How It Feels to Fly(68)
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.”
Katie shrieks as Dominic picks her up and throws her into the lake, over Omar’s head. Zoe swims so far away from the dock that Andrew calls for her to come back. Behind us, Yasmin switches to a happier-sounding tune, something about falling in love on a rainy summer afternoon. Jenna and I sit side by side in silence.
Seeing those scars has me thinking about my secrets. The things I don’t want to talk about. The things I wish I could erase from my own memory.
But then Andrew swims over, climbs onto the deck, and starts toweling himself off, and it’s hard to think about anything other than him. The T-shirt he pulls on, damp and clinging to his skin. His wet hair sticking out in all directions. His smile. He sits next to me. He claps when Yasmin finishes her song. I clap too.
One by one, the others join us on the dock. We chat as we dry out in the warm air. Soon the conversation turns to horror stories. Not like the movies Zoe watches—our own, real-life horrors. It’s Omar’s fault. He tells us about the time he fell flat on his face playing Gavroche in a local production of Les Mis. He was climbing the barricades, missed his footing, and tumbled down. “They had to stop the whole play because my nose was pouring blood.” Omar laughs. “It was everywhere.”
“Dude, that’s gross,” Dominic says, giving him a high five. “But I’ve got you beat. I puked my guts out on the fifty-yard line in front of a college scout.”
“Ew!” Katie squeals.
“What happened?” Zoe asks, leaning forward.
Dominic frowns. “Like you care.”
“I care, okay?”
Dominic sighs. “Whatever. It’s a short story. My coach invited the recruiter from Florida State—my top choice—and I pushed so hard to impress the guy that I guess I got dehydrated. I booted all over the field.”
“That is gross,” Jenna says, “but I can top it.”
“Oh yeah?” Dominic says.
“I once got so anxious before a competition that I threw up during the practice skate,” she tells us. “Two words: frozen vomit.”
We all groan.
“It had to be scraped off the ice. They had to postpone the start to clean it up.” Her face falls. “That was probably one of my lowest points.” She meets my eyes, then looks away, and I think again about what I just saw. The scars on her hip.
I shift a half centimeter closer to Andrew, for courage, and speak. “I’ve never gotten a bloody nose or puked onstage, but I can tell you an embarrassing story.”
“Bring it, Ballerina Barbie,” Zoe says.
“There was this older girl at my studio, Eliana Diaz. She’s with The Washington Ballet now. When I was a freshman and she was a senior, she kind of took me under her wing. She called me her protégé. Gave me private coaching. I was the only freshman she did that for, and it made me feel so special.” Everyone knew Eliana Diaz was going places, so if she thought I was going places too, then clearly I was.
“Fast forward to this past spring. The Washington Ballet’s tour was passing through Tennessee. My mom bought tickets, and I emailed Eliana to tell her I’d be in the audience. She wrote right back and said she’d meet me by the stage door afterward. She’d introduce me to her friends in the company.”
Bianca had a family reunion that weekend, so even though she’d already gotten into The Washington School of Ballet’s summer intensive, she wasn’t able to go with me to see the company. That turned out to be a good thing.
“After the show, I waited outside for half an hour. And then there she was. But it was like Eliana didn’t recognize me. She saw me, and she clearly knew it was me, but she wasn’t seeing the person she thought she’d be seeing—if that makes sense.”
I remember her eyes widening, her long lashes blinking a few times, her lips drawing together. And then a pasted-on stage smile.
“She walked over and said, ‘Hi . . . Samantha, right? Do you want me to sign your program?’ I was too mortified to do anything but hand it to her. While she was signing it, her friends from the company showed up. One of them was like ‘Oh, is this the girl you were telling us about? Your Mini-Me?’ Eliana said, ‘No, that’s someone else. But Samantha also dances at the school where I trained growing up.’ And she handed me back my program and said, ‘Thanks for coming!’ and walked off.”
“That is messed up,” Dominic says emphatically.
“Yeah, beats my bloody nose,” Omar admits.
“It’s awful,” Yasmin agrees, “but you know she was being a snob—right?”
“I guess.”
I never told Bianca what Eliana did. It occurs to me that since they’re both in DC right now, I probably should. I make a mental note to add it to tonight’s email.
“So beat that,” I finish, looking around at the group.
“I can top it,” Zoe says right away. But then she goes quiet. Her silence feels charged. It’s the calm before the lightning strike. The buzz before the bug zapper takes another victim. Zoe looks in my direction. I wait to be zapped. But all she says is, “I don’t really think your problems are stupid. I get that you’re having issues. I just get so mad. At all of you.”