The irony, of course, is that Saul would have been appalled to learn that Simon is dancing ballet. But Simon is convinced that if he were alive and came to watch, his father would see how hard it really is. It took six weeks to figure out how to point his feet, even longer to grasp the concept of turnout. By the end of the summer, though, his body has stopped hurting so much, and he’s earned a larger dividend of Gali’s attention. He likes the rhythm of the studio, likes having somewhere to go. In fleeting moments, it feels to him like home, or like a home, as it does to so many of them: Tommy, seventeen and breathtaking, a former student at the Royal Ballet in London; Missourian Beau, able to pirouette eight times in a row; and Eduardo and Fauzi, twins from Venezuela, who hitchhiked their way north on a soybean truck.
These four are all in Academy’s company, Corps. In most ballet companies, male dancers act as bland fairy-tale princes or offer furniture-like support – but Gali’s choreography is modern and acrobatic, and seven of Corps’s twelve members are men. Among them is Robert, the man Simon saw while retching and with whom he hasn’t made eye contact since. Not that Robert seems to have noticed: before class, the other men stretch together, but he warms up alone by the window.
‘Snob,’ drawls Beau.
Late August: a cold front has brought the Sunset’s fog to the Castro, and Simon wears a sweatshirt over his white tee and black tights. He rolls his right ankle, wincing as it cracks. ‘What’s his deal?’
‘Is he a fag, you mean?’ asks Tommy, pounding his fists up and down both thighs.
‘That’s the million-dollar question,’ purrs Beau. ‘Would that I knew.’
Robert does not stand out only because he is solitary. His leaps are miles higher than anyone else’s, his turns matched only by Beau’s (‘Cocksucker,’ mutters Beau, when Robert spins eight times to his six) – and, of course, he is black. But Robert is not only a black man in the white Castro. He is a black ballet dancer, even rarer.
Simon stays after class to watch him rehearse Birth of Man, Gali’s newest creation. Five men use their bodies to create a tube: their bent knees touch and their backs curve, arms interlocked above their heads. Robert is Man. He threads through the tube, guided by Beau, the Midwife. At the end of the piece, Robert emerges from the front of the tube and dances a tremulous solo, nude except for a dark brown thong.
Corps performs in a black box theater at Fort Mason, a group of renovated military buildings on the San Francisco Bay. When they begin to rehearse there, Simon comes to assist, taking notes for Gali or taping marks on the stage. One afternoon, he wanders outside to see Robert smoking on the dock. Robert hears Simon behind him, turns, and nods affably enough. It isn’t exactly an invitation, but Simon finds himself walking to the edge of the dock and sitting down.
‘Smoke?’ asks Robert, offering Simon the pack.
‘Sure.’ Simon is surprised; Robert has a reputation for being a health nut. ‘Thanks.’
Seagulls wheel overhead, calling; the smell of the water, brackish and salty, fills Simon’s nose. He clears his throat. ‘You looked great in there.’
Robert shakes his head. ‘Those tours are really giving me trouble.’
‘The tour jetés?’ asks Simon, relieved that he has managed to remember this piece of terminology. ‘They seemed awesome to me.’
Robert smiles. ‘You’re going easy on me.’
‘I’m not. It’s true.’
Immediately, he wishes he hadn’t said it. He sounds cloying, like some dumb fan.
‘Okay.’ Robert’s eyes gleam. ‘What’s one thing I can do better?’
Simon is desperate to come up with something – it would be a kind of flirtation – but to him, Robert’s dancing is flawless. Instead, he says, ‘You could be friendlier.’
Robert frowns. ‘You don’t think I’m friendly.’
‘Not really, no. You warm up on your own. You’ve never said anything to me. Though I guess,’ Simon adds, ‘I’ve never said anything to you.’
‘That’s fair,’ says Robert. They sit in companionable silence. Freestanding wood piers rise from the water like tree trunks. Every so often, a bird lands on one, screeches dictatorially, and departs with a thick flapping noise. Simon is watching this happen when Robert turns, dips his head, and kisses him on the mouth.
Simon is stunned. He keeps very still, as if Robert might otherwise fly away like the gull. Robert’s lips are deliciously full; he tastes of sweat and smoke and very slightly of salt. Simon closes his eyes. If the dock were not beneath him, he would swoon straight into the water. When Robert pulls back, Simon leans forward, as if to find him again, and nearly loses his balance. Robert puts a hand on Simon’s shoulder to steady him, laughing.
‘I didn’t know . . .’ says Simon, shaking his head. ‘I didn’t know you – liked me.’
He had been about to say liked guys. Robert shrugs, but not flippantly; he is thinking, for his eyes are distant but focused, they are somewhere in the middle of the bay. Then they return to Simon.
‘Neither did I,’ he says.
5.
Simon rides the train home that evening. Thinking about Robert’s mouth makes him so turned on that all he can think about is getting through the door, getting his hands on himself, pumping while he calls up the unbelievable potency of that kiss. It isn’t until he’s halfway down the block that he sees the cop car parked outside his apartment.
A policeman leans against the hood. He’s rangy, a redhead, and looks barely older than Simon. ‘Simon Gold?’
‘Yeah,’ says Simon, slowing.
The cop opens the back door of the car and bows with a flourish. ‘After you.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Answers at the station.’
Simon wants to ask more, but he is afraid of giving the cop new information – if he doesn’t know Simon is working at Purp underage, Simon won’t be the one to tell him – and he can barely swallow: something fist sized and firm, like a fig, is stuck in his throat. The backseat is made of hard, black plastic. Up front, the redhead turns around, looks beadily at Simon, and shoves the soundproof barrier shut. When they pull up in front of the Mission Street station, Simon follows him indoors, then through a maze of rooms and uniformed men. They emerge in a small interview room with a plastic table and two chairs.
‘Sit,’ says the cop.
On the table is a scuffed black phone. The cop takes a crumpled piece of paper from his shirt pocket and jabs at the buttons with one hand. Then he holds the receiver out to Simon, who looks at the phone with apprehension.
‘What are you, thick?’ asks the cop.
‘Screw you,’ mutters Simon.
‘What’d you say?’
The man shoves him by the shoulders. Simon’s chair skids back, and he scrambles for his footing. When he scoots back to the table and reaches for the receiver, his left shoulder throbs.
‘Hello?’
‘Simon.’
Who else would it be? Simon could kick himself for being so stupid. Immediately, the cop seems to disappear, and so does the pain in his shoulder.
‘Ma,’ he says.
It is terrible: Gertie is crying the way she did at Saul’s service, guttural and heavy like the sobs are something in her stomach she can physically expel.
‘How could you?’ she asks. ‘How could you do it?’
He winces. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry. Then I expect you’ll be on your way home.’
There is a bitterness in her voice that he has heard before but which has never been directed at him. His first memory: lying on his mother’s lap at two as she ran her hands through his curls. Like an angel, she clucked. Like a cherub. Yes, he left them – all of them – but he left her most of all.
And yet.