No One's Watching

by Sandy Green

  I withdrew my hand and set it on the barre. “Uh, thanks.”

  He did that sweet gazing thing again. Had he remembered me from last year? We joined the back of the line doing piqué turns to the left. Turning in the opposite direction would surely unscrew my dizzy head. According to my feet, the floor wasn’t level either.

  Mr. Jarenko stood against the mirrors, firing comments as everyone spun down the room.

  “You don’t have to finish the exercise.” Candace’s hazel eyes filled with worry. “He won’t care if you don’t go.”

  “That’s okay. I want to.” I shuffled forward in line. “Thanks.”

  Shelly brushed past me. “Give up.”

  Shut up. I frowned and pressed my lips together. Nothing would stop me from doing what I wanted to do. Not even guilt.

  Candace went ahead of me, calmly spinning in perfect turns. Her opaque skirt twirled like pink ribbon candy.

  When it was my turn, I took a breath, pressed my lips together and held my head high. I stepped out on my left foot. This time I remembered to spot the clock in the corner. Had the pianist slowed down? Or was it my imagination?

  “Arms. Not so wild, please,” Mr. Jarenko said.

  At the end of my turn, I only bumped into a small group of dancers, not the whole piano. At least my back was straight. Like a ballet barre. Mr. Jarenko gave me a sharp nod, and my insides danced.

  Shelly huffed and crossed her arms. “I don’t know why you bother to try so hard. No one watches you.”

  I passed her.

  “Except your poor mom.”

  What was with her? Why didn’t she beat me with a dull pointe shoe and get it over with?

  Mr. Jarenko had Shelly repeat the left side so everyone could admire her. She stabbed the floor with her pointe shoe, her foot like a dagger, her balance perfect, and finished with a double and a triple turn. We clapped, and she beamed.

  At home, Shelly had taken it to heart when Mom suggested we practice dramatic faces in the mirror. This was one of her best — waif-like and fragile. She was the ghostly Giselle, her chest as thin as a collection of chicken bones. Mr. Jarenko gushed over her, while my insides twisted. I was so looking forward to coming to this intensive camp to study ballet and other types of dance. Now I was eager for class to be over.

  Mrs. Ricardo, the camp director, hovered in the open doorway, in a floaty blouse over loose pants on her small frame.

  “Yes, darling?” Mr. Jarenko lifted his eyebrows and held his hand out to stop the pianist from playing.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting, Mr. Jarenko. I have an announcement.” Mrs. Ricardo’s hands quivered. “I can wait until you’re through.”

  He strode over to the door and escorted her to the front of the studio by the mirrors. “Nonsense. Please make your announcement.” He waved us to the center of the room.

  Moist heat and a sharp smell of sweat clouded the group. Someone sniffed and coughed.

  “Thank you, Mr. Jarenko.” Mrs. Ricardo blushed and opened her arms in port de bras. “As you all know, we’ll be holding auditions for the end of camp performance to be presented to family members and members of the college and dance community.” She turned her face to Mr. Jarenko. “And for our wonderful teachers.”

  Nods and murmurs from the crowd. Mr. Jarenko bowed, as Shelly slid her wide eyes toward me. I ignored her.

  Mrs. Ricardo’s hand escaped to her neck and toyed with a strand of frizzy hair. “This year, among other fine pieces offered only to dancers aged thirteen and up, we’ll be auditioning for the waltz solo and the waltz pas de deux from Les Sylphides.”

  We all gasped. I imagined myself in Les Sylphides like Grandma always wanted me to. It was my favorite ballet. Plenty of dancing and no plot. Kind of like my life.

  Bonus. There was even a guy in the ballet — the poet. I glanced at Blake, picturing him in the loose, open-necked, white shirt the male dancer wore in the ballet.

  Though every choreographer had his own pattern of steps to famous ballets like Les Sylphides, each version was similar. Mom taught us the version she learned as an understudy with the Mid-States Ballet Company.

  I was ready. Okay, so I’d gotten off to a shaky start, but I had two weeks until auditions. They were always held the end of the second week of camp.

  I remembered Mom’s words as she had left. “This will be your year to get a solo part.” She beamed. After nearly two weeks of intense classes, I should be okay.

  More than okay. I was confident. I practically grew up at this camp. As this was my fourth summer, Mom and Grandma expected me to dance in the performance. Nothing less than a ballet solo would do.

  Mrs. Ricardo seemed as pleased as if she’d eaten a plate of wedding cake. “There’ll be other solos — Cerrito’s Variation from the Grand Pas de Quatre and the Lilac Fairy’s Variation from Sleeping Beauty.”

  Ooh, those dances will work, too.

  Mr. Jarenko curved his arm lightly behind Mrs. Ricardo. “Wonderful choices, Mrs. Ricardo. I have always loved the way the dancers in Les Sylphides use their entire bodies to express the music.” He hummed the prelude as the pianist took her cue and accompanied him while he swayed, his arms following his body like he was in water.

  Mrs. Ricardo flushed. “Yes, thank you. However, there’s been a change of time for the auditions.” She nodded as if counting us. “We’re holding them tomorrow.”

  Chapter Three

  My jaw slid toward my chest as I stared at Mrs. Ricardo and shrank. The rest of the room clapped.

  “Why?” I blurted. Auditions were always held during the end of the second week of camp, leaving a week for rehearsals.

  Mrs. Ricardo scanned our heads and settled on mine as it still managed to poke above the crowd. She blinked. “We’ve had some complaints in previous years we didn’t give enough time for rehearsals. We wanted to give the dancers we have selected as much time as possible to become acquainted with and rehearse their pieces. And this year, we have additional dance opportunities to introduce new forms to gifted and promising dancers.”

  I didn’t care what the other opportunities were. They couldn’t hold the auditions so soon. There was no way I’d be ready, and I had to get a solo. Both Mom and Grandma were eager to see me dance in the show. Grandma wasn’t getting any younger or healthier. My left eye twitched.

  Shelly watched my reaction, and I willed myself to stare straight ahead.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Ricardo.” Mr. Jarenko smoothed one hand over his hair as she floated out the door. “Back to the center, class. Hops on pointe.”

  My feet wouldn’t move. As Candace guided me to the back of the room, I glanced at the clock. I didn’t even have twenty-four hours to get into shape.

  The music started for the hops. A medieval torture exercise. We hopped on the tips of the left foot, then the right. Clunk, clunk. My leg warmer plunged to my ankle.

  Things weren’t working out.

  Class finished. We clapped, the same tradition at the end of class we had at our small ballet school. If dancers wanted, they could join a line to curtsy or bow and shake Mr. Jarenko’s hand while he mentioned something wonderful they did in class. Or he’d just say thank-you if they hadn’t. I‘d redeemed myself with Mr. Jarenko but didn’t want to give him the opportunity to have second thoughts and tell me I was in the wrong class.

  In a daze, I unlaced my pointe shoes and packed them in my dance bag. I followed Candace toward the door, while our suite mates lingered by the guys.

  “Are you coming with us?” Candace asked Dira.

  She nodded and plucked Nicki away from the redheaded Jupiter.

  Someone rapped me on the shoulder. Shelly held my sweaty towel between a finger and thumb as if it were radioactive. “Forget something, Kitty?”

  “Thanks.” I shoved it in my bag as she spun and laughed at something with a skinny boy from class.

  While we waited in the hall, Blake and Jupiter jogged past us to the staircase. We crammed into the elevator, and I
mashed the button for the lobby.

  “Where are you going?” Candace pressed the button for the fifteenth floor.

  My head spun from Mrs. Ricardo’s news about the audition time. “I need to buy something from the dance store. I’ll meet you in the room in a few minutes.”

  I couldn’t wait to rip off my shrunken, shredded tights and throw them away. I rushed to the college bookshop on the first floor. Since the college had a dance department, they stocked basic dance supplies. The back of the package of tights had a graph of weight and height. My new height was on the cusp between medium and large. Since my legs were so long, I bought three packages of bigger tights.

  Blake and Jupiter hung out by the T-shirts trying on baseball caps with the Chester Park University cheetah logo. Blake’s hair curled over the rim of his cap, while Jupiter’s red hair splayed like fire from under his two caps. They laughed as they tried them on backward, sideways, front ways with a little lift on the right side. I tore my stare away, paid for the tights, and scurried out, my mind a jumble of worries.

  After lunch, which I didn’t remember eating, but must have since I had a ketchup stain on my shirt, Candace and I went to our character dance class. I was so happy to have Ms. Jen again. Music blared out of the studios where the teachers for hip-hop, Irish, jazz, and character dance waited for their next classes. We stopped at the last room on the right.

  Ms. Jen, her auburn hair tucked into a peasant-style scarf, welcomed us into the small studio with its piano on a loft near the ceiling, in the corner of the room. Her yellow and red flowered skirt matched her bandana.

  We slipped our knee-length black skirts over our leotards. A little woman with wavy black hair climbed up the spiral staircase to the suspended piano.

  “Everything okay, Mrs. Chin?” Ms. Jen craned her head upward.

  Mrs. Chin waved. “Just fine.” She kneaded the keys through Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody.

  The audition loomed less than twenty hours away. Music helped push it to the back of my mind. It was fun pretending to be Hungarian, stamping and hopping in black pumps to the folk music. My arms, acting like helicopter propellers in ballet class, didn’t bother me or anyone else. In most peasant-style dances, hands were pretty much glued to waists. Out of the way.

  After an hour, Ms. Jen waved to the pianist to end the class. “Thank you, Mrs. Chin.”

  Mrs. Chin bowed and gripped the handrail, making her way down the spiral steps.

  Ms. Jen picked up a paper and a pair of glasses lying on her dance bag. “I have a notice from Mrs. Sykes, the camp administrator. You need to arrive at least fifteen minutes before your audition time, which is at 9:15 a.m. Ballet classes for some of you might change after the auditions tomorrow because of scheduling conflicts with rehearsals. Just be aware of that change.” She took off her glasses. “See you tonight for the dance film.”

  Change? A chill zipped down my back. I didn’t want to change my ballet class. I worked hard to get into the advanced class. I was going to learn everything I could so I’d be ready to audition for the Pennsylvania Ballet in four years when I graduated from high school.

  Mr. Jarenko was one of the best. Mom insisted taking classes from different teachers would only benefit me. That was my goal. Improve. Dance in a ballet company and take over The Othersen Ballet School. The Plan with a capital P. I wasn’t budging. Mom and Grandma struggled for too long making the studio a success for me to disappoint them.

  After our afternoon ballet class, this time with a lady, we rode the elevator up to our suite. In an effort to forget the audition, I hummed and fingered a jazz piece on my crossed arms that I had tried to memorize on my flute. Calm down.

  “You okay?” Candace’s face clouded with concern.

  No. “Sure. Are they going to cram everybody over the age of thirteen in the same studio for the audition?”

  “Looks like it.” She adjusted the strap of her dance bag on her shoulder. “They’ll probably have eliminations all through the class, though.”

  Eliminations? And take the walk of shame in front of all the other dancers? No way. Not happening.

  I had less than twenty hours to whip myself into shape. Tomorrow, I’d get up early and go to the dance studio, and practice before the audition.

  I gripped the railing in the elevator. It was going up, but I was spiraling downward.

  Chapter Four

  As the elevator whooshed to a stop, I was weightless for a second. Every dancer’s dream. I clung to the handrail so I wouldn’t fall on my face when we came to a stop.

  After I got back to our room, I showered in the bathroom we shared with Nicki and Dira, and dressed in white shorts with a bright blue tank top. I twisted in front of the mirror and frowned, reaching in a drawer for a ribbed T-shirt.

  “Why’d you change?” asked Candace.

  “I never liked sleeveless shirts. I feel like a monkey.” I swung my arms ape-style.

  Candace laughed and plopped on her bed, throwing a pink, furry pillow at me.

  “My arms are too long.” I plucked at my shirt.

  Candace scooped up her pillow and arranged it on her bed. “No, they’re not. They reach your shoulders, don’t they?”

  “What?” I screwed up my face.

  “If they were too long, they’d attach at your ears.” She laughed and flung a hoodie over her shoulder. “You have lovely long arms and legs. A perfect dancer’s body. I’d love to be taller.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “And I’d love to be the girl everyone would love to be.”

  Candace mock punched me in the arm. When she wasn’t looking, I yanked at the sleeves of my T-shirt over my shoulders to cover more of my gangly arms. I followed her out the door for an informal class on music theory, which consisted mainly of hanging around the lounge listening to different types of music. When could I sneak in extra practice time?

  After a pizza and salad supper, the campers filed into a long room set movie-style with chairs. Even the teachers were there. I hardly recognized them in street clothes. Shelly sat with her roommate, Amy, who had bleached blond hair poking all over her head. They were in the front row, like they always managed to be in dance class.

  Before she started the film, Mrs. Sykes, one of the camp leaders, offered us cupcakes and punch. She was dressed in a fancy pantsuit and a flowered blouse. “Don’t forget you’re forbidden to leave the building without an adult chaperone. Chester Park University is in the middle of a city and in order to remain safe, you must stay inside. Being caught outside the buildings is grounds for immediate dismissal.” Her eyes roamed over us. “And I mean immediate.”

  Good thing I wasn’t a city girl.

  Nicki smirked and whispered to Dira, “Stay inside? Like that’s going to happen.”

  “It didn’t last year.” Dira giggled.

  My ears perked up.

  Candace patted Dira’s knee. “You guys behave.”

  Behave? Where was I last year while everyone was running around the torrid city streets? Probably sleeping. I yawned.

  “You’ll have a chance to get out this weekend when we take a bus trip to Chester Park. We’ll have a picnic lunch, and you can swim in the pool beside the river. We expect you all to be on your best behavior.” Mrs. Sykes went on to introduce the movie about Anna Pavlova. The documentary about ballet’s most famous ballerina included an old film of Pavlova dancing The Dying Swan.

  My droopy eyelids scratched my eyeballs like sandpaper. I’d been so excited for the first day of dance classes I hardly slept the previous night. I was zombiefied. The hands on the wall clock pointed to 7:30 p.m. It felt more like midnight.

  “I have to go to bed, Candace.” I stood and squeezed past Dira and Nicki, making plans to meet them in the morning.

  Somehow, I found the elevator and managed to push the right button for my floor. After I staggered to my room, I pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and a cami and set my flute case on my bedside table. Once all this audition stuff was over, I’d re
lax and play it.

  My shorts and T-shirt were piled on the floor as if I had evaporated. I flopped in bed, setting my small travel alarm to three and stuffed it under my pillow. I didn’t want to take a chance on waking up Candace super early. My plan was to go to the ballet studio and work out. Maybe I could make up for lost time when I should’ve been practicing.

  I woke up a bunch of times in the night, stiff from muscle pain. All the day’s tiredness sucked me back into the dark. I dreamed about riding a roller coaster. It ratcheted up and up, pulling me into the sky and out of dreamland.

  Candace’s alarm clock was jangling. It was nine.

  My throbbing heart stuck in my throat, growing bigger with every beat. I gurgled. What happened to my alarm clock? I shoved it in my face and blinked. I’d set it for 3:00 p.m.

  Candace flipped her sheet back and jumped from her bed. “I forgot to reset the time. I’m off by an hour. We should be at the audition by now.” She dashed to the bathroom.

  What had I done to myself? I was supposed to practice early this morning. My feet twisted in my sheets as I fell out of bed. I moaned and flexed all my muscles. Everything was sore from class the day before. Even my fingernails.

  I kicked off the sheets, dragged myself to the end of the bed so I could stand, and took baby steps to the closet where the pail with my toothbrush and stuff sat. My back screamed as I bent to pick everything up.

  After I left the bathroom, I groaned as I pulled on my new longer pink tights and black leotard. I scraped my hair into a ponytail and clipped it in a flat bun to my head.

  Candace was dressed and slipping bobby pins into her thick hair. She had tucked a flower in the side of her large bun. “Ready?”

  I nodded, wincing as I slung my dance bag on my shoulder. With five minutes to spare, I tripped out the door and followed Candace down the hall to Nicki and Dira’s room on the other side of the bathroom we shared. Was everyone as sore as I was?