The Audition
“I’d heard that a great dancer, Tyree Jones, was holding auditions in Harlem for his new fusion dance group,” I said. Talking about this made me queasy.
Cousin Ella sat on the dry side of the bed, listening intently. “He’d been the lead in a group in San Francisco, right?”
She patted the space next to her for me to sit. When I did, I sank into a soft spot in the mattress. I shifted to get my balance.
“Yes. Once, the previous year, I saw him dance at Lincoln Center. I stared at him the whole time. I felt I was in the moment with him. What he could do with his tall, strong body—his grace!”
As I spoke of his dance, my legs moved slightly on their own, as if I were his partner. Cousin Ella saw that and smiled. I forced myself to stop moving.
I thought of this memory that I’d pushed back for years. Until yesterday, I had been content to layer it over with the work of balance sheets, marketing plans, and talk of human resources. Why did I feel this was the time to spill this out, in her cluttered, condemned bedroom?
Cousin Ella said, “But he’d just had a falling out with the director of that group. Tyree had studied and practiced everything—modern, ballet, jazz, even folk of many cultures. He was a dance genius, but he didn’t think he was respected enough in San Francisco.”
She knew Tyree Jones by his first name?
I said, “There was the rumor that he wanted to start his own group in New York. Then I read that it was true, in a newspaper that Dad left on the kitchen table. He always left it for me when he was done with it. When Dad was at work during the day, I practiced in the living room to his jazz albums. I did my own choreography. That was OK, but the audition motivated me to take dance more seriously. That this was my chance! A longshot, yes. But I felt compelled to try out.”
“I would’ve felt the same way.”
“But you did do the same thing. You were really a dancer.”
She was quiet, looking down at her hands. “For a while.”
“Cousin Ella, just as you said, I knew Dad had high hopes for me, but I was barely getting through my accounting class. Not because I couldn’t do it. It was just that I didn’t care. I knew dancing was a risk—that I might lose my scholarship if I used my time practicing my routine in that dance class at the Y—the best that I could afford—instead of reviewing for final exams. But I needed this.”
“I know that need. First time I had it was when I tried out for the Cotton Club. My mother, like yours, was a good sister in the church. God rest her soul . . . she didn’t want me shakin’ my butt in front of all those white patrons, but I had to dance. The Cotton Club was the best place in the city for me.”
When they tore down the Savoy in the late fifties to build those high-rise apartments across the street, I’d wondered what had happened to the dreams of young women like Cousin Ella. But me, I was more modern. I had had my sights on dancing with Tyree Jones.
“Then you know why I needed to push myself and do better than the others in that class. I did that easily. And I wished I could pay for more professional classes. I needed the challenge. But I had little money left after buying textbooks. My cashier job at Macy’s—and what I’d saved from skipping lunch—was just enough to pay for the class at the Y. I practiced at home alone every minute I could.”
“What did Doyle think of those classes?”
“I didn’t tell Dad what I was doing. You know I couldn’t. There was one morning, as I was leaving for class he was just getting home from work. I knew he’d been drinking with his friends because he slurred his words when he asked me, ‘What’ve you got in that backpack? Books aren’t round and soft like that.’ I didn’t answer him. He pushed on. ‘It looks like a change of clothes to me, especially since I can see that black cloth poking out of the zipper.’ He didn’t bother me about it then. But I knew I had to do better at hiding my dance clothes between the fat business books.”
“So, Carrie, you lied to him. You didn’t tell him what you were doing, so you lied.”
“I hadn’t thought of it as a lie. I thought of it as my soul’s survival.” Why was she taking his side?
She got fidgety, then got up slowly and left the room. She came back into the room to sit on the bed next to me. She looked like a stern, old-style schoolmarm.
My throat got tense. I didn’t want to be so close to her. Yes, I’d felt guilty when I snuck out of the apartment that day when I was on my way to dance class, but I didn’t want to hear her accusations. I didn’t need that from her. She was a dancer herself, after all. She should have understood. Anyway, now I was being loyal to Dad by helping her. I stood and faced her.
She said, “You know you didn’t have to lie. Doyle was a softy. If you had told him that, you know that he would’ve given in, eventually.”
Maybe she was right. Could be that I didn’t feel truly confident enough to dance professionally back then. Did Dad know that? I persisted with Cousin Ella.
“You can call it a lie if you want, but I couldn’t wait that long. I had to go to dance class. This was my last one before the audition. For that hour and a half, I forgot about the C that I got on both my statistics midterm and the late paper for my management class. The only time that existed for me was the music’s drumbeat. When I danced, I forgot Mom’s death, the way Bill ignored me on campus, Dad’s drinking and moodiness. It was just me in that moment when it was stuffy and humid in that studio. I flowed through it, sweaty, sure, but I remember now that I danced so hard that, for the first time in my life, I pulled a tendon in my calf. This was the day before the audition! I think my stress caused me to work too hard.”
She turned her face away from me. I wondered if her scar went deeper than the surface of her skin. “When I nearly limped in the apartment door after that class, my clothes were damp and stinky. Dad was setting the kitchen table. It was his night off—the one night a week we had a ritual dinner together. Thank goodness that he had fixed a salad that filled the large bowls on our placemats and not his signature authentic spaghetti that he’d learned to make from his Italian coworkers. I would not have been able to handle the pasta bloat. I went into my room to put down my things and quickly taped up my calf.”
Cousin Ella smiled and turned back to me. “He liked to cook, I know. He made that spaghetti here once or twice. And he didn’t just plop it down on the plates. He used to make food, the place settings, too, look like a still life. Sometimes it looked too pretty to eat. He’d present our dishes to us with care, as if they were fragile masterpieces. Since Jack and I never got to restaurants, we were grateful for this. Did he cook that way for you?”
“No, especially not that night. I felt nervous when I sat across from him. I was trying to act normally, like I would any other night—talking about LBJ’s Great Society, Vietnam. He liked to talk about current events. But I was pouring dressing on my salad when he pushed an envelope to the middle of the table. It was a letter from City College. He said to me, ‘Read it. Open it and read it.’ I put down the dressing bottle and stared at him.”
I didn’t want to go on, but Cousin Ella was sitting there, quietly, patiently waiting for me to continue. My anxiety of twenty years ago was rising in my throat. I became aware of sounds of clinking glass in the living room. Jack must have been getting another drink.
“Yes, and so what did you do?”
“I didn’t move, but he yelled at me. ‘Open it. I work hard so you can have what I couldn’t. I have the right to know what’s going on.’
“I thought he was only half right. Sure, he worked hard, but the letter was addressed to me. He kept glaring at me. I gave in and opened the letter. I was being warned about my grades. I felt my eyes flutter. He noticed and yelled at me again. ‘I knew it wasn’t good! Look. I’ve been watching you come home late, all sweaty. You’ve been hanging out with Bill, haven’t you?’
“I tried to protest, but he wouldn’t stop. He ranted about how Bill would lose respect for me, how hard he worked, how Mom had tried to guide me on the right path, and on and on. He said he didn’t want to know what I’d been doing though he tried to guess. He liked Bill but he wanted me to stay away from him until finals were over. He drilled into me that I had to know my priorities.
“I was confused because I hadn’t seen Bill in months. I liked him enough, but he was a devoted engineering major who wanted to go to grad school. He was highly motivated about this, so he lost interest in seeing me when I told him I was skipping accounting to go to dance class. Funny that, a few months later when I stopped being ‘foolish,’ as he called it, about dancing, he asked me out again. He liked my dancer’s body. We said we were in love, but at that age it was probably in lust.”
I paused. Cousin Ella patted my arm. That encouraged me to go on. This was all so incredibly vivid to me after years of holding it in. Letting it out felt good.
“At that point, I sensed it was best to let Dad believe his theory about Bill and me. I told him I understood what he’d said. I think I mumbled, ‘I’m sorry.’ He smiled at that. He seemed sure that he’d succeeded in getting me back on track.”
“So, did you ever get to see Tyree?”
“Well, the next morning, Dad slept late. This was usually what he did when he’d had the previous night off—and a few drinks while listening to Ahmad Jamal. So that morning, he didn’t see me sneaking out with my backpack bulging with change of dancewear. I was determined to go to the audition. It was in a church basement about ten blocks away. I walked to clear my head. My calf didn’t hurt as much as I’d expected, though I could feel remnants of pain when I stepped on that leg.”
Cousin Ella was getting animated. “Tyree Jones looked even taller close up, didn’t he? Yeah. His body had the precision and poise of the master dancer he was.” She was beaming.
“Yes, he did. There were about ten of us there to audition. The other dancers looked focused and ready, like they’d done this before. This was my first audition. I was such an amateur! Honestly, I didn’t even notice it when it was my turn. Tyree yelled at me twice. Then I just knew I wanted to dance, so I moved. I loved the way my whole body became one with the music. I danced the routine through my pain. I didn’t feel it in my calf. I guess it was mind over matter. I had worked hard for this. I felt my life depended on this dance.”
Cousin Ella was staring at every feature of my face. That felt creepy, but I couldn’t stop talking.
“After the last dancer had finished, Tyree told us to line up against the back wall of the church basement. I’d heard this was the only place Tyree Jones could afford to hold these auditions. He pointed at me with his strong, sinewy fingers. I looked at the girls to my left and right. I thought he meant one of them, but they were looking at me. The tan girl to my left was crying.
“‘Carrie Stevens, come up here!’ When Tyree called out my name my knees buckled, but I caught myself on the barre. I knew I had my chance.
“He looked impatient. ‘Yes, it’s you.’ And just like that Tyree Jones took me on for the lead. He pointed to a few others to fill out the troupe.”
Cousin Ella giggled like a sixteen-year-old. I paused. That sound from a ninety-something’s scarred face was unnerving. She was gleeful.
“And?”
“He told us to stay. He performed a segment of the dance we were to learn. At first, I was simply entranced by his ease of movement. Then, when he did it again, he expected us to know it. I did it perfectly.
“When I left, my leg was throbbing, so I took the bus home to our apartment. But I ran in the door, almost into Dad, who had just finished coffee before leaving for his night shift. I saw that he’d been in my room. At that point, I didn’t care. Some of my dancewear and the flyer announcing today’s audition were on the kitchen table. My heart was racing too fast to quibble about the invasion of my privacy. I picked up the announcement and shook it at him. I almost screamed.
‘I danced out of my skin. I got it, Dad, I got it!’”
Cousin Ella held my hands. I felt she knew what came next.
“I will always remember what he said then.”
After years of suppressing his words, I was having trouble getting them out. I was shaking.
“It’s OK. You can talk to me. I don’t gossip. There’s no one for me to tell this to. Almost everyone I knew is gone. You can trust me.”
I’d never spoken of this. I was surprised that I could confide in her. But this old woman would have no one to repeat my story to. She might even forget everything I said. There would be no rumors about it from her. I had run this audition through my mind for years. It was a cycle. It would fester and blast its way into my mind. Then I would squash it by throwing myself into overwhelming work projects, a long and tedious to-do list of chores, chocolate cake, facials—anything to make the memory disappear and for me to regain some sense of balance. But now, I felt compelled to get it out and over with.
“He said, ‘That’s nice.’ Then he just walked out to go to work and shut the door.
“I cried all night. In the morning, I did my best to pull myself together and I called Tyree. When I told him I couldn’t be in his troupe, he asked, ‘Are you sure?’ I whispered, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘OK, good luck,’ and hung up. That was it.”
Sharyn Skeeter is a writer, poet, editor, and educator. She was fiction/poetry/book review editor at Essence and editor in chief at Black Elegance magazine. She’s taught at Emerson College, University of Bridgeport, Fairfield University, and Gateway and Three Rivers community colleges. She participated in panel discussions and readings at universities in India and Singapore. Sharyn Skeeter has written and published numerous magazine articles. Her poetry and fiction are in journals and anthologies. She lives in Seattle where she’s been involved with Humanities Washington and ACT Theatre. Her grandmother’s Langston family and their oral history of Langston Hughes inspired Dancing with Langston.