Page 66 of Canadian Boyfriend

Dear Mike,

I’m writing this from a bench in Washington Square Park because Emma locked me out of our room. She has a new boyfriend. He’s a “filmmaker”—quotes because as far as I know he has never actually made a film. Anyway, I’m not slut-shaming her, but she never gives me any notice, and I have my meal-prepped food in our room. (Though I guess skipping a meal or two isn’t the worst thing in the world, as we have our end-of-term performances coming up.) She puts a hair scrunchie on the doorknob when I’m not supposed to come in. She said I could use the same system, but she said it in a smirking way, like she knew I wouldn’t need to.

I was drifting around this evening in exile when I ran into this guy Piotr who’s in his last year. He’s tall and quiet and gorgeous and, we all thought, gay. We started talking. He’s serious by nature, and we sort of skipped small talk and went right to baring our souls. It was such arelief,honestly, to talk to someone like that. Turns out he’s bi. Turns out he just got dumped. He told me about his broken heart, and I told him about Luc, who didn’t exactly dump me since we weren’t actually together—you know, on account of his French philosopher girlfriend. I can’t even say Luc broke my heart, but as I told Piotr, he definitely broke something. Maybe just my naivete. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Piotr wrinkled his nose and insulted Luc’s turnout. We walked to Washington Square Park and looked at the budding trees and sipped from a flask filled with Polish fruit brandy from his hometown. When we got back, he walked me up to my room, but the scrunchie was still on the doorknob, so he said, “I think this means you’re meant to come back to my room.” He looked at me intensely and said, “I have a single,” and I knew what he meant by that.

I have to tell you, he was good at it. Much better than Luc. He actually seemed to care that I was enjoying myself.

Which is why it was a surprise to discover that after he fell asleep, I felt more lonely than ever. And now, since the stupid scrunchie is still on the doorknob, I’m back in the park. It’s full of people. The whole city is full of people, but I’m alone.

I’m almost halfway done with year two, and nothing about being here has grown on me. I want to go home. I know I can’t. But it helps just to say it. Thanks for still being here.

Your friend to the moon and back,

Rory

14—HOW TO HAVE A DANCER’S BODY

RORY

It was a warm April day, and I was doing well on all fronts. I mean, first of all, look at me teaching ballet like it’s no big deal. I even subbed in Gretchen’s senior class when she was sick. They were an interesting bunch because although they weren’t bound for ballet greatness, they had more mastery than my younger classes. Older teens tended to fall away from the studio because they joined their high school dance teams. The prestige—and, I assumed, the social aspect—of dance at school was generally a stronger draw than Miss Miller’s for that age group. So I concluded that these senior girls were here because they wanted to be.

After class they came up all smiles and breathlessness. I had come to accept that I was low-level famous at the studio. Once I started teaching the Saturday ballet class, for example, enrollment went through the roof. Gretchen even had people from the next level trying to drop their kids down so they could be in mine. It was amusing. And flattering, I guess, though I wasn’t sure what part of “ballet school dropout” was so appealing to them.

Anyway, my reputation must have preceded me, because these girls were full of questions about my time in New York.

I decided to go with the truth. “Honestly, it was pretty awful.” That shocked them, and they exploded into a frenzy of follow-up questions. I tried to answer honestly as I entered attendance and shut down the computer—this was the last class of the evening. “I’m sure for some people it would have been different,” I summarized. “But I came away with an anxiety disorder and an eating disorder. I’m not sure it was worth it.”

That stunned them into silence. I low-key stunned myself, too. That was the first time I’d uttered the wordseating disorderout loud, in casual conversation. Mary-Margaret was having a slyly profound impact on me, teaching me new ways of thinking and guiding me to look back at my past with those new ways.

The girls followed me outside like a line of ducklings, and when I finished locking up, there they were staring at me, my little flock. It was an unseasonably warm April evening. “Do you guys want to… go for ice cream? Is it too cold for ice cream?”

A few of them couldn’t because their parents were waiting, but some of the older ones drove themselves to class, and I ended up at Suz’s with two of them.

“So, eating disorder,” said Taylor, the one who had started the interrogation. “I guess that’s gone now?” She nodded at my scoop of mint chocolate chip. Wow, Taylor didn’t beat around the bush.

“Pretty much.” That was a lie. I guess my willingness to be honest with these girls only went so far. I was certainly improving. I ate all kinds of things now, even sugary ones. But I still cared about the number on the scale, even if I didn’t think about it as much.

The anxiety part was better, though, objectively speaking. Not gone, but dramatically improved, in a way that felt real. I think a lot of it had to do with the ballet classes. After that initial freak-out at my first class, everything had been… fine. More than fine. I looked forward to ballet now, more than my other classes. I remembered what I liked about it. Not only with my mind, but with my body. “It feels like waking up after a nightmare and recognizing the surroundings of your comfy bedroom,” I’d said to Mary-Margaret. “You’ve been far away, but now you’re back, and you know this place. Youmissedthis place. You forgot how much you appreciated it.”

“Let me ask you girls a question.” Time to turn the tables. “Why do you do ballet?”

“To be honest, just to keep my skills up,” Taylor said. “I’m on the dance team at school, but that’s mostly jazz and hip-hop. I’m going to major in dance at the U of M. I want to be a choreographer in the music industry—for music videos and tours and stuff. So ballet is never going to be my bread and butter, and it’s not my fave—no offense—but I feel like I need to stay literate in it.”

I smiled. Taylor had her act together in a way I never had. She reminded me of Gretchen and her no-nonsense approach to her career path. “No offense taken. What about you, Abby?”

“I don’t know. I like ballet.”

“What do you like about it?” I asked.

“It’s hard to explain. Ballet is hard, but it’s so great when you master something.”

It was interesting that each of them had a different reason for being here—Abby for the love of it and Taylor for more practical, strategic reasons—but both felt legit. I didn’t sense the ghostly presence of any dance moms here.

“I mean, I know I don’t have a dancer’s body or whatever,” Abby went on, glancing at Taylor. Taylor was tall and thin, whereas Abby was a foot shorter and had curves. “But it’s not like I’m going to do it for my career like you, Taylor. I just like it.”

“You know that saying about the way to get a beach body is to have a body and go to the beach?” Taylor asked. I had not heard that saying, but it was delightful. I filed it away to tell Mary-Margaret. “I think the way to have a dancer’s body is to have a body and to use it to dance.”

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