A Danger to Herself and Others(14)

She’s going to make me work for her friendship, and that’s okay. It’s not like there’s anything else to do here. I have all the time in the world (well, as long as they’re keeping me here) to show the powers that be what a good friend I am. Incapable of hurting so much as a fly. Certainly not a danger to herself and others.

“That’s like me and reading.”

Lucy opens her dark-brown eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve been reading since you were a toddler.”

“Of course not,” I agree with a smile. “But I carried around books the way other kids carried their baby blankets and stuffed animals. I wanted to be able to read even before I could make out letters and words.”

Lucy nods. “Yeah, that’s like me and dancing,” she agrees. “I was so little when I started dancing en pointe that we had to special order toe shoes in my size.”

“It sucks when your body won’t cooperate with your dream.” It’s a risky thing to say, but Lucy doesn’t argue. Instead, she stretches her arms overhead, her unsupported breasts shifting beneath her shirt. She’s begged them to let her wear a bra, but they’ve ignored her requests.

“Everyone kept telling me that there were successful dancers who were exceptions to the rule. Big boobs, big butt, blazing a new trail for ballerinas everywhere.” She sighs. “I didn’t want to blaze a trail.”

“You just wanted to get where you were going.”

“Exactly.” She rolls onto her back and gazes at the ceiling. I wonder if she sees the same shapes in the divots and cracks that I saw—a rabbit, a clown, a tree—or if she’s making her own shapes. Maybe she sees a cat, a prince, a mountain. “Not that it matters anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going to be out of here in time to make my audition.”

“What audition?”

Lucy looks at me witheringly, as if the answer is obvious, as if there’s only one audition that matters for girls like her. “For the San Francisco Dance Academy. My audition is on September fifteenth.”

“You might get out by then,” I offer, even though I have no idea how many days or weeks away that is.

“Even if I do, I’ll be so out of shape. It’s not like they let me practice.”

I look around our seven by eight room. Not much room for pirouettes in here.

“I have to be out by September seventh,” I confide. “To get back to school. College applications aren’t due until the winter, but first semester senior year grades are essential to get into a good school.”

“So you know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah.”

“Except thousands of kids get into college each year, and there are only five slots for girls in next year’s class at the dance academy.”

She’s testing me. She wants to know if I’ll say that it’s plenty hard to get into college, thank you very much or if I’ll be adequately impressed that she’s vying for one of five slots, and—before she got sent here—she actually had a real chance to make it. I’m tempted to tell her this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve made a lot of best friends over the years. I know what to do. I’m good at it.

“Wow, five slots,” I say. “You must be really talented.”

“I am.” She doesn’t say it with ego or even with pride. She says it plainly, like it’s a simple fact. Lucy is different from the girls I’m used to.

But I need a new best friend, and she’s my only option at the moment.

“You must be a good student,” she adds, “if you’re that anxious to get back to school.”

“I am.” I try my best to mimic her tone. Just a simple fact.

“God, don’t they know they’re ruining our lives by keeping us here?”

I nod, genuinely surprised. I didn’t really expect the other girls in this place to have lofty goals and ambitions like mine.

The click of the magnetic lock makes both of us shift our gazes toward the door. Breakfast. They leave our trays inside the room, then let the door swing shut. The lock clicks back into place. The sound is loud enough that it would wake you if you were asleep. Maybe they designed it that way on purpose. I turn my attention to the food.

Off-brand Cheerios (plain, not honey nut this time), thin paper towels, and plastic spoons. They’ve already poured the milk, so the O’s are soggy.

Lucy takes a bite and gags. “Whole milk,” she moans. “Who drinks whole milk anymore?”

“Gross.” I shove my tray aside, then notice that Lucy is eating despite her disgust, so I do the same.

“Sucks that we’re stuck in here,” Lucy manages between spoonfuls.

“Sucks,” I agree.





eleven


The first time Lucy leaves the room today is to take a shower, a real shower, not one of those sponge baths I take. She’s gone for twenty minutes. At least, I think it’s twenty minutes because while she’s gone, I pace the room, counting my steps, and each step takes about a second, and I get up to 1,182 steps, which is nearly twenty minutes. She comes back in fresh green clothes with her hair wet, smelling like shampoo.

I must look envious because she tells me it wasn’t that great. “There were three other girls in there and no curtains or stalls. It’s one big open space with spouts hanging down from the ceiling. Plus, an attendant was watching us the whole time.” Lucy bends so her hair is hanging upside down. She runs her fingers through it. She makes it look like a dance. The shampoo smell gets stronger.