Too Good to Be True

by Laurie Friedman

  I didn’t think I was going to make it. I really didn’t. When Ms. Baumann stood up to announce who made the team, Brynn squeezed my hand.

  “There were so many good dancers, and I hope those of you who didn’t make it will try out again next year,” said Ms. Baumann. She looked around at all of us and then down at her list.

  “Emily Pope, Kate Walls, Vanessa Mendez, and April Sinclair. Congratulations, girls, and welcome to the Faraway High School dance team.”

  When she finished announcing who’d made it, all the older girls started cheering. I felt Brynn let go of my hand. The next thing I knew, Emily was grabbing and hugging Kate and Vanessa and me and saying how much fun we were going to have. All the older girls were hugging us too, like we were part of their club now. As happy as I was, I wanted to find Brynn. I knew she’d be upset. I tried to wriggle out of the hugging, but it took a while, and when I finally broke free, Brynn was gone.

  When I came home, I shouted the news so everyone would hear it. “I made it!” I screamed.

  “You made it?” said May.

  It sounded more like a question than a statement, but I didn’t care because then June repeated it and it sounded like a statement, and a really excited one. Everyone was happy for me. Mom hugged me, and Dad did a way-to-go dance. It was terrible but funny. “You must have gotten your dancing skills from your mother,” he joked.

  When I was done telling my family, I went to my room and texted Billy. He was really happy for me too. He sent me a text that said “Congratulations” in six different languages, and then he called me and actually said congratulations in six different languages. It made me laugh. I gave Rat a big, happy hug. When I hung up, I called Brynn, but she didn’t pick up.

  This is going to sound terrible, but I was kind of relieved Brynn didn’t answer. I’m not sure what I would have said if she had.

  Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

  —C. S. Lewis

  Tuesday, September 3, 9:32 P.M.

  In bed

  I can’t believe it’s 9:30 and I’m already in bed. I’m almost too tired to write, but I have a lot to write about. Today was the first day of dance team practice. After school, I walked a few blocks to the high school with Emily, Kate, and Vanessa. On the way, Kate said her older sister Devon heard some of the older girls were pissed that Ms. Baumann put eighth graders on the team.

  “Why would they be mad?” asked Vanessa like she was worried about the reception we might get.

  “They didn’t seem pissed the other day at tryouts,” I said.

  Emily smiled and shook her head. “If anything, they’re scared we’ll be better than they are.” She seemed so confident when she said it.

  By the time we got to the gym, all the older girls on the team were already there. Ms. Bau-mann told us to quickly get changed, and then she assigned each one of us a “big sister,” one of the high school girls who we’re supposed to go to if we need anything. My big sister is a girl named Mady, who’s in eleventh grade. Mady’s best friend, Bree, is Emily’s big sister. Mady and Bree said that since the dance team spends so much time together practicing, we’re practically like a dance family. They were really sweet to us. They even gave Emily and me stretchy headbands to wear while we’re dancing.

  After we were paired with our big sisters, Ms. Baumann talked to us about daily practices and our rehearsal schedule. “We have no time to waste,” she said. “Our first competition is at the end of September. Homecoming is in October, and the fall dance show is right before Thanksgiving.” She talked for a long time about performances and costumes and the importance of dedication and punctuality. “When you come to practice,” she said, “be ready to dance.”

  She wasn’t kidding. We danced for two hours. It was such a hard workout. We did tons of warm-up exercises and stretches and then worked on steps for a hip-hop dance we’re going to do in competition.

  We learned eight steps at a time and then put those all together before moving on, but Ms. Baumann moved really fast through the steps. It was hard to keep up and remember everything. Anytime anyone messed up, she noticed and told them to pay attention. Emily was standing next to Kate and Vanessa and me, and every time Ms. Baumann let us take a break, Emily would go back over the steps with us to help us remember them.

  “I’ve been dancing since I was four, so I’m used to this,” she said. I’m not sure if she was trying to make us feel better or worse, but I didn’t care. I was glad to have the extra help.

  When practice was over, Emily and I stopped at Smoothie King on the way home. She ordered a Gladiator. “It has the least amount of calories of any smoothie on the menu. As a dancer, you have to watch what you eat,” she said.

  “I hadn’t really thought about that,” I said and ordered a Gladiator too.

  “Stick with me,” said Emily in her confident way. “I’ll give you the crash course on how to be a dancer.”

  As we were walking home drinking our smoothies, Emily said she was really glad we both made the dance team. “I’ve wanted to be friends with you for a long time, but it always seemed like you were supertight with Brynn.”

  I took a long sip of my smoothie. I wasn’t sure how to respond. “I am, but I can be friends with other people too,” I said.

  Emily smiled. “Friends it is,” she said.

  Even though Emily lives around the corner from me and we’ve gone to school together our whole lives, we’ve never been close. It’s not like I never wanted to be friends with her, it’s just that Emily is pretty and popular and I never thought she wanted to be friends with me. Brynn has always said there’s something about Emily she doesn’t like. But I like her.

  When I got home, Mom wanted to hear all about dance. “Tell me everything!” she said like we were best friends at a sleepover.

  I didn’t really want to tell her everything. What I wanted to do was call Billy and tell him, so I just told Mom that Ms. Baumann is tough and that being on the dance team will be a lot of hard work.

  When I called Billy, I told him most things, but the truth is, there were some things I didn’t feel like telling him either. Like about my new stretchy headband or my “big sister” or that I get to perform at the high school homecoming game, because I knew he wouldn’t get why those things were important. The person I wanted to tell them to was Brynn. She’s the one I always talk to about stuff like that, but I didn’t feel like I could talk to her about anything related to dance.

  Things have been weird between us since tryouts. All weekend she said she was busy with her parents. Yesterday was Labor Day, so we didn’t have school, and today at lunch, she grabbed a yogurt and said she was going to the library to study. Brynn NEVER goes to the library during lunch to study. When I saw her in math, I said, “How did your studying go?”

  All she said was, “Huh? Oh yeah, fine.” It was like she wasn’t even sure what I was talking about, and then she barely spoke to me for the rest of the day.

  It feels weird to go to bed without talking to Brynn.

  9:47 P.M.

  I can’t go to bed without talking to Brynn. I’m going to call her, not to talk about dance, but just to call her like I always do. There’s nothing weird about that.

  9:50 P.M.

  I just called Brynn. She didn’t pick up. Or answer my text. I’m going to try to go to sleep. Hopefully, things will get less weird very soon. Like tomorrow.

  Wednesday, September 4, 5:57 P.M.

  Things with Brynn are not less weird. They’re more weird.

  Today at lunch, Brynn was in the library for the second day in a row, studying and eating yogurt (which is starting to make me wonder if she’s suddenly a believer in my Kim Kardashian theory and is hoping to wake up one day with bigger boobs). So I talked to Billy about it. I told him how she doesn’t answer my calls or texts and pointed out that she won’t even eat lunch with us.

  “Brynn is just upset about not m
aking the team,” Billy said. “Give her some time and she’ll come around.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I told Billy. “It almost seems like she’s upset about more than just not making the team, but I’m not sure what it is.” I waited to see if Billy would say what I’ve been thinking, that maybe Brynn likes him for more than just a friend. But Billy just shrugged like he wasn’t sure either.

  Thursday, September 5, 9:07 P.M.

  Brynn didn’t eat lunch with me today and neither did Billy. She did her library-and-yogurt thing, and Billy had a student government meeting. When I went into the cafeteria, I got my food and was trying to figure out where to sit when Emily saw me and waved me over to where she was sitting with Kate and Vanessa. “Sit with us,” she said.

  When I sat down, Emily looked at my tray. “Is that a chicken sandwich?” she asked.

  I looked at the other trays on the table. Kate, Vanessa, and Emily all had salads, dressing on the side. I picked up my sandwich and took a bite.

  Emily looked at the other salads and held up a forkful of her own. “To keep a dancer’s body, I stick to salads for lunch.”

  Kate and Vanessa looked at me like they were waiting to see what I’d do. Part of me wanted a dancer’s body, and part of me wanted to finish my sandwich. “You’re right,” I said to Emily. Then I got up and got a salad.

  Dressing on the side.

  Friday, September 6, 10:47 P.M.

  At the kitchen table

  Drinking hot chocolate

  Can’t sleep

  Three weird things happened today, and I can’t stop thinking about any of them.

  The first is that Brynn didn’t go to the library to study during lunch today. For the first time all week, she ate lunch with Billy and me. I thought it was a sign that maybe things were going back to normal. I tried to show her how happy I was about it.

  “Do you want my carrots?” I asked when we sat down at our table with our lunch trays. Brynn loves carrots. When she was little, my mom used to call her Bunny Brynn because she could eat so many.

  “I’ve got my own,” she said. She barely even looked at me, then started talking to Billy about an English test they had that afternoon and didn’t say another word to me.

  The second thing that happened is that the school newspaper came out today. I read it cover to cover, and there wasn’t anything in there about the girls who made the dance team. I had a feeling Brynn wouldn’t put it on the front page like she’d said she was going to, but I couldn’t believe she didn’t include it at all. How is it fair that journalists have the power to decide what news is fit to print? That’s what I was thinking about when the third weird thing happened today.

  Emily and I were walking into the high school gym to go to dance practice, and we saw Matt Parker. He was walking out of gym as we were walking in, and he looked surprised to see me. “California, what are you doing here?” he asked. He smiled his cute, white smile.

  Emily’s eyes got big. I knew I needed to stay calm. “I made the dance team.” I told Matt. “I’ve been coming over here after school every day for practice.”

  “Impressive!” He nodded his head for a few seconds. “I had last period PE and stayed to shoot some hoops.”

  I did the same nod he did, which kind of made it seem like I thought the fact that he stayed to shoot some hoops was impressive too.

  Matt laughed. “You’re funny, California. I’ll see you around,” he said. Then he did his head bob thing and left.

  “OMG! He’s totally into you!” Emily said as soon as he walked away.

  “He lives next door to me,” I said, like it was no big deal. But I could tell Emily thought it was.

  “He called you California!” she said, and I could tell I wasn’t the only one who thought my nickname was cute. While we were putting on our dance clothes, Emily kept going on about the fact that Matt was definitely flirting with me. Some of the older girls wanted to know who we were talking about, but I gave Emily a look to keep her mouth shut.

  “It was nothing,” I whispered.

  But Emily just laughed and said it didn’t seem like nothing to her.

  I’m not sure what it seemed like.

  Dance is the hidden language of the soul.

  —Martha Graham

  Wednesday, September 11, 7:52 P.M.

  In my bathtub

  I’m getting good at writing while I’m in the bathtub. I don’t have a choice. My body is so sore from dancing. I’ve been spending a lot of time here lately, soaking in Epsom salts. Ms. Baumann said they help alleviate muscle ache. I don’t even get what they are, but I don’t care as long as they work. Every muscle in my body aches.

  It’s crazy how hard Ms. Baumann makes us work. She’s a drill sergeant. Today she reminded us our first competition is in two and a half weeks. “I want the Faraway team ready!” she said. Then she made a long speech about putting our all into our dance. She made us do every step over and over again until everyone got it right.

  Still, I feel like I could look a lot better. It’s not that I’m not improving. I can tell I am, a little bit, and I think other people can tell too. Today, Mady told me she and Bree think I’m getting better, and one of the ninth graders, Chloe, was really encouraging. “Keep up the good work, April!” she said like she could tell how hard I’ve been trying to learn the steps.

  The problem is I still don’t look as good as I’d like to when I dance. Some girls (Emily) seem to have natural dance ability. Some girls (me) have to work hard to get better, but no matter how hard I work, I think I still look like the little girl who used to dance around our living room like a spaz, putting on shows for my parents.

  Today, after practice, I actually prayed, “Dear God, could you please make me look naturally graceful and coordinated when I move?” But for some reason, when I said it, I thought about Brynn and instead decided to ask for things to just be normal again between us.

  They’re still not. We talk if we’re both in the same place, like at a table in the cafeteria where it would be totally weird if we didn’t talk. But it’s only about stuff like school and homework, and I’m the one who does most of the talking. I can tell Brynn wants to say as little to me as possible, and she never says anything about dance. I keep waiting for Brynn to “come around” like Billy said she would, but I’m not so sure it’s going to happen.

  What I am sure about is that I have to get out of this bathtub soon or May and June are going to get in here with me. They just banged on the door and threatened to do it.

  Thursday, September 12, 10:32 P.M.

  In bed

  I just got off the phone with Billy. I was telling him how hard we’ve been working on our dances for the competition. I told him there’s a hip-hop dance and a jazz dance and the jazz dance is super hard because there are three leaps in it and I suck at doing them. But we hung up because Billy wasn’t getting it and I was practically falling asleep (from too much sucky leaping).

  Friday, September 13, 5:57 P.M.

  In a chair on my patio

  Today on the way home from dance I told Emily, “When I leap, my feet leave the ground, but I don’t go anywhere. I get no height.”

  Emily said, “Leaps are really hard.” Then she smiled at me like she had a great idea. “Why don’t you come to my house tomorrow? I’ll show you some tricks that will help.”

  “That sounds great!” I said. But then I thought about Brynn. I usually go to Brynn’s house on the weekends, or she comes to mine, and we hang out. But Brynn didn’t say she wanted to hang out this weekend.

  If fact, she didn’t say anything to me at all.

  Sunday, September 15, 12:30 P.M.

  At the kitchen table

  Last night May had her friend Amelia sleep over. I was sitting on the couch, totally tired but happy from my day with Emily. We worked on leaps for an hour, which was really hard, but then we hung out on her bed eating grapes and reading fashion magazines. She told me she thinks I look good in skinny jeans becaus
e I have a small butt. I was thinking about that on the couch when I heard May and Amelia scream and run down the hall.

  It was their first sleepover, and Dad had hidden under May’s bed, and when they got in bed, he started making really scary growling noises. It was so funny watching them run through the house screaming. It reminded me of the first time Brynn slept over. Dad did the same thing to us, and we ran screaming like idiots just like they did. It made me miss Brynn. I texted her that I had something really funny to tell her.

  But she didn’t text back.

  Wednesday, September 18, 10:17 P.M.

  Something kind of weird happened in dance today.

  During one of our breaks, I was sitting on the floor of the gym with Emily and Kate and a bunch of the ninth and tenth graders, who were talking about what boys they like.

  Darcy, a tenth grader was saying she’s into this guy Ben. “He has his license, which totally beats having to have your parents drive you around!” she said. All the older girls were agreeing and talking about how cool it is to go out with guys who drive. I was thinking how cool it was to be sitting there listening to that conversation, which made me start thinking that I feel much older when I’m around my dance friends than I do when I’m with Brynn or even Billy.

  Like today at lunch. Billy wanted me to demonstrate a leap for him. “I’m not going to do a leap in the cafeteria!” I said.

  Billy laughed. “You better get used to performing in front of people,” he said.