by Laurence Yep
I crossed my arms. Jade could think what she liked about her outfit, but she couldn’t pick on mine. After all, Jade never asked about Mom’s work the way I did. So my sister wouldn’t know as much about design as I did. Was Jade jealous because I was finally better at something than she was?
“Mom says my costume is fine. I’m not going to change a thing,” I insisted stubbornly.
“But—” Jade began to protest.
“No means no,” I snapped.
Jade folded her arms, too, and slammed back against her seat. “Suit yourself.”
Thornton Landing stood at the foot of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, where cars and trucks thumped rhythmically overhead. Behind it, more vehicles sped along the elevated highway. Once boats had crossed the Potomac River to this spot, but now a restaurant and shops lined the riverbank.
There were several sculls on the river. The small, narrow rowing boats skimmed over the surface like water bugs. Farther to the southwest, just peeking around Theodore Roosevelt Island, were the curving Watergate Apartments and the Kennedy Center, where we often went to see shows and concerts.
The owners of Thornton Landing held a monthly flea market. Today the market was already crowded, though it had been open for only an hour. The sun was shining and the air was warm—sixty degrees or so—the perfect weather for treasure hunting.
Jade may not have liked my design for my costume, but she perked right up when it was time to shop with Mom and me. We’d been at the market for just ten minutes when we found half a roll of fine white tulle that had been used as plant netting in a garden. From another stall, we got a long strip of cloth with colorful designs and some silk flowers to sew onto it. They would make the perfect sash. I could already feel the luck in them.
For Jade, we got a peasant blouse and skirt that Mom would embellish and big hoop earrings. From another dealer, we bought a lace-edged tablecloth for really cheap—after I pointed out to the dealer the many coffee stains that made it look like a leopard skin. Mom said she could cut it and dye it to make a shawl for Jade’s gypsy costume. She had a bunch of tiny tassels at home that she could attach to the hem, too.
In return for my helping to find things for her costume, Jade found me a black cuff bracelet to match the unitard I was going to wear, plus a tiara.
We were both tempted by the poster of Jackie Sanchez. She was Jade’s and my favorite dancer. Not only had she gone to Anna Hart like us, but she was now one of the principal dancers at New York City Ballet. We’d actually gotten to see her last year when the company came through Washington. Even though we had seen her only at a distance, from way up in the second balcony, it still had been a thrill.
Instead of the poster, I bought a postcard of Jackie, which Jade let me have after I won a game of rock-paper-scissors. I hoped it was a sign that my luck was changing.
After glancing at her watch, Mom smiled with satisfaction. “Well, I think we had a pretty good day,” she said. “We not only got the stuff for your costumes but for your dad’s and mine as well.”
Mom and Dad would dress up for the Autumn Festival, too—it was tradition that the audience come in costume.
“Want to grab a fatira and then listen to your dad’s band?” Mom asked.
Fatira were yummy fried pancakes that we often bought from an Ethiopian food stall. We were heading toward the stall when I heard a man say, “Ain’t no such thing as magic.”
The dark-skinned man was over six feet tall and almost as broad. He looked as if he was in his twenties and was wearing a Washington Wizards basketball team jacket that had enough material to cover an easy chair. So at first I didn’t see who he was talking to.
“But there really is magic, friend.” I recognized that voice. It belonged to my friend and classmate Gabriel.
The man smiled in a superior way. “Can’t fool me,” he said. “Magic is all mirrors and stuff.”
Gabriel’s older sister, Zama, was standing a few feet away. She winked at me when she saw us.
Zama’s curly hair had been pulled up and bound above her head like a kind of crown. She was carefully eating French fries dripping with mumbo sauce—sort of a mix of sweet-and-sour with barbecue sauce.
I circled around the man so that I could see Gabriel. He was a tall African American boy with curly hair, and he was grinning at the man in his usual friendly way. The acting lessons Gabriel took at school really helped his magic act. He pulled back his sleeves now to expose his bare forearms. “No mirrors, no stuff here,” he said. He pulled a deck of cards from his pocket. “Just my fifty-two friends making miracles.”
When the man folded his arms skeptically, Gabriel added, “Or are you scared to find out there really is magic?”
The man gave a snort and eased a single card from the deck’s middle. Holding it so that Gabriel couldn’t see it, the man showed it to his friends, but I saw that it was a four of spades.
“Now picture it in your mind,” Gabriel said and closed his eyes. He paused for a long moment. “Sorry. I’m new at magic. Can you think a little bit harder?”
The man leaned over and jabbed his fingers rhythmically at Gabriel, as if they were shoving his thoughts into Gabriel’s brain.
Gabriel pretended to stagger back, and his eyes popped open. “Whoo-ee,” he said. “So much brain power.” He rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache. “Now put the card back in the deck, please.”
The man stuck the card halfway into the deck in Gabriel’s hand and then used his fingers to tap it in the rest of the way.
Gabriel arched an eyebrow. “You keeping an eye on me?” he asked.
The man pointed at his three friends and then at himself. “Eight eagle eyes,” he said.
“Then you ought to be able to tell me how I did this,” said Gabriel as he fanned out the cards with their backs showing. Only the four of spades was faceup.
The man laughed in delight, along with his friends. “I didn’t see nothing. Did you?” he asked. When they shook their heads, the man leaned forward, arms swinging loose by his sides. “Do another.” He might have been over six feet tall, but he sounded as excited as a six-year-old.
Before Gabriel could begin a new trick, Zama called, “Got to go, Gabe.” She played bass in Dad’s band and needed to start setting up for the show.
“Sorry, guys,” said Gabriel with a shrug. “I’ve got something important to do. But if you’re still around afterward, I’ll show you some more magic.”
Looking genuinely disappointed, the man raised a hand. “Okay, then,” he said. “Later, Magic Man.”
As the four of us headed off together, Jade leaned in toward Gabriel and asked, “So, how did you do it?”
He frowned with mock sternness and then said, “You know a magician never tells his secrets.”
“Not even to a friend?” I coaxed.
“Well, I can tell you this much,” said Gabriel. “I get people to see what I want them to see.” When he saw my disappointed look, he added, “If you really want to know, go to Shaka’s Magic Shop. Ask for the pamphlet on the deck flip.”
“Is that where you learned how to do magic?” Mom asked him.
“Shaka’s an old friend of our grandmom,” explained Zama. She squeezed Gabriel’s shoulders and said, “I usually take this boy down there to keep him out of trouble.”
While we were waiting in line by the Axum food van for our fatira, I could hear the sound of drums as Dad began his sound check.
Gabriel put his card deck away, but he was wriggling his fingers in one of his strengthening exercises. “The first time Shaka performed magic, I was as blown away as those guys today,” he said. “I wanted to make other people feel the same way.”
“Like little kids at Christmas?” I asked.
Gabriel scratched his head. “It’s better than that,” he said. “Your brain’s telling you one thing and your eyes are telling you another. So it ought to upset you. But instead you feel good.” He tapped the side of his head. “Because if your brain ca
n be wrong about the cards, maybe it’s wrong about other stuff. Maybe wishes can come true—like that guy could be a professional basketball player, if he wanted to be, and play for the Wizards.”
And I thought, And maybe a klutz like me could even learn how to dance.
If only magic were real.
A jazz club, Owl Lane, had sponsored the music stage, which was a platform about thirty feet square. Dad was already leaning over his drum kit. He was wearing his favorite bright red T-shirt. Luisa’s father—whom Jade and I call Uncle Davi—was there, too, playing his guitar during a sound check. He was a short man with wavy brown shoulder-length hair and a mustache.
The band’s drums and guitar cases were onstage between the portable speakers. Luisa was taking CDs from a cardboard box and laying them out on a small table to the side of the stage. Up until now, her brother, Danny, had been in charge of selling the CDs, but Luisa had taken his place.
I gathered the food trash from the others and dumped it into the garbage can. Then I walked over toward Luisa. “Need a hand?” I asked.
“Almost finished,” she answered, adjusting a CD on a stack that already looked pretty even. “Danny used to just dump them on the table.”
I straightened another stack of CDs. “How is Danny doing?” I asked.
“Who knows?” said Luisa without looking up. “Still no texts or e-mails. It’s like he forgot all about me.” She couldn’t keep the hurt from her voice.
I got out my phone. “Smile,” I said, snapping a picture. I sent it to Luisa’s phone and said, “Maybe this’ll make him homesick enough to call you.”
Luisa took out her own phone. “At least, it’ll show him what a display should look like,” she said. But the corners of her mouth turned up as her thumbs danced out a message to Danny.
Uncle Davi stopped playing to wave Zama up onstage. “Don’t keep our fans waiting,” he called with a wink. At the moment, we were the only “fans” near the stage.
With a shrill, happy cry, Zama began shaking her hips and pumping her fists to the beat of Dad’s drum. She danced up the steps and across the stage to her bass guitar. After she had slung it around her neck and tried a few chords, she nodded to Uncle Davi.
Finally, Uncle Davi stepped up to the microphone and turned it on. “Bom dia! Bom dia!” he shouted. That was Brazilian Portuguese for good morning. “Everyone enjoying the day so far?” His voice thundered through the flea market. Because of the traffic from the bridge and the freeway, the sound had been turned up.
Beside us, about a dozen people had started to gather, either munching their breakfast or taking a break from shopping. But Mom, Jade, Gabriel, Luisa, and I were the only ones to call out, “Yes-s-s!”
Uncle Davi motioned to his ear. “Can’t hear, can’t hear,” he said. Then he repeated himself: “Enjoying the day?”
This time more people joined in with us.
“Well, your day is going to get ee-ven better!” Uncle Davi predicted.
Dad raised his drumsticks and began tapping out the beat. With the rhythm fixed in their heads, all three musicians launched into a cover version of an old rock song. Uncle Davi spread his legs in a wide stance and arched his back as he played, and Zama was wagging her head from side to side. But I almost didn’t recognize the madman twisting and flailing behind the drums and cymbals.
Dad was a hospital administrator, but next to us, jazz was his real love. He not only played the drums but also did all the band’s arrangements and composed new songs.
Though the band loved jazz, they were good enough to play almost anything. So they were always in demand for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other festivals in the city. At a noisy public event like the flea market, Dad liked to start with loud, lively, familiar tunes to draw a crowd.
By the end of the second song, the band had drawn about thirty listeners. Uncle Davi took the microphone from the stand and walked over to Dad.
Nerves made Dad’s voice rise a little. “I’ve written a little jazz number for my wife, who inspires me every day,” he said, pointing a drumstick toward Mom. “My wife, Nancy.”
Jade and I both turned in delight toward Mom. Her cheeks reddened as a few people clapped along with us. Dad waited until the applause was done and then added, “It’s called ‘Pond Dreams,’ after one of her masterpieces.”
I turned to Mom at the same time Jade did. “Did you know?” I asked.
Mom had paused with her palms together in mid-clap. “No,” she said with an excited little laugh.
Dad’s version of “Pond Dreams” began with the slow, dreamy notes of an old song that my third-grade class used to sing:
“Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea…”
Then the band started to play with the familiar tune, just as Mom might with a piece of lace. In her hands, an ordinary lacy collar could become an angel’s wing, an icy pond, or the moon in one of her fabric creations.
As the song flowed around me, it swept me back to that pond. The burst of sunlight had been so bright and hot on my face. And then the cool breeze had blown across the water, and the water lily had broken free.
I felt like…like…Images and memories and emotions flooded into my mind faster and faster, piling up inside. But I wasn’t a poet. I didn’t have the words. And I wasn’t an artist, so I couldn’t paint a picture.
I was a dancer.
My body would tell the world how wonderful I thought it was. My arms and legs began to move on their own as my feelings flowed into them.
Jade couldn’t resist, either. She held out her hand to me. We ran together to the space in front of the stage.
Luisa saw us dancing, and she raced to join us, too. When I grasped her hand, I thought her palm tingled with electricity. Then, whipping her arms over her head, Luisa started to move. She must have had all this energy locked up inside. It was like trying to dance with a lightning bolt. At first, I didn’t see how I could keep up with her, but then she grinned at me and said, “Come on! Dance, girl!”
It was as if some of the electricity shot from her into me. At first, I followed her lead, circling my arms above my head and kicking a leg out and around. Then, after a while, I ended the arm motion with a flick of my wrists and ankles. Instantly, Luisa picked up the move and did the same. But when she performed her move, it seemed as if a super motor was whirling her wrist around.
While Jade danced closer to the band, Luisa and I went back and forth like that. One of us would copy the other until someone added a little twist. And that would take us into new steps and motions. It was like the way Dad, Uncle Davi, and Zama would toss the lead back and forth to one another in the song.
And then we weren’t dancers and musicians performing separately in our own little worlds anymore. Instead, we were all creating the same dance and music together. As I danced, I felt free, light, and happy—just as I had when I was small.
From the stage, Uncle Davi shouted encouragement: “Bom, bom.”
When Luisa saw a customer with the band’s CD in one hand and his wallet in the other, she danced over to wait on him. And then it was just Jade and me again.
Jade swayed over beside me and began imitating my moves, just as Luisa had. But when Jade kicked out her leg, it wasn’t just energetic, like mine. It was longer, leaner, higher—and somehow more graceful, too.
Suddenly, my body felt heavy—my moves stiff and clumsy compared to those of my sister. I felt as if I were wearing lead shoes and mittens. I was glad when the song ended and I could step away and sit on the edge of the stage.
When the music started up again, Luisa waved me toward the dance area, but I shook my head. I just didn’t feel like dancing anymore, at least not until I could wear my new costume with the long sash—my lucky charm. I sure hoped it would give me the confidence I needed.
Mom was still humming Dad’s tune when we went into her sewing room at home. Dad had found a song in that pond. Now it was my turn to be inspired by it, too.
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I was so eager to get started on our costumes that I didn’t notice Tutu slip into the sewing room behind us. But Jade alertly dropped her bag and scooped up our kitten. “No, you don’t, you bad girl,” she scolded affectionately.
For Tutu, Mom’s sewing room was a paradise of delights crying out to be torn up.
“Me-owr,” Tutu protested, kicking her legs and wiggling in Jade’s grasp, but my sister deposited our kitten in the hallway and closed the door before Tutu could dart back inside.
Then Mom got out her sewing kit. It was an old carved wooden box that had belonged to her grandmother.
It was hard to believe that Mom created such beautiful artwork in this pack-rat’s nest. The metal shelves that reached from floor to ceiling were overflowing with bolts of fabric and plastic bins full of scraps. Old clothes and tablecloths were piled high on the floor, ready to be cut up for her art.
Though I saw Henrietta, Mom’s trusty old sewing machine, I almost didn’t recognize the table it sat on. For one thing, I could actually see the tabletop instead of mounds of fabric scraps and half-finished pieces. I pointed at a green cutting mat with its grid of white lines. “When did you get the mat?” I asked.
“It’s always been there,” Mom said, grinning. “You just never noticed it before.” She got out her measuring tape. “I think I already know your measurements, Isabelle, but let’s make sure.”
My measurements were the same as usual, but when Mom tried to take Jade’s, my sister held up her hands. “You don’t need them,” she insisted. “We’ve already got everything we need for my outfit.”
“Put on the blouse anyway,” Mom urged.
“It’ll fit fine,” said Jade, tilting forward to pull the blouse over her head.
When she straightened up, though, we saw that the blouse was too short, exposing an inch of my sister’s stomach. Jade gave a little grunt as she tried to pull it lower but couldn’t.