Isabelle

by Laurence Yep

  Jade took a little packet of tissues from her bag and handed them to Luisa.

  “Thanks,” Luisa said, sniffling as she took a tissue.

  We followed Jade to the ballet studio, and I took Luisa by the arm. “What’s really wrong?” I asked her quietly. “You don’t usually get this upset about things.”

  Luisa looked at me with wet eyes. “It’s just that…this is the first performance my brother won’t be at,” she said. “We finally heard from him. He’s doing okay, but he really, really wants to see my pirate dance. We’re going to buy a DVD of the show to send to him. So I’m going to make sure this is one show he won’t forget.”

  I nodded—I got that. This performance was as important for Luisa as it was for me. Maybe even more so. “You’re going to be great,” I said, squeezing her hand.

  At the ballet studio, we found a handwritten sign taped to the door:

  Girls only. Boys, change in the restrooms and leave your bags in Room 151.

  As I opened the door, I wasn’t prepared for the crowd and the confusion inside the studio. All the students from the different ballet classes were trying to get dressed at the same time. Both dressing rooms must have filled up, because girls were getting into their costumes right here in the studio. The shades had all been drawn, and ballet bags lay piled everywhere. Ms. Hawken and the other ballet teachers were discussing something intently.

  “We should have left home a lot earlier,” Jade said as we hunted for some clear space.

  “Over here,” Renata said, waving a hand from a corner of the room. “I saved a spot for you.”

  That startled me, until she added, “Jade, come on.” She was speaking to my sister.

  Renata was the last person I wanted to hang out with before the show. But Jade was already moving toward her, so I gripped the strap of my bag tighter and picked my way around the bags over to the corner.

  Behind us, Luisa kept repeating, “Sorry, sorry.” I glanced in the mirror and saw that the other ballerinas had to twist and dodge away from Luisa, or else get smothered in her outfit’s fabric.

  Renata had already changed into her costume. Her sequins reflected the overhead light, so there were little flashes of color every time she moved. Everything was perfect about her. Not a hair was out of place.

  “Thanks,” Jade said as she set her bag down beside Renata’s. I sidled around them so that I could set my bag down, too.

  Renata glanced at me, annoyed, when my bag bumped against her. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “I’m Renata,” she said eagerly to my sister. “I don’t know if you remember me?”

  “Sure, you did a solo last year,” Jade said politely, and then she motioned to Luisa. “But now, if you’ll excuse us, we have an emergency.”

  “Sure, of course,” Renata said, pressing herself against the window to give us more room.

  “You go on before I do, so you change first,” Jade said to me. “I’ll work on Luisa’s costume. And then when you’re done, we’ll switch places.”

  Jade and I had to scrunch up against the mirror while Luisa got out of her costume. Then I took out my sewing kit and handed it to Jade. She sat on the bench and drew Luisa’s costume onto her lap. She began threading a needle while Luisa watched anxiously over her shoulder.

  I was already wearing my black unitard under my regular clothes, but I had so little room that it was hard to put on my skirt and ballet slippers. I tied the ribbons of the slippers around my ankles. Then I fastened the shortened flower sash at my waist. Since I already had on my cuff bracelet and had done my hair at home, all I needed was my tiara to complete things.

  I studied my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t know how my dancing would go tonight, but at least my outfit looked good.

  Trying to be careful with my costume, I slowly sat down. “My turn,” I said to Jade, reaching for the needle and costume.

  “It’s like tag-team sewing,” Luisa laughed. It was good to see her smiling again.

  While my sister dressed, Renata hovered nearby. “That’s a pretty costume, Jade,” she piped up.

  Jade wound the sash around her stomach self-consciously, hiding the narrow strip of bare skin. “Isabelle designed it,” she said in response.

  Renata looked at me uncomfortably. I don’t think she had meant to pay me a compliment, even indirectly. “No kidding” was all she could muster. Luisa and I exchanged a secret smile.

  Jade tapped me on the shoulder. “Okay, I’m done,” she said. “Let me put your makeup on.”

  I shook my head. “No, you put yours on first,” I insisted. “Let me finish this.” My hand was weaving the needle back and forth in a steady rhythm. Despite the urgency, the motion was soothing and sort of hypnotic—as if my hand was dancing on its own. And as my fingertips pranced, the seam magically closed up. When I was sewing, I was never Dizzy Izzy. Maybe I felt about sewing the way Jade did about dancing.

  “Ten minutes, ladies,” Ms. Hawken called. “Then we all leave for the auditorium.”

  “Finished,” I finally announced as I rose with the costume. I presented it to Luisa.

  Luisa held her breath as she inspected the seam. “Isabelle, wow, you really fixed it! Thank you!” she said. She quickly stepped into the costume, and I helped her button it up. Then we stared into the mirror together as she smoothed out the bodice of the dress.

  “Perfect,” I said to her. “You look amazing. Danny’s going to be really proud of you when he sees the DVD.”

  Luisa smiled—and then was silent for a long moment. “I hope so,” she said finally. “Maybe he’ll get homesick and call me more often.”

  I gave her arm a squeeze. To cheer her up, I said, “Well, the next time you’re missing your older sibling, you can borrow mine. I’d gladly give her up for you.”

  Jade, who was applying mascara, narrowed her eyes at me in the mirror. “Hey, I heard that!” she joked.

  Luisa giggled and then turned to gather her things. “Gotta go,” she said. “I need to find my gang of pirates.” She gave me a big thank-you and an even bigger hug, and then she turned to hug Jade, too.

  As I watched Luisa force her way past the other ballerinas on her way to the door, Jade touched a fingertip to one corner of my mouth and then the other. “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you smile at school,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I like sewing,” I said simply. “That was fun.”

  “You like helping people,” Jade said, bending over to pull a makeup brush from her kit. “Now tilt your head back. A little more. Yes, that’s it. Stand still.”

  I watched my reflection in the mirror as she applied light beige eye shadow gently over my brow bone. That would help highlight my eyes under the bright lights. Jade’s strokes were as gentle as a feather. I might be a little better at sewing than my sister, but she was a lot better at doing makeup.

  While Jade put on the rest of my stage face, I had time to think about what had just happened. She was right—I felt good knowing that I’d helped Luisa, and I’d had more fun fixing her dress than I’d had in the last few rehearsals practicing to be a flower. So far, my favorite part of the festival had been creating our costumes. Maybe I should be thinking of designing rather than dancing.

  Jade finished my makeup just in time. Ms. Hawken clapped her hands to get our attention. “All right, ladies,” she said. “In a few minutes, we’ll leave for the auditorium. Assemble in the back with your casts. Your teacher will let you know when it’s time for you to go onstage.”

  In the sudden pause after she finished speaking, I could hear the shuffling of a hundred feet in the corridor as the other classes headed toward the auditorium.

  Jade tucked her makeup kit back into her bag. “Before a show, the kids here use part of the school motto,” she said to me. She straightened with a smile. “To the stars.”

  “To the stars,” I wished back. Then, because Renata was standing right there, I added, “To the stars, Renata.”

  “Yeah
, ditto,” Renata said.

  Then the other dancers were moving toward the door, and we had no choice but to follow.

  I felt my stomach getting tighter and tighter as I neared the auditorium doors.

  When we got inside, I saw that chairs had been set out in even rows almost all the way back to the folded-up dining tables in the rear. Classical music played softly over the auditorium’s sound system, and what looked like a hundred people—all dressed in costume—were already finding seats.

  “Jade, Isabelle, over here!” Dad called. He was tall enough to see over the crowd. He kept waving as we made our way to him.

  Mom was dressed tastefully in a high-waisted, Empire-style dress and carried a bone-handled fan. Dad, in contrast, had a wig that could have doubled as a mop, and it was hard to tell if the green makeup on his face was supposed to make him into a zombie or a Martian. I didn’t dare ask. He would have been hurt that I hadn’t recognized whatever he was pretending to be.

  “Don’t you two look lovely,” Dad said. But he would have said that even if we had been wearing trash bags.

  Mom gestured toward my flower sash. “Oh, you made it short like Jade suggested,” she said.

  I glanced quickly at Jade to see if she would tell Mom about my tripping and falling. But she didn’t.

  And then Mom noticed something else. “Some of the flowers on your sash got squashed,” she said with a sigh. Mom began pinching the cloth blossoms to fatten them up again.

  She still hadn’t finished when the principal, Ms. Kantor, spoke up through the sound system. “Will our guests take their seats, please? And will the casts assemble in the rear? The show will begin in ten minutes.”

  “Good luck,” Dad murmured, giving us each a quick hug.

  As I joined my ballet group at the back, Jade said good-bye to me and headed on to her gypsy band some thirty feet away. Part of me wanted to go after her. I always knew things would be okay when my big sister was with me. Without her, all my worries about the show came flooding back.

  Suddenly my classmate Madelyn clutched my arm. “Oh, my gosh, that’s Jackie Sanchez,” she whispered loudly.

  I’d seen Jackie from the second balcony of a theater, when she had looked doll-sized. But the tall woman standing in the doorway had the same olive skin and pretty smile as on the postcard in my locker. She was wearing a red cape with a hood.

  The next moment, Jackie Sanchez was joined by a chubby man with a trim blond beard and shaved head. He was wearing tails, a top hat, and a bright red scarf. I recognized him as Robert Kosloff, another graduate of Anna Hart and the director of this year’s Nutcracker. He had conducted the auditions personally.

  He was smiling, but I still felt uncomfortable around him. I remembered him as the man who kept sending away dancers at the auditions for The Nutcracker. Though he had tried to let dancers down in a nice way, I guess there’s no way you can really be gentle about crushing someone’s dreams.

  Gabriel had already gone up to them and was fanning out his cards. There was nothing shy about my friend.

  As Madelyn hurried past me, I asked, “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to get Jackie’s autograph,” she said. “Maybe she can sign my palm. I won’t ever wash it again. Are you coming?”

  I was tempted, but I looked at the mob of people already surging toward Jackie. It would take forever to get close to her in that crowd. And I really hadn’t had time to go through my dance imagery yet. “I wish I could,” I said, “but I need to get ready.”

  “You’ve already got on your costume,” Madelyn said, puzzled. “But, okay—I’ll see you later.” She rushed away then.

  Either someone had told Ms. Kantor about her special guests being mobbed, or she’d noticed it herself. The music died suddenly. Then her voice boomed over the sound system. “Will the audience please take their seats?” She phrased it politely, but anyone who attended Anna Hart would recognize the principal’s tone: that was an order, not a request.

  I watched as an usher in a gorilla mask escorted Jackie Sanchez and Robert Kosloff to their seats. A minute later, the auditorium went dark and conversation ended. The next moment Ms. Kantor’s voice came over the speakers again. “Our first performers are Ms. Grady’s first-grade ballet class, performing Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee.’”

  The curtains drew aside, and a row of little bumblebees lined the stage. Beneath the bright lights, the first-graders got so excited that they forgot most of their dance routine. Instead, they hopped, skipped, and ran around the stage. The chaos made them seem like real bumblebees going crazy in a flower garden. They would have kept on dancing, even after their music ended, but their teacher shooed them off the stage.

  The evening went by in a rush. I barely noticed the other acts. I was too busy trying to focus on that summertime pond in my mind. But it was impossible to ignore Luisa when she charged onto the stage screaming, “Dance or die!”

  I didn’t remember that line from rehearsals in modern dance class. The other bandanna-wearing pirates looked at one another. They didn’t know what to make of Luisa either.

  Maybe my friend was remembering how she’d felt when she had torn her costume and thought she couldn’t go on. Or maybe she was determined to make sure that her brother would never forget this performance. I just hoped Mr. Amici didn’t mind a few made-up lines.

  The next moment Uncle Davi shot up from his seat. “Dance or die!” he whooped, curling his hand into a fist and pumping it into the air.

  Zama rose from her seat off to the left with Gabriel. “Dance or die!” she cried and began to clap her hands rhythmically as the techno-pop music began.

  “Brava!” “Dance or die!” some of the other audience members called in response.

  Encouraged by the crowd, the other pirates also roared “Dance or die!” as they poured onto the stage, moving as if they had rockets attached to their feet.

  The routine was supposed to be a dance contest with a brief solo for each pirate. Of all of them, Luisa was the best. It wasn’t just her colorful costume. Her positions and movements were the sharpest. And she bounced around as if she might never dance again.

  She made me feel all wild and desperate and crazy inside, and I wanted to dance, too. But I was jammed at the back of the auditorium with the other performers, and there wasn’t enough room. All I could do was sway back and forth. A lot of other people had caught Luisa’s mood, though, because I saw their heads bobbing.

  Judging by the cheers when they were done, the pirates were going to be a tough act to follow. But I wasn’t worried about trying to top my friend. I just wanted to avoid being Dizzy Izzy.

  When it was finally our turn to go on, I took my position with the other waltzing flowers onstage, behind the closed curtain.

  I suddenly felt as if I were trapped in a small room with a cloth wall. The air was warm and still. Dust tickled my nose, and I fought the urge to sneeze. The pond now seemed as far away as the moon, and the water lily was no more than a speck in my mind. What was I going to do?

  “Three,” Mr. Raley counted down softly from the wings.

  My heart began thumping. Jade had said I was thinking so much that I was making mistakes. It kept me from enjoying dancing. And it made me stiff and self-conscious, so I was even more likely to do something wrong.

  “Two,” Mr. Raley said.

  Be like Luisa.

  “One,” Mr. Raley said.

  All or nothing. Dance or die.

  Gears clacked, and there were loud creaks as the curtains rolled toward either side.

  I couldn’t see beyond the front row, where Jackie and the principal sat with other special guests. The lunch tables that were my landmark had vanished into the gloom, along with almost everything else. Only the faint green exit light marked where the doors were.

  But even though the other rows were hidden, I could hear the audience—the rustling and crinkling of paper programs, the faint buzz of voices, the whispering of shoe sol
es, and the squeaking of chairs. It was as if the audience was a single living creature, not a collection of separate individuals. And all of its attention was on us.

  In the darkness, waiting for the light, I suddenly remembered how the raindrops had reflected the sunlight in the park. I could see the water lily in my mind, floating on the pond. Raindrops fringed the petals’ edges like jewels.

  Then the French horns began calling, and the harp’s rippling notes created ever-widening circles on the pond. The water lily stirred restlessly. I leaned forward, head slightly bowed, arms curved away from my sides. Then I lifted my head again as I fluttered my arms up to shoulder level.

  When the spotlight came on, I almost blinked in the brilliant glare. Dust motes whirled in the breeze that the curtains had stirred up.

  In that vast darkness, I hungered for the spotlight’s bright, burning circle. All on their own, my arms spread like leaves that wanted to hug the light, and my body stretched toward it. But my feet were stuck in the bottom of the pond.

  As a water lily, I’d spent all my life tied to one spot on the pond. It had been frustrating because the clouds and their reflections could float where they liked, but I couldn’t.

  My legs lifted me like the halves of a strong, springy stem. And then suddenly I kicked free of the mud and shadowy water.

  Eagerly I chased after the sun, my body loose, without any of the stiffness and awkwardness that I had felt during rehearsals. It was as if I’d taken off a tight jacket and thrown it away.

  But I wasn’t alone. I heard the other dancers breathing and their ballet slippers pattering over the stage. In the studio, I had always felt separate from my classmates as I tried to imitate them. But now onstage, I was one flower among many as the same breeze guided us through the familiar patterns. When they turned and spun and glided, I turned and spun and glided. And that was wonderful, too—all of us reaching together toward the sun.