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.
Sixteen
“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
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.
Sixteen
“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
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