Definitions of Rhea
Genoa City, WI
Separation
The baby does not yet know that she is Rhea. But she is aware of
other. It is not language awareness. It is hard-earned knowledge.
She reaches out and the other is not there. Warmth. Absent.
Nourishment. Absent. Envelopment. Absent. Even when the
mother hears her cries and puts the bottle in her mouth, the rescue
comes too late.
Recognition
Rhea sneaks down the hall. Pauses at her brother’s room. Loud
snores. Past the thrumming refrigerator. Stops in the doorway.
Rhea’s mother sits alone where a full moon washes the window
seat with bluish light. The cigarette forms glowing shadows on her
face. It’s late. Past Rhea’s bedtime. She is too young to know why
the shoulders are bobbing, why there are deep sobs from her
mother’s chest. She does know, somehow, that even at this tender
age, she will never be able to fulfill her mother’s already dashed
expectations. She will never be enough.
Accusation
The boy has a dirty plaid shirt, dirty jeans. Small for six years. A
hen-pecked chicken. His shuffle, his petrified eyes. Rhea can spot
the easy prey. It is watercolor time. He refills his yogurt container
with clean water. He carries it carefully so it won’t spill. When he
returns, she pulls out his chair with perfect timing. Smack of
backside on linoleum. Water spreads dirty shirt stains into three
leaf clover. Boy is not lucky. Classmates laugh. She denies
everything when the teacher asks her if she did it.
Ambition
There is no dance class in Genoa City, Wisconsin. Rhea’s mother
wouldn’t have signed her up for it anyway. Public school is
enough. But Rhea has seen ABT on PBS; Awakenings her favorite.
She wants to be a Gelsey Kirkland to Baryshikov’s perfection. So
she runs laps at the junior high track for stamina. Masters the
splits. Checks out a ballet book from the library and holds onto the
ledge of her windowsill: pliés, tendus, dégagés, rond de jambes.
Still, her brother’s attention can only be captured by catching
practice pitches in the backyard. She can’t help lifting her leg into
an arabesque with each catch. Even after they are called in for
dinner, she is on the grass—glissade, assemble, jeté, jeté—over
and over until her mother yells that there will be no dessert. That’s
okay. Her neighbor, a girl of sixteen, has given her dieting tips. She
would have thrown it up later anyway.
Starvation
Rhea watches his thumbs as he writes on the blackboard, wonders
if the adage is true, the one about penis size and large digits. How
can it be that even this forty something man is making her wet?
The boy at the drinking fountain—a sophomore she has been
watching—bends over so she can see the skin of his backside, see
the dimples like lickable indentations where sweat can pool. She
imagines sliding those pants down around his ankles and touching
his flesh until he twitches. The girls playing volleyball with their
thin cotton shirts and shorts, all that skin and hair. The ripped
t-shirt of the boy coming down the hall. The girl in the bathroom
applying lipstick. The tight jeans that cup balls, divide labia, cradle
buttocks. She knows her appetite is out of control when Mrs.
Habisch, the ancient English lit teacher, hands her back her paper,
and she wants to feel the flesh of that wrist between her teeth.
Revelation
When a teenage girl has nothing to stare at but Jesus, clad in his
loincloth, spread arms leading to tortured palms, a position of
vulnerability, how can she focus on the sermon, which nods and
weaves among stories of good kings, bad kings, a father and son?
And the wife shall call her husband master, says the reverend.
Rhea imagines taking the near unconscious body off the cross,
salving his wounds, kissing his mouth. A stirring between her legs
makes her press the hymn book in, just so, and no one can tell that
she is rubbing it slowly, back and forth. Her mother fans the
program, whispers that it’s getting hot inside the church. Yes, it
certainly is.
Intoxication
Her mother let her take the car. To stay at her friend Deanne’s for
the night, right across town. The party, though, is all the way in
Racine. It’s cranking when they arrive, kids dancing under lights
hung by the pool. Ruptured laughter, squeals. The boy with dusty
hair from Chemistry class. He offers Rhea a shot glass of tequila.
She licks salt off her arm and throws it back. His tongue tastes sour
when he thrusts it down her throat. She wants it to keep reaching.
Later, when he passes out, it’s time to go. Driving to Deanne’s with
the windows down, Pat Benatar roaring on the radio–no promises,
no demands–is like flying. Could she fly over that ridge and keep
going? The car hits a pole, and she doesn’t understand that the loud
sound is the windshield breaking. She wants to stay with the
sensation of flying. But there. Deanne’s leg. Splintered bone pokes
through skin. Rhea is throwing up when the police arrive. Losing
her license, working to pay for the repairs, her back never quite the
same. Not enough to keep her from doing it again.
~~
New York City
Dedication
She’ll be a good dancer when she loses her baby fat. Rudy Perez
points her out with a long finger while the other dancers hold their
breath. This guest choreographer is not known for tact or kindness.
His words beg her to internalize the holy grail of thinness. The
ambition to perfection. Leg not high enough, back not arched
enough. She leaps higher, harder than she has ever tried before.
Her hamstring rips. Puddled tears form behind eyeballs. Only her
will keeps them from spilling out. If dance has taught Rhea
anything, it’s unspeakable resolve. She has chosen this. She will
suffer. She won’t wonder what has brought her here.
Fortification
If she opens the window and looks down on the buses gray soot
roofs, sees the tassels of winter hats, boots marching out from
under foreshortened torsos, Rhea might lose heart. She might crawl
back under unwashed sheets, ignore peeling paint, broken
floorboards, disconnected telephone, complaining radiator that
works one hour out of every eight. Instead, she dons the uniform,
tights and leotards, then winter outer layers, grabs an apple and
carrot—her breakfast, in fact, her food for the day—and heads
down graffitied stairs. Through ten blocks of oily New York slush.
Her body feels like her apartment. She finishes her cigarette before
she opens the studio door and reminds herself—it’s almost a
promise—that once the music starts and her hand finds the fit of
the ballet barre, it is all worth it.
Degradation
Rhea has a public self. This is the dancer in the green room, talking
with other performers about injuries, rehearsals, diet, or a
particularly tricky move that needs more practice. This is the body
moving gracefully from the wings onto the mylar, grateful for the
glaring stage lights so no audience members can be seen. This self
beams with strident daring. Off-stage, this self grips each word
tightly, afraid of saying something wrong. When she does eat, she
chews behind her hand. She breathes shallowly so no one can
smell her lunch. She squeezes her legs together on her period,
wishing all of her would stay inside. She studies conversations,
observes her own body language, and runs a non-stop critique that
only she can hear. Perfection is clearly unattainable, but she can
try. She does have a home self. A let-down-some guard self. But
even if you live with her, you will not really get to see it. There is
shame living in this human body, especially in the bathroom self. It
is there that she is most debasing with her malice. Really, there is
nowhere to be herself because she has no idea who that might be.
Isolation
She is an elevated being. The audience isn’t sure what they see, if
they can believe it. Dynamics of flight and force converging. Then
she’s gone. A whole crowd stunned to silence. She absorbs the
silence like deafening applause. Backstage, she is filled with their
humanity—thoughts, flesh, desires, needs. On the bus ride home,
she leaks the love of strangers, little by little, until she arrives
home empty. She tries to fill the hole with food, television, a too
long shower. The night wraps her in isolation. It feels as if she will
disappear completely, so she bangs her fist against the wall or
carves a slice of skin with a razor blade. She can’t remember when
she slept, when she ate. The pool of blood on the counter has the
shape of a tower on a hill and she imagines she is locked inside.
Termination
Rhea hasn’t stopped dancing. But she should. Twenty-nine years
old. Torn knees, pinched nerves, back aches, broken toes, strained
ligaments. A bug on its back. That’s what she feels like. She has
made it this far. But not far enough. One day, though, she practices
not dancing. She watches Regis, The View, Ellen, Oprah. She only
gets up for popcorn, still, always, aware of the calorie content of
half a cup, carbs and sodium, and would never add butter. The day
grows dark. She watches cop shows and soccer games and the
shopping network until prime time starts where the shows at least
have a beginning, middle, end. She never officially quits the
company. She stays on the couch and ignores the phone. At some
point—days, weeks—it stops ringing.
~~
Genoa City, WI
Exhibition
If she stands here, the lake—the one as big as an ocean—fills her
vision. It helps to block out the pain of moving back home with her
mother. After a few moments, it is no longer a question. She is
going in. It doesn’t matter that it is a brooding winter day or that
mist is the only cover from watchful eyes. The cold sand on her
feet as she kicks off clogs. The wind ruffling her pubic hair as she
drops her pants. Her shoulders and nipples bow to the chill. Only a
moment’s hesitation, then she runs forward, aware that the joggers,
the dog owners throwing balls, the lovers holding hands, the
Frisbee players, are all watching. Exhilaration at the slap of water
on thighs, a smack to her chest as the wave crashes. Her run turns
to a dive as soon as the shore angles away and she is not prepared
for the paralyzing cold, the immediate absence of air. Any
moment, one of the onlookers will save her, perhaps the real reason
why she has chosen such a public place after all.
Exploration
She does not want to do what the therapist has asked, even though
Dr. Lauren’s voice is there with her, echoing from the session
earlier that day. Hasn’t she written the definitions, wrenching out
small details for the therapist to analyze? Now Rhea lies alone on
the bed, on her back, no clothes. Say you love yourself. That was
the first direction. Fantasies are easier, of men who overpower,
who make her do things she says she doesn’t want to do, but
secretly she does. She wants pain, she wants to be vampired, to
have her body desired and taken, thrusts that she’s sure will break
her open. That’s what she’s come to need. Yet she feels the
therapist’s urging. I love myself. She tries it on, says it while she
touches nose and cheekbones. Ears and jaw line. She slips a drop
of oil onto her finger, runs it along the center of her body,
collarbone to pubic bone. I love myself. She flutters near her navel,
presses along her inner thigh, knee and calf, ankle indentations. I
love myself. This is the first time she has ever said those words.
Navigation
Driving home, Rhea thinks about her losses, multiplied by the
women that she knew. Feet crack-split on splintered floors, spines
over-arched, stomachs sucked, joints swollen. That one ordered
only salads, never the dessert. Another defied her father’s wishes.
Another gave up marriage. None of them had periods. Daily
dissection in front of studio mirrors. Exacting formation on stage
like geese flying south. Trade a hundred hours of rehearsal for a
moment of flight. Flight is what she misses most. She walks up the
(flight of) stairs and finds solace in a bath, filled so full she can
float and not touch the edge. She imagines she is in a river,
anchored with her hands on shallow rocks. If she let go, she would
slip down river to the sea. There, tumbled in the waves, would be
all the other women, settling for floating when they really want to
fly.