it’s obvious that the winter duet is Sam’s to lose.
As I mimic the quartet ahead of me, Keisha shakes her head. “You’re adding an extra chaîné after the first jump, Ali. Two steps, not three.”
Aha! That explains why I start off fine but get behind halfway across the floor. I give Keisha a grateful nod as we get into place.
5-6-7-8
The beat drives my muscles. Halfway across the room, I hit the timing of the second leap just right and find myself airborne. Yes! With toes pointed hard, I finish strong, controlling the landing.
The next two crosses are heaven. I don’t think about anything. Not Samantha, not the duet, not my feet. I’m catapulted straight into the never-never land of pure dance, where music and movement are the only things in the world that exist. I could stay here forever….
I land the final plié soft as whipped cream. Quentin’s eyebrows rise, his version of a nod of approval.
Class ends. Dancers applaud, Quentin bows. Samantha gives me a stony glare and storms off to the dressing room. She hates it whenever the Cranky Brit notices anyone but her.
Blake palms me a sweaty low five. Samantha dumped him just before the spring concert so he gets off whenever she’s pissed—which is most of the time.
He wraps a towel around his neck. “Want to get a slice at Tony’s?”
I try not to laugh. All Anorexic Sam eats is fat-free frozen yogurt. Not exactly he-man food.
“Can’t. My mom’s made dinner.”
I drain the last of the water bottle and float into the teachers’ dressing room. As soon as I get home, I plan to work on the combination in my bedroom. Slow it down some, then speed it up. Just for fun, I want to see how fast I can actually—
Bang!
The sound echoes like a gunshot in the small room. Half-naked, I bring my leotard to my chest.
“Sorry.” Eva Faus, the petite, thirtysomething choreography instructor, stands next to a full-length, now-closed locker door. “Thought you saw me.”
“Wasn’t paying attention.”
She eyes my sweaty leotard. “Quentin?”
“He’s killer.”
“That’s ’cause the man’s got chops. I saw him dance years ago. God, he’s beautiful onstage.” Eva wears a green unitard. With her spiky hair and nose ring, she reminds me of a punked-out forest nymph. “You haven’t taken any choreography classes, have you?”
It’s not really a question.
“I’m not sure I’m ready.”
She laughs. “Oh, you’re ready. I saw you in Mara’s trio last spring—lovely. There’s room in the fall class. You should sign up.”
Holy moly! Nobody just “signs up” for Choreography. You have to get Eva’s permission, which, apparently, I just did.
A mental bow to Quentin. There’s no way I’d have gotten this good without Modern IV—his Modern IV class. After Eva leaves, I do my happy dance, something like a salsa. Feet moving to the beat in my head, I sprinkle baby powder over my body before slipping back into the orange tank and denim skirt. Then I check my cell. Two text messages. Clarissa: What’s up? And another from my friend Sonya: Godfather marathon. Nothing from Jacy.
My flip-flops make soft, slapping sounds as I head home. A slight breeze has sprung up and the street pulses with movement.
In my blissed-out, after-class state, dance is everywhere. Pedestrians swarm out of the subway, an urban line dance snaking past the fruit stand. Pigeons diving for bread crumbs create a swooping pattern more intricate than the New York City corps de ballet. Kids play hopscotch chalked onto the sidewalk, the rhythmic jumping its own music: two, one, one. Two, one, one. Two.
The bodybuilder doing curls in front of a second-story window, muscular arms pumping, keeps a steady tempo: up, down. Beat. Up, down. Beat. He catches my eye and winks. I hurry across Clinton.
Mr. Ryan, recently retired, sits on a folding chair in front of his brownstone. He wears collared, buttoned-down shirts all year, long-sleeved in the winter, short-sleeved in the summer, but it’s his fingers, tap-dancing on a laptop, that grab my attention.
He glances up. “Hot enough for you?”
“Really. Do you know when it’s supposed to break?”
“Not till after the weekend,” he says.
Maybe I can get Jacy, Clarissa or Sonya to do a Sunday matinee at the Quad. Doesn’t matter what we see; AC all afternoon sounds good to me.
Up ahead, Jacy lounges on the stoop, grocery bag at his side. His hair, frizzed by the humidity, looks like a clown’s wig.
“Your hair is a beast, Strode.”
He shrugs. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
“Didn’t know I was late.”
Clearly, Jacy’s not mad anymore. Still, I’d like to know where he went. “Whatcha do today?”
“Nothing much,” he says. “But I’ve got a surprise for tonight.”
“Yeah? What’s in the bag?”
“Picnic stuff. Reggae at the band shell. Sonya and Clarissa are already there.”
I glance up. The brick structure was built in the early 1900s when six floors was a big deal. Now, it’s just another old building housing a mixture of rent-control holdouts like me and Mom, and newer people who pay zillions to live in the same-size apartments.
“I already talked to your mom,” Jacy says. “She’s cool as long as we get back by ten and you beep her the minute you get in.”
Mom, a charge nurse for Mercy Hospital, works the night shift. She usually leaves the apartment by nine o’clock. Cell phones aren’t allowed in hospitals so we have a beeper code that I cannot forget to use—or I’m in big trouble. 04, for OK, means “I’m home.” 78 is short for “running late.” And 505—SOS—means “I need help.” I’ve never needed that one, although as Mom says, “This is Brooklyn. The crazies are everywhere.”
I shake my head. “Have to shower before I go anywhere.”
Jacy buries his nose in my neck.
“Stay away from the pits!” I shriek.
“You don’t smell bad. Forget the shower. Seize the moment.”
“You always say that when you want to do something at the last possible second,” I grumble. “You know I like to—”
“Plan. But this is the last concert of the summer. The Voice gave it two stars.”
“I
