Classification: Post-ep for "Ways and Means"
Summary: He didn't know how to lift her up, how to make her a creature
of the air.
***
The story, ironically, hadn't spread to the one person who would have
found it
funniest. While the others were mocking Josh for having wanted to be
a
ballerina, the woman who really had been one wasn't playing the Swan
Queen or
Juliet, but rather La Cenerentola, Cinderella, stuck among boxes of
the
metaphorical cinders of a Presidency going up in flames.
Josh remembered finding out about her hidden talent. The conversation
had begun
in the mess when CJ mentioned that the President was attending a performance
of
the San Francisco Ballet at the Kennedy Center.
"Did you ever dance, CJ?" Josh had asked, knowing CJ's predilection
for tripping
the light fantastic.
"Not like that. I never had a chance to study ballet."
"I did," Donna had piped up, gesturing grandly with her styrofoam cup.
"I
started when I was five, and I got to be pretty good. I went to Interlochen
on
full scholarship when I was fourteen, and again when I was fifteen."
"So why aren't you doing it for a living instead of letting Josh abuse
you?" CJ
had inquired while Josh huffed into his chicken salad sandwich.
"By the time I turned sixteen, I was five-foot-ten." She and CJ had
exchanged
knowing, sympathetic glances. "It's one thing to be taller than the
guys when
you're in flats, but on pointe - it was just too much."
Of course Josh hadn't exposed his own preschool peccadillo, not then,
because
they hadn't been subpoenaed and accused and hunted yet and he still
had some
dignity to guard. But today it had slipped, and Sam had managed to
spread it
like a Wyoming wildfire throughout the White House.
On an earlier, drunken night he had seen one of Donna's scrapbooks,
filled with
yellowing photographs of teenaged Donna in fluffy tutus, with various
crowns on
her long, golden hair. Had seen her in blues and greens and deepest
blacks, but
there was one gauzy white gown that had emphasized what was, even then,
the
ethereal sadness in her elegant limbs.
"What's this?" he'd asked, pointing to the picture of her, all alone
against a
backdrop of dead papier-mache trees and styrofoam tombstones.
"Giselle," she'd replied, miraculously tucking those long legs under
her as she
passed Josh a cup of much-needed coffee, and since he hated it when
people knew
something he didn't, he never asked about the story.
"So, Sam," he asked his friend now that it was dark and Donna had vanished,
returned, and vanished once again in a cloud of gloom, "CJ called me
Giselle. In
front of Leo, she called me Giselle."
"You really didn't think I could sit on that good of a story, did you?"
"Nah." Josh looked out the window even though there was nothing to see
but the
endless blackness of a DC night. "But who's Giselle?"
"A Wili."
"A Whatee?"
"Josh." Sam leaned back in his desk chair. His face was an unhealthy
white, his
eyes bleary from the reading and writing and 'rithmetic of impending
disaster.
"Giselle was a poor girl who attracted a prince. He toyed with her
affections and
when she found out she'd been deceived, she died. She became a Wili."
"And that's where you lost me."
"Wilis were the ghosts of young girls. Specifically, young girls who
loved to
dance, and even more specifically were jilted before their wedding
day."
"Well, that's charming."
"Not really. So the guy felt lousy and went to her grave, where the
Queen of the
Wilis pronounced that he must die as did all men who deserted innocent
girls -
by forcing him to dance all night until he died of exhaustion."
"This just gets worse and worse." Josh stopped twirling his pen and
slumped,
morosely, with his head in his hands.
"Not really," Sam said again, in a slightly brighter tone. "Giselle's
spirit
stood by him through the night and he survived."
"But she's still dead."
"Yeah, there's that."
"Great. And people take little girls to see that story?" Josh lifted
his head.
"Donna danced that once. I saw pictures."
"She still dances, down at the gym. When things get stressful."
"She must live there these days."
"Considering what she looked like when she got back from dinner, I'm
willing to
bet she's there right now." Sam got up, stretched, and inclined his
head toward
the door. "I'm going to the mess for coffee. Want some?"
"I'm good. Thanks. But I'll take a little walk." Josh got up and followed
Sam to
the stairs, then headed off in the direction of the gym.
There was a window, glowing with mysterious yellow light, and Josh peered
inside. Donna was there, in a faded green leotard and pale pink tights,
her hair
done in a haphazard bun with tendrils falling around her face like
feathers. She
was using a dumbbell rack as a barre. Effortlessly she extended one
leg to the
barre and slid down and back, bending over until her forehead touched
her knee,
then she stood up and began to dance.
There was music in her head, or in her heart, for her steps were measured
and
rhythmic as she rose in tattered satin toe shoes. Rising, falling,
her long,
perfect arms embracing the air then spreading like birds' wings. So
different
from workaday, awkward Donna .
As a boy he'd laughed when he and Joanie went to the zoo and watched
ducks and
swans waddling on dry land. "They're not land animals," their grandfather
had
said as he rolled stale bread into little balls to throw to the birds.
"They
don't make sense on land. You have to see them in the water."
And so it was with Donna, whose body seemed utterly graceless when she
walked
but was so, so richly beautiful as the dance continued. She was humming
to
herself as she glided across the floor. Deceptively delicate, spun
glass with an
unbreakable core. The usual clatter of toe shoes was absent as she
shifted her
weight expertly, and her slippers whispered against the wood.
Josh pushed the door ajar, glad that Donna did not hear the creak of
the old
hinges or the slight gasp he made when she took a few running steps
and leapt
into the air, seeming to hang there like an ornament for an impossible
second.
She didn't hear him, but she saw him in the mirror, and she let out
a gasp of
her own. Never turning around, she just said his name, softly. "Joshua."
He stood behind her, close enough to feel the warmth from her body,
close enough
to catch a note of her faded perfume through the salty sweat. Whatever
she'd
done tonight hadn't gone well - he could tell this from the defeated
slump of
her shoulders when she stood still and became a reluctant, breathless
land
animal once again. She didn't speak to him, just looked into his eyes
in the
mirror, backwards Josh and Donna, them but not really them, the glass
reflecting
only because there was something dark behind it.
He took a few steps forward and put his palm at her waist. When she
went onto
her toes she was taller than he, and when she leaned against him, her
arms
outstretched, supplicating, he found he could almost close his hands
around her
narrow waist.
For one instant he pressed his cheek into her neck, soft and moist against
his
day-old stubble, and if he'd known how, he'd have lifted her the way
he'd seen
dancers do, but he was even more helpless in her element than she was
in his. He
didn't know how to lift her up, how to make her a creature of the air.
Instead
he gave her a brief kiss on the cheek as she lowered her arms and came
off her
toes with a dull thud.
"Sleep in tomorrow, Donnatella" he whispered into her hair. She nodded
in
silence as he backed away toward the door, and through the little window
he saw
her, a wraith, watching in the mirror as a highborn man took his leave.
***
END
***
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