Dancing on the Edge (24 page)

I nodded.

“Yes, of course you will. Now, you keep wearing that purple. You want . . .” She stopped. Our eyes met and then she looked away again, down at her own green robe.

“Well, safe trip then. I better get going or Eugene will start wondering where I am.”

She turned away, walking off in the wrong direction. She stopped, turned around, and walked past me as if I weren't even there.

I
SAT DOWN ON A BENCH
to wait for my bus. I watched the people passing in front of me, studied their faces, their clothes, the way they walked. I had never really noticed people before, and I wondered what it meant, to see them now, as if they were newly born upon this earth, and I, too, newly born, alive, truly alive. It felt good, so good to get away from Gigi, from the hold she had on me. I felt so free and light. I just knew if I stood up and did a leap I would leap clear over the tops of the buses and the tops of the trees and I wouldn't come down for a long, long time.

I watched a man waiting in line for his turn to buy a ticket. He looked tired, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. I wished I could lend him mine, my new legs, my leaping, springing legs. I heard him order his ticket and I sprang from my seat, not to lend him my legs, but because I had just realized I had no ticket, and I had no money.

“Gigi! How could she forget?”

I twisted around, looking this way and that, looking for a solution to my problem and believing, I suppose, that the answer hovered somewhere close, if I just knew where to look. I watched several more people purchase their tickets. I stood up and walked to the ticket counter. I paced in front of it a few times listening to a man ordering his ticket to Montgomery and wishing he'd drop a few bills by accident. When the counter was empty, the woman selling the tickets called out to me from behind her window, “Can I help you?”

I stopped and moved closer, leaning into the window. “I have to get to Birmingham.”

“Yes?” The woman held out her hand.

“No, I don't have any money. I—I need to get back. What can I do?”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “You a runaway?”

“I need to get back. Aunt Casey, Dr. DeAngelis, they'll be waiting for me. She'll be waiting.”

“You want me to call somebody?”

“Call?” What was she saying? “Oh! Yes, yes, can I make a call? I don't have any money. My aunt, when she comes, she'll pay you back.”

The woman pushed back in her seat and brought a set of keys out of her pocket. “Well, I shouldn't, but I will. I've got a daughter just about your age. I'd want someone helping her if she ever had a mind to run off. Come on in.”

She unlocked the door and showed me the phone.

I dialed Aunt Casey's number and held my breath. She answered before the first ring had ended.

“Hello!” she said, her voice sounding urgent.

“Aunt Casey, it's me, Miracle.”

“Miracle! It's Miracle,” she said, holding her voice away from the receiver. She got back on the line. “Where are you? We've all been so worried. Are you at Gigi's?”

“No. I'm at a bus stop. I don't have any money. I want to come home. Aunt Casey, I want to come home.”

“You want to come back? To me?” Aunt Casey sounded disbelieving. “You're at a bus stop? Which one? I'll come get you.”

“I—I don't know, hold on.” I turned to the woman behind me. “Where am I? My aunt will come pick me up.”

“Here, let me.” The woman took the receiver from my hands and told Aunt Casey how to get to the station, then she handed it back to me.

“Hello,” I said, expecting to hear Aunt Casey's voice again.

“Girl, what you doing way out there? I come for my first visit and danged if you don't run off. A lesser feller might be plenty insulted.”

I felt my heart give a leap. “I didn't run off.”

“Did too.”

“Did not. Gigi took me.”

“Well, you had better just hurry on back is all I got to say, before I take a mind to leave.”

“No, don't leave! I need—wait for me, Grandaddy.”

“Girl, I'll be waiting, don't you worry. Why do you think I made sure them doctors fixed me up right?”

“Then you're all right? Your heart's okay?”

The woman behind me gave me a nudge. “Hey, that's long distance, hurry it up.”

“Grandaddy, I've got to go, but you'll be there, won't you? You're all better now? You'll come visit me in the hospital?”

“I'll be here, don't you worry. Here's your aunt to say good-bye. You hurry on home, now.”

“Miracle?”

“Aunt Casey, I've got to go.”

“Yes, I know, I'm on my way.”

“Thanks. Oh, and Aunt Casey? Thanks for wanting me to know the truth—for wanting me.”

“Miracle”—Aunt Casey hesitated—“I love you.”

I hung up the receiver and thanked the woman with the tickets. She winked and let me out through the door. I went back and sat on the bench to wait. I watched the people again, getting on and off buses, passing in front of me, buying their tickets. All of them looked different, wore different clothes, different colors. I looked down at my purple outfit and told myself,
I will never wear purple again
. Then I thought,
No, I won't say never. I don't want any rules. When it comes to numbers and colors, there will be no rules. I'll wear orange and red and pink and sit on that strange blue-black-green couch in Dr. DeAngelis's office. I'll sit on it with Aunt Casey and she'll take my hand and tell me again that she loves me
.

Dr. DeAngelis once said that we would be talking about love, what it means, how it feels. I told him I didn't believe in love. “You can't touch it, or see it,” I had said, remembering my conversation with the wig heads. “I won't believe what I can't see.”

He said, “Then believe what you feel.”

I thought about that, sitting on the bench. I thought about Dane. I had so much still to figure out. I knew I no longer felt so desperate to find him, and this made me wonder if I even loved him. Did he love me? I wasn't sure anymore. I still didn't know what love was, not yet. But I thought maybe it was like dance, and music, and poetry. I knew how they made me feel, how the truth made me feel: real, and lit up from the inside, and like nothing in the world could ever really hurt me. I decided love might be like that, too, because when I thought of Aunt Casey taking those parenting courses and coming to the sessions with Dr. DeAngelis, coming to talk with me, spend time with me, and when I thought of Grandaddy Opal teaching me to ride a bicycle, teaching me how to care for something outside of myself, my own special Etain, I got that same lit-up feeling.

A woman eating from a large bag of popcorn walked up and sat down next to me. She looked at me and smiled and held out her bag, offering me some of her popcorn. I reached in, took a handful, and popped a piece in my mouth. She nodded and I smiled, thinking of her kindness, of Aunt Casey and Grandaddy Opal, thinking that love might turn out to be the truest, realest thing I'll ever know.

1. Miracle wears Dane's robe as a way to feel closer to him. Have you ever had a sentimental attachment to an object? What was it, and what did it represent to you?
   

    
   

2. When Miracle and Gigi go to live with Grandaddy Opal, it seems like he will reject Miracle. But over time it becomes clear that he loves his granddaughter very much. Has your first impression of someone ever been wrong? What did you think at first? What did you find out that made you change your mind?
   

    
   

3. Dancing is Miracle's escape from all the pain in her life. Is there an activity that transports you the way Miracle's dancing does for her?
   

    
   

4. How does Aunt Casey change after she starts learning about psychology? Do you think her course of study helped her to understand Miracle?
   

    
   

5. Why does Miracle keep up the charade of being the school “love magician”? Have you ever found yourself so deep in a lie that lying becomes easier than telling the truth?
   

    
   

6. When Aunt Casey first explains to Miracle about seeing Dr. DeAngelis, she admits that talking to a stranger might be weird when their family doesn't even discuss their problems with one another. How might talking to a stranger be even more beneficial than talking with a family member?
   

    
   

7. How is Dr. DeAngelis's manner of relating to Miracle different from Gigi's? How do Miracle's reactions to each of them differ?
   

    
   

8. Miracle's family sees many similarities between Miracle and her mother. How does this affect their attitude toward Miracle? Have you ever felt that you were unfairly compared to a member of your family?
   

 

Question: How long have you been writing?

Han Nolan:
I started writing stories as soon as I could write, or so my mother says. What I remember is reading Nancy Drew Mysteries and wanting to write some of my own mysteries. I was about nine years old at the time.
Harriet the Spy
also influenced me back then. I started spying and keeping a journal. I soon realized that I didn't make a very good spy (I kept getting caught), and that I wanted to write more about my own thoughts than about the people I spied on. Still, that was the beginning of keeping a journal and I've kept one ever since. I wrote my first novel-length story in the hopes of getting it published back in 1988.

 

Q: What is your writing process? Do you work certain hours or days?

HN:
I use a computer to write, and I try to write from about five or six o'clock in the morning until about four o'clock in the afternoon. When my children were living at home, I wrote during the hours they were at school and stopped when they came home.

 

Q: Are your characters inspired by people you know?

HN:
I guess they would have to be in some way—but not really. I never sit down to write a story based on a specific person I know. The characters evolve as I'm writing and they act and react to the situations I've created. I never know who I'm going to meet when I write.

 

Q: How do you come up with story ideas?

HN:
I write about things I care about—those things closest to my heart or things that scare me the most. My ideas come from inside me but they are stimulated by conversations I've had, things I've read, and stories I've heard.

 

Q: Do personal experiences or details ever end up in your books?

HN:
Yes. All the interiors of the houses in my stories come from houses I've been in before. They never come out just the way they are in real life, but in my mind's eye I am picturing a certain familiar house. Casper, Alabama, in the book
Send Me Down a Miracle
, was based on a street in Dothan, Alabama, where many of my relatives have lived. The street is named after my great uncle. I created a small town based on that one street.

 

Q: Your characters often face a life without one or both parents. What do you hope readers will take away from your exploration of this situation?

HN:
Every reader comes to a book with their own history and will respond to the book according to that history. I would want my readers to take away from this exploration whatever they need. I don't create a story to teach a certain lesson to my readers. I create a story to explore a certain truth about life.

 

Q: How did your experience as a dancer influence this story?

HN:
I didn't have to do any research for the dance scenes, for one thing. But since I didn't write too much about actual dancing in this story, in a way any author who did his research might have written similar dance scenes. Still, dance has greatly influenced my artistic abilities and sensibilities which has carried over into my writing. Dance is a discipline, an art form, a craft; the same can be said of writing.

 

Q: Both Aunt Casey and Miracle experience positive changes after learning more about themselves through psychology. Are there any ways you can recommend for teens to get to know themselves?

HN:
Well I'm not a psychologist, but I would think that it's those times we spend alone, when we take off our social masks, that show us who we are and even give us time to think about who we want to become. Some young people have such busy schedules these days that they don't get to experience much alone time. They don't know who they are when nobody's looking because somebody always is. I know people who are afraid to be alone for any length of time. I think they're afraid to meet themselves and find out they don't like who they are. Who we are in social settings can tell us a lot about ourselves as well, it's sometimes just harder to pay attention to the clues. Paying attention helps.

 

Q: Did you spend any time in an actual psych ward when researching this book? If so, what was that experience like?

HN:
Yes, I did. I think my book shows what that experience was like and does it better than I could do describing it briefly here.

 

Q: Miracle's problems escalate when Gigi forbids her to dance. One thing the story seems to tell us is that a person can go crazy if they are kept from doing what they love. Would you agree with this?

HN:
No—I think Miracle's problems run deeper than her being forbidden to dance. But I do think that if a person is constantly denied the opportunity to do what he or she loves, then that person could become seriously depressed, or develop some other issues in an attempt to deal with that frustration.

H
AN
N
OLAN
is the author of the National Book Award–winning novel
Dancing on the Edge
, the National Book Award finalist
Send Me Down a Miracle
, and many other acclaimed novels for teens. Known for her evocative language, gritty subject matter, and multidimensional—and often surprising—characters, Ms. Nolan tackles the difficult choices
of teenagers with courage and compassion.