The Ballet Dancer

This happened 30 years ago. I was hanging out at P.'s place in Pasig with one of the Spirit Questors when P.'s phone rang, and she answered it. A hushed conversation followed, which my student and I politely and deliberately chose not to eavesdrop on. After P. put down the receiver, however, she asked me whether I would mind visiting one of her friends, who was having a panic attack, in her neighborhood. Of course I was happy to oblige.

My student and I drove to a huge mansion. It was 10:00 PM. All of the lights were off except from behind some windows on the ground floor. P. assured me, though, that L.--her friend--would be waiting up for us, and so I rang the bell at the gate. Five minutes later a woman emerged from the shadows. I asked for M., and I said that P. sent me to see her. The woman sized me up, thinking, "Here is one of my Mom's weird friends again, and I wonder how much he will hit her for." She grudgingly let us in and showed us the way to L.'s bedroom on the ground floor. She did not bother to go inside with us and introduce us.

L.'s bedroom was enormous, approximately half the size of my house. She had her own living and dining room sets. Her walls were lined with shelves, most of which were filled with memorabilia. She said that she was having trouble sleeping and that she was seeing apparitions. She had several altars around, each one of them with lit candles. I remember, in particular, an altar to Saint Therese Lisieux. I suspected that L. had been on medication to help her sleep and that her family was now slowly getting her off it to save money. My student and I stayed long enough only to give her exercises to calm her down. There was nothing else that we could do, and we did not want to overstay.

Aside from the altar of Saint Therese Lisieux there are two other items in that room that I distinctly remember despite the passage of 30 years. One was a framed, fading, black-and-white photograph of L. during her younger years, in ballet costume. It was then that I recognized her as one of six dancers of the ballet group Y. whom I watched in rehearsal when I was in college. Another friend of mine, Luis Layag, took me along to the rehearsal. Later in the day, after the dancers had gone, Luis and a choreographer discussed casting for a major number. They conceded between themselves not to cast L. because she was too languid and didn't have "it." It is possible that L.'s family was never fond of ballet and that, since she did not become a star, they did not give her the recognition and affirmation that every artist needs. She was, in effect, extremely lonely and unwanted.

The third thing I remember is that I was impressed that L. wore her favorite jewelry even when she was at home, something that I myself do to this day. I was particularly attracted to a ruby cabochon ring on her left ring finger. The cabochon was surrounded with lush, fine, gold swirls, like Danish pastry. In the far future I would ask two plateros to create the same with two of my stones, but they both did not turn out the way I wanted them to.

L. is at least ten years older than I, which would place her in her mid-70s at this time, if she is still alive. I hope that she is happy, safe, and well.

So how did I make this mental leap to that night, 30 years ago, on this Tuesday night?

Angelique did groceries after school and brought home, among other things, a bag of strawberry-flavored Dewberry cookies. Each cookie has a circle of glazed, red, strawberry-flavored jam in the center, powdered with sugar crystals. The circle is surrounded with the cookie itself, molded in swirl shapes. Reminding me of L.'s ruby cabochon ring.

Be careful of what you snack on. In this case I was brought back three decades to recall my meeting with a panic-stricken ballerina who never achieved stardom, and a ring setting that no jeweler has ever succeeded in reproducing for me.