Shimmy (7 page)

We’re silent again as we pass another couple of bus stops.

Robin and Alex get off at their usual stops, but I get off near the high school and transfer to another bus. I need to talk to Amala.

* * *

The route is familiar, and it should feel natural to step off outside Amala’s studio and take the three steps to her door, but my hand shakes as I reach out to turn the knob, and the stairs to the second floor loom long above me. My breath fills my throat as I climb, and I almost turn around before I reach the top, but as I come to the last step, Amala opens the door.

“Lila, what a lovely surprise!” she says. She’s carrying the jug she uses to water the plants. There’s a little wall alcove at the top of the stairs, next to the door to the lobby, and she always has flowers growing in it.

“These anthuriums are not thriving. Maybe I need to change them for something else,” she says as she pours water into the bowl.

It’s warm and sunny up here, and when I take my shoes off, the wood floors feel smooth under my feet. Amala smiles at me, and my breathing slows to a normal rate.

“I was hoping you’d come by to tell me about dancing with Dana,” Amala says. “I hear her choreography is really something. And she showed me the costume. Stylish!”

I nod.

“Has Angela shown you her costume? I think the girls like it, and they look fantastic, especially Angela. The troupe’s like a carnival, or a rhododendron garden.”

“It’s beautiful. I saw the costumes before I left, and yes, Angela showed me hers,” I say. I don’t say how much more I like Amala’s costumes than Dana’s. How I wish I looked like a part of the rhododendron garden rather than a pale ghost.

Amala finishes fiddling with the plants, and I follow her into the studio. A bar of sunlight stretches across the floor, splitting the room in two. Dust particles float in the air. There’s a
rack of skirts hanging along the far wall, with colorful piles of hip scarves underneath it. Amala has written step patterns in grease paint on the mirror. The warmth and friendliness of the room rushes at me and hits me with a whomp that takes my breath away.

Amala pulls a remote out of her waistband and turns on some music I don’t recognize. She lowers the volume but raises her arms and does a three-step with a shimmy across the room.

“Warm up with me, Lila. We can talk and warm up at the same time,” she says.

I follow her across the room, the movement coming slowly at first, until my muscles relax.

“So tell me all about it. How do you like the studio space? Have you made friends with the other girls? What do you like best about it? Isn’t Dana the most beautiful dancer?” Amala tosses all these questions at me at once as we circle the room. She’s ahead of me, but as we come around the circle, suddenly we’re both facing the mirror, and she stops. Her hands drop and she turns to me.

“Lila, honey?” she says, and that’s all it takes. I burst into tears.

“What is it?” Amala stops the music and sits down on the floor. She takes my hand and pulls me down next to her. “It’s not working out for you?” she asks.

I shake my head. I don’t want to speak while my voice is caught up in my tears, so I take a few deep breaths and then say, “I don’t know if I should stay there, Amala.”

She squeezes my hand and says, “Did you know Dana was my teacher for a while?”

“Really? You’re so different in your dance style,” I say.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn from her.”

“Did you…” I’m not sure how to ask this question, because I know Dana and Amala are friends. “Did you like being in her class?” I finally ask.

Amala doesn’t answer. Instead, she stands up and does a complicated chest circle on top of a figure eight. Her arms and fingers weave elegantly around her. “Dana taught me that. She was the one who showed me how to use my fingertips when dancing,” Amala says. “But,” she adds, sitting down again, “I hated her classes.”

She laughs, and because I’m so surprised, I laugh too, but then I say, “So you chose me to go to a place you hated?”

That hurts. Ouch, that hurts.

“That’s not it at all. Lila, I’ve watched you dance since you were a little girl, and you, more than anyone else, love to dance. It’s in everything you do, every move you make. You are a real dancer.”

My face glows to hear those words. “What about Angela?” I ask.

“Angela too. Angela moves like a bird in flight; she’s a natural. But what does Angela want out of dance?” Amala says.

“She just loves to dance,” I say, because it’s true. For Angela it’s as simple as that. She wants to dance.

“And what do you want?” Amala asks.

That’s not something I can answer quickly, so I lean back on my hands and stare at the ceiling for a second while responses swirl in my mind. Finally I say, “I thought I wanted to be a professional dancer.”

“Exactly,” says Amala.

“So you sent me to Dana because you thought she would help me with that?” I ask.

Amala nods and says, “Dana’s hard. She’s tough. But many of her girls have gone on to have good careers as dancers, and I wanted you to have a taste of that kind of life. I thought Dana’s studio was the best place for you.”

The door opens and a little girl walks into the room. She stops when she sees us, but Amala says, “Come on in, Pearl. Grab yourself a hip scarf. Are the other girls out there?”

Pearl nods and dashes across the room to take her pick of the scarves.

“Five-year-olds. Soooo cute,” Amala whispers to me. “Want to help with the class?”

“I should go,” I say.

The cuteness factor rises a whole lot as the rest of the girls rush into the room.

“Nice to see you, Lila,” Amala says. She blows me a kiss and turns her attention to the little girls as I leave.

I’ve got a lot to think about.

Fourteen

O
n Sunday morning my mom asks me to help with the big spring cleaning she’s planned for the afternoon. I sigh, but mostly because she expects me to. Really, I don’t mind helping. I need time doing something with my hands so I can think.

Mom’s already deep into cleaning when I get back from the morning’s dance class. There’s a pile of large rubber boxes by the front door, all labeled—things like
Winter clothes
or
Blankets—living room
—and the smell of chemically manufactured lemon scent hits my nose and makes me sneeze. Joni Mitchell’s voice fills the air.

Mom staggers into the hallway carrying a way-too-huge potted plant.

“Whoa…what are you doing?” I ask.

“Taking this to the shower,” she says through clenched teeth.

I drop my bag and grab the bottom of the pot.

“Oh, thanks!” she says. We lurch our way down the hallway to the bathroom, and with a heave we place the huge pot in the bathtub. Mom turns on the shower and lets the water run over the leaves of the plant. In seconds it goes from dusty and sickly to shiny and fresh.

“I like to let them think they’re out in a forest every once in a while, like rain’s really falling on their leaves,” Mom says.

Coming from anyone else, that would sound totally crazy, but my mom knows plants don’t think. She says things like that to make me smile.

“We’ll let that dry before we take it back. Come help me get the next one,” she says.

“Mom, can I at least take off my coat and have a bite to eat before I jump into housecleaning?”

Mom laughs. “Sure. There’s mac and cheese in the oven for you.”

I escape to the front hall, where I take off my coat and retrieve my bag before heading into the kitchen for a big bowl of mac and cheese smothered in ketchup. Yum.

There are two messages on my phone, one from Angela that says
@ Jonas’s house. Me + him.
Telling Nini this aft.

I text back,
Stay strong
!

The next message is from Robin:
Impromptu dance practice @ my place, 2 pm.

One second later the doorbell rings, and I hear Mom open the door. “It’s Robin, isn’t it? Come in.”

“Hi. Is Lila here?”

“Hi, Robin,” I say as I come into the hallway. “I just got your text. I have to stay home and help my mom with some cleaning.”

“We can wait a while to get started if you want,” Robin says.

“I think this’ll take a while. Mom’s even cleaning the plants,” I say with a laugh. Mom opens her mouth to speak, and I know she’s going to say I can help her later, but I cut her off. “Also, I promised Angela I’d get together with her later this aft.” Not true, but it sounds perfect. Both Robin and Mom believe me right away, and Robin says, “Okay. See you tomorrow then” and leaves.

“I’m glad you’re hanging out with Angela this afternoon, Lila. We haven’t seen much of
her lately. Make sure to invite her for dinner. I’ll make her favorite,” says Mom.

She’s got pollen smeared across her cheek. I reach over and rub it away. “I will,” I say.

Made that bed. Now I have to lie in it.

* * *

When I’ve finished my mac and cheese and changed into some old jeans and a T-shirt, Mom shows me where to start cleaning. It’s a bookshelf under the stairs to the basement, and it looks like no one’s dusted it for twenty years. The first shelf is so dusty, I’m sneezing halfway through it.

“Don’t forget to dust the books themselves,” Mom says as she heads back upstairs.

“I won’t,” I say. I know the drill. We do this every year. I think I was even the person who dusted this shelf last time.

Thank goodness for headphones. Goodbye, Joni Mitchell. The thing about headphones is that you can listen to music without anyone else knowing. If Mom knew I was listening to the song Amala’s class is dancing to, she would have questions.

Ever since I saw Amala yesterday I’ve been thinking about her studio and how much I love it there. Walking into that room made me remember how much I used to love dancing.
Used to.
I didn’t even realize I wasn’t loving it anymore until I was in there with her, and then I remembered how much fun we had. When did dance stop being fun? Is it supposed to be fun? Can it be fun and still get me where I want to go?

That’s the basic question. Can dance be fun and still get me where I want to go?

The music soars into my headphones, and without me even thinking, my body dances. I shimmy and twirl and undulate as I dust, until the song is over.

Why do I have to make this choice? Everyone thinks I should stay with Dana. Even Amala. Even Mom. But does Dana? And do I want to?

Part of me wants to go back to Amala’s studio. I want to dance with Angela and Nini and Sarit, to giggle in the breaks with them, to laugh when we screw up, to enjoy the colors and sounds around us. I don’t want to be like Eve, taking dance so seriously that I neglect everything else,
including my schoolwork. I don’t want to be stressed out about dance.

But
—and this is the big thing—I also want to be a professional dancer.

I put on the song we’re dancing to at Dana’s studio to remind myself that I love that music too. And the choreography. It’s true. I do. I love the movements and how we all know them so well after all that practice. Dana has taught me many things, like how to count with better precision and how to hold my posture even in the middle of difficult moves and how to layer feet, hips, chest and arms all at once. But have I learned enough?

This whole thing might not be my choice anyway. Dana might tell me I’m not dancing in the festival with her, and then all of this will have been for nothing.

There’s a thumping sound upstairs, and I’m relieved to hear Mom calling out for me to help her. My brain hurts. It’s time to think about something else.

Fifteen

C
an u come over?
I text to Angela. All that dusting has made my arms sore and my eyes itchy. Even Mom can see I need to take a break and get out of the basement.

YES! NEWS!
she texts back.

It doesn’t take her long to walk over, and when I open the door she barges in, heads straight upstairs to my bedroom, flops onto my bed and sighs. “Guess what?”

“Tell me,” I say. I’m not in the mood for games.

“It’s the best thing ever,” she says.