In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated
Chapter 1: Eidos Telos
Steam drifted through sunlight, rising from my homemade latte, as a small mountain town slowly woke up. Aspen leaves fluttered in the slight breeze, shushing the bees that were fast at work on all the flowers that had survived last night's freeze. The cottonwoods were in full bloom, releasing tiny white tufts into the blue sky, like summer snow.
I sat with my feet tucked up on the chair, willfully ignoring the time while watching runners huffed it uphill towards the mountain for a grueling workout. The early sun warmed my knees and forehead and glittered off of bikes and windshields in the street below. I shut my eyes, wishing I could crawl back into my dark room and soft bed.
A summer music student's violin warm-up drifted across the street sweetly, intermingling with my mother's anxious voice coming from the open window behind me.
"...sent Angela over to water, but everything so just so dry this year and it looks so bad yesterday that I just told her to leave the sprinklers on for a couple hours."
The tension in her voice was familiar; she always seemed to be worried about something. If it wasn't my aging stepdad's heath, it was my career, or the threat of plastics leaching toxins into our food, or the smell of the carpet in her room.
"It just didn't look as good as I know you like it and I was worried for your irises. Yes. Ok, I will. I will, I will. Ok. Mmm bye." I heard the chirp as she turned off the handheld.
"Honey, are you keeping an eye on your time?" The porch door opened, lightly bumping my chair.
"Yes," I lied, quickly opening my eyes and sitting up straight.
"Bag packed?"
I pressed my lips together in a ghost of a smile.
"Fine, fine," she squawked at me and took the chair opposite mine. "Oh, honey," she pulled my half-eaten soggy cereal across the table and peered into the bowl. "This isn't the organic kind. I told Angela to get the good kind with organic sugar and no gluten. Didn't you see it in there?" She didn't wait for my reply. "You look tired. Didn't you sleep well?"
"I slept fine," I lied. My dreams had woken me up more than once with a pounding heart, but I wasn't about to tell her that. Without a doubt, I'd be force-fed a lumpy supplement-packed protein shake.
She looked at me for a long time, as if considering calling out my lie. I held her gaze and was struck again by how beautiful she was. She could make anyone look dull standing next to her. Including me. Her skin was smooth and clear, her eyes an inhuman shade green, her auburn hair was long and full, and her body as lithe as a twenty-year-old's. Decades of expensive self-care and good genes kept her so young that she could be my sister. Except that I had blue eyes, dirty blonde hair, and freckly skin and looked nothing like her. There was good reason for that; I was adopted.
"I talked to Gigi this morning and she gave me the daily farm report." She began plucking the dead parts off the flowers that hung limply from the flower boxes that line the railing of our second-story porch.
"Rod Stewart died."
I gave her a look.
"Not the actor. The chicken. You know the black and white polish rooster with the feathers," she stuck her hands on top of her head as if her fingers were a wild hairstyle.
"Isn't Rod Stewart a singer?"
"Well," she continued. "Rod died and you know how he was the king of the roost. Flower was his girlfriend, the pretty white chicken with the huge tan eggs, and she would even stand up to Placido Domingo, the other rooster, and peck the others to keep Rod safe. Well since Rod died I don't know how. Gigi didn't know either. He seemed too young, you know, in the prime of his rooster life, on top of the world with a hot girlfriend. So now the other chickens have ganged up on Flower and have pecked her so bad. Gigi thinks she will die if she sticks Flower back in the coop. But anyway Flower escaped, flew the coop and was waiting for Gigi on the doorstep, like, 'take me in, the other chickens hate me!' Isn't that awful?"
"Awful," I agreed. I watched her deadhead the flowers with mild fascination. Sometimes, when the light hit her just right, she looked out of place in this world. Like she was a mirage of beauty.
"All the other chickens are so mean to her. Bob, Petunia, Chloe, Suzie, Hawk," she listed, as if unaware of the look I was giving her. "Even Pixie-Spotty-Stripy pecks at her. All because Placido Domingo is in charge now."
She sat back down with a huff. The light shifted and the feeling passed and she was just my mother again. I shook my head to clear it.
"I should get going," I said gathering my cereal bowl and pecking her on the cheek
"Honey," she said, "remember that I have spa day this afternoon, and then dinner tonight at Brexi. You should bring Gabe."
My heart did a flip flop. I still hadn't told her my boyfriend of three years and I broke up last week. She adored him.
"Yeah, I think he has practice..." I opened the cracked door with my foot and stepped onto the plush carpet.
"Too bad. Tell him to take a day off. You are more important than rugby." She laughed and her eyebrows rose. I squirmed inside trying to get away from the thought of breaking the news to her.
"So when you are done with rehearsal, take a shower and meet us there. Walter will be there." Her voice rose after me as I padded away.
"Yeah," I called back less than enthused. Walter was my second stepdad, and twenty years older than my mother. I suspected that she married him because he owned a chunk of Aspen, but they seemed happy enough.
"Seven-thirty!" she bellowed. I made it downstairs before I had to answer and dropped off my breakfast by the stainless steel sink. My black dance bag was waiting for me on the island counter, unzipped. Lunch had been packed by our housekeeper, Angela. I silently thanked her, added my laptop to the contents.
Bilbo, my dog, a mix between a cocker spaniel and a poodle, grunted and squealed as he chased shadows of birds across the kitchen floor.
"Bye Bilbo."
The neurotic dog ignored me, racing across the hardwood floor yapping at a shadow. The drive to the studio was short, as everyone was trying to get into Aspen in the morning for work, not out. Ballet class was long, and rehearsal even longer.
Five hours later, I was soaking the sweat from my face and chest with my towel. My body hurt. My feet really hurt. I plopped down on the floor, rolled onto my back, and shook my feet over my head, letting the blood drain from my overtaxed feet down into my shaky legs. The other students unpacked apples and almonds, stretched, sprawled out on the floor. Two more hours of rehearsal, then I could crawl back into bed.
My shoes were dead, the vamp broken. I nearly rolled over every time I rose en pointe, but I forgot to bring an extra pair today. My water bottle was just out of reach. I scooted over for the half-empty jug but stopped short as a pair of sandal-clad dirty feet stepped into view. I followed the hairy legs up to take in my ex-almost-fiance.
"Gabe." I scrambled to my feet. "No shoes on the dance floor." I scolded and pushed him out the door. My face was hot as my fellow company members watched the scene with open interest.
"Oh!" he tiptoed back, comically, arms overhead in a parody of fifth position, his brunette curls bouncing along. I looked sheepishly over at Mr. Golding now looking unamused.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded as soon as we were outside in the mellow afternoon sunlight, out of earshot.
"Haha, nice leotard." He drew out the word. I glanced down at my black leo and shorts, my dead pointe shoes.
I took a breath. "Gabriel. What. Do. You. Want." I stared at his tanned unshaved face. He took in my attitude and dropped the goofiness.
"I just was going to tell you I'm going to Australia. To surf."
"Okay?" I began to turn, but a stab of envy gripped me. I wished I was the one getting out of here.
"You should come," he looked away to the top of the nearest mountain.
My stomach twisted. I hated confrontation and letting people down.
"How long are you going?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"What about your rugby team?"
He shrugged. I felt my temper rising. This was exactly why I didn't want to marry him. He was fun most of the time, but so immature.
"Gabe, we broke up. You can't just invite me to live with you on the other side of the world."
"But we can still be friends, right? Roommates?"
"I can't," I said. "I mean I can't just go to Australia indefinitely."
"Why not?"
"I have dance."
"You always have dance. You can dance in Australia."
"I can't just leave my mom," I joked. "She wouldn't survive a week without me."
He didn't smile at my joke. "Siri. You have got to get out of here."
"What?" His usual jovial attitude turned upside down was more confusing to me than the actual words.
"You are going to be stuck in this valley the rest of your life."
"No, I'm not," I snapped. "Just because I can keep my commitments instead of running off to go play in a different country, doesn't mean I am stuck."
"Huh." He pocketed his hands and looked away.
We stood there in a terrible silence until he turned away like a kicked puppy. My chest ached as he pulled out of the parking lot. He was a good guy, but immature. I couldn't see myself settling down with him. I couldn't see myself settling down at all. And I couldn't just take a holiday in the middle of the summer dance season.
Still, as I warmed my feet back up, rising and lowering en pointe and swinging my legs to loosen my hips, I couldn't get the idea out of my head. Why did he have all the freedom to just get up and leave and go surfing? Why didn't I? I wanted to travel. I wanted a vacation. I wanted freedom.
Gabe's words spiked my temper each time they echoed through my head, and I found myself silently arguing with myself. I wasn't stuck. There was nothing forcing me to stay; no one locked me up each night. And yet, I didn't feel free to just up and leave. Why?
Dance felt urgent because it was a young person's game. The older I got, the fewer parts I'd be cast in, the more my body would hurt. In just a few years I'd be forced to find something else to fill my life. Like teaching. Or choreographing. I knew a few days of rest wouldn't actually mess up my career, as long as I wasn't missing more than one or two rehearsals. Maybe a long weekend would work.
The idea inflated inside me, growing from a wish into a tentative plan. I deserved a break. It'd been years since we'd gone on a trip. And I'd never traveled solo before. The idea of adventure rose in my chest like a balloon until it popped when I thought about telling my mother. I knew she would never go for it.
I was wrong.
When I got the courage up to talk to her about taking a break, she actually agreed that it would be a good idea, that I was looking a bit tired. She said she'd pay for a long weekend, anywhere I'd like. I was shocked. She loved my dance career, it felt like as much as she loved me. She was always the one to push me on the days that I didn't want to go to class, or to auditions or rehearsals. She was also the one at every performance, the one who stayed up late helping sew my ribbons and elastics on my pointe shoes. But to encourage me to go relax in the middle of the summer season? it didn't make sense.
Until I realized she thought I was inviting her to go with me. Then the conversation got tricky.
"What am I supposed to do while you're gone? Where is Bilbo going to sleep? What if you have a panic attack on the flight?"
She had a hundred reasons she didn't want me traveling alone. But I was over the age of eighteen, and in the end, I was able to convince her to let me visit a friend in Germany, under the condition that I call her every day. It irked me to be put under constraint, but I knew she meant well and that her anxiety would skyrocket if I didn't.
Finn and I had met when he'd spent a year in Aspen as an exchange student. He had danced ballet as well back then, and so we'd spent hours outside of school in the studio together. Eventually, we became pretty close until the year was up and he had to go back to Stuttgart. Over the years, we'd grown apart via distance and age and the fact that he'd stopped dancing, and I stopped emailing.
I hadn't seen him since then, but we'd reconnected on Facebook. His feed was full of pictures of fancy cars and party scenes. He looked well-traveled and dressed like he'd either inherited a chunk of money or gotten a really good job. His profile said he was single and I let myself wonder, just for a second, if anything was there between us back in high school.
My first day in Germany was amazing, even though I was so jetlagged that I felt drunk. My three-day weekend in started at Finn's flat in what he called Benztown. After a gluttonous breakfast of mostly white sugar and bread, I had patiently endured the car show. He took me down a long line of shiny expensive cars and lectured on the history of Mercedes-Benz, Porche and another brand I hadn't heard of, which had all apparently started right here in Stuttgart.
He'd turned out to be quite the exuberant host, offering one of his luxurious spare bedrooms, and planning out my three-day holiday hour by hour. We had taken a rack rail over a river to Schlossplatz, the very center of Stuttgart for tours through museums, including the one he worked at. We walked through two castles, a few churches, and the opera house. He kept up a lecture the entire time, which I suspected was a serious side effect of working in a museum. Frankly, it exhausted me to be talked at all day, but he was so friendly and generous and enthusiastic to take me around what he called the best city in Germany.
The sun had set, and after three shots of espresso, and a shower, I was less of a zombie and ready for whatever he had for me next. I was instructed to 'get ready.' Apparently, I hadn't done a good enough job.
I couldn't bring myself to look in the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the door. In bare feet, I was already too tall to stand next to anyone; the obscenely tall heels made me feel alien, too far away from the ground, and like I would float away if the wind got too strong. I tugged at the stupid short dress. If only I could pull it down an inch or two, then my bare legs would feel safer. The borrowed metal bangles bangled around my wrist noisily. I hardly ever even wore jewelry, let alone loud jewelry.
"Ooooh! Don't you love those shoes?" Finn had looked immaculate all day, and he had spent twice as much time getting for the evening than me. His hair stood up and to the side in an avant-garde crew cut. He was very European-sexy and I was like a little girl in mommy's dress-up clothes. A very very tall flat-chested little girl.
"Um," I looked down at the ensemble, unsure how to proceed. He pulled on the cuffs of his jacket, straightening imagined wrinkles.
"No need to thank me, darling. And I told you that dress would make you look curvy!"
"What?" He took in my puzzled expression. "What's wrong?" He looked down at his own very stylish outfit. "You don't think the t-shirt works underneath?"
"No! No, you look amazing."
"So?"
"I'm...very tall." That was an understatement. I towered over him like an extraterrestrial.
"So?"
"Um..."
"Well, what are you doing with your hair?"
"This?" I had pulled it back into a French twist, the only fancy up-do I knew how to make.
He grimaced and pulled me to the beautiful oak vanity sitting me down on the plush cushion. He began to pick out the bobby pins that held my hair.
"You could probably just leave it down except for all the split ends." I flushed at the poorly hidden admonition.
I had spent all day with Finn and still hadn't gotten used to his honesty, and his know-it-all attitude. Being with him again reminded me that, no, there was never anything romantic between us, and there likely never will be. He was just so...I don't know. Bossy?
"Turn around." He grabbed my small makeup bag and rummaged around. I let him. Being out of my comfort zone was kind of nice, in a just-jumped-into-glacier-water kind of way. He went to work on my face, which by the way, I had already done.
I stared at him up close. "How do you get your hair to do that?"
"Lateral movement rather than up and down, and it kind of turns in on itself. The sides are downloaded with scissors and I set everything with lacquer."
I did my best not to raise my eyebrows as he worked on my eyelids. "Interesting."
"You have lovely lips. Where do you get them from?"
I didn't understand the question completely. I didn't get my lips anywhere; they were just on my face naturally.
"Mother or Father?" he added, smudging something into the corner of my eye.
"Oh! I actually don't know. I was adopted." I blinked furiously when he released my tortured face.
"Oh." He backed away, looking at his quick work. "Good. Do you know your other parents? The biological ones?"
"No."
"Family is important," he told me, brushing a powder over my cheeks, daring me to contradict him.
"Yes," I agreed, more to be friendly than truthful. This was starting to get just a little too personal. Being out of my comfort zone was one thing, but it was a-whole-nother matter to be telling me how I should view my family, extended and estranged or not. It did, however, reminded me that it was past time to call my mother. It was late morning in Aspen, and she'd probably been waiting by the home phone since she woke up.
"Tomorrow night the Stuttgart Ballet is performing Onegin at the Staatstheater," his hands tugged through my hair, messing it one way and then crunching it another. "I have tickets for us." He smiled broadly.
"Oh! You didn't have to do that!" He was immediately my best friend again. I would endure anything to see the Stuttgart Ballet dance Onegin. He just grinned a glowing smile.
With his hand on the small of my back, he walked me out the door. "I bet you didn't know that Stuttgart is the only city in Germany where wine is made. There are vineyards in town. The history of winemaking, here, if I remember right..." and we were out the door, around the corner, plodding down the hallway to the elevator.
Finn and his friends, who spoke very little English but flirted well enough over the language barrier, took me bar-hopping that evening. Stuttgart indeed had the best to offer in wine and beer selections. I had to take my heels off to avoid breaking an ankle and ruining my dance season, or career, after a couple of glasses of each, plus a shot of something way too sweet for my taste. By then my self-consciousness was long forgotten and I felt free for the first time since I could remember.
After the fourth bar Finn slammed his sixth beer, or maybe the seventh, on the table and declared it was time to head to the party.
I felt my eyebrows almost touching my hairline. "Party?" I burped up a bit of cocktail.
"We have a party, darling." He grabbed my hand. Standing up wasn't easy. I gripped the table. He squeezed my hand then slipped his wallet out, flicked a bill onto the table. The calls of goodbye faded into heavy electronic music, as he led me through the crowd.
I checked for my purse, my shoes, my phone. On my shoulder, in my purse, in my hand. The quiet of the night outdoors was shocking. The air was heavy with humidity and fly-aways stuck to my face instantly.
"Shoes?" He pointed down at my feet.
"Nah." I patted my purse.
"Actually, where we are going, they won't let you in barefoot."
It was a party, alright, but it was nothing I expected to attend in this condition. As we walked up to a stately building with classical music and elegantly dressed people spilling out the open doors, realization dawned on me. We had dressed me for this occasion, not for the bars. That made more sense.
The difference between our last stop and this one was hysterical. I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing, then crying, because I knew the second anyone saw us, they would know immediately we were wasted. I smoothed my hair, wondering if my makeup was smudged.
"Finn I..." he stopped before we moved through the massive doorway, looking back at me. "I don't think I'm–"
"Stuttgart has the most scientific and academic researchers in Germany," Finn offered proudly as we walked up a red carpet to join a much calmer, statelier crowd.
I rolled my eyes and told myself to act normal. I did not have a good feeling about this. Finn escorted me past the stringed instruments, around a statue/table of a bronze bull with two heads that seriously creeped me out. He nodded to some people, smiling and greeting some, but he didn't introduce me to anyone.
We climbed a grand staircase and sauntered down a decadent hallway. until we were the only people around. I could still hear the music and the murmur of a hundred people coming from downstairs. Upstairs looked old historical hotel or, like, one of the castles we had toured. I began to yawn and drag my aching feet. I wondered if we would get into trouble if we were caught up here.
"The lab's just this way. I think," he said. He turned around and started back towards the party. "I thought it was on this floor, no fear, I will get us there."
I groaned. He was lost. I was just about to tell him that I didn't need to see a lab, that I was tired, and what I really needed was to take these torturous shoes off. Before I could form the words, Finn stopped short. I ran into his back, bounced, nearly fell over, but caught myself on the wall, bumping a heavy framed oil painting, knocking it off its axis.
"Sorry," I winced and reached out to try and straighten it. It was probably a hundred years old and worth more than my life. I would have been mortified if it fell off the wall. Finn didn't seem to have noticed my fumble; his back was still to me. I peeked around him and saw that there was a stranger.
A tall dark-haired man with shoulder-length black hair stood alone, a fancy walking stick in one hand glowing blue at one end. He was dressed like he belonged at the party downstairs, but something about him stood out to me. It gave me a weird deja vu looking at his face. Finn and the stranger stared at one another like they'd both just been caught doing something wrong. The stranger seemed to relax first, and he smiled a very wide smile full of impossibly white teeth and took a step closer.
He didn't seem to even register that I was there, practically hiding behind Finn until I shifted my weight to take the pressure off my feet. The stranger's eyes locked onto mine, and a spark of something like recognition ignited his face. His smile faded.
"Gersemi." He said the word with a startled expression on his face.
"What? Are you lost? Do you know which way to the labs?" Finn finally said. When the stranger ignored him he said something in German. The stranger continued to ignore Finn. He eyed me a second longer then approached us. The way he carried himself made Finn and I stumbled backward as he got closer. He stopped at a polite distance.
"Gersemi," he said again, and the smile returned. It was like a shark's smile. "Don't you know me?" He had a smooth accent that I couldn't quite place.
I realized he was talking to me, calling me that bizarre name. He was mistaking me for someone else.
"No," I said, untangling myself from Finn. "Siri." I put a hand to my chest. "I'm Siri."
His smile faded again, this time his head tilted and he squinted his eyes as if searching for some answer in my face. My heart was hammering in my chest. I felt danger in my bones, though I couldn't tell you why. Finn felt it too; he had a protective grip on my arm.
"Ah." The stranger finally said. "I see you have forgotten. Allow me to refresh your memory." He sidestepped Finn and took my hand, bending to kiss it like I was royalty. When he straightened, he was smiling again and pressing the tip of his walking stick into Finn's chest.