Jenny Hallie Watson
I remember Jenny well even though she died when I was 14. She was 18 and a senior and I was in 8th grade. I would see her in the halls chatting with friends when my class walked to and from the cafeteria, but I truly knew her through our ballet class after school Mondays and Wednesdays. She was an exceptional dancer. One of, if not the best, principal dancers our school had. She culminated her ballet career at Saint Mary’s Hall by playing the part of Odile, the evil yet enchanting black swan. The younger ballerinas, myself included, would watch her from the wings during rehearsals for Swan Lake, pushing our white pancake tutus down so we could all fit behind the curtain. Her movements were effortless. She could leap higher than and execute the exhausting thirty-two fouettes perfectly. What most of the audience couldn’t see, however, were the details of her face. It was never contorted in a face of concentration or determination, she was always composed-giving a slight smile towards her audience. Everyone’s eyes were on her and you could sense she relished the attention. At 14, I felt uncomfortable all the time. My disproportionate body had taken the ease and flexibility I once exhibited on stage. I remember in the fall I was fitted for a delicate costume intended for the spring performance of Swan Lake. It was fitted in such a way that when I danced it almost skimmed the floor. Several months later when I went to put it on, the fragility of the costume had vanished. Instead of almost touching the floor, the hem had migrated several inches upwards as the result of a growth spurt. My body was betraying me. The older dancers always looked perfectly put together and had grown into their bodies. At 14 you immediately look up to anyone several years older than you are. Jenny exemplified the cool “older” girl persona. She knew all the ballerina tricks like shutting a door on a new pair of pointe shoes helps to break them in quicker. I can still see her now, sprawled out on the dressing room floor with a cigarette lighter burning the edges of her pointe shoe ribbons so they wouldn’t fray or unravel. She was willful, outspoken, and rebellious. I was insecure, shy and eager to please. My ballerina friends and I were not only in awe of her, but also intimidated by her. We made sure to stay out of her way and always complimented her in unison after a dance when she ran offstage towards us in the wings. She would acknowledge our compliments with nod and smile in our direction, her chest rapidly moving in and out as she tried to catch her breath before she would have to dash back into the light. Everyone always clapped the loudest for her. All of the ballerinas, regardless of age, got into costume in one large dressing room. You had to arrive early to stake out a space in front of the large lighted mirror so you could apply your “ballerina face” and have a friend pull back your hair into a small bun and stick in a dozen or more bobby pins to ensure it stayed up for the night. One night, I was able to put my face on right beside her. I watched her create the sculpted artificial face that look ridiculous, grotesque even, off stage; but as soon as the bright white lights hit her on stage, she was magically transformed into a swan. She glued thick, wing like lashes on her eyelids and drew dark lines around her eyes; it looked like she pained them with watercolor, and caked on layer upon layer of white powder to emphasis the blackness of the eyes and tutu. Bright red lips were another requirement in creating the “ballerina face”. She even penciled in her eyebrows, extending them out almost to her hairline. The thick application of makeup required by ballerinas is meant to accentuate your features onstage; clearly Jenny wanted her eyes to be the most prominent. When the bright lights hit her onstage she was the alluring and dark Odile. Jenny created her own interpretation of the character, complimenting the black tutu and feather headpiece by dying her pink pointe shows black. She originally wanted them to be red, but had to settle with a more traditional black. Jenny didn’t die as the result of reckless driving or any other reason that can be easily explained or accepted. She died during a school trip to a soccer tournament. According to her best friend and roommate on the trip, she talked on the phone with her boyfriend for an hour, turned off the light, and went to sleep. The next morning when her roommate awoke at 6 AM for practice she couldn’t wake Jenny up. That afternoon my school called all the students to alert them of her death, but no one was told how she died. Rumors ran rampant. The reasons I heard most often were either an asthma attack or drugs. A few weeks later, it was widely accepted that the latter had been the major contributing factor in her death. Jenny was always described as wild and fun-loving. I never found out for sure what killed Jenny. Six years later, as her face is becoming more and more fuzzy, her death and its aftermath sticks out in my mind more than her life. That’s not how it should be. One should not be defined by the way she dies, but that is how Jenny is imbedded in my brain. They shuttled all the ballet students in our school uniforms to her funeral in a large yellow school bus. No one spoke really. What could we talk about? We couldn’t tell funny stories and laugh to ease the tension, that would be inappropriate, and passing the time remising about our own memories with Jenny didn’t feel right to any of us either. We arrived and were quickly exited the bus, fiddling with our white pleated skirts that had become wrinkled sitting in the bus in an attempt to look more presentable. This was the first funeral I had ever been to and I honestly did not know what to expect other than what I had seen in movies. The people inside were congregating in the aisle in between the pews all the way to the front of the church. I could hear crying and low murmurs, but could not figure out where the people were heading until I was almost halfway down the aisle and I caught a glimpse of an open coffin. Immediately I was frightened. I wanted to turn around and find a seat but with the number of people waiting behind me I didn’t want to draw any attention. My friends alongside me were in the same state of shock. As we shuffled closer and closer, there was only an elderly woman between myself and the coffin. She was distraught and aggressively wiping away tears with a crumpled tissue. I held my breath waiting for what she would do next. She took the step up that led to Jenny and began talking to her inaudibly. She then bent down towards the coffin until her head was inside and not in view. After a few moments, her head emerged and she stepped away from the coffin and made her way to a seat. I felt a slight nudge in the small of my back that signified it was my turn. I grabbed the hand of my friend and took the step upwards. The initial sight of Jenny was physically jolting. We didn’t know what to do so we just stared at her. The person in the coffin didn’t even look like Jenny. Her hair was tightly pulled back to reveal a tense face and tight lips. She didn’t look peaceful. The way her face was done up made her look garish and pale except for a circular burst of too pink blush across her cheeks. This wasn’t Jenny. Jenny never made that face when she was alive. I wanted to run away. I wished that my mother was there to explain why she looked the way she did. I don’t remember the details of the rest of the service except her family members each spoke for a few minutes about the kind of person Jenny was. The only other detail of that day I can vividly recall is when I told my mother I looked at Jenny she said “ No one should see something like that”. At 20, it is strange to think that I have outlived her and experienced things she was never able to. I didn’t understand the why or how of her death at 14 and I still can’t rationalize it now. 18 is when your life is just beginning. I wish I had closed my eyes. I wish I had caused a scene and walked away to find a seat. Everyone remembers Jenny as the sparkling and fun ballerina that died tragically. For me, her face after all that energy had seeped out is what finds its way into my thoughts whenever her name is mentioned in casual conversation. That mental picture makes me scrunch up my face and close my eyes. With my eyes closed, I can see her silhouette in the dark wings and hear the applause. She’s just finished the thirty-two fouettes perfectly. Her chest is moving up and down as she’s trying to catch her breath before the next dance.
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