Dancergirl (6 page)

On Friday, Mom and I head to Baltimore for Tía Teresa’s birthday. Last year, we drove down with Andrew in his BMW, the only cool thing about the guy. This time, Mom and I take Amtrak out of Manhattan. I’m nervous the entire trip. Are the glances people give me just regular “check out the kid” looks—or is there something more?

I cower into my hoodie.

Saturday night, the entire family goes to Obrycki’s for steamed crabs. Abuela, Tía Teresa, Tío Marcos, my little cousin Maya. I grab a seat facing the wall before anyone else sits. Mom gives me the hairy eyeball but I don’t care. If I’m turned away from the center of the restaurant, no stranger can see my face.

Maya has a year’s worth of kid jokes saved up. Then Tío Marcos starts in with his. I laugh so hard I practically choke on crabmeat. Before we finish, Mom orders a dozen to take back to Brooklyn.

As we wait at the cash register to pay the bill, a family enters. A sullen girl about thirteen catches my eye.

“Dancergirl?”
she shrieks.

I glance at my relatives. Mom’s talking to Tío Marcos and isn’t paying attention. Tía Teresa and Maya are heading for the bathroom. I motion the girl into the corner.

“You live in Baltimore?” she squeals.

“Just visiting.”

“That is
so
cool. Where did you come from?”

I go for the stupid movie cliché. “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

The girl watches me for a moment before her smile turns into a disapproving frown. “My friends and I think you’re a bitch. You should leave a message for
shyboy,
tell him you want to meet.”

She checks me out, top to bottom. It’s like I’m on her screen and she can do, and say, anything she wants without worrying about my response.

“You’re prettier online, you know. I’m not sure why
shyboy
likes you. Of course, being half-naked helps, but I wouldn’t go that far for anyone.”

“Ali?” Mom gives me a quizzical look. “We’re ready.”

I force my lips into a smile. “Well, it’s been fun, but I have to go.”

Instead of an answer, the girl points her cell at my face and clicks.

When we get back to Tía Teresa’s, Abuela brings out her famous coconut-custard pie. We sing a rousing, if off-key, “Happy Birthday.” While Teresa opens presents, Tío Marco pushes back the chairs in the living room. The sound of salsa fills the house.

I don’t feel like dancing but Maya won’t give up.

“Pretty please!” she pleads.

“One song.”

We do a semi-okay version. As the music ends, I spin her into the corner. Maya shrieks with glee. “When I’m older I want to be a dancer like Ali. You’re going to be a professional dancer, right, like the girls we saw when we visited New York?”

“I’m planning to try!”

Mom smiles. “We’re looking at Juilliard later in the year. And some other conservatories on the East Coast.”

“Juilliard!
Mija,
that’s wonderful,” Tía Teresa croons.

“I haven’t gotten in yet.”

“You will. I know it,” Maya says. “And when you’re famous, we’ll watch you dance on the stage all the time. Right, Mom?”

“Right.” Tía Teresa grabs my mother’s arm. “But now, Marguerite and I will show you ladies how it’s done.”

The two of them salsa like pros. I sit on the arm of the couch. Mom’s having a ball. She and Teresa dance until they’re out of breath. Their hands wave like fans across their faces as they head off to the kitchen for a drink.

Maya tugs my arm. “I’m thirsty, too. Can you get me something?”

I rifle her hair. “Lazybones. It’s lucky I like you.”

My cousin laughs. She loves when I visit because she knows I’ll do anything she wants. When I get to the kitchen, Mom and Tía Teresa are sitting at the table, heads together like they must have done a million times when they were kids.

“One more year and you’re free,” Teresa says.

Mom laughs. “I don’t look at it like that.”

“Why not? You’ll be able to stop worrying all the time and salsa the night away. Find yourself a good man.”

Immediately, I back off. As I reenter, I call out, “Tía Teresa, Maya wants something to drink.”

The two sisters look up. I smile brightly, pretending I haven’t just heard how I’ve messed up my mother’s life.

As soon as we unlock the apartment door late Sunday afternoon, I reach for my cell to call Jacy. Old habits really are hard to break.

“Just got in. Want to come for dinner? Mom bought steamed crabs.”

“Mmm. Be up in about an hour.”

“Cool!”

I’m sitting at my desk when Jacy sails into the room. “Whatcha doing?”

I blow hair out of my eyes. “Trying to find the derivative of a polynomial.”

“Why? Did you lose it?”

“Ha-ha.” I close the book. “How was your weekend?”

“Boring.” His nose wrinkles. “When did you start getting high in here?”

“Are you crazy?” Quickly, I close the door. “Mom would have my head.”

He settles at the foot of my bed, his back to the wall. “Right. You burn incense because you like the way it smells.”

“Incense?”

“You don’t smell that?” he asks. “Did you go to the woods with your cousin?”

“I didn’t go hiking and Mom just did the laundry. Are you saying I stink?”

His cheeks color. “No. It’s just— Never mind. How was the weekend?”

“Fine. Except for the fact that I’ve wrecked my mother’s life.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Tía Teresa thinks once I’m off to college, Mom can, as you always say, ‘seize the moment.’ You know, find a man.”

“That’s ridiculous. Your mother’s dated plenty. Andrew and that guy before him—what was his name?”

“Osvaldo.”

“See? You’re not in her way.”

“Except for the fact that Osvaldo broke up with her.”

“So? She’s the one who dumped that creep Andrew. My point being that you have nothing to do with her obviously complicated love life.”

Ugh. I don’t exactly want to think about my mother’s love life. “And before
that
conversation, I ran into some girl in the crab restaurant who recognized me. She said some pretty mean stuff.”

“People are always jealous of somebody else’s fame, Ali.”

“Clarissa tried to tell me half the people at school want to be me, and the other half wish they had something they care about so much. She neglected to mention the half that thinks I’m a bitch.”

Jacy laughs. “No wonder you barely pass math. That’s three halves.”

I punch his arm. “Let’s not talk about this anymore. You never told me about your
Voice
internship. Is it awesome?”

He picks up one of my stuffed animals, a ratty old rabbit, and bends its sole surviving ear. “I never started.”

“Your dad! What is with him? He forces you to go to a new school and then won’t let you do the internship!”

Jacy tosses the rabbit back onto the pile. “You know the drill. Eleventh grade counts so much, yada, yada, yada.”

“Extracurriculars count, too—”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about anything serious. Let’s eat crabs, fight over the remote and pretend things are exactly the way they used to be. Before this f’ed-up year ever started.”

I grab the Batman action figure. With my best Caped Crusader voice I say, “Don’t be sad, Jacy!”

He doesn’t even crack a smile, so I toss him the rabbit. “Show me your stuff, One-Ear.”

Jacy raises an eyebrow. “How come I have to be the rabbit? I am so clearly the superhero.”

“No way! I’m Batman’s Queen!”

On the word
queen
I move the action figure’s plastic leg and kick the rabbit in the head.

Jacy extends the rabbit’s paws. “ZZZZZZAP. You are so lasered!”

The battle is on. By the time Mom calls, “Dinner!” Jacy and I are laughing our heads off. Neither of us notices that poor rabbit’s remaining ear hangs by a thread.

After Jacy leaves, I check my bulletin board. I’m looking for a picture Sonya took of him and me at Coney Island last year, but what catches my attention is the calendar. A month ago, I scrawled
Baltimore
across the entire weekend, then wrote
***AUDITIONS***
in the Monday box.

First week of November. Time for all good dancers to start working on their holiday shows. All across the country, prancing girls dream of Sugarplum Fairies. Moving Arts, however, does its winter performance differently. Instead of one big extravaganza, each teacher choreographs a piece. Quentin centers his showstopping pas de deux in the middle of a group dance. Lynette always rents Trinity’s auditorium. This year, though, she’s even more freaked about it. Like at all dance studios, the winter show is a big money-raiser.

“We need to fill every seat,” Lynette tells me. “All three performances.”

She’s so desperate that not only does she raise ticket prices, she offers a set of free lessons for the student who sells the
most. Her daily panic makes me knock off “dance school owner” as a career choice.

Audition Monday begins badly. The alarm doesn’t go off and I wake up forty-five minutes late. Pissed, I check the clock. It’s set to 7:00 p.m., not a.m. How did I manage to do that?

With only fifteen minutes to get ready, I streak into the shower, throw on a tee, blue cardigan, black miniskirt and leggings. Pack my dance bag and hurry downstairs.
Yikes.
The instant I open the lobby door, a cold front hits me. I’m not dressed right but there’s no time to change. I skedaddle down the street, dodging the torn newspapers and random bits of garbage the wind whips anxiously about.

At school, I can’t think about anything except auditions. It’s nerve-wracking to learn a combination in five minutes and try to blow away the choreographer with your brilliance—while everyone else attempts to do the very same thing.

The drama is always high. One person ends up in tears, someone else is guaranteed to storm out and most go home hating themselves, vowing never to dance again. At least until the next day.

During English, I come up with a plan to give myself the best shot at the duet. Directly after school, I volunteer at the reception desk so Lynette can get things ready for auditions. They’re scheduled for 7:30—more than an hour after the last class ends. She has to pick up her daughter from day care by six-thirty, so she usually closes for the hour.

“I don’t mind staying,” I tell her. “Doesn’t make sense for me to go home and then turn around and come right back. Plus, you won’t have to rush.”

She agrees. After she leaves, I print out a sign that says Auditioners—Ring Bell, and lock the front door. I make the
bathroom rounds to replace toilet paper, soap and tissues. Then I’m free.

With a flick of a switch, the lights dim in Studio A. There’s nothing like warming up in a room with a beautiful oak floor and soft, dreamy lighting. I stretch, do a barre and practice some turns I think Quentin might include.

The wall clock reads 6:55. Still time. I slip my Clash CD into the player. I’d presented the solo before we went to Baltimore; now I have to work on the suggestions Eva and the class gave.

It’s heaven to have so much space. A couple of leaps fill the hole in the middle I didn’t know what to do with. That leaves the end, which everyone agreed is flat.

I re-cue the music and dance straight through to get the flow, and then keep going. As the music hits its final note, muffled clapping catches my attention.

My scream bounces wildly around the bare room. In the mirror, a man’s reflection stares at mine. Cisco! He stands in Studio A’s doorway, wearing a black motorcycle jacket. Leather-gloved hands stop midclap.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says.

“How long have you been here?” My voice wavers.

“Saw most of it. A little rough at the end but the middle rocks. Good music choice.”

He steps into the room. I back away.

Cisco frowns. “What’s this?”

“How did you get in? I locked the front door.”

“I rang the bell but no one answered. Saw the lights on so I tried the back door. It’s unlocked, you know.”

How long has it been like that? Hours, days, weeks? Anyone could come in, hide in the locker room, attack a Fairy Tale kid, Lynette or me….

Cisco pulls off his gloves. “Seen Eva?”

“Not since class last week.”

He leans against the barre. “Me, neither.”

“Don’t you guys live together?”

“We had a fight.”

I pop my disc from the CD player. “What did you do? Cheat on her?”

The vein in Cisco’s neck pulses and his face tightens. “You’ve got quite a mouth.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“I think you did.”

“Really—I’m sorry. You just surprised me. I thought I was alone.”

“That’s what happens when you forget to lock all your doors. Never know who’s watching,
dancergirl.
”

The phone at the front desk shrieks.

“I’ve got to get that.” I rush past him. At the desk, my voice croaks: “Moving Arts Dance Studio. Alicia speaking.”

From the corner of my eye, I watch Cisco leave the same way he came in. The unlocked back exit.

“Sorry—didn’t catch that.”

I answer the question, then move down the hall. The dead bolt makes a popping sound as I slide the small metal bar across the edge of the door to lock it.

Never know who’s watching.

The dread I’ve managed to smother comes back so hard I’m afraid I’m going to be sick. Before I reach the bathroom, a sharp
bang
startles me.
Now what?
I sneak to the front window, peek through the shade.

“Samantha!” I let her, along with a blast of frigid air, into the studio.

“Where were you? I rang the bell a bunch of times.”

“Sorry, I was in the back.”

“It’s friggin’ cold out there.”

I don’t want to be alone. I follow her into the dressing room. “So. Samantha. Are you nervous?”

She hits me with a suspicious look. “What do you want, LoserGirl?”

“Just being friendly.”

Samantha does that arrogant toss of silky hair she’s so good at. Before she can respond, however, the doorbell rings. I let in another dancer, then another. The studio fills with worried students, harried teachers. Everyone asks questions.

“Which studio am I scheduled for?”

“What time are the jazz auditions?”

“Do I get to try again if I mess up?”

Lynette finally shows up to organize the chaos, so I’m off the hook. But not for long.

Quentin arrives. He wears a floor-length fur coat that a dozen animals have sacrificed their lives for, but I have to admit he’s the only one who looks even halfway warm.

He immediately commandeers Studio A. “Got to be somewhere by nine, luv.”

He gives Lynette a European-style double kiss and swishes into the room.

She shrugs. “Make an announcement, will you, Ali?”

Dancers are everywhere, stretching, bending; doing whatever they can to warm up.

“Anyone trying out for Quentin’s pas de deux, please move into Studio A,” I shout.

“So soon,” Samantha groans.

I’m the last to enter. Every girl in the room turns. Nar rowed eyes, unfriendly stares. One more person to compete
against. Not even Keisha makes room. I’m stuck watching Quentin demonstrate the combination from the far corner.

The duet starts with a sissone, a traveling jump in which the dancer’s legs open in the air before landing on both feet. Then the guy pulls the girl into him for a deep lunge.

Quentin demos both parts. Even in my freaked-out state, I can tell the duet rocks. Keisha’s mirrored reflection says it clearly. She wants that duet. So does Samantha. I do, too.

I lick my lips nervously.
This
is what’s hard for my school friends to understand. It might help to be seen on Zube but only if you have the goods to go with it. No choreographer would risk ruining a piece just because someone’s gone viral.

Quentin pairs us up. I’m with Blake, the only dancer taller than me. He’s way too nervous to flirt.

“Did you get the count on the lunge?” he asks.

Thankfully, the turns I practiced earlier are in, although we have trouble with the lift.

“Work with my timing,” Blake whispers urgently.

Less than ten seconds later, Quentin raps his knuckles on the barre.

“I want full Princess Di, ladies. Up not out.” Quentin nods to Keisha and Denny. “Start right of center.”

Keisha bites her lip. When Quentin commands, you jump.

Which she does quite well. Samantha’s face turns so grim I almost laugh. Keisha’s solid performance puts her in the running.

Sam recovers quickly. She takes the floor like true royalty. If she’s nervous, I can’t tell. Lorenzo, her partner, has gotten a lot better this year. They look good. Every move Sam makes is impossibly extended. Arms float like angel wings.

“See?” Blake whispers. “She anticipated the lift but didn’t jump the gun.”

Quentin glares at us. “Your turn will come.”

Sam and Lorenzo leave the floor. I wipe sweaty palms on my tights. Blake and I take the opening position. As the music begins, I see Cisco in the doorway—but it’s only a figment of my imagination.

Instead of a graceful sissone, however, the adrenaline running through my veins causes me to shoot up and away like a frightened rabbit. Surprised, Blake pulls me back for the lunge more violently than he realized. I fly forward, a tad ahead of the beat. That means I have an extra moment to fill, so I arch my back and lean away, as if afraid. Blake has no choice but to go for it. Push pull, pull push—the duet has a far edgier quality than anyone who danced before us.

Quentin looks thoughtful. He switches partners. Blake dances with Samantha, I’m with Denny, Lorenzo is paired with Keisha.

Some of the second duos are better than the first. Sam seems even more elegant, Keisha goes for a perky quality that’s adorable. Denny, however, is so much shorter than me that we look ridiculous.

Quentin pops the CD from the player. “Thank you all for an interesting night. List’ll be up tomorrow.”

He grabs his fur and sashays out of the room.

“Lucky animals,” Blake mutters, sweating all over. “At least they’re out of their misery.”