I’m not used to long pauses in conversations with my dad. We don’t have a ton in common, maybe, except that once we’re in a conversation we’re both fully in it. Sometimes Heather comes back from the Milkshake Club at two in the morning to me ranting about the sheet music not being available for a song I want in my audition book or my dad on an hour-deep wormhole about the historical accuracy of the movie Tolkien and she has to physically drag us to bed.
“But Millie … have you really thought about it?” my dad asks. “What it’s really going to mean, moving out in two months and starting all over?”
What he’s not appreciating here is that I’ve spent the better part of my young adolescence starting all over. I’ve hit reset on myself more often than a hairdryer. “What, you don’t think I can do it?” I ask.
“I know you can. I just think…” He lets the sentence hang there and I can feel us both wincing in the aftermath of it. “Anyway.”
It’s the Cooper Price version of “Let’s drop it,” and for now, at least, I’m happy to. I’m not ready to go to bat with him on this. Not over the phone, and certainly not before I have someone else in my corner.
“I also just wanted to … I mean, the way we left things…”
And here’s the conversation I dodged during our last phone call, sneaking up on me from behind.
“I know I haven’t always been—entirely forthright about … things with your mother.”
Even hearing him say the word mother feels foreign to me, like when you’re in a dream and someone starts speaking gibberish. You somehow understand what it means, even if you have no context for it in real life.
“And I wanted to be clear that I—I wasn’t doing it on purpose. It’s just … I thought it was easier, I guess.”
He’s not wrong. It was easier. The less any of us talked about it, the smaller it was, until we spent my whole life with it tucked into a closet or swept under a rug. Not just the truth of what my mom did—but why she must have done it. It can only be because whatever she wanted out of life, it didn’t include me.
“There are a lot of questions I really don’t have the answers to, but when I get back, I’m ready to tell you what I can. If you want to.”
“Uh … yeah. I mean—actually, I’ve gotta go, Dad, I’m hopping on the L train in a second.”
“Oh—good. Good. Well—have fun tonight.”
“I will.” Another lie, but really, who’s counting? “Love you.”
“Love you too. I’ll be home before you know it.”
After we hang up I spend the entire train ride so preoccupied by the churning of guilt and self-pity that I almost forget to get off at the right stop. I’m slammed unceremoniously back into reality when I walk through the door to the studio and find Farrah in an animated conversation with Beth, and Chloe hovering behind her in a pair of athletic shorts and a Fun Home T-shirt.
“Millie! Hi!” Chloe squeaks, her eyes so wide she looks like a pair of headlights is coming at her. She rushes up and then hesitates when she’s halfway to me, so I take charge and hold my arms out to hug her. She squeezes back with an earnestness that kind of reminds me of Teddy, then says, “I can’t believe you go to Cornelia!”
“Well—went to.” Maybe if I keep saying it I can manifest my dad letting me go to the precollege into existence.
“Yeah, but still!” says Chloe.
Farrah’s eyes sweep over to us, and I realize that I didn’t just fail to do her “homework assignment,” but that I actively forgot it existed. She smiles at us and I have to force myself to smile back, feeling suddenly like there are spotlights coming at me from all sides—the side that wants to impress Farrah, that wants Beth to like me, that is supposed to be listening to whatever Chloe is saying to me right now.
Right. Shit.
I blink and backtrack. She asked me if I’m much of a dancer.
“Because I’m not,” Chloe blurts. “I mean, I like to dance, but—”
“Then you’re a dancer,” says Farrah before I can answer. She puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. “And so is everyone here.”
She claps her hands again to get the class’s attention, and Beth waves and mouths the words thank you at me before ducking out into the stairwell. I position myself in the back row to keep out of people’s way, and Chloe follows me like a ponytailed duckling, watching me every bit as vigilantly as she’s watching Farrah.
We get through the warm-up without incident, but then Farrah starts to teach us the first combo for “Waterloo”—a mess of hand gestures and thrusts that both Chloe and I trip during—and says a combination of words I dread more than most in the English language: “All right, let’s switch rows so everyone gets a chance in front of the mirrors.”
Translation: Let’s put the kids hiding in the back front and center so everyone can get a 360-degree view of just how awkward they are.
I square my jaw and get ready for five minutes of humiliation, then notice I have lost one neon green scrunchie in my periphery. I turn back and see Chloe’s still frozen in the back row.
“What’s up?” I ask out of the corner of my mouth.
“Um. I’m just. Gonna stay back here.” She fiddles with the bottom seam of her shirt so aggressively that it looks like her shoulders are caving in on themselves.
“Uh…”
“Make haste, my sunbeams!” Farrah claps.
Crap. Now Farrah’s going to think I’m a delinquent on top of having the grace of a limp noodle.
“C’mon,” I say, tilting my head.
Chloe’s answer is so quiet I almost don’t hear it. “I’m not good enough for this.”
It’s like she ripped the words right out of my brain. When I turn back to Chloe I see the same embarrassment crawling under my skin written all over her face, like I’m staring at a reflection of myself from two years ago.
I swallow it down. “Yeah, well, neither am I. We’ll suck together.”
Chloe shakes her head. “I don’t believe that.”
“Yeah? Well, seeing is believing, and you gotta come up front if you want the view,” I say, hooking my arm through hers. I wait for her to take the first step, and when she does we scramble up to the front under Farrah’s watchful eye.
If this were a movie, Chloe’s faith in me would magically turn me into a Footloose-worthy dancer who doesn’t miss a beat. But because this is real life, what happens instead is that I miss the first combo so prolifically that I almost end up careening straight into the mirror in my attempt to catch up.
Chloe hasn’t moved and is watching me in said mirror like she’s watching a car crash that’s also about to slam into her. I meet her eyes and stick my tongue out. Chloe lets out an accidental snort.
“That’s the spirit!” says Farrah. “Now let’s break down the combo and go again.”
“See?” I tell Chloe. “You’re perfectly fine. And if you stick next to me, you’ll look even better.”
It’s not quite Farrah’s homework assignment for me, but maybe it’s better. The more I focus on helping Chloe keep her cool the easier it is to forget I’m supposed to be losing mine. Soon enough we’re released from the hell of the front row, but we stick close, goofing up half the moves and laughing at each other, catching each other’s eyes in the mirror every now and then like we’re in our own class separate from everyone else.