Sellout (2 page)

WE PULLED UP to the Adams Park Dance Center and my insides were dancing before we even found a parking spot. The idea of making any mistakes onstage tonight had my stomach in a maze of knots.

Before volleyball games I felt excited and couldn’t wait to get out on the court. Hours before a match, I’d picture myself leaping to set balls and slamming them over the net past my opponents. I was great out on the court, but ballet was a whole different story. I wasn’t a star in my leotard and tutu.

Ballet wasn’t for me, and Tilly was the only one who really understood. My parents said it would be good for me to try something new. Heather said it would make us more popular. Not true. I still had the same friends now as I had at the beginning of the year.

After we parked I sat there frozen in my seat. Heather stood with one door open, bribing me to exit. I spotted Tilly and Dad waiting at the entrance—too late to run back home and hide. I slammed the door behind me and put on a smile.

“Hey, girl, get over here and give your Tilly a hug,” Tilly yelled across the lot when she saw me. She waved a bright red hat that matched her loud, red-and-black pantsuit. When Tilly was invited to an event, she dressed the part. To her, if it required an invitation, it required a new outfit. My first ballet recital tonight was no exception, even though she wasn’t convinced I should be involved at all.
Why are you going to give up something you love, to dance around with those silly white girls?

“Hey, Tilly,” I said, thinking back to our talks about quitting volleyball. “You ready for this?”

“Of course I’m ready, baby,” she said, squeezing me tight. It was good to have her arms wrapped around me. Her tight embrace felt like glue holding me together in one piece. I was afraid that when she let go, I might fall apart right in front of her. “Now, you make me proud up there, you hear?”

“You got it,” I said. But I wasn’t feeling quite as sure as I sounded.

Heather and I joined the other dancers for our warm-up routine. I stretched both hands over my head and pulled down gently. Moving on to the next stretch on my own, I forgot the rest of the group and pushed my nose and body as close to the floor as I could. I couldn’t stop thinking about my hair.

“NaTasha, this is exactly the kind of break in formation we do not need during crunch time,” Marcia barked. She was meant to be an instructor…of anything. She just liked telling anyone who would listen what they should and should
not be doing. “If we’re together during stretches, we’ll be together onstage. Wait for the group, please.”

I rolled my eyes underneath closed lids. From day one she’d been extra hard on me. She was right that I needed to stay focused, but I couldn’t help myself. My mind kept wandering out beyond the maroon stage curtain.

What would Tilly think? Had I practiced enough? Was Matt Billings in the audience? He was hands down the cutest guy in our class. What he would be doing at a ballet recital was beyond me, but I thought about him watching me anyway.

I peeked at the other dancers, who all had their legs outstretched and noses to the floor. We’d practiced our routines for two months, and I knew every step as well as the others. The show would go smoothly now if only my body would cooperate. I told myself there was nothing to worry about.

Marcia walked us back to a small, mirrored room off to stage left. The girls whispered excitedly to one another about who had come to watch them. Heather went on and on about something, but I couldn’t even respond. Instead, I snuck a look through the heavy curtain. I found my family sitting in one of the orchestra sections toward the center of the auditorium.

Tilly looked smothered, like someone heavy was sitting on her lap. She was on the aisle seat in the fourth row, hugging her pocketbook tightly to her chest.

Once, Tilly and I had made fun of ballet dancers on television, saying they looked like flamingos. Now I was one of them. I would have to make this up to her somehow.

Only five minutes until showtime. All the seats were filled.

“Okay, folks, this is it,” Marcia whispered. I dropped the curtain and grabbed Heather’s arm. Marcia had us hold hands in a circle. She didn’t strike me as the praying type, but she bowed her head and so did we. “Let’s make this a great show. Remember your spacing and formations, but most important, have a good time.”

We pumped our hands down together at the same time and whispered “dance” like we were vying for a championship trophy.

“Hey, Tash, I just
love
the hair.” Stephanie Bonner stood with her hands on her hips and smirked at her dance groupie peons. “You finally got the look right. Marcia must be thrilled.”

Stephanie was the best dancer at Adams Park. She was blond, tiny, perfect, and popular, and she knew how good she was. I felt sick, like she had punched me in the chest. Somehow after a full year of her insults, I still didn’t know how to respond when she lashed out at me.

“It does look great, doesn’t it, Bones?” Heather stepped in between Stephanie and me like a Secret Service agent and wrapped an arm protectively around my shoulders. “It almost looks better than yours. Hey, break a leg out there tonight, would you?”

Stephanie looked like she’d been bitch slapped. No one ever talked to her that way. She narrowed her eyes at us and stalked off with a small group of ballerinas stumbling along behind her. Heather giggled and hugged me tight.

When she pulled away her arm bumped the scarves. I could feel something hanging and motioned frantically for her to fix it. She fiddled with something quickly before we scooted into our places onstage, ten in the front row and ten in the back. “You know one day she’ll come after you,” I whispered.

“Whatever, I’m not scared of her,” Heather said, raising her arms and settling into position. She balanced perfectly on one pointed toe. “She just likes to bully people. You know she’s harmless.”

Stephanie had single-handedly alienated an entire grade after starting some rumor about the boys not wearing deodorant. I definitely didn’t want to be on her bad side.

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you… Thanks for sticking up for me,” I said.

“You know it, girl,” Heather said. She smiled brightly. I didn’t know what I’d ever do without my best friend at my side.

The music started playing. It sounded the same as it had during practices, but now with the curtain seconds away from opening, it seemed different. My head was spinning but I hadn’t even started moving yet. A wave of nausea sped through my system, like I’d just had milk that should have been tossed the week before. The curtain started to open and I held my breath.

I could see Tilly looking around for me, her purse still held tightly to her chest. The curtain lifted all the way. We were on.

Hundreds of eyes stared at us, waiting for us to move. We listened for our cue. The music echoed off the walls in
surround sound. People lined the walls of the auditorium. Not one seat was open, standing room only. I chose a spot on the far wall across from the stage to focus on and help my turning, just like in practice.

“I’m going to throw up,” I whispered to Heather.

“Me too,” she mouthed back.

I closed my eyes and hummed along with the first five bars of Tchaikovsky’s
Swan Lake.
On the sixth bar, when the bell part began, we moved our toes from first position to third and back again. We lifted our arms in half circles and spun like dolls, puppets attached to strings.

I kept in time with the music when the drums began to pound. I stretched my body harder than in practice and poured everything I had into our first pirouette turns. I bent my body in two and swept my arms across the floor just like we practiced. Marcia would be so proud.

We glided across the stage, flitting like little butterflies. After lowering gracefully to touch our toes, we lifted again, and tiptoed slowly into one large circle in the center of the stage. Our bodies leaned into the circle and out again, creating a sort of ocean wave.

Marcia was a huge fan of kicking lines, adding them into almost every routine. We first kicked at waist level to show off our flexibility. Stephanie glared at me from her position, gloating over her perfect form. I kicked higher, but couldn’t wait to break away to the next pose.

Pure adrenaline took over toward the last movement. My legs shook as I traveled across the stage. My head began to
spin out of control, like my brain was in a washing machine set on high. My turning spot on the wall was now lost to me.

The other dancers locked arms with me. The beat sped up during the last series of eight counts of the song and so did my heartbeat. It felt like we were descending from the highest roller coaster in the world. I wanted to lift my arms and scream as loud as I could.

The music accelerated and we began our double turns. I smiled and looked to find Tilly. I landed my turn, but Tilly wasn’t watching. Instead, she was searching through her purse. Maybe her cell was ringing.

Our leaps were next and I was already dizzy from the turns. I brushed away a few hairs that were blowing in my face and took a deep breath. I could feel the scarves weighing heavier in my hair, but I kept jumping, arms level, legs outstretched.

Dad was on the edge of his chair, swaying along to the music. My mother and Tilly looked like they were watching a completely different show, their eyes wide open, almost in shock. The dancers leaped into the final formation.

One at a time we sashayed off the stage. It wasn’t until my turn to exit that I realized the scarves weren’t in my hair anymore. They had slipped and were now draped around my shoulders.

I searched for Marcia in the wings. Her eyes were stuck on me, and not because of my perfect leaps, either. One break from formation and she would flip, scarves or no scarves. Grabbing the scarves was out of the question.

I prayed Matt Billings couldn’t see me now.

The room spun like I was on a broken carnival ride still in motion. I could hear a gasp from the direction of the crowd, no doubt intended for me.

I wanted lightning to strike me right at that moment. At least I would stop spinning. Now
that
would be a good show. Sweat beads prickled every part of my body, including my ears. My heartbeat banged more loudly than the music. I couldn’t hear a thing anymore.

I wasn’t sure in which direction I was turning, but finally I was offstage. I bent down toward my knees so my vision could clear, and peeked out at the remaining dancers onstage. They each detoured around our exiting point, not like we had practiced at all.

I looked around the stage. My scarves lay right in the path of our dramatic exit.

Two more dancers needed to make it beyond the scarves and through the curtain, Heather and Stephanie. The scarves were too far out onstage for me to grab them. I could see Marcia glaring. I tried to swallow but my throat felt like it was slowly closing up.

I motioned at my hair and waved frantically for Heather to stop spinning. But she couldn’t see me.

Luckily, Heather’s turn was off balance so she missed the scarves by a few inches. I thought we were in the clear until Stephanie completed the perfect twirl right on top of the scarves, like a dreidel. She slipped and fell hard.

A hush fell over the crowd. Stephanie was sprawled out on the stage, holding the scarves in one hand and her ankle
in the other. The curtain closed swiftly without any applause from the audience, just the sound of hushed whispering.

I ran to Stephanie along with the others as quickly as I could. “Stephanie, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” I wanted to patch her back together and rewind time to undo the mess.

“You should be sorry,” Stephanie yelled through her tears. Everyone, including Marcia, turned to look at me. I wondered if the audience could hear what was going on. Tilly had probably left the building by this point. I hovered over Stephanie, not knowing what else to do or say.

One of the dancers bent down to inspect Stephanie’s ankle. I bent down, too. Stephanie leaned in toward me, so her face was just inches from my own.

“What did you think? That no one would notice your
fake bun
?” She mouthed it roughly, like the words were fighting to stay inside her mouth. “You’re more stupid than I thought, NaTasha
Jennings,”
she said before throwing the scarves at my feet.

Marcia and a few of the girls gently moved Stephanie offstage and waved around frantically for the curtain call. One of Stephanie’s peons ran to get her parents.

I was pretty sure no one in the audience wanted to see me back up there, not even my own family. So, when the curtain went up and Heather reached for my hand, I shook her off and ran backstage. I left the scarves right there on the stage floor.

I BEAT MY family out to the car. When they finally caught up to me, my heart was still racing as if I had never left the stage. As far as I was concerned, I was never going back onstage again.

No one said a word. Tilly and my parents quickly strapped themselves in and my dad couldn’t have started the engine fast enough. I wanted to bury my head deep in a sandpit somewhere far from home. I was relieved that I was going to be leaving town for a while. In Tilly’s neighborhood I could hide, take a deep breath, and relax again. No one there would know what happened tonight. I certainly wouldn’t be the one to bring it up. I wasn’t so sure about Tilly, though.

Other families were starting to trickle out of the building as we drove out of the parking lot. I slid far down in my seat to avoid making any eye contact. I turned toward Tilly in the seat next to me and searched her face for a sign as to what she was thinking. She shook her head back and forth.

“Something like this happened to me a long time ago,” Tilly said. I was glad she finally broke the ice. I raised my
eyebrows and waited. When I could tell we’d pulled out onto Main Street, I pulled myself back into a seated position. “I, too, was trying to be someone I wasn’t and got caught.”

The story that followed was a familiar one. Tilly used to nanny for a white family. She was invited to a party in their home as a guest and as the story goes, she got
too
comfortable. “Some of the other guests assumed I was the hired help and decided I should clean up after them instead of join them for dinner.”

Tilly had gotten mad when the other guests treated her like a servant.

“How’d you get over the humiliation?” I asked. My dad glanced at me in his rearview mirror.

“I ran and hid for a while,” Tilly said, “but I came back to face them again when I was able to, just like you’ll have to one day.”

The idea of facing Stephanie and Marcia made me nauseous. Good thing we were pulling into our driveway, because everything in my stomach felt like it was about to come out. As soon as we were parked, I ran in to the restroom, while my parents and Tilly rested in the living room. I could hear them talking about me through the bathroom door.

“I told you not to expose her to all of this,” Tilly said. “This could have all been avoided. Why do you think I warned you both about living here?”

“Everything is fine, Tilly,” Dad told her. “The girls danced a great show and Stephanie’s fall didn’t appear to be serious. This will pass and practice at the dance center will go back to normal in no time at all.”

Wearing the scarves couldn’t possibly be that big of a deal. All the hottest fashion magazines had models wearing them. I bet even my mother had plans to add a few to her own wardrobe. Besides, with a bun, I looked like all the other dancers. Marcia wanted uniformity, so I gave it to her. Really, it was all
her
fault Stephanie fell.

The grandfather clock tolled nine o’clock and jolted me back to life. I tiptoed out of the bathroom and sat just outside the living room so I couldn’t be seen.

“Walter Jennings, this is bigger than that dance center and you know it,” Tilly said. She never used my dad’s full name. Or anyone’s for that matter, unless she meant business. Her voice was louder than it had been earlier. I could tell she was getting angry.

I focused on the three-piece art display of African dancers hanging on the wall across from me. Those dancers had all kinds of scarves tied in their hair and on their bodies. What was so wrong with how I wore mine?

“Tilly, this is normal behavior for teenagers,” my dad added. “Every week they are fighting with someone new.”

“He’s right about that, Tilly,” my mom said. “Then a week later everyone is friends again. We shouldn’t blow this too far out of proportion.”

“Girl, this town ain’t normal,” Tilly shot back. “There ain’t nothing normal about her being the only person of color in an entire school district. Nothing normal at all.”

When Tilly got angry, it was “girl” this and “girl” that.

“So, Tilly, what are you suggesting we do about this situation?” Dad said. My dad was the practical one in the family. If
there was a problem, he didn’t want to talk circles around it, he wanted a solution. Tilly and Mom weren’t ready to end it that quickly.

“She needs to be around our own people for once,” Tilly said. “She’s been here her whole life. She needs to know who she is and where she comes from. I need her to know these things and, right now, she has no idea.”

“So, tell her what you want her to know, Tilly,” my dad said, challenging her. “You keep talking about what NaTasha needs, but I think I know my own daughter and NaTasha knows exactly who she is…”

“Your daughter wore some scarves to cover up the beautiful, kinky black hair the good Lord gave her, and you think there is no problem?” Tilly interrupted. “It’s bad enough you use some iron to straighten out the kinks in her hair that weren’t ever meant to be straight at all. It’s no wonder the child is confused. I’d be confused, too.”

My mom didn’t say anything. I wanted to peek around the corner and see the expressions on their faces so bad. It must have looked like they were watching a bloody horror film and the main character just got stabbed.

“Look, we’re on the same side here,” my dad said in his “make peace” voice. “We all want to protect Tash, but let’s remember that bad stuff in her life will come in all colors.”

“But keeping her isolated here in this town isn’t helping her,” Tilly said. “There isn’t anything we can just
tell
her; she has to go out into the world and experience things for herself, good and bad. What she needs is a few weeks working with
me and the girls at the center. She’s old enough to do that now.”

For as long as I could remember, Tilly had volunteered at Amber’s Place, a safe place for girls in the city.

There was a long pause. Surely, my parents wouldn’t go for a long stay in the city.

“Well, Tilly, that would give NaTasha the kind of chance you’re talking about.” my dad finished. “It’s NaTasha’s decision, of course.”

A few weeks?

There was a space next to Tilly on the sofa. I eased into the room, trying not to draw any attention. My foot caught the piano bench instead, and it crashed loudly onto the hardwood floor.

All three of them snapped their heads in my direction. No one moved a muscle. It was like I was some science experiment they’d mixed together and were now waiting for the reaction.

Tilly looked tense and tired, but she smiled. I glanced at her hands. Whenever she wasn’t talking, her hands spoke for her. Tilly had her fists squeezed so tight, her knuckles were white, like she’d been making biscuits and rubbing her hands in grease and flour.

“Tilly, was it really that bad?” I whispered. Tilly nodded and walked past me to the stairs. I’d never stayed with Tilly longer than one week. But now things were different. Spending the entire summer in Adams Park was out of the question. Maybe a few extra weeks away
would
help to make everything okay again.

All night I dreamed of tripping Stephanie with my scarves. I woke up covered in sweat and more embarrassed than I had been after the recital.

The doorbell rang early and I already knew who was at the door. I wasn’t in the mood for any company, but there was no way Heather was going to leave without seeing me. As soon as I opened the front door, she grabbed me by the elbow and marched me up to my room.

“What the hell happened last night?” she asked, collapsing onto my bed.

I wanted to leave the whole recital incident behind me. But Heather’s eyes were glued to me, and I knew that wasn’t an option. Her expression was harsh, like I’d personally offended her.

“I don’t know what happened,” I told her. “You know as much as I do.”

“Were you messing with the scarves?” she asked. I didn’t like having my best friend sound like a judge or having to defend myself. I glared at her.

“When would I have had the time?” I asked her. “In between double turns?”

“Well, scarves don’t just jump out of hair all on their own,” she said.

“You’re the one who gave them to me in the first place,” I reminded her. She sat up quickly, like I had threatened to expose her dirty little secret.

“I tied them as tight as they would go and you know it,” she said. She folded her arms across her chest and sighed. We sat in silence for a few minutes. No need to argue about the scarves. The damage was already done and there was no turning back.

“You think Stephanie will ever forgive me?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Heather shrugged, but remained quiet. “Well, good thing I’m leaving town then.”

I pulled my black-and-white carry-on luggage bag out of the closet and opened one of my dresser drawers.

“What am I supposed to do for a whole week at the start of summer when we are supposed to be doing everything together?” Heather said. “Oh my God, it feels like you’re leaving forever.”

“It isn’t forever, Heather, it is only a week tops,” I lied. No way could I tell her I might extend my stay. “And you know I leave at the same time every year.”

“A week is forever, though,” she said.

I started to unzip my bag, but Heather stopped me, falling across it and clutching her heart with one hand and her forehead with the other. She was the definition of
drama queen.
She could sniffle and make her teacher send her to the nurse’s office. If her parents’ car got nicked in the parking lot at the mall, in Heather’s version of the story, they had a near-death experience.

“Who am I going to shop with?” she asked. “Who am I going to eat with? Who am I going to talk about the guys with?”

Since I could remember, Heather and I were attached at the hip. Spending a few weeks apart and only being able to talk on the phone would be hard.

“They do have phones in Harlem,” I reminded her. “I’ll call you every night and the time will fly by. And I’ll e-mail you. I’ll be back before you know it.”

She waved her hand like she wasn’t trying to hear anything I had to say.

“You’re going to forget all about me, I just know it,” she said. “When you get back, you’re going to be a completely different person. I bet I won’t even be able to recognize you.”

“Oh, please, give me a break,” I replied.

“I guess we’ll just have to see,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “I really don’t understand why you have to go for so long.”

When I was younger, my visits with Tilly didn’t extend beyond a weekend. The past few years, I started staying a little longer, though the first extended weekend, I was so homesick my parents drove up to get me before my planned stay had ended. It was different now. I was sure I was ready to stay a few weeks and leave the drama behind and start fresh.

I pulled out whatever clothes were clean and started throwing them in my luggage. I threw a T-shirt to Heather and nodded toward my suitcase. Since I would probably be helping Tilly at her volunteer job, I needed something a little dressier than jeans and T-shirts. I grabbed a new white tank top and a red skirt Heather and I had bought at the mall a few weeks ago.

“This is such a bad idea,” Heather said, throwing in more shirts. “And why do you need so many clothes for one week anyway?”

Of course it was a bad idea to Heather; her best friend was deserting her for what she thought was one week. I felt bad for not telling her the truth about what I was considering. No way would she take the news well. That I knew for sure.

With Tilly acting so disappointed and determined to show me my roots, my extended stay might even be a bad idea for me, too. But staying to face my problem with the two ballet Nazis was out of the question.

Tilly’s life in Harlem wasn’t glamorous—too many people in too small of a space where everyone knew everyone’s business. But even overcrowded Harlem was sounding better than home.

“It’s just another visit with Tilly, Heather,” I said.

I had a hard time believing this myself, though. I knew Tilly wouldn’t take the incident last night lightly. But, seriously, I wore
scarves
in my hair. I hadn’t tried to skip school or kill anyone. I wore a silly hairstyle. If Stephanie hadn’t slipped on my scarves, I bet no one would have even noticed they were in my hair at all. Surely, the time away would fly by and I’d return to my normal life.

Packing was overrated. I shut my dresser drawers and picked up my clean clothes hamper and dumped it inside the suitcase.

“There, packing all done,” I said. I flopped down next to Heather on the bed.

“Remember when we stuck those up there?” she asked, nodding toward the one hundred glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Of course I remember, I almost broke my neck standing on my desk trying to stick them up there,” I said. We both laughed.

“Let’s make another wish,” she said. We’d been doing this for years. Usually we wished for boys to talk to us. Heather grabbed my hand and we closed our eyes. My wish was that Stephanie wouldn’t still be mad at me by the time I got back from Tilly’s place.

My leotard and tutu were in a pile on the floor. We both saw them at the same time. Heather picked them up and tossed both into my bag.

“Just in case you want to practice while you’re gone,” she said. I smiled, but pulled the leotard and tutu back out and tossed them onto the floor.

“Actually, Heather, I doubt I’ll be needing these ever again,” I said. No harm in starting fresh right away.

Heather took a deep breath. “What are you talking about? Is this because of what happened at the show?”

I shook my head no, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy getting herself all worked up.

“Because if it is, Tash, you know how kids are around here,” she said. “They’ll tease you for a while and forget all about it in no time.”

Yeah, I did know kids around here. They were my friends, but it still hurt to be the brunt of their jokes all the time.

“Yeah, I know,” I answered her.

“Really, Stephanie isn’t even that mad,” Heather said.

I wondered how Heather knew exactly how Stephanie was feeling, especially because we didn’t ever talk to her outside of ballet, under any circumstances. Heather noticed the shocked look on my face.