Before I Say Goodbye

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  The music began, and a woman hardly bigger than my mother walked into the room from an inner door, clapping her hands twice sharply. “Okay, class, everyone on the floor. Let’s begin our warm-up.” She had brown hair and dark eyes and wore no makeup. Her face and body looked strong and beautiful. Most of the warm-up exercises I already knew, though these girls took them far more seriously than I’d ever seen students do before. Minutes later they were dancing, and as they launched immediately into complicated, difficult moves, I understood why they’d warmed up so diligently. I should have brought a pencil and paper. How was I ever going to be able to memorize it all? I’d have to come back. It was beautiful.

  I recognized the different forms of dance they used, though I couldn’t say what they all were. I felt carried away to another time and place. One particular move had me backing away from the window so I could try it out myself. Mostly I sat on the edge of my seat and watched—until that wasn’t enough and I had to stand next to the window. More than anything, I wanted to be in that class. Usually I was the best in any school class and confident in the other classes I’d taken that I’d soon be the best or close enough. Not so here. Could I even fit in? Maybe if I practiced the moves at home they’d let me into the class once I found the money.

  What I needed was a job. But who would hire a thirteen-year-old? I could babysit, if anyone would trust me and if I wasn’t already babysitting James every day.

  I hate my life.

  No, I couldn’t hate living in a world that contained the beauty inside this studio. A simple studio in someone’s basement. Gold.

  Want rose up within me, far stronger than when I’d gone clothes shopping with my mother. I wanted this more than I wanted anything.

  I hadn’t worn the clothes yet. In fact, I felt sick to my stomach every time I thought about wearing them, but I couldn’t explain to myself why. I’d stolen before and never had a problem. Was there a way to return the clothes without a receipt and get money to help pay for the dance class? Probably not. I was pretty sure you had to be an adult and give them ID.

  The class was two hours long, and after the girls left, another set of girls arrived. Several had mothers with them who sat on the chairs to watch. I stayed for that class, too. Not as good as the first, but some of the moves were the same, and the teacher led them through more repetitions, which helped me memorize different steps. My body itched to copy the moves, but with the mothers there, I couldn’t do anything. When the girls filed out an hour and a half later, no new girls arrived, which was just as well since my stomach felt tight with hunger. I started for the door.

  “Wait.”

  I turned to see the instructor emerging from the door to the studio. Up close her thick eyebrows seemed to dominate her narrow face. “I’m Miss Emily. I see you’ve been observing today. Did you come to watch someone you know?”

  I shook my head. “My teacher at school told me about this place. I came to see what you were teaching.” Please take me into your class, my heart begged.

  She smiled. “Ah, that would be Mrs. McKain.”

  “Yeah.” I toed the floor and didn’t meet her gaze.

  “She sends me all the girls she thinks have talent.”

  I looked up. “She does?”

  She nodded. “She can’t do a lot on an individual basis. Not like here. I hold three group lessons and one private lesson for my students each week. Usually after the first year or two of high school they are accepted to a dance school in New York, or I send them to another teacher I know in Provo who helps them prepare a little more. My classes are only for very serious students. I require two hours of practice minimum per day and preferably more. Some of the girls aren’t up to that, so they have to find other studios.”

  To me it sounded like heaven. But four classes a week at that level wouldn’t be within my reach ever. Not even if Mom worked overtime, which, given her headaches, I didn’t think was a good idea.

  “Could I . . . could I just watch?” It hurt to say the words since I wanted so much to be in her class, to come every day, to practice as if I belonged.

  Her head leaned to the side as her brown eyes considered me. “You’re welcome to watch as long as you don’t distract the girls. You are also welcome to try out a free class. You could bring your mother, if you’d like, so she can see what we do.”

  “A free class?” I tried not to sound as eager as I felt. “When?”

  She smiled. “I usually like new students to come to the younger class when we meet on Thursday at four, but you can come and observe the other classes before then, if you want. Group lessons are on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon or evening, depending on the age group, and on Saturday mornings. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I keep open for private lessons. I should tell you, however, that I let the girls choose whether or not they want their private lessons observed, and I pull the curtains inside the studio if they want privacy.”

  “Do many do that?” It would be a long bicycle ride for nothing.

  “About half.”

  “Okay, I’ll come on Thursday for sure.” I’d come the other days too, even if I had to bring James. I’d bring him books and a snack.

  She walked over to the wall near the exit where a small table held a sheaf of papers. “This paper shows our entire schedule and the dates for our performances. And this sheet has our tuition information. Take it home and show your parents.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” A glance at the tuition sheet showed me I’d underestimated the cost of the classes by more than two-thirds. There was no way Mom could pay that much. I’d have to find somewhere else to take lessons.

  I didn’t want someplace else.

  “Thanks,” I told her, carefully folding the papers and putting them in the pocket of my jeans with my Internet map.

  She smiled, and her strong face looked a bit softer. “Thank you for coming. I hope we have what you’re looking for here.”

  She did, but it was far beyond my reach. Unless I could figure something out. I rode back to Allia’s much more slowly than I’d come. The sun beat down on me until I felt smothered in sweat.

  At Allia’s, the cars were parked in the driveway instead of inside the garage, and her brother Travis was carrying a plastic tote box of balls toward where two other similar totes sat on the front lawn.

  “Hi,” I said, feeling suddenly brighter.

  He nodded. “Hi.”

  I wondered why he looked so miserable. “Will you tell Allia I brought her bike back?”

  “Just leave it there. I have to take all the bikes out anyway to sweep.”

  “Chores, huh?” I said. He was so cute.

  He shrugged, and even that was hot.

  “Want some help?”

  He set down the box and gave me an actual smile. “You’re volunteering? Allia hates doing anything out here.”

  That’s because she’s your sister and doesn’t care how hot you are. “I don’t mind.” My stomach took that moment to growl—loudly. Yeah, I guess bicycling a million miles on a single piece of bread wasn’t exactly a great idea.

  His brow rose. “Hungry?”

  “A little. I’ve been for a long ride.”

  “You’d better go eat. I’m almost done getting stuff out. Besides, I have a pretty good idea that my dad wants me to do this on my own.”

  I felt disappointed even though I was ready to drop. Then again, how romantic could cleaning the garage be? If he liked me, he wouldn’t want me to help. Besides, I’d been gone all morning, and there was the rare chance that someone at home might have woken up and missed me. Even so, I was reluctant to leave. It wasn’t every day you had the opportunity to hang out with a guy like Travis.

  “Weird our parents knowing each other,” I said. “My mom says they used to hang out together when they were our age.”

  �
�Yeah, it’s weird. Your mom seems kind of nice, though.”

  I heard the admiration in his voice. Teenage boys always dug my mom for some reason, whether for her confidence or the way she talked—I didn’t know. Certainly couldn’t be for her looks, especially if the people who said I looked like her were right. I didn’t have a million boys lurking around wanting to pledge undying love. Or even asking me out. If most kids here really didn’t date until sixteen, things would probably be even worse for me.

  “Your dad seems kind of nice, too,” I said. “And your mom. She’s an amazing cook, and her house is so . . . clean.”

  “I’d trade you,” he said with a short laugh. I couldn’t tell if he was serious, but his expression did seem to indicate that everything in his life had gone wrong.

  I leaned against the back of his mother’s van. “You wouldn’t if you knew my mom. Her dad was abusive, you know, and she’s sort of the opposite. No rules or discipline—for me or James. Or for herself. I never know if she’s coming home at night. Or at least I didn’t used to. It’s been better lately.” For the past months she’d been acting weird, but it wasn’t all bad. In the bugging category, she’d been a little more like I imagined other mothers were. I didn’t exactly hate it.

  He glanced into the garage but didn’t return to work. “So do you have any rules?”

  “Nothing really, as long as I go to school. She used to not care if I cut boring classes, but she does now. What I really hate is when she forgets to go grocery shopping.”

  Surprise and something I suspected was pity flashed across his face. I’d said too much. “Doesn’t really matter. I just go myself.”

  He studied me a moment before saying, “Sounds tough.”

  Great. Things had gone from bad to worse. I didn’t want to be a charity case.

  “After I’m not grounded anymore,” he said, “I could go to the store for you, if you ever need it.” That made me feel more lousy until he added, “I’d drive you, but I can’t drive anyone for six months.”

  “Rules, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So why are you grounded?”

  His smile dazzled me. “I was driving my friends.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “I’m still waiting to see what they’re going to do to me.” We stared at each other for a few more minutes in awkwardness—but a nice kind of awkwardness, if there was such a thing. He thumbed toward the house. “You want me to get Allia for you?”

  “Naw. Just tell her thanks for letting me use the bike. I’d better get home. Good luck with the garage.”

  “Thanks.”

  I felt his eyes following me. I hoped that was a good sign.

  The walk home seemed longer than the bicycle ride to the dance studio. Couldn’t I have said anything more interesting to Travis? He must think I was the most pitiful, boring creature in the world. Yet he’d offered to go to the store for me. That said something, didn’t it?

  James was watching TV when I walked in the door, lounging on the one piece of furniture we had in the living room—an old chair someone had given Mom a few years back. The rest of the living room furniture hadn’t been worth renting a bigger trailer to bring. Personally, I thought our tiny kitchen table was in worse shape, but I guess it took less space because you could pack boxes under it. Or maybe a table was simply something Mom didn’t want to do without.

  “Hey,” I said to James. An empty cereal bowl lay on the carpet next to the chair, so I knew he’d eaten.

  “Hi.” His eyes didn’t move from the cooking show, which meant all the cartoons must be off the air. For some reason the kid loved cooking shows.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “Sleeping.”

  I snorted in disgust. She could have been up cleaning or helping James with reading. What was up with her? Rage building inside me, I stomped down the hall to her bedroom.

  When I saw her huddled under her sheet, curled as she had been on the kitchen floor last night, the anger seeped through the cracks in my soul and disappeared. “Mom?” I said.

  Her head moved toward me, and her eyes opened. “Hi, Kyle. Are you okay?”

  I knew she was talking about my coming into her bed last night and the other nights as well. I didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m fine.” It came out more roughly than I intended. Suddenly, I wanted to either curl up in bed with her and find comfort or shove the dance papers under her nose and scream at her for not being able to help me.

  Instead, I turned and stalked from the room. I hate you! I thought. I really, really hate you.

  Not true at all. I simply wanted to feel normal, and I wanted to stop feeling like she was hiding something. I wanted not to worry about money or about James. I wanted to know for sure that she wasn’t going to leave again.

  The six weeks she’d been gone earlier this year had been a kind of torture to me, though my friend’s mother had been nice enough, and Mom had come back from her job once a week to visit. It still felt wrong, and I’d worried every minute that she might never come back. I don’t know why. Before that, she hadn’t left us for years.

  She always comes back, I reminded myself. Besides, if she decided to leave, there was nothing I could do about it. It was ridiculous to worry.

  Better to dream about joining that dance class. Somehow I had to find a way. If I couldn’t dance, there was no point at all in living.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Travis

  Maybe that girl Kyle wasn’t as weird as I’d thought. Today she’d been wearing normal jeans and a normal shirt that didn’t make me feel uncomfortable when I looked at her. I hated when girls wore clothes they appeared ready to burst out of. I mean, I was every bit as eager as the next guy to talk to cute girls—any girl, really—and I certainly appreciated a good figure, but it was embarrassing when girls looked cheap, like the ones who made out with guys in the lunchroom or behind the school.

  Probably my Mormon upbringing, but I knew what I felt when I saw girls dressed like that, and it wasn’t respect or friendship. Better to look the other way or to make some snide comment about their heavy makeup. Raccoon eyes. Kyle would look much better if she ditched that junk.

  Not that I was interested in her. She was way too young, like a little sister.

  That stuff about her mom made me feel terrible. Here I was angry at having to clean out the garage as part of my punishment, though I usually had to do it once a month anyway, and she was worrying about her mother coming home at night or having food in the house.

  Her mother. Now that was one good-looking woman. Her eyes could see right into your soul. You knew she really thought about what she was saying when she talked to you. It was hard to reconcile the mother Kyle told me about with the woman who’d sent me home last night and trusted I would go.

  When I’d come home last night, Dad and Mom had been waiting. Mom hadn’t spoken a word, but the disappointed look on her face had left no doubt that I’d let her down. Dad had extended his hand for the car keys and asked me to go to my room. “I’m taking your mother on a date, and we’ll talk about this tomorrow—after you clean out the garage and do your other chores.”

  What a relief, because the veins had been standing out on his neck, and I knew he wanted nothing more than to lay into me.

  Hey, they should be grateful I’d come home, right? Late, but I had come. Because of Kyle’s mom, but they didn’t need to know that.

  Now I wasn’t sure if waiting had been a good thing. I kept going over everything in my head, from the law being stupid and their not trusting me to plans of groveling in abject humility so they’d forgive me. It was awful, going back and forth, being furious one minute and feeling like dirt the next. In the end, I had no one to blame but myself.

  Couldn’t they see that waiting six months to dri
ve other kids was too long?

  It was the law.

  I couldn’t get around that. Dad would say something like, “Do we go forty in a twenty-five mile an hour zone because we think it’s stupid? Do we take something from the store because the price is too high?” No. Obviously.

  Still, he didn’t remember what it was like to be a kid.

  Rikki Crockett had told me to ask him about the fathers and sons’ campout. I hadn’t even known he’d gone on a fathers and sons’ campout. His dad hadn’t been active, but the ward members back then had probably invited him. Something must have happened. Anyway, I didn’t know what it had to do with disobeying my parents.

  They were never going to give me the car keys again.

  I should have taken Kyle up on her offer to help with the garage. Come to think about it, she looked kind of like her mom, pretty underneath the makeup. She was nice, too.

  The door to the house shut, and my eyes jerked toward it. Dad? No, it was Allia.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.” I went for Cory’s bike, not looking at her. “Kyle returned your bike. It’s out there.”

  Allia grabbed the handlebars to Lauren’s bike and pushed it out of the garage. “So, are you okay? Did Dad yell at you? I was downstairs when you came home.”

  “Not yet.”

  She parked the bike and looked at me. “It was me. I told them.”

  “What?” I let Cory’s bike fall to the cement and glared at her. I’d wondered how they’d found out so fast. I knew someone had to have ratted on me.

  “I’m really sorry, but I was afraid you’d get pulled over by a cop. Or that you’d get in an accident because of all your friends making distractions.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “I’d rather you be grounded and mad at me than dead.”

  My sister couldn’t help who she was—a Molly Mormon, though a good-looking one, according to my friends, who were never above flirting with her. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.