Dancing Lessons

by R. Cooper

  “Look who’s gutsy all of a sudden,” Davi taunted him but scowled without actually responding to the suggestion. He’d brought out whiskey, which Chico didn’t usually drink, and they spent hours on the floor like they were teenagers, talking about boys.

  And girls, when Davi finally opened up about his crush.

  Finally, Chico got to tease his cousin in return. Life was better than he’d thought it could be when he’d gotten up that morning. He had stuff to think about, but at that moment, life was good.

  FOR THE next few days, Davi left him alone. Chico couldn’t tell if this was Davi attempting to be tactful or if he was too busy constructing the set for the ballet while also doing his coding work. Or, possibly, if Davi was embarrassed about their drunken conversation and scared Chico was going to say something. Dumb Davi, as if Chico wouldn’t understand the fear of being hurt.

  Chico completed his work on the bodice, finished his curtains, and then took a deep breath and made himself walk to the studio to drop off the costume.

  Maybe because of the upcoming performance, the studio seemed less crowded than usual. No ballroom classes were listed on the board. No one was in the office or the smaller dance rooms. A tap class was in one of the back classrooms, which took him completely by surprise and sent him scurrying back out the door.

  When he gave in and went looking for Rafael in less usual places, it was Mrs. Winters he found. She was outside under a tree, cross-legged on a yoga mat with an iced tea in her hand. She wasn’t dressed for yoga.

  “You’ve returned. Are you looking for Rafael?” she inquired coolly, before Chico could back out of this situation as well. “He’s gone. There was an issue with one of the stage lights, and he had to drive somewhere to borrow a replacement.” She waved a hand as she said “somewhere” as if anywhere other than Brandywine was nonexistent.

  Chico had seen pictures of her performing in other countries and in major cities, but chose not to say anything about it.

  “I, uh, finished this.” When he held up the costume, safe in a garment bag he’d taken from his closet, her expression changed. She held out a hand. “It’s nothing.” Chico tried to wave it away like she would have. “Not a major alteration, only some details to make it prettier.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Show me.”

  Chico crossed slowly to her and then kneeled down when it felt rude to stand over her. Her hand never wavered, so he offered her the costume and meekly took her iced tea when she thrust it at him.

  She unzipped the bag and pushed it open enough to see the bodice. She didn’t touch it. She didn’t speak. Chico watched her face, glancing away when she looked up. “Why didn’t you correct me when I pronounced your name wrong? My son recently informed me I have been saying it incorrectly.”

  Of all things she could have said, Chico was least prepared for that. “I… you’re intimidating, and I wanted you to like me.”

  “Because you like Raf?” She pretended to return her attention to the costume, but Chico wasn’t fooled. “It’s your name. Always insist others pronounce your name correctly. Now, say it for me.”

  He cleared his throat and wiped the condensation from her glass onto the grass. “Chico,” he said clearly, and she smiled.

  “Chico,” she repeated, properly, “this is lovely. I thought perhaps it was too much, but then it reminded me of one of the other costumes. The king’s, I think it was. And your needlework…. I can only imagine what you could do if you had the time.”

  “Did Rafael tell you to say that?” Chico blew out a breath, hoping she’d think he was sweating and flushed from the sun and not nerves and embarrassment.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Do you think Rafael tells me what to do? He runs my studio, not me.”

  “Oh.” Chico widened his eyes. “Of course not.”

  “But he runs it well,” she continued calmly, a tiny, unruffled hawk. “He likes his life here. How about you?” She zipped up the garment bag and set it aside on the mat before reaching for her tea. She nodded as she took it. “You came up here to get away, as a lot of people do. But will you be staying?”

  “I don’t know!” Chico put his hands out because he honestly didn’t. “Are you asking what I want? Because I don’t know.”

  “Most people say they want to be happy.” Mrs. Winters spoke evenly, but her words startled Chico into leaning forward. He met her eyes and stared hard at her.

  “Do I want to be happy?” Chico put his hands on his knees and held on tight.

  “It’s something that takes some doing.” Mrs. Winters shook her head like the younger generation made no sense to her. “You cannot settle and be happy. It takes courage and hard work. Greatness always does.”

  Chico opened his mouth to remind her he didn’t come from a family of greatness. He stopped when he thought about ever saying that to his mom or his dad, or Camille, or even to Davi’s parents.

  He scooted closer. “Were you really okay with Rafael not being a professional dancer?” He heard himself and froze. “If you don’t mind me asking?”

  She froze too, as if he’d completely surprised her, and she wasn’t sure why he was asking. “Not at first. Peter—his father—thought he was throwing his career away, that it was all based on some fear. But now that we’ve retired and are spending more and more time here, I can see that he likes this life. He loves this place. He loves teaching. He is happy. That’s what we want for him.”

  “That’s all?” Chico wasn’t certain why he kept pressing the point either. Rafael had said he liked his life. Chico shouldn’t need confirmation from someone else. But maybe cheating boyfriends ruined the ability to judge reliable sources. “Not… more?”

  “Grandchildren?” Mrs. Winters returned, appearing both genuinely curious whether that’s what he meant and interested in the idea.

  Chico’s mouth dropped open, which made her lips twist.

  “Rafael has the life he wants.” Mrs. Winters handed Chico her tea, as if she thought he needed something restorative. “If he had a complaint, it was that it can get lonely. If you are asking me, and I believe you are, I’d say he wants to see if you might like to be a part of that life. He hasn’t been subtle.” The words were knowing, and Chico was hot all over again to think of what they’d done in the costuming room. “None of my children are shy, Rafael least of all, but in your case, he has surpassed himself in public displays. It’s as if he’s forgotten patience.”

  “He’s been very patient with me.” Chico defended him with the surreal feeling he was in some dream where he talked this openly about his love life with anyone’s mother, much less Rafael’s. “I’m not very brave.”

  “You’ve been patient with him.” Mrs. Winters tossed her head. “I love my son, but he can be persistent when he is excited, something he obviously gets from his father.”

  Chico forgot to blink. “He hasn’t… that is… he thinks we could be…. You’re the one who…. I mean, Rafael is the one waiting for me to decide if I’d like… to go forward.” He didn’t know if it was because of ballet or what, that Mrs. Winters was so okay with talking about her gay son’s romantic life. But her eyebrows went up at his last words, as if he’d truly surprised her. “I… don’t want to mess it up,” Chico finished. “I’ve done that before. Made the wrong choice to be safe. Been stupid, helpless Chico.”

  Mrs. Winters lowered her eyebrows and studied him. Then she leaned forward and tipped the bottom of the glass with one finger until Chico drank some.

  “Stupid, helpless Chico?” she echoed him, while Chico stared in amazement at the glass he’d emptied. He looked up into her sharp eyes. For once, her smile was exactly like her son’s. “That’s not how you told me your name was pronounced.”

  THE WORDS haunted him, as they had, no doubt, been meant to. He understood now why Mrs. Winters didn’t teach the introductory classes, although he could admit to some curiosity about what Mr. Winters was like in the classroom.

  Chico had taken to sitting next to h
im for a lot of the practice sessions he’d watched. He seemed quiet and thoughtful and looked a bit like an older version of Rafael might look. After rehearsals, he would share whatever he wrote in his notebook with Rafael, and Rafael always took it seriously.

  Maybe that was why, when Chico walked into the dress rehearsal, he expected to find Mr. Winters in the back, as usual. The rehearsal wasn’t even in the dance studio, yet for some reason, Chico had thought it would be as informal as every other rehearsal he’d witnessed.

  He was late. He’d gone to work, come home, dithered and waffled about whether or not he ought to go, and then finally made himself do it. Davi was there. Chico ought to be too. Although Davi had to go, since it was also considered a rehearsal for the technical things, and also Davi was nosy and liked to be involved.

  The dress rehearsal was a big deal. Chico didn’t know why this was news to him, but it was. He was on the way to the studio before he remembered the rehearsals had been at the school for the past week.

  He’d had to dash back to get his car and then find the school, which was on the edge of town, and both smaller and larger than he’d been expecting. The school was for kids in Brandywine, the neighboring even smaller town of Rio Claro, and all the kids who lived out in the unincorporated areas.

  Being a school, it also had a security guard, even after hours, and Chico was forced to drag his sewing kit out of his hatchback to prove he was there with the ballet people and not whatever sort of weirdo the guard thought he was. By the time he finally found the auditorium after that, the rehearsal had begun.

  Chico froze in the doorway. The few people watching, Jase maybe, Davi, a parent or two, Mr. Winters, and probably Rafael, were all vague shapes in the first row. The lights were dimmed, the music was playing, and students Chico no longer recognized were on stage.

  He’d only missed the very beginning. After he got over his surprise at how professional the ballet suddenly seemed, he slipped into the room and plopped into the nearest seat without taking his eyes from the dancer as she emerged at court to entertain the king.

  Chico glanced toward the king, a still, crowned figure watching her dance, but the dancer had his attention, as she was supposed to. He’d never seen Faith dance this part, the dancer alive and free and happy, with no idea what lay in store for her.

  But he could see it now. He wondered if the lights around her had darkened to put the rest of the stage in shadow or if it was his imagination. He knew it was on purpose when lights remained on the king as well, as he approached her.

  Chico sank down in his chair as if that would help him not see what was going to happen. Knowing the story was terrible, watching their movements as the king followed and followed her was terrible. Eventually she was going to have no choice but to take his hand, and Chico hated it. He hated everything—how delicate Faith seemed all of the sudden, how alone the dancer was, even with the entire court around her.

  He wiped at his face and shifted farther down into his seat, curling into a ball with only his borrowed girl’s sweatshirt to protect him. After a few more minutes, he pulled the sleeves over his hands and covered his mouth to contain the noise he was making.

  Someone appeared in the seat next to him, descending from nowhere to reach out and tug one hand from Chico’s face.

  Rafael slid their fingers together without seeming to take his attention from the stage. He put a notebook and a pencil in his lap, the same one his father used, although he couldn’t possibly write in it while holding Chico’s hand.

  But his palm was warm and dry, and his grip was sure.

  Chico wanted to call himself silly or fragile or broken for crying like a fool at an amateur ballet performance. “She’s so alone,” he whispered. The king would like her that way. Chico had known that before. He didn’t know why it was breaking his heart now.

  He buried another sound in his sleeve and then went still when Rafael pressed a brief kiss to his temple. “Don’t hide it.” Rafael’s lips brushed him as he spoke. He tightened his hold on Chico’s hand. “You’re supposed to feel it,” Rafael assured him softly. “It’s ballet.”

  Chico looked at him, trying to make out his features in the dim light to determine if Rafael was teasing him again, if he truly wasn’t embarrassed.

  “I’m not always like this,” Chico tried to say, but his voice cracked. It was a lie anyway. He’d always been too emotional, too free to show what he was feeling. But never like this, with tears that wouldn’t stop coming whenever he thought about the dancer heading to her doom.

  He got another brush of lips at the corner of his eye. “It’s the greatest compliment you could give them.” Rafael nodded toward the stage, toward the kids dancing their hearts out. He waited until Chico looked back at them too, then turned in his seat to keep an eye on his students.

  He stroked his thumb across Chico’s knuckles for another moment, then made a noise under his breath and muttered something critical about Travis’s timing. If he noticed Chico’s bewildered stare, he gave no sign. He acted as though Chico wasn’t studying him in the dark through the worst of the king’s “wooing” of the dancer, and he said not a word when Chico tugged their clasped hands to his chest and held them there in tense excitement when the inventor was introduced.

  Eventually some things required Rafael’s attention. He took his hand from Chico’s to write a note, or he would yell for everyone to wait, and the music would stop and the dancers would become anxious teenagers again. After the intermission, Rafael hopped on the stage to talk to everyone. Seeing the magic as it was created should have broken the spell. But Chico stayed in his seat in the back row while the lights went on and then off again, curling his hands in the sleeves of his burgundy sweatshirt.

  He would have looked away completely if he could have. The inventor, a quiet boy who almost never spoke in rehearsals, whose costume Chico had sadly overlooked, had an equally quiet way of dancing, at least at first. He didn’t have power like Travis, but there was something in the way he moved, like hope in human form or calm strength. Mr. Winters might have choreographed a lot of his dancing, but Chico didn’t think Rafael’s dad had been the one who coached him to dance that way.

  Someday Chico wanted to see footage of a young Rafael dancing and find out if he’d been like that. Chico thought he would have. Perhaps that was even where Rafael had first heard of this ballet, by performing in it. If he had and there wasn’t footage, Chico would cry all over again.

  The pas de deux was exactly as Rafael described it. It was more than flirting, so much more. The dancer revealed herself timidly and then with growing confidence when the inventor caught her, or once, lifted her in a move that made Chico gasp. The inventor admired her so ardently that Chico ached for the moment she finally extended her hand to him.

  When it happened, he bundled himself into his seat and watched the rest of the ballet with his arms wrapped around his knees. Their dance stayed with Chico long after it became time for the inventor to present the clockwork dancer, although he did smile when Amy came on stage as this tragically empty thing, effervescent one moment and lifeless the next. She’d chosen to mimic Faith almost exactly, but moved without the love and joy the dancer had just displayed. She was perfect, almost creepy, in her depiction of the object of the king’s desire, although Chico would have to find a better way to describe it before he congratulated her.

  The rest of the ballet went well, only a few missteps that Chico, honestly, barely noticed, although the dancers acted as though they were major. Faith startled him by breaking down a bit, but Travis folded her in his arms, and Rafael rolled his eyes so hard Chico could see it from the back, and then everyone was dancing again, and Chico was free to brood.

  Chico was distracted and could admit it.

  The dance, that long dance, between the inventor and the dancer was what made him hide his face and what kept him curled up in his chair until the final desperate act.

  When it was over, or at least when the lights came
on, because the dance wasn’t over in his head, the others started milling around, fixing things or looking proud. Dancers practically threw themselves at Rafael for his approval, and he rewarded all of them with smiles or hugs or a comment Chico was too far away to hear, but which made them bounce on their probably tired, sore feet.

  Davi came up to him after a while. He took one look at Chico’s red-rimmed eyes, or possibly at his sweatshirt, and drew his eyebrows together in concern or confusion. But he said nothing. He sat down and held Chico’s hand too. For about ten minutes, they sat in silence, and then Jase appeared and called Davi over with this light in his expression he didn’t seem aware of, and Davi stood up and went back to whatever last-minute technical things required his attention.

  Tomorrow the kids had school, but no rehearsal. They were supposed to relax, have fun, and try to think of something else, if they could. Chico heard Rafael announce that and nearly laughed to himself because those kids were not going to relax, and everyone knew it.

  But that was their dismissal, and slowly they all left the room and the building, until only the technical people were left. Rafael went backstage and stayed out of sight long enough for Chico’s damp, stinging face to dry completely.

  He reappeared just as the lights dimmed again, then turned off. He stopped for a moment at the front of the stage, maybe letting his eyes adjust or taking in the sight Chico made. He might have been wondering why Chico was still there. But he walked down the steps and up the aisle until he was in front of Chico, and then he held out his hand.

  Chico took it.

  “DESPITE WHAT I said about how ballet is supposed to affect you, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Rafael said, after he’d tucked Chico’s sewing kit onto the floor of the passenger seat of his car, down by Chico’s feet, and gone around to get in the driver’s side.