Practically Ever After

by Isabel Bandeira

  “I’m a little scared that you remember that.”

  “Be very scared. I remember he also wanted to name his manic pixie dream girl character Sunshine, to represent the world outside that a true writer dedicated to his craft never experiences.”

  This time, Leia’s laugh, punctuated with half-choked sounds she always refused to let me call a snort, came freely. “You’re right, I remember that,” she managed to squeak out. “And he wanted to name the main character after some biblical character thrown into hell and then rescued by an angel, right?”

  “Yes,” I broke into another round of laughter and, once I could breathe again, said, “I wonder if he actually wrote it.”

  “I doubt it. He carried that notebook around with him everywhere but I never saw him actually write in it.”

  “You know, someday, we’re going to see him on TV with his book being turned into a movie and we’re going to regret making fun of him,” I said with a wicked grin.

  Leia looked over her shoulder at me and echoed my grin. “Sure. And we can go to his book signings and ask him if he remembers us.”

  “We’re the girls who knocked you over that one time when you were trying to Photogram your hand whipped goat milk Champurrado… can you sign our book?” I channeled Em and pretended to hold out an imaginary book.

  She cringed. “Ouch, I remember that. Definitely not our best moment. Did Photogram exist back then, though?”

  “I’m… not sure.”

  A tiny, knowing smile played at the edges of her lips. “You’re dying to look it up, aren’t you?”

  “No,” I said, but she had been right—I’d been seconds away from pulling out my phone.

  “You know, you can look it up if you really want to. I won’t judge,” she said, folding her arms and watching me.

  “Yes, you will,” I shot back, my cheeks warming slightly under her teasing. I could search the creation of Photogram before class, where I wouldn’t be under the scrutiny of her amused eyes. To change the subject, I craned my neck to check out the front of the line. “Okay, so the macarons this time are pink with greenish filling. What do you think the flavor is?”

  “A good excuse for changing the subject?” Her lips quirked up higher on one side and I arched my eyebrow in return until she fake-sighed and said, “Maybe some sort of strawberry pistachio thing?”

  “I didn’t think of pistachio. Strawberry sounds too normal for macaron Monday. Rose?”

  She thought for a second and her lips pressed together cutely as she nodded. “That actually sounds amazing. Now, if it’s not pistachio rose, I’ll be disappointed.”

  As we got closer to the counter, the line clumped tighter together and I found myself painfully trying not to bump into Leia as the girl behind me kept invading my private space.

  Leia broke into a bounce, turning to me with a brilliant smile. “We were right.”

  “Aren’t we always?”

  She reached out as if to poke me on the nose, like she’d always do when she thought I was getting a little ridiculous, but pulled back before reaching my face, her expression dropping. “Um, yeah. We used to be.”

  I suppressed a cringe at that and added, flatly, “Right.” Before the awkward silence between us could stretch too long, we reached the front of the line and the frazzled employee behind the counter handed us each a macaron. I cradled mine carefully in my hands as I followed Leia back outside, where she automatically went to our old spot by the giant stone planters in front of the bakery and propped herself on one of the planters. She scrunched up her nose and scrutinized the macaron the same way she always used to, sniffing it before taking the tiniest bite. I used to joke with her about that, how she acted like they were explosive, and she would always remind me of the pop rock macaron incident from a few years ago and of how I was way too trusting of the bakery and their experiments.

  “Okay, this is amazing,” she said, after a second’s contemplation. She was smiling, her lips turned up wide enough that her long lashes nearly brushed her cheeks, her eyes sparkling.

  A little strand of red hair had fallen in front of her nose and I almost reached up to push it away, catching myself halfway through as I not-so-smoothly pretended that I was reaching up to scratch my neck, instead. Her eyes tracked my movement and, before I could make a comment about her eating habits, she furrowed her brow, popped the rest of the macaron in her mouth and hopped off the planter. “Have a good practice.”

  “Thanks, good talking to—” but before I could finish, she had pushed through the line of people still waiting for macarons and disappeared.

  I didn’t like the feeling that flowed through my chest at that moment.

  Chapter 38

  My ponytail stuck to my neck and I wound it into a bun as I walked over to the sound system to start the song again. I didn’t remember any of my dance teachers ever having to demo our recital pieces this many times, but my junior prep class just wasn’t getting it. No matter how many times I ran through the recital dance, they just weren’t hitting their marks in the same way they needed to if they were going to make their dance stand out from the fifty million other classes dancing to the exact same song in practically every recital on the planet. “One more time. I know all of you know this song, but it seems like you’re not feeling it. Trust me, if you let yourselves really get into the song, the timing will be easy.” I ignored the groans and the ‘buts’ and hit the back button on my phone. “Okay, just let go this time and try to feel for the beats. No counting.”

  I hit play and walked back to the front of the studio, leaning against the mirror to watch, a little voice in the back of my head warning me that I’d have to clean my sweat off the mirrors before Aunt Drina’s ballet class.

  A painfully popular song filled the room with upbeat male vocals and my class started to move. The no counting advice was a disaster as a few girls immediately came off beat, turning and jumping either earlier or later than the rest of the class. Sensing immediate danger as they all headed towards a group lift on the chorus, I clapped my hands as loudly as I could. “Stop, stop.” I turned off the music again and used that minute to squash my urge to pound my head against the wall. As soon as I could think straight again, I turned back to the class and said, “Okay, we’re going to try something different.”

  One of the girls in front wiped her sweat from her forehead as she said, “We’ve kind of been trying different things since you started teaching.”

  “Cute, Avery. Then, we’re going to try another something-different. I know you guys can do this, you’re all great dancers.” Well, most of you, I almost said, but pressed my lips together and gestured, instead, towards the back corner of the studio. “Line up. We’re going to ballet run, jété in the center of the room, then ballet run out. Really simple. Make sure to point your toes on the run and the jété. I want your arms to remain in motion, right arm front first, pinwheel to left arm front, always lifting up like so,” I moved my arms to demonstrate, pulling up my chest and chin, “and eyes looking just over your fingers.”

  “We know this,” another girl said, with a little eyeroll, “Ms. Drina makes us do it all the time.”

  “I know.” This was one of Aunt Drina’s favorite center exercises. Really basic, but the easier something seemed, the harder it was to actually get right. “Since you already know this, what I want you to do is focus on your arms and your expressions. Focus on the timing in the music for the jété—I don’t care if you jump in the exact center as long as you hit the peak of your jump at the perfect spot in the music. I want you to imagine someone in that corner—girl, boy—who you love or have a crush on, and I want you to look and move as if you’re running towards them. Got it?” Most of the class nodded tiredly and I walked back to the speakers to play their recital song again. Honest to goodness, I was going to set Aunt Drina up with a wireless system one of these days so she could avoid all the walking.

  Then again, Aunt Drina refused to give up her CDs and record play
er, so it might be a lost cause.

  One by one, the class went across the floor, trying and, except for about two of them, failing to look anything but mechanical. I was starting to feel like the entire class needed a lesson in emoting from Em. “Okay, good, but let’s try that again with more feeling. How many of you are dating someone?” The two girls who had managed to do the exercise right raised their hands and I resisted the urge to facepalm. Of course. “Got it. If you don’t have someone you’re crushing on, think of something you love, like ice cream or macarons or—” I tried to dredge up the latest tween sensation currently playing on the speakers—“the guys from this K-pop group.”

  “HIJ,” one of the girls muttered, and I nodded at her.

  “Fine, them,” I said, heading over to the corner, myself. “Anything you really want to run towards. And let it show in your whole body. You’re yearning to reach whoever or whatever it is. You’ve come off an airplane after weeks or years away and you see them and you can’t wait to reach them. Here, watch me.”

  As the music hit the chorus, I took a deep breath, rolled back my shoulders, and, right on the beat, started my ballet run. The last time I’d done this exercise as a student, I’d pictured Leia and my subconscious pushed the memory of her laugh to the front of my brain. Before I could stumble, the music rushed towards a peak and I pushed into a grand jété, letting the sensation of flying shove away all my feelings before I landed and used the momentum to finish my run to the corner.

  I turned to the class, smoothing my expression into an imitation of what Phoebe called a teacher smile. “See?”

  “Actually, you looked really sad.” One of the quieter girls said from the back of the room, her big brown eyes studying me warily.

  “Um. Well, I wanted you to see another option. I just want to see some emotion, okay?” Quiet girl looked at me skeptically, but nodded. At that moment, Aunt Drina waved from the open door and pointed at the clock. “Oops, we’re running over,” I said, gesturing at the class to move to the front of the room. “Okay, last time, start in the front corner and you can ballet run out the door. Before class on Wednesday, I want you all to listen to the song again and try to find something in it that you can connect to as you dance.” Once they were lined up again, I started the music and let them leap out the door. A few more of the girls had gotten better, but most still stumbled through the exercise stiff-armed, their brains still focused on just the steps. We were never going to be ready for the recital.

  “That was good advice, you know,” Aunt Drina said, stepping into the studio as soon as the last girl jumped out, and handed me her homemade mirror-cleaning spray and a paper towel.

  I started wiping the me-shaped sweat blot off the mirror and said, tossing a wry smile over my shoulder, “I learned that floor exercise from the best.”

  “Then you should take your own advice,” Aunt Drina said while changing into her tan teaching shoes.

  “What advice?” Natalie asked as she came into the studio still dressed in street clothes. She started stripping down to her leotard and tights without taking her attention off the two of us.

  “The same advice I’ve been giving all of you for the past twenty years,” my aunt said over her shoulder.

  “Oh, yeah.” Natalie turned her gaze towards me. “I agree with Drina and whatever it is.”

  I narrowed my eyes and scrunched my nose at both of them. “Whatever. Are you warmed up?” We were supposed to demo our recital piece for Aunt Drina and, thanks to my class running over, we only had fifteen minutes before the next class started.

  “Yeah, I just ran out to grab a macaron. I managed to get one of their last ones.” She pulled her leg into a perfect rifle to prove how loose she was, then dropped it down to an attitude. “Totally warm.”

  “Great, I can’t wait to see how far you both have gotten,” Aunt Drina said, walking over to the sound system and unplugging my phone. She pulled a CD from the top shelf and waved it at us, “I finally got everything cut today,” before popping it into the player and pushing the forward button until it got to our track.

  “Honest to God, we need to get you into the twenty-first century,” I said, taking my starting position on the floor.

  “When you own the dance school, you can do that. Until then, we do it my way.” She winked at both of us, then, pushed play. “Shut up and dance, Grace.”

  “Cute,” I muttered, then threw myself into the dance, trying my best to forget the café and the end of my last class and to focus on just getting everything right. Pointed feet, turn, push off the floor into the air, push into the floor with the weight of the music. Keep pace with Natalie. Four minutes later, the music stopped and we both dropped to the ground, breathing hard.

  “The choreography is beautiful,” Aunt Drina said.

  “Thanks,” Natalie puffed out between breaths. Even out of breath, I could hear the pride in her voice.

  Aunt Drina started the music again and nodded along, pausing at the first chorus. “Right here, on the barrel jumps? You either need to get closer or try being on an angle to each other instead of straight across. The way it is right now competes with my attention instead of complementing, you know?” We both nodded, then she hit play again, stopping midway through the second verse. “And here. Make it more staccato. I know what you were trying to do, but you need to hit each movement,” she demonstrated with her hands and feet. “Grace, you really nailed the precision there, but pull in your pelvis, it broke your line.” She listened through the end of the song. “And Natalie, you really need to commit to that aerial-roll combo. I know it’s a little scary…”

  “A lot scary,” she retorted, massaging her leg. “One bad landing and I’m done.”

  “…but if you’re going to choreograph something, you either commit to it or take it out. And I know you well enough to know you’re not taking it out.”

  Natalie muttered something about easy to say when you have two bendy ankles, but gave my aunt a good-natured grin. “Fair enough.”

  “Overall, I love it. You two really took this further than I expected and it’s really beautiful.” Aunt Drina said, and I tiredly reached out a hand to fist-bump Natalie. “But.”

  “Here it comes,” Natalie said, and got a lip-zipping gesture from my aunt in reply.

  “But, Grace.”

  I dropped my head to the ground. “Crap,” I muttered into the grey marley.

  “You’re way too perfect. I could tell you were holding back on everything. You don’t need to be that perfect. Perfect doesn’t keep people watching.” Aunt Drina knelt so she was closer to my back-flat-against-the-floor level. “I want to see some emotion from you.”

  “I tell her that after every practice,” Natalie said, rolling to standing and heading to the side of the room to grab her water bottle.

  “You were never like this when you were a student. I saw something on your face when you demo-ed for the last class. Is everything okay? Is there a reason why you won’t let yourself connect emotionally to the music?”

  I imitated Natalie’s roll, putting some distance between myself and both of them. “You asked me to help out with your classes. That’s what I signed up for. Not some psychotherapy session.”

  Aunt Drina followed me, not taking her concerned eyes off me. “What happened to the girl who loved to dance, who opened herself up and let herself feel the music?”

  I grabbed my phone, water bottle, and dance bag, and made my way to the exit. “She decided she wanted to have a good-paying job when she gets out of school, not tutus and debt.” On that last word, I stepped out of the studio, saying over my shoulder. “See you Wednesday.”

  Chapter 39

  “We were never that young, were we?” Cassie said out of the corner of her mouth as she stretched next to me, jutting her chin towards the group of eighth-graders gathered at the far end of the gym.

  I looked over them and snorted in agreement. The girls and boys looked so incredibly unjaded as they bounced around an
xiously, some of them trying to imitate us as we warmed up. “Never. I came onto this planet just like this.”

  “Your poor mom. That must have been one heck of a c-section,” Cassie shot back, then rotated her leg into an impossible-looking stretch. Even though I knew it caused a lot of problems for her, and that Cassie needed to be extra careful when she stretched—among other things, the illogical part of me envied her contortionist-level hyperflexibility. A low murmur rose up from the group watching us, things like, “woah,” and “they’re not expecting us to do that, right?” and I could hear Cassie suppress a giggle before twisting her leg behind her into a super-curved scorpion.

  “Cute, Cassie. You’re going to scare them away before they even try out.”

  “It’ll weed out the weak and all the ones who only want to do it to become popular.” She dropped out of her stretch and rotated her neck. “If I remember right, that’s why you joined cheer, isn’t it?”

  “Younger me was smart beyond her years.”

  “Yes, she was, except for not believing this is a real sport.” Cassie winked at me, “If I remember correctly.”

  I tried not to laugh. Younger me had been obnoxious, coming into tryouts and thinking that cheerleading would be a piece of cake after all my years of dance and acro. I learned I was wrong about two minutes into the routine they had taught us, and was lucky enough just to scrape by and get onto the JV squad. Cassie had been the first to give me a break and help me learn all the things she and most of the other girls had been doing since they were little.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Coach clapped her hands and we fell silent, dropping out of our stretches or giving our uniforms one last adjustment before stepping into hearing range. “Okay, everyone, welcome to the Pine Central cheer demo and workshop. We’re so excited to have some of you try out for our JV squad next year. I wanted to give you a chance to watch our Varsity squad, with some of our graduating seniors, go through one of their more complicated routines. After that, they’ll help me lead you in a warmup and we’re going to teach you a simple routine you will be expected to do in the tryouts in the fall. You’re already one step ahead of anyone not here today, and I expect you not to waste your chance and really practice over the summer. As you’re going to see, we expect only the best from our squads.” She gestured towards us, but then her hand continued up to point to the row of championship pennants lining the gym wall, years’ worth of first place cheer pennants sharing wall space with our football, field hockey, lacrosse, and field awards.