by Lynne Jaymes
“No problem,” he answers after I say thank you and I keep my eyes firmly on the floor. I love the way he speaks, how deep his voice is and the flat, California accent he has—exotic but familiar at the same time. I can feel his eyes on my butt as he follows me up the stairs and I’m glad he can’t see the smile I’m trying to hide. I wish I was wearing something sexier than my laundry-day sweats and the workout top I’ve had on all day. I was at the studio most of the morning and I pray to God I don’t stink. Even though I’ve never seen him bring one back to the apartment, girls must throw themselves at him twenty-four hours a day. Not that it matters to me. After what happened with Jake last year, I definitely don’t need to be fixating on another athlete. No matter how hot he is. But looking is free.
Ty doesn’t say a word as we reach our floor and it takes everything I have not to glance back to catch one last glimpse of him as he disappears through his apartment door. Ty barely looks my way when we meet in the halls and we’ve maybe said ten words to each other the entire time he’s lived here which is exactly the way it should be. I’ve got to snap out of it.
I exhale as I close our door, loud enough to attract Courtney’s attention.
“Let me guess, you ran into Mr. Wonderful out in the hall,” she says, looking up from the papers she has spread all over the couch.
“Maybe,” I say, unable to stop the warmth that’s flowing across my cheeks. It’s embarrassing how my body reacts just thinking about him.
“Maybe nothing,” she says, shaking her head. “You have that stupid I’m-in-love look all over your face. Why don’t you talk to him already?”
“I told you,” I say, setting my basket down in the small chair we got out by the dumpster right after I moved in. “After getting screwed over by Jake it’s-only-you-baby Douglas last summer, I’m concentrating on my dance and that’s it. I’m not interested in Tyler. Or anyone.”
“Hmpf,” she grumbles turning back to her work. “If this is not interested, I’d hate to see you in love.”
I glance at the clock that’s on the microwave. “Crap, I’m going to be late.” I race into my room and toss the laundry on the bed, quickly changing into my grey leggings and shoving my leg warmers and shoes into my dance bag. I stop and redo my hair into a tight bun. You don’t want to be late for Madame Azarov’s class, but you also don’t want to come in sloppy—with two well-chosen words she’ll humiliate you so badly you might as well not show up at all.
I have ten minutes before class starts, so I decide to run the few blocks between here and the studio at the edge of campus. Not only is it a good warm-up, but it’ll save me the hassle of trying to find a place to park which would eat up precious minutes. I can see people warming up when I reach Madame’s studio, but she’s nowhere to be seen as I slip on my shoes and legwarmers and take my place at the barre.
“Did you run all the way here?” the girl to my left asks, sweeping her body down toward the ground and placing her hands flat on the floor. She’s new this session—I haven’t seen her in studio classes before, but she’s obviously not new to dance. Her body is finely muscled and compact and her dark skin shines in the bright studio lights. Even in a tight bun, you can see the wave in her black hair and I wonder what it looks like loose and wild around her head.
“I had to,” I pant, doing some preliminary stretches. “I didn’t want to be late.”
“Good choice,” she answers, just as Madame’s voice booms across the room.
“Jenna! Nina! Do you have some wisdom that you’d like to share with the class?”
“No Madame,” we both answer and Nina gives me a sideways grin as she stands up straight at the mirror, eyes on our instructor. Madame used to dance with the Bolshoi and I always wondered how she made it from the pinnacle of the Russian stage way down here to Garvin, Texas, but it’s not the sort of thing you’d ask her in casual conversation. Not that I can imagine Madame ever having a casual conversation. Painfully thin, she must be somewhere in her fifties and despite the fact that all of us are taller than she is, none of us would ever talk back to Madame. Like me, most of the students in the elite class have dreams that are a lot bigger than Garvin, Texas and Madame has connections to the premiere dance companies all over the world. She’s the entire reason I came to Garvin State instead of going to New York like everyone said I should. Best not to get on her bad side.
As we work the barre, I watch Nina out of the corner of my eye. Her extension is excellent and as she executes an attitude, I’m amazed to see her lift her right leg almost parallel to her head in a seemingly effortless pose. This is obviously not her first rodeo.
“Jenna!” Madame calls and I whip my head forward.
“Oui Madame,” I respond.
“Perhaps you would like to demonstrate your work on the jete for the rest of us?” she asks, her eyes steady on me.
For Madame, a question is the same as an order, so I nod and take my place in the corner of the room. When the music starts I take two steps and execute a perfect grand jete in the middle of the wood floor, I can tell in midair that my split is level and the height is good, but when I land, Madame looks unimpressed. “Bon,” she says. “Again.” Four more times I wordlessly execute the jete, the last time I can tell that my body is tired and the back leg is lagging.
“You must be able to do several without weakening,” she demands in broken English. Occasionally she slips into Russian, but most of the time she speaks English with a smattering of French thrown in for good measure. “And your landing is heavy like the hippo. You need to be light like a feather. I want to see more work before the performance.”
“Oui Madame,” I say, bowing slightly and taking my place along the barre.
After an hour and a half of excruciatingly hard work, Madame excuses the class and I gratefully sprawl on the floor to take off my shoes.
“Your jetes were beautiful,” Nina says, sitting down beside me and slipping her street shoes out of her bag.
I glance up at Madame. “Not if she doesn’t think so.”
“Sometimes perfection is overrated.”
I laugh. Ballet is nothing but the pursuit of perfection. “Are you a dance major? I haven’t seen you in any classes before now.”
“No.” Nina smiles, her smooth dark skin getting red on her cheeks. “I wanted to be a ballerina once upon a time.” She looks around the room at the dozens of hopefuls. “Like every other little girl I guess. But now I’m an engineering major—I just like to take classes to keep loose.”
“Well, you should be,” I say. “You’re at least as good as anyone in this place.”
“I doubt that,” Nina says, hauling herself to her feet and pulling her bag onto her shoulder. I follow her out to the street. It’s gotten dark while we’ve been inside, but the temperature still has to be in the eighties somewhere. She pulls out a set of car keys and looks at me. “Are you doing anything? I was going to meet my boyfriend at McCarthy’s—you could come along.”
“No, thanks. I have a ton of homework,” I say, thinking of the English paper I still have to write for tomorrow. “Maybe next time?” I ask, hopefully. She’s cool and I don’t want Nina to think I don’t want to hang out with her. There aren’t all that many African American students at Garvin State—I think they used all of them on the school brochure that they send out every year—and it must be weird for her. I hold up my phone. “Let me give you my number and you can text me if you want.”
“Deal,” she nods, putting my number in her phone. “You going to be okay walking all by yourself?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I have to call home anyway. The family freaks out if I don’t call twice a week.”
“I get that—my parents have me on a strict call schedule too. See you next time,” she says, pointing her keys and unlocking a new red VW.
“See you,” I say and turn toward my street.
Gramps answers my call on the first ring. “Good evening,” he says briskly.
“Hey Gramps, it’
s Jenna,” I say, knowing that they’re about the last people in the free world who would get caller ID.
“Baby J!” he says, sounding surprised even though I call them every Monday night. “How are things in the big city?”
“Garvin is hardly the big city,” I say, although compared to Grand Junction, it’s practically New York. And according to Gramps, just as dangerous.
“You being careful?” he asks, ignoring my remark.
“Yes sir. I still have the pepper spray you gave me.” Gramps tried to get me to get a concealed carry license, but I think having a gun on me is going a little far.
“That’s good darlin’. You never know who’s cruising around looking for trouble in a place like that.”
“I’m perfectly safe.” I can hear Gram in the background over the sounds of FOX news that runs 24-7 on their TV. “What’s she saying?”
“Your grandmother would like to know when you’re coming home for a visit.”
“I was just there two weeks ago,” I say, picturing their sitting room with the matching overstuffed La-Z-Boy recliners.
“You know it’s not the same without you here for Sunday supper,” Gramps says. They’re trying to be good about letting me live on my own, but I know it’s hard for all of them. Times like these I wish for a brother or sister to help take the heat off.
“I’ll work something out with Mom,” I say.
“Hold on, Gram wants the phone,” he says and I can hear him pass the handset to her. They only got a portable phone when they figured out that they could talk without actually leaving their chairs.
“Hi baby,” Gram says. “Listen, I wanted to tell you that Mrs. Edwards’ grandson is home from college—things didn’t work out for him there so he’s working with his daddy at the dairy. I thought maybe I could invite him to supper the next time you’re in town.”
I make a face. Sam Edwards is exactly the kind of guy I left Grand Junction to escape. Big, with muscles that would soon give way to a gigantic beer-belly like the one his daddy’s sporting and no conversational skills past the latest score of whatever team is playing that season. So many of my friends from high school are married already, spending their nights skinning the deer that their men bring home and planning the weekly dinner menu. No thanks. “I’m…” I look around for inspiration. No way can I survive an entire meal sitting across from Sam Edwards and both families’ expectations. “I’m kind of seeing someone up here.” I immediately want to kick myself—that was the exact wrong thing to say to get Gram to back off. Ginny Taylor is not one to let something like that go.
“You are?” Her voice rises with happiness. Like everyone else in my family, they think that my dance career is a waste of time and that none of this is going to help in their ultimate goal—finding me a man to marry. “That’s wonderful! Now I want you to bring that boy right on down here as soon as you can. I’ll get a special Sunday supper going so that we can all meet him.”
“Gram…” I try, but she’s not stopping.
“Do you think he’ll like pot roast? He’s not one of those vegetable people is he? There’s so much to do—”
“Gram!” I insist. “I’m not bringing him home anytime soon.”
“Well why not, sugar?” I can hear the disappointment in her voice.
Um…because he’s imaginary? “I will,” I backpedal. “It’s just that we’re really busy right now with school and the recital coming up…”
“Okay, but don’t make it too long,” she says. “You were dating that lovely Jake fella the last time you brought a beau to the house.”
I wince at the name. I never told them what happened between us. Jake said all the right things to get me in bed and then keep me there—that he loved me and he promised I was the only girl in his life. Not that it was complete torture at first—as the starting running back for the football team he looked good and felt even better and I was so proud sitting there in the stands cheering him on at every game. A wide-eyed freshman dating a handsome senior—every girl’s dream, right? What an idiot. My face heats up with shame at the thought of it. Everyone else on the team must have known he was seeing two other girls in two other cities. Apparently I wasn’t the only one he was making promises to.
“This is so exciting!” Gram continues in my ear.
“I’ll come down soon, I promise,” I say, making a mental note to break up with the fake boyfriend within the next couple of weeks. She’ll be disappointed, but like every other time one date didn’t lead to a ring and a proposal, she’ll get over it. “Tell Mom I’ll call her soon.”
“I will,” she says. “Bye.”
“Bye Gram,” I say.
“Wait!”she shouts into my ear. “What’s his name?”
“His name?” I ask. I look up to see that I’ve already reached my apartment building. My eye catches on the gleaming red Triumph parked in the parking space. “Tyler,” I say quickly without thinking. I feel a moment of panic and then relax. What’s the harm? Not like they’re ever going to meet him. “His name is Ty.”
Chapter Three (Ty)
“Killer game dude,” Rowan says, swatting me on the shoulder with his glove as he passes my seat on the bus.
“Thanks,” I say. I can’t help grinning. My bat is hot right now, just where I need it to be. “You too. You’ll get the no-hitter next time.” He was so close, but a double in the eighth blew it for him. The minute the ball left the bat you could hear it was a good hit. It just about killed all of us.
“There’s always next time,” he grins, grabbing a seat toward the back.
“Basking in your success?” Mitch says, sliding into the seat behind me.
“Hardly,” I say. As much as I like to win, I hate to talk about it. It’s embarrassing somehow.
“Back to back homers?” Mitch whistles. “That’ll get you noticed. Did you see the look on that poor pitcher’s face just before they yanked his ass out of the game? I almost felt sorry for the guy.”
“The last one was a lucky shot,” I say with a shrug, hoping he’ll stop talking about it. “You had a great couple of innings too.”
“Come on. Coach only put me in because we were up by five. Between your batting and Rowan’s pitching, the rest of us are just field decorations.”
“That’s bullshit,” I say. “Okay, I’m having a good season. But we both know that bats run hot and bats run cold.” I look around to make sure nobody’s listening as the driver closes the front doors and puts the bus into gear. “Everyone has their turn.”
“Well, it’s definitely yours right now,” Mitch says. He looks over the back of my seat to the book in my lap. “German Existentialist Literature?”
“Yeah.” I wiggle the highlighter at him. “With all the traveling and games five days a week I’m seriously behind.” Not to mention that if my grades slip too much further my baseball scholarship’s in jeopardy, something I can’t afford when I’m finally this close to making things happen. All I need is a few more hours in the day.
“You just need to learn to sweet talk those TAs a little better,” Mitch says, pulling out his tablet and headphones.
“Right,” I say. I haven’t sweet-talked anyone in months, not since I broke up with Hailey last summer. Thinking about not having any girls in my life was easy. Actually doing it is getting harder every day.
There’s not much to see on the three hour drive back to Garvin—hills and scrub trees and the occasional small town, so it’s easy to finally get some work done to the hum of the other guys on the bus talking, messing with their phones or listening to the movie that’s running on the monitors overhead. Sometimes we pass through one of those micro towns, their main streets literally two blocks long, with their raised wooden sidewalks splintering in the sun and most of the glass fronts boarded up. Almost all of them have a big fancy courthouse sitting in the middle of a square right in the center of town—big brick reminders of what life used to be like in this part of Texas. As we roll out of town I look into the yards
behind the peeling picket fences at the rusty swing sets and the above-ground pools and wonder what it would be like to grow up in a place like this. And what the people in a place like this would say if they knew we were watching.
I’m always relieved when we get back on the main road as it rolls over the hills, nothing to see out the window but vultures hopping around road kill and cows dotting the scrub as they bend their heads to forage what they can from the dry ground. The tiny towns depress me and make me feel even more like an outsider in this part of the country. Much better to be flying through a town like this instead of stuck in one.
It’s dark by the time we pull into the parking lot at school. Some of the guys have been sleeping and there’s a lot of groaning and stretching as the lights on the bus flip on and people stand and grab their stuff.
“Where you headed?” Mitch asks as I swing my backpack over my shoulder.
“Home I guess.”
He checks his phone. “On Saturday night? Come on, you can do better than that.”
I shrug. “Like I said, I’ve got a lot of work to do and we have a ton of games next week…” I know how lame and pathetic that sounds the minute the words are out of my mouth.
“Plenty of time for all that,” Mitch says as we hop down onto the asphalt parking lot. “Come to the bar with me. We’ll have a couple beers, some wings…you have to eat.”
I think about it for a split second. All that’s waiting for me at the apartment is a frozen pizza and Jessie and his stoner friends playing video games for hours in the living room. Plus, if I blow Mitch off one more time he probably won’t ask again. “Okay. Just for a little while.”
“Great!” Mitch smiles and taps his phone. “Nina’s meeting us there, and she’s got some hot friend from class with her.”