Seeds

Thali’s fingers picked absently at a freckle on her chin.  Her fingernails needed cutting and her skin was dry.  A breeze momentarily chilled the air and the tinkling of bells sounded as the door slammed shut behind a customer.  Thali looked up and then realized she hadn’t read a word since the last customer came in five minutes ago.  She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, sighed, and closed her book. 

                Café Belize was a terrible place to study.  If she ever managed to read anything at all amidst the clatter of cups and silverware and the conversations going on around her, she always forgot it as soon as she got home.  But she kept going there because the people-watching from the front windows was just so irresistible.  Once she had seen a young black man so distantly, aloofly beautiful that he was almost out of her line of sight before she caught some soft movement in his face and realized he was just a boy, seventeen at most.  Another time an old man tripped and fell on the pavement right in front of her eyes.  Thali was halfway out the door to help before she remembered her wallet was sitting right on the table in tantalizingly plain view.  There were eight dollars and two cents inside and not much more in her bank account, but the wallet itself was expensive; the smooth red leather practically smacked of prosperity.  In her moment of indecision two passersby stopped to help the old man up, and Thali returned to her seat, relieved, wallet and sense of charity both intact.

                Today, another failed day of reading, seemed to be a good day for heels.  In the half hour after Thali had ceased her attempts to study, she watched four women walk by wearing high heels.  The first two moved as awkwardly as she had at her eighth-grade graduation: clumping across the concrete almost straight-legged, as if tipped forward from the shins, a painful-looking gait.  One was a college-age Asian girl in faded jeans, the other a young Latina woman with hair pulled back to show three-inch hoop earrings.  The last woman, middle-aged and suit-clad, marched purposefully and easily on her black leather pumps, but her walk was as boring as if she’d been wearing flats.  It was the third woman who was most interesting.  Thirtysomething, dark-haired, well and simply dressed, she moved down the street on understatedly whimsical turquoise sandals, an unselfconscious model on a catwalk.  Thirty minutes of lost reading, Thali thought, but an interesting lesson gained in the wearing and potential effect of carefully chosen footwear.

Thali could have been one of the many attractive young women promenading the boulevard on sunny afternoons such as this.  It certainly would have validated her presence there, given her an “in” in an otherwise enigmatic and exclusive city.  Tall, blonde, yoga-fit, posture and grace effortless from years of training in dance, Thali’s looks were well-suited for her new surroundings.  She had tried the hair-makeup-and-push-up-bra thing once in college, at a friend’s urging, and though she had to admit she was stunning she had hated the way men responded to her changed appearance.  She kept her look low-key and comfort-based, and rarely deviated from this habit.  It would have surprised the many plainer females of the world to learn that Thali sometimes felt limited by her elegant form.  Her outsides could have gotten her a very different social life: parties, clubs.  But here she was at UCLA, far from home, developing a masters’ thesis on the meta-language of gender within traditional Latin American dance forms.  Some would have called it a waste. 

Thali clutched her keys in her left hand as she climbed the stairs back up to her apartment following her afternoon at Café Belize.  The front door of another apartment opened onto the stair landing, and as she passed through she heard someone begin to open that door.  Not wanting to meet anyone at the moment, she skipped up the remaining stairs as quickly as she could and let herself in to her apartment before her neighbor emerged.  She closed the door quietly behind her and lowered her shoulder slightly, releasing her bag from her body.  The bag came to the floor and so did Thali, crossing one foot over the other and lowering herself to a seated position, without touching the floor with her hands.  A small bump and she sat, starting to take off her shoes.

                As a dancer, Thali had found communion with the solid coolness of a hardwood floor.  She had gone to pains to seek out an apartment with floors like those in dance studios, smooth, not too dark in color, with a slightly worn finish that was pleasant to the touch of bare feet.  In her search she had refused even a new Berber carpet, though its nubbles would have been a comfort to sore soles after long days of dancing.  No, it was that particular hardwood she needed.  It rooted her body, was more comfortable to her than the best carpet.  Every time she returned to her apartment from an excursion into the non-dance or non-yoga world, Thali had a ritual.  She put down her things right at the door, removed her shoes, and lay down on the open space on her floor between the door and her bed.  She pulled her back into the solid wood and extended her limbs out long, bending and stretching and rolling as her body needed.  Against a good wood floor Thali’s body met not resistance but almost a cradling comfort; she and the floor understood each other.  It knew her curves and angles, the shape of her body, and she knew how to sit, lie, or move across it in such a way that its solidness became her support and lift. 

Most people who do not dance cannot understand the comfort of a good floor.  To Thali it was strength.  Into the floor went the roots of her body-being, and up from the floor her muscles grew, flowing into movement.  Some days Thali came back from the outside and her body just knew what to do.  Those times she could spend hours in the open space there by the bed, lost in the pureness of movement, the strong unity of a body that understood itself as a whole.  This was the beauty of her training, that it had taught her to execute any gesture as the work of one perfect instrument and not a series of parts roughly connected by a brain. 

Thali was a good dancer, a beautiful dancer, but she had chosen not to pursue a professional career.  Unlike most of the other girls in her dance classes, Thali had come late to dance, so it did not define her as it did them.  They had been dancing since age four; their very identity had grown up around the barre and backstage in countless dressing rooms.  They felt the call to perform.  Thali danced only for herself and the joy it brought her.  But despite her indifference to the stage, she was a captivating performer.  What other girls strove to convey, Thali understood naturally.  It was an odd paradox.  Thali in normal life withdrew into herself and became a secret, but Thali dancing did not do so.  From the moment she stepped into a place as a dancer, from that first instant of fluid movement, Thali’s soul emerged, emanating through her body like the glow of sunshine, shimmering, exposed for once for all to see.  Her classmates watched her with envy during class as she did her thing, radiating pure self, but oblivious to their gaze.  And when she was finished and her regular clothes back on, that radiance withdrew back into her once more, and it was just another young woman who left the studio, bag slung over the shoulder, walking one step at a time down the stairs and back out onto the busy street.

After her stretch and a shower Thali settled herself on her bed, pillows propped up against the wall.  She opened her laptop.

                hey everyone,

                theres a great event coming up in 2 weeks at the edge.  the wasteland trio

                is starting a monthlong residency there and their opening night is only $8 not including

     drinks.  ive seen them before and theyre awesome and the edge is a pretty cool venue

    too.  let me know if you want to come and ill get tix for us all.

                xxo jen

 Thali’s daily schedule was full: three hours of dance or yoga every day but Sunday, three hours of class Monday through Thursday.  What with sleeping and eating and commuting and all the other various necessary things that make up living, she had no time for other pursuits. (She might have had more time, actually, if she didn’t spend so many afternoons “studying” at Café Belize.)

She hadn’t had too hard a time adjusting to her classes or to graduate school.  The other masters’ students were friendly, but they seemed to spend their time in activities Thali didn’t understand.  They partied.  They drank.  They went to the beach and partied and drank there.  Thali was no prude but she really didn’t see the point.  Anyway, she didn’t have a lot of time to be doing all those things.  So she got to class on time and left when it was over, and if there was other socializing going on before she arrived or after she left the room, she missed it.  But she didn’t miss it.  Her life was full as it was.

There were two replies to Jen’s message, then a new message. 

                Thali darling!

                Back from Italy for three weeks and dying to come see you and your new place

                in LA.  I’ll plop myself down at your doorstep two weekends from now, si?  I’ll

                call you closer to then. 

                Ciao and love,

                Annis

Annis had been one of Thali’s best friends in high school.  Sophisticated, confident, energetic Annis had taken the lead in their group’s adventures and had always slightly awed Thali with her know-how and verve.  It had come as no surprise when she moved to Italy a year ago to “experience life” amidst unadulterated traditional cuisines and gorgeous Latin men.  Of course Thali would host her… but she didn’t really feel like having her life disrupted at present.  And Annis, of course, would undoubtedly drag her all over the city in her passion to “experience L.A.” at its fullest.  Reluctantly she opened a new window to compose her reply.  In the process she accidentally re-opened the message from Jen, then realized The Edge would be the perfect place to take Annis.  She hit “reply” and began typing out a message to Jen. 

Two weeks later, Thali opened the door to her apartment.  A dark-haired girl hurled herself at Thali and squeezed her in a tight hug.  Her handbag whacked Thali on the shoulder.

“THALI!  MY LOVE!”  She drew back and kissed Thali, who laughed in spite of herself. 

“Hi, Annis.”

“Heyyy sweetie, you look beautiful!  LA is good for you!”

Thali opened her mouth. 

Annis stepped into the apartment.  “Oh, just look at this place!  Oh it’s so cute!  How did you find it?  Aw look, you still have all your old posters!”

Thali followed Annis’s eyes.  “Oh, yeah, that’s right, you gave me that one.  Hey, uh, can I get you something to drink?  I don’t really have anything except water and lemonade, but you must be thirsty.”

“Oh, water’s fine for me.”  Annis put down her bags and threw herself on Thali’s bed, eyes roaming the room.  “This is a really beautiful space, Thali.  All these white walls and those huge windows.”

Thali returned with the water.  “Yeah, I love it, but the windows make it really hot in the summer and I don’t have AC.”

Annis drank.  Quenched, she put her glass down on the floor and sighed long and deeply.  She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again and smiled wide at Thali.  “So, love, what are we doing later?”

Nine o’clock that evening found Thali and Annis on the dance floor at The Edge, crunched in a crowd of bodies.  Annis was wearing dark tight jeans and a low-cut black top with thin straps.  She hadn’t managed to persuade Thali to wear anything so interesting, but she had talked her into leaving her hair down. 

“What a sexy crowd, darling,” raved Annis.  “I’m going to go find a boy to buy me a drink.”  She prowled off into the sea of bodies.

Thali felt slightly marooned.  She looked around.  Seeing only apparently couples and groups, she attempted to work her way to the back of the club, where low round tables were set surrounded by chairs.  Instead she ended up near the bar, where she could see Annis leaning in close to a dark-haired guy, both laughing and clutching drinks in their hands.  Rows of bottles gleamed behind the counter. Drumbeats pounded, slightly muffled by the wall of people that separated Thali from the stage.  The beat was just barely faster than Thali’s heartbeat and the two rhythms clashed in her chest and eardrums.  A guy was approaching her, eyes clearly alight with conquest.  Thali whipped around and plunged back into the crowd.

Sideways, around, other way, frontways, assailed by the music, she threaded through the dancing bodies and sank into a chair at last.  Scanning what she’d just left, she could make out Annis’s head and someone else’s close together and shaking to the beat.  She couldn’t tell if it was the same guy. 

The tables were mostly empty, everyone on the dance floor.  Some seats against the wall were filled by couples clearly too busy to notice their surroundings.  A few tables away from Thali sat another couple, that is, a guy and a girl, but they weren’t touching.  The guy sat straight up in his seat, chest and bicep muscles visible in his sleeveless shirt.  His faded jeans looked fitted as well.  Thali’s eyes flicked to the girl and then she noticed the two were smiling at her and waving with an exaggerated motion that showed they’d been trying to get her attention for a while.  She went over.

They were two of her classmates from the dance program.  Sune, the guy, had grown up in Copenhagen and had studied dance there.  The girl, Ren, slouched low in her chair, observing the scene.

“Hey, Thali.”  Sune greeted her, smiling, and pulled out a chair.  Ren smiled and said nothing.  “Are you going to sit with us and be bored too?  There’s nobody here interesting enough for me, and Ren stayed up late last night and now she thinks she’s getting sick.”  Ren sniffed.

“Hey, guys,” said Thali.  “Sorry you don’t feel good, Ren.” 

“Issok,” croaked Ren.  “I just nee’ some sleep.  Are you here by yourself?”

“No, I brought my friend Annis.  She’s visiting for the weekend.  She’s over there dancing with some guy.”

“Lucky her,” said Sune.

An hour and a half later Annis made her way over to their table, leading a guy by the hand.  She stopped in front of Thali and clutched the guy’s arm.  She leaned her head on his shoulder.  He grinned.

“Hey Thali, this is Josh.  His girlfriend left with another guy and they took his car so, now he doesn’t know where he’s going to go.”

Thali had a vision of Josh and Annis curled up together in an alcoholic haze in her bed.  She spoke firmly.  “Annis, we’re going to go home now.”  She stood up.  “Josh, I’ll give you a ride to wherever you live.”

Sune stood up.  “I think we’ll be going too,” he said.  “Ren should be sleeping and I’m just tired too.  Come on, Ren, I’ll drop you off.” 

“Was really nice getting to know you, Thali,” said Ren.  “Give me a call next week and we’ll hang out.”  She cleared her throat.  “When I feel better.  I’ll take you to that sandwich place I told you about.”

“Bye, sweetie,” said Sune, putting his arms around her and kissing her cheek.  “I’ll see you in class next week.”

“Come on, Annis and Josh.”  They had collapsed into the seats vacated by Sune and Ren.  “Let’s go.”  Thali led them out to the car.

Thali and Annis spent the next couple of days shopping, eating, and going to clubs and shows.  Annis had dug up on the internet a variety of places and attractions Thali had never heard of in her time in LA, but the rapid-fire pace of their excursions made her long for the tame solitude of her usual life.  Finally, it was Sunday afternoon and Thali was driving Annis to the airport.

“God, Thali!” exhaled Annis, when they were within minutes of LAX.  “You’re so lucky to live in LA.  There’s so much to do here.  It’s so exciting!  I don’t know how you can ever get any work done.”

Thali kept her hands on the wheel and looked straight ahead.  “Frankly, Annis, I spend most of my time studying and dancing and doing yoga.  This weekend was definitely not my normal schedule.”

“But there’s so much going on!  How can you not go out and explore everything you can?”

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just not into going out and doing all those things,” Thali replied.  “It’s just… not my thing.”

“So your thing is staying at home and going to dance classes?”

“Looks like it.”

“Hon,” said Annis, “I hope you have friends in LA who will take you out.  I really don’t think you should just sit around like you used to, when there’s all this great stuff to do in LA.”

“I do see LA, I’m just not really into clubbing and shopping and all that stuff.”

They had arrived at the terminal. 

“All right, sweetie, you can just drop me off.”  Annis unbuckled herself and leaned over to kiss Thali’s cheek.  “Muah.  Thanks so much.  I had a fabulous time.”  She gathered her bags and opened the car door.  “Love you, babe!”

                Thali drove slowly back to her apartment.  The car felt quiet without Annis gabbling beside her, but it was a welcome silence.  She just wanted to get home and recover from Annis’s visit.  After a nap, she could clean her apartment and then get started on all the work she hadn’t done over the weekend.  She parked the car and climbed the steps of her building.  As she approached the landing the other apartment’s door opened and a guy stepped out.  Turning around to lock the door, he saw Thali. 

                “Hey,” he said in a friendly way.  “How’s it going?”

                “Hi,” Thali replied.  She tried to smile but was suddenly acutely aware of her tiredness and how much she longed for her bed. 

                “I don’t think we’ve met.”  He stuck out his hand.  “I’m Noah.”  He had a nice smile.

                “Hi, I’m Thali.”  She really wanted to get back to her apartment but she didn’t see how she could say so without being rude.

                “Well, I’ve really gotta run,” said Noah.  He grimaced.  “Dentist appointment.  But hey—I’ll see you around, okay?”

                “Yeah, sure,” replied Thali, relieved.  “Hey—good luck at the dentist’s.” 

                “Thanks!”  He took off down the steps, freeing Thali to take shelter once again in her quiet, peaceful, solitary apartment.

The next few weeks were the last of the quarter, filled with assignments and projects.  Since Thali kept up so well with her classes, the added work didn’t bother her, but she did find she had considerably less free time than usual.  By the end of the last week she was having a very difficult time concentrating and was feeling a little restless.  She would open her books or sit down at her computer and her mind would start wandering almost right away.  It kept going back to Annis’s visit, and she found herself almost wishing Annis were here again to force her out of her apartment.  She thought about driving out to some of the places she’d gone with Annis, but just leaving her work and going out seemed like such a waste of time.  Then she remembered that Ren had given her her phone number.  She fished out the slip of paper and dialed the number.

 “Hi, Ren?  It’s Thali… from class?”

“Hey Thali!  I haven’t talked to you in so long!  You always take off right after class!  Hang on a sec though, I’m on the other line with Sune.  I’ll just tell him it’s you and be right back.  Hang on.”

Thali waited.

“Okay sorry I’m back!  Sorry that took so long.  I can never get Sune off the phone right away.  He’s such a talker.  So, what’s up? 

“I don’t know.  I think I’m just feeling kind of blah.”

“Oh, I know.  Me too.  That’s why Sune called me tonight.  We were just talking about how we’re both sick and dying for a study break.  Hey!  Have you had dinner yet?  Want to go get something?  I’ll call Sune and invite him too.”

Thali looked at her books and decided she could spend one evening with other people instead of them.  “Yeah, sure, that sounds great.  I think I really need to get away from my desk for a while.”

“Great!  Let me call Sune and then we’ll come pick you up, sounds okay?  Where do you live?”

It turned out that Sune and Ren had only met at the beginning of the fall quarter; Thali was amazed that people could get to be such good friends in such a short time.  But as Spring Break passed and they moved into spring quarter, she found herself spending more and more time with them.  They were friendly with the rest of their classmates, so as time went on Thali got to know most of them better too.  To her surprise they weren’t the complete party fiends she had thought they were at first.  True, they partied and drank, but it was just their way of being social.  In fact, some of the events they went to or hosted were pretty interesting. and the benefits of being in an arts program began to be clear to Thali.  At a party at Sune’s place, he discovered Thali’s height made them perfect dancing partners, and he made her promise to come out salsa dancing with him at least once a month.  Near the end of the same party, Thali flopped onto a couch next to Jen, who turned out to be a musician and who spent an hour raving to Thali about the Wasteland Trio’s original guitar timbres, complex harmonies, and history of rhythmic experimentation.  When they returned to The Edge again, during the last night of the trio’s residency, Thali was better able to appreciate their sound.  Ren’s avowed passion for the intricacies of group movement eventually prompted Thali to sign up for a workshop in choreography for the spring quarter.  Her classmates’ excitement about all the arts and cultures surrounding them made the third quarter the liveliest of Thali’s first year.

Thali locked her apartment door and bounced down the stairs.  The morning’s dance class had gone especially well.  Actually, dance had taken on a whole new level of meaning lately, ever since she had begun choreographing her own piece in workshop.  The piece was autobiographical, and working out its fine points was helping her think through what was important in her own life.  She also loved talking to and working with the others who would be dancing in her piece; she hadn’t expected that each person’s individual style of movement would lend so much to the overall effect, but they did, and her piece was better for it. 

When she reached the stair landing her neighbor was standing in front of his door sorting through his mail.  A smile spread over his face at her cheerfulness. 

“Hey, you look like you’re having a great day.”

Thali smiled back but continued down the stairs.  “I am!  I’ve gotta run though—have a wonderful afternoon!”

             That evening, after she returned home from choreo workshop, she sat down with her laptop.  The teacher had announced in class that all choreographers presenting their work at the end-of-quarter showcase should write a short description of their piece for inclusion in the program. 

                “Write about what the piece means to you, or explain where you got your inspiration.  Or, if your piece is more self-explanatory”—here she cast a pointed glance at a guy whose piece was rather ostentatiously all about sex—“then you could just use the space to thank your dancers.”

                Thali spent twenty minutes trying and failing to articulate the meaning of her piece.  In frustration, she put her laptop down and went into the kitchen to make some dinner.  Mid-cook, the words suddenly hit her and she slapped the bowl she was holding down onto the counter and ran into the other room to write it down.

                At eight p.m. of the last Friday before finals, a crowd of dance students and their friends sat silently in the darkened studio theater, awaiting the first piece in the choreo workshop’s spring showcase.  Suddenly a spotlight lit the stage.  Dancers crept out from the wings. 

                Thali waited backstage, a tiny bit nervous, but mostly excited about finally getting to share her work with her classmates.  Everyone in her dance theory classes was there, as well as other arts students like musician Jen.  Most of them had never seen her dance and had been affectionately ribbing her about it for weeks.  Even from backstage, she could sense their support, and she hoped their invisible encouragement would infuse her movements with extra power. 

                Soon it was her turn to go on.  In the darkness she made her way to center stage and positioned herself.  She stood motionless, glance directed upward toward the ceiling.  The spotlight beamed on.

It was Monday morning, and Thali was sitting at the table in her apartment, enjoying the bright sunshine from the window.  She opened her laptop and pointed her browser to the Daily Bruin. 

                STUDENT CHOREOGRAPHERS CAPTIVATE AUDIENCE

                By Noah Bridges

                Daily Bruin Contributor

                nbridges@media.ucla.edu

She scrolled down until she found her name.

            One of the night’s best works was performed right before intermission, when first-year

World Arts and Cultures graduate student Thali Rivers and undergraduate dance

students Corey Radcliffe, Norah White and Ashanti Thomas presented Rivers’s piece,

“Universe.”  The piece began with a stunning solo by Rivers, an accomplished dancer. 

The other dancers entered one by one and were seamlessly integrated into Rivers’s

movements, until all four were on stage, each moving slightly differently but together

forming a complexly lovely whole.  According to the program notes for “Universe”:

“The outside dancers’ movements echo those of the solo figure, at first subtly.  By the

point of contact, what begins in one dancer has been replicated and expanded upon in

the body of all of the others, until it is clear that there is no beauty in one that cannot be

found in all.”  This lies at the heart of what makes Rivers’s piece so compelling.

                Satisfied by the review, Thali went outside and stood at the front of the building, looking out.  Mornings in LA were dulled by the smog that always hung over the city, but even so she could sense a new heaviness to the air not caused by pollution, the beginning of a season of real heat, not just the warm balminess of past months.  The trees across the street were in full bloom and the music of the morning was the sound of cars rushing past on the boulevard, a hundred strangers behind a hundred steering wheels heading away to offices across the city.    So… this was nine months in the City of Angels.  Two hundred seventy days, a little less, since she moved to this place and began a new phase of her living.  Three months ago she had become a choreographer.  And three nights ago she became a performer.  This was what this time had brought her, and more.

                A movement out of the corner of her eye led Thali’s glance down the street, where she saw her neighbor coming toward the building, with his dog, the two of them stopping every foot or so as the dog sniffed at clumps of grass and cracks in the sidewalk.  Thali watched them for a minute.  Then, buoyed by the morning and the positive review, she lifted a hand to wave.  Seeing her, he waved back, and urged the dog along toward her.  Thali turned the full brightness of her smile onto them both. 

                He returned her smile easily.  “It’s quite a morning, isn’t it?”

                “This is the first time since I moved here that I’ve come out in the morning and seen what it’s like,” she replied.  “I’d forgotten how nice mornings always are no matter where you go.”

                The dog had been wandering on and was now straining at the leash.  “Zoey, sit.  Sit, Zoey.”  For a minute he was occupied with keeping her from running off while they talked.  Now he turned to Thali.  “You’re a dancer, aren’t you?”

                She wondered how he could know that.  “I am,” she nodded. “I’m in the masters’ program in dance.  At UCLA.”

                “I know,” he replied.  “I saw you at the choreo show on Friday.”  He was not looking at her now, but down at Zoey, who was still trying to break free from the leash.  “Actually,” he continued, “I write for the Daily Bruin, and they asked me to review the performance.”  Zoey sat.  He straightened up then and looked at Thali, who turned her face to his. 

                “I read your review,” she said, and paused.  The first tiny curve of a smile came hopefully to his lips.  She continued: “Thank you.”

                Noah gave a sigh and that first timorous movement about his mouth grew and widened into a full-blown grin. 

                “It was beautiful,” they both said. 

                Thali’s eyes caught his.  Brown eyes, their color made richer by the brilliance of the early summer sunshine.  They half-laughed awkwardly and had to look away.  But in that brief moment of contact Thali thought she saw the reflection of some emotion she had not felt in a long time.  Was it his heart she was seeing, or her own?  Could it be both?

                 Zoey wiggled on her leash, and barked.