Someday Dancer

by Sarah Rubin

  I put on my pajamas and climb into bed. Mama sits on the sheets next to me. It’s strange to have her there beside me. Her eyes are thoughtful and sad as she looks at the painted trees. It’s like she is staring through them, at something else, something very far away. Then she sighs and looks at me.

  “I’m sorry, Casey,” she says, smoothing the sheet at my side. “But maybe this is for the best.”

  I am too sad and too tired to argue, but how can it be for the best? Everything is in New York City. New York City is the stars.

  “Sometimes, Casey, people spend their whole lives living for a dream they can’t have. And these people are so busy, so greedy for their dream that they forget all the good things they already have.”

  “But . . . ,” I start to argue. I can’t see what’s wrong with dreaming.

  Mama just sighs. “Get some sleep, Casey. You’re all worn out.”

  She gets up and clicks off the light, leaving me in the dark. I wonder if Mama ever had a dream, or if she always thought like she thinks now, that dreams are dangerous and a bad idea.

  I am still awake when Gran comes home. I hear the screen door creak open. Mama’s feet pad down the hall past my door. If I sit up and take my head off the pillow, I can hear them talking in the kitchen.

  “I got the money.” Gran’s voice is rich as gravy, and I cling to my knees with hope.

  “How?” I can see Mama in my head. Her arms are folded tight across her chest. One foot is tapping on the floor. She’s mad at Gran, but she can’t say so. Not straight out, at least.

  “Never mind how,” Gran says. “I got the money, and now Casey can go to that audition.”

  In the silence my heart overflows into my lungs and I have to hold the pillow over my face to keep quiet. I can go. My whole body wants to wriggle around. It wants to dance. Right now. But I keep still. Mama and Gran aren’t done talking yet.

  Mama says, “You shouldn’t build her up like this. How is she supposed to get through that audition? And even if she does, you know we can’t afford for her to live in New York.”

  “Do you want her spending the rest of her life in this town, mopping that hospital floor till she’s worn out as a rag herself?”

  I can hear Gran sit down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs. Mama doesn’t move. She doesn’t make a sound, and Gran keeps talking.

  “Casey’s going places. One way or another. She’s got something mighty big inside her, and I’m going to make sure it gets out. You should be making sure, too.”

  Mama interrupts Gran before she’s done with her last word. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Mama yelling at Gran. “She’s not a little girl anymore! She’s old enough to know what the real world is like. At some point we all have to give up our dreams.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Gran yells right back at Mama, ferocious as a lioness. My heart is pounding hard enough to escape.

  “Ridiculous?” Mama stops. I can hear her take a breath in the silent house. Then her voice goes low. “You know what I had to give up for this family.”

  “You didn’t have to give up anything, Caroline. You chose to, and you know it.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Mama? What was I supposed to do when Richard died? I had to get a real job to support us all.” My skin goes cold. Mama never talks about my father.

  “That was ten years ago,” Gran says. “How many times has Mr. Crampton asked you to paint the children’s ward since then? How many times have you said no?”

  “That’s not the point,” Mama says. Her voice is tired.

  “That is exactly the point. You gave up on dreaming the day Richard died. I understand that. But you have a daughter, Caroline. It’s time for you to start dreaming again. Even if it’s only for her. Casey is going to that audition, and that’s final.” Gran slams something down on the kitchen table. I can hear it echo through the house like a shot.

  Mama is quiet.

  “Go to bed, Caroline.” Gran says it like she is shaking her head. Like she’s disappointed in Mama. I wonder if Gran thought Mama had something big inside her, too. Something bigger than cleaning hospital floors in boring old Warren.

  Footsteps sound up the hallway to my room. I slam myself back down, pretending to be asleep. The door to my room opens, and I can tell by the heavy steps that it’s Gran.

  “Casey, I know you’re not sleeping.” Gran sits down, and my mattress groans. She holds up two round quarters.

  “How did you get it?” I ask as Gran puts the money in my hand.

  “I explained very nicely to Mr. Homes how much going to New York City meant to you, and he wanted to make up for getting you in trouble.”

  Even in the dark, I can see her eyes twinkle. I doubt very much that what she said to Mr. Homes was nice at all. “Did he really just give you the money, Gran?” I ask.

  Gran grunts and fusses with the covers, tucking them tight up to my chin. “Well, I wouldn’t say he just gave it to me. He is the sourest man I have ever met. Accused me of being a Communist. Can you imagine?”

  I laugh.

  “I had to give him a piece of my mind after that, and in the end he saw reason,” says Gran with a big grin. “Now you get some sleep.”

  Gran levers herself off the bed. As she opens the door, light from the hallway spills in around her edges, lighting her up like an angel.

  “Gran,” I say, and she turns. “Thank you for the ballet clothes. They’re almost like new the way you fixed them.”

  “Almost?” Gran puts her hands on her hips, pretending to be miffed.

  “Well,” I say. “I still wish I could have gotten new ballet slippers. You know. My own pair.”

  “Casey honey, if it bugs you that much, why don’t you just audition in your old high-tops? You’re always dancing in them anyway.”

  “Gran! You can’t do ballet in high-tops.”

  “Well then, Ann-Lee’s slippers will have to do.” Gran smiles with her voice.

  I roll my eyes, but I know Gran is right. Going to the audition is way more important than feeling bad about wearing Priss Ann’s hand-me-down shoes. I might not like wearing them, but I won’t let that stop me from dancing. And once I’m a prima ballerina I can buy all the new ballet slippers I want.

  “Gran,” I say softly. “What dream did Mama give up?”

  Gran looks through the dark room into the forest of trees painted on my wall. “Not tonight, Casey. We’ll talk about it when you come back from New York City.”

  But from the way she stares at my mama’s painting, I think I already know.

  I wake up early, before the sun peeks into my bedroom. When I sit up, I’m jangling all over. Today I am getting on a bus to go audition for the School of American Ballet. I shiver out of bed and get dressed in the dark. I can feel my new ballet clothes waiting for me. I am so excited I hardly remember someone else has worn them.

  Without turning on the light, I hold on to the foot of my bed and start to stretch. First my arms and my back. Then my legs. I kick each one high into the air, and as I do I see the first line of the sun appear in my window. It is so bright and beautiful it makes the painted water on my wall sparkle. I kick even harder to hurry the sun along. Wake up, lazybones. Today is a day for shining!

  Everything goes fast once the sun is up. I am into my best traveling dress, blue-and-white-striped with a blue belt. Gran let the hem out for me again, so my knobbly knees are covered. I can’t hardly eat a bite of breakfast, my stomach is dancing so. But I make myself swallow, for strength. I have to ride all night to get to New York City by tomorrow.

  School crawls by like a lazy fly in the sun. Ann-Lee isn’t here. Mrs. Ryder took her out of school today so they could get to New York City early. So the little Priss could be fresh for the audition. All the freshness in the world won’t stop her feet from flopping. Mrs. Ryder asked if I wanted to ride with them, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in a car with Prissy sitting in the front, telling me not to touch anything and gloating over how I ne
ver would have gotten to the audition without her. And I don’t even want to think about sharing a hotel room with the Priss. I’ll take the bus, thank you very much.

  I look at the clock every chance I get. It hardly seems to move at all until, suddenly, it’s three o’clock and the bell rings. Mama and Gran are waiting for me outside the school yard, and we walk together to Willy’s General Store to wait for the bus.

  We don’t say much while we walk. My mouth is dry as a desert. I don’t think I could say a word if I wanted to.

  Mama had been quiet all morning, too. She didn’t hardly say a word at breakfast, and now she is silent as can be. I haven’t had time to think about it, but now that we are stuck waiting for the bus, I wonder if she’s mad at me. I twist and turn nervously. The window of Willy’s General Store is full of the new products for summer. A fishing pole and a picnic basket sit on top of a pile of canning jars for summer jam. In one dusty corner, I see a set of paints and brushes. I stare hard at the paints. Someday I’m gonna come back to Warren, after I’m a famous ballerina. I’m gonna come back and buy Mama that paint set.

  The bus comes wheezing around the corner in a cloud of road dust. Heat waves shimmer off its side. Mama leans forward. “Here’s your dinner, and your lunch for tomorrow, and some snacks in case you get hungry.” She hands me a brown paper sack, heavy with sandwiches. “And this is for something extra.” She puts two shiny dimes in the palm of my hand. They click together as I close my fist. I look at Mama, my eyes wide. She must have been saving that for something special, and then I smile because Mama gave it to me.

  Mama straightens up. “Now, don’t go and fritter that all away on snacks. You find something really special. Something you’ll remember forever.”

  I nod.

  Gran wraps me up in her arms and squeezes me hard.

  “Good luck, Casey,” she says, and I smile.

  She squeezes me one more time, so hard I can barely breathe, and then she lets me go. “Now you go show New York what you’re made of.”

  She squeezes me again, and then Mama does, too. I don’t think they’ll ever stop, until the bus horn blasts so loud we all jump. I hurry up and climb aboard, clutching my ticket tight in the hot palm of my hand as I walk to the back of the bus.

  I press my nose against the glass and wave until Mama and Gran are two dots in the distance. I even watch after they’re gone. I am on the bus to New York City, and my toes go tippity-tap. The man next to me gives me a look to sit still, but I don’t care. I’m on my way over the moon, and no grumped-up man and his briefcase are gonna bring me down. I tap my toes as much as I please, and wonder what I’ll find that’s special enough to buy with Mama’s twenty cents.

  It’s hot on the bus. Even the breeze coming in through the windows feels sluggish and wet. The seat is hard, and pretty soon I can feel my legs and my back going stiff. I want to stand up and stretch, but the man next to me scowls when I so much as twitch a toe, so instead I take a good look at the other people on the bus.

  A few seats in front of me is a woman holding a crying baby. She’s got a big suitcase on the metal rack above her head, and I wonder where she’s going. She looks tired but hopeful, and I think she must be, like me, at the start of a big adventure.

  There are other people on the bus who don’t look excited at all, like they do this every day. Men in suits and hats, going up to the big city to do big business. Families going to visit relatives two towns over. My eyes dart from person to person, trying to guess their stories.

  Outside, the world flies by, budding fields of cotton and corn. The bus’s wheels hum against the road. Every few towns, we pull over into one dusty parking lot or another, and some people get off and others get on. I watch through the window, and everyone is hugging, saying hello or good-bye. I wonder what we looked like, Mama, Gran, and me. Probably just like any normal family. I bet no one knew they were looking at Casey Quinn, New York City’s next prima ballerina. But they were.

  And then I wonder who I’m looking at. All these people must have their dreams, too. And maybe that’s why they’re on the bus to New York City. Maybe they want to be dancers, or singers, or run big companies, or sell inventions. It’s strange to try to think of everyone else like that, like my brain isn’t big enough to hold all their stories together inside my head, and it makes me feel wobbly to try and imagine all the hopes and dreams that fill up this bus. I close my eyes and float back into my own head.

  It’s really happening.

  My whole body leaps with excitement. I am sitting on a bus to New York City on my way to audition for the School of American Ballet. My toes tap against the floor, and I sit on my hands to keep them still. As the sun sinks lower and lower, the bus stops less and less. Soon all I can see are the lights of passing cars, rushing by my window in a gentle rhythm. I feel my head drifting back and forth, and I let it rest against the window, feeling the hum of the bus against my temples, slowly soothing me to sleep.

  I wake up the next morning, and my toes are still tapping. The bus stops hard, and the suitcases in the metal rack above my head shift and slide into each other. I hug my knapsack to my chest as people yawn and stretch around me. The driver calls out, “Port Authority!” The bus is filled with the sound of people waking up and the stale, sour smell of sitting still for too long.

  I stand up careful as can be, testing my legs. I am worried they will be stiff and slow. But they are springier than ever. I want to leap down the aisle, but there isn’t space. Instead, I take my bag and file off the bus like everyone else.

  In the station there is a large round desk with a sign that reads Information. I ask a woman with long pink nails for directions to the ballet studio, which isn’t too far from here. She smiles and points me toward a large metal door so big I bet you could have driven the bus through it. I straighten my knapsack and my shoulders, and walk out the door. And I am in the city!

  For a moment I can’t even move. It is bigger than I ever imagined it. There are people everywhere, their heels going clickity-clackity, mumbling as they rush past me. Important places to go! Important people to see! A blue sedan swoops past, blowing up a wind around my ankles, carrying a crumpled-up newspaper page down the street. The wind seems to push me forward. Keep up. You’re in New York City, it says. Get moving!

  At first I walk up the sidewalk slowly, trying to see everything. Usually my feet are flying, running through Warren, ’cause it’s too boring to bother looking at. But not New York. The buildings stretch themselves to the clouds, and I tip my head back to look at them. Signs full of electric lights flashing ads for Coca-Cola and Shulton Old Spice shaving cream are up there, reaching out for the whole city to see. I bet you can see those signs for miles.

  I walk with my eyes fixed on the sky, bumping my way along. People push past me, all unfriendly. They’re rushing down the streets of the city like it’s any other town in America. My mouth is wide open, but I don’t care. How can everyone just rush along and not look at things? Don’t they know where they are?

  I feel smaller than small looking up at the sky. Warren is just a blip compared to New York City. Even the air seems bigger here. It is so full of sounds and smells. A man stands on the corner with a big metal box on wheels, selling hot dogs; a boy has a chair set up on the corner and is shining shoes. The rattle-clatter of steps, extra extra, shine your shoes, hot dogs, get your fresh hot dogs. Everyone is yelling and shouting at the crowd racing past.

  And the air is full of something else, too. A buzz, an energy. And once I feel it, my feet start moving faster. Catching on to the groove of New York City until I’m a part of the hustle and bustle, too. I’m racing along, moving to the faster beat of the city, feet hardly skimming the sidewalk.

  When I get to the corner, I can see people pouring up onto the sidewalk from a set of secret steps that disappear underground. And another group pouring down into the darkness. It makes me shiver. The crowd behind me surges forward, pushing me toward the hot, smelly steps. I try
to sidestep away. I want to stay in the sun, not go down some stinky hole, but the crowd is too strong and I get carried forward like I’m nothing but a leaf on a river.

  I fight back panic. I don’t want to go down underground, but the crowd doesn’t seem to notice I’m there. Everyone is pushing and shoving, and my feet go forward by themselves. The steps are slick with steam and worn shiny by people’s feet.

  I stumble down the steps, eyes blinking in the darkness. The air is roaring as a silver bullet squeals into the station. The crowd pushes me forward through a revolving metal gate. Doors open, and people pour on and off of the train. I tell my feet to stay still, and lean back into the crowd, refusing to move no matter where they push me. But it’s no use. I’m swept onto the train. The doors shut, and the floor lurches beneath me.

  Outside the window, I can see the platform sweep away, and then only darkness. The train snakes away beneath my feet, shooting under the city. My heart pounds inside my chest, and I’m sure someone must realize I’m not supposed to be here, but when I look around, no one looks back. They have their faces stuck into big gray newspapers, and don’t seem to mind at all when the train jerks beneath their feet. It’s all I can do to stay standing up.

  I move to the door, squeezing through the crowd and pressing myself against the glass. No one is going to help me here, I think, and I square my shoulders like a soldier. I bend my knees to absorb the bumps, and get ready for the train to stop.

  The train roars along, chugging and chattering, screeching and squawking. I don’t know how anyone can read with this racket. We seem to go on forever, and I wonder if the train will ever stop. The car sways sharp to the left, and I bump into a woman knitting a bright green scarf. She doesn’t even look up.