Like No One Is Watching

by Jaime Samms

  “But she can do better. She was being lazy. She gets lazy when she thinks no one is really watching, and then she can’t stand to be the center of attention.”

  “Is that why you are forcing her to perform for the class?”

  Conrad glared at him. “I’m doing what she needs to get to the next level, Dusty. I’m her teacher.”

  “Of course.” Dusty didn’t press the issue. He was no teacher. He was no dancer. Not anymore, anyway. He didn’t have to agree with all of Conrad’s methods to acknowledge that he turned out some very well-trained ballerinas.

  After a drawn-out silence, Conrad came farther into the room. “What did you say to her?”

  Dusty pursed his lips but decided he should really be forthcoming. Conrad was her teacher. He deserved to know. So he replayed the conversation he’d had with Eliza in the kitchen and his offer to help her warm up before class the next day.

  Conrad stared at him for a long time, lips a thin line, his face hard and pale. Finally, he gave a curt nod. “That was good advice.”

  Dusty controlled an errant grin and simply nodded. “It’s what my own teacher used to tell me all the time. I was probably more terrified than she is to get onstage. It worked for me. I hoped it would work for her.”

  “You don’t have to meet with her tomorrow. I can.”

  Funny. The offer to save him the pain of watching someone else do what he no longer could should have been a relief to Dusty. It wasn’t. “No!” He bit his lip. “No. I mean, I think it would be better for her if it was me. You know, you’re her teacher. I know my teacher sometimes intimidated the hell out of me if he was watching me do something I knew he thought I was weak in. It only made me worse.” God. That sounded lame.

  Conrad studied him, but gradually, his face softened. “If you’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “I wouldn’t have offered if I did,” Dusty lied. But he had offered, and he would follow through because Eliza needed the help and reassurance, and he didn’t want to let her down.

  “Okay, then.” Conrad seemed to relax. “Okay. Thank you.” He paused, glancing at the box Dusty had picked back up. “Why were you even still here, anyway?” His voice sharpened again, cutting swaths through the almost-peace they had just knitted together over Eliza.

  Dusty managed not to crumple the thin piece of paper in his hand. “I thought you might need these.” He indicated the box. “They looked important.”

  Conrad picked one up. “Where did you find these?”

  “At the back of the kitchen counter. The box looked like it got shoved there and forgotten about.”

  “My tax guy has been after me for these for months. I was sure they had been tossed by mistake.” He plunked down on the couch. “I think you just saved me a few thousand dollars in taxes.”

  Dusty eyed the box. “Seriously?” He looked to the filing cabinet on which sat Conrad’s printer. “You have an entire filing cabinet and you keep your tax receipts in a shoe box? People don’t actually do that, you know.”

  Conrad grinned sheepishly. “I was going to file them.” He looked guiltily at the filing cabinet. “That’s full of leotards and tights. I have some on hand to sell to parents for the girls. Sometimes they can’t get to the costume shop or something. I needed a safe place or they, sort of… walk off on their own.”

  “You have thieves?”

  Conrad shrugged and stood, his face hard once more, all traces of the smile gone. “I led a privileged life, Dusty. I won’t deny that. Not everyone I teach is as lucky. If one of my girls feels she has to nick a bodysuit to be properly dressed for class, it isn’t the end of the world.”

  “But it’s a practice you condone?”

  “Obviously not. They’re locked up, now, aren’t they?” He turned his hard look on Dusty. “I would have thought you of all people would understand the impulse, though.”

  Dusty struggled to his feet. “Understand what impulse? To steal?” He shoved the box of receipts into Conrad’s chest and let go, not caring much if Conrad caught it or not. He was a lot of things. Gay, poor, and not very bright topping the list of attributes people had found made him deficient. But he was not and never had been a thief. “No, Conrad, I don’t understand. I never stole a thing in my life. Everything I have, I earned. Honestly. I’ve been earning my own way since I was fifteen fucking years old, and I never resorted to stealing anything to get what I needed to survive, never mind to pay for a frivolous dance class.”

  “You think dancing is frivolous?” Conrad looked like he’d been gut shot.

  “No. But it’s not on the list of things worth stealing for. Not even when I was hungry or cold or needed a place to live did I ever steal anything.”

  “I didn’t mean to accuse you of stealing. Just saying you must know how it feels to—”

  “Don’t.” Dusty snatched up his hoodie from the arm of the couch and limped to the door. “Just because I’m poor, because I had to look after myself, that doesn’t make me a criminal. Nor has it ever made me think like one or want to be one, or think I had a right to take what didn’t belong to me.”

  “No! I didn’t mean—Dusty!”

  Dusty didn’t stop or look back. He should have known better. He should never have even hoped anything between himself and someone from the upper echelon of society could be other than a disaster. They were too different. Had nothing in common. People like Conrad simply didn’t understand what it was to have nothing. He could never, ever fathom the abhorrence Dusty felt over “nicking” something just to be allowed into a ballet class because the teacher was too pretentious to let a kid dance in shorts and a T-shirt because he loved to dance and not because he could look the damn part.

  “Dusty!” Conrad grabbed his arm, but that hand on him was suddenly intolerable.

  “I have to go.” Dusty gritted his teeth and yanked free. “I have things to do.” It would take him a while to make the walk home. His knee was better than it had been, but he’d have to take his time over the rough terrain between the studio and his apartment, and he didn’t want to do it in this state too long after dark.

  “Let me drive you?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll be in tomorrow at the regular time. If you’d like me to start upstairs, let me know. Otherwise, there is still work to do in the storage areas.”

  “Upstairs will be fine,” Conrad said, voice flat. “I have to teach at the college tomorrow morning, so I won’t be here until after one. I’ll leave a key for the apartment on my desk.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Dusty.”

  Dusty stopped on his way out the door, but he would not turn around. There was no reason for Conrad to see how much the accusation—or whatever it had been—had hit home.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.”

  Didn’t change the fact he’d said it—thought it. Dusty pushed through the door and out into the parking lot. He didn’t look back.

  Chapter 13

  AFTER ALL the times he’d stuck his malformed dancer’s foot in it, Conrad should have learned when to shut his damn mouth. But no. Once again he’d said the wrong thing and not made it right.

  He waited the next morning, as long as he dared, in hopes Dusty would arrive early and he would be given the chance to apologize again. That didn’t happen, and he ended up rushing out the door, knowing he was going to be late for his class even without stopping for coffee on the way. Perfect. Just what he needed. Facing a room filled with ambivalent college students taking a course because they were told they had to, rather than because they wanted to be there, without the bolstering effects of caffeine. It was tantamount to torture as far as he was concerned.

  No amount of telling a barely twenty-year-old guy he should free his mind from the restraints of society’s expectations of him, that he should move as though no one in the room would judge him, would ever get that guy to do it. Especially since the room was filled with other guys who most certainly would judge. Loudly. And often.

&n
bsp; With a sigh, Conrad pulled the stage door open and braced himself for the gauntlet.

  Unsurprisingly, the class was lackluster at best. Motivating the students to free themselves and take chances with movement, to feel something in the way their bodies could move when he was decidedly unmotivated himself, was next to pointless.

  “What is the point, anyway?” one of the students asked.

  Conrad blinked at him. “Matt?”

  The guy nodded, as though confirming that was his name. As though Conrad required confirmation. There were only ten boys—young men—in the class. Of course he knew their names.

  He shook himself. “Matt, that’s a pretty open-ended question. So consider, and ask better.”

  “Ask better?” the small, wiry man next to Matt asked.

  “Yes, Christopher. Ask better. Ask what you want to know. Ask a question to which you can get a meaningful answer, or what is the point of asking at all?”

  “Fine,” Matt muttered. “What is the point of this stupid class?”

  “You are in psychology, Matt?” Conrad didn’t wait for an answer. He knew he was right. “Specializing in child psychology, and specifically the autism spectrum?”

  Matt nodded.

  “So I’m sure your teachers have already talked at great length about how autistic children experience the world through touch, movement, beat, rhythm, and many other ways in which those of us not on that spectrum only understand in a very peripheral way.”

  Matt shrugged, crossed his arms in front of his chest, but then nodded. “Okay, yeah.”

  “So then is that really the question you want to ask me? What is the point to a class about Body Awareness and Expression?”

  “Well.” He huffed. “No.”

  “So ask better.”

  “You started out teaching us dance moves we are never going to use.”

  Conrad conceded that point.

  “So if you want us to be aware of our bodies, shouldn’t you teach us stuff like—I don’t know. Stuff we’ll use?”

  “Stuff you’ll use. Like what? Walking? Running? Stretching?”

  Another halfhearted shrug. “I guess, yeah.”

  “You already know how to do those things. You do them every day. Unconsciously. You don’t have to think about walking from here to your next class. Or about running when a quick rendezvous with your girl makes you late for that class.”

  Matt shot a furtive look sideways at Christopher. “So. Yeah, I guess. So wouldn’t that make it easier, then? Because we don’t have to learn how to do it, and then analyze and shit. We can just analyze. Save a lot of time, don’t you think?”

  “Or.” Conrad moved to the center of the stage. “You can learn how to, for instance, turn your feet out.” He set his feet in first position. “Like so.” He positioned his arms. “And then turn them out more.” He moved to third and repositioned his arms. “And more.” He forced his left foot deeper and gritted his teeth. “I know how to do this thing. I have learned it. But being aware of how my body works—” He released the position with a relieved grunt. “—and how it does not would have saved me a great deal of trouble when I was your age. Understanding the sickness that rises in my gut every time I try to make my feet and hips do something they are not, and never will be, able to do, understanding the heartsick ache that I felt every time I walked into my advanced class would have saved me a heartbreak I still feel in my soul.” He managed a sad smile and hurried to the stereo in the wings. He pressed Play, counted a few beats, then moved, fluidly flying across the stage in a series of leaps and spins that set his heart soaring.

  The kids watched in silence as he danced, working his muscles in ways he didn’t get to often enough anymore. It was only a minute or two, but when he stopped, the smile was no longer forced. The exhilaration was real.

  “Learning to listen to what your body is telling you about how you feel, what you know in your heart, will help you to communicate with those children who don’t have words. Rest assured, they have thoughts, Matt. Feelings and stories and opinions, and things they want—need—to say. Understanding your body and how it tells your inner story will help you to understand theirs. The first step is teaching your body to do something you normally would never do. It forces you to pay attention.”

  Matt actually nodded. “Okay. But why ballet? Why not that”—he pointed to the stage Conrad had just flown across—“because that was not ballet.”

  Conrad smiled. “No, it was not. It was modern. And it is built out of building blocks that start with ballet. Like walking starts with getting your arms and legs to work together to move you across the floor in a crawl, then getting up and then walking, so dance is built from tiny, baby steps. You need to know the pieces of dance language the same as any other before you can understand the song.”

  Matt once more crossed his arms over his chest. “What if I don’t feel comfortable singing—er—dancing?” He glanced around at the other students. “None of us do. So why not find a thing to teach us that we’ll enjoy?”

  “Again, I think your question misses the mark. Do you think you would find jogging in circles around a track for two hours more enjoyable? You know how to do that.”

  A few students snorted, shook their heads, and generally indicated that would be a terrible idea.

  “Or lifting weights until your muscles ache?”

  Christopher grimaced. “Like I can lift anything heavier than my psych textbook.” That got a few sniggers and he grinned. “Like you could make one lap around a track, Tesoro,” he shot at the guy who’d laughed the heartiest. Tesoro saluted him with one finger, but the ribbing was not malicious. Quite. Tesoro wasn’t exactly the slimmest of the bunch.

  “Is it the activity that you dislike or the reaction of those around you to how you perform that activity that you dislike?” Conrad asked the room in general. No one answered. “The first thing you have to understand is, are you asking the right question? Because you can’t get the right answer if you aren’t asking the right question. So.” He focused back on Matt. “Ask. Better.”

  Matt sighed heavily. “We—I—can’t do this shit. I suck at it. I look like an idiot, so can we please do something else?”

  Conrad smiled at him. “No. Think about all the ways your kids are going to try to communicate with you. Do they worry about how you are going to perceive them as they attempt to get you to understand their story? Or are they going to do their damnedest to tell the story and make you understand? They don’t care how the attempt looks. They care if it works. Does it get them what they want? Do they feel right in their gut about what they are saying, however they are saying it? The more you work with those kids, despite their frustration at not always being understood, I think you’ll find the very last thing they worry about is how they appear. They may not see the world the way we do, and we may not have all the tools we need to understand them, but I think you’ll find they are some of the heart-smartest, heart-happiest people you’ll ever meet. Because they have learned it’s what’s inside, how the movement and the rhythms they find make them feel that matters, not how they look doing it.”

  For a long time, Matt said nothing. When it seemed he had no more questions, Conrad shooed them all back onto the stage. “Let’s begin again, shall we?”

  This time, he led them through a routine none of them were going to master and watched as most of them laughed and joked their way through the attempt. It was not ideal. Some still held back and resisted the lesson. They didn’t trust, didn’t want to be made to look like a fool. But some looked like they were beginning to see the point at last.

  Conrad left the college that afternoon feeling lighter than he had since Dusty had left his studio the night before. He hoped he’d have a chance to talk to his lover, but it was not to be. The studio was dark and empty when he let himself in. The dance floor was spotless. The CDs were stacked neatly with a note saying Dusty had consulted his old dance teacher, and she had suggested a few ways to organize the music
so Conrad could find what he needed without having to undo all of Dusty’s work.

  Conrad read over the options and picked one, underlining it and leaving a note for Dusty in return.

  In the kitchen, the cups from the night before had been washed and put away. The box of receipts was neatly organized, the slips of paper clipped together, Post-its indicating the month on each of twelve stacks. Up in his apartment, Dusty had clearly begun his monumental task in the bathroom.

  Glancing at his phone, Conrad realized he had an hour and a half before Dusty was to meet Eliza to help her. He contemplated stalking his office and catching Dusty when he arrived, but thought better of it. For Eliza’s sake, he decided to remain upstairs and let Dusty work with her. He wanted the girl to succeed. Maybe Dusty could help.

  Chapter 14

  IT WAS a stupid idea. Dusty wished he’d never thought of it. As he let himself back into the darkened studio, he found himself drawing on all the breathing exercises his old instructor had ever taught him. He shouldn’t be this nervous. He wasn’t even going to dance. All he was there for was to watch Eliza and run the music.

  So there was no reason for these nerves.

  Entering the studio, he noted that Conrad had returned from the college, but he hadn’t lingered. Maybe he was upstairs. Dusty ignored the flip of his heart at the thought. He was moving past the dalliance with Conrad. He couldn’t linger, hoping for something that wouldn’t work. Instead, he focused on his current intent and found some music that would suit what he wanted Eliza to work on.

  He chose a simple piano piece, one not often used for classwork but with the right beat and tempo. Hopefully it was different enough that she would focus on it. He wanted her out of her head enough to let her body do what he knew it could.

  Focusing in on the moves, how to twist one’s body just so, how to lift and point, and what the next position should be, was an easy way for a dancer to look good onstage. It was also a subconscious way for a dancer to stop at good. Being great took a leap of faith, a step out of self and into the unknown, dangerous place where your soul led the way. It was a risk. Once you were that far out on a limb, if the audience didn’t get it, well, the fall was all the more painful for being that much more personal.