“Good,” said Amelia, but her face said she had heavy tap shoes in her belly, too. Amelia had been an apprentice director with the Liberty Dance Company for a year and a half. She was twenty-three and one of the best dancers I’d ever seen, and a great teacher, too. I knew how badly she wanted to see her students perform. If only we hadn’t pressed that silver button …
“Gabby?” Amelia was already facing me, her hand resting lightly on the barre. “Is everything okay? You look like someone kidnapped your cat.”
“Y-Y-Yes,” I stammered. “I’m ffffffine.”
“Okay,” Amelia said slowly. “Let’s do some quick pliés. After that we can run through what you missed.”
I quickly slipped on my ballet shoes and placed my hand on the barre at the front of the room, trying to push the outage at Liberty out of my mind. We did arch presses and then moved into demi-pliés. We were on second position when Amelia sighed. “It’s just not the same here, is it?”
I didn’t answer. It felt as if the air around me weighed a hundred tons. Just as some part of me wanted to tell Mama I had caused the outage so I could apologize, part of me wanted to tell Amelia, too. She’d only been at Liberty a couple years, but I couldn’t imagine Liberty without her. I moved into fourth position.
“Wait, no, Gabby, you skipped third position,” Amelia corrected. I moved to third position and continued just as Taylor and another Tiny Tot abandoned their class.
“Hi, Amelia Bedelia!” they said, dissolved into giggles, and ran away.
“Hi, girls,” Amelia replied. “Good, Gabby, now fifth position. Wait. No. Fourth. Sorry. Looks like this place has got us both all turned around.”
Amelia was what Mama called a “born ballet dancer.” She was so graceful, her movements so fluid, she could make climbing the stairs look like a move from Swan Lake. But tonight, there was something slow and forced about the way she did her pliés, as if her arms and legs were filled with sand. I knew it was because we weren’t in studio four at Liberty, the one she liked the best because of the old-fashioned dancer’s mirror. The mirror was nearly eight feet tall with a thick black frame covered in painted vines. It was still there because it was too heavy to move, but Amelia said she hoped it stayed forever. “It reminds you that ballet has history.”
Amelia cared about Liberty just as much as me.
“A-A-A-Amelia, there’s something … something I n-n-need to, um, to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“Um, well. It’s that it’s that, I, um—”
I looked up at Amelia. She wasn’t like that kid at TJ, who’d laughed when I stuttered. She was looking back at me, her face full of concern as she waited patiently for me to say words she probably wouldn’t want to hear in the end. Words I still wasn’t ready to say.
“I … I … I found this place. With Teagan and … and Red.”
“Did you? Not bad, Gabby,” she said, tapping me on the nose again. “I must admit, I am digging that yellow wall and those chairs. So, ready to dance?”
I nodded. I would apologize for causing the blackout another time.
That Friday, the poetry group met for the first time (so did Amelia’s senior ballet girls and Mr. Harmon’s Art in Your Heart class). Red and I expected to see Bria, Alejandro, and Teagan with their poetry notebooks, but instead we found Teagan with Isaiah and Mr. Jordan, standing side by side near the egg chairs. Mr. Jordan wore a full three-piece suit and copper-colored shoes shinier than a brand-new penny. Isaiah wore a T-shirt that read Prose Before Bros.
“Hello there!” Mr. Jordan declared. He had the kind of voice you could hear across state lines.
“Hi,” Red and I said together. “Hi, Isaiah. Hi, Teagan,” I added.
Isaiah waved shyly. I noticed he wasn’t acting anything like the bold kid who’d sat down at our lunch table two weeks ago. He was staring down at the floor.
“Mr. Jordan wanted to ask about the poetry group,” Teagan said. She couldn’t take her eyes off of Mr. Jordan. With his inches-high Afro, he appeared to be about seven feet tall.
“I asked your mother about the programs earlier this week, and when she told me you all get together and write poems, I thought that’d be perfect for my boy, Isaiah,” Mr. Jordan said. “Why, he’s a regular Shakespeare.” Isaiah barely made it to his father’s elbow. When Mr. Jordan clapped Isaiah on the back for emphasis, Isaiah’s knees buckled.
“Dad, come on,” Isaiah muttered, rubbing his shoulder.
“Don’t be modest,” Mr. Jordan said. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper that was surely loud enough to be heard in South Jersey. “And this is a good opportunity for you to make some friends before you start at the public school this year.”
Isaiah looked like he wanted to bolt from the room.
“So, what do you say?” Mr. Jordan asked Red, Teagan, and me.
“Sure, we’d love it if Isaiah joined,” I said.
“Absolutely,” said Red and Teagan.
“Outstanding,” Mr. Jordan boomed. “I’ll be in my office when you’re all done, okay, Isaiah? Don’t forget about your snack.” He pointed at Isaiah’s lunch box, resting on one of the chairs.
Isaiah nodded. And just like that, Mr. Jordan was gone, leaving a cloud of cologne behind him.
“Look,” Isaiah said as soon as his father disappeared through the rec room door, “you guys don’t have to let me join if you don’t want to. It’s just that my dad is obsessed with me making friends, and I’m not really fitting in with the Gifted Youth kids. Sure they’re youth, but gifted? Would you believe they’ve never heard of any of Shakespeare’s plays besides Romeo and Juliet?”
I could believe it, but I didn’t say so. I knew what it was like not to fit in. Thanks to my stutter, I felt like an outsider whenever I was around anyone who wasn’t part of my family.
“You can join our group,” I said, looking around for Bria and Alejandro, “especially now that it looks like we’re missing a couple members.”
As if on cue, Bria and Alejandro came bursting through the rec room doors.
“Sorry we’re late!” They sat down quickly, eyeing Isaiah, who’d opened up his lunch box and pulled out something wrapped in aluminum foil. I looked at Red and Teagan. They looked back at me. Isaiah smiled widely at Alejandro and Bria and said, “Good-e’en, good fellows!”
“I’m sorry, what?” Bria said.
“It means ‘good evening’ in Shakespearean.”
“Oh,” Bria replied. “Are you new?” She was talking to Isaiah, but looking around the rec room, taking in all the action. Alejandro did the same.
“Isaiah’s dad runs this church. Isaiah’s going to join our poetry group, if you guys don’t mind,” I said.
“It’s cool,” Bria said, her eyes still raking over the room.
“Yeah, no problem,” Alejandro said. “Do you have poems already?”
Isaiah had unwrapped the small aluminum foil–covered bundle. “Do I have poems already?” he said. “Is this sandwich shaped like a star?”
It was.
“Um, cool,” Bria said. “So how’s it going in this new space so far?”
Red, Teagan, and I exchanged a look.
“My tap shoes sound great on this floor,” I said, leaving out that I kept messing up during all of my rehearsals because I didn’t have my phone niche to use as a spot.
“My grandfather said the lighting here is great!” Teagan added. She wasn’t entirely honest, either. Mr. Harmon had said that the light in the rec room was great, but he’d also said the light in his studio at Liberty was infinitely better.
“Yeah, it’s been great,” said Red, standing and clapping his hands loudly. “So, welcome and all that. Since it’s been a minute and we’re in this new place, I thought we could just catch up with some new poetry and move rehearsal for Rhythm and Views to next time. Gabby and I can start us off with a new poem.”
“We can?” I asked.
“Yeah. Let’s talk about victory.”
“Um …”
At Liberty, we usually used studio six for poetry club meetings. We’d lie out in a circle on the hardwood floor. It was the smallest of the studios, but it worked for us because it felt like our words would stay in that little room with us, safe. Here, things were different. Our words were out in the open. But I had helped find this place, so I had to show everyone else it was okay.
I caught Amelia’s eye across the room as she directed her students. She tapped her nose real quick. “And … plié, relevé!”
I got slowly to my feet.
“Th-Th-This is a first dr-dr-draft,” I said.
“First draft!” everyone said together. Well, everyone except Isaiah. He was smart, though. He would join in next time. We’d been doing this since we started the poetry group. I loved the boost of confidence it gave me, but today, I noticed a few kids from Mr. Harmon’s class leaning around their easels. Mr. Harmon called them back to attention. Maybe we’d have to make a new rule and whisper “first draft” from now on.
Red started. “Victory feels like crossing the finish line.”
I took a deep breath and went on, trying not to imagine everyone in the whole rec room hearing my words. I tried to focus only on the poetry kids, two people who were family to me and two people who had become my good friends in this special group. “Tastes sweet like … like K-K-K-Key lime pie.”
“Looks like the show going on in the final hour.”
“Ssssssounds like Liberty, l-l-lights on, full power.”
The group clapped, and I cringed inside. Mr. Harmon had to call his students to order yet again. “Thank you, thank you, still a work in progress,” Red said as I returned to my seat. “Anyone else—”
“On those tippy-toes, ladies!” came Amelia’s voice.
Red went up on his tippy-toes and raised his hands over his head.
“And plié again,” said Amelia.
Red dropped down into a too-deep plié and almost toppled over. We all laughed. “I’ve got another poem,” he said from his squatting position on the floor. “A short one, inspired by real events. This is a first draft.”
“Wait!” I said. “Let’s all whisper ‘first draft,’ so we don’t bother the other students.”
“Not sure that’s going to have the same effect,” Alejandro said, “but I’ll try anything once.”
Red nodded at me and then looked to the group. “This is a first draft.”
“First draft,” we all whispered, Isaiah included. It wasn’t awful.
“It’s called ‘Paint on a Tutu’ and it goes a little something like this:
“Little girls and old ladies
Paint and easels
This could get crazy
Little girls, they zig, they zag
A jar of blue paint
This is gonna be bad!
Pop goes the lid, now everything’s blue
The old lady and the little girl’s tutu
All this and only the first day
But we’ll make it work at Mount Calvary.”
I laughed along with everyone else. Only Red could take our first chaotic day in the new space and turn it into a hilarious poem. Once he got everyone going, Teagan stood up to share a poem she’d been working on since the last time we’d met. Then Alejandro went. Bria was the last to volunteer.
“I might want to use this one for the show, but I wanted you guys to hear it first,” she said, and stood. “It’s a first draft.”
“First draft!” we whispered.
“Okay. It’s called—”
“Allongé, Brittney. Elongate those limbs.” Amelia’s voice cut in again.
Red stretched his leg in front of him and pointed his toe. Bria smiled and then began again. “It’s called ‘Home,’ and it’s about how I moved into a new house this year and I miss my old one. But it can kind of relate to us being here instead of Liberty, too. All right, here goes.
“Home is a warm bowl of soup
Just right, like my grandma used to make—”
“Move downstage. That’s right, now piqué turn.”
Bria frowned. Red jumped to his feet and spun a quick turn, but Bria didn’t laugh. She went on, her voice a little flatter than before.
“Crackers sprinkled on top, hold the green peppers, hold the carrots
Hold my memories and me
Like home—”
“I don’t want to see rounded shoulders, ladies. Stand up straight and tall.”
“Forget it,” Bria muttered, and sat back down.
“But you were doing great,” I said.
“You were,” Teagan agreed.
Bria shook her head. “Just forget it. It’s almost time to go anyway. I’m going to go outside and wait for my dad.”
“Me, too,” said Alejando. Scraping chairs and easels plowed over his words.
Alejandro shook his head.
They pushed their way out of the rec room through the crowd of dancers and art students. Teagan, Red, and I looked at one another, and I wondered if they were thinking the same thing as me: The rec room wasn’t working. At all. Isaiah said, “I bid you all adieu,” and went upstairs to find his father. As Red and I made our way over to Mama, and Teagan went over to her grandfather, I bumped into Brittney, a tall senior dancer with a braided bun and glasses.
“Sorry,” I said.
Brittney glared at me and stalked off.
“What was that about?” Red asked.
“I don’t know.”
I watched Brittney leave. She made it to the door before a thought occurred to me and my stomach filled with ice. What if she and the other dancers knew the outage was my fault?
That night, as soon as we got home from Mount Calvary, I trudged upstairs to my room, Maya on my heels. She joined me on my bed and began to pace back and forth, meowing. I rubbed the patch of white fur on her chest and said, “We found the rec room, but now the rec room isn’t working, Maya, and—”
I wasn’t sure I was ready to say what I had to say next, not even to Maya. She looked up at me and meowed again.
“If I tell you, you promise you won’t tell anyone else?”
Maya rubbed her cheek against my hand and purred. “Well, I think—I think other people may suspect that Red, Teagan, and I may have caused the outage.”
Saying this aloud didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, guilt pressed down on me heavier than before, like a big, bulky sweater I couldn’t shrug off.
“What am I going to do, Maya?”
Ever since the outage at Liberty, I had so much inside me that I wanted to say but couldn’t. I wanted to tell everyone—especially Mama, Amelia, and Mr. Harmon—that the outage was our fault. I wanted to tell Bria how sorry I was that she didn’t get to share her whole poem. Somehow I felt like that was my fault, too.
I gave Maya one last good belly rub, climbed down off my bed, and went over to my desk, hoping a new poem might help me clear my head. The Answer, I wrote at the top of the page.
I thought the answer was a gray room
With gray chairs
And one yellow wall
Because community isn’t about a space
Or a place
It’s about people coming together, sharing
Two dancers in one mirror
Two brushes in one jar of paint
Zillions of words coming together
To make
One conversation
One poem
One space, a shared place
But the gray room is
One dancer glaring at another
Too many conversations
Zillions of words crashing together
Louder than Broad Street Station
The real answer is on Germantown Ave
In a building made of brick
Where sunlight makes puddles of color
On dance floors
Worn and scratched from years of feet moving
Grooving
Tapping
Stomping
>
Liberty
The place we need to be
To rebuild our community
I read it again and again, and each time the same words jumped up and shouted out me: Rebuild our community.
“What you up to, cuz?”
I leapt out of my desk chair so fast it toppled over onto its side. Maya came flying down off my bed and went tearing from the room, her tail lashing wildly. “Red, you’ve got to stop doing that!”
“Sorry. I knocked; you were so into your diary or whatever you didn’t hear.”
I righted my chair and sat back down. “It’s not a diary. It’s a journal and sometimes I write poems in it.”
Red leaned against my desk. “Did you write a new one just now?” When I nodded, Red asked, “What about?”
“Liberty and how the rec room isn’t a good replacement for it. It’s not helping us rebuild our community.”
“Yeah, I know.” Red leaned his head against the leg of my bed, his body curving over.
I stared at him. There was something about the C shape Red was making with his body. Something familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I closed my eyes and racked my brain. Suddenly, I realized what looked so familiar. The shape Red had created was the same shape as Mr. Harmon’s unfinished mural on the wall at Liberty.
An idea popped into my head like fireworks. “Th-The mural,” I said. Red snapped out of his thoughts and sat up straight. “We can invite people from the center to finish it together at the rally—if that’s okay with Mr. Harmon. People are starting to forget why Liberty’s so great—”
“—but this could remind them what we’re working toward together!” Red finished. “It’s a great idea, cuz.” He offered his hand for a high five.
“I guess we have to ask Mr. Harmon? And Mama?” I said. “And we’ll have to get the word out tomorrow since the rally’s on Sunday.”
“Yeah,” Red said. “You text Teagan; I’ll ask Aunt Tina.”
“Deal,” I said.
Gabriela (American Girl Page 5