First string future, p.7
First-String Future, page 7
* * *
All through the fall, my Saturday afternoons are taken over by Nutcracker. Rehearsals start in September and continue right up to the performance week at Christmas. We have to be at SBT from two till six, since we never know when our group will be wanted, so with jazz at noon, we’re there for six hours.
* * *
In October the planning meeting for Oakwood’s holiday concert comes up. Just as I predicted, it’s on an early ballet day, but Cody still insists on signing me up to dance. Next day he tells me I’m in and asks what I think I’ll do. I never thought the other kids would vote for me to dance, so I have no idea. Guess I’d better come up with something!
I curl up on my bed to brainstorm with the cats. Maybe a modern or jazz number instead of ballet? It’d be a great chance to show that dance is more than just “tippy-toe stuff.” The more I think about that idea, the better I like it. Okay, what music would be Christmassy but have some jazzy pizazz? Of course—something from my favorite Christmas album by Mannheim Steamroller! Now, what’s on that tape that might be danceable? I spring up full of energy, paw through my cassettes, and in no time it’s Christmas in the practice studio.
Hmm. Too slow. Wrong beat. No. Maybe. YESSS! That’s the one! “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” is definitely it—some really POW modern moves are already crowding into my head. Another good one—“Good King Wenceslas”—maybe for an encore? I can’t wait to strip down to practice clothes and get to work.
As I cross the hall back to my room, Roni sticks her head out her door, grinning. “Aren’t you just a tad early? Or is my calendar wrong?”
“Are you kidding? It’s been Christmas for me since September, with Nutcracker! Haven’t you started on my Christmas present yet?”
As I’m working out ideas for the dance, I begin to think about a costume. For a modern piece like this, a shiny unitard—leotard and tights in one—in Christmas red or green would be great, but two problems come to mind immediately. One is cost—I’ve looked at them in dance shops, and they’re not cheap. The other is that you look practically—ahem!—naked in them, and I’m not sure I’d have the nerve to appear alone before the kids at school in no more than a spandex “second skin”! Maybe I could get someone to perform with me—I don’t think it would bother me then. I decide that tomorrow before class I’ll ask around. The whole thing would be more fun with two!
* * *
Next evening, I ask Mom to drop me at SBT early so I can talk to anyone in my class who might be waiting in the break room. I find Erin there all alone, poring over the new issue of
Dance Magazine. “Whatcha doin’?” I ask her.
“Checking out auditions for summer workshops,” she says.
Dance schools around the country are already advertising their programs for next summer. Some of them sound great, with well-known dancers coming to teach. Selection committees go from city to city to audition students who want to attend. I’d love to go somewhere, but my parents think I’m too young to live away from home for the summer. Plus it’d cost extra, and SBT has a good summer workshop that dancers from other places come here for. Still, I sometimes feel left out when I hear other girls talking about their adventures. We all howled last year when a girl in our class who went to Boca Raton announced, “I’m here to tell you, girls, the water must be different in Boca—they’ve all got boobs down there!”
Erin and Casey can go to summer workshops out of town because their mom goes with them. She rents a condo for the length of the workshop, and they make a vacation of it, seeing the sights in their spare time. The hard part for those two is agreeing on where to go.
“Erin,” I begin, “I have something I want to ask you about.” I tell her what I have in mind for the holiday concert and am glad to see her look interested. Just then Casey comes to the door of the break room.
“C’mere, Case,” Erin calls, waving her in. “Tori has an idea she wants help with, and it could help us, too.” Turning back to me, she explains, “Case and I have to perform at our school’s concert, too, and your idea is better than anything we’ve come up with.
Here’s what I’m thinking: What if the three of us worked out a performance for two dancers that could be given at both schools? Casey and I could do it at our school, and one of us could do it with you at yours. What night is your concert? I hope it’s before Nutcracker starts—that’s the 18th—and not on the same night as our school’s.”
“December 11th,” I tell her. “It’s a Friday night.”
“Good,” she says. “Ours is the following Monday. What time do these things begin?”
“Early, I think,” I say. “Probably seven o’clock.”
“We finish class at six both those nights,” Casey points out, “so we could just shower and dress here and go straight to whichever school.”
Erin grins at me. “And you’re guaranteed a partner, because if one of us gets sick, the other can take over.”
“I could do the same for you guys,” I tell them, “but we wouldn’t look like twins, even though our hair’s fairly close—dark blond and light brown.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Erin says. “At least the show could go on!”
“About costumes,” I say, “I was thinking we could ask some of the trainees or apprentices if they have unitards from a performance that we could borrow.”
Casey says, “I don’t know, Tori, I think if they had ’em, they’d be too big. Those girls are all taller than we are.”
Erin says, “Why not just buy new ones?”
“They’re so expensive,” I tell her. “The ones I saw were forty-nine dollars!”
“No big deal,” she says. “We’ll just tell our mom we need them for our concert, and then you can wear one of them when we do your school.”
“Are you sure your mom won’t mind?” I ask, marveling that money is no problem for these two.
“She won’t,” Casey says. “Why should she? Did you bring the Steamroller tape?”
“Yeah, but there’s no player in here.”
Casey says, “Let’s go ask if we can use an empty studio. We can listen to it there, and you can show us your moves. It’d be great if we could use a studio every Saturday and practice whenever we’re not needed for rehearsal.”
“Yeah,” Erin says. “I’d be glad to have something to do. It’s pretty boring just hanging around half the day. We could let our group know where to come and get us.”
“And by the time we’re ready for Nutcracker, we’ll be ready for our concerts, too!” I add. The three of us set off for the office, where we easily get permission for our scheme. Probably they think it’ll be good practice for us to choreograph a performance. It’s a GO!
All through the autumn weeks, we practice and polish our showpiece. The Steamroller music has tambourines in both pieces, and I get the brilliant idea of asking Mom to borrow tambourines from a rhythm band when she subs for a kindergarten teacher. She does, and we quickly work them into our choreography. One Saturday Nora, our modern teacher, drops by, and we invite her to see what we’re doing. She loves it and asks us to show our work at the end of each modern class after that. We get ideas there, too.
In early November, Cody comes with Mom and Dad and Roni to watch my classes. After the first one, I introduce him to Casey and Erin, and he says, “You girls sure do work hard! I see what Tori means about ballet taking lots of sweat. You all look as if you’ve been out in the sun!” We’re always rather red-faced when we finish a class. “Seriously, though,” he tells us, “you remind me of those racing dogs.”
“Greyhounds?” I ask.
“That’s it,” he says. “You have the same look. Sleek!”
* * *
In late November, Cody’s uncle gets out of the hospital, but he still needs Cody’s mom to drive him to daily therapy sessions for his leg. He sees very poorly, so she reorganizes his furniture, clothing, dishes, and so on to make it easier for him to get around and to find things. He’s to go for a complete vision examination in December.
Cody goes to Gainesville for Thanksgiving and comes back troubled. “You know, Tori, I’m worried about Uncle Joe. This accident has taken the heart right out of him. He was always so much fun—it was just like having a big brother. Now he’s like an old man, and the poor guy’s only thirty. How do you get used to losing your sight? It won’t be much of a Christmas for him this year.”
Or for you either, I think sadly, wishing I could keep Cody with me for the holidays.
CHAPTER NINE
JAMMIN’ CHRISTMAS!
Suddenly we’re into December, and the two school concerts are just a week away. Casey and Erin bring in the shimmering red and green unitards to show me. “Which color do you want to wear, Tor?” Erin asks.
“I don’t care—I love them both!” I say.
“Me, too!” Erin says.
Casey definitely prefers the red, so we work out that she’ll wear red both places—she’s going to perform with me—and Erin and I will take turns with the green. We’ve decided that the “spare” dancer should go along each time with the two performers, even if both are in tip-top health, in case a last-minute case of “dancer’s klutz” brings on some disaster.
We figure that since our hair has to be in a bun for class before the concerts, it had better stay that way—if we let it down it’ll be all crimped. I’m nominated to pick up some artificial holly and a big silk poinsettia to pin in our hair to go with the green and red unitards. I borrow the unitards to take shopping so that I won’t buy a poinsettia that clashes with the red or holly that’s the wrong green.
On Monday I return the beautiful suits safely to their owners and show what I’ve bought. I also got a length of gold tinsel garland I thought might add a Christmas sparkle to our headpieces. Casey and Erin say “Cool!” and we have fun experimenting.
* * *
The excitement of the season is mounting everywhere but in Mrs. Stengle’s class, where it’s business as usual. No Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa decorations in her room! The only thing semi-exciting is that it’s time to plan our projects for this year’s science fair. We’re supposed to choose our topics over the holidays and let Mrs. Stengle know when we come back in January. Cody says his is going to be controlling cat overpopulation, having seen the results of this problem firsthand at the shelter. I decide to do my project on frogs. I can think of several branches of this topic I could cover, and if I include the dissection issue, Freddo will be a ready-made exhibit, Actually, it’s kind of nice to have a project to think about that isn’t connected with the holidays. It’ll be something interesting to work on when things seem “blah” right after Christmas.
Cody and I talk about the concert because besides playing his guitar, he’s going to be the master of ceremonies. He says he’s decided to play his Christmas songs and carols between acts and invite the audience to sing along. He’ll lead into our number by playing “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” and will follow us with “Good King Wenceslas,” which will work well if we get to do our encore. I hope we do—I like what we’ve planned for it.
Cody will also be in charge of our music, so to make it easy for him, I retape our two pieces onto the two sides of a ten-minute blank one. Roni and I use a lot of these “shorties,” which we get at a music supply store, for taping practice music.
Luckily, Oakwood has a real auditorium with a proper stage—a lot of middle schools have just a “cafetorium”—a cafeteria with a stage at one end. Casey and Erin go to a private school, and it has an auditorium with a nice stage, too. When we first started preparing, we measured our stages—roughly, by stepping them off—so we could practice in an area the same size. Last week, when a Christmas tree appeared on each stage, we blocked off the space—different for each school—on our studio “stage” and worked the tree into our numbers. Because of our after-school classes and the distances of our schools, there’ll be no dress rehearsals for us. Just as well—I want us to be a total surprise!
In fact, when Big Al made fun of me the other day in front of everyone, I just let him go ahead and enjoy himself. “Well, Tilly Tiptoe,” he began, smirking at his pals, “are you going to dance for us on Friday night?”
“Mm-hm,” I replied, smiling sweetly.
“Oh, I can hardly wait!” he sighed, rolling his eyes while the others snickered.
Me neither, I thought, laughing to myself. Those rolling eyes are gonna roll right out of your head!
* * *
In the blink of an eye, it’s Friday evening—time to take our show on the road. As soon as class ends, Casey and I hit the two showers in the bathroom that has the dressing area. Erin takes her turn while we slip into our shining skins and redo our straggling buns at the mirror. By this time Mom and Roni have arrived. “You look like two sleek seals!” Mom tells us. Roni works on our hair trimmings till everyone is happy with them. We put on a bit of extra make-up, though not as much as we’ll wear for Nutcracker, and everyone says we look sensational. We pull on our jeans, but not our T-shirts so as not to mess up our hair. Instead we slip on jackets we’ve brought with us so that no one will see our unitards before the show. Then we grab our tambourines, hoist our dance bags, and are off.
We arrive with time to spare and go looking for Cody. “You two look great!” he says to Casey and me, admiring our hair decorations.
Casey smiles, and I tell him, “What you see is just the tip of the iceberg!”
Erin says, “Cody, they’re going to need that music good and loud. We want people to really HEAR those drums and cymbals!”
“Gotcha!” Cody replies with a grin and a thumbs-up.
Erin goes off to sit with Mom, Dad, Roni, and Cody’s dad. I know Dad will take lots of pictures, but we want Erin’s professional opinion on our performance.
Casey and I take our dance bags, with the tambourines squashed into them, and go stand on the sidelines to watch the auditorium fill up. Of course Big Al spots me and has to come by. “Brought a little friend, have we?” he says with a smarmy smile. “Better go and get your toe shoes on, dearies!” Casey flutters her eyelashes at him.
“That the one?” she asks, as soon as he moves on. “Big Ox?”
“How DID you guess?” I ask. It’s our turn to roll our eyes.
The principal comes out on stage and makes a short speech of welcome, and then he turns the evening over to Cody. As calm and confident as if he were in his own living room, Cody explains his dual role as emcee and song leader. He gets everyone in the mood with a rousing chorus of “Deck the Halls” and then introduces the first act. He’s put us last on the program, sure that we’ll be an impossible act to follow, so we decide to sit in the back row and enjoy the show.
The talent ranges from quite good to pretty bad—the usual for a school concert, I guess. The Hanukkah puppet show is great, but the magician hasn’t really got it together. To me, the best part is Cody and his guitar. Guitar music is magic to me anyway, and he plays really well. Besides, he’s Cody! After a while, babies begin to squawk and little kids start to whine. Casey winks at me. “The real reason we want our music loud!”
When it’s nearly our turn, we slip backstage to take off our jackets and jeans. “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s SUPERDANCER!” Casey clowns in a loud whisper, ripping open the snaps of her jeans jacket.
“Able to leap tall buildings in a single jeté!” I join in.
We inspect each other carefully, tucking in stray wisps of hair. “We should have painted our toenails red and green,” Casey says, looking down at our bare feet.
“Too late now, but you and Erin could add that little touch on Monday,” I suggest. I hand her a tambourine. “Ready? Let’s knock ’em dead!”
“You bet!” she says. “Big Ox in particular!” She trots around the back of the stage to take her place in the opposite wing. We grin across at each other while Cody takes the audience through the guitar version of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.” I know Casey is thinking the same thing I am: Wait till they catch OUR version!
Cody stands up. “Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the thought of that last line, Tidings of comfort and joy. Our final act tonight features Tori Baylor and her guest, Casey Reed, who want to wish you joy in a special way. And now, get ready for…JOY!”
The second the music begins, I leap, soaring out to land on the stage on the very first beat. One, two—I open out to the audience, projecting my joy to them, enjoying their gasp as the spotlight, operated by some unseen teacher, catches my shimmer and sparkle. Three, four—I move my tambourine all around me, slapping it to the beat. Five, six—I see little kids standing up, staring, mouths open in wonder. Seven, eight—Casey arcs through the air and lands beside me. The spotlight picks up her bold red gleam, and we both hear the Ohhh! that rises from the audience. For the next three bars we move lightly around the stage, smacking our tambourines high, low, here, there. Then, as the music changes slightly, we drop our tambourines by the Christmas tree and get ready for action. Suddenly the Steamroller shifts gears—and everything breaks loose!
Now we’re an explosion of shapes and contrasts—one moment up on one foot, reaching high, the next down on the floor, rolling, sliding, arching our backs like bridges. Now jogging in place, now looping the stage in joyous barrel turns. Always one of us in one place doing one thing, the other somewhere else, doing something different. Drawing people’s eyes—here!…no, here!—dazzling them, making them afraid they’ll miss something. And all the time, our shining bodies, never still, reflecting the light.
