No One's Watching

by Sandy Green

  Candace must have fallen asleep. Her head rested on the lip of the tub with her eyes closed. Amy stared at me like she was trying to remember something important. Like my name. Or her name.

  “I need to get back to my room before I dissolve.” Riley hoisted himself onto the ledge. The water sheeted off his lanky frame like a cape. He cast one longing glance at Candace, who seemed to have slipped into another dimension where no one existed. “Later.” He grabbed his towel and left.

  Shelly frowned.

  Now for the direct approach. “Ahh, Shelly, I heard you had a cell phone.”

  Silence, again. Except for the burbling of the water.

  Shelly’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you hear that?”

  I glanced at Candace’s serene face. “Nowhere. Mr. Jarenko handed it back to you after it dropped out of your dance bag.”

  Shelly laughed.

  Amy laughed, although I doubted she knew why. Her mouth split her face in two. “My pinky toe hurts.” She lifted her foot out of the water and offered it to Shelly to examine.

  “That’s okay.” Shelly brushed the foot away and reached for her bag. “What’s his name?”

  I frowned. “Mr. Jarenko? Do you mean his first name?”

  She sighed. “Your cousin.”

  “Oh, him.” My mind was as spotless as if it had been rinsed in the water. What was a cool name? “Dane.” Wow, good choice. “He’s — he’s at Duke University.” All right. My mind gave itself a high five. “Playing basketball.” Take it easy.

  Shelly moved her hand around in her bag. I could read her mind. As soon as I called him, she’d have the number in her phone log.

  Shelly suspended the small, pink phone above her purse, hesitated and then dropped it on the fabric bag. She pulled herself on the ledge, motioning me to do the same. We both perched there, dripping onto the pavement. She handed me the phone.

  My plan was to “forget” my non-existent cousin’s number and go back to my room where I’d written it down. With her phone. I’d bring the phone back later with the other good tights I had to replace because they were too small (I’d even throw in a new Chester Park University T-shirt from the college store). When she couldn’t find it, I’d convince her she lost it or someone took it. She couldn’t report it as stolen if we weren’t supposed to have them anyway. Her phone would be safely hidden in my room, and Mom would be spared having to hear about my lack of a ballet solo until I could figure out how to get one. Perfect. Devising my plan was worth getting yelled at by Mme. Petrova.

  I grasped Shelly’s cell phone by the bottom and squeezed. I finally had it in my hot hand. If only for a second. Slippery phone combined with wet fingers equaled projectile.

  Shelly’s face exploded in horror as the cell phone jettisoned over the water. Time stretched out like a rubber band. The phone twisted in a perfect triple pirouette and then hung in the air.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “No!” Shelly scrabbled like a crab and fell into the water.

  Danilo reached out to catch the missile phone. Since he spent more time in the dance studio than a baseball field, he missed it and fell on top of her.

  Jupiter was busy dribbling water onto Candace’s forehead with his fingers. He gasped as the phone plopped into the water.

  Shelly rose in the center of the tub, holding the cell phone like the Statue of Liberty with her torch. After she screamed and emitted a stream of curse words, some I’d never heard, she heaved herself out of the water and stood on the pool deck. Her red eyes focused on me. I shrank. Dropping it in the water wasn’t exactly in the plan.

  Candace woke up, wiping the water from her face. “What happened?”

  Shelly wasn’t a crier, even when she sprained her ankle for the fourth time, but she was close to tears. My insides tugged. She could write her mom for a cheap, new phone. Actually, she could write her mom about my predicament. Too much effort? I’d worry later.

  “Sorry, Shelly.” My stomach twisted. Maybe the heated water was getting to me. “I didn’t mean to drop it.” Just hide it. In a safe place. A safe, dry place.

  Jupiter jumped up next to her and snatched the phone from her grasp. “I can fix that.”

  Shelly’s fury exploded again.

  “I’ve done it before. I dropped mine in a glass of soda and salvaged it.” Jupiter trotted to his towel. He slid the battery off, picked out the SIM card and patted everything with the towel. “Leave it to me.”

  He seemed so sure of himself. Could he make it work? Mom had unknowingly tossed her phone in the washer when she forgot to take it out of her jeans pocket and ruined it. A neighbor kid jumped into the pool with it in his pocket, and it never worked.

  Jupiter draped his arm around Shelly’s shoulders. “It’ll take a few days, but I’ll get it to work again.”

  Shelly thrust her finger at me. “You’d better, or she’ll wish she was never born.”

  Jupiter winked at me as Danilo slammed the door and left. Candace had wrapped herself in a towel and stood by a chair, holding my towel. I managed a weak smile. We backed out of the hot tub room and sprinted to the lockers.

  “That went well.” I jammed on my shorts and sandals.

  Candace piled her hair in the towel, and we headed for our side of the building. Chlorine bloomed in my mouth and throat.

  We arrived at our set of elevators, and I pressed the button. “You think Jupiter can salvage her cell phone?”

  Candace pressed her lips together. “Maybe.”

  I tensed.

  She let us into the room with her key. “You never know. We’ll have to wait to find out.”

  And waiting was what I was especially good at. Not.

  I took another shower right before bed, letting conditioner soak into my stiff hair. Dira’s hair behaves fantastically after using her mango coconut shampoo, but it gave me troll doll hair.

  Light from streetlamps striped the ceiling. Candace softly snored from the other bed. Why was Jupiter convinced he could fix Shelly’s phone? Probably to keep Shelly on the hook. Hold her attention. Her interest. Could work out for me, too. The longer Jupiter waited to tell Shelly he couldn’t fix her cell phone, the better for me. What if Jupiter “lost” Shelly’s phone?

  I faced the wall. Would Blake say anything to me tomorrow about the missed rehearsal? Maybe he hadn’t shown up either and I’d saved myself the embarrassment of being stood up. I’d had enough humiliation for the week. Yeah, that was what most likely happened. He probably played computer games all evening and it would be dropped.

  No such luck.

  ****

  The next morning, as I entered the studio for my daily Irish dance class, no one noticed me until I clipped my head on the barre as I sat beneath it.

  Megan scowled. “Where were you last night?”

  That was a little nasty. Maybe she’d wrapped her bun too tightly.

  “Ah.” I rubbed my ear and glanced around the room with the groups of little girls. Lindy stripped her stare from me and tore into her dance bag. Blake tied his shoes.

  “We waited for you for fifteen minutes before starting.” Megan swept her arm toward the room. “Lindy and Blake were here. Early.”

  “Sorry.” I wore my black, stretch shorts and the white, bumpy poodle socks Megan told me to wear. I offered my foot. “Do I have the socks on right? I wasn’t sure if I should cuff them or not.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Megan glued her hands on her hips. “Especially if you don’t care. Don’t waste my time.”

  Stab.

  Megan joined Lindy as Blake strode across the room toward me. Now for the final kill and dismembering. He knelt next to me and took my arm as my heart, strung on a bungee cord, leapt and crashed at the same time. He whispered in my ear. “We don’t have a lot of time to get this right. You need to give it one hundred ten percent. If not for yourself, at least for them.” He nodded toward the room.

  One hundred ten percent. Had Blake been listening to Mme. Petrova outside of cla
ss yesterday? My cheeks flared. “Sorry. You’re right.”

  He squeezed my hand. I melted. At least I didn’t have to explain myself. As in where I’d been last night. With whom. And what I was doing. Which would have been super embarrassing.

  He walked away without a backward glance. “And no more hot tubs.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I withered. Mr. Sean popped into the room, beaming. “Good morning, class.” He tapped a CD. “I’ve got some new music here.” He fussed with the CD player. “It just arrived from Ireland.”

  I sank to the floor, pulled my ghillies out of my dance bag and slid them on my feet, trying to remember the complicated way to bind them. The ties wound up in a messy tangle.

  Lindy took pity on me. Me, the dumb five-foot-eight giant. “Here, let me help you.” Such a soft voice. She kneeled and disappeared behind my enormous dance bag. Her curly ponytail bobbed as she worked on my shoes.

  I was Gulliver in the land of Lilliput, which was fitting, as Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver’s Travels, was Irish. Irish dance. Irish writer. Random, I know, but it kept my mind off my problems for a second.

  “Thanks. Good job.” I stood at the barre behind her.

  I didn’t have the energy to lift my arms, which worked out well for me, since we kept them at our sides. Mr. Sean reminded me about eighty times to stand tall and pull up. Instead, I wanted to melt into the cracks in the wood floor. I’d acted like such an idiot. Blake was right. I had to give one hundred ten percent of whatever type of dance the directors asked me to do, no matter how hard it was. In Irish dance class and, especially, in repertory class. That was my last chance to convince Mrs. Ricardo I could perform a ballet solo. I was determined to perform each variation Mr. Jarenko taught to perfection. I lifted my head and spirits, feeling renewed.

  “Good. That’s the energy we need.” Mr. Sean motioned us away from the barres. “Let’s move to our circle in the center of the floor.”

  Lindy took my hand as the class made a giant O. “I take a while to wake up in the morning, too.” She giggled.

  By the end of class, even Megan forgave me. I’d totally ignored Blake after the embarrassing chat in the beginning of class. He drifted over to the three of us stuffing our shoes into our dance bags.

  “Are we going to try seven thirty again for rehearsal?” Megan asked.

  I nodded.

  “I’ll bring the popcorn.” Lindy high-fived Blake, her ponytail bobbing.

  Popcorn? Wasn’t that a little dangerous. Eating popcorn and dancing?

  “Inside joke. I described exploding from one of the hops like popcorn.” Megan held up her hands and let her fingers burst from her fists. “Pow.”

  “As long as you don’t bring caramel popcorn.” Blake high-fived everyone again.

  They all laughed as I slipped out the door. Alone. They already had inside jokes, and they’d only been together for one rehearsal.

  I dragged myself to character class where Candace was ending her rehearsal. Everyone was laughing in there as well. The girls swished out, still in their knee-length skirts.

  Riley came out with Danilo. “Hi. Candace wasn’t sure if Jupiter fixed Shelly’s cell phone. Do you know?”

  “I’m kind of avoiding Shelly.”

  He nodded. “It’ll work out. If she needs to use a cell phone, I’m sure she’ll find someone who has one.”

  “Right.” Great. I scanned both ways down the hall. “Do you know anyone with a cell phone?”

  He shrugged. “Naw. Maybe.”

  Candace came out the door from her character class. “Hi. We have another graduate dance student for ballet this morning.”

  I made a face.

  “It’s a guy. Cute.”

  Candace was right. The guy who taught our morning ballet class was cute. And class was lyrical and dance-y. I hoped we had him again.

  After lunch, Riley caught up with us as we got off the elevator and came alongside Candace. “Hi.”

  Candace started, then composed herself. “Ready for Labanotation class?”

  “Sure.”

  Did Riley have a cell phone? He sort of hinted earlier he knew someone who had one.

  He walked close to Candace. “What exactly is Labanotation?”

  “Using symbols to show dance movements. Like notes and such on a musical staff.” Candace blushed.

  We sauntered into the smallest studio down the hall and stepped over a bunch of other dancers on the floor. We parked ourselves close to the mirrors in the front of the room.

  Shelly was leaning against the wall, under one of the barres, filing her nails. She worked on them so furiously, her fingers might catch on fire. Amy glared at us from Shelly’s side. Somehow, between her first dance class and Labanotation, she’d found her green, bucket hat.

  “Got your steno pad?” Candace pulled out her top-bound spiral notebook.

  I pulled mine out. “Not too sure what this is all about.”

  Candace flipped hers open from the bottom and drew her finger down the red line dividing the page. “This is the staff, like with music. All the symbols, the little squares and triangles and such, attached to the right-hand side of the line reflect the right side of the body. Those to the left side of the line, show the left side of the body.”

  “How do you know so much?” Riley drew his lanky frame close to her.

  Her head bobbed. “I had this when I went to a ballet conference in Atlanta.”

  Riley ogled Candace as if she were a piece of Southern fried chicken and he was a starving man. Ugh.

  Jupiter strode between the other dancers grouped on the floor and smooshed himself between Shelly and Amy, who had stuffed her hat in her dance bag. My stare lingered on Amy, her short hair flipping out all over her head. She scowled at me. She was one of those friends who hated whoever their friend hated. Now I had two enemies at camp.

  Dira and Nicki followed Jupiter into the studio and sat by us. Dira had sleeked her hair in a French twist. Nicki had her hair up in the usual armor of clips stapled to her head.

  I strained my ears toward Jupiter and Shelly’s conversation. It was a bunch of shhhs, zzrrrs, and hrrsstts.

  Candace kept teasing Nicki about her mystery date, so I scooted back, hoping to decipher Shelly’s wild animal noises.

  Mrs. Ricardo popped in the room, fluttering her hands like butterflies. “I’m afraid your Labanotation teacher, Mr. Hutchinson, is running late. Please be patient.” She bobbled her head at us and trotted out.

  The silence broke and conversation burst open again. I glanced in the mirror and pretended to dig in my dance bag, inching backward. I kept my legs straight, hoping to connect visually with Candace’s group.

  “That’s so messed up,” Jupiter said, like he did when Candace and I came into the hot tub room.

  Were they talking about me? Was Shelly telling them she was going to call Mom about the Irish dance using someone else’s phone? I couldn’t bear it. Mom had worked so hard to make a living at what she loved. The Othersen Studio was a family tradition. I couldn’t let her and Grandma down. Especially when Mom had given up her career to raise me.

  “It serves her right.” Shelly tugged at her leotard.

  Blood drained from my face. Other dancers were stretching on the floor as they waited for the teacher. I pushed back into a straddle and stretched over the floor. When I sat upright, I knocked into something.

  Or someone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Going somewhere?” Blake must’ve returned to his room to drench himself in aftershave. Not a bad thing. Why hadn’t I smelled him before I bumped into him?

  I drew my legs in front of me and crossed them like a kindergartner, which was my mental age when he was around. “Sorry.” I was always apologizing, too.

  Lucky for me our teacher, Mr. Hutchinson, hurried into the room, carrying an easel and white board.

  “Greetings and welcome to Labanotation class. My apologies for my tardiness. We’ll start as soon as I s
et this up.” He stood the easel in front of the mirrors and leaned the white board against it. As he zipped open a bag of markers and an eraser, he surveyed us. He was younger than Mr. Jarenko and had an aura of niceness about him. Like he’d make a good dad.

  Mr. Hutchinson’s eyelids opened wide, as if his contacts had ridges around them and he couldn’t close his eyes. While he took out a black marker and drew a line down the middle of the board, I edged my way back to Candace’s group in the front of the room.

  The scent followed me. I propped my elbow on my bent knee and rested my chin in my hand, tucking my other leg around me like a cat with his tail.

  “Labanotation is an ingenious method of recording movement, developed by Rudolph Laban.” Mr. Hutchinson passed out booklets with geometric figures, exactly how Candace described them. He drew his finger down the board. “This line represents the center of the body.”

  I took the pile of booklets from Riley and swiveled, shoving the stack into Blake’s chest. The class was crowded, but who knew he was so close? I gasped and nearly inhaled the heap of paper.

  Blake plucked them from my hand. “Thanks.”

  I flipped around, not believing what was in the mirror. Blake had mimicked my position. He was as close as my shadow. I shivered.

  Candace caught my eye in the mirror and raised an eyebrow, a smile teasing the corner of her mouth. I’d have to ask her about all this with Blake later. It couldn’t just be because the small studio was so crowded with sprawling dancers. A girl could pretend, right?

  Meanwhile, Nicki’s mouth dropped open. She jabbed Dira in the arm. I must have been near an air vent because I was caught in Blake’s cologne cloud and debated whether he actually shaved. Probably. He was sixteen.

  Everyone around me raised hands in response to something Mr. Hutchinson had asked. Probably who had never studied Labanotation before? Mine glided up.

  “Good. You.” Mr. Hutchinson leaned over Candace to read my nametag with his bug-eyed laser vision. “Kitri.” He pointed to this figure, , sitting outside the rectangle. “A quick test. Do you remember what this represents?”