You musical theatre legend. Sweet Broadway Baby. Chorus girl with a lipstick smile smeared on so your mom in the balcony can see you perfectly. So she can watch you shine. You know every song In Company. You have the bag and the ballet slippers and the tap shoes and the heels and your prized Caboodle that you carry all that makeup in.
So what happened after opening night of Fiddler on the Roof?
Was it just that he didn’t say hi to your mother?
Remember the months where you stopped singing? Remember that day in August when your mom told you how much she missed your voice as you put the brownies in the oven? Did you realize that when the oven door opened, melodies you thought you forgot fell out of your mouth? What song was that? How did it go?
My sister used to compete in a cross country show jumping event once a year, hosted by the first barn she ever rode at. If you are unfamiliar with cross country show jumping, it’s when you ride a horse as fast as you can over three foot jumps. It is terrifying. It is painstakingly beautiful. My family and I used to stand in a muddy field at nine o’clock in the morning watching her barrel through jumps. We stood on our tiptoes in a failed attempt to try and catch a glimpse of her when she descended into the woods. My parents were ever aware of the ambulance a few feet away from us. Paramedics waiting to go and carry a girl out of the field. Coaches on the other side of us, ready to go and catch horses who lost their rider.
I have always sought my sisters approval before anyone else. After every performance the first thought in my mind is What did She think of it? Did She like it? I went to college and she hasn’t seen me on stage, going on three years. I am bad at calling. Even worse at picking up the phone. I don’t want to tell you about my day over the phone. I want you right here. No, a little further to the left. Go back a little. Yes. There. Stay there. Listen to me. Then I will listen to you.
I am standing next to you as we look at ourselves in a mirror covered wall. I notice how your leotard wraps around your small torso just right. I gaze at my black spandex shorts that I wear over my own leotard. I am not supposed to do this, I am actively lowering my grade by doing this. In a week I will finally be forced out of them and it will be awkward for everyone. After that, I will no longer loose points for my little black spandex shorts.
You remember the combination and I never do. I stand in the back so I can watch your feet as you glide across the grimy floor. There is a shout telling me to hold my head up and I want to shout out that I don’t know the fucking combination. Another shout tells me to point my toes and I could’ve sworn that they were and maybe you need to correct someone else.
My ballet shoes fell out of my bag and onto the floor of your bedroom. You’ve never seen me dance and I don’t think you will. I know that you don’t want to. My earring is under your pillow and my bathing suit on your drying rack. Your mother offers me a wine bottle to take up stairs. I decline and she insists. When I close the door to the bedroom I set it on the ground, hoping you won’t notice it until I leave. You, of course, notice it. You have like a sixth fucking sense for booze. By the time my shoes are back in my bag, you have uncorked the bottle. This will be my night. I stay very very still.
There was an era in my life when every Saturday night, my living room would reek of leather cleaner. My mother and sister, cross legged on newspaper, cleaning a saddle while watching this weeks dance moms episode. They have to wake up at five and the tension in the room is palpable. I curl up on the sofa and tune into the episode. I love this smell. I love the way a saddle looks when it is freshly cleaned. Tomorrow afternoon my Dad will buy me a hamburger and I will drip ketchup down my shirt as my sister wins a first place ribbon.
The last time we spoke on the phone I was the one who called. I was organizing my desk with both hands, so I held the phone with my cheek and shoulder. You never have liked being touched, let alone held. You have been this way since we were little. In this moment though, I am holding you. I have you as close as I can get you. This is the closest we will be for the foreseeable future. You don’t know that yet. I don’t know how to tell you. Do you remember being little and sitting on moms bed while she folded the laundry? Do you remember when you first got your license and you drove me to dunkin donuts when I woke up? Do you remember how Dad was pissed that you drove in your slippers even though that doesn’t even really make sense?
I’ve never properly extended my thanks.
As sometimes my thankfulness can be too mixed up with my rage.
I never properly extended my thanks for when you let Mom paint around the bugs grandpa painted. You know, when we switched rooms. We switched rooms and you repainted my bedroom hot pink. I know how pissed you were that there was a caterpillar and a couple inch warms left on your walls.
It meant a lot to me.
You also signed off on me painting your old bedroom with two different purples.
At the time I was very thankful for that.
I look back now and wonder what we were thinking.
When we spoke on the phone that morning in August, you were going to some horse thing. I was rolling around on my bed in a panic. You told me that I was not going to regret breaking up. You told me that if when I think about him being out of my life I feel relief, then I should do it.
I called you again after and I could tell you were proud of me. I knew you approved.
You laughed when I told you that he shook Dads hand on the way out. I stood barefoot in the driveway when he left.
You get sunburnt on your cheeks first, we both do. Then we burn terribly on our shoulders. I spent that summer sunburnt and peeling. You applied sun screen. We have our differences.
In musical theatre I am not what you would call a dancer. I am classified as a mover. Sometimes I am a strong mover. I am also really fucking good at being in the ensemble. What the youth in musical theatre don’t understand is that the ensemble literally gets all the best parts. You get to be in every good song (the big numbers). You get fun as fuck costumes (sometimes a few). AND you get to come up with your own backstory where you are actually very interesting and multifaceted. I will not lie, at the time when I was doing musical theatre, I did not see this fact as fact. But it is fact and I should’ve gotten over myself.
Why the fuck did you shake my fathers hand when you left?
On this next phone call, I will not be defensive. I will not get angry. You can. I will not.
You shook his hand.
I am going to tell you I Love You. When we spoke last, did you catch that I said it clearly and loudly before you hung up? I wanted to give you the opportunity to remember how it sounded. I thought that in a few days you would be grateful for that. I now feel really guilty about that.
I can see clear as day the fire fighters that helped us push your van to the nearest alley when it ran out of gas. We were on main. Right near that pasta place.
You don’t have to tell your friends if you don’t want to. I can tell you the lie I’ve come up with. Just. Just. Do you remember that song, Margaret vs Pauline?
Girl with the parking lot eyes. Margaret is the fragments of a name.
Her love pours like a fountain, her love steams like rage.
Her jaw aches from wanting and she’s sick from chlorine.
But she’ll never be as clean, as the cool side of satin, Pauline.
We liked that song so much when we were little. I listened to it five times today. If you have the time, you should too.
all my love.
g.p
Margaret Vs. Pauline mention (sobbing sobbing sobbing sobbing sobbing ultimate song of sisters sobbing)