ISA
The M96 veers around a stopping taxi before slowing as it approaches Broadway. The bus speeds up, then the driver hits the brakes, eases off, then hits them again. I don’t fall because it’s been jerk-stop, jerk-stop like this since Park Ave. It’s OK. The driver’s probably learning.
I push through the door to the sidewalk and dash across the intersection, the crossing signal flashing a countdown. My bag bounces against my shoulder as I double-time into the subway station. I run through my dance routine once more in my mind. Mom was home today so I couldn’t practice.
The digital screen blinks zero at me. My train is pulling in. I dig out my unlimited MetroCard from my bag and swipe it through the turnstile. Below, brakes squeal. Doors thump open. My footsteps match the crescendoing opening rhythm of La Gioconda, the music of my audition, as I fly down the stairs to the platform.
I clear the bottom step as the conductor’s signal chimes. I could call out, “Hold the train!” People do it all the time. Instead, I launch into the air, my front leg striking out as if for a grand jeté. The edges of the metal doors slice toward me. I’m almost through. But my back ankle is still outside the car. Mom once saw a lady lose part of a finger this way.
I throw my weight forward, snatching my leg in.
The doors snap open. They pause, then clang closed.
A boy steps back. He’s maybe a year or two older than me, a junior or senior in high school perhaps. He must have held the door.
“Thanks,” I say.
He slips his hands into his pockets then lifts his chin at me. A You’re welcome, I guess.
The intercom scratches, informing us that holding the doors delays everyone and that there will always be another train. I press my lips together so I don’t grin like an idiot. Mom says I do that when I get nervous.
I slide into a seat along an entire row of empties and check my bun for loose hairpins. It’s the middle of the day so the train’s not crowded. Across from me, a lady listens to music with her eyes shut. An Afro-Caribbean rhythm pulses from her earbuds. Even with the rush and rattle of metal wheels against metal tracks, I hear it. The boy who held the door for me hears it too. His head moves, ever so slightly, and the heel of his sneaker taps against a large duffel that he’s pushed under the seats behind him.
The DJ woman’s chin drops to her chest like she’s fallen asleep. Her hand lies still, an uncurled fist above her multicolored patchwork skirt, the kind Merrit brought me back from Peru after he hiked the Inca trail in June. He called me at lunchtime today. I asked if he was leaving his cell in his dorm room like I told him so he’d meet actual people. The nerd flipped the camera to show students sitting in a circle on an emerald lawn, one of them holding a volleyball inked with the words favorite food and best pet. Mom, Dad, and I are hoping Merrit meets someone to help him forget Samantha, his high school girlfriend. The camera switched back to his smiling face. “Just wanted to wish you luck, both for the audition and for keeping it from Mom. Couldn’t have done that without my phone.” He winked and with a clipped “Ciao,” signed off.
After, I found Mom in the library, reorganizing the books—by color this time. Her museum board meeting had been canceled. I wasn’t sure if she’d be angry or happy about that. I often wasn’t sure if she’d be angry or happy.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, Mom? I’m heading out to meet Chrissy. We’re going to rehearse a bit before class.” I hate lying. It’s different if you just don’t tell the whole truth.
Mom tossed a thick, glossy book jacket onto a pile with the others she was sacrificing, then looked at me. I didn’t dare look away, even when my palms started to tingle. I was in my standard uniform—hair up, tights under shorts. She couldn’t have known about the audition, right?
Mom let out a long breath. She glared at the text in her hand, Using Food to Control Your Mood. The psychologist must have given it to her. The cover tore as she ripped it off, and I winced. At least she wasn’t glaring at me anymore. I tip-toed to the hallway.
“Remember, no subways,” she called out. “It’s unhygienic. And unsafe. Forty-eight people were struck and killed by a train last year. Take a car. There are some twenties in my purse.”
I like the subway. It’s cheaper and often faster—even than a car share. And down here, it’s like the real New York, with people from all over the city, not just the tiny slice of the Upper East Side where we live. Not that I would ever tell Mom.
I took the money, said thanks, and slipped out. It’s harder to manage Mom without Merrit around but I try not to let her affect me.
I swing my bag to my lap and sink back into my seat. The song coming from the sleeping lady’s phone changes to one with a faster beat. I tap my toes, warming up my Achilles and gastrocs. I lift one shoulder and lower the other, then switch sides. I’m swaying to the left then the right, trying to keep myself loose, as the train screeches into Eighty-Sixth.
My eyes close. I’m concentrating on the music. The deep hiss of mouth breathing hits me a second before a warm sticky thigh presses against mine. I jerk upright and stand. A guy with a receding hairline sits in the seat next to where I was. Even though the entire row and three-quarters of the one opposite are free. I move to the doorway, the music from the colorful-skirted woman’s phone following me. I flick my hips, trying to remember steps from that one class I took at a resort in Vieques. The man with no sense of personal space is staring at me. He adjusts the thin silver frames of his glasses then his hand goes to his shorts to adjust himself. Whoops, didn’t need to see that. The man wipes the shine from his forehead with his arm. A phone rests on his leg. It’s aimed at me. Wait—did he just hit Record? Umm . . . I think he did. Should I turn around? But then he’ll have a perfect view of my butt. Maybe I should have worn more than my dance leotard and shorts. Maybe Mom was right. I should have grabbed a taxi.
The door-holding boy steps in front of the guy, blocking his phone. He’s super tall—taller than Dad even, who earned the nickname GW—the Great White Hope—playing basketball in college. And the boy’s fit. Really fit. Like superhero fit. Like I-wouldn’t-want-to-face-off-with-you-in-a-dark-alley fit. After a long minute, the man tilts his phone toward a splotch of bright pink gum smeared into the rubber tiling. At the next stop, he rises with a grunt and tucks his phone in the pocket of his coffee-stained khaki shorts. He rams his shoulder into the boy as he gets off. I shrink back. I’ve seen fights start from less. With his broad shoulders and arms corded with muscle, the tall boy doesn’t look like he’d tolerate disrespect. To his credit, he just slips to the side. His narrowed gaze follows the man out.
“Perv,” he says under his breath as the train pulls away.
“Thanks,” I say. “Again.”
“Don’t mention it.” The intensity of his eyes startles me. They’re a deep, rich brown, and yes, they’re framed by impossibly long lashes. But it’s not that. It’s the expression in them. Like he’s paying really close attention. Like he knows we’re all here on this earth that’s spinning a thousand miles per hour and he doesn’t want to miss anything.
The boy eases back, crossing one foot in front of the other, placing the tip of his shoe on the ground. Black Chuck Taylors. They’re scuffed and someone’s taken a Sharpie to CONVERSE ALL-STAR, but the navy star is still there. Standing like that, hands tucked into his pockets, balancing on one foot though the train knocks us side to side, he could be a dancer.
The subway slows into a curve. Chuck draws a hand from his pocket. He makes a fist and touches his lips with the back of it. His mouth has the resting shape of a slight smile. It makes him seem content. And confident. Which makes sense given his looks. His eyes flick toward me though he’s partly turned away, like he knows I’m watching him.
My cheeks grow warm. I feel like I need to say something. “It’s probably my fault.”
Chuck turns, brow shifting down just enough to communicate his confusion.
“I should be wearing something else. So, uh, people won’t stare.” I clear my throat.
He looks away again. “You should wear what you want.”
“Yeah, well, it’s because I’m in a rush.” I’m almost always in a rush but I don’t tell him that. “It saves me time not having to change.”
He glances at me again. “You going to an exercise class?”
I don’t normally talk to strangers. Especially not on the subway. But Chuck doesn’t seem like a stranger anymore.
“It’s an audition. I’m going to an audition.”
One eyebrow shoots up. How does he do that? Merrit can do it too, but no matter how hard I try, I never can.
“It’s a tryout,” I add. “For a dance school.” I don’t tell him that even if I make it in there’s no way my mom would let me switch schools. I don’t tell him that I’m doing the audition for myself, to prove I could be just as good as the dancers who get to spend their day going from Pointe to Technique to Variations instead of just from precalc to chemistry. He’d probably think it’s ridiculous.
Both of his eyebrows lift. “I know what an audition is.”
“Of course. Of course you do.” I need to stop repeating myself. “Anyway, that’s why I’m dressed like this, which is why that guy was staring at me.”
Chuck glances at my feet and then at my arm hugging my side. He swivels toward me.
“This dance audition. It’s for salsa? For Latin dance?” He nods at the woman with the loud earbuds. He must have seen me moving to her music. She’s awake, tracing the patterns of her skirt, kicking folds of it out from between her legs. The train brakes hard into Seventy-Second Street. The woman slides partway into the next seat. Neither Chuck nor I lose our balance even though we’re not holding on.
“Nope,” I say. “Ballet.” I pop up onto my toes, just for a second. I shouldn’t be doing that without my pointe shoes. Ms. Maria gave me an earful once when she caught me showing off to my friends.
My face heats even more. I can’t believe I just did that.
The doors slide open. A bunch of people get on the train. I move to the other doorway, the one that will open at the next stop. My stop. Chuck follows.
He leans on the bar on his side of the entrance. “But you like Latin music?” He asks it like he’s afraid of the response.
“What’s not to like?”
He bows his head, which I think is him agreeing, but he’s examining his phone. He fishes a headset out of one of his pockets and plugs it in. He offers me the earbuds. The beat hits me before I pick up the tune. Chuck is watching me, waiting. The song sounds like Vieques, fast and catchy like the music from the woman with the skirt, but deeper, richer somehow. I smile and forget to hide it. Chuck’s lips part, revealing white teeth that gleam against his skin. I swish my hips. He nods along.
Ms. Maria’s lilting accent rises over the music. You execute perfectly, flawlessly, all the steps. But you need to feel the music. Why so stiff?
Well, this music sure is loosening me up.
“What’s so funny?” Chuck asks.
I didn’t realize I was laughing. “Um . . . It’s just . . . my dance teacher’s always saying I’m too tense.”
He shakes his head, still smiling. “I don’t believe that.” He shrugs. “You look . . .” He pauses, his eyes catching mine. “Perfect. You look perfect to me.”
I move my feet, the dance from Vieques coming back. His shoulders sway, mirroring me even though he can’t hear the music.
The doors open.
“Sixty-Sixth Street, Lincoln Center. Downtown local 1 train. Next stop, Fifty-Ninth Street, Columbus Circle.”
I yank the headset from my ears. I clutch the strap of my bag. I’ve got to get out. I’ve got twenty minutes before my audition. Twenty minutes to stretch and lace up my pointe shoes. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to rehearse my piece one last time before I’m called. Is it ridiculous that I want to stay here, dancing with this boy I only just met? His smile is gone. The earbuds are swinging from his half-open hand. His gaze follows my face as I shift from side to side.
The signal rings. I still don’t move. My legs are trained to do any dance step I want. They’re frozen, like me, in first position.
The doors slide out from their pockets. A scuffed black Chuck Taylor catches them before they seal shut. They shudder open.
My stomach flutters as if I’m about to step on stage.
“Good luck,” he tells me.
I leap out just before the doors slam.