Chapter Twenty

Kyle

Thursday, the day of my free dance class, finally arrived. Though it hadn’t exactly been torture watching the other girls dance all week, I was dying to step out on the floor myself. First I had to drop off James and get Allia’s bike. I was worried Allia would change her mind about the bike because no matter what, I couldn’t be late today.

“Is Allia here?” I blurted the second her mom opened the door.

“She had to stay after school for a project, but she said you could use her bike. Come on in for a minute, and I’ll open the garage.”

I followed her into the kitchen where small plastic bags of homemade saltwater dough sat on the table. The house smelled wonderful, as usual, and for a fleeting second I was tempted to stay if she offered me a snack, especially if Travis appeared. Maybe I could still be on time. No, better not to risk it. Hurry, I thought to Allia’s mom. Or Sister Rushton, I guess. That’s what James called her—and everyone else at that stupid church.

James couldn’t take his eyes off the dough. “What’s that for?”

“A game we’re going to play.”

Lauren frowned. “I thought we were going to teach James to read.”

“This is a reading game. It’ll be fun.”

“Mom took me to the eye doctor this morning,” James said. “She got off work and got me at school. The doctor did lots of stuff to my eyes. I didn’t like it.”

“So do you have to get glasses?” Lauren reached toward the bags of dough but hovered over them indecisively.

“Yeah. But they’re not ready yet.” He grimaced. “I can’t see up close or far way. The doctor said I need more tests.”

Sister Rushton looked at me as if asking for an explanation, but I shrugged. The fewer words the better. I edged toward the door leading to the garage.

“I’m sure everything will be a lot easier once you get glasses,” Sister Rushton told James. “Did your mom talk to your teachers at school?”

“Yeah, about tests.” He gave me a glum look. “I hate tests.”

I felt sorry for him, so I said, “It’s just to help them figure out how to help you read.”

“Oh. That’s okay, I guess.”

Sister Rushton looked thoughtful, and I wondered if she was surprised that Mom had taken James to the doctor and talked to his teachers so quickly. She did have a tendency to put things off. But she loves us. I felt a little sliver of resentment toward Sister Rushton. She shouldn’t judge my mom without knowing her. She probably judged me, too, which made me feel a little sad since I thought she was probably more beautiful than the mothers of any of my friends in California.

“Which color dough should I take, Mom?” Lauren asked.

“Whichever you want.”

Lauren pushed her dark hair from her eyes. “What do you want, James?”

“Blue. No, green.”

Lauren gave him the green and placed the blue and pink in front of her. “I’ll use one of these, but I don’t know which.”

James opened his bag and began rolling out a snake. “What are we doing with this?”

“We’re going to make some words and sound them out, that’s what,” Sister Rushton said. “Why don’t you make an A? As big as you want. Lauren, you make an S and I’ll make a T. Do them nice and big now so James can see them. Then we’ll make more letters so we can learn more words. James, do you remember what sound an A makes?”

“I can’t decide what color to use,” moaned Lauren.

“Blue,” James said.

Lauren took the pink instead. Whatever. That kid was a little funny.

Sister Rushton looked relieved that Lauren had made a decision. She gave a little start. “Oh, sorry, Kyle. I forgot about the bike. Come on.”

Finally. The two minutes I’d been there felt like ten. I followed her into the garage and went for Allia’s bike as the door lifted. “Watch for cars, okay?” Sister Rushton called after me. I didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed, but when she added, “And be back in an hour,” I opted for annoyed.

No. Freaking. Way.

When I arrived at the studio, there was still plenty of time, and I waited impatiently. Finally the class was over, and I went inside. Right away I wasn’t thrilled with the girls, who stared at me until I felt self-conscious. Since this was the nine to eleven class, they were all younger than I was, and I felt big and awkward, though I was small for my age.

“Don’t mind them,” a tall, slender girl with red hair told me when three of the girls burst into laughter as they eyed me from across the room where they were warming up. “It’s all about the dance. That’s all that matters.”

“Right.” I appreciated her comment, but I experienced a rare kind of jealousy at the strong and sure way she moved. Not the simple jealousy over a sweater or the kind of house someone lived in, but the jealousy of seeing someone do something you love so much and doing it better than maybe you will ever be capable of. That kind of jealousy bites deep and hard, and tears I couldn’t shed stung my eyes.

I felt this girl existed solely to dance her way through life. I could tell she came from a well-to-do family, from the name brand jeans she’d shimmied out of earlier to the sneakers that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. Her parents could obviously buy her any teacher, and that she had talent made her comment to me more precious—and my jealousy that much more poignant.

I told myself nothing mattered but learning everything I could. I didn’t fool myself that the teacher would be so amazed at my talent, she’d give me lessons for free. That kind of thing didn’t happen to people like me.

Yet as we practiced moves, I forgot about everything but the dance. I was the dance. It was beautiful—the floor, the mirrors, the music, the movements. I loved the sturdy-looking teacher, loved how she ordered us about, loved how demanding she was—and I loved that I’d practiced enough all week on my own not to feel like a total idiot. I enjoyed the grudging acceptance of the younger girls, the genuine smile of approval from the redhead. Not that I did all that great—I couldn’t do great without real training—but I wasn’t so bad as to feel embarrassed if I was to run into these girls at school or in some other public place.

The class ended too soon. How could it be over? I wanted to throw myself on the ground and cry and refuse to leave. I wanted to plead with the teacher to let me into the class and when I was older, I’d repay her double.

Silly.

I nodded to the redhead and made my way to the changing area with the other girls, where I pulled on my jeans over the black tights without feet like those I’d seen the other girls wearing at other lessons. Not pink because this wasn’t ballet and with bare feet so we wouldn’t slip and the teacher could see what we were doing with our toes. Sometimes she’d have them put on their jazz shoes, but she hadn’t today, and I was glad because mine were a little tight.

I stayed to watch a bit of the older girls’ class, but I finally made myself leave to pick up James. I still didn’t arrive until after five-thirty. Sister Rushton wasn’t pleased at how late I was, but I couldn’t tell her why. She probably thought I was smoking pot out behind the school or something.

Let her think it. What do I care?

When James and I finally got home, I was carrying both him and my dance bag. It was nearly six, and I was afraid I wouldn’t beat my mother to the house, so I was trying to run. I sighed a breath of relief when she wasn’t there.

“Come on,” I said to James. “I’ll make you some mac and cheese.”

“Goody. I’m starving. I think I’m growing.”

“Good thing. You’re a guy. You don’t want to be short.” I made the noodles without really thinking, my mind still caught up in the dance. Maybe if I hurried and finished my homework, I could practice a few of the more difficult moves I’d learned today.

Mom came home before we’d finished eating, her face flushed and happy. She looked pretty, like she used to when she’d dress up to work at the restaurant. As usual, she smelled like a garden of flowers. I wished she smelled the way she had when I was younger. Less like flowers and more like herself.

“Guess what?” she said in singsong. “We have a couch. Two of them actually.”

“A couch?” James leapt up from the table and followed Mom out the front door.

Sure enough, loaded into the back of our truck were a couch and a love seat. “Where’d you get that?” I asked.

Mom gave us a conspiratorial smile. “I mentioned to a guy at work that we hadn’t brought our old couch, and he found these online. Free to anyone who would pick them up.”

“Was that the guy we saw when we got the movie?” James asked.

“Yeah. He helped me load them in the truck.” She looked down the street. “He should be coming any minute now to help us get them inside.”

“We could call the bishop and his son,” I said. It would be the perfect opportunity to see Travis since he hadn’t been around when I’d been at the Rushtons’ today.

She laughed. “We three should be able to take care of it.”

“Four,” James said. “Don’t forget me.”

Mom bent down to kiss him. “I wasn’t. It was me I wasn’t counting. I’m a weakling.” James giggled at that, and even I smiled. Mom had her moments.

“There he is now,” Mom said as a dark green convertible turned down our street. It was a cool car, and I felt a thrill of excitement despite my disappointment about the dance classes. The man who emerged from the car looked a lot like the kind of men my mother usually dated, only taller, and the way he carried himself reminded me faintly of the bishop, though this man was decidedly broader, his muscles bulging in his snug shirt. His blond hair was also longer, and his eyes green instead of brown. Okay, he didn’t look at all like the bishop, except he had that clean air about him, which I liked. I knew at once that he wasn’t a smoker, and maybe he wasn’t a drinker, either. I liked him better for that already.

“This must be Kyle,” he said.

I nodded. “That’s me.”

“I’m Quinn Hunter. I work with your mom. Think we can get this couch in?”

I liked the way he talked to me, as though I were an adult. “Yeah. I think so.”

We did manage, though it wasn’t easy, and James got in the way more than he helped. My mom acted a little giddy, laughing too much and too easily. I could see she liked the man, and I could tell he felt even more strongly about her. I’d seen it many, many times. My mother might not be as beautiful as Allia and her mother were with their dark hair, but men always fell for her. They seemed fascinated by everything she did.

Quinn was nice. If allowing James to sit on the couch while we moved it around the living room wasn’t enough, when he returned to his car for the take-out burgers he’d stopped to buy on the way over, he completely won my brother’s admiration. I wasn’t above eating the fries or the shakes myself, since the best thing after a hard workout was to load up on carbs. Only Mom picked at her food. I wondered if that was because she had butterflies in her stomach the way I did when I talked to Travis.

I thought so.

At the same time, she didn’t invite him to stay or ask me to watch James while she left with him. That made me both happy and uneasy. I didn’t want to see my mom hurt again, and mostly that’s what boyfriends meant, sooner or later. At least for her. And James was getting to the point where a man leaving might really mess him up.

Mom didn’t kiss Quinn when he left, which meant they were only beginning their relationship or that she considered him a friend. There’d been plenty of that kind of man, too. Those who appeared to do something to the car or apartment and just as soon disappeared. Those who took James to fly a kite or to Disneyland and didn’t return after they brought James home. I’d learned those guys were safer for all of us because they were never around long enough for us to really care.

“Nice guy,” I commented as we watched him drive away.

“Yeah,” she agreed. Her face was too still, and I had the feeling she was fighting tears. Man, we were all a bunch of hormones. Did being a woman always mean so much emotion? Or did most women only feel this way where men were concerned? I for one was thinking way too much about Travis, and I still wasn’t sure he even realized I existed.

Mom kept staring down the road, not into the dark or at a sunset, and it made me feel jittery rather than romantic. “So,” I said. “Are you going to date him?”

“No.” Nothing more. No explanation or shaking her head but a simple and final no.

“I thought you liked him.”

“He’s a co-worker, that’s all.”

“Married?”

She finally took her eyes from the road and looked at me, a smile growing on her face. “No, silly. It’s just that a man is the last thing I need right now.”

Actually, a man to earn a bit of money, fix things, help out with James, and take us out to dinner every now and then was exactly what I thought we needed, especially in light of my yearning for dance lessons, but, hey, you couldn’t force these things. Maybe Mom had finally gotten wise to the result of having a boyfriend.

Yet maybe it didn’t have to end that way. Maybe she kept picking the wrong kind. Take the bishop, for example. If she’d married him, it might have been me living in Allia’s beautiful, clean house, taking all the lessons I wanted. So many lessons I might even get sick of them, and Mom would have to make me go.

“What?” Mom said.

“Nothing.”

“Anything happen today?”

“School was boring, as usual.”

That seemed to satisfy her. She went into the house, smiling, and sat on one of our hand-me-down couches. They were a pale floral but not too ugly.

James cuddled up to Mom, and she started tickling him. “Maybe we should sleep right here tonight,” she said. “You know, have a campout on our new couches.”

“Yay!” shouted James, bouncing so hard he would have fallen off the couch if Mom hadn’t caught him. They collapsed on the couch again, tickling each other and laughing, and for a minute I felt that strange sort of happiness I sometimes felt when we were together. The world could fall away and it wouldn’t matter because we had everything we needed right in this very room.

Even without dancing.

My stomach started to ache. “I have homework,” I said.

“You didn’t do it already? You had all afternoon.”

“She was dancing,” James said. I glared at him, hoping he wouldn’t say where I’d been dancing.

Mom frowned. “Kyle, I told you. Homework first.”

“I’ll do it,” I said. My mom the homework police. That was still weird. So many years without really saying anything, and now she was always on my case.

Mom rubbed her temple. I knew that meant a headache coming on, maybe a migraine. I followed her into the kitchen and watched her down a pill, replacing the bottle in her purse where she always kept it. I took the discarded bowls of mac and cheese and put them in the sink filled with water to soak off the mess, a little bit amazed and proud at my actions.

“Thanks, honey.”

“Come on, Mom!” James yelled. “Let’s get the blankets!”

I went downstairs and really did my homework, practiced dance for a bit, and then read a book until late so maybe I would be too tired to dream about dancing when I finally slept. Too tired to wake up worrying with tears on my face or feel the need to climb into my mother’s bed.