Maybe One Day (10 page)

Even though Livvie said the thing about our being best friends and a super dynamic duo in this really light, funny way, to my surprise I felt my eyes getting damp. Fabulous. Just when Livvie had reassured these girls that everything was going to be fine, I was going to start blubbering.

Way to inspire confidence, Zoe!

“Now,” Livvie continued, “I told Zoe all about what incredibly hard workers you are, so don’t make me a liar, okay?”
A few of the girls nodded. A few others said, “Okay!” I made a mental note of how Olivia was talking to them—nice but firm.

I went across the hallway to an empty classroom, got a chair, and put my phone on it while the girls lined up at the barre. I turned on the CD player, and soft piano music filled the room as Olivia told the girls to stand in first position and then plié. For a minute I watched her face on my screen. She was smiling widely, totally in her element.

Meanwhile, I felt like I was being tortured. How could I be in a dance studio and not dance? My body ached to move, to bend and stretch with the music.

This isn’t about you
, I told myself firmly.
This is about them
. I took my eyes off Olivia and turned to look at the girls.

I’d always wondered how NYBC and other elite dance schools made their decisions about who to accept and who to reject, who to promote and who to cut. After dancing with the same girls for years, I definitely thought I knew which ones were the best, but it seemed to me that in just a few minutes of an audition, it would have been impossible to judge a dancer’s true ability unless someone majorly fucked up.

Watching the girls follow Olivia’s instructions, I immediately understood how it worked. All the girls stood in first position, facing the barre, bending and straightening their legs as Olivia told them to. But you definitely would not have used the word
graceful
to describe most of them. They kind of threw their knees out when they bent down, and
they were almost all jerky in their movements, grasping the barre in a death grip as they stuck their butts out each time Olivia asked them to do a plié. A couple of the girls were okay, gently bending at the knee and holding their backs straight like they were supposed to. Still, if I’d been a scout sent to choose potential NYBC dancers from this group, I would have known at a glance to reject all of them.

Only one—the tall girl who’d kept asking questions earlier—had any real talent. Her arms were draped gracefully, and her fingertips rested lightly on the barre. When Olivia told the class to move to second position, she did a battement
tendu
so perfect I wondered if she’d studied ballet before Olivia had taught her. Because it wasn’t just her skills. The whole way she carried her body was more expert and professional than any of the other girls. Once upon a time that had been me and Olivia—standing out from the crowd of girls who wanted to be ballerinas but didn’t have the goods.

Until we didn’t have the goods either.

After the girls were warmed up, Olivia had them move to the center of the room, and later she asked them to line up in pairs and had them
chassé
across the floor. Some of the girls definitely got better and more relaxed as class went on, but the tall girl was still the only one worth watching.

“Okay, guys,” Olivia said when class was nearly over. “We only have a few minutes left, but let’s try doing some chaînés. You may remember them from last week, but let’s review. Zoe,
can I ask you to demonstrate?”

“Sure,” I said, glad to finally get out of my head and be useful.

I headed to the center of the room. I hadn’t been actively avoiding looking at my reflection, but when I met my own eyes in the mirror, I realized I’d managed not to see myself in the mirror for the whole time we’d been in class.

The funny thing was that my reflection, when I finally saw it, was the only strange thing in this otherwise familiar setting. At NYBC, girls wore pink tights and black leotards. Always. No exceptions. Since I was no longer in possession of either of these items of clothing—what with my having chucked my entire dance wardrobe—I’d put on black leggings and a cropped blue T-shirt to lead the class. Even though I was wearing ballet slippers, the image reflected back at me wasn’t the one I’d watched for years. I could have been doing yoga or joining my mom for one of her exercise classes.

Olivia began talking me through a chaîné, which is the most basic turn in ballet. You start in first position, with your arms together; then you move your legs into second position while you open your arms; then you close your arms and your feet. All the while you’re on pointe or in relevé, keeping your eyes on a single spot on the opposite wall as you turn.

I let Olivia’s voice rather than my own brain control my movements. As she spoke, I moved across the floor doing one slow-motion turn after another. It was strange to break down
a move I knew so intuitively, and I actually stumbled once, the same way that if you try to think about tying your shoes your laces suddenly get tangled up in your fingers.

When I arrived at the far wall, Livvie said, “Let’s see that again, honey.”

When we’d been at NYBC, the only day of the week we didn’t have class was Sunday, and on Sundays, Livvie and I would sometimes go down to my basement and practice. We’d dance until our legs were shaking and we were watering the floor with sweat as we spun. Sometimes one of us would bark out commands, standing in the corner with her arms folded in imitation of Martin Hicks, NYBC’s director. When the one who was dancing would finish, the other one would say,
Let’s see that again
,
honey
, which was apparently (according to the girls we knew who had danced for him) his way of saying,
That fucking sucked, you lazy bitch
.

I looked across the room at Olivia’s face on the tiny screen. The girls watching us faded into the background. It was just me and Livvie and our private joke. “I’m sorry, did you say, ‘Let’s see that again, honey’?”

“I might have.” In Olivia’s voice, I could hear the effort it was taking her not to laugh.

I put my hands on my hips and stared at her. “So, what are you saying, exactly?”

Still keeping a straight face, Olivia answered, “I think you
know
what I’m saying.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the girls looking from me to Olivia, trying to crack our code.

“I’ll get you for that,” I said. Shaking my head and laughing to myself, I held my arms out in front of me. Then I began to chaîné across the floor.

All of the awkwardness I’d felt while I was trying to demonstrate the components of the turn separately disappeared, and I felt my body turn to liquid as one position slid effortlessly into the other, my arms and legs moving together without my ordering them to.

I’d been doing chaînés since I was six years old, and they felt as natural a way to cross a room as walking. When I got to the far wall, I wanted to keep spinning, to push through the paint and plaster and brick and chaîné all the way to Manhattan. But then a bell rang quietly in the distance, startling me out of my reverie. I stopped abruptly, and to my surprise, the girls burst into applause.

“Zoe, that was amazing!” Imani cried.

“Oh,” I said, suddenly self-conscious. “I mean, thank you.”

“Yeah,” agreed another girl, who also had tightly braided hair and who looked so much like Imani that I wondered if they might be sisters.

“Thank you, Zoe,” said Olivia from the phone. “And thank you, class.” I realized the bell meant class had ended.

“Thank you, Olivia,” said the class in perfect unison, and they all curtsied toward the phone before gathering up their
things. A few of them glanced my way as they were walking out. “Thanks, Zoe!” one called.

“Sure,” I answered, and then quickly corrected myself. “I mean, thank
you
.”

When the girls had left, I went over to my phone.

“That was fun, right?” said Livvie.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, not sure how to describe how confusing it had been. “It’s weird. Being here.”

“You get used to it,” said Livvie quietly.

It was the first time she’d even hinted at feeling weird about teaching the class, and I snapped my head to look at her. She was lying back on the bed, and now I could see that she was wearing a long-sleeved green T-shirt that we’d ordered together in August from J.Crew. The only time I’d seen her wear it was the day it arrived, which was when she tried it on and realized simultaneously that she hated it and that it couldn’t be returned.

I’d planned to ask her what she meant about getting used to it, but seeing what she was wearing distracted me. “Nice shirt,” I said. “Let me guess: Your mom packed clothes for you.”

She gave me a tired smile. “Bingo.”

“You look beat,” I observed.

She nodded.

And suddenly, I felt overwhelmed with sadness. We weren’t in the dance studio together. Thanks to technology,
it might feel like we were. But we weren’t. One of us was in a dance studio in Newark.

One of us was in the hospital.

“I’m sorry. Next time I’ll do more,” I told her. “I promise. I won’t let you get so tired.”

“Don’t apologize,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “I wanted to do what I did. Aren’t the girls great?”

“They are,” I agreed.

Her eyes were closed, and I thought she might have dozed off, but then she said quietly, “Wasn’t it nice to dance again?”

“I don’t know,” I said. How could I explain that I felt as if I’d spent the past hour in a room filled with ghosts? “Sure. Yeah.” Then I rolled my eyes. “Get some sleep.” She gave a tired laugh at my nonanswer. “Hey,” I added, “if you want, after my dad and I run errands, I’ll go to your house and pick some clothes for you. I can bring them to the hospital later.” I knew Livvie’s wardrobe as well as I know my own—probably better, because since her mom was kind of conservative, we had to spend a lot of time debating what her mother’s opinion would be regarding the appropriateness of certain items of clothing, including shirts with low necklines or any skirts that might possibly be modified using the adjective
short
.

She nodded. “You sure you don’t mind?” She was so tired she was slurring her words.

“I’m ignoring you,” I said. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

I turned off my phone, and when the screen went to black,
Olivia’s face was replaced with a reflection of my own. Soft classical music still played. The studio was empty. Should I stay and try to choreograph something for the recital? Livvie had said it was a lot of work, but if I started now, there would be plenty of time. But it wasn’t like I was supposed to be working on a routine for the recital by myself. Livvie and I would do it together.

I got to my feet and looked around. Part of me wanted to stretch out at the barre, really warm up, do something more complicated than a string of chaînés so I could—

So I could what? Get better?

Why bother? Who would notice? Olivia? The girls in the class?

If a dancer dances but NYBC isn’t watching her, is she even dancing?

I hadn’t signed on for these questions when I’d volunteered to teach the class. All I’d been focused on was helping Olivia. But here I was, feeling sorry for myself and thinking about things I’d promised myself I’d never think about again.

As fast as I could, I grabbed my bag and walked out the door of the studio.

I’d made my decision the day I got cut.

Dance held nothing for me anymore.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

11

I went home, showered, changed, and walked over to Olivia’s to get some clothes to bring to her at the hospital later. Tommy and Jake were playing basketball in the driveway, and they let me into the house.

There was something creepy about walking down the hallway to her room all by myself, but I couldn’t figure out what. After all, it wasn’t as if I’d never been in Olivia’s room without Olivia. How many times had I run up here to grab something while Livvie waited for me in the den, the TV paused in the middle of a movie? Or raced back inside while my mom sat in the car and I retrived my notebook or my backpack?

Standing in her bedroom, I dialed Livvie’s number, but she didn’t answer, and I plopped down on the bed, waiting for her to call me back. The comforter I was sitting on was her
old one—her new one was on her bed at the hospital. This one was fire-engine red, and it clashed with the walls, which were a pale green. Before she’d redecorated (over the summer after seventh grade) her room had been all primary colors—red comforter, blue chair, yellow carpet. The day before the guys came to paint, Olivia had taken pictures of the room for her memory box, which was this gigantic box she had, filled with keepsakes. The whole time Livvie was taking the pictures of her old room, I’d kept telling her she was crazy. How could we ever forget her room? She’d lived in it since she was little, and
I’d
practically lived in it too. But now, studying the comforter that had covered her bed for the first eight years of our friendship, I found I couldn’t re-create her old room in my head, not even when I closed my eyes. I thought about going into her closet and digging through the memory box for the pictures, but I didn’t think I should without asking Livvie if that was okay.

The minutes passed. I lay back on her bed, my silent phone next to me. Outside, I could hear Jake and Tommy playing basketball. It seemed to me I’d been hearing that noise my entire life.

As I lay there, trying to remember what art had hung on the walls of her old room, out of nowhere I suddenly thought,
Olivia has cancer
.

My heart started racing.

Cancer. How could my friend have cancer?

Cancer killed people.

But Olivia wasn’t going to die. We were sixteen. People who are sixteen, people you’ve known your whole life, don’t die of cancer.