RETURN TO SWAN LAKE

a novel by Gary Canup

Chapter 9

"Aw, Mom, do I have to?"

"It's up to you, Davy."

"But I really don't want to go."

"Then don't, dear."

"But I kind of told Jan that I would."

"Then you'll have to call her and tell her you changed your mind."

"I can't do that to her, she's counting on me coming."

Mother looked at him from the sink where she was putting the lunch dishes into the dishwasher. He stood there studying the invitation that had just arrived in the mail.

"Mom, why do you think the invitation came so late?"

"What do you mean, dear?"

"I mean the party's tonight and the invitation comes today."

"Does seem rather short notice."

"I'll bet her mom didn't want me to come. Believe me, I don't especially want to see her again, either."

"Why wouldn't she want you to come?"

"Because she hates me."

"Oh, Davy, I'm sure that's not true."

"It is, though. She thinks I'm a 'mischievous and roguish youth.'"

"A what?"

"There must be something wrong with her. Moms usually love me."

"I know I certainly do."

Davy studied the invitation. "Also I get the feeling there won't be too many kids there. Probably just a bunch of rich snooty grownups like her mom."

"So are you going to call Jan and tell her you can't make it?"

Davy sighed and his shoulders slouched with resignation. "I really can't do that to her."

"Then which suit do you want me to get ready?"

"The dark blue one, I guess."

"I think you're making the right decision, Davy. It could be a good experience for you. It might even be fun, you never know."

"I doubt it," the boy muttered under his breath.

That evening Father volunteered to drive him over there, in order to see "how the upper crust lives." Davy sat in the front seat in his dark blue suit. His blond hair was neatly parted and combed and his best black shoes were brightly polished. His necktie was choking the life out of him; he pried a finger between collar and throat in an effort to wedge some comfort in there. That afternoon his mother had taken him shopping and in the back seat rode the large birthday present that he had purchased with his allowance money and that his mother had beautifully gift-wrapped. He gazed out through his nervous reflection in the side window and watched the houses go by. Soon the middle-class homes would yield to upper-class homes and they would be almost there.

He directed his father to turn down the long private lane that would take them to the mansion. The headlights illuminated not only the lane ahead but also the lower branches of the stately lombardy poplars. When they came within view of the lit-up mansion, Father's mouth dropped open, and Davy's did the same but for a different reason: there were luxury cars and limousines parked all over the place — along the edges of the lane, along the curbs of the circular drive. Father could not even find a place to pull over, so he merely stopped in the middle of the circular drive between the floodlit mansion and the colorfully illuminated fountain. He waved off a young valet who eyed their Chevy for a moment before hustling over to a Rolls-Royce in anticipation of a fatter tip. Father and son gazed out Davy's side window together, Father admiring mostly the majesty of the house, but Davy was staring with alarm at the guests making their slow elegant way up the walk to the portico. The men wore tuxedos and the women wore evening gowns accessorized with furs and jewels, and not a single one of them appeared to be under the age of sixty!

Davy felt his father's hand on his shoulder and jumped.

"Well, farewell, son," Father said. "When you and this rich girl get married, don't forget to send your poor old pop a post card now and then."

"Aw, Dad." Davy swallowed and peered out the window again.

Father continued to admire the mansion. He didn't know what this guy did for a living but one thing was certain: he wasn't drilling teeth. A limousine pulled up behind them and waited. Father squinted from the impatient glare of its headlights back to his son again. "Time to go now, Dave. Some bigshot wants to pass."

But Davy had changed his mind, he wanted no part of this party, he wanted to go home. Father practically had to push him out of the car, then handed the present out to him. "Have a good time, son. I'll pick you up at ten. Be waiting for me out on the porch." Father closed the door.

Davy peered out from behind his large but lightweight present. "Ten o'clock?" he said. It seemed an eternity away.

Father nodded and pulled off with a wave and Davy stared helplessly after him. The limousine slowly passed, its elderly occupants glaring at Davy.

The boy proceeded blindly across the lawn in the general direction of the portico. He had no idea where he was going behind the broad obstruction of the gift and he toppled over a bush and he and his gift parted company. He thought he heard a valet guffaw. He scrambled to his feet, brushing frantically at his monkey suit. The suit had sustained no visible damage, but his beautifully gift-wrapped present had suffered a torn and mashed corner.

The boy proceeded blindly behind the present again, this time peeking out now and then to adjust his course. He had advanced maybe twenty paces when he heard "Look out there, son!" and he stumbled over the edge of the walk into the arms of a distinguished white-haired old gentleman who steadied Davy and his gift. The old gentleman removed his pipe from his mouth and chuckled good-naturedly beneath a white mustache. He looked like, and perhaps even was, a famous symphony conductor.

"I think I had better conduct you the rest of the way, young man, before you demolish the house!"

A red-faced Davy apologized profusely. He looked at the old man's wife and apologized to her, too. He wanted to apologize to everybody. The old lady didn't look too friendly, though. The old gentleman replaced his pipe in his mouth and steered Davy the rest of the way to the portico. Davy felt like a moron but was grateful for the assistance nonetheless.

While all the other guests went inside, the boy set down his gift and sat alone on a portico bench to compose himself. His blunders on the lawn were nothing compared to those he felt he was sure to commit inside and he really did not care to expose himself any further to their contemptuous stares. He entertained the idea of simply not going in, of just sitting out here for the rest of the evening until his father came to pick him up; but he knew that he had to go in, Jan was expecting him and would worry if he did not show up. Besides, he was famished; he had had nothing to eat since lunch. All things considered, he would rather be in there making a fool of himself and eating a high-class meal than sitting out here providing a low-class meal for mosquitos.

Davy inspected the damaged corner of his present. He had no scotch tape and no way to mend it. He pictured his mother taking pains to provide a perfectly gift-wrapped present for Jan, and all of a sudden he felt like crying.

But instead he got to his feet. He stood before the door. He straightened his tie and adjusted his lapels and smoothed his hair. He drew a deep breath and slowly released it. Then he pressed the doorbell. He picked up his present and waited.

The door came open and there stood Edward. "Master David! How good of you to attend!"

"Hello, Edward." Davy was grateful that the old butler had remembered his name.

"Do come in! Miss Janice will be most delighted to see you."

Davy entered and Edward closed the door behind him. The boy nervously scanned the foyer, which was crowded with impeccably-dressed adults.

"Let me just see if your name is on the guest list. A mere formality." Edward consulted a page on a clipboard and his features sank. "Oh, my. Your name has been scratched off the list."

"Huh?" Davy said.

"But not to worry, it has been penciled in again in what appears to be Miss Janice's hand. So you are still officially invited. Please make yourself at home. I do hope you enjoy yourself, Master David."

"Thank you, Edward."

The old butler bowed and withdrew, leaving Davy standing there alone with his gigantic gift. The foyer was crowded with elegant well-dressed mostly elderly adults talking in groups or milling about, none of them paying him the least attention — the foyer decorated with the traditional trappings of a birthday party, balloons and streamers and a long banner strung from one side of the foyer to the other declaring:

HAPPY THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY, JAN!

Finally he spotted her. She and her mother stood among a cluster of late arrivals, greeting them, shaking their hands, accepting and bestowing kisses. So grown-up and sophisticated was her appearance that he almost hadn't recognized her. The girl was attired in a pink empire gown with a rounded neckline and a dainty necklace. Her hair was done up in a mature and elegant style and held in place with a glittering tiara. She was further accessorized with long white gloves and dazzling earrings. Mother too was exquisitely bejeweled and gowned. Another reason why he nearly hadn't recognized her was that her demeanor appeared artificial and her smile seemed studied and forced. Her smile was genuine enough to fool the old doters, however, who were fawning all over her and kissing her cheek and calling her "princess" and their "precious little birthday girl." Jan was conducting herself in a fashion wholly unnatural to her, and Davy suspected the influence of her mother's coaching.

At last she glanced over and noticed him — and all of a sudden she forgot herself and became a little girl again. She gaily waved and burst from her circle of admirers and with hitched-up gown came racing over to him with tiara bouncing askew.

"Davy? Is that you?" she exclaimed, absently setting her tiara straight again. "Look at your hair! Look at your clothes! You look like a little prince!"

"I brought you a present," he told her with a sheepish smile.

"Oh, you shouldn't have! It's so big! I can't imagine what it is! Here, let me help you to the gift table." She guided him through the crowded foyer towards the equally crowded drawing room.

"Jan?" Mother called, through her smiling teeth, but the girl either did not hear or pretended not to hear as she steered Davy into the drawing room. The gift table was heaped with presents and she helped him lift his onto the table. Davy stood back and proudly admired his gift; it was perhaps the largest one on the table. Jan, however, was far more interested in him, she had never seen him dressed up before, and she turned him facing her and surveyed his appearance from top to toe, clicking her tongue with approval. She had known he was cute but she hadn't known he was handsome.

She hustled him to a secluded corner where they could sit on a sofa and talk in relative privacy, the girl couldn't get her words out fast enough as she revealed her hushed and secret plan for the two of them to spend more time at Swan Lake again. She could tell her mother she was staying at a girlfriend's house and then he and she could find their way through the night to their secret place where they could spread a blanket inside the coppice and build a campfire and roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories because she had always read about kids doing stuff like that. Then her mother appeared in the entranceway to the drawing room. All her guests had arrived and she stood there surveying the room with queenly self-satisfaction.

"Uh-oh," Jan said. "She's looking for me. See her eyes? They're heading this way. Slowly. Slowly. Here they come. Damn, she spotted us. Here she comes." Jan sounded depressed. "I'm afraid the party's over, Davy."

Smiling at her guests, touching their arms and exchanging brief remarks, Mother worked her way through the party, and finally reached their corner sofa. She stood there and waved to someone. "Jan," she said, through her smiling teeth. "I think you might mingle with your other guests, you can visit with your little friend any day." She smiled at someone and waved.

"Can't I at least get Davy a glass of punch first?"

"I'll see to that, you go mingle with your guests."

Jan reluctantly departed and Mother too went away, presumably to fetch him a glass of punch, but Davy knew there was small chance of that. She would likely get side-tracked with her highfalutin guests and just leave him sitting there alone and dry. Greatly to his surprise, however, she promptly returned and handed him a glass of punch but with an expression that said she would much rather have flung the beverage into his face.

"Thank you, ma'am," said Davy timidly.

The woman just turned and walked away.

Davy wondered what her problem was. Usually adults found him utterly cute and adorable. He slumped back in the corner of the sofa and wedged a finger between throat and collar again. He sampled the punch. It was really quite tasty; delicious, in fact. He thought he detected a certain peculiar undertaste, however, and wondered if Mother had poisoned his drink. He certainly wouldn't put it past her. He held his glass to a light but would not know what poison looked like even if he saw it. He rested the glass on his thigh and extended his chin uncomfortably; the necktie was choking the life out of him as surely as was this party atmosphere. He tipped an impatient glance at his watch; it was a long way off till ten o'clock.

The boy adjusted a cushion behind him and settled back again. To relieve his boredom, he watched Jan. Wherever she went, she was the focus of attention, the center of adoration, and the oldsters doted on her no end. She was their beautiful little princess, their precious little birthday girl, and the socialites never ceased letting her know it. Once again Jan was employing that artificial smile, that air of studied graciousness convincing enough to content the old doters but not genuine enough to fool him who had seen her natural smile so often.

He turned his attention to his fellow guests. He and Jan, indeed, were the only children there, which told him everything about who had drawn up the guest list; Jan had probably had virtually no say in the matter. The other guests were conversing, joking, laughing, and taking occasional sips of their cocktails. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. The ballet community was evidently a close-knit one. Davy's mother had once taken him to a symphony concert, to which some lady down the street had given her a couple of tickets in return for a favor, and the wealthy socialites who had milled about in the sumptuous lobby during intermission reminded Davy of the people who milled about him now. Yet in spite of their absurd airs, Davy could not help but admire them. To him they were aristocracy, the class of people who were driven around in chauffeured limousines, who owned vacation villas on the Mediterranean, and who smoked cigars that common folk would scuffle in the gutter for to savor one privileged taste of the discarded butt. And to think that tonight he and they would be dining together — that is, of course, unless Mother relegated him to eating in the kitchen with the servants, or even out on the patio with the cats — as when the doorbell unexpectedly rings and the lady of the house hastily sweeps the embarrassing dirt underneath the carpet.

A couple of sedate old biddies came floating in his direction. One was actually wearing a monocle! She was wearing an actual monocle! She now lifted the monocle to her eye and first inspected Davy scrupulously before condescending to sit on the same sofa with him. They settled at the other end, at a sanitary distance, and put their heads together in hushed conversation. Davy grew immediately self-conscious, not because he thought the old biddies were talking about him, but rather because their proximity had made him additionally aware of his difference in station. To contribute even further to his unease, he had not had anything to eat for over seven hours, and his stomach was complaining loudly over the fact. He was scared that the two biddies might overhear it, turn to him in outrage, then snap their fingers to gain the attention of Mother who would have the servants throw him out on his ear for such gaucherie. He hastily drank some punch in the hope of drowning the noises, but the liquid merely transformed the growling into an even louder gurgling. Davy pressed a cushion to his stomach to muffle the sound.

At long last, dinner was served.

They gathered in the dining hall where fancy name cards marked their places around two long tables set with nothing but the finest china, silverware, crystal and linen. Davy was surprised to find his seat at the first table, but far down from Jan, so far that he could not even see her where she sat in the position of honor at the head of the table. He could see her mother, though, seated on Jan's right, standing now and tapping her glass with a silver spoon to summon everyone's attention and then making a speech like a bigshot, beaming around at her guests and practically blubbering about how proud she was to be Jan's mother and so on. When finally through showboating, she retook her seat, dabbing at her eyes with a dainty kerchief, and a man shouted "Hear hear!" or "Here here!" Davy could not tell which.

The kitchen doors swung open and a platoon of servants entered pushing ornate carts full of beverage and cuisine. The old military gentleman on Davy's right rubbed his hands together, planning the imminent invasion of his meal. The wide variety of plates and bowls and utensils at his setting bewildered the boy, who at first thought that some servant had gotten drunk and had made a mistake, but he noticed that everyone else had exactly the same number of everything. He supposed he would just have to watch the adults.

The opening course consisted of a kind of soup, though no one called it soup. Someone downtable referred to it by some fancy French name. Each course was brought on and taken off again with a formality and efficiency that impressed Davy. There was one course that a man across the table acclaimed as "an excellent fricandeau, a consummate fricandeau." It was pretty good, too, in Davy's opinion; all the courses were, though half the time he had no idea what he was eating. The other guests seemed to take no notice of the servants and while the latter cleared away the empty dishes and bowls from one course the socialites relaxed and continued their dinner chat, awaiting the next course. Davy's inclination was to help the servants by passing them empty plates and so forth, as his mother had trained him to do for her at home, but he had only to observe the conduct of the other guests to realize that such helpfulness was inappropriate.

Following the feast, spirits were soaring from the food and the wine. Somebody downtable proposed a toast to the birthday girl, and everyone participated in a robust and heartfelt toast. Then a man yelled "Speech speech!" and before long the entire party had taken up the chant. Everyone wanted the birthday girl to stand and speak. Evidently Jan was declining, for Davy could see her mother peering in her direction with a reproachful smile. Nonetheless the chant persisted: "Speech speech speech speech!" louder and louder, until Davy, putting his hands over his ears, accidentally knocked a spoon to the floor. He thought he had better retrieve it, or else he might be accused of stealing it, so when no one was looking, he discreetly slid underneath the table and grabbed the spoon. With the guests shouting "speech" and banging on the table and stamping their feet, Davy felt like a refugee in a bomb shelter; and before climbing back into his seat, he shot a glance between the long rows of rising and falling knees toward Jan at the head of the table, and saw that she was miserably wringing the cloth napkin in her lap.

After a brief speech, it was back to the drawing room for the grand opening of the gifts. Everyone gathered their seats around a central wingchair where Jan sat enthroned and where Mother, perched prominently on the arm of the wingchair, could conveniently lift each present from the table, read aloud the name tag of the giver, then hand the present down to Jan for opening. The gift-opening ceremony was clearly a kind of competition to see who could give the richest, most extravagant gifts. The presents from her aunts and uncles were indeed wildly extravagant, ranging from a diamond tiara to an all-expense-paid trip to the Orient. Most of the gifts, however, shared a ballet theme, and the opening of the presents revealed such offerings as designer tutus, a collection of point shoes imported from every major European country, and an original oil painting from Russia depicting a group scene from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

Eventually Mother came upon a present that was nothing more than a plain paper envelope. She took up the envelope and examined it with disappointment, turned it over, shook it, held it to the light, pressed it to her ear, then stared again at the mere envelope in disbelief. Her antics won the desired laughter and, grinning triumphantly, she handed the envelope down to Jan for opening. "Happy birthday, sweetie," she said, giving her daughter a little peck on the cheek. Jan, a rehearsed partner in this little drama, opened the envelope and removed a card that she read aloud. The card announced that her parents' gift would be unveiled a bit later in the evening as part of a big surprise.

The announcement set everyone to buzzing, and Mother smiled to herself, pleased with the sensation she had stirred. Jan kissed her cheek. "Thank you, Mother," she said. She leaned over the other arm of her wingchair and kissed the pale shyly proffered cheek of a man seated on her left. "Thank you, Daddy."

Davy, observing the ceremony from the outskirts of the room, stood on tiptoes and craned his neck for a glimpse of the man; he had never seen her father before. After his daughter's kiss had dragged him quite unexpectedly into the spotlight, the man sat back again a bit uneasily, surveying the faces around him with shy, almost uncomfortable eyes. These were obviously his wife's friends, not his. Pale but good-looking, he appeared as ill at ease and as out of place among these socialites as did Davy, every bit a foreigner in his own home. Father seemed content to sink back into the anonymity of the other faces again rather than stand out as befitted the father of the birthday girl. He had flown in this morning expressly to be with his daughter on her special day, but as soon as the party was over he would have to rush to the airport and fly back to Europe to keep a morning business appointment with an important client.

At length Mother came to a bulky present that had suffered a torn and mashed corner — came to it reluctantly, as though she had been putting it off — but now determined just to get it over with she took up the present, brusquely muttered the name of the giver, and unceremoniously handed it down to Jan.

Davy stood on tiptoes and craned his neck again. He wanted to watch Jan's face when she opened his present. Jan, who had been showing subtle signs of fatigue and boredom with the gift-opening ceremony, now eagerly tore through his mother's beautiful gift-wrapping job and opened the box, and when she peered inside, her eyes widened with joy and surprise. She quickly lifted out of the box a large downy-yellow swan. Only she and Davy understood the significance of the swan, and she cuddled the stuffed animal to her breast like a little girl, like the little girl she was in fact. She cast her eyes searchingly about the room. "Thank you, Davy," she said, almost tearfully. "Wherever you are!"

Davy nodded to himself, and was pleased.

When at last all the presents had been announced, opened, and sufficiently admired, Jan stood up amid the wreckage of gaping boxes and crumpled gift-wrapping paper and struggled to express to them all once again her heartfelt gratitude and joy, stammered, choked, and fled the room.

Mother sprang to her feet and smilingly completed her daughter's expressions of thanks, assured them all that everything was fine, the girl was just a bit overcome with emotion. She encouraged them all just to sit back and relax and the servants would be around shortly with trays of after-dinner drinks.

Her guests did as suggested and settled back in their seats with complacence. They drifted into quiet and leisurely conversation. The men lit up pipes and cigars. Some of the ladies dipped snuff. Soon banners of fragrant smoke hung lazily on the drawing-room air. The servants arrived with cocktails and solemnly made the rounds of all the little enclaves of guests. For the first time tonight the party sank into a kind of lull. The mood became languid and subdued. Some of the more elderly guests nodded off. Mother mingled from one group to the next with quiet conviviality. The woman kept glancing at her watch. Davy, observing her from his seat on an ottoman in the corner of the room, half-obscured behind a potted plant, wondered what the woman was up to next.

Finally Mother smiled up from her watch and loudly summoned everyone's attention. The nappers awoke with a start. Conscious of all eyes upon her, she strode to the entranceway of the drawing room where she turned and invited them all to follow her upstairs for that big surprise she had promised them. The announcement set them all to buzzing once more, and they put aside their cocktails and slowly got to their feet.

They followed her out of the drawing room, across the foyer, up the staircase and into the ballet studio, where they gathered upon the island of red carpeting spread out along the mirror. Once they were all inside, Mother closed the door from the hallway. They all exchanged glances. Then they surveyed the studio. Most of them were seeing it for the first time. The interior was dimly lit. The windows overlooked a starry night. The floor was highly glossed. For some reason they settled their stares on the curtain at the other end of the room. Then, all of a sudden, the lights went out, and they were plunged into darkness. A spotlight came on and beamed on the closed curtain. Someone blew into an unseen microphone, and Mother's overly loud and emotionally charged voice filled the studio from the speakers. "Ladies and gentlemen, as a partial reward for your years of dedicated patronage, it is with great pride and pleasure that I introduce to you the future prima ballerina of a major ballet company, your protege and our birthday girl — JANICE SUMMERS!"

The girl burst through the curtain and struck a dramatic pose in the spotlight, high on her toes, her arms curled gracefully above her like tendrils, her sylphlike figure costumed in a tutu, point shoes and winged cap all of the purest white, the cap confining her abundance of raven hair, her noble eyes fixed on some point in the darkness above their heads. The effect was altogether stunning, and many of the guests actually gasped. Then all of a sudden the opening measures of Swan Lake flooded the room — strings and harp combined to create a magical burst of tremulo whose atmospheric strains melted into a woodwind melody soft and sweet, urgent and longing — and the girl began to dance. The spotlight followed her through a series of overlapping multicolored lights in and out of which she gracefully glided, the music wafting her along from one color to the next as a gentle breeze carries a butterfly from flower to flower, her eyes focused on the music as though it were a physical presence, as though she could see it flowing about her like the gossamer ripples of an enchanted lake. Hers was an image of perfect precision, solemnity and grace, and her audience stood as if transfixed, steeped as it were in the lush romantic music that engulfed them and that bore them up on luxurious waves of orchestral color. She performed the entire pas seul from the celebrated ballet as the music hastened headlong toward a dramatic conclusion. The melody, taken up by full orchestra now, crescendoed to swells that were turbulent and tragic before diminishing into a trickle quivering and poignant, and her dance and the music ended as one, and the girl gave her deepest, most ceremonial curtsy as the lights blinked out.

The dark studio erupted in tumultuous applause, there were whistles and cheers and shouts of bravo, and a few in the audience could not help but weep.

The door swung open, and into the corridor of light from the hallway came a triumphantly smiling Mother pushing a cart on which glowed like the Pharos of Alexandria a towering birthday cake at the top of which a candy ballerina was encircled by a ring of thirteen candles. Someone closed the door. Jan's expressionless face came up into the candlelight. The banal song was sung. She blew out the candles and everyone applauded. Lights were restored and they congratulated her on her breathtaking performance, hugging and kissing her in turn. They gathered around Mother who was cutting the cake and congratulated her on the magnificent effect. Had the spotlights been her and her husband's birthday gift to their daughter? Oh, wonderful idea! Wonderful effect! Mother handed out plates of cake and while they ate she took them aside and began to expound on the installation of the spotlights, the tricky wiring involved, the difficulties overcome, and Jan seized Davy by the wrist and ran with him from the room.

They fled down the staircase and across the foyer into the drawing room where Jan pulled shut the big sliding doors to close off the din from upstairs, and then she slumped back against the doors in exhaustion. She lifted her eyes to Davy, who was clowning around, who was choking himself to dramatize the suffocating effect of the adults and making his eyes bulge and his tongue protrude. But Jan was clearly in no mood for clowning. She lowered her eyes again and went over and sank down on a sofa and hung her head.

Davy stood loosening his tie and unbuttoning his collar and massaging his neck, gauging her mood. Finally he went over and sat beside her. Very hesitantly, he draped his arm around her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. After a few moments she smiled over at him and rested her head on his shoulder gratefully.

"What's the matter, Jan?"

"That was very difficult for me, Davy."

"The performance? But you made it look so easy. Everybody loved you."

"I don't especially relish being in the spotlight like that. This past week has been a terrific strain on me. I didn't get much sleep last night for worrying. And now I have to worry about the audition tomorrow."

"Oh, yeah, the audition," Davy remembered.

"If I pass, I get to be a student of the great Madame Jenkins. Whoopee. There's another slavedriver."

"At least you got a lot of neat presents," Davy said, surveying the room.

"Did you get to see me open any of them?"

"I didn't see much," he admitted. "I was standing far back."

"Did you at least get to see me open yours?"

"I did see that."

"Thank you so much for the swan, Davy. That was the sweetest thing."

"You're welcome."

"It was the very best present I received tonight, by far." She kissed his cheek.

"Can I take a look at the other presents?" he asked, blushing.

"Sure."

They picked their way gingerly through the aftermath of the gift-giving orgy and sat down in the midst of it. Most girls her age would have been thrilled with such a bounty, but Jan seemed at a loss as to what to do with it all. She even laughed at a few of them, such as the statuette of Anna Pavlova studded with her birthstone, pearl.

"What am I supposed to do with this thing?" she asked.

"Hit a burglar over the head with it?"

"I'd probably kill the poor guy. Get life in prison."

One gift, from a "funny" uncle, consisted of a box of designer T-shirts, each with a comical slogan emblazoned across the chest. One of them said I brake for ballerinas. Another said Don't judge me till you've danced in my tutu. Jan held a third one up to her chest. It said Happy fruitful adolescence, right across the chest, where the breasts would someday be. They shared a good laugh over that one. Davy was relieved to see her laughing again.

He glanced at his watch. "What time is it?" he asked. "My watch stopped."

Jan consulted a pearl-encrusted watch someone had given her. "Three minutes past ten."

Davy jumped to his feet. "I got to be going," he announced.

"Oh, so soon? Can't you stay any longer?"

"My dad told me to be waiting for him out on the porch at ten."

"But aren't you even going to have any cake?"

"I wish I could," Davy lamented, "but I can't. My bedtime's ten thirty."

The girl heaved a heavy sigh. "And I guess I'd better be getting to bed myself. I'll need plenty of sleep for the audition tomorrow."

She opened the big sliding doors and they crossed the foyer to the front door, which Davy opened and he stepped out into the portico and scanned the lane. His father had not yet arrived, so he turned back to Jan. She stood against the doorjamb, her slender figure silhouetted through the tutu. She removed the winged cap and shook out her abundant tresses so that they tumbled about her shoulders. Crickets and treefrogs softly serenaded them in the night. Upstairs, in the studio, the oldsters slow-danced to the plaintive strains of "Auld Lang Syne," some of them singing along.

"What the hell is this, New Year's Eve?" The girl yawned.

"How are you going to sleep with all that racket going on?"

"Without any trouble at all," she replied. "I'm exhausted."

She listened to the music awhile. Then she said:

"I'm sorry, Davy. This party couldn't have been much fun for you. You probably wish you'd stayed at home."

"It was actually kind of interesting," he responded truthfully. "I just wish we could've spent more time together."

She noticed headlights approaching up the lane.

"Davy, I'm afraid I have a couple of confessions to make," she said, speaking hurriedly now. "I don't know why it's taken me so long to tell you this. First of all, those people up there aren't really my aunts and uncles. They're benefactors, patrons of the arts. They're people of great influence in the world of ballet whose friendship Mother has cultivated over the years. But I've known them for so long and grown so fond of them and they of me that they've asked me to think of them as my actual aunts and uncles."

"I didn't think anyone could have that many aunts and uncles," Davy said.

"They've been so supportive already in my ballet career, they expect great things of me. In fact, tonight was probably less a birthday party than a celebration of tomorrow's assumed success. They all know what it means to be a protege of the great Madame Jenkins. I just can't let them down. Letting them down would be worse than disappointing my real aunts and uncles, whom I hardly know. Anyway, I felt kind of guilty misleading you. Forgive me?" she said.

Davy didn't see anything to forgive. It was no big deal as far as he was concerned. He noticed the Chevy pull up in front of the walk. "What's the second confession?" he hastily asked.

"Secondly" — she bit her lip; this one was a little more difficult to make — "Secondly, my mother didn't want you to come tonight; she didn't want any children at all, only adults. She said this party was meant to solidify connections and children aren't connections. But I told her that since it was my birthday and my party, I ought to be able to invite at least one of my friends, and the friend I wanted to invite was you. She put up this big argument, but finally she gave in."

Davy nodded: he had suspected as much about her mother. The Chevy honked and Davy started backing away. "What time you want me to come tomorrow?"

"About eleven, I guess. The audition should be over by then."

"See you tomorrow morning at eleven then," he said, backing away. "And good luck in the audition."

"Thanks."

"And happy birthday!"

"Thanks, I'll save you some cake!"

He waved and ran down the walk towards the car.

"And thanks again for the beautiful swan!" she called after him. "It's far and away the best present I received tonight!"

He climbed into the car and closed the door and as the car pulled away he stuck his head out the window and waved vigorously some more. Jan returned his wave until the taillights disappeared from view down the lane.

She gazed off into the night, listening to the gentle nocturne of crickets and treefrogs, reflecting that this would be the music she would be hearing if they were at Swan Lake right now. Upstairs they sang, quite reedily, some old tune that she did not recognize. Her dark elongated shadow lay on the floor of the portico in a rectangle of light, and she shuddered to realize how closely the shadow resembled the corpse of a ballerina lying in a glowing box. Suddenly realizing, too, that she was letting the air conditioning escape and the flying insects enter, she drew back into the foyer and closed the door and the rectangle of light gradually disappeared.