“What? It’s true!” Aidan protests with an exaggerated shrug.
After lunch, the cleaning crew breaks down the entire great room in the main cabin. The polished wood floors will be great for dancing. The teens are back from their short nature walk. I am astonished to find out I have 42 students in my dance seminar. That’s well over half of all of the students who are attending the camp. Also, of the 42 students, a whopping 16 of them are male. That’s a percentage almost unheard of in dance classes. The dance teacher comes in and the PE teacher accompanies her. I’ve gathered that the dance teacher is hearing, but the PE teacher is entirely deaf. The PE teacher, Melinda Norse, signs to me, “We heard this was the hot hangout spot and figured you might need some help with crowd control.”
“Thank you,” I sign gratefully. “Honestly, I was expecting about fifteen.”
I turn to the class and ask them to line up in rows. I show them a series of stretches they can do with a partner. Of course, being junior high school kids, they laugh when some of the positions get awkward. I just chuckle and tell them, “Just wait until you get advanced enough to do lifts. Your partner will be more familiar with the intimate parts of your body than you are. You just have to get over being embarrassed about it. It comes down to a matter of safety as well as art.”
One of the older boys in the back immediately raises his hand and asks, “Will we be doing this today?” as he eyes another student I assume is his girlfriend.
“I don’t know yet,” I answer. “I’ll have to assess everyone’s skills before I can decide. Does anyone here like retro music?”
To my relief, a bunch of hands shoot up. “Well, I’m glad to see that because, we’re going to do our take on the classic Michael Jackson song Thriller.”
An excited murmur goes through the crowd as Jasmine asks, “Are you going to paint our faces?”
Another student adds, “Yeah, can we dress up?”
I grin at their enthusiasm. “Well, I guess that’s going to depend on how quickly you guys can learn the choreography. I’m going to need those of you that have dance experience to help out with the people who don’t. This is a really big group of people. I’ll try to get to everybody as best I can. But I might not be able to help you immediately. So, if you understand a dance move well and you see someone who doesn’t, I’d appreciate it if you step up and give them a hand.” The other teachers spaced themselves evenly throughout the room. I notice even the principal has snuck in the back door and is hanging around the back of the room.
I start out by handing out earplugs to the hearing individuals in the room because the best way for those that are completely deaf to interpret music is to feel vibrations through the floor, and it can be painfully loud for those of us with average hearing. Before I turn on the music, I start out by explaining the basic eight count and how I use it to teach choreography. I explain the earplugs and instruct people to put them in and those with hearing aids or cochlear implants to turn them down or off. I turn the speakers on and lay them down so that they are facedown on the wooden floor. Even through the earplugs, it sounds a bit like a rock concert. I survey the teenagers and see they’re grinning as they feel those vibrations through their feet. I have a closed-circuit TV aimed at me and projected on a big-screen TV behind me. I’m so lucky that this facility is used for business conferences and has the technology available. Now, all the students in the room can see not only my dance moves but also my hands as I’m signing.
For the next hour or so, I go through the choreography one small chunk at a time. I’m pleasantly surprised, in a group the size, how many quality dancers there are. There are probably five really extraordinary dancers, another ten very good ones, fifteen passable, and the rest are just here for fun. Those are better odds than I expected.
I assign Melinda Norse and one of the most advanced dance students to cover the very good dancers. I put the dance teacher and two of the other very good dancers with the passable dancers. I keep two of the very good dancers to help with the just for fun dancers. I spend most of my time with that group. After another half an hour of individual focus, almost everyone is doing pretty well. So I have a run through from the top. Amazingly, it goes better than I could’ve ever expected. So, we take our 3 o’clock break and I go back to the cabin to distribute paintings.
After we return to the main cabin, I do one more run through. But this time, I add my own solo. I put a contemporary dance twist on it. It feels so freeing to be in full on dance mode around other dancers again, even if they are a bunch of teenage students. I’m so lost in the world I’m creating, I’m a little startled to hear cheering and calls for an encore. I give a deep dancer’s curtsy and recoil my hair bun that came loose during the dance. “Thanks, everyone. You’ll see a different piece tonight because I just improvised that. Who knows what I’ll come up with tonight.”
Jasmine looks at me with astonishment. “You just made that up on the spot?”
I nod as I’m catching my breath.
“That’s epic!” she exclaims.
“Thanks,” I reply. “Okay, you guys were totally focused and on point, so we have some extra time. You have an extra hour and a half to get showered and make costumes. Remember, they can’t be too elaborate and you have to be able to move in them. You can’t put anything on them that’s going to fly off and injure your neighbor. Girls, make sure that you don’t put any moisturizer or foundation on, because the face paint won’t stick to it. You can go back to your cabins and put on eyeliner and mascara after I’m done with your face. You don’t have to copy the original Thriller video, because we’re doing our own spin on it. So be creative.”
“Who’s going to do your face, Ms. Tara?” pipes up a student from the back row.
I search out the crowd and find Sadie. “Well, I was really impressed today by Sadie’s skills. I was kind of hoping she might do me the honor of painting my face,” I reply.
Sadie blushes a deep shade of crimson “If you’re sure you trust me, I’d be happy to.”
“Okay everybody, I’ll be in Cabin Mount Rainier starting at 4 o’clock. Face painting is done on a first-come first-serve basis. Remember, dinner is only served until 6 PM.”
Fortunately for me, I have a costume of sorts already figured out. It doesn’t take me any time at all to change into a dark green leotard and a skirt with chiffon ruffles which look like thousands of small leaves. I braid my hair in dozens of small braids that will make my hair look curly once they dry and I undo them. So, I hurry over to the cabin where I first taught class this morning to set up my face painting station. I like to heat up my face paints slightly because I find that people jump less if the face paints are warmed.
To my surprise, Sadie is there waiting for me. Not only that, she is dressed in a very similar costume except hers is in fall colors and she actually has fall leaves attached to hers. When we compare outfits, we both start laughing. “I’m here to paint your face before the crowds come,” she offers.
I show her how to load the face paint into my face-painting gun and place the hairdressing gown over my clothes. I look in the mirror and use of bobby pins to make sure that my hair is out of my face. Then, I place a shower cap over my hair. I sit on the chair and instruct, “I’m going for a mother nature fairy type lIfook here with maybe a couple of flowers and butterflies and some lady bugs. But I’ll leave the precise details up to you.”
“Cool beans!” She replies as she applies a base coat to my face and neck. “Is it okay if we pulled the cape down for a minute so that I can paint down to the top of your leotard and your hands?”
I smile at her creativity as I say, “Sure, go for it.” She quickly paints the front and back of my hands and my neck and shoulders. I’m trying really hard not to peek because I want to be totally surprised by the finished product, but I’m so tempted. She effortlessly changes the bowls out to change colors. She bleeds the brush on a paper towel between color changes to make sure that her colors stay nice and clear. She is
swift and efficient but not rushed. In no time at all, she sets the brush down and asks me if I’ve got a way to paint fine lines. I point to a case of eyeliner pencils in nearly every shade.
“Awesome. This is exactly what I need,” she responds. After a couple of minutes, she puts the pencil back and announces, “I am finished. Would you like to check it out to see if you like it?”
“Sure, but I’m positive I’m going to love it.” I walk over to the full-length mirror and gasp with pleasure as I see the effect that she’s accomplished. She has given me a green complexion with silver sheen. It makes me look positively ethereal. She added butterflies, flowers, and ladybugs as I requested, but she gave them a 3-D effect so they literally look like they’re coming to life out of my skin. “Sadie! I couldn’t have done this better myself and I’ve been doing this for years. I can’t even find the proper adjectives to describe how wonderful I think you are.”
Sadie shuffles her feet and signs, “Really? You’re not just saying that?”
“Of course not,” I confirm. “I’d like to help you find scholarships to go to art school when you’re ready.”
I tap the seat I just vacated and ask her what she wants on her face. She signs that she would like a classic autumn scene with pumpkins and acorns with some spider webs and cute field mice. She emphasizes that she wants the field mice to be cute and cuddly, not creepy. I immediately get an idea, so I place some non-latex gloves over the work that she’s done on my hands and get started on hers. After applying a base coat all over her hands, neck and face, I start with acorns and cranberries on her hands. On the right side of her face, I paint a cornucopia over her right ear and jawline. I fill it with traditional fall items and show a pumpkin falling out and rolling across her cheek. Then I add two field mice chasing the pumpkin. One of the field mice loses his pilgrim hat on the tip of her nose as the other catches up with the pumpkin and takes a large bite of it on the left-hand side of her face. I show the path of the pumpkin through strewn hay on her face.
I think it’s cute. I hope it’s not too juvenile for her. I help her take off the cape and shower cap. She walks over to the mirror and starts to laugh out loud. She turns and signs to me, “I love it! It’s exactly what I wanted. It looks like the decorations my favorite teacher used to put up in our classroom.” Her expression turned serious for a moment as she signs, “Is it okay if I stay here for a while to see if anyone wants me to paint their face? It was so much fun I’d love to do some more. Do you think anyone will choose me?”
“Of course they will,” I state. I stand next to her so that she can see me in the mirror. I turn toward her so that she can read my signs. “Take a close look. Give your honest opinion. You won’t hurt my feelings, because I already know the answer. If you were looking at these paint jobs in a magazine, and you didn’t know who did which face, which would be your favorite? Honestly, who did the better detail work?”
Sadie looks in the mirror and really concentrates on our images. A look of amazement crosses her face. She turns to me and signs, “You weren’t kidding. My perspective is more detailed, my strokes are a little bit more even and my blending is slightly better. How can that be?”
“It’s probably a combination of things. Not everyone is born equally talented and I’m completely self-taught. I’ve never really had an art class. I had already graduated from high school before I did anything artistic like this. The whole focus of my childhood was exclusively dedicated to dance, so I didn’t explore anything else until after I left home,” I explain.
“How old were you?” asks a wide-eyed Sadie.
“Not old enough,” I reveal. “Both of my parents were dead, so I ran away and joined the circus. Trust me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be in books. That’s why I’m just now finishing my college degree at my age. Whatever you do, don’t choose my path in life. It’s a pretty good way to destroy yourself.”
“Wait!” Sadie interrupts. “I thought you and Aidan are really happy together?”
“Oh, we are,” I insist. “Aidan is my only constant happy.”
“People are talking about you guys around camp,” Sadie advises shyly. “They say Aidan fell in love with you when he was six, but you hated him. Is that true?”
“No,” I correct. “We were best friends and I just waited too long to tell him my feelings had changed. He got sick and moved away before I could tell him. I was about your age when it happened.”
“That’s tragic,” Sadie signs. “But you found each other again.”
“We did, and I’m grateful every day,” I confide.
“So your choices weren’t bad, just difficult and unusual,” Sadie signs.
“When did you get so smart?” I tease.
“I was just born that way, I guess,” she signs with a small smile and a shy shrug.
I’m pumped about how tonight is going to go. I now have eight band members for tonight’s dance. The large band and I have rehearsed three numbers and a surprise for Tara. A smaller group made up of just Zach, Darius, and I worked on a few more, after the others peeled off to go on a whitewater adventure.
I’m surprised to see Tara at dinner. She sent me a text earlier to tell me she would probably miss dinner because she had to do some face painting in preparation for tonight’s dance.
Mindful of our earlier conversation, I fight the urge to kiss her in front of a mess hall full of curious teenagers. Yet, there are only two words that come to mind when I see her—sex goddess. I move up beside her and murmur in her ear, “Good evening, gorgeous Gracie. Would you like some dinner? I made you a plate because I was planning to take it to you.”
She turns to me with a teasing smile. “What are you trying to do? Break the record for the most ‘best boyfriend points’ on the planet?”
I wink as I reply, “Nah, just taking care of my woman, since you have a tendency to put yourself last. How did you get done so early, anyway?”
“You know the mural that I showed you this morning? The one Sadie did? Sadie volunteered to paint my face and hands. When students saw what a great job she did with me, they wanted her to do their faces too, so we ended up splitting the workload pretty evenly tonight and got it done in half the time. Most of the more grisly looking zombies and other monsters are her work. She’s also a master of Hispanic art and anything to do with the Day of the Dead.”
I glance around the room and notice more than half of the students and faculty have paint jobs. “You must have allowed people outside your class to join in on the face painting fun,” I observe.
Tara chuckles, “No, would you believe I had 45 students in that class, plus four teachers and administrators?”
“That’s wild,” I exclaim. “I guess that explains why the other seminars were virtually empty. I heard they actually had to go recruiting to get enough people for the whitewater rafting trip. I’m told it’s usuallyso full, they have a waiting list a mile long.”
As Tara finishes her hamburger and potato chips, I invite her to help me decorate the main cabin for the dance. She shrugs. “Sure, that sounds like fun. I never really got to do that when I was in school. I always wanted to be one of the popular kids in pep squad, but it never happened. I’ll go put on the last touches of my costume while they’re tearing down the dinner setup.”
“If you had been a cheerleader, I would’ve done my darndest to be a star jock in any sport, even if it was underwater basketball,” I tease.
Tara smirks. “I believe the proper name for that is water polo, isn’t it? Did you play any sports?”
“No, I was too busy being an angry, disaffected teenager,” I reply sadly. “I was pretty good at basketball, when I played with Dolores’ boys, but I didn’t care enough about it to compete. I regret some of those decisions now. If I had more friends around me, I might have adjusted better.”
Tara sighs as she nods her head and signs, “Me too. I might not have gone so far off the deep end, if I had more sane voices around to help me.”
&nbs
p; I lace my fingers through hers as I muse, “I don’t know, we seem like a pretty good fit for each other, despite our pasts or maybe because of them.” I squeeze her hand. “I’ll see you at the dance tonight. I’ll be the one with gel in my hair, and I’ll have my dancing boots on.”
“What a coincidence,” she jokes. “I’ll also have copious amounts of hair gel. I may or may not wear silver lipstick, but I most definitely will be wearing my dancing shoes.”
If I thought Tara looked stunning before, she just took it up a notch or two. She has sparkly stuff on her eyelids and long, false eyelashes. She has taken her hair out of the braids, and it’s falling in waves down her back. She even has some sort of sparkly glitter spray mixed with the promised hair gel. Her lips are accented with bright silver lipstick. She’s wearing tights that look like wood grain. She looks like a forest nymph, in the best meaning of the word. It seems as if she can perform magic at the wave of a wand.
I walk over to Tara and kiss her hair, so I don’t mess up her face paint. I step back and gently grasp her forearms as I face her and say, “You are, by far, the most beautiful date I’ve ever had.”
Tara’s eyes light up with mirth. “Really, AJ? Ladybugs and silver lipstick turn you on?”
“Everything about you turns me on, if you’re covered in paint or not,” I answer sincerely. It still baffles me that she has no idea how beautiful she is.
Tara rakes her eyes over me and stops to study my admittedly over the top rock ’n roll star outfit. “You’re not looking so bad yourself, Aidan.” I blush, since I’m not used to this much flash. I let some of the teenagers help accessorize my outfit to make me hipper. Even my cochlear implant is decked out. The students were amazed to find that one of my ears was pierced. I did that a long time ago as an act of rebellion against my dad. He was focused on his family looking so perfect, even when we were crumbling from the inside out, that it was my way of making a statement at the time. I long ago stopped wearing earrings, so I’m surprised the hole was still open. Tonight, in a tribute to Tara’s outfit, I have a sterling silver leaf in my ear and a black leather band around my wrist, with a small dream catcher attached. I’m also wearing a black fedora adorned with a single jade arrowhead.
So the Heart Can Dance (A Hidden Beauty Novel Book 2) Page 33
