Drenched in Light

by Lisa Wingate

  In my world, Mom and Dad are in my house.

  In my world, there’s no gangs. Nobody uses drugs. There’s no bullies.

  In my world, everyone is beautiful.

  In my world, everybody dances.

  In my world, everyone loves.

  I stood in the doorway until I’d read them all—dozens of visions of a perfect Crayola world. When I was finished, I couldn’t wait to meet the children who had created the images.

  I found the Jumpkids in the cafeteria finishing up a snack of cheese crackers and juice, then heading across the hall to the gymnasium, where what sounded like yoga music was playing. Standing in the hallway, I looked into one room and then the other, finally choosing the cafeteria, where an attractive forty-something woman with shoulder-length brown hair was directing kids as they cleaned up paper plates and cups. She didn’t notice me by the door, but continued helping youngsters pack their leftovers into brown paper bags with names on them. As the kids passed by the door, they set their bags on a table. Studying me inquisitively, a few of them placed their bags on the corner farthest from me, like they thought I might eat their leftover crackers. A Hispanic girl with bouncing pigtails, perhaps six or seven years old, deposited her sack next to me, smiled with eight teeth missing in front, and gave me a bear hug. I supposed I looked like I needed it.

  “Ooof,” I grunted as the air rushed from my lungs. “Thanks.”

  Still smiling, she let go and skipped out the door, motioning for me to follow. Since the woman in the cafeteria was busy, I crossed the hall to the gymnasium. Inside, the gym floor was covered with kids sitting on old towels, carefully imitating the yoga movements of a middle-aged African-American woman with her hair pulled back in a headband of folk-art tapestry. Her eyes were closed as she slid through the yoga positions with catlike grace, seeming oblivious to the sea of small bodies around her and the rustle of new kids coming in. The latecomers entered with amazing reverence, quietly slipping off their shoes at the door, picking up their towels with determined, sober faces, and moving to empty places. There was no jostling, no giggling, no talking, just the quiet whisper of breath and motion.

  My mind raced back to the rehearsal room, in the moments before a performance, when everyone was silent, stretching, each of us in our own quiet sanctuary, already living the magic of stepping onstage to dance. My lungs constricted with the yearning I had struggled so hard to banish. In spite of everything that had happened to make it come crashing down, I missed my old life in a way that ached in every fiber of my body.

  You should go, I thought, before anyone sees you here. There was a reason I avoided the Harrington dance classes, the performance hall, the practice studios each day as I went about my job. They were too stark a reminder of the past. Even the innocuous sounds of Giselle or Scheherazade in the hallways, or a dance teacher counting meter—“and one, and two, and three, and four”—was more than I could bear. The swish of pointe shoes, the rustle of costumes, the elastic snap of a dancer adjusting a leotard, filled me with remembered sensations.

  I turned toward the door, but Dell was there. I realized I was standing in first position with my arms in rounded devant—a function of old habits and muscle memory. “Once a dancer, always a dancer,” my childhood madame used to say.

  “Hey,” Dell whispered, smiling and waving as she grabbed a towel and jogged toward me.

  “Hey,” I replied softly, sensing that she had been wondering if I would come. By making an appearance here, I had passed some sort of reliability test. “This is really something.” I waved toward the children, perhaps fifty or sixty in all. “I can’t believe the kids are so quiet.”

  “Mrs. Mindia makes everyone be quiet.” Holding her towel beside her mouth as a shield, Dell motioned to the front of the room, and I noticed that the yoga instructor was watching us through one disapproving eye. “If you’re not quiet, you don’t get to dance.”

  Oh, I mouthed.

  Dell shrugged toward the door. “Come meet Karen.” Turning, she started toward the hallway, crossing the floor in her soft, pink ballet shoes. She moved like a dancer—confident, graceful, in command. She didn’t look like the same kid I’d seen slinking down the hallways at Harrington, trying to achieve invisibility. This girl, with her dark hair twisted neatly back in a clip, her chin up and her shoulders square, her eyes bright and lively, was a different person entirely.

  I was interested in getting to know her.

  Chapter 6

  In the cafeteria, the dark-haired woman in the Jumpkids sweatshirt—Dell’s foster mother, I assumed—was ushering a few remaining kids off to the gym while a couple of elderly women cleaned and wiped tables. The kids hugged the workers with obvious affection as they passed. The last one, a little African-American boy with his hair shaved short, stood up in his seat, bounded from chair to chair until he reached Dell’s foster mother, and launched himself at her. She caught him and he wrapped his arms and legs around her like an octopus.

  “I wub Dumpkids day!” he bubbled, a speech impediment making the words hard to understand.

  “Me, too, Justin.” Stumbling backward, she collided lightly with the furniture. “But Jumpkids only walk on the floor. Never on tables or chairs, right?”

  “Www-wite!” he exclaimed with a smile that overtook his face.

  “Ohhhkay, then.” Peeling him off, she set him on the ground. “Now”—laying a hand atop his head, she spun him around like a puppet—“you’d better get over to the gym. Mrs. Mindia’s doing stretching exercises, and you want to do that. Today, we’re going to try some Latin dancing and learn some things about the mandolin and the mariachis. You don’t want to miss that, right?”

  Justin twisted back and forth beneath her hand, swinging his arms at his sides like tiny pendulums. “Nope.”

  Drawing back, she made a quick tsk-tsk through her teeth, looking shocked. “I just know you haven’t forgotten how Jumpkids answer a question. Remember, we talked about that a few weeks ago? When we speak to people, it’s important to show that we have respect for the other person, and for ourselves. We don’t want people to think we’re just any old kids. We want them to know we’re Jumpkids, right?” Justin nodded, and she prompted, “I bet you can show me how a Jumpkid answers a question, can’t you?”

  Snapping to attention, Justin cleared his throat and said, “Yes, ma’am.” Then he grinned again, puffed his chest out, and added, “Dat’s how a Dumpkid does it.”

  “You are right, sir.” She smiled back. “See, I can tell just by the way you answered that you are no regular old kid. I bet I’ll also be able to tell you’re a Jumpkid by how quietly you go across the hall to Mrs. Mindia.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Justin said again, then spun around and marched toward the door like a soldier. When he came to Dell and me, he stopped, gave Dell a hug, then stuck his hand out to me with great formality. “Good mo-wning, I’m Dus-tin.”

  It wasn’t morning, of course, but the introduction was charming. “Good afternoon, Justin.” I shook his hand, which was sticky from something I didn’t want to think about. “I’m Julia Costell. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  Narrowing one eye, Justin considered all those big words, then shrugged and said, “You a pretty wady. Bye.” He trotted off, and Dell and I laughed together as Dell’s foster mother crossed the room and introduced herself.

  “Karen Sommerfield.” Her bemused expression told me she had no idea who I was or why I was there.

  “Julia Costell,” I said as we shook hands. “I’m Dell’s guidance counselor at school.” Her confusion turned to worry, and she cast a concerned glance at Dell, so I quickly added, “Dell mentioned the Jumpkids program to me the other day, and she invited me to come by and see how it works. I hope I’m not disturbing anything.”

  “Oh, gosh, no. We’re thrilled to have you.” Cocking her head to one side, she squinted at me. “You’re the guidance counselor at Harrington?”

  I wondered if she thought I was too y
oung or too blond to hold such an esteemed position, then realized that she was probably confused because until seven weeks ago, the guidance counselor had been old Mrs. Kazinski, Mrs. Morris’s evil twin. “Mrs. Kazinski retired at the end of fall semester.” Since taking over, I’d done a woefully poor job of getting out and meeting parents, or anyone else. I’d been completely overwhelmed with my own problems, the grant application, and the mess of incomplete student records Mrs. Kazinski had piled up during her last few months before retirement. I suspected that she had been combing through files, removing things she didn’t want anyone to see. I couldn’t imagine what—maybe evil spells and recipes for witch’s brew.

  “Oh …” The wheels were turning in Karen’s mind. Scratching her head, she pushed strands of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m incredibly rude. It’s just that when Dell enrolled at the first of the year, I explained her situation and particularly asked that the school keep in touch. Since then, not one person has contacted me, except her music teacher. When we went in to ask about grades and things, Mr. Stafford and Mrs. Kazinski assured me that we shouldn’t worry, that all students are given only a passail grade their first semester at Harrington, and that Dell was passing. Am I correct in assuming that at the end of this nine-week grading period, she’ll be receiving an actual report card with letter grades?”

  My stomach tensed up. I was terribly uninformed as to the current grading system, except that I knew the school was now operating under nine-week grading periods, rather than the traditional six-week blocks. There were grades for Dell in my folder, and they were not good. Why would Stafford or Kazinski have kept that from her foster parents? When the next report card came home two weeks from now, Karen would be in for a shock.

  Dell’s gaze darted back and forth between her foster mother and me with genuine terror. Right now, in front of her, wasn’t the time to be talking about problems with the school’s grading system or lack of parent communication. “Yes, she should be receiving a regular report card at the end of this nine weeks.” My mind was racing through grades and percentages—trying to determine whether it was possible to bring Dell’s grades up to passing in two weeks. Tutoring? Extra credit? Divine intervention?

  Oh, God.

  “Good. We just want to be sure everything’s OK.” Karen was clearly relieved. Slipping an arm around Dell’s slim shoulders, she pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “Dell’s had such a big transition this year. We want to be there for her in whatever ways we need to be. She’s a pretty special kid.” Her love for Dell was obvious, and so was the fact that, so far this year, she’d been given a snow job with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

  Laying her head on her foster mother’s shoulder, Dell cast a pained, pleading gaze my way. The message was clear; Please don’t say anything and mess this up.

  Now I knew why she had returned to my office with another essay today, why she’d invited me here this afternoon, and why she’d insisted on confidentiality between us. She was desperate. She needed help. She couldn’t tell her foster parents that things weren’t wonderful at Harrington, because she was afraid that if she couldn’t be perfect, she wouldn’t be wanted.

  I felt a stab of understanding in the part of me that had always felt empty, uncertain. The messy, hollow space marked BIOLOGICAL FATHER, where questions roiled endlessly, simmering like a volcanic pool beneath a cooled surface. No amount of love could ever completely rescue you from the scars of being abandoned by someone who was supposed to love you. No matter who else came along, or how devoted they were, there was always a part that feared everyone else would eventually discover the reasons you were left behind in the first place, and they’d leave too.

  My dad had loved me unwaveringly for twenty-seven years, and still, I didn’t trust it. Because of a man I’d never met, and was afraid to ask about. I’d seen his name on my original birth certificate when I started college, punched it into Yahoo search, then closed the window before the results came up, worried that somehow Dad would find out. I’d even erased the history screen, as if going to Yahoo! People Search were a crime.

  I understood exactly how Dell felt. If I caved on her now, the fragile connection between us would be severed. There wouldn’t be anyone she could trust with the truth. “Well, listen, I don’t want to hold you up,” I said to Karen, in hopes of smoothly breaking out of the conversation. “My door’s always open at the school. But today, I’m just here to watch.”

  Karen smiled pleasantly. “The first rule of Jumpkids,” she said as we started across the hall, “is nobody just watches.”

  “Ms. Costell’s a dancer,” Dell chimed in, regarding me with admiration and no small measure of gratitude. “She went to Harrington.”

  Karen blinked in surprise, the way everyone did when they found out I went to Harrington and ended up back there as a counselor.

  “Oh … well … I don’t dance anymore,” I stammered.

  “It’s a cinch that you won’t get outclassed around here,” Karen said, just before we reached the quiet zone in the gym-slash-yoga studio. “Although some of our kids are taking a pretty serious interest in dance and voice, and a few in instrumental music. Instrumental is harder for us to accomplish, because we only have enough instruments to teach a few kids each week. Right now we’re offering piano and guitar, but I’d like to expand, if we can get equipment and teachers.” She shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’m giving you the full tour, whether you want it or not, aren’t I? I’ve only been with Jumpkids since last fall, so it’s all new and exciting to me.”

  “Oh, no, it’s interesting,” I whispered as Mrs. Mindia moved the kids into a downward-dog position, then had them slowly stretch upward. “Like trees,” she said, “rising toward the sun.”

  Karen handed me a towel from a basket near the door. She and Dell kicked off their shoes, and I stood awkwardly looking at my pastel print dress with the flowing fluttery skirt. “I didn’t exactly come dressed for this… .” I felt like the nerd who’d forgotten her gym suit in PE class.

  “I don’t know.” Lifting her hands, Karen grinned, pretending to spread an imaginary skirt. “As soon as the kids finish their ballet positions, we’re doing flamenco. Looks like you’re the only one with the right dress on.”

  Dell butted me playfully in the shoulder, something I couldn’t imagine her doing at school. “Come on, Ms. Costell, nobody just watches in Jumpkids.”

  I gave her a mean face, my imitation of Mrs. Morris. “You should have told me that before you invited me.”

  “If I told you that, you wouldn’t of come.” Fanning her towel like a Latin dance dress, she hurried across the gym.

  Karen smiled after her. “It’s so good to see her happy and acting like a normal kid,” she said, as I took off my shoes and blazer, and we started after Dell. “She’s come out of herself so much in these past few months.”

  You wouldn’t know it if you saw her at school, I thought. Fortunately, we’d moved into the silent zone, so I didn’t have to answer. I had a feeling that Dell’s foster mother knew nothing about the girl in the river, and she wasn’t going to find out, if Dell could help it.

  As we laid our towels on the floor and began transitioning through the combination of dance stretches and yoga positions, my thoughts slowed and wound inward, like a wobbling gyroscope finding its center, finally spinning effortlessly, in motion yet silent. There was an inner joy, a poetry of muscle and mind as my body stretched then tightened, weaving and swaying, filled with a lightness of rhythm, and air, and memory. Closing my eyes, I moved through the ballet positions, barely hearing Mrs. Mindia directing from the front of the room. I was far away, in the studio warming up before rehearsal—going through the basics like dance class students. Brian McGregor, the artistic director at KC Metro Ballet, insisted on first things first. “No matter how great your talent,” he said, “without the basics, you are nothing.”

  In my mind, Mrs. Mindia’s voice became his as he d
irected the cast, rehearsing the Dance of the Four Little Swans. “Technically correct,” he said, “but this is professional ballet. It is a level beyond. You must feel the magic of your art. You must think like dancers. Give me the opening sequence on three. And one, and two, and three, and …”

  I felt myself begin to move as one of the Four Little Swans, the dancer I was to replace on the afternoon of spacing rehearsal. Music filled every corner of my soul until it spilled out into the theater, into cavernous empty space, so that no emptiness remained. In my soul, in the theater, there was only a perfect marriage of melody and motion. No questions, no answers, no problems of the world. Only beauty, only the sense of transcending gravity and taking flight, like the swan itself …

  Mrs. Mindia paused to help a student, and my mind rocketed back with an elastic snap. When I opened my eyes, Dell was watching me with amazement. I flushed, feeling as if I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t. Dancing. The forbidden obsession. After my stint in the hospital, I’d promised my parents I would give it up and everything that went with it. The doctors agreed that I should steer clear of “that environment,” as if I were a drug addict staying away from the local crack house, or a compulsive gambler avoiding proximity to a casino. A studio full of mirrors and willowy dancers with perfect body lines was no place for a woman with an eating disorder.

  But then, the Simmons-Haley Elementary School gym was about as far from a professional ballet studio as possible. There were no mirrors, and none of the dancers here were over four feet tall.

  Smiling, Dell gave me the thumbs-up and mouthed, Cool!

  I fell into the rhythm of the warm-up again, enjoying the muted drumbeat of feet softly striking the floor in unison and the feel of fabric swirling around my legs. By the time we’d moved to demi plié, I realized that not only Dell, but some of the other kids were watching me each time Mrs. Mindia gave an instruction.

  “If you cannot see well from the back,” Ms. Mindia said, “you may watch Dell, or Mrs. Karen, or the beautiful ballerina in the flowered dress.” She regarded me with interest. “I don’t believe I know her name.”