“Oh.” I sit down next to her and say, “You’re coming to dance with Dana!”
“No! It’s way better than that,” Angela says.
Okay, better than that? What could it be? “Something to do with Jonas? He asked you out again?”
“Even better. His family invited me to go with them to Mexico.”
“Wow!
Mexico!
” I leap across the bed and engulf Angela in a bear hug. She laughs and hugs me back. We struggle to standing, then laugh and jump and hug all around the room. “You’ve always wanted to go to Mexico,” I say.
“And, even better, with Jonas. And I love his mom and dad. They’re awesome,” Angela says.
“And Bea. She’s nice too.”
Angela plops back down on the bed. “Bea’s not coming. That’s how come there’s room for me.”
“No way. How come she’s not going?”
Angela stands up and walks over to my closet. She opens the door and examines herself in the mirror on the back of the door. “Promise you won’t be mad when I say this?”
“How can I when I don’t know what you’re going to say?”
“Just promise.”
“Okay, I won’t be mad. I promise.”
“Bea’s not going because she decided to stay and perform with Amala’s troupe at the festival. Amala says she’s learned the choreography well enough to perform if she practices every day.”
It takes a second for that to work through my brain, but when it does, the word “No!” escapes my mouth before I can stop it.
“You promised,” Angela says.
“How can you?” I almost shout.
“Can’t you understand, Lila? I told you, I
really
like Jonas, and he likes me too.”
“But the festival…”
Angela comes back to the bed and sits beside me. “It’s not the end of the world. There’ll be other festivals.”
“But…this is our dream. It’s our first step to being professional dancers. You’re making a mistake, Angela. There’ll be other boys, but maybe we’ll never be invited to another festival, and you’ll have missed your opportunity to be seen by someone,” I say.
Angela takes my hand and holds it to her heart. “Lila, being a professional dancer is your dream, not mine.”
I pull my hand back. “Amala was telling me yesterday how much you love to dance.”
“Yeah, I love to dance. But I love other things too. I guess you can’t understand that,” Angela says. “You know when you want something so much you can’t even see anything else? That’s how you are about dance. That’s how you’ve been ever since you went to Dana’s studio. I thought I knew you, Lila. I thought you’d be happy for me to have Jonas in my life. But instead you’re mad that I’m missing a stupid dance performance. So what if someone never sees me? I’m happy dancing with Amala. That’s all I ever wanted. You used to love it too until Dana got her claws into you.”
“Her claws into me? If you mean corrected the sloppiness I got from dancing with Amala, then yeah, for sure.”
“How can you say that? You loved dancing with Amala right up to the moment you got chosen to go to Dana’s. You loved it and everything about it. And you loved Amala.”
“I do love Amala. But that doesn’t mean Dana’s not better,” I say.
“Dana’s better so you get to say bad things about Amala? Like somehow you’re better than the rest of us?”
I shrug.
“So that’s what you think?” she asks.
“I think you’re making a big mistake. How can you put a boy ahead of dance? And I bet you haven’t even told Nini yet, have you?”
“Nini has nothing to do with it. Jonas doesn’t even like her,” Angela says.
“So you’re better than her, is that it?”
Angela whips her head back like I slapped her in the face. “That was mean,” she says. She picks up her bag, and without saying anything else, she walks through the door and down the stairs.
I don’t follow her. The awful truth is that she is totally right. About everything.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this small.
“R
ight foot first,” Dana says.
I managed to avoid Angela at school all day after our fight yesterday, but now I’m having a really hard time concentrating on what Dana is saying, and I keep messing up.
“The step’s not that tricky,” she says to me. “Your brain’s making you think it is, but it’s not. Imagine you have a box around you, and everywhere you move, that box stays the same. So if I say go right, no matter where in the room you are facing, you will always move to the right side of your box.” Dana shows what she means by stepping out to her right, spinning to face the side of the room, stepping out to her right again, and this time spinning so she’s facing the back of the room. “Make sense?” she asks.
I nod, and she says, “Again!” and this time when she starts the music, we all smoothly spin to the right of the room, to the back, to the left and back to the front.
“Excellent. Now let’s do that in the song. We’ll start from the beginning, and when we hit this point, remember that all you are doing is moving your box around you,” Dana says.
The song starts out well. We all know this choreography like it’s mapped in our toes, but when we get to the spins, somehow the stuff Dana said about a box doesn’t make sense anymore, and even though I try turning to my right and spinning from there, I still end up facing the wrong direction at the end.
“No, no, no.” Dana runs her hands through her hair. “No.” She stands still and stares at the mirror for a long minute, then says, “We’re making a change. We’re going to cut that, and we’ll do a repeat of the phrase before. I can’t let you girls go out onstage like that. Twirls all over the place. No way.”
It’s hard not to catch anyone’s eye when you’re all standing in front of a mirror, but somehow I manage it. My face burns. My chest feels tight. This is my fault.
“Start from the beginning,” Dana says. She marches to the side of the room and folds her arms like an army major. Everything starts well, but this time she stops us when we get to a spot where our arms snake around us. It’s me again. I’m off count.
She points to my fingertips. “One and”—she points to my knuckle—“two and”—my wrist and elbow—“three and”—my shoulder—“four. Good. Try again. Good. And again.” I go through it three times before she turns back to the front of the class and starts us up again.
Robin glares at me, and I know she’s thinking,
Don’t screw up now
. Dana’s going to make her choice soon. Maybe even today.
When Dana turns off the music at the end of the class, I’m panting hard, and my body is stiff with tension. We all find our water bottles, and Dana says, “Well done, girls. I worked you hard today.” She pauses, and we all turn to face her. We know what’s coming. “The eleven of you are going to be the most exciting girls on the stage at the festival next week. Really, you all look fantastic,” she says.
“Eleven?” asks Sam.
Dana nods.
“But I thought you were only choosing ten of us,” Robin says.
“What? Of course not! Why would I do that? Good gracious, where did that idea come from?”
We all look at Eve, who turns a little pale and says, “Patricia from your Monday-night class said that.”
“And you believed her? My goodness, how mean you must all think I am. I’m hurt that you would think that,” Dana says. Her whole body droops in a very un-dancer-like way.
“No one’s getting cut?” Eve asks.
Dana shakes her head. “No one. The performance is only a couple of days away. I’d never make a change like that this close.”
“What about Bea then?” Robin asks.
Dana takes a big breath. “Bea is a good dancer, but she decided not to continue. It was her choice, though I blame myself for not encouraging her more.”
“So we’re all dancing together next week?” Alex asks.
“All together,” Dana says.
The room erupts into laughter and yelps and hugs. Robin engulfs me in a huge bear hug,
and Alex jumps on top of us so the three of us sway in a heap. I squeeze Robin and Alex back, and then the three of us clasp Sam and even Eve, though no one ever thought she’d be cut. She bear-hugs me back.
Alex and Sam start a polka across the room. Dana presses her remote so we have music, and soon we’re all dancing freestyle, even Dana. She dances up to each of us in turn, and when she comes to me, she takes my hand and twirls me so we’re back to back, and we do left-to-right undulations in opposition to each other. She winks as she heads over to Alex. All the tension that’s been in the room ever since Bea left is gone, and we’re all still laughing and busting out dance moves as we leave the studio.
We stand together waiting for our buses home. As the number seven pulls up and we climb on, Alex says, “That was the most fun class Dana’s ever had.”
“It was like one of Amala’s classes,” I say. “We’re always breaking out in random acts of dancing.”
We.
“You loved dancing with her, didn’t you?” Alex says.
“Yeah, I did.”
“More than Dana?” she asks.
But I don’t know how to answer. I shrug and make my way to the back of the bus. When we reach my stop, I wave goodbye and walk down the street by myself. Everyone on the bus was so happy that we’re all going to be dancing together. Everyone except me. Knowing that Dana wasn’t being hard on me because she wanted to cut me from the troupe makes the whole thing a lot more difficult. Maybe I should stay with Dana. It’s not as much fun, not by a long shot. She was hard on us today, really hard, but I’ve learned a lot from her. She’s taught me how to use my muscles properly, how to hear the timing of the music with precision and how to focus my mind. She makes me sweat, but it’s worth it…isn’t it?
Now that Dana’s not going to make that decision for me, I’m going to have to make it myself.
L
ast class before the festival, and we’re all in our costumes. Eve looks spectacular, as we knew she would. I’m feeling uncomfort- able with my sequin-and-lace-covered bra, but Mom helped me sew it and make sure it’s secure. I’ll get used to it.
“Again,” says Dana, and she starts the music.
I can’t get my head into it today, and already I’ve noticed Eve glaring at me, and when Dana stops the music and says, “Lila, posture,” Eve rolls her eyes and breaks formation. She heads to the back of the room and picks up her water bottle.
“Sorry,” I say to the class in general.
“The festival performance is in three days, Lila,” Eve says when I reach past her for my water bottle.
“I know.”
“So what are you doing?”
“Nerves, I guess. I’ll get a good night’s sleep. I’ll be fine—don’t worry.” My voice comes out sounding more annoyed than I intended it to.
“Yeah, well, I am worried,” Eve says. “We’re meant to be acting like professionals, not falling apart.”
“I thought we were supposed to be having fun,” I say.
Eve shakes her head. “Well, that’s where you’re mistaken. This is my moment to shine, and I don’t want you messing it up. You’re a good dancer, Lila. Pull it together.” She swigs her water and marches back to the center of the room.
I stand, stunned, where I am.
Wow
. I feel like she slapped me in the face.
“Let’s go again, girls. We only have a couple more minutes before my next class starts. Let’s try to get through in one run this time,” Dana says.
I concentrate hard and make it through the dance without messing up. When the music ends, Dana says, “Well done, girls. I’ve worked you hard for the past few weeks, and I know it’s been tough on some of you”—she glances
at me—“but you look fantastic. Truly. You’re going to stun the audience. So on Saturday, eat well in the morning, relax, and I’ll see you at the theater an hour before curtain.”
I still feel slapped as I put on my shoes, and when Robin asks me if I want to go to her house to run through the song a couple more times, I shake my head. I’m not sure what will happen if I open my mouth and try to speak, so I don’t.
“You okay, Lila?” Robin asks.
Though my voice is shaky, I say, “Eve told me I need to
pull it together
. She doesn’t want me messing things up for her tomorrow.”
Robin leans across our bags and hugs me. “Ignore Eve. She’s the one who’s totally stressed out. She has no right to say that to you.”
“Thanks, Robin,” I say.
She keeps her arm around me as we walk out the door and onto the street. Alex joins us on the street, and the three of us get onto the bus. We’re all pretty tired out from today’s practice, so we’re quiet as we ride along. When my stop comes, Robin says, “Sure you don’t want to come over for more practice?”
“Yeah. I’m sure,” I say.
There’s only one thing I want to do, and that’s talk to Angela.
* * *
Angela’s mom answers the door. “Lila, what happened?” she asks. “Angela was so upset when she came back from your house the other day. She hasn’t been herself ever since.”
“I know,” I say to my feet.
She wipes her hands on a tea towel and says, “I’ll go see if she wants to talk to you.”
From the hallway I can hear Angela’s mom knocking and calling out, “Angela, Lila’s here.” I can’t catch Angela’s response, but her bedroom door opens, and Angela’s mom walks inside the room, closing the door behind her. I lean into the hallway and try to breathe normally. I think I was about five the last time I had to wait here.
“Hi,” Angela says a few minutes later when she comes down the stairs. She stands on the bottom step with her arms folded.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She doesn’t move.
“I’m not better than you. Dana’s not better than Amala,” I say.
She shifts, so I add, “And the truth is, I’m confused about what I want. That’s why I was being so mean. Because I was upset.”
“I talked to Nini before I said I’d go to Mexico with Jonas’s family,” Angela says, still without unfolding her arms. “She was upset, but she said she understood.”
“Okay.” I still don’t understand how she can go away instead of dancing in the festival, but I don’t say that.
“And I talked to Amala too.”
“What did she say?”
“She said you never can tell where your heart is going to take you, and that I should definitely follow my heart.”