I was almost seven, first grade nearly behind me. An uneventful year, overall, after Marie, my closest friend, moved away. Forty miles might as well have been a thousand.
My sisters and I took dance from Mrs. Jewel. I think she had a last name, but we just called her by her first name. All the kids did. Lots of girls in town took dance at her studio. For some reason, she always pinched my cheeks. I think she was trying to build my confidence, but somehow it felt a little demeaning. I wondered if she would pinch them if I could do a cartwheel instead of a mule kick.
Becky, one of the girls in the class, was a year younger than I, and could whirl herself into action and look like the spokes on a bicycle wheel, arms and legs straight out and going round and round. She could do more than one cartwheel at a time, too.
As we stood in line to perform our tricks, my place in line seemed to always fall after Becky the human wheelspoke, and Mrs. Jewel would say to me, loudly, but not unkindly, "Well, if you can't do a cartwheel, just do a mulekick!"
I would then crouch down, palms flat on the floor, push off with my feet, raising my rear end 8-10 inches, and make a little kick motion with my heels, landing flatly on my soles. It certainly wasn't becoming, and so far below the level of the cartwheel that even a pinch on the cheeks couldn't make up for it.
I never told her that I could stand on my head for a long time, actually until the blood pooling there made me feel my eyes would burst and my temples explode. No one ever stood on their head at dance class, and I suppose choreographing that into any dance routines would have proved too difficult for the dance assistants at Mrs. Jewel's.
There were short girls, tall girls, stout girls, skinny girls, girls with rhythm and girls with none, and girls with bird legs and those with shapely ones. Everyone wanted to be a ballerina except me. I had already figured that out. My mother would realize it today, or at the very latest, by tonight, at the end of the recital.
This year Susan had a solo dance and Jan had a solo song. I had a group dance and was thrilled I had no solo. My lack of ability must have been apparent to Mrs. Jewel, too, but her sister was one of my mother's best friends, so she took pity on me and pinched me.
There were two major traumas on this day. The first happened at practice. All of us were at the Corsicana High School auditorium where the recitals were held. Since I was short, certainly not because I was one of the best dancers, I was placed at one of the two outer ends of a half circle of girls, nearest the audience.
I did as I was told by Mrs. Jewel's assistant, a high school girl named Sherrie, who did the teaching. Mrs. Jewel just did the supervising.
Sherrie placed each girl in the semicircle, spacing them about two feet apart. Once we were all in place, she had us turn toward the inside of the semicircle. Then she kept saying,"Now scoot apart because your costumes will take up more space tonight. Scoot, scoot, scoot," she said, motioning at me.
I knew I was at the edge of the group, and the more I moved, the more anxiety rose like water seeking its own level. I started worrying that I would get too close to the edge and fall off during a dance move. But even more worrisome, I saw that she had insisted I move past the curtain line.
I opened my mouth to try to tell her, but nothing came out. She looked my way, but then turned her attention to the other side of the circle. Suddenly, she called out , "Close the curtain, please."
I saw the thick rose colored velvet curtain moving my way, and as it moved within feet in front of me, something brushed my right arm from behind and moved along it, causing me to look straight up and see rose velvet everywhere. Looking down, I was startled, realizing that the curtain was closed, and I alone was standing out in front of it. I didn't have a solo, so I shouldn't have been there.
A familiar panic seized me: should I claw at the curtain trying to find the opening that would let me back with the other children, run down the steps and out of the building, jump off the stage to the seats where my mother could be found among the others, or puddle down in a heap on the stage crying? While the latter was my definite choice, I knew I'd embarrass my mother and sisters, so I just stood there, frozen, like a deer in headlights.
A lifetime passed. I graduated high school, went to college, married and had children before Mrs. Jewel yelled out "Hey, y'all left one of the kiddos outside the curtain. Come get her!"
Immediately, Sherrie emerged from the split in the curtains. Ah, there it was! I probably could have found it had I tried. Head down, I apologetically followed her behind the curtain where thirty little girls looked at me with pity, irritation, puzzlement, amusement, and only one -- with genuine concern.
Nancy Meeks, who was standing next to me whispered to me, "I told her she pushed you out too far. Your costume won't be that big."
I shrugged. "Thanks," I said earnestly. "I won't be taking dance after tonight."
I would have liked to not be taking dance after that second, but I knew Mother had spent hours carefully sewing my taffeta and net costume and lining the bodice with yellow sequins. I couldn't be so callous to her effort. She'd made Jan and Susan's costumes too, but they planned to complete their solos, so I quickly made the decision to continue.
When we left after the interminable practice, nothing was said about what had happened. Mother knew better than to ask why I did some of the things I did. She knew I couldn't account for it. It was just the way I was. Susan and Jan were too caught up in their stardom to have paid any attention to my embarrassing actions, so I was lucky today. They didn't mention it either.
"Everybody will be looking at me," I thought with horror.
"Everybody will be looking at me!" Jan crowed.
Recital night held some excitement even for me, though. Everyone running around in the side rooms and basement of the high school in their beautiful costumes of taffeta, satin, net, and sequins created a beautiful rainbow of colors in blue, purple, red, pink, white, green, and yellow.
Tutus, ballerina dresses, sleek one-shouldered costumes with short skirts like Susan was wearing-- and the shoes. The shoes were a world unto themselves. Toe shoes, like Susan wore for her solo ballet dance. Tap shoes for the rollicking numbers, and soft ballet shoes, with thin elastic straps holding them on, like I wore for the dance we did in the big half circle.
Jan had just turned four, and she liked to stomp her tap shoes in some weird manner just to hear the sound. She certainly could not tap dance. She looked cute in her little pink satin dress Mother had made her, though. It was different from mine, but it had sequins around the neck too, so it would shine in the stagelights. She had no fear and loved the limelight.
I was glad my dance number was first, so I got it over with, doing a softshoe in my yellow ballerina-length costume. With a great sense of relief, I took my seat next to my parents in the cavernous 800 seat auditorium. The wooden seats weren't very comfortable, and they folded up, so I folded myself almost in half several times in the seat before my father made me stop, pushing my raised feet down toward the floor to unfold me.
Susan danced to "The Beautiful Lady in Red" (her costume was red with black sequins), and I felt proud. She was graceful and applied the same perfection to her dance as she did her schoolwork.
After some kids in purple tutus ballet danced to "Tiptoe Through the Tulips", some others tapped to "Gonna Take a Sentimental Journey" while still another group softshoed to "Me and My Shadow" , it was Jan's turn.
This was the second trauma, the embarrassment of how she walked on and off stage and crammed the microphone in her mouth. Here she came, walking in those tap shoes. She wasn't going to tap, but I think they just humored her because it was so cute. With every step, clack, clack, clack, I slipped further into the crack between the seat back and seat. She stepped to center stage, her blonde curls framing her cherubic face, took hold of the microphone with both hands (it had been lowered to accommodate her height), and looked like she would eat it as she began singing.
"I'm in love with you, honey" she sang in her babyish voice. "Say you love me too, honey. Every day will be so sunny, honey, with you-hoo-hoo-hoo." Then she started over, her mouth touching the metal microphone honeycomb, which distorted the words with comic result.
Beside me, my dad was shaking with laughter, while my mother sat in rapt attention, and I tried once again to fold myself into the chair.
"People will figure it out. It's right there on the printed program. She's my sister. We have the same last name," I thought.
Then, oh thank you muses, it was over. She curtsied, turned on her clacking heel and walked off the stage, head high, proudly making staccato metal on wood sounds with every step.
In the car on the way home, I sighed loudly.
"What's that about?" my dad asked.
"My last recital is over." I exhaled pointedly.
"I've signed you up to start taking piano at the Simmons Studio when school starts," Mother said, looking straight ahead into the dark night from the front passenger seat.
Susan nudged me and laughed quietly , while Jan talked loudly about her solo and how she loved walking onstage in her tap shoes and singing. I scrunched down dejectedly in the dark backseat, trying to convince myself that piano recitals surely would be less anxiety producing than dance recitals.
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1 comment:
I couldn't stop laughing. Right up there with Boogie Woogie Piggie.
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