ISA
I’m holding five leotards (three navy for Technique, Pointe, and Adagio, and two white for Variations and Character class), twelve pairs of pink tights (they always run), one navy skirt, two white skirts, two sets of hairpins (I tend to lose them), two hairnets, and sparkle hair gel (whoever decided to add the sparkle to gel is a genius).
“Oh good, you saw the hair gel too!” Chrissy sashays toward me, her arms heaped with fabric. Her squeal makes a few customers turn. Chrissy drops the clothes in a chair, slides out her phone, turns the hair gel bottle upside down, and opens her mouth. She makes exaggerated gulping sounds and takes a selfie. She taps at her screen, no doubt posting the pic, then starts jumping up and down. “I am so pumped we get to take Variations this year! Aren’t you?”
I nod. I should be excited. I mean, I am excited. It’s just that Mom decided to come this afternoon instead of telling me to use her credit card like she did last year. Part of me grew a few inches and beamed when Mom grabbed her bag and followed me out. The other part is freaking.
I head toward the shoe section, glancing past Chrissy. My mom’s still leaning against the wall next to the changing area. She’s fingering the fabric of a leopard-print miniskirt as she talks on her cell. It must be Dad, because Mom doesn’t look angry. If she were speaking with anyone from the boards of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program or the Art and Architecture Museum, I’d be able to hear what she was saying from across the room.
I stretch my neck, relaxing my back and shoulders. Mom can’t get into too much trouble if she’s on the phone. I drape an arm over my pile while I wait. I don’t want anyone to think it’s unclaimed. In sixth grade, I’d gathered almost my entire wardrobe and left it with Mom while I went to try on a different style of leotard Chrissy was raving about. When I came out of the dressing room, Mom and my stuff were gone. Mom had taken a call and wandered away. All the clothing and accessories had been reshelved. Dance is your hobby and you have to take responsibility for it, Isabelle, she’d shrieked. She was right. I shouldn’t have let my things out of my sight.
“Size?” A woman with dyed black hair pulled into a severe bun peers over small square spectacles at me. Her hand juts out for the sample shoes I’m holding.
“Um.” I give her the pointe shoe and the pink ballet slipper with the split leather sole. “I was a seven last year, but do you think you could measure me? Over the summer they started to feel tight.”
“They’re supposed to be tight.” She has the slipper right up under her nose, trying to read the style number printed on the inside. Her accent is Russian. Or Ukrainian perhaps.
“Yes, but would it be OK if we just checked?” My Peds-clad foot is already on top of the metal measuring contraption. “I don’t want to make a mistake.”
The sales lady crouches beside me and adjusts the marker against my toes. “I will get you seven and half. And seven.” She marches to the back, the ribbons from the pointe shoes trailing behind her.
“What’s her story?” Chrissy puts her hands on her hips. She scowls as she climbs over the bench to sit beside me.
“I’m thinking failed trapeze artist.” It’s a game I made up to pass the time when Merrit was in the hospital. “She escaped a household of seven older brothers, three of whom ended up inheriting their mother’s lycanthropy. Before she found out if she was going to turn into a werewolf too, she ran off with the circus.”
Chrissy’s grinning. “So why did she fail? At trapeze, I mean.”
“Well, in Paris, she was courted by a renowned acrobat from India and they started a torrid affair. Photos of them kissing midswing, knees locked around their own trapezes, plastered the city papers.”
“Ooh! Like Greatest Showman!” Chrissy clasps her hands together and sighs.
I nod and pause, thinking of the worst thing that could happen to my character, who I’ve named Tatiana. “They were going to marry, but she made the mistake of telling him about her unstable family. Ajay left her and followed his troupe back to Mumbai. Poor Tatiana was heartbroken. She moved to New York and never touched another trapeze again.”
Chrissy looks toward the open doorway that says EMPLOYEES ONLY. “No wonder she’s such a bitch.”
I go to smack Chrissy with a packet of tights, but she scoots out of the way. She turns over the shoe she’s holding and makes a face at the price tag.
“Honestly, I don’t know why you don’t buy your shoes online. They’re so much cheaper. And then you don’t have to deal with Ms. Trapeze Wannabe Werewolf over there. What? You know the real reason she’s so uptight isn’t because she didn’t get the guy. It’s because she never got to throw her head back and howl.” Chrissy puckers her ruby-red lips. She always wears that same lipstick, with thick black eyeliner and fake lashes. Otherwise strangers on the subway would still be asking her if she lost her mother and needed help getting home.
I nail her in the face with tights as a long “Arh-ooo!” comes out of her. I check to make sure Mom hasn’t heard her. Chrissy’s mom, Mrs. McCallum, has cornered a sales associate next to the cash register. Thankfully, our moms haven’t seen each other. A giant display of mannequins clad in tulle stands between them.
The lady who was helping me—“Tatiana”—comes through the doorway, a tower of boxes obscuring her face. Chrissy makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a woof as the woman lowers the boxes to the ground. Tatiana removes the first shoe and holds out a hand for my foot, just as a voice booms behind me.
“Well if it isn’t my second-most-favorite ballerina in the whole world. How are you doing, sugar? Stand on up and give us a hug.” Chrissy’s mother holds out her arms.
Tatiana frowns. “I have shoes here. Hug can wait.”
“Goodness me, that can’t be right. There’s always time for a hug.” Mrs. McCallum pats her ample bosom as she steps in front of the store lady. I rise and put my arms around her, bending my head a bit. My mom never hugs Chrissy like this. She never hugs me like this.
Tatiana click-clacks away to help someone else. Chrissy’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.
“Ruh-ude,” she warbles, giving the word two syllables. “Though maybe this is good. I’ll take a pic of the pair you like and we can buy them online after all.”
“Oh, yes. That is a fine idea,” Mrs. McCallum whispers. “Isabelle, dear, is your mother here? I should go find her and say hello.”
I nod. “She’s over by the dressing rooms.” I glance at Chrissy, worried. Mostly I want to protect her mom from my mom. But also, I don’t want them talking about dance. I didn’t tell Mom I’m taking ten classes instead of eight this year, because I don’t want her to flip out.
“Mama?” Chrissy flashes her angel smile. “Could you find me some of those little sticky pads that go over your nipples? I’m almost out and I know you don’t want me high-beaming everyone when I’m on stage.”
Mrs. McCallum’s eyes grow huge. “Oh no! That would be something, wouldn’t it? Where do you think they are, honey?”
Chrissy points to the corner of hair accessories, even though the nipple pasties are next to the cashier’s desk. Mrs. McCallum gives me a wave before wading through the racks of sequined dance dresses.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
Chrissy lifts the cover off one of the boxes and wiggles a pointe shoe at me. “No probs.” Chrissy insists she doesn’t mind my mom. But we’ve been dancing together since fifth grade so she knows how my mom can be. “Mama will probably come back with a Pinterest post about how to make a tiara out of rhinestone bobby pins, ain’t that right, sugar?” Chrissy grins as I laugh. She’s good at that, attacking my family stress with humor.
I take the shoe as Chrissy tugs stuffing out of the other one.
“Are we almost done here? Oh, hello, Chrissy.”
“Mom!” It’s an out-of-breath gasp. I didn’t see her coming.
“How are you, Mrs. Warren? Isa’s almost finished. She just needs to settle on shoes.” Chrissy puts a hand on each of the two towers of boxes.
Mom looks Chrissy up and down. I fight the urge to grab my friend and push her behind me. Please don’t say anything, Mom. Don’t say a single thing.
“Chrissy, you look wonderful! Your calves are so sculpted. And your arms . . .” Mom lifts one of Chrissy’s hands, inviting her to twirl. “Have you been doing pilates this summer?”
Chrissy spins, her mouth stretching ear to ear. “Nope. Just dance.”
“I’ve always said dancing makes the most beautiful bodies. Right, Isabelle?”
She’s never said that to me. Not one time. I nod and smile anyway.
Mom’s eyes come back to me and the shoe boxes. “Do you have to try all of them on?” She looks at her watch. “It’s quarter to six and I have a board meeting at seven thirty. I’d like to see your father for more than ten minutes before I have to go.”
“You know, Mrs. Warren”—Chrissy flips her auburn curls over one shoulder—“you could start checking out.” She gestures at my pile of dance-wear, then looks at me. “By the time they ring everything up you’ll be done with the shoes, right?”
Mom doesn’t wait for me to respond. “Where do I pay?” She’s come with me to this same store at least four times, but Mom hates this stuff. She can’t help not remembering it.
“I’ll show you.” Chrissy leaps up, grabbing the leotards, skirts, and tights. “Oh—I love these skirts! Don’t you?” She holds up a hanger, letting the white gauze sway. “I’m so glad we get to wear them this year.”
Mom picks up only the hairpins and follows Chrissy to the register.
I’m battling with a pointe shoe when Chrissy returns. “Thanks,” I murmur, as I lace it up.
“Hey, what else am I here for? Any sign of my momster, by the way?”
I rise up on pointe and draw my knees to my chest in sharp, short jerks, turning in a slow circle. The added height gives me a good view. “She’s over by the tutus.”
“Ha! I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist!”
Rising voices come from the direction of the checkout desk. Mom is arguing with the sales lady. I’m about to yank off my shoes and sprint over there when I notice a boy about my age standing by the windows facing Seventh Avenue. He’s flipping through a rack of pants in the men’s section. His white shirt hugs his body, showing the movement of his muscles underneath. An older woman approaches, speaking to him in Spanish. He laughs and lets out an, “Ay, Mami!” He turns and puts his arm around her. It’s not Chuck, the guy from the subway. I’d thought maybe it was.
Chrissy takes the box of slippers from me. “These are the ones you want, right?” She eyes my right foot, then my left. “Those two feel the same?”
“This one is better.” I hand the left shoe to Chrissy just as the boy and his mother pass in front of us.
Chrissy’s voice drops. “Tell me you saw the fine piece of ass that just walked by.” She makes the same noise she does whenever we go into the Brazilian bakery near her for brigadeiros. “Hmmmm, hmmmm. Well done, Mother Nature. I commend you.”
“Chrissy!” I hiss.
“Whatever. I saw you checking him out before.” Chrissy peeks inside the shoe box, then snaps a photo. Her nose scrunches as her thumbs tap her screen. “Sending this now.”
“I’ll just buy this pair.” The sales lady spent all that time with me. It wouldn’t be fair to not give her the commission.
“Isa? You ready?” Mom starts toward us from across the store, head bowed as she rummages through her purse.
She runs smack into the dancer I’d thought was Chuck.
“Ah!” The bags fall from her hand. Her new phone hits the floor with a crack.
The boy’s eyes are super big. “I’m sorry, so sorry. You OK?” His mother is saying the same thing in Spanish.
“Elisa? Are you all right?” Mrs. McCallum gets to Mom before we do. She picks up Mom’s phone. She smooths the ruffled sleeves of Mom’s silk blouse. “You’re fine, just fine,” she says. “It’s just a phone. You can have it fixed.”
The glass face is shattered.
Mom’s hands draw into fists.
“You were looking at your screen, weren’t you?” Mom shouts at the boy.
He’s holding a cell too.
I choke in a breath. “Mom, he wasn’t—”
She silences me with a single enraged finger.
“You dancers are all the same,” she spits, advancing on him. “Self-centered, thinking only about your art and not watching where you’re going. What happens when you lose your youth and beauty? Are you even capable of thinking that far ahead?” Her cold eyes cut to mine.
My whole body burns. Like I’m on stage but there’s no music and I’ve forgotten the steps.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am.” The poor guy is on his knees, putting my dance stuff back in the bags. Even though none of it was his fault. He offers my mom a small smile.
“You think your charm will work on me?” Mom laughs, but it’s too loud and too bright. “Well, it won’t.” Mom grabs her phone from Mrs. McCallum, avoiding the fragments of glass on her cracked screen. “Isa, call us a car. I’ll be outside.” She whirls back to the boy. “And teach your grandmother English, for Christ’s sake. This is Manhattan. You’re not in the Caribbean anymore.” She snaps it at him in Spanish, her Cuban accent clipped and furious. I’ve never heard her speak anything other than English in New York. Unless Abuela is visiting. Or Mom’s on the phone with her family.
As soon as Mom’s gone, Chrissy darts forward to help the boy. I’m right behind her.
“I-I’m sorry,” I babble. In my head, I’m apologizing for all of it. For my mom running into him and blaming him for it. For the way she treated him, like he was beneath her, even though she doesn’t know anything about him and his mami, other than what they look like and that they speak Spanish but aren’t from the same island as her.
“No worries,” he says, avoiding my eyes. Please, let him not go to the Academy.
“Her mom,” Chrissy starts. “She has this problem.”
Chrissy’s trying to make it better. She’s trying to give my mom an out. It’s true. The therapist told me impulsivity is part of the disorder. But there is no excuse for the way Mom thinks. Just one for the way she’s unable to conceal it.
I shake my head to make Chrissy stop.
Chrissy gives me a nod. “Here. Go.” She shoves the bags at me and kisses the air in my general direction.
I take off after my mom, using my free hand to call an Uber. The stares of the entire store follow me.