Spin the Sky

by MacKenzie, Jill;

  Instead, I think of home.

  By now, Rose will definitely know that we’ve skipped town, and there sure as heck won’t be any mystery as to where we’ve gone. A pit forms in my stomach. Because maybe she’s heard about the cop, too. In all likelihood, she and Mrs. Moutsous are on their way down here now to drag our butts back home to clamming and Deelish and everything that is Summerland. Everything I’ve ever known and loved.

  Everything that chains me.

  Rio sucks in a slow breath. “You’re right. I should have told you guys who I was, but I wish it didn’t matter. In Brooklyn, my dance studio even wanted to put my face on their sign out front to drum up more business. Can you believe that? They expect more from me than they do from everyone else. I was en pointe before I was ten. Before my feet were even fully grown or before my bones were strong enough. Just because they thought I could handle it.” Rio’s gaze falls into her lap. “Everyone expects me to dance like her, and act like her, and be her.”

  I keep my eyes forward. I can’t deal with this right now. Can’t deal with Rio’s grandma drama when really, I’d kill to have that kind of name following me around. That kind of legacy. The kind people associate with beautiful dancing, not terrible death.

  But the thing is, deep down, I know the way we judged her for who her grandma was isn’t any different from the way Summerlanders judge me and Rose because we’re Woodsons. I don’t blame her for leaving out her last name, when really, if anyone here knew who my mom is, I’d do the same thing. Rio’s no different than me. She’s still got those same chains and same shadows, weighing her down, darkening her light.

  I want to say all of that to Rio. But I can’t. It might be the same, Rio’s life and mine, but it’s different, too. She’s never even met her shadow, while mine, at some point, always comes back to live with me. And most of the time, I want her to.

  As usual, George says everything I can’t. “We get it. You’re here to make your own mark. We respect that. Right, Mags?” His voice is soft, all the anger that laced it a whole fifteen seconds ago blown away, like a snowflake in the wind.

  Rio exhales. “Thank you,” she mouths to me, even though I haven’t done a thing.

  Because things seem okay between them now, I turn my focus to judge number three. Keep my eyes steady and non-blinking as I study Gia Gianni, the most terrifying judge of them all. After Camilla runs down Gia’s repertoire of Tony awards for choreography while the screen plays these clips of Gia’s successes with seven different dance styles over what looks like the last twenty years, Gia stands up to give this monumental speech about how pleased she is that tryouts were held in Portland this year because, according to her, some of the best dancers she’s ever worked with have come from Oregon. When she says it, the screen changes to pictures of Oregon. Portland, the Heritage Building we’re sitting in, and pictures of the coast. There are the beaches I know, like Cannon, and the sprawling highway, lined with trees on either side. I see pictures of the Oregon Caves that Mom took Rose and me to once when we were really little, and then there’s a picture of Mount Hood. My chest aches. I know we’re still in Oregon. But it feels like we’re so far from Summerland.

  Gia says how honored she is to train us and help mold us into the dancers she knows we can be. She says we ought to abandon everything we’ve ever learned and just dance through our hearts. Feel the music. Forget the steps. Find the place inside our souls that makes us want—no, need—to be here. Her words pour through me. My heart beats with a fire I’ve never known. But now I do. I’m from this place with good dancers and I’m one of them and I’m going to make it through this round. And then I’ll show them. Prove to them that these chains can’t shackle me, not for one more day.

  As the lights come on and the competition begins, my eyes shift to Rio and George one last time, hoping that they see it, feel the excitement, the sheer goodness of what we’re about to accomplish, too.

  But they’re staring across into each other’s eyes, all serious and starry like they’re I don’t even know what.

  It doesn’t make sense. After our kiss that day, George made it clear to me that doing that, leaning into me, his hand covering mine and his breath close to mine and then his lips against mine, was nothing more than an experiment.

  “I needed to know how it felt,” he had said. “I wanted to try it with a girl so that I’d know either way. I wanted it to be with you.” He looped his pinky finger in mine. “Friends till the end.”

  I didn’t say anything after that. I guess I should have been honored that I was the chosen one, the one George trusted to test his possible straightness, probable gayness with. But all I could hear in that moment, there under that bridge, was friend. Friend. Friend. It crushed me, like the weight of a thousand disappointments. Friend. Friend. Friend. George never had feelings for me. At least, not the kind I had for him. Have.

  Now, looking back on that time, the whole thing feels like pieces of a puzzle I’ll never put together. George made his intentions perfectly clear. And now, right here, looking from George to Rio to George again, a different thing is totally clear: all George and Rio see is each other.

  TWELVE

  The first dancer’s solo totally blows my mind.

  Which is crazy because he’s that same B-boy George and I saw in the breakers’ circle when we first got to Portland. Same boy who stripped George naked with his eyes. Same boy who was at the back of the line when we last saw him and now, somehow, isn’t.

  I never saw him practicing outside like most of the kids were, but watching him on stage now, I know that the guy’s got serious skills in more ways than one and I wonder if the judges pulled him to the front—he’s that good. He’s still wearing that bomber jacket, but even through it I see his limbs ripple like water, like waves, not appendages with blood and bones. He’s so into his own routine, he doesn’t make eye contact with the judges at all and doesn’t seem to notice the cameras moving all around him, zeroing in on his feet, his hips, his face, and projecting it all on the screen behind him. For most of the routine, his eyes are closed. I’d never close my eyes on stage like that. Not when I need to see where the floor is and where my feet connect with it.

  “He’s beautiful,” George whispers. I watch George’s face change from normal George to George lit up with this sort of divine illumination. It’s like he’s in love, either with his moves or the guy, I’m not sure which.

  “He’s really good,” I mumble, and I wish so bad that he wasn’t.

  “He is,” George says. “But I’ve seen better.”

  I give George a little ha because I’ve got this sneaky suspicion that the “better” George claims he’s seen is himself. And George is good—no, amazing—but this guy’s more magician than dancer. I think of his smoke, circling George, calling George toward him. I wonder how much of this guy is an act and how much is real, and I wonder if it even matters, because all that matters is what the judges and audience see in him. But there’s no denying he’s got talent, and the other dancers must think so too because everyone in the whole room is going nuts with whoops and cheers every time he even breathes.

  The guy does head spins so fast it’s like he’s going to drill holes through the stage. George leans forward, rests his elbows on his thighs. “If I’d known he was this good, I might have done something about it while I had the chance.”

  “Better late than never,” I say. Although I don’t know why I say it. I don’t want George all gaga over Rio. But I don’t want George all gaga over this guy, either.

  “I think I’ve seen him before,” Rio says. She squints at his number which, sure enough, has NEW YORK scribbled beneath it. “He dances outside my library sometimes for money. I don’t even think he’s had any real studio training.”

  “Boy,” George says. “Have we ever wasted our money.”

  His words hit me hard, like a grand battement in the face. Everyone knows dance is expensive, but it’s never felt like a waste—at least not to me. Admit
tedly, though, I’ve never really added up how much it’s cost us over the years, either. Sure, there were months where Mom couldn’t pay and Rose couldn’t pay and Mrs. M. had to pay for my dance instead, but somehow, always, it all worked out.

  Now, my fingers twitch as I count numbers, adding, multiplying, figuring out just how much cash I’ve spent on my little hobby over the last fourteen years.

  Tuition runs around eleven hundred a year. Times that by fourteen plus a couple hundred each year for recitals and costumes. The numbers spill inside my head as I add each one up like I’m a human calculator.

  Twenty thousand dollars.

  Holy crap. Like I said, I knew dance was expensive—definitely too expensive for a family like mine—but no more than piano lessons or soccer or swim or karate or any of the other activities moms put their kids in to keep them off the streets of Summerland. I knew it was pricey. I just never thought about how truly out of our Woodson league it was. Twenty thousand dollars. I place one hand over my stomach. While that might be fine and good for George’s and Abby’s and Quinn’s and Mark’s families, spending twenty thousand dollars on dance is definitely not okay for mine.

  My mind scrambles to trace the last five years of my life. We could have used that money to get Mom the treatment she needed before the drugs went from bad to worse. We could have used that money to make things the way they were when I was little, the way I remember it being even if Rose doesn’t. When Mom was still Mom and clean and clamming and the clothes didn’t hang off her like blankets and the wind made her cheeks pink instead of sunken and we walked through our town and people would say hello instead of the other things they say to us now. We could have used it to keep Rose in school, keep them both away from the demons they think control them. Or we could have used it last year, six months ago, yesterday, to pack our stuff and just leave Summerland. We could have used it for anything. If it weren’t for me and dance and everything that leads up to this exact moment.

  But I can’t think of the money. Not now. All I can think of is this.

  George crosses his arms but his eyes never leave the guy on stage ripping out these drool-worthy sequences. “We’re fine. It’ll be fine,” he says, and somehow I’m not so sure I believe him. “He has to be able to dance every style to make it on the show. Even ballet. That’s not something you can learn in a week.”

  “You’re right,” Rio says. “He’ll never win if that’s all he can do.”

  “I’ve never done hip-hop or West Coast Swing either.” I nudge George. “And neither have you.”

  “So what?” George says. “You already know ballet. Everyone knows it’s the hardest, the most technical.” He waves one hand across the stage. “You can learn this. Anyone can. You’ll do what you need to get through.”

  “I need to do more than just get through.”

  George turns his head to me. His eyes meet mine and hold. “Do you think any of these kids want this as bad as me and you?”

  “I do,” Rio says. “I want to win this thing bad. Real bad. Michael Jackson bad.”

  George breaks my gaze and turns to Rio, awe splashed through each of his baby blues. She holds his eyes, too. It’s out of a bad romance novel. A telenovela. A cheap teen flick where everybody falls in love and everybody sings. Call it what you will, but it’s still pretty obvious. The two of them look as happy as two peas in a pod again. Two peas, in one pod.

  Street Guy finishes his solo and while the whole auditorium is going crazy with hoots and screams, he steps forward to accept the judges’ critique. Elliot Townsend waits for the room to quiet. The cameras swivel between Elliot and Street Guy. On the screen behind him, the guy’s face is blown up so large I can see his pores. He’s not even sweating.

  “Your fluidity is amazing, young man,” Elliot says. “Where did you learn to dance like that?” He looks down at his folder and up at Street Guy. “James?”

  “Liquid,” he says. “I’m called Liquid.”

  “What sort of training do you have, Liquid?”

  The guy shrugs. “The only training I have is in living in cardboard boxes for the last two years and eating dog food two meals a day. If you’re talking about that kind of training, I got a ton.” It totally shocks me that anyone would talk to Elliot that way. But Liquid’s face is blank, impassive. At ease up there, even though there are at least a hundred of us in here.

  Elliot asks him about dancing other styles, and George and Rio nod at each other because they know how this works, while I can’t remember much of it. Liquid just sort of shrugs at all of Elliot’s questions, his hands dug in his front pockets, his hair shielding his eyes. Doesn’t say he knows ballet or contemporary or even ballroom and, to be quite honest, it doesn’t really even seem like he cares. But the judges keep poking and prodding him and asking where he was born and who he lives with and where he learned to dance until Liquid starts talking. His words are slow. His sentences are clipped. I can tell he doesn’t even want to talk, but then he does talk about the street. His life on it. And the other kids who live on it with him.

  He says stuff about bumming spare change and fighting in alleys and sleeping in dumpsters to avoid getting stabbed by addicts who can’t see straight. I don’t know where he’s had any time to dance at all. I mean, is this how it is for all people on the streets in big cities, this dancing and dumpsters and sticking together and caring about nothing? Because it’s not what I picture when I envision my mom there.

  I wonder if he ever came across her during his street days. I wonder if she saw him dance and thought of me. New York. Is that how far she went to get away from us?

  The judges glance at each other and whisper in each other’s ears and scribble on their pads and steal quick glances at Liquid.

  Astrid Scott’s the first to speak. “That’s quite a story you have there. But you won’t be sleeping in cardboard boxes anymore, Liquid, because you’re going to Los Angeles! You’ve earned our first spot on the show!”

  The whole audience erupts like Mount St. Helens. Everyone’s pumping their fists and shouting fake-happy, fake-encouraging words like, “Way to go, man!” because he’s good and on the show, and good plus on the show equals fewer spots for everyone else, including me and George and Rio.

  But Liquid just thanks the judges, then strolls to stage left, while grabbing another cigarette from his back pocket. Then he drops to the ground and worms himself all the way to the double doors while the cameras hover above him, catching it all and blasting it on the screen behind him. He’s probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. And the saddest thing, too.

  But the judges are beaming and it’s that energy that’s projected on that screen, the clapping, the cheers, the waving his ticket in the air. Because they know they’ve just handed the guy a brand-new life and it isn’t often that people will do that for you. Usually all they ever want to do is take it.

  I study my number thirty-one pinned to my shirt. Twenty-nine more dancers before I’m up.

  “He really was incredible,” I say. “Here’s hoping everyone’s not as good as him.”

  “They won’t be,” George says. “I guarantee half the people in here can’t dance.”

  Like always, George is so on the money. Because the next three dancers aren’t good, and I’m so glad I almost pee through my sweats. The first one’s this girl from Nebraska who says she’s contemporary ballet, but it’s clear she’s never taken a dance class in her life. Her arms flail above her head, jerking to every second beat of some Beyoncé song that was popular a billion years ago.

  “Oh shit,” George whispers. “I can barely watch her.”

  “She’s brave to get up there and do that, though.”

  George grunts. “Brave, or really stupid.”

  The cameras zero in on her, capturing all of her steps, which aren’t really steps at all. I think about her Nebraskan hometown and wonder if her people are going to see this. I wonder what it’ll be like when she gets home. If they’ll be nice to her about
it, or if this single moment where she’s trying to be fearless and trying to do something different will ruin her.

  The judges thank her for coming out and tell her she’s not right for the show. She bows, letting her yellow curls fall in front of her face, but when she lifts her head, I can see it in her shattered eyes. She thought she stood a chance.

  And so do the other two who come after her—one guy, one girl—both “contemporary,” both devastated when the judges send them home. The dancer after those three is this tiny tapper from Montana with killer calves and a high ponytail. Both her feet and her music are so fast, and even though I know tapping’s really hard, I don’t get it. Don’t get how they can feel the music like that when the click-click-click of their shoes overpowers the vibrations—the soul of every song.

  The girl smiles so hard I think her face is going to crack. On the screen behind her, they blast her face so big I can see inside her mouth, to her molars.

  George points to the judges’ table. “Look at them. They’re eating it up.”

  George is right. Elliot’s and Gia’s and Astrid’s eyes are all sparkly and kind of moving around in time with her feet. He’s so right. They are eating it up. And the crowd is digging it, too. Some of the kids are even on their feet cheering and whistling with their fingers in their mouths. Which means she’s good. Really good.

  The judges call her forward and Elliot tells Happy Feet that she’s earned her spot on the show. The cameras slide forward and flash her name on the screen in sparkly red letters. Hayden Bosworth. Tapper. One to watch.

  Next, this hip-hop guy from Florida, who’s as big as a gorilla and is wearing a backward hat and slinky shorts, gets on stage. Behind him, the screen changes to show pictures of Florida: NASA, the Keys, the clear green sea, yachts cruising up and down waterways. Then it switches to him, his body and face, and I have to admit that his hard-hitting pops and air punches are pretty legit.

  But when he thrusts his chest into the ground and pounds it with his fists, I know I don’t like him. Or maybe “like” isn’t the right word. I lean in closer.