A Dancer's Final Bow

By Louise Salisbury

“A Dancer’s Final Bow” is a collection of autobiographical sketches based on her childhood in Colorado, her experience as a single mother, and her life as a dancer. “Chokecherries” evokes an early life spent in Cheyenne Canyon surrounded by Native American love. “The Cherry Coke” commemorates her first romance in the fifth grade. “Green” calls on memories of a nearly fatal sledding accident when she was thirteen. “The Boarders” reflects on her eleven-year stint as a host mother for foreign exchange students. “A Dancer’s Final Bow” describes a horrific accident which ended her dancing career. “The Breakdown” chronicles the aftermath of her dance career ending. Part II of the book contains portraits of eighteen women including: “The Idol,” her childhood babysitter, “The Chameleon,” a fellow dancer, “The Bitch,” a childhood frenemy, “The Coyote,” a Native American river runner, “The Artist,” a costume artist with whom the author worked, “The Old-Fashioned Girl,” a girl out of step with her times, “The Slut,” an infamous girl, “The Infanta,” the dying daughter of a friend, and “The Madonna,” a mother with sadomasochistic overtones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635681079

Book preview

Yesterday

Chokecherries

The Blue Dress

Manners

The Christmas Present

The Map

The Cherry Coke

Green

Shaft

Maternity

The Boarders

The Body

The Gift

A Dancer’s Final Bow

The Breakdown

The Bugle Boy

Death Watch

Chokecherries

If I went back, it wouldn’t be for another glimpse of familiar faces, kind, well­meaning, unrecognizing, oblivious. It would be to ferret out the chokecherry, bitter, black, insistent, suspended in clusters, but in no other way resembling the sweet, juicy, practical grape. I would have to hunt through Cheyenne Canyon, avoiding (yet tempted to plunge into the middle of) the wayward beds of poison ivy, to find the curving green leaves receding from civilization, headed the way of the buffalo, the nomad, the moccasined. I would have to strip a handful of the stone-centered berries, to eat them in remembrance, leaving a tattooed hand and lips. I would stand alum­ mouthed in disbelief at the impact.

To my mother, I am indebted. She had the patience, the stamina, to turn the ink-like juice into jelly. Buckets of the frugal fruit were required for a pint or two of jelly. No pectin but cups of sugar were necessary to mediate the bitter.

We children, with Daddy along to tell us what was or wasn’t poison ivy, foraged through the brush following the stream upward, picking pails full of Rocky Mountain cherries. I had moccasins and pemmican on my mind, and tried not to rustle a leaf or snap a twig. I was certain a deer lived here, was certain at another time I did. I did not want to disturb the holy woods, but nonetheless, we took the harvest like sorry thieves, silently without blandishment.

At home, my mother ripped a sheet, the sound tearing the air worse than the fabric. The washed, boiled berries were put into it like fresh meat and squeezed, but the rock hard pits didn’t yield much. Mother left the bag hanging in the middle of the kitchen, suspended from a wooden clothes rack, as if to eke a confession out of it drip by drip. We walked around it. The white sheet turned a vivid war-paint red, drying to purple later.

The ultimate jelly was savory, rare, speaking chokecherry like a native, telling the moccasined to get ready for what was to come.

Telling them not to give up. Telling them to remember what chokecherry meant. That is why I would have to go back, to see if the canyon is still talking like that, or if it was just my imagination.

The Blue Dress

The dress was cerulean that favored blue, deep-set and solemn. It had been turned into a little girl’s dress by a babysitter’s fondness. An old German given to baby talk. Her’s sure going to look pretty in her new blue dress, her is.

The skirt lay in state on the walnut table. The tissue paper pattern was pinned on top like a mysterious map to the seamstress’ destination. The scalloped edge made it slow going for Mrs. Hill and her straight pins.

Careful. Careful in the cutting. The elegant velvet wanted to wander from the scissors’ sharp edge. Pinking shears were no help at all when it came to velvet. Mrs. Hill said.

The blue dress was made of remnants from her daughter’s trio dresses. The trio sang for the boys at Fort Carson wearing bright red lipstick, big smiles, and high heels. Close harmonies like the McGuire sisters kept the trio practicing, and sets of three matching dresses kept Mrs. Hill sewing. But this dress was different, not an obligation but a thrifty whim. Something for the youngest, her little Loweezy, a Sunday best.

There wasn’t enough blue velvet so the bodice had to wait. Crab apple butter was put up. Vegetables from the garden progressed from weeded rows, to bushel baskets, to the back porch, to a boiling water bath, only to end up in rows again, this time on shelves in the cellar. Lodged in sparkling jars with screw top lids were red tomatoes and green tomato preserves, yellow corn and summer squash, Royal Anne cherries and dark purple plums. The purple having been coaxed back toward blue. The blue of the waiting bodice, the idle velvet afterthought.

Then a troop of soldiers was about to be shipped overseas and some new scraps of taffeta showed up. A silvery sheen nestled among cobalt prisms. A match was made. The project Mrs. Hill feared had been scrapped was resumed.

Puffed sleeves appeared, and a gathered skirt with a sash. Mrs. Hill stood little Loweezy on a chair and pinned up the hem.

Then it was ready for buttons. An event in itself, requiring money to be spent. They took a trip to Penney’s after a penny went into the parking meter. They walked past the voluminous half-slips like an explosion of carnations, then (watch your step) up the escalator craning your neck for a final glimpse of the half­ slips, then (watch your step again) and they were in fabrics. Bolts and bolts of color and pastels.

Aisles of prints, chintz, corduroy, cotton, linen, twill, paisley, muslin, wool, soft