“No, the enemy is lack of sleep.” Particularly his. “Come on soldiers.”
They sped up their teeth brushing before spitting in the sink and rinsing it.
“Go. Go. Go.” Jack waved them from the bathroom like he was ushering them through a boot camp obstacle course. Instead of running through tires next, they had to get into their pajamas as fast as they could.
“In bed, in bed!”
They jumped into their respective beds across the room from each other and burrowed under their blankets.
Jack surveyed the room. “Well done, soldiers. Now, for your reward.”
“A story!” Alexia yelled.
Wyatt’s eyes lit with excitement.
As much as Jack envied his friends who could do whatever they wanted, hang out in the evenings or play video games, he wouldn’t have given this up for anything. He flipped off the light before taking an extra pillow from Alexis’ bed and lowering himself to the center of the room between the two beds. He leaned back and closed his eyes as he tried to think of a story.
Each night he put them to sleep, they demanded a new and fresh story straight from his imagination. And he gave it to them, because he couldn’t deny them anything.
“There was once a knight named Alexis of the kingdom of Butler. And she was sworn to the princess, Wyatt.”
“Hey!” Wyatt leaned over the edge of his bed. “Boys can’t be princesses.”
Jack held in a laugh. “Wy, you can be whatever you choose.”
“Okay, then, I don’t want to be a princess. I’m a queen.”
“Sure thing, kiddo. So, Alexis the knight worked for Queen Wyatt.” He lost himself in a story of dragons and knights until Alexis crawled from her bed to snuggle against him on the ground. It didn’t take long for Wyatt to make his way down, and Jack let his voice lull them into the safety of sleep.
Once the story was over and their breath evened out, he lay there a while longer, letting the kids wash away the stress of the day. School wasn’t easy for him. He struggled just to maintain a B average, in part, because he rarely had time to study.
He definitely hadn’t needed some girl telling him he couldn’t possibly know dance because he was just a janitor. He knew his place in this town. As the son of people who were barely making it, he’d grow up to barely make it himself. There was no way out of that cycle for someone like him.
But he wasn’t always looking for a way out. Sure, their family didn’t have much. Many meals consisted of hot dogs and beans or mac and cheese. Yet, none of them had ever minded because they had each other. His parents did their best, and his siblings gave him something to fight for.
He wanted things to be better for them.
He didn’t know how long he rested under their weight before shifting them off him and getting to his feet. He scooped Wyatt up, and the kid didn’t make a sound as Jack put him in his bed and covered him with blankets.
Alexis wasn’t such a deep sleeper. The moment Jack lifted her into his arms, her eyes fluttered open. She reached a tiny hand up to touch his face. “I love you, Jacky.”
And with those words, the rest of the world couldn’t hurt him, no matter how many prima donna dancers threw insults at him.
He smiled and put her in her bed. “Love you too, Lexi-girl.” He kissed her forehead, and her eyes closed.
Jack left their door open a crack and walked into his own room. After changing into plaid pajama pants, he headed into the kitchen to look for a late dinner. Dishes cluttered the counters, leftover from a hastily abandoned dinner of mac and cheese his mom prepared. She must have gotten the call from the diner while eating.
He didn’t mind cleaning up after his family. Like at the dance studio, cleaning cleared his mind and allowed him to get lost in a mindless task.
He scrubbed each plate clean before setting them on the drying rack. Their dishwasher broke ages ago, and there was no money to fix it.
As he cleaned, he choreographed a dance in his mind. It was in quiet times like these he worked best.
The only sound in the house was the running faucet and the soft clanging of dishes as he set more to dry. By the time he’d finished and wiped down the counters, he’d let the peace calm him and remind him this life was good despite what it lacked. Someone like Lillian Preston would understand his world just as much as he understood hers.
Not at all.
He opened the fridge and stuck his head in, searching for something edible. Pulling out the leftover pasta from a few days before, he heated it up and brought it into the living room where his school bag awaited his attention.
He pulled out his math book to prepare for a coming test, a test he knew he’d do just okay on, never great.
But he was okay being average at most things as long as he never let his family down.
3
Lillian
“Great job as usual, Lillian.” Mrs. Fletcher slid the graded American Literature paper onto her desk. Lillian had put everything she had into the paper on Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun.
An A minus. Lillian’s shoulders fell. Her mother would only see the minus. Those few missing points would equal failure in her eyes.
“Thanks, Mrs. Fletcher,” Lillian murmured as she gathered her things and headed for the door. She had a few minutes before her favorite class of the day, History of the Ancient World. A few minutes to either stress over her mother’s reaction to her poor grade or ignore the whole thing by diving into Facebook. Lillian wasn’t much of a Facebook user—it was for old people, but she fished her phone out of her bag and pulled up the competition chat that had hijacked her phone. Lillian liked the girls she’d met at orientation, but she almost regretted agreeing to the private chat.
Rose: What do you think? I’m thinking of changing my hair to green to keep me pumped for winning all that scholarship money! What are you girls doing to stay motivated?
She was joking, right? Green hair for scholarship money? Lillian laughed at the thought.
Layne: I’m currently trying not to pull all my hair out.
Jenna: Green would be ridiculous and awesome. I don’t need anything to keep me motivated. Motivation is my natural state.
Lillian wished she could be that confident. She knew she had the talent to win this scholarship, but telling her mother about it was another story.
Lillian: It could be cute, Rose. Daily practice keeps me motivated to win.
Lillian’s words sounded forced, but it was the best she could do. Girl talk wasn’t really her thing.
“Settle down. And phones away, Ms. Preston.” Dr. Randall paced the front of his classroom, waiting for the large crowd to file into the theater-style room.
Lillian slipped her phone back into her bag and readied her desk for taking notes. With images of the Steele of Hammurabi on the big screen, it looked like another day of ancient history, which was Lillian’s favorite. Studying ancient civilizations was the one thing that made her forget about dancing. With graduation lurking around the corner, Lillian found herself thinking about her potential major more and more—if she decided to attend a traditional college. If her mother had it her way, secular college wasn’t even on the table. The American Ballet Company was the only future her mother would even discuss.