by Kari Jones
Amala pulls a remote out of her waistband and turns on some music I don’t recognize. She lowers the volume but raises her arms and does a three-step with a shimmy across the room.
“Warm up with me, Lila. We can talk and warm up at the same time,” she says.
I follow her across the room, the movement coming slowly at first, until my muscles relax.
“So tell me all about it. How do you like the studio space? Have you made friends with the other girls? What do you like best about it? Isn’t Dana the most beautiful dancer?” Amala tosses all these questions at me at once as we circle the room. She’s ahead of me, but as we come around the circle, suddenly we’re both facing the mirror, and she stops. Her hands drop and she turns to me.
“Lila, honey?” she says, and that’s all it takes. I burst into tears.
“What is it?” Amala stops the music and sits down on the floor. She takes my hand and pulls me down next to her. “It’s not working out for you?” she asks.
I shake my head. I don’t want to speak while my voice is caught up in my tears, so I take a few deep breaths and then say, “I don’t know if I should stay there, Amala.”
She squeezes my hand and says, “Did you know Dana was my teacher for a while?”
“Really? You’re so different in your dance style,” I say.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn from her.”
“Did you…” I’m not sure how to ask this question, because I know Dana and Amala are friends. “Did you like being in her class?” I finally ask.
Amala doesn’t answer. Instead, she stands up and does a complicated chest circle on top of a figure eight. Her arms and fingers weave elegantly around her. “Dana taught me that. She was the one who showed me how to use my fingertips when dancing,” Amala says. “But,” she adds, sitting down again, “I hated her classes.”
She laughs, and because I’m so surprised, I laugh too, but then I say, “So you chose me to go to a place you hated?”
That hurts. Ouch, that hurts.
“That’s not it at all. Lila, I’ve watched you dance since you were a little girl, and you, more than anyone else, love to dance. It’s in everything you do, every move you make. You are a real dancer.”
My face glows to hear those words. “What about Angela?” I ask.
“Angela too. Angela moves like a bird in flight; she’s a natural. But what does Angela want out of dance?” Amala says.
“She just loves to dance,” I say, because it’s true. For Angela it’s as simple as that. She wants to dance.
“And what do you want?” Amala asks.
That’s not something I can answer quickly, so I lean back on my hands and stare at the ceiling for a second while responses swirl in my mind. Finally I say, “I thought I wanted to be a professional dancer.”
“Exactly,” says Amala.
“So you sent me to Dana because you thought she would help me with that?” I ask.
Amala nods and says, “Dana’s hard. She’s tough. But many of her girls have gone on to have good careers as dancers, and I wanted you to have a taste of that kind of life. I thought Dana’s studio was the best place for you.”
The door opens and a little girl walks into the room. She stops when she sees us, but Amala says, “Come on in, Pearl. Grab yourself a hip scarf. Are the other girls out there?”
Pearl nods and dashes across the room to take her pick of the scarves.
“Five-year-olds. Soooo cute,” Amala whispers to me. “Want to help with the class?”
“I should go,” I say.
The cuteness factor rises a whole lot as the rest of the girls rush into the room.
“Nice to see you, Lila,” Amala says. She blows me a kiss and turns her attention to the little girls as I leave.
I’ve got a lot to think about.
Fourteen
On Sunday morning my mom asks me to help with the big spring cleaning she’s planned for the afternoon. I sigh, but mostly because she expects me to. Really, I don’t mind helping. I need time doing something with my hands so I can think.
Mom’s already deep into cleaning when I get back from the morning’s dance class. There’s a pile of large rubber boxes by the front door, all labeled—things like Winter clothes or Blankets—living room—and the smell of chemically manufactured lemon scent hits my nose and makes me sneeze. Joni Mitchell’s voice fills the air.
Mom staggers into the hallway carrying a way-too-huge potted plant.
“Whoa…what are you doing?” I ask.
“Taking this to the shower,” she says through clenched teeth.
I drop my bag and grab the bottom of the pot.
“Oh, thanks!” she says. We lurch our way down the hallway to the bathroom, and with a heave we place the huge pot in the bathtub. Mom turns on the shower and lets the water run over the leaves of the plant. In seconds it goes from dusty and sickly to shiny and fresh.
“I like to let them think they’re out in a forest every once in a while, like rain’s really falling on their leaves,” Mom says.
Coming from anyone else, that would sound totally crazy, but my mom knows plants don’t think. She says things like that to make me smile.
“We’ll let that dry before we take it back. Come help me get the next one,” she says.
“Mom, can I at least take off my coat and have a bite to eat before I jump into housecleaning?”
Mom laughs. “Sure. There’s mac and cheese in the oven for you.”
I escape to the front hall, where I take off my coat and retrieve my bag before heading into the kitchen for a big bowl of mac and cheese smothered in ketchup. Yum.
There are two messages on my phone, one from Angela that says @ Jonas’s house. Me + him. Telling Nini this aft.
I text back, Stay strong!
The next message is from Robin: Impromptu dance practice @ my place, 2 pm.
One second later the doorbell rings, and I hear Mom open the door. “It’s Robin, isn’t it? Come in.”
“Hi. Is Lila here?”
“Hi, Robin,” I say as I come into the hallway. “I just got your text. I have to stay home and help my mom with some cleaning.”
“We can wait a while to get started if you want,” Robin says.
“I think this’ll take a while. Mom’s even cleaning the plants,” I say with a laugh. Mom opens her mouth to speak, and I know she’s going to say I can help her later, but I cut her off. “Also, I promised Angela I’d get together with her later this aft.” Not true, but it sounds perfect. Both Robin and Mom believe me right away, and Robin says, “Okay. See you tomorrow then” and leaves.
“I’m glad you’re hanging out with Angela this afternoon, Lila. We haven’t seen much of her lately. Make sure to invite her for dinner. I’ll make her favorite,” says Mom.
She’s got pollen smeared across her cheek. I reach over and rub it away. “I will,” I say.
Made that bed. Now I have to lie in it.
* * *
When I’ve finished my mac and cheese and changed into some old jeans and a T-shirt, Mom shows me where to start cleaning. It’s a bookshelf under the stairs to the basement, and it looks like no one’s dusted it for twenty years. The first shelf is so dusty, I’m sneezing halfway through it.
“Don’t forget to dust the books themselves,” Mom says as she heads back upstairs.
“I won’t,” I say. I know the drill. We do this every year. I think I was even the person who dusted this shelf last time.
Thank goodn
ess for headphones. Goodbye, Joni Mitchell. The thing about headphones is that you can listen to music without anyone else knowing. If Mom knew I was listening to the song Amala’s class is dancing to, she would have questions.
Ever since I saw Amala yesterday I’ve been thinking about her studio and how much I love it there. Walking into that room made me remember how much I used to love dancing. Used to. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t loving it anymore until I was in there with her, and then I remembered how much fun we had. When did dance stop being fun? Is it supposed to be fun? Can it be fun and still get me where I want to go?
That’s the basic question. Can dance be fun and still get me where I want to go?
The music soars into my headphones, and without me even thinking, my body dances. I shimmy and twirl and undulate as I dust, until the song is over.
Why do I have to make this choice? Everyone thinks I should stay with Dana. Even Amala. Even Mom. But does Dana? And do I want to?
Part of me wants to go back to Amala’s studio. I want to dance with Angela and Nini and Sarit, to giggle in the breaks with them, to laugh when we screw up, to enjoy the colors and sounds around us. I don’t want to be like Eve, taking dance so seriously that I neglect everything else, including my schoolwork. I don’t want to be stressed out about dance.
But—and this is the big thing—I also want to be a professional dancer.
I put on the song we’re dancing to at Dana’s studio to remind myself that I love that music too. And the choreography. It’s true. I do. I love the movements and how we all know them so well after all that practice. Dana has taught me many things, like how to count with better precision and how to hold my posture even in the middle of difficult moves and how to layer feet, hips, chest and arms all at once. But have I learned enough?
This whole thing might not be my choice anyway. Dana might tell me I’m not dancing in the festival with her, and then all of this will have been for nothing.
There’s a thumping sound upstairs, and I’m relieved to hear Mom calling out for me to help her. My brain hurts. It’s time to think about something else.
Fifteen
Can u come over? I text to Angela. All that dusting has made my arms sore and my eyes itchy. Even Mom can see I need to take a break and get out of the basement.
YES! NEWS! she texts back.
It doesn’t take her long to walk over, and when I open the door she barges in, heads straight upstairs to my bedroom, flops onto my bed and sighs. “Guess what?”
“Tell me,” I say. I’m not in the mood for games.
“It’s the best thing ever,” she says.
“Oh.” I sit down next to her and say, “You’re coming to dance with Dana!”
“No! It’s way better than that,” Angela says.
Okay, better than that? What could it be? “Something to do with Jonas? He asked you out again?”
“Even better. His family invited me to go with them to Mexico.”
“Wow! Mexico!” I leap across the bed and engulf Angela in a bear hug. She laughs and hugs me back. We struggle to standing, then laugh and jump and hug all around the room. “You’ve always wanted to go to Mexico,” I say.
“And, even better, with Jonas. And I love his mom and dad. They’re awesome,” Angela says.
“And Bea. She’s nice too.”
Angela plops back down on the bed. “Bea’s not coming. That’s how come there’s room for me.”
“No way. How come she’s not going?”
Angela stands up and walks over to my closet. She opens the door and examines herself in the mirror on the back of the door. “Promise you won’t be mad when I say this?”
“How can I when I don’t know what you’re going to say?”
“Just promise.”
“Okay, I won’t be mad. I promise.”
“Bea’s not going because she decided to stay and perform with Amala’s troupe at the festival. Amala says she’s learned the choreography well enough to perform if she practices every day.”
It takes a second for that to work through my brain, but when it does, the word “No!” escapes my mouth before I can stop it.
“You promised,” Angela says.
“How can you?” I almost shout.
“Can’t you understand, Lila? I told you, I really like Jonas, and he likes me too.”
“But the festival…”
Angela comes back to the bed and sits beside me. “It’s not the end of the world. There’ll be other festivals.”
“But…this is our dream. It’s our first step to being professional dancers. You’re making a mistake, Angela. There’ll be other boys, but maybe we’ll never be invited to another festival, and you’ll have missed your opportunity to be seen by someone,” I say.
Angela takes my hand and holds it to her heart. “Lila, being a professional dancer is your dream, not mine.”
I pull my hand back. “Amala was telling me yesterday how much you love to dance.”
“Yeah, I love to dance. But I love other things too. I guess you can’t understand that,” Angela says. “You know when you want something so much you can’t even see anything else? That’s how you are about dance. That’s how you’ve been ever since you went to Dana’s studio. I thought I knew you, Lila. I thought you’d be happy for me to have Jonas in my life. But instead you’re mad that I’m missing a stupid dance performance. So what if someone never sees me? I’m happy dancing with Amala. That’s all I ever wanted. You used to love it too until Dana got her claws into you.”
“Her claws into me? If you mean corrected the sloppiness I got from dancing with Amala, then yeah, for sure.”
“How can you say that? You loved dancing with Amala right up to the moment you got chosen to go to Dana’s. You loved it and everything about it. And you loved Amala.”
“I do love Amala. But that doesn’t mean Dana’s not better,” I say.
“Dana’s better so you get to say bad things about Amala? Like somehow you’re better than the rest of us?”
I shrug.
“So that’s what you think?” she asks.
“I think you’re making a big mistake. How can you put a boy ahead of dance? And I bet you haven’t even told Nini yet, have you?”
“Nini has nothing to do with it. Jonas doesn’t even like her,” Angela says.
“So you’re better than her, is that it?”
Angela whips her head back like I slapped her in the face. “That was mean,” she says. She picks up her bag, and without saying anything else, she walks through the door and down the stairs.
I don’t follow her. The awful truth is that she is totally right. About everything.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this small.
Sixteen
“Right foot first,” Dana says.
I managed to avoid Angela at school all day after our fight yesterday, but now I’m having a really hard time concentrating on what Dana is saying, and I keep messing up.
“The step’s not that tricky,” she says to me. “Your brain’s making you think it is, but it’s not. Imagine you have a box around you, and everywhere you move, that box stays the same. So if I say go right, no matter where in the room you are facing, you will always move to the right side of your box.” Dana shows what she means by stepping out to her right, spinning to face the side of the room, stepping out to her right again, and this time spinning so she’s facing the back of the room. “Make sense?” she asks.
I nod, and she says, “Again!” and this time when she starts the music, we all smoothly spin
to the right of the room, to the back, to the left and back to the front.
“Excellent. Now let’s do that in the song. We’ll start from the beginning, and when we hit this point, remember that all you are doing is moving your box around you,” Dana says.
The song starts out well. We all know this choreography like it’s mapped in our toes, but when we get to the spins, somehow the stuff Dana said about a box doesn’t make sense anymore, and even though I try turning to my right and spinning from there, I still end up facing the wrong direction at the end.
“No, no, no.” Dana runs her hands through her hair. “No.” She stands still and stares at the mirror for a long minute, then says, “We’re making a change. We’re going to cut that, and we’ll do a repeat of the phrase before. I can’t let you girls go out onstage like that. Twirls all over the place. No way.”
It’s hard not to catch anyone’s eye when you’re all standing in front of a mirror, but somehow I manage it. My face burns. My chest feels tight. This is my fault.
“Start from the beginning,” Dana says. She marches to the side of the room and folds her arms like an army major. Everything starts well, but this time she stops us when we get to a spot where our arms snake around us. It’s me again. I’m off count.
She points to my fingertips. “One and”—she points to my knuckle—“two and”—my wrist and elbow—“three and”—my shoulder—“four. Good. Try again. Good. And again.” I go through it three times before she turns back to the front of the class and starts us up again.
Robin glares at me, and I know she’s thinking, Don’t screw up now. Dana’s going to make her choice soon. Maybe even today.
When Dana turns off the music at the end of the class, I’m panting hard, and my body is stiff with tension. We all find our water bottles, and Dana says, “Well done, girls. I worked you hard today.” She pauses, and we all turn to face her. We know what’s coming. “The eleven of you are going to be the most exciting girls on the stage at the festival next week. Really, you all look fantastic,” she says.