Work Text:
Like a Swan (That’s Here and Gone)
“Away, I’d rather sail away,
Like a swan that’s here and gone.
A man gets tied up to the ground,
he gives the world it’s saddest sound.”—Simon & Garfunkel, El Condor Pasa
-White Swan-
“How many practices are left until opening night?” demanded Valery Filipov, the choreographer and ballet master at Liza’s school, pitching his voice to carry to the rear rows of the auditorium that were currently as uninhabited as the wastelands of Siberia and prowling at the front of the stage with the air of a lion pacing before a throng at the zoo. Apparently, this question was a rhetorical one, since Valery plowed on with only the slightest pause for breath, “That’s right. Three including the dress rehearsal, and today’s the last one without the lights and costumes. Don’t you forget it.”
“As if he’d let us for a second,” hissed Veronika—Nika to her friends. Liza had been among those since she had enrolled in this school after returning to Russia with her mama after her parents had what they called irreconcilable differences (and Liza called midnight arguments she was supposed to sleep through but never could when the two people she loved most on the planet were at each other’s throats like wolves) and got what they referred to as an amicable divorce (and what Liza defined as not living together but not arguing anymore).
“He’s mentioned that at least fifteen times since practice started,” Liza whispered back, leaning so closely to Nika that she wouldn’t have been surprised if her breath tickled the other girl’s earlobes.
Certainly Valery had driven them like a slave driver in their thirty minute warm-ups at the barres in the dance studio before they had come to the auditorium to practice the varied performances that would comprise the show they would be providing for their parents—and that included Liza’s papa this time, thank God—in three nights’ time.
Liza knew that Valery would get nice gifts like cruise tickets or a new car from parents if they were sufficiently impressed with their child’s ballet, so Valery had every reason to be paranoid about none of their arabesques being straight enough or their grand jetes high enough. Liza wasn’t sure how much better her arabesques or her grand jetes were compared to a half hour ago, but her periwinkle leotard and blonde ponytail were soaked with sweat, and practice wasn’t approaching an end.
“I expect all dance routines to be practically flawless and performed with passion.” Valery’s ice blue eyes swept over his students as though hunting for any visible faults. “Do you hear me?”
“I do.” Nika was buzzing like a bee in Liza’s ear. “Some hard-hearing old forks in Ukraine might have a bit of trouble making you out, though.”
Liza stuffed a knuckle between her lips to smother a laugh, but perhaps she didn't stifle her amusement as well as she had hoped, because Valery clapped his hands like thunder and rapped out, “Let’s get a move on then. No time like the present. Liza and Nika can open practice for us with ‘Black Swan.’ Start us off on a strong note, ladies.”
Wishing that Valery had selected any other dance to be performed to open this part of practice, Liza slipped past her friends Tanya and Lena, who folded their knees to their chests so that Liza could exit the row more easily, with Nika, looking as resigned as Liza felt, at her heels. Her legs aching from the workout Valery had already put them through, Liza walked down the carpeted aisle and up the wooden steps that were especially hard in her pointe shoes onto the stage.
Once Liza and Nika were standing in croise with their legs crossed at an oblique angle to the audience at opposite ends of the stage, Valery motioned to Dimitri, a classmate assigned to run the music, to switch on the song that Liza and Nika would dance to. As the music swelled through the speakers, Liza and Nika held their positions—Liza, as the evil Black Swan with her disengaged leg crossed to the back, and Nika, as the innocent White Swan who was her foil and prey with a disengaged leg crossed to the front—for two counts before transitioning into a chasse series that carried them to center stage, where they each performed a pirouette, Valery snapping, “Nika, you came out of that pirouette too soon—it wasn’t a complete turn—and a man in a wheelchair could have done it less sloppily. Dance with some pride and poise!”
As a blank curtain fell over Nika’s face as it always did when Valery reprimanded her harshly and she stood in plie while Liza soared into a brise, Valery kept up his stream of criticism, barking, “Liza, you stumbled when you landed that brise because you didn’t leave yourself enough time to transition gracefully out of the fifth position you assumed in the air. As for you, Nika, get that dazed look off your face this instant. You’re aiming for an innocent expression, not a vacant one. Your eyes should shine with kindness, instead of being empty like black holes.”
Her cheeks contorting into a sweet smile that seemed as forced as polite conversation between strangers, Nika jumped into an assemble while Liza stood in combre with her waist tilted toward the right.
Valery issued no corrections until Liza glided into an arabesque while Nika sailed into an attitude, when he snarled, landing a pat that felt more like a stinging swat on the side where her leotard exposed the intersection between her upper thigh and waist, “Your leg isn’t straight, Liza! You’ve got to feel your leg lock here or else it isn’t positioned perfectly, and there’s no point to ballet without perfect positioning.”
Channeling the humiliation she always felt when Valery got too rough with his admonishments into a seething expression that probably made her Black Swan truly terrifying—and grateful that as the villainess, she could show negative emotions on the stage, unlike Nika, who had to act sweet until the second Liza attacked her—Liza whirled into a grand jete that made it seem as if she was pouncing on Nika, who fell to the stage in an S, finally able to appear hurt and confused by cruelty.
When the music stopped, Valery’s lips quirked into something that might some day evolve into a smile, and he offered a brusque nod of approval. “The conclusion was much better than the opening, girls. The emotion during the last sequence was haunting and evocative. Perform it like that before an audience, and you will leave a lasting impression. Go drink from the water fountains in the hallway.”
As Liza and Nika scrambled off stage, Valery shouted out the names of his next batch of victims, and, while the two girls trailed out of the auditorium to get their drinks, they could hear him screaming that someone’s hands were stretched out in allonge when they should have been rounded in arrondi.
“Sometimes I wonder why I put up with Valery,” panted Nika once the auditorium door slammed shut in their wake. “Then I remember I’d get hit by Papa if I didn’t take ballet.”
“We get hit taking ballet, though.” Liza massaged the skin that Valery had struck, which still was stained with pink finger-marks that stood out like raspberries on a brach, for the moment too absorbed in her own pain and embarrassment to feel guilty—as she normally did—that she had a papa who never hit her while Nika’s seemed to at least once a month. “Not fair. My leg is still pink where he swatted me.”
“Just pat cold water on it, and the markings will fade in a minute.” Nika cast a sage glance over Liza’s leg. She was filled with such practical fashion advice, for it had been she who taught Liza that a cool, damp paper towel rubbed around the eyes would prevent them from swelling red as bruises when you needed to take a good cry in the school bathrooms after being bullied by boys who pulled your ponytail or girls who made cutting comments about your clothing. “It’s not too bad. You must’ve gotten worse from your papa all the time.”
“No, actually.” Her cheeks flushed now, Liza applied cold water from the fountain to her leg, which was soothed by the chill. “He doesn’t hit me at all.”
“Oh.” Nika sputtered out water from the fountain she was drinking out of before regaining her composure. “Right. He’s not around that often, so he probably thinks he has to be nice when he sees you.”
“He’s around often.” Liza glared at Nika, because cell phone calls, Skype, texting, and spending vacations together counted as being around. “And he never hit me before my parents got divorced, either.”
“Wow.” Nika whistled. “Then he’s just as much of a freak off the ice as he is on it.”
“He’s not a freak.” Liza’s hands flew to her hips, and she had a sudden image of herself as the boiling teapot about to be poured. “He’s the best.”
“Being the best is the same as being a freak.” Nika slurped down more water. “Whoever heard of a normal person being the best?”
“Freak doesn’t sound nice, though.” Wrinkling her nose, Liza brushed her ponytail out of her face and leant over to gulp water from the fountain.
“Of course it doesn’t.” Nika giggled. “It’s a mean word normal people invented to mock those who aren’t exactly like them. See, it’s really the normal people who aren’t nice, and the freaks who are. What a plot twist.”
“I swear Valery miscast us.” Liza rolled her eyes. “You talk like you should be the Black Swan, not me.”
“Wrong.” Nika nudged Liza’s shoulder. “Being the White Swan gives me the rare opportunity to act like a good girl, while being the Black Swan gives you an outlet for the negative energies you must have bubbling like a witch’s cauldron somewhere deep inside you. It’s pure genius by Valery.”
-Swan Lake-
After practice ended and she had changed out of her leotard back into the tan skirt, grass-green blouse, and light brown flats that comprised her school uniform, Liza slung her satchel—heavy with textbooks and homework because exams were around the corner, looming after the ballet recital—and hurried outside, eager to see her papa for the first time in months.
When she stepped out of the front doors onto the lawn, she saw both her parents—making the stilted, courteous small talk of people who had once been close but now had only a daughter in common—standing next to one another, more keeping their eyes peeled for her than looking at each other.
“Papa!” Liza exclaimed, racing across the yard and launching herself into his outstretched arms.
“Liza!” He lifted her into the air and twirled her around in a dance that Valery would have called sloppy but that Liza thought was more beautiful than any ballet. She would have been content to spin in his grip for a hundred more years, but all too soon, he deposited her on the ground with a kiss on her forehead. “You’re shooting up like a cannon. I’ll blink and you’ll be taller than me.”
“Be good for your papa.” As if she couldn’t bear to see Liza’s focus on her former husband for too long, Mama wagged a warning finger. “I don’t want to hear about you getting into any mischief, young lady.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior, Mama,” promised Liza.
“All right.” Mama bent down to kiss each of Liza’s cheeks. “I love you, and I’ll see you perform opening night.”
“Yes, Mama.” Liza returned her mother’s kisses. “I love you, too.”
“If you have any problems, Pavel, just call me,” added Mama, turning her attention to Papa, and Liza sighed, longing for the days when Mama had referred to Papa as Pasha, and Papa had called Mama Sveta. Now they were Pavel and Svetlana to one another, nicknames effectively dissolved with marriage.
“We’ll be fine, Svetlana.” Papa sounded mildly irked with how difficult Mama was apparently finding it to leave Liza in his care. “Don’t worry.”
“Well, I guess goodbye is all we’ve got left to say, Pavel.” With a wave, Mama began to walk away briskly, as if now that she had decided to part with Liza, she had to do it swiftly before she changed her mind.
“Goodbye,” Papa echoed, watching Mama disappear before draping an arm around Liza’s shoulders and steering her toward his car.
“Do you think you’re big enough to sit in the front seat, Liza?” Papa asked her as they reached the car and he unlocked the doors.
“Definitely.” Liza beamed, opening the front passenger door. She was about to hop onto the leather seat when she realized that a shiny box was already occupying it.
“Just put that on your lap.” Papa noticed what had captured her attention. “Don’t open it.”
“Why not?” Inquisitively, Liza cocked her head as she climbed into the car, arranged the box over her skirt, and pulled on the safety belt.
“Because I said so.” Papa assumed his imitation of the stereotypical, stern Russian father.
“That’s not a reason, Papa,” pointed out an utterly unfazed Liza.
“Nonsense.” Papa drove the car out into the city traffic. “It’s the best reason there is, Liza.”
“More like that’s the worst reason there is.” Liza stuck out her tongue and admired the comical effect in the rearview mirror.
“Fine.” Papa chuckled, and it sounded like music to Liza since she had gone so long only hearing it through the phone or computer, which wasn’t half as happy. “It’s a surprise for you. Better?”
“Only a little.” Liza pouted. “Now I’ll go crazy wondering what it is.”
“Take your mind off it.” Papa turned the car onto a slightly less bustling boulevard. “Tell me how practice went.”
“Okay,” agreed Liza. “My friend Nika and I are performing a duet—or a pas de deus, as Valery calls it. The dance is based on Swan Lake. Do you know Swan Lake?”
“Of course I do.” Papa steered the car to the left down another avenue. “Every Russian must be familiar with Swan Lake. It’s practically a law.”
“Anyway,” Liza went on, babbling in her excitement, “there’s a good, innocent swan—the White Swan—who floats around and doesn’t realize there’s any evil in the world, but there is. There is the Black Swan—the bad one—who hunts and kills her, and she dies, feeling betrayed and hurt by a world she just recognized could be cruel.”
Biting her lip as it occurred to her that Papa might not want his daughter dressed in an ebony tutu and leotard, representing all the evil in the world, Liza added, “I’m the Black Swan, but Valery says I’m just pretending to be bad, so that’s not the same as being bad, is it, Papa?”
“Certainly not.” Papa pulled the car into a space beside a park teeming with young lovers kissing on benches, mothers keeping attentive eyes on squealing children dashing all over the playground, old men fishing in the pond, and groups of every age and size strolling along the paths. “You’re just playing a role. There’s nothing wrong with that. Let’s get out of here. Take the box with you.”
As Liza obeyed, leaping out of the car with the box in her hands, she remarked, “I love ballet, but I don’t think Nika does.”
“Oh?” Papa’s forehead furrowed as he locked the car and guided her down a stone pathway that led to the pond. “What makes you say that, Liza?”
“She told me that she only does ballet because her papa will hit her if she doesn’t.” Liza stared up at her own papa with wide sky eyes. “That’s not very nice, is it?”
“No, but she might find her happiness in ballet again.” Papa’s gaze fixed on a flock of silver swans swimming through the pond. “When I was sixteen, I wanted to quit hockey because my mama had just died, but I was afraid of how my papa would react. Now I’m grateful I didn’t give up. Maybe a similar thing will happen with Nika.”
“Maybe.” Liza nodded even though she wasn’t fully convinced.
“You can open the box now.” Papa stroked her ponytail as they ambled along the path that circled the lake.
Tearing away the golden bow wrapped around the box, Liza picked up the lid to discover an ample amount of prunes and apricots drizzled in chocolate and sprinkled with crushed nuts.
She gasped with delight at the sight of her favorite desserts, and Papa smiled down at her. “Help yourself. Dessert before dinner for once.”
“Yum.” Liza popped a chocolate-covered apricot into her mouth and savored the sweet sensation melting on her tongue. “I don’t care if these must contain about a thousand calories each.”
“It’s the off-season.” Papa’s eyes twinkled down at her like stars as he bit into a chocolate-covered prune. “We can indulge.”
“It’s the off-season for you maybe.” Contrary to her words, Liza plopped another chocolate-covered apricot onto her tongue, relishing the rich, complex flavor. “Not for me. I’ve got a grand performance coming up.”
“You’re seven.” Papa laughed. “You’ll burn the calories off quickly. I promise.”
Deciding to make him the punchline of a joke in revenge, Liza jumped into the air and perched the gold bow on Papa’s head as though he were a present. “You should wear this everywhere, Papa. It looks splendid on you.”
“Really?” Papa pretended to preen.
“Yes.” Liza snickered. “It brings out your eyes. An essential accessory now that you know how it totally becomes you.”
“Hmm.” Papa appeared to be in deep contemplation. “Unfortunately, I don’t believe the bow will fit under my helmut when I play hockey.”
“That’s nothing to be concerned about, Papa.” Liza adopted her most angelic expression. “Just tape it on top of your helmut. It’ll look even better that way.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” answered Papa wryly, and, as they passed a garbage can, he ripped the bow off his head and tossed it in the trash.
They crossed a bridge with gilded nymphs carved into the handles in silence as comfortable as broken-in shoes, and then Papa commented, “You know, a couple of months after Mama and I divorced, I met someone.”
“Someone’s name would be Maria.” Liza’s lips thinned as she recalled Papa mentioning this woman during their Skype and phone conversations. She had always tried not to think about Maria, because she didn’t want to imagine Papa holding another woman the way he used to hold Mama, hugging her close to his chest as if he couldn’t bear to lose her.
“That’s right.” Papa swallowed loudly enough to reach Liza’s ears. “I care about her a lot, and I think you would, too, if you met her, Liza.”
“You’d like me to meet her.” Liza felt numb as if every ounce of blood in her veins had been transformed into ice.
“Yes, I’d like you to meet Masha.” Papa used the diminutive of Maria’s name, and Liza’s spine stiffened. Reaching out to knead the nape of Liza’s neck, Papa said gently, “I won’t force you to, though. Just think about it.”
“Did you buy these as a bribe?” scowled Liza, gesturing with a jerky wave at the box of chocolate-covered apricots and prunes.
“No, as a gift because I love you.” Papa’s hand seemed suddenly tight as a noose around her neck, so she twisted out from under his touch, shying away like a spooked mare.
“I’ll think about it.” Liza licked smudges of chocolate off her fingers and found that it tasted bitter as vinegar.
-Black Swan-
“My papa met somebody.” Liza took advantage of the fact that she and Nika were applying nail polish for the upcoming ballet—ivory for Nika and ebony for Liza—on a crinkly bed of newspapers and magazines spread out on the mahogany floor of Liza’s room in her papa’s house to conduct a painful conversation without having to meet her friend’s eyes.
“Blow me down with a feather.” Nika’s brush flicked over her pinky fingernail. “Hasn’t everyone?”
“I mean a girlfriend.” Liza was testy, since she suspected that Nika knew what she meant and was making her say the embarrassing sentence aloud—because what could be grosser than parents with girlfriends or boyfriends? “Her name is Maria, but he calls her Masha.”
“Masha,” repeated Nika, who had moved onto painting the next nail. “That’s a sure sign things are serious.”
“Yep.” Liza stared down at the nail on her own ring finger while she painted it black as midnight. “So serious Papa wants me to meet her.”
“Does he want you to meet her or is he making you meet her?” Nika dipped her brush in her nail polish.
“He says he won’t make me.” Liza’s trembling fingers accidentally painted beyond her nail, and mentally accusing herself of being nine kinds of idiot, she snatched up a cotton swab, dunked it in the bottle of nail polish remover, and rubbed at her skin in a frenetic effort to erase the damage her carelessness had wrought. “Just that he wants me to think about it.”
“Parents are never that patient or considerate.” Nika snorted, voicing Liza’s secret fear. “You’re best seizing control of your own destiny and meeting her on your own terms.”
“How?” Liza’s mouth was so dry that her tongue stuck like glue in her mouth.
“Tell your papa that you’ll meet her.” Nika spoke with the venom of a serpent. “Then when you do, spit gum in her hair and continue to do vile things to her whenever you see her. That will probably be enough to drive her away from you and your papa, and, believe me, you want to drive her away, because stepmothers are always beating their stepchildren to a bloody pulp and stuff like that. Never forget the wisdom of the fairy tales.”
“My papa wouldn’t let her do that.” Liza shook her head, her ponytail slapping against her cheeks.
“Love makes men do crazy things.” Finished painting her nails, Nika blew on them to dry them. “I wouldn’t count on your papa protecting you from an evil stepmother. You’re better off looking out for yourself and pushing her away before it’s too late.”
“I’ll tell Papa I want to meet her.” Liza’s stomach knotted because she had never plotted like this against either of her parents, but she told herself that she would do whatever it took to ensure that her papa remained hers. Ever since the divorce, although Mama and Papa had both assured her until her ears almost bled that they would love her forever, she had trouble believing that love could really be permanent. After all, if her parents had stopped loving each other, wasn’t it only rational to conclude that they could get to a point where they didn’t love her anymore? Now Liza had to fight this Maria to keep her papa’s love, and she intended to fight tooth and nail. “Then I’ll have a nice surprise for her when I do.”
Nika clucked her tongue in approval, and the girls switched to other topics.
Once Nika had left for dinner, Liza cuddled up next to Papa, who was reading Crime and Punishment on the parlor divan.
“What do you think of my nails?” Liza flashed them in front of his face.
“Dazzling.” Papa glanced at them over the spine of his tome.
“Papa?” she murmured once she had taken a deep breath to steel her nerves.
“Yes?” Arching an eyebrow, Papa put his novel down on the coffee table.
“I was thinking about Maria.” Liza swallowed to hold in her guilt about manipulating her papa and planning a nasty scheme against a lady she had never met. “I’d like to meet her.”
“Thank you.” Papa’s lips tickled Liza’s forehead. “You’re an angel, Liza. I’ll invite her over for dinner tomorrow night.”
“I love you, Papa.” Liza brushed her mouth against Papa’s clean-shaven cheeks, but that didn’t make her feel any better, because abruptly she recalled how Judas betrayed Jesus just like that. By this time tomorrow night, Papa would know that she was a fallen angel, but as long as she still had his love, she could feel like she had wings.
-Swan Song-
Liza chomped on her twin pieces of bubblegum as she sat on the sofa in the parlor, anxiously awaiting Maria’s arrival.
“Don’t chew gum when we’re about to have company, Liza,” chided Papa in the mild tone that said she had been raised to know this. “Spit it out, please.”
“I will, Papa,” Liza chirped, as innocent as a sparrow. Consoling what remained of her battered conscience with the technicality that she wasn’t exactly lying as she would be getting rid of her gum just not immediately, Liza grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table under the lamp and feigned spitting her gum into it. She had just thrown the tissue into the wastepaper basket when the doorbell rang.
“That must be Masha,” exclaimed Papa, lurching to his feet and rushing into the entrance hall with Liza on his heels.
Papa opened the door to reveal a woman who was definitely beautiful enough to turn heads when she walked down the street but who was also a good four inches shorter than Papa even in pumps. Soon Liza would be taller than her.
Papa leaned forward to hug and kiss Maria as he had once done to Mama whenever he had gotten home from his hockey, and Liza studied the marble tiles, not wanting to see any more of this scene than she had to.
After slipping a bottle of wine into Papa’s hands, Maria riveted her gaze on Liza, observing as she bent over to kiss Liza’a cheeks, “You must be Liza. I’ve heard so much about you from your papa. How lovely to meet you at last.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Liza planted a kiss on the far side of both of Maria’s cheeks so that the twin wads of gum could land on the hair outlining her face. “I hope some of what he told you was good.”
Remaining hunched over Liza, Maria placed a glossy book into her hands, explaining, “Your papa has mentioned that you are a huge lover of ballet. I thought you might enjoy this copy of the Nutcracker.”
Liza, despite her need to dislike Maria on principle, was about to comb though the pages but was spared this temptation when a rising Maria spotted the gum in her hair through her reflection in the hall mirror, gasping, “Is that gum in my hair?”
“Liza!” Papa’s tone was a knife. “I thought I told you to spit out your gum.”
“I did, Papa.” Liza widened her eyes as innocently as she could under the circumstances when she practically had guilt tattooed across her forehead.
“Not in the way I intended.” Papa glared at her for seconds that seemed an eternity before he ordered crisply, “Apologize to Masha and then go upstairs to your room.”
“I haven’t eaten dinner yet.” Liza pouted, because her stomach was starting to churn as her nostrils scented the heady aromas streaming from the kitchen.
“Go to your room.” Papa’s finger shook with suppressed anger as he pointed to the stairwell. “Now or I will carry you up like an uncooperative toddler.”
“Sorry about the gum.” Liza nearly tripped over her words as she apologized to Maria, and then not wanting to see if her papa would or could make good on his threat, beat a hasty retreat up to the sanctuary of her room.
Tears streaked down Liza’s face—because she hated that Papa was mad at her and in love with a strange woman—as she collapsed on her bed and buried her cheeks in a mountain of pillows. She heard the sound of water ricocheting off the walls in the guest shower on the other side of her wall, and then Papa strode into her room barely a minute later after a perfunctory knock.
“I don’t know what you are crying for,” he declared sternly as he settled himself in Liza’s desk chair. “You aren’t the one who has to wash gum out of your hair.”
Lifting her tear-splotched face off her pillows, Liza muttered, swiping at her moist eyes with her fist in an attempt to dry them, “You don’t understand, Papa.”
“I understand that you did something wicked to Masha, who is somebody I care about.” Papa shook his head. “What I don’t understand, Liza, is why you felt the need to do that when I believe I made it clear as crystal you didn’t have to meet Masha until you were ready.”
“But you would have wanted me to meet her eventually.” Liza’s chin quivered. “And you would have expected me to be nice to her.”
“I want you to be nice to everyone.” Papa was plainly not impressed by this logic. “That’s not a new expectation, Liza.”
“I don’t want a new mother,” Liza said because she wasn’t prepared to admit to Papa that she didn’t want to lose his love.
“Masha isn’t going to try to replace your mama,” Papa promised. “She’s just going to try to become someone else you can love.”
“No.” Liza folded her arms across her chest, whether out of temper or a desire for protection she didn’t know. “She wants to steal your love from me, and it’s working because you already love her more than me.”
“Liza.” Papa rose from the chair to squeeze her shoulders. “I could never love anyone more than I love you. I could love others the same amount, but never more than you.”
Liza wanted to believe this but couldn’t and only felt her heart sinking further as Papa continued firmly, “I love you too much to let you behave in such a hateful way to Masha. If you ever do anything that cruel to her again, I’ll spank you.”
“You wouldn’t, Papa.” Fighting another descent into tears, Liza hiccuped, although her thoughts belied her words, since she had a sneaking suspicion that what her papa said was true even if she didn’t wish to believe it. Internally, she cursed Maria, because Papa had never so much as threatened her with a spanking before Maria came into their lives.
“Just because I haven’t doesn’t mean I won’t. Don’t test me on this, Liza.” Papa gave her shoulders a slight shake. “Now, Masha wants to attend your ballet show.”
“Too bad and so sad.” Liza’s jaw clenched. “She’s the last person in the world I want to go, Papa.”
“I’m afraid that you made a very poor decision and have lost the right to make some important choices for yourself,” Papa informed her. “I’ve already told Masha to go.”
“Is this my punishment?” Liza lowered her head in misery.
“No.” Papa patted her on the back. “It’s a chance for you to redeem yourself and make things up to Masha.”
“I don’t want to do either of those things.” Liza’s chin lifted defiantly.
“Then you won’t be able to go down for dinner.” Papa turned away from her and walked toward the door. “Good night, Liza. You have seven minutes to finish brushing your teeth and putting on your pajamas. Then you’d better be in bed with the lights out.”
-Swan Flight-
On stage in the jammed auditorium with the tangerine spotlight upon them, Liza and Nika danced their most perfect rendition of Black Swan, technique and emotion combining in a display that made Liza feel beautiful and graceful as a swan who could fly above the problems and pains of the world.
When the dance, which seemed paradoxically longer and shorter than it ever had, ended, Liza and Nika curtsied to the enthusiastically applauding audience. As she acknowledged the applause, Liza found her mama and papa—carefully avoiding a glance at Maria, who was sitting next to him with his arm draped around her like a shawl—where she had at the opening of her performance. Although the spotlight was bright enough to blind her, she could see that both were beaming and had shining eyes.
They were proud of her, Liza thought, glowing like the Northern Lights, as she and Nika swept off the stage in a tidal wave of clapping. Just off-stage, they were swooped upon by Valery, who gathered them into his chest for such a tight embrace that they banged heads.
“A simply gorgeous performance, ladies. Authentic expression. Proper technique. So pleased with how my girls did.” Valery released them and nudged them toward the stairs that led down from backstage into the hallway. “Go get a drink.”
“Stinking liar.” Wrinkling her nose as if she had just inhaled a foul stench, Nika muttered this complaint to Liza as they both clattered down the steps into the corridor. “If we had fallen on our butts, he would’ve acted like he’d never met us.”
“Come on.” Liza elbowed her best friend in the ribs. “You’re as happy as I am right now. Don’t spoil it by grumbling like a brat.”
“Ballet is fun when you can dance before an adoring crowd,” admitted Nika on a wistful sigh. “It’s just that happens so rarely.”
As they rounded the corner to reach the water fountains outside the auditorium entrance, they almost bumped into Papa and Maria.
“I’m so proud of you, Liza.” Papa drew Liza so close to him that she could hear his heart beat. “That was a joy to watch.”
As Papa released her, she noticed Nika, obviously sensing who Maria was, brush past Maria without a word and begin to gulp water from a fountain.
“You’re a beautiful ballerina, Liza.” Maria extended a bouquet of pink and white roses toward Liza. “I brought you these. Your papa says roses are your favorite. They’re mine, too, you know.”
“You shouldn’t have.” Liza locked her hands to her sides, vowing that she would never accept another gift from Maria, because that would make Maria too much like a mother. “Really.”
“It was the least I could do.” Clearly Maria thought Liza was just being polite by offering a token refusal of the present.
“The least you could do is too much.” Liza glared at Maria, wishing the force of her glower could propel Maria to the moon or somewhere equally remote and inhospitable. “I don’t want your stinking flowers, and it was presumptuous of you to think I would.”
“Liza!” Papa cut in sharply, his tone slicing into her like a dagger. “That’s not how you thank someone for a thoughtful gift.”
“No, this is.” Her temper flaring like a stricken match, Liza wrenched the bouquet out of Maria’s limp, astounded grasp and tore the rose petals from the thorny stems, littering the tiles with dead flowers and pricking herself a few times but only being spurred on in her destructive fury by the stabs of pain. In less than thirty seconds, the whole bouquet was shredded, and Liza sneered, “Thanks but no thanks for the flowers.”
“Pick up this mess,” ordered Papa, jabbing a finger at the detritus of the roses. “Now.”
Deciding that it wasn’t fair to make the janitor, who, after all, wasn’t Maria, clean up her tattered flowers, Liza bent over and dumped handful after handful of ruined rose fragments into the trash can by the shut auditorium door.
When she was finished, Papa, apparently harboring under the mistaken impression that he had subdued her, commanded, “Apologize to Masha.”
“I’m sorry you thought I liked flowers,” Liza spat at Maria, backing toward the door that led out onto the schoolyard.
“That’s it.” Papa’s jaw clenched so tightly that Liza could hear it locking. “We’re going home right now, young lady.”
Terrified that she was definitely going to be getting her first (and please God only) spanking as soon as she got home, Liza spun on her heel and fled full-tilt for the door, but she had barely opened it before she found herself lifted into the air by Papa.
“Put me down.” She kicked at him. In response, Papa shifted her so that he was supporting her back and knees like a toddler being brought up to bed for a nap. It was by no means an uncomfortable position, but it reduced her kicks to futile leg flails, so she gave up on making them, since she figured she was better off conserving the energy for other purposes.
“You lost the right to walk, Liza, when you ran away from me,” Papa admonished as he carried her across the lawn to his car.
“I didn’t even go outside the school,” protested Liza, humiliated at being picked up like a small child who couldn’t be trusted not to engage in mischief.
“You would’ve if I hadn’t stopped you.” Papa’s protective instincts had plainly been aroused and that was never a good thing. “Then you would’ve been all alone in a big city at night.”
“You’re going to—“ Liza choked on the word spank and chose another one instead—“punish me.”
“I am.” Papa dropped her into the backseat. “But no punishment I ever give you will be so bad that it will be better for you to run away.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Liza mumbled, but—perhaps fortunately—Papa didn’t hear her since he had slammed her door and was moving into the driver’s seat.
Once he had closed his own door and buckled himself in, Papa glanced over his shoulder to check that she was strapped in, and then hit the child security lock for her door.
“Papa.” Liza rolled her eyes. “I’m smart enough not to run off into traffic.”
“I thought you were smart enough not to run away at all.” Papa glared at her in the rearview mirror. “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Figuring that anything that exited her mouth at this point would probably just make this situation go from bad to utterly nightmarish, Liza pressed her forehead against the window, praying the cool glass would freeze her hot temper.
As her breath fogged the pane, veiling the passing lights of cars and buildings in mist, Papa commented, “I love you, Liza, and nothing you do could ever change that, but I don’t understand the way you’ve been acting recently.”
“That’s probably because you spend so much time in Detroit, Papa.” Liza hated herself for twisting the thumbscrews when she knew that Papa felt guilty about not seeing her most of the year, but she was still in her Black Swan costume, so perhaps that was what compelled her to be so evil. Maybe if you pretended to be something you weren’t for long enough, you eventually became it. Valery had forgotten to warn her about that when he assigned her the role of Black Swan, and that wasn’t a nice thing to do to a sweet little girl like her.
“I know that you’re a good girl.” Papa was eerily close to echoing what was in Liza’s mind. “Why are you trying so hard to be bad when that isn’t you at all?”
“I don’t like Maria.” Liza swirled her fingers through the condensation, painting in abstract like Picasso.
“That’s not an excuse for being mean to her.” Papa shook his head. “Besides, you haven’t given yourself a chance to like her. You’ve barely met her.”
“That’s how I want it to be, Papa.” Liza continued to draw her masterpiece on the window even though she knew how quickly it would fade.
“Well, that’s not how I want it to be.” All too soon, Papa was turning into their driveway. “I want you two to enjoy being together as much as I enjoy being with both of you.”
When the car parked, Liza automatically reached for the handle to open the door before remembering about the child security lock, and settling back in her seat, waiting for her papa to come around and free her.
As he swung open the door, Liza demanded caustically, “Are you going to unstrap me and carry me into the house like a baby, too, Papa?”
“Don’t tempt me.” Papa’s dark eyes narrowed. “If you don’t get out of the car right now, I might very well do that.”
Wishing that her sassiness had a different effect on him, Liza unbuckled her seatbelt, clambered out of the vehicle, and shut the door with too much force for her papa’s taste, because he scolded, “No slamming doors, Liza. They haven’t done anything to deserve taking the brunt of your anger.”
He said nothing further as they walked up the pathway to the front door, Liza dragging her feet after him because this was one time when she didn’t want to come home. When they entered the house, Papa nodded at the staircase. “Go up to your room, Liza, and change into your pajamas. I’ll be up to talk to you in a few minutes.”
Trying not to imagine what that talk would entail, Liza climbed the steps on trembling knees that abruptly felt like they had been switched with puddings. In her bedroom, she slipped out of her leotard and tutu before putting on underwear and a silk nightgown, though a sarcastic voice inside her brain wondered why she was bothering to put the panties on when Papa would probably be pulling them down soon enough.
She had just hung her leotard and tutu on hangars in her closet when a knock resounded on her door.
“Come in.” Liza’s voice was as shaky as her legs.
Papa entered and sat down on her bed, beckoning her over to him. “Over here, Liza.”
Not daring to run away from him twice in one night and not having anywhere to flee anyway, Liza stumbled over to him, hoping that she was numb enough that a spanking wouldn’t hurt.
As she arrived before him, he took her hands in his and she expected to be tugged over his knee, but he merely squeezed her fingers. “You can’t be mean to Masha or anyone else, and you can’t run away from a problem. Running off won’t fix whatever is wrong and will almost always makes it worse. You have to be brave and face the consequences of your actions.”
“It’s going to hurt.” Liza could feel tears pricking like needles at her eyes as she fought to keep them from falling.
“All consequences of bad decisions hurt, Liza.” Now he did pull her over his knee and lifted up her nightgown, although—thank God for small mercies—he kept her underwear in place. Pressing an oddly gentle under the circumstances palm against her back to keep her from squirming away from the impending spanks, Papa told her sternly, “I want you to think about the pain you caused Masha when you tore up the bouquet she gave you before her eyes.”
With that, Papa brought his hand down on the center of her bottom, and Liza gasped not from any real pain—the spank had been more of a pat than a swat—but from the shock that this was actually happening to her. The tears that had welled in her eyes fell as Papa landed a soft spank on each cheek.
Rubbing circles in her back with the palm that was keeping her in position for her punishment, Papa informed her more sympathetically than strictly, “Your spanking would have been over now, Liza, if you hadn’t run away.”
Liza’s internal moan at her awful knack of finding ways to make matters worse for herself became an audible one as her papa lowered her panties. A spanking had to sting more on a bare bottom, and Papa hadn’t seen hers since she was out of diapers. Papa had found the one way possible to make this even more embarrassing for her.
“If you had managed to really run away, you could have been lost, robbed, kidnapped, or worse.” Papa emphasized each horrible alternative with a spank, and—more from the shock of the sound of his palm striking her naked flesh than from any real pain in her butt because the spanks still were little more than taps on her rear—Liza’s tears deepened into full-fledged sobs.
“It’s over now.” Making soothing noises, Papa restored her underwear and nightgown to their proper places before guiding her into a sitting position on his lap.
Weeping as if he had just belted her, Liza hid her face in his shirt. As he rocked her back and forth like a baby, Papa combed her hair with his fingers and murmured, “The sting will go away. I promise.”
“It doesn’t hurt.” Liza hoped she didn’t sound rude when she didn’t mean to be. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“You were spanked.” Papa kissed her forehead. “That’s why.”
“But it didn’t hurt.” Sniffling, Liza wished that she could stop being such a wimp, especially in front of Papa, who could sustain all sorts of ghastly knee injuries and not dissolve into waterworks. “Not at all.”
“Good.” Papa ruffled her hair. “It wasn’t meant to hurt. Just give you a bit of a shock. I’ll never hurt you even if you hurt me.”
“I hurt you by being mean to Maria, didn’t I?” Liza asked, feeling like dog poop clinging to a shoe as she curled ever tighter against her papa.
“Yes.” Papa grabbed a tissue from the box on the nightstand and wiped away the tears coating Liza’s cheeks. “What hurt even more was you trying to run away. I’m here to protect you. If anything had happened to you because you ran away from me, I’d go crazy. I don’t know what I’d do.”
“I’m sorry.” Liza swallowed the frog that had leapt into her throat. “Am I a bad girl, Papa?”
“Of course not.” Papa stroked her quaking back. “You are your father’s daughter—always creating something whether it’s mischief or magic or both.”
Wanting to make her papa proud that she was his daughter, Liza said, “I’m sorry to Maria, too. Do you have her on speed dial so I can apologize to her now?”
“You’d better not be tricking me again.” After wagging a finger in warning, Papa whipped his cell phone out of his pocket, rifled through his contacts for a second, and then hit Maria’s number.
He had just passed the cell to Liza when Maria picked up.
“It’s Liza, Pavel’s daughter,” Liza said in a rush before Maria, assuming she was her papa, could use any cringe-worthy endearments. “I wanted to—um—apologize for tearing up the roses you gave me. They were beautiful, and it was very thoughtful of you to get them for me.”
“It’s okay.” Maria sounded more amused than resentful, and Liza thought that maybe she could learn to like Maria since it didn’t seem as if Maria was laughing at her out of any kind of spite. “Once I gave you the flowers, they were yours to do with as you liked, and you certainly earned them after your gloriously malevolent performance as the Black Swan.”
“I don’t always play the villainess.” Liza discovered that she didn’t want Maria envisioning her as a brat who was always engaging in hateful behaviors such as spitting gum in other people’s hair and ripping up presents.
“Neither do I.” Maria might have been smiling on the other end of the line.
Collecting her courage, Liza suggested, “I think I missed a cue in our dance. Could we re-start it?”
“As many times as you’d like, Liza,” replied Maria, and then perhaps because neither of them wished to endanger the beginnings of their tentative peace between them that they would have to feel out like dance partners learning one another’s movements, they hung up before either could say anything to make their other hate them.
Taking the phone from her fingers, Papa nodded his approval. “Well done, Liza. I know that was hard for you. Tomorrow we’ll go to Kharitonovskiy Garden as a reward.”
“With Maria?” Liza bit her lip, not sure she was up for that yet.
“I was thinking just you and me.” Papa tapped her nose with a fingertip. “What do you say to that?”
Liza grinned. “I say it’s a date, Papa.”