Off Pointe

by Lieberman, Leanne;

  “No, there would be too many people watching. And I want to learn it now so we can get on with our choreography.”

  “You mean your choreography.” She does a feeble imitation of the developpé step.

  “Look, you’re right. The dance should be about falling. I came up with this other fall move I think we should put in. It goes like this.” Before she has a chance to walk away, I do the new fall.

  Logan watches, eyes squinted critically. “It’s not bad.”

  “You see, it starts with one fall, the graceful one I showed you, and then it builds to this fall, and then finally to the one I can’t do yet.”

  “Girls, you’re supposed to be in the cabin,” Tara calls.

  “In a second,” Logan calls back.

  “Watch,” I say. And I perform her hand movements from earlier, combining them first with the graceful fall, then with the one I came up with tonight and then with the windmill one, except that I can’t do it.

  “You just have to let go. Give in to that fear,” Logan says. “What’s the worst thing that will happen?”

  I think about the dream I had about the move. “I’ll smash my face?”

  “No.” She laughs. “You might hurt your wrist. That’s all.”

  “I don’t want that to happen either.”

  Logan does the fall again, and then she says, “Wait. Try it this way.” She steps into arabesque and then puts her hands to the ground, one leg coming up high in the back before coming down to the push-up. “How about this?”

  I take a breath and step into the arabesque. Then I tilt over until my hands are on the ground and slowly come down into a push-up. “I can do that.” I repeat the move, and then Logan does it with me.

  “Girls, you need to come in now,” Tara calls.

  Logan and I both freeze. “Don’t say anything,” she whispers, and we step back, away from the light. “Do it again.”

  We practice the move again and again, doing it faster, until it’s less of an arabesque and more of a fall, until we’re doing it at the same time, the two of us falling in the shadows together.

  Sixteen

  Once Logan and I stop fighting, the rest of the choreography comes together easily. We start our dance in pairs, moving to Nio’s waltz. Slowly it becomes more of a battle, and then it changes into the fight dance the younger girls composed. As the intensity of the drums builds, we move into Logan’s dance with its anxious hand movements, combined with the falls we came up with together, and the battement developpé. The windmill fall becomes so easy for me that I can do it as well as any ballet move. We also include some of the leaps and jumps we all wanted. Logan and I aren’t exactly friends, but she treats me the same as everyone else, which is a relief.

  All I can think about is our dance. I run through the steps in my head all day. I love the dance not only because of its intensity, but also because it’s filled with my own ideas.

  * * *

  One day during lunch, the director announces that anyone interested in costuming should come to an orientation session that afternoon. Next to me, Logan’s arm shoots into the air. Then, on my other side, Jodie grabs my arm and lifts it high.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “You want to do costuming,” Jodie says.

  “I do?”

  “You do.”

  “Why?”

  “You have style, remember?”

  “Oh, right.”

  I look over at Logan to see what she thinks about me doing costuming too, but she’s too excited to care. “I have an amazing idea for our dance,” I hear her telling Cassidy.

  Still, I’m a little nervous when I show up at the costuming room and Logan sees me. She stiffens for a moment and looks away, but I’m distracted by the racks and racks of fluffy skirts, sequined tops, fringed capes and shiny leotards. I let out a long sigh. Right away I start designing a costume. I choose a pale pink leotard and soft tulle skirt with sequins around the waist and a black feather boa. “Say you were dancing a really sad pas de deux,” I say to Logan. “This is what you should wear.”

  Logan pulls a red dress and black shawl off another rack. “Or maybe this.”

  I smile and hand her a small black hat with a veil. “A hat would add a more modern look.”

  “Ooh, I like that.”

  I shrug. “Thanks.” Then I start looking through a rack of hot pants.

  “I am going to do costuming for my school’s theater department next year,” Logan says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, relieved that Logan is talking to me so casually.

  “You get to choose the costumes for the school play. My high school has a good theater program, and my drama teacher says you can even get a job doing it. Imagine, you could have your own designs onstage for everyone to see.”

  “Huh, I never thought of that.” I imagine choosing costumes for a ballet. I’d love to do a really different take on Swan Lake or Giselle, something beautiful but not traditional. I wander over to the desk and start sketching on scrap paper.

  “Whatcha doing?” Logan asks.

  “I’m planning ballet costumes.” I look up and grin. “I’ll send them to you after we go home.”

  Logan nods. “Cool.”

  * * *

  On the day of the final performance, we all go back to our cabins after lunch to get ready for the dress rehearsal. The ballroom dancers struggle into their gowns and clack through the cabin in their high heels. Jodie and Cassidy wear overalls and straw hats for a musical comedy number. I pull on the one-piece metallic-blue bodysuit Logan chose for our group. The suit covers my body from my ankles to my wrists and even has a hood that covers my hair, but I feel naked in it. A puddle of sweat blooms along my spine as soon as I pull it on. For a moment I miss the pretty tutus of ballet, but I know the shiny costumes will look incredible onstage.

  At one o’clock Tara starts shooing everyone to the main hall. Despite cries for more time to finish hair and makeup, no one needs much urging.

  If I thought the hall was loud on the first day, today the noise is earsplitting. The energy level is so high, I feel like I might explode. We all sit in our groups, our costumes and makeup already on, except for the ballroom dancers, who are first to perform. Tonight, when the hall is full of parents and friends, there won’t be any room for us to watch, so this dress rehearsal is our chance to see the other dances. I sit with Logan and Nio and the others and look at the program. It’s already limp from my sweaty palms. Our dance is listed as Falling, a name Nio suggested. I try to imagine the program in my drawer at home with the rest of my dance keepsakes. Earlier in the week I never would have wanted to keep it, but now I’m looking forward to showing it to Julia so she can see what I helped create.

  When the lights dim, a huge cheer rises from the campers, and goose bumps form on my arms. Tara takes the stage, and we cheer. She smiles and holds up her hand for quiet. “Welcome to the fifteenth annual Camp Dance Extravaganza!”

  We clap and cheer and catcall so loudly, she can’t go on. When we finally settle down, she says, “I promise this will be a performance you will never forget, not only because of the tappers, ballroom, contemporary, hip-hop and jazz dancers, but because YOU were part of the show.”

  I shiver as dancers scream and clap around me. I’m smiling so hard my jaw aches.

  Tara goes on. “All week you have choreographed, rehearsed, revised and created amazing works of art. Dancers, you should be so proud of all your hard work. Each and every one of you is incredibly talented.” We cheer again. “We have a very special lineup tonight. To start, we have the Salsa Mixers!”

  Latin music fills the air, and girls burst onstage in red fringed dresses. After the ballroom dancers, the musical-theater group performs an ensemble piece from Oklahoma. Then the tappers dance, and it’s time for the contemporary dancers to go backstage.

  I join Nio and Logan and the others warming up. We’re so excited that I’m not sure how we’ll manage to look fearful. Already Ol
ivia’s group is onstage, and Logan and the other girls are bopping around to their song.

  Nio beckons for us all to come together. He wraps his arms around us, and we stand in a tight huddle in the wings. “I want to thank you guys so much for working with me. I think I’ve wanted to do this ever since I realized most boys don’t dance. Thank you for being the kind of people who were willing to expose your own fears for the sake of our group.” Nio looks like he might cry, and I know if he does, I will too. He clears his throat and composes himself. “I know we’re all really excited, but let’s take a few minutes to get into the right head space.”

  We all nod and wander quietly away. I stretch my arms over my head and look down at the sweat marks already showing on the costume.

  I feel a flutter of excitement like I do before any performance, but this time it’s even more special: this is my dance. When I do the moves, I feel them. And I know the audience will too.

  Olivia’s group comes offstage and the lights dim. As I move onto the stage, I fix a look of fear on my face, but inside I feel certain, my body powerful.

  Like I can do anything.

  Acknowledgments

  I am thankful to my editor, Robin Stevenson, for her patience and guidance during the editing process. Also thanks to Catherine Allen and Amara Salloum for help correcting my dance terms. Lastly, I’m grateful to Rachel Speller for coming up with a title for this book.

  LEANNE LIEBERMAN is the author of three YA novels: Gravity, The Book of Trees and Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust. Her fiction has been published in Descant, The New Quarterly, Fireweed, The Antigonish Review and other journals. These days Leanne only dances in her kitchen, but she still dreams from time to time that she’s dancing onstage. Leanne lives in Kingston, Ontario.