. Out of the entire class, only Leigh and Peggy passed.

It was the first time I had failed at something I cared about, and I was devastated. I locked myself in my bedroom for the weekend and ate all the candy bars I was supposed to sell for our school fundraiser. I got drunk on misery and sugar and cried until my eyes were slits.

When I emerged two days later, my mind was made up. Almost.

“I’m never going back to ballet.” I raised my chin, prepared for battle.

My mom and dad looked at each other, then back at me. They said nothing.

“I mean it. I quit.”

Radio silence from my parents. Their eyes were agates.

“Really. No more dancing.” I gave up waiting for them to talk me out of it and stomped back up to my stuffy room, wading through candy wrappers to get back into bed.

My wise parents never tried to jolly me along. They didn’t tell me I had great talent or that I should try, try again. They let me sort things out for myself.

It took time, a lot of soul-searching, and pounds of chocolate. The facts were right there in front of me; I’d just closed my eyes to them until now. I was about as flexible as a mop-stick. Worse, my feet were pancake-shaped, not arced like bananas. My teacher was always fretting about them. They ached constantly.

 And so, after much reflection and buckets of tears, I decided to quit ballet.

As traumatic as it was, flunking the exam turned out to be a gift of sorts. I learned, in spite of terrible disappointment, life went on. My poor, flat feet were spared total disfigurement, and I put more energy into other activities—including piano playing, where my arches didn’t matter and my fingers had wings. Not to mention, I stopped eating burgers, fries, and milkshakes every weekend and dropped five pounds.

But I never lost my love of ballet. To this day, I thrill when ghostly Giselle materializes from behind her gravestone. I weep when Cinderella has to leave the ball. And, even though I’ve seen it dozens of times, I’m still enchanted by The Nutcracker.

My toe shoes are more than fifty years old. When my husband and I downsized homes, I tried to leave them behind. I wrapped them in the tote bag I sewed in Grade 7 Home Economics and placed the package in the garbage bin. Ten minutes later I ran outside, and, with trembling hands, retrieved it. Those shoes are talismans—tangible links to a young, dewy-eyed me. From time to time, I take them out and stroke their fading satin.

In my dreams I am on the stage at Sadler’s Wells. I’m dressed in filmy white. My dark brown hair is parted in the middle and swept back into a chignon, low on my neck. I am pale and tragic and as the ghost of Giselle I am mesmerizing. I glide across the stage, to gasps of appreciation from the audience. And when I rise, en pointe, in my lustrous toe shoes, I am at last what I always envisioned.

Prima ballerina. Pure grace. One with the music. Complete.