by Laurence Yep
When Act One ended, Renata stood next to me and sighed. “I wish I were you so I could watch Jade dance all the time,” she said dreamily.
“I’ll tell her that,” I said, wishing Renata would just go away.
Renata, though, stuck to me like a leech. “But maybe I don’t want to switch places with you after all,” she said, her tone changing. “I mean, who wants to keep being reminded that you’ll never be as good as your sister?”
I didn’t need Renata to tell me what I already knew. I already compared myself too often to my sister.
Don’t let her get to you, I told myself. Shake her words right off.
“Excuse me,” I said, keeping my voice steady, “but I’d like to get ready for our routine now.”
Renata smirked, but she left me alone.
Mr. Kosloff had been busy talking with Jackie and dictating notes to Bettina. But now he stood up to announce, “Let’s take a ten-minute break.” Then he crooked his finger at my sister. When Jade came over, I heard him ask, “Where did you get that skirt, Jade?”
“Isabelle designed it, and my family made it,” Jade said proudly, turning to smile at me.
Mr. Kosloff had my sister turn around a couple of times slowly so that he could study the skirt from different angles. Folding his arms, he paused thoughtfully, and then he waved me over, too. “Nice job with the skirt, Isabelle,” he praised, and I felt a warm rush of pride in my chest. Then he pointed at the ceiling. “Jade, will you go upstairs to wardrobe and ask for Margie? Tell her I want her to adjust your costume so that it has chevrons, like your practice skirt.”
As Mr. Kosloff headed toward the door, Jade skipped over to my side and pulled me into a hug. “The skirt worked,” she said, her voice muffled by my shoulder. “Thank you, Isabelle.”
“It would just be an old practice skirt without your dancing,” I reminded her.
But Jade shrugged off my words. She pressed her cheek against mine. “It’s time for the toy top now,” she said encouragingly. “Just remember: arms in, and spin so fast, you hum.” She made a humming noise that I could feel—almost like Tutu purring.
Then Jade let me go so that I could begin visualizing the toys in the chest.
Most of the other dancers left the studio during the break, but some of my castmates stayed behind, like me. They took small half steps, their eyes staring off into the distance while they imagined their routines. Ms. Ferri leaned against the wall, her arms folded as she kept an eye on all of us.
I felt my cheek where Jade had touched me and thought about her humming. I was a top, perfectly balanced as I spun. The spinning was my armor. Things bounced off. Nothing stuck. Not even Renata’s words.
When Jade came back in with everyone else, Ms. Ferri took her place at the center of the floor and reached her arms like a mother hen so that her chicks could take shelter beneath them. I headed over with the other dancers and found my starting position.
At the first note of music, Ms. Ferri lifted and lowered her feet as she softly began to keep count: “One. Two. Three. Four. And five.”
We began to move across the room like that giant crab. I tried not to think about how awkward and uncomfortable it was to be crouched down like this. Instead, I thought of how good it had felt to help my sister.
When we finally stopped, I scrunched down even lower and slipped away from under the imaginary skirt. I straightened and sprang upward, like Jack from his box. Lifting my head, I stretched my arms and legs outward as far as I could into a jeté. My landing was perfect.
As I neared Emilio, he began to stretch out his arms, and in my mind, I gave the toy top a twirl. I began my pirouette, arms in close and all my weight on one foot. Then I remembered Jade humming. That would be the sound of the top spinning. I was a perfectly balanced toy.
As I circled away, I glimpsed Emilio’s hands clutching at empty air. I was too fast. No one could catch me—not Agnes, not Luisa, not anyone. Not even Renata.
I danced back to Ms. Ferri. The others trailed behind me, but I would always be one step ahead of them.
I ducked down as if back under that imaginary skirt, moving around Ms. Ferri to make room for the others until she was surrounded.
She began moving her feet silently.
One. Two. Three. Four.
And then we were moving offstage.
When the piano music had finished, Luisa was the first to stand up. “That was perfect!” she said, giving me a hug.
It had felt perfect—well, almost perfect.
“You’re doing great, Isabelle. Just remember to smile,” Ms. Ferri pointed out. “Feel the joy.”
It was easy to smile now, because I knew that I had danced well and made no mistakes. I knew that I would be the Gingerbread Girl, not Renata.
But could I repeat that performance? And could I really pull it off before a live audience? I hope, I hope, I hope…I wished, still humming a little like that spinning toy top as I stepped off the dance floor.
I stared into the dressing-room mirror, and a Gingerbread Girl stared back at me. I laughed out loud.
My dress was gingerbread brown with big red plastic buttons. My cookie hat was round with a rim of white frosting. It was plastic, though, so as soon as I put it on my head, my scalp started to itch. And the hat was hot! I felt as if the top part of me really was a cookie, baking in an oven.
It was Sunday, the day of our dress rehearsal, and I couldn’t wait to see Jade’s costume and some of the others that I had helped to design.
Renata stepped in front of me, hogging the mirror. When Agnes complained from behind us, Renata half-joked, “You’re just a maid. It takes a lot of work to make a duchess look like a duchess.” She was putting on artificial lashes that were so thick and long, they reminded me of spider legs.
Jade had already done my makeup, including circles of rouge on my cheeks. When she had put on her own costume and makeup, she turned around so that Luisa and I could see. Luisa linked her arm with mine as she admired my sister. “Wow, Jade,” was all she could say, and I couldn’t agree more.
Wardrobe had put ruched V’s—or chevrons, as Mr. Kosloff had called them—on the skirt of Jade’s costume, just as we had done on her rehearsal skirt. The sleeveless red costume was breathtaking. My sister had never looked more radiant, or more confident.
As Jade and I followed Luisa out of the dressing room, we couldn’t help giggling. The fluffy tail of Luisa’s furry fox costume waggled behind her with each step. Luisa looked back at us, and with her sly grin and pointy ears, she looked every inch the fox. She wriggled her tail even more as she gave a little hop.
When the three of us crowded into the wings, I saw that some of the boys in the party scene were wearing buttoned-down shirts and T-shirts now, just as I had suggested. And as a small mouse ran past, I saw that the head of her costume was cuter and more rounded, like the sketches I had created for Mr. Kosloff. He had taken my suggestions! My heart leaped in my chest. I could barely stand still.
“Let’s check out the theater,” I said to Luisa. We peeked around the heavy curtains and out into the theater beyond. The chandeliers on the ceiling burned like huge suns, and row after row of plush seats swept away from the stage like the waves of a red velvet sea. In the pit in front of the stage, a live orchestra was tuning its instruments.
As I stepped back into the wings, I saw a dancer in a colorful doll costume sliding her shoes back and forth in a pan of rosin on the floor. The rosin would keep her from slipping onstage. Next to her, another dancer rose en pointe several times, as if stretching out her feet or shoes. Another was checking the ribbons tied around her ankles.
“Isabelle! Luisa!” someone called. It was Agnes, letting us know that Ms. Ferri was looking for us. We followed Agnes to a space backstage where the rest of the cast had gathered.
Ms. Ferri was sitting on a chair, strapping her stilts onto her legs. A huge wig with auburn curls perched on her head. Seeing her wig made me think of my own costume, and I fought the ur
ge to scratch beneath my cookie hat.
In heavy mascara, eye shadow, and rouged cheeks, Ms. Ferri looked like a painted doll. An elegant fan dangled on a strap around her wrist. From the waist up, she was dressed in a teal satin bodice, but from the waist down, she wore workout pants and running shoes. She looked like two different people who had been jammed together.
“Time to stretch,” Ms. Ferri announced.
We did the best we could to warm up in our costumes. Agnes didn’t have much trouble in her milkmaid outfit, but Renata’s brocaded gown was stiff and heavy, so it made it hard for her to bend certain ways. Her tall, curly white wig nodded back and forth as she exercised.
Emilio’s police outfit got my vote for the funniest. He had a high-domed helmet and a blue coat that reached down almost to his knees. His big fake mustache wiggled on its own, almost as much as Luisa’s fox tail.
My costume, I’m sure, was the sweatiest and itchiest. My hair was already sticky beneath the hot plastic cookie hat.
When Ms. Ferri thought we were ready, she stood up on her stilts with the help of a stagehand. “And now, what every well-dressed giant wears,” she said, glancing up at the large oval frame that held her skirt. The outer fabric was teal satin, like her bodice, but inside, the skirt was lined with plain white cotton material. Ms. Ferri held both arms up in the air as more stagehands started to lower the skirt over her.
Once the huge skirt had settled to the floor, the stagehands helped position it around Ms. Ferri’s waist. To show us what it would look like to the audience, Ms. Ferri began to step sideways, the skirt bouncing up slightly on one side and then on the other like water lapping at the edges of a bowl.
“Now let’s practice getting inside and out,” Ms. Ferri said, beckoning us over.
Two of the stagehands lifted one end of the skirt, and we formed a line to file under it. As the hem settled back down to the floor, it was suddenly very dim. Only a faint light found its way through the layers of cloth. As roomy as the skirt might look from the outside, it was crowded for eight dancers in costume.
Above us, Ms. Ferri tapped the frame to get our attention. “I know it’s a little stuffy inside,” she warned, “but don’t let that throw you off. Stay focused.”
When Ms. Ferri pulled a drawstring, a panel rose on the front of her skirt. A thinner piece of material acted like a screen, and we slipped around that to step out of the skirt. In the crowded backstage area, we couldn’t rehearse our full routine, but we could practice leaving and entering the skirt. So Ms. Ferri kept us busy making entrances and exits. We also practiced moving short distances back and forth in the skirt.
We stopped only when it was almost time for us to go onstage. Stagehands went ahead to clear chairs and props out of Ms. Ferri’s path. She moved toward the stage slowly, like a satin-covered whale. When we reached the wings, I caught just a glimpse of Jade and Paul sitting on a throne upstage before I had to get inside the skirt with the others and wait.
As the first shivery notes of the tambourines began, Ms. Ferri’s right stilt rose and sank slowly.
“One.”
Her left stilt went up and fell.
“Two.”
At “four,” she took a step toward the stage and then stopped. We took our own step, moving slowly onto the stage. By now, we were used to the stilts themselves, but it was a little strange walking under the dim skirt instead of in a bright studio.
When Ms. Ferri halted and the panel went up, it was a relief to see the bright lights of the stage. But we’d no sooner left Ms. Ferri than Mr. Kosloff had us repeat our entrance and exit again.
And again.
And again.
It felt like riding in a racecar that had to halt every few yards. We never reached full speed or practiced our full routine, but at least I danced okay and didn’t knock anyone over.
When we were back in the wings again, we were all glad to get out from under Ms. Ferri’s skirt. “Coming?” asked Luisa, nodding toward the hall that would take us to the dressing room.
I was about to follow her when I realized that the next number was “The Waltz of the Flowers.” I’d danced a shorter version of it at the Autumn Festival, so I wanted to see how real professionals did it.
“Do you want to stay and watch this with me?” I asked Luisa, and I was glad when she nodded yes. I gripped her arm excitedly as the flowers surged across the stage. They were all en pointe, and they seemed as light as dandelion fluff as they danced in intricate patterns and combinations of moves. The dancing was a lot more complicated than the routine I had done at our school show.
Luisa leaned her head against mine. “That’s going to be you someday,” she whispered to me.
“I hope so,” I said. But these dancers seemed so flawless. I watched them carefully, waiting for one to make a mistake. “Everyone makes mistakes,” Jackie Sanchez had said. But maybe she had just said that to make me feel better.
“The Waltz of the Flowers” finished without a hitch. That’s when anxiety started to creep back into my mind. Sitting in this elegant theater, watching professional dancers in full costume onstage, everything felt so important and spectacular. What if I make a mistake during our performance? I wondered. Worse yet, what if I’m the only one who makes a mistake?
And then it was here.
The morning of our first performance, Jade and I rode the bus silently to the theater. I knew she was running through her dance images again just as I was—and Jade had a lot more to remember. But my stomach was so full of butterflies that I could barely remember what I’d had for breakfast an hour ago.
When we got off the bus and walked to the theater, I saw that the streets were jammed with holiday shoppers. People were lined up by the theater, waiting to pick up tickets to our show. They were expecting to see a holiday treat, not a holiday dud. I swallowed down the anxiety rising in my throat.
The clouds hung low overhead, and the bright bulbs of the marquee made sizzling noises as the damp air touched the hot glass. Sizzling. That was just how I was feeling inside.
When we entered the backstage area and passed by the dressing rooms of the company members, I saw jars, bottles, and makeup brushes lining the countertops beneath a row of lit mirrors. The mirrors illuminated the dark dressing rooms like little galaxies of stars.
A few minutes later, Jade was putting on my makeup—that last magical step that would help to transform me into the Gingerbread Girl.
Luisa sat in front of the mirror next to us. “Is Danny here?” I asked her.
“He got in last night,” she answered. “He brought a couple of army buddies home with him. He’s been bragging about me.” Her right hand started to shake as she tried to brush on her eye shadow. “They’re all out there with my parents.”
Jade quickly took the brush away from Luisa. “Here, let me do that,” she said. As Jade began to put on our friend’s makeup, Luisa looked at me in the mirror.
She must have seen the nervousness in my face, too, because she asked, “Are you okay, Isabelle?”
I nodded. I couldn’t tell Luisa what I was thinking inside. Don’t mess up today, Isabelle.
Time went by too fast. The next thing I knew, I heard Bettina’s voice over the loudspeaker. “Five minutes to curtain,” she announced. “Partygoers to the stage.”
“That’s me,” said Jade. She gave herself one last touch-up in the mirror.
“I’ll come with you,” I said. “Want to watch Jade with me, Luisa?”
“No, I’m going to stay here and go over my routine,” Luisa said nervously. “To the stars, Jade,” she said, using our school’s motto.
“To the stars, Luisa,” Jade repeated with a smile.
As I followed my sister to the wings, I listened to the sounds from the theater. Because our performance was an afternoon matinee, there were a lot of children in the audience, so the noise was high-pitched and loud. I couldn’t resist peeking from behind the curtain to look for my parents.
In front of me, t
he men in the orchestra wore dark suits, and the women wore white blouses with long black skirts or dress pants. Beyond them, from the front row of the theater all the way up into the balconies, I saw families filling the seats.
I couldn’t see my parents in that mob, and now I wished I hadn’t tried. When I’d danced at the Autumn Festival, that had been on the stage of our school auditorium. Now I was going to perform in a real theater. Make a mistake here, and I’d mess up big-time.
I tried to stay calm for my sister, who was about to go onstage, but as I turned toward her, I saw that she was already in her own little world. She took a deep breath, and as she let it out, her posture and expression changed. She was no longer Jade, but Clara. As her musical cue began, she danced onto the stage, where her stage family was already whirling about. Watching Jade dance, I knew one thing for certain: she belonged under those lights.
Suddenly I heard a little girl say, “I don’t want to!” And then there was a thump from the backstage area behind me.
Turning around, I saw a little mouse had thrown the head of her costume onto the floor, where it was rolling around. I couldn’t miss Addison’s red hair and freckles. She was crying.
A larger mouse tried to calm her down. “But you have to,” the older girl said, her voice muffled by the mouse head she was still wearing.
Addison crossed her arms and hung her head. “I’m going to mess up,” she said through tears. “And everybody’s going to laugh.”
Bettina rushed over wearing a headset and a mike. “What’s wrong, honey?” she asked, bending over beside her youngest mouse.
“I don’t want to go onstage,” Addison said.
“But everyone’s counting on you,” Bettina coaxed.
“I don’t want to,” Addison said. A fat tear rolled down her cheek.
Bettina tried to convince Addison that everything would be okay, but that only seemed to make Addison cry harder.
I felt sorry for her. I knew just how she felt, so I went over and crouched beside her. “Hey, Addison. Remember me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure she’d recognize me in my costume.