“Wait. So then who’s this Mark guy? Are you guys a couple?”
“No, you idiot. It’s Mark. Mark from Katina’s. You know, Mark-the-Pan-Part-Stealer? At least that’s what I prefer to call him.”
I blink, my mind flipping to the day George lost the lead to Mark and swore he’d sooner quit dance than dance with Mark again. Of course, George was only being his usual dramatic self, but Mark took it kind of hard and slipped out of Katina’s studio, mumbling something about George being there long before he ever was. Even though I did manage to convince George to cool off and come to his senses, I still had to take six sampler tubs of Deelish’s best ice cream to Mark’s house that night to talk him into accepting his Pan role after all. I knew George felt bad about making Mark feel like he had no right to be there. I also knew George wouldn’t apologize because, as George put it, sometimes apologies were implied. So if George wouldn’t face Mark and face the music, I would, on George’s behalf.
“That’s who your giggly call was from? The same Mark you almost pummeled three years back?”
George grins. “That’s the one.”
“I thought you loathed Mark.”
“Loathe is a pretty strong word.”
“I thought you guys weren’t on speaking terms.”
“We weren’t. But now we are.” George grins.
“I didn’t know Mark was gay.”
“He’s not gay.” George scratches his head. “At least I think he’s not. But that call was about you, Mags. You’re so blind sometimes.”
Next to me, one of the cameramen whispers words to the other, but I hear it loud and clear. Love triangle. I glare at him, too. That’s not what this is.
But then I let it sink in. The way he was at dance and on the beach and outside Deelish. The way he was always staring. I thought it was bad staring. Maybe it wasn’t. I try to go back farther, but all my memories are the same. Mark was nice. Mark is nice. There isn’t anything more than that. But then suddenly I do remember something else about that ice cream delivery day.
I had wanted to just drop it off and go. Set the six miniature tubs of perfection down at his door and jet without another word about it. But Mark caught me off guard before I had the chance to put down the ice cream and bolt.
“Magnolia?” he had said, stepping out on to his front porch. “What are you doing here?” I turned around and suddenly felt all tongue-tied in his presence. His lean torso, propped against his doorframe. His wavy hair, so thick it almost didn’t look real. His skin. Like ceramic. Or steel. I didn’t know why I was noticing these things about Mark when I’d known him so long. Maybe it was because I was at his house. Maybe it was because there wasn’t anyone else around to distract me.
“I just came to bring you these.” I held out the tray of ice creams and pointed to my favorite double-churned flavor-of-the-month, Smooth Operator. “This one’s really good.”
He took the tray, his fingertips grazing mine. “You came all the way here to bring me these?”
I shrugged and turned to go, but Mark opened the door a little wider and stepped aside so I could see inside his warm, well-loved home. “Wait. Do you want to come in for a bit? Just for a minute. I promise I won’t keep you longer than that.”
So I did. I went in. Mark had always been sweet to me, always the perfect gentleman, so really, there was no reason not to go in. Saying no to him at that moment would have felt like treason or something. We hung out in his living room for a bit. Flipped through a couple of back issues of Dance Magazine. He pointed out all his favorite dancers, steps he was dying to try, places he wanted to go to study dance under mentors I’d only heard about.
After a few minutes, I said I had to go. Rose was expecting me home and it sort of felt like Mark and I had talked about all there was to talk about. He had so many big dreams. I didn’t have any.
He walked me to his foyer. Waited, hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans, while I slipped into my old boots. He leaned over me and opened the door. Which is when his arm bumped mine and his chest came close to mine. We stayed like that for a second or minute or I don’t even know. Our eyes were locked on each other. I didn’t know what it meant—if it meant anything. But then the moment ended, and he said good-bye, and he never said a word to me at school the next day. Everything was normal. He was with Abby and Quinn and the rest of them and I was with George. I had imagined it all. Or, at least, I thought I had.
I turn to George. “Wait. Mark likes me?”
“No. Mark loves you. He has for years, or that’s what he told me, anyway. He loves you so much he’s even willing to talk to me to get to you, and we both know he’s not my biggest fan. Loathe, no. Have a general disdain for anyone who actually thinks he’s better than me? Maybe.” George sighs. “It’s been pretty obvious how into you he is. But I guess you’ve been too busy wallowing in your own self-pity to even notice it.”
“I don’t get it. Why didn’t you tell me this earlier? You definitely should have. No, he should have told me if that’s how he felt.”
“He wanted to. He was going to come to your house and declare it to you before we left Summerland until I stopped him. I told him to wait until this was all over. That you just weren’t ready yet. That you needed to do this first.”
“You have no business telling him what I’m ready for!” I shout and feel the cameras get closer to my face. “As if you’d even know.”
“I was trying to help you. Help him help you. I was trying to—”
“Just stop, okay? I need to think.” I tap my forehead, the picture of Mark’s eyes when he told me what dance meant to him. I thought that, despite all his congeniality in my general direction, what he was really saying was that he saw me. He saw me the same as everyone else in Summerland did. And then I think of his phone call with George. “Wait. I don’t understand. I heard you call him ‘babe.’”
George shrugs. “The guy’s hot. Who could help himself? Anyway, I wasn’t flirting with him. I was just happy. And I actually like him. I’d like anyone who loves you the way he does.”
I close my eyes, letting the weight of George’s words wind through me. Mark loves me? How could I have missed it? I thought everyone there hated me. How could I have been so wrong?
“The dude’s been texting me like crazy to find out which schools you’re applying to next year. He’s going for some fancy one right here in California. One that focuses on the ‘art of dance’ instead of competition or some crap like that.”
I hold up one hand. “Wait. So you are gay or not?”
“That’s what you’re worried about? In this entire situation? After everything I’ve just told you? Who cares what I am?”
“I care. You told me under the bridge. You kissed me because you wanted to find out. So tell me, George. What did kissing me make you realize?”
He slings his bag over his shoulder and sneers, all in one fluid motion. “You’ll never change, Magnolia. You’ve always felt this profound need to classify things—stuff people into these pretty little boxes that fit your ideals of who and what they should be. But maybe I don’t fit into any of your boxes. Maybe I don’t want to. Or maybe I just can’t. Not anymore.”
“This isn’t a trick question, George. You either like girls, or guys. You don’t get to have it all, you know. No one does. Not in this world.”
George raises his head to look at me with those bright eyes. Two days ago, it would have floored me. “Why? Who says I can’t have it all?”
“Forget it. I’m done playing your little guessing games. ’Cause that’s all you’re about. So forget about me. Forget I even exist, okay?”
“No problem. It’s not like it’ll be hard to forget about you. Because after this week, you’ll be back there. Back in Summerland. Small-town Magnolia. Clamming with the rest of them. Exactly where you belong.”
A fire ignites from inside of me. I turn my face to the cameras. Say it loud so they don’t miss it. “No, G. Unlike you, I belong here.”
>
“Why?” he says. He’s talking to the cameras, too. “Because you made it on the show? So did eleven other people, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Yeah, and ten of them here didn’t slip in tryouts and then lie about it afterward.”
George’s mouth drops open and his eyes get wide. Huge. His cheeks redden and he glances between the cameras and the men behind them who are kind of glancing at each and other, their cameras rolling.
For a second, I get this scared kind of feeling like he’s going to slap me or spit on me or something. So I take a small step back. But he doesn’t. Instead, he turns around, putting his back to me for what feels like the millionth time in the last two days, and walks toward the door. Toward Liquid, who’s been standing there watching the whole time, that damn cigarette dangling from his damn lips. Liquid reaches out to touch George, his hand limp and wanting or needing or maybe both or neither. He stares at George, but for the first time since I saw Liquid outside the Heritage Building, I notice that Liquid’s eyes are kind of gray and dull and devoid of any kind of emotion at all. Unlike George’s, whose are always, always full of spark. But instead of stopping when he reaches Liquid, George turns around to make sure the cameras are still on and following him, which they are. Then he slaps Liquid on the ass and sails right on past him.
To Rio.
Who’s waiting for him too, just outside the door. He glances over his shoulder a second time. Our eyes meet. Then he turns back to Rio and wraps his arms around her tiny waist and kisses her. Hard. Deliberately. And on the lips.
TWENTY-FIVE
After hours upon hours of rehearsal, during which time I’ve fumbled more steps than I ever thought was humanly possible, paired with serious bruising to my knees and calves from these metal taps, Thomas Scandalli places both hands on my shoulders and says, “You’re going to be great.” He holds his head high and erect. “Just do it how we rehearsed and you’ll be perfect.” With his thumb and forefinger, he straightens the bottom of my costume, making sure all the feathers that trail from my skirt are straight and unobtrusive.
I swallow. My words come out in spurts, like I’m choking on them. “I know. It’ll be fine.”
Thomas reaches into his pocket to retrieve a small pair of tailor’s scissors. He snips off a rogue thread from my hemline, then tucks it into his pocket. “You look amazing. Like a bird. A bird of paradise.”
Bird of paradise flowers don’t grow in Summerland, that much I know. But I think of that word, paradise. How it’s funny the way people talk about it sometimes. Like it’s this real place, somewhere you can go to relax or feel warm, like Hawaii or Fiji. A place people can fly to or drive to or sail to where their stresses won’t matter, where their dreams will.
But when I think of paradise, I always imagine it more like a state of mind than a place. Like the highest form of happiness. The perfect impossible. Heaven. Bliss.
Like Rose and Summerland and Grandma and Mrs. Moutsous and the old George and the good Mom and clamming. And others too. Other people from Summerland on all sides of us, but happy. Happy that we’re there, next to them. That would be my paradise.
I smooth out the top part of my costume with my palms. My eyes dart left and right as a few of the cameramen come closer to me and Thomas. I see them zoom in on my hands, my legs, my left eye, then my right one. It’s been a week, and by now I know I should be used to living in this kind of fishbowl where everything is seen and watched and observed. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.
“I want to go over that last part again. Just one more time.”
Thomas shakes his head, looking at the cameras.
“Please,” I say. “Just the bombershay. Just once.”
“You’ve got this. You don’t need to go over it again.”
My shoulders sag. When we started rehearsing this routine, I sucked. Like, really, really sucked, right from the moment he started showing me all those darn clicking steps that seemed so weird, so freaking freakish. And even though Thomas didn’t say outright how frustrated he must have felt with me and my non-tapping abilities, I could feel it from his heart. Feel his soul sink a little lower with every single bombershay I tried, every triple buffalo I screwed up. In all honesty, I gained a little respect for Hayden and what she does. It actually made me wonder if that smile of hers is so frozen and always there because it’s a method of coping with her near-impossible style of dance.
Now, four days later, I watch Hayden practice with Collette Vertefeuille, her choreographer, rehearsing each precise step of her first classical ballet routine ever. Hayden notices the cameras capturing every mistake she makes and stops what she’s doing. She covers her face with her hands. Collette wraps one lithe arm around Hayden’s shoulders and then kneels in front of her. She holds each supporting leg taut while Hayden points her toes on her left foot, then right, curved and hard, going over series after series of basic tendus—ones I learned to do when I was five.
I look to the other side of the room to where Jacks is, Liquid is, Rio is. I let my gaze linger on Rio. She’s with her choreographers, too—that legendary husband and wife hip-hop duo that Rio called “soul mates” when George and I first met her in Portland.
I watch Rio rehearse a series of fast squats, abdominal rolls, and shoulder pop-and-locks. I guess Rio can feel my eyes on her because she stops practicing, looks right up at me, and smiles what looks like a real, genuine, non-smirking smile.
I turn away from her and there’s a camera in front of me. Watching me watch Rio. I can only imagine what the TVs will say. Oregon nobody seethes with jealousy over Bonnet legacy. I look away from both of them.
Thomas takes a long drink from his water bottle and then nudges my shoulder with his bottle. “Stay focused, Magnolia.” He nods to the cameras. “Forget about them.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. They want to get under your skin. It’s their job. It’s your job to get in the zone. Do that and you’ll be perfect.”
I take a series of deep breaths, my hands resting on my shaking knees. I don’t want to let him down. I don’t want to let any of them down, but if they see me like this, I will.
“I think if we just ran through the whole thing one more time.”
“We don’t need to do it again, and definitely not in front of them.” He shakes his head and the cameras back off. I doubt they’d do that for any of the other choreographers, but this is Thomas Scandalli.
“You’ve been breathing this thing for days,” he says. “You’ve got it down pat.” He removes my hands from my bodysuit and places them down at my sides. But he doesn’t let go of me. Instead, he squeezes my hands hard enough so that I can feel his heart pumping through my fingertips. “You can do this, Magnolia. You can.”
“Okay.”
“Just do it exactly how we rehearsed it.”
“Okay.”
Thomas cups the sides of my face in his palms, forcing my gaze to meet his deep brown eyes that mirror my own—and not the cameras, not at the eyes and faces of the other dancers around me. My competition.
Hayden. Jacks. Olivia. Liquid. Rio. And the others: Zyera. Juliette. Lawrence. The ballroom couple. And George.
They’re all around me. All with their choreographers. Some of them, like Jacks, are bouncing up and down. Some of them, like Rio, are going through the one-two-three-four counts of their own routines. Some of them, like Liquid, have their headphones on and are counting out beats to music. And some of them are staring back at me.
But we’re all here together. Waiting for Camilla Sky’s voice to catapult us toward our destiny. Toward our paradise.
And then we hear her.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Live to Dance, Season Six! We have an amazing group for you this year!”
I hear the audience go wild and then I hear Camilla say some other things about who we are, who we were before we started this journey. I hear her introduce the judges, much like she did for us eight days ago back in Portland
. I hear the voices of the audience hush and her voice silence as well. And even though my gaze is still one with Thomas’s, somewhere in my periphery, I see the lights from upstage dim, which means they’re showing the video—the one from our auditions last week—the one I saw part of in Portland. The one I’ve been dreading this whole time.
I can only imagine what my own face looks like on that big screen. I wonder if the people watching me feel any of the anger, the sorrow I felt as George sobbed in front of them, my story shooting from his lips like some kind of ammunition.
When I open my eyes I hear more cheering. The video’s over. The show is starting.
I finger the braid that weaves across my forehead. Then my hand drops down to my bra strap. My fingertips search for my pillowcase piece, but when all they feel is my skin, dewy and empty, they pull away.
There’s a full-length mirror to the left of me. My eyes flicker toward it, traveling up and down my reflection. I wonder if anyone from home will recognize me with this seafoam-green and peacock-blue makeup that fans away from my eyes and trails down my cheeks into swirls and slashes. The makeup artists say it makes me look whimsical. I think it makes me look wrecked.
I wonder if anyone from home will think about how far I’ve come—me—surrounded by these important and glamorous people, looking like I belong. Like I’m one of them. I wonder if they’ll want me to come back there, to be one of them, instead.
“Magnolia.”
They’ll say my name: Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Moutsous. Mayor Chamberlain. The freshman. Their voices are warm and familiar but different, too. One of them touches my shoulder, lightly. The hand is soft. Their touch tells me all I need to know: they’ve forgiven me.
They say the words again.
“Magnolia Woodson. You’re up.”
Thomas puts both hands on my arms and gives me a little shake. His eyes are huge as he searches my face. “Magnolia. Are you all right?”
Spin the Sky Page 20