Friday Night Stage Lights Read online

  “It’s not so easy.” He groaned in frustration.

  Across the parking lot, a car beeped, and Mom waved out the window.

  “My mom’s over there. Do you want to get a ride to the studio?” Mary Rose had planned extra practices in the middle of the week, since the Showcase was so soon. Things might not be great with Logan right now, but I was hoping that once we got to the studio, it would all work out.

  “About that . . . ,” Logan started. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to practice with you.”

  “You can’t practice today?”

  “I don’t know, Brooklyn. I want to help you, I really do, but the team. We have to be united and work together. I was doing this to get better at football, but now it’s all worse.”

  “Ignore it. Randy doesn’t understand.”

  “It’s not that easy. I’m around the team all the time. You know how important football is to me.”

  “And you know how important the Showcase is to me.”

  “I’m sorry. I keep trying to figure out what I can do to fix things, and I have no idea.”

  “I do. Stand up to Randy and tell everyone that this is dumb.” Logan had me all fired up now. I got it—he didn’t want the boys laughing at him, but there had come a point where he’d have to deal with it. “I can’t believe you’d let one guy on the team control you like that.”

  “I’m not letting him control me. It’s complicated,” he said.

  “The only complicated thing here is you backing out of a promise you made.”

  “Let me think about it. Okay?”

  “Sure, think about it,” I said. I tried to hide the panic in my voice, but it was impossible.

  Chapter 45

  I went to our practice even though Logan had said he wasn’t coming. Logan had been pretty serious about taking a break, but there was still a teeny tiny part of me that thought maybe he’d show up.

  I imagined him waiting for me in the studio like he always did. He’d be on his phone, playing his favorite game, the one where you had to get coins, and he’d grumble if I made him stop in the middle of it.

  But of course, that was wishful thinking. When I walked in, the only person there was Mary Rose.

  She was picking up the long ribbons she used with the little kids in their class, so I went over and helped her.

  “About your dance,” she said. “I want to work on getting a little more height on the lifts with Logan. He’s got the strength to hold you, but he’s still a little shaky.”

  I listened to her go over what she wanted to try with the two of us and wished that it was really going to happen. That Logan would magically appear out of thin air and be ready to dance.

  “I don’t think Logan is coming today,” I finally told her. It was hard to say it, to put the words out there, because it made it all seem even more real.

  “He’s not? Is he sick?” Mary Rose asked, her face filled with concern.

  “Something like that,” I mumbled, not wanting to tell her that Logan was too embarrassed to be seen with me. It was bad enough that Logan was choosing his football friends over me—I didn’t need Mary Rose to feel sorry for me too, and that’s definitely would she’d do if I told her the truth.

  “Well, hopefully he’ll be back soon,” she said, her voice bright and cheery—the exact opposite of what was going on inside of me. “Do you want to run through it together?”

  “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to work on it myself.”

  “Of course. Let me know if you need help with anything. I’ll use this time to see if I can get some of the mess in my office cleared up.”

  Mary Rose grabbed the last of the ribbons and left me alone. Only half of the lights were on, and they gave the studio a kind of magical glow, as if I were sleeping or in a dream.

  I plugged my phone into Mary Rose’s sound system, found the music for my solo, and let the opening measures wash over me. Hearing the music in what had become my new studio felt odd, like if I danced it here, I’d cross some kind of invisible line that divided my two worlds: the one before the move and the one after.

  I closed my eyes and let the music fill my body so it almost became a part of me. The notes were etched on my heart, and I could sense them deep within me. I listened to the familiar music and remembered all of the good and all of the bad memories that this song held within it. Did I really want to dance it again? Did I really want to put myself through the pain from the last time? If I can’t even dance it here, how will I be able to do it at the Showcase?

  But what if I nailed the dance? What if I made it something wonderful?

  But what if I didn’t? Those dancers at Thursday Evening of Art were incredible. Could I ever compare to them? Maybe I’d be happy if I just danced and took classes at Center Stage Dance Studio. I could prepare for the Juilliard Summer Dance Intensive and not worry about the solo. Or even discover something new to do instead of dance. After all, Tanner had been able to do that. That would be okay, wouldn’t it?

  The song ended, and after a few seconds, I heard the notes start again. Mary Rose must have the repeat button on, something she does when she’s going over a dance multiple times.

  Just try it out, the little voice inside of my head whispered. You’re all alone here. No one is watching.

  And that’s exactly what I did. I only hesitated for a moment before I let go of all of my doubts and fears. I launched myself into the dance, which I had first learned for Mom.

  But here, in this studio, I wasn’t dancing for Mom. I wasn’t dancing for the audience that had been there that night. I wasn’t dancing for Mary Rose or the scouts at the All-City Showcase. I wasn’t dancing to prove myself or make someone notice me. I didn’t worry about who might be better than me, or if I could compete with the other dancers at TSOTA. I danced for only one person.

  I danced for myself.

  I let the music carry me away until the world around me disappeared and I remembered how good it felt. My body craved this, and I pushed myself to jump higher, extend straighter, and reach farther for no one but myself. I danced purely for the love of it, and it was incredible.

  When the song ended, I fell to the floor and stretched out my arms and legs, almost as if to make a snow angel. I focused on the ceiling and tried to get my breath to slow. My lungs worked overtime to suck in air, my muscles ached, and my legs trembled slightly from the exertion of dancing.

  And I loved it.

  “You were awesome,” I whispered to myself, because this song had reminded me that when it came to dance, I was the only person who mattered.

  Chapter 46

  Someone began to clap as I lay on the floor trying to catch my breath. I raised my head as Mary Rose walked into the room. Heat instantly rushed to my face as I realized that she had caught me dancing.

  And not just dancing, but dancing my solo.

  “How much of that did you see?” I asked her.

  “Enough to know that if that isn’t your solo, you need to make it your solo,” she said.

  “Do you really think so?” I asked.

  “Brooklyn, I know so. That was incredible.” Mary Rose came over to me and sat on the floor where I was. “It’s none of my business to ask why, but it’s evident that you’re avoiding dancing that solo for some reason. I’m telling you right now that you don’t need to worry about it. Dance your solo and don’t worry about anything else but feeling the music like you just did.”

  I played with the ribbon on my toe shoe and decided to confess the truth to her. After all, she had already seen the dance, so what harm could it do now? “That’s the dance I was performing when I hurt my ankle. I’m fine now, but I can’t stop thinking about that night. I’m afraid that I’m not going to be able to pull it off and I’ll hurt myself again”

  Mary Rose nodded. “It’s always hard to try something unfamiliar or out of your comfort zone, but trust yourself. You’ve got this. I’ve seen a lot of dancers go through this studio, and you have someth
ing special. Believe in that and you’ll do an amazing job.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that,” I confessed. “My mind gets so full of self-doubt and fear.”

  “Don’t think about anything. At all,” Mary Rose said. “That’s the secret. Don’t dance for anyone except yourself, and if you do that, you’ll be perfect. It’s when you let those other thoughts creep in that you mess yourself up.”

  I thought about how I had just danced my solo for myself and no one else. How I hadn’t cared about who was watching me and how amazing it felt. Maybe that’s the secret to an incredible performance all the time.

  “So I dance for myself?” I asked her.

  She smiled in a way that made me feel as if I had said just the right thing. “You always dance for yourself,” she told me. “Always.”

  Chapter 47

  The days moved past, and as each one ended, so did a little more hope that Logan would change his mind. And as good as I felt about my solo, I still believed that without Logan, my shot at getting into TSOTA wasn’t going to happen.

  I saw him a bunch of times at school, laughing and joking with his friends, but he avoided me like I was radioactive, and he hadn’t shown up for the conditioning class or our last two rehearsals. I made up a lame excuse about him being sick to explain to Mary Rose why he wasn’t there, and I went through the motions at class, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was going to have to tell her the truth soon, and the thought of that made everything freeze up inside of me.

  I thought about trying to talk to him again, to reason with him, but then I pictured the way he had looked after Randy found him in class and knew it was no use. Logan loved football too much; I didn’t stand a chance.

  I tried to make myself feel better. I told myself that I could be like Tanner. Dance didn’t have to be my life. There were a million other things that I could discover. Mia loved creating her vlogs; maybe I could help with that. Or I could check out the drill team or even cheerleading. I reminded myself that it was okay to like other things and that maybe this was for the best. Maybe I’d discover that I loved something completely different that I never, ever would have given a chance if it weren’t for everything that was happening.

  I tried to keep myself busy and hung out with Jayden both at school and at home; the two of us watched a ton of bad television, ate a bit too much candy, and played about a million board games. While it was great to spend time with him, it wasn’t enough to destroy the gray cloud of gloom that sat above me.

  I was in math class on Thursday when my classmates began to whisper. I turned toward the front of the room to see what the commotion was, and Logan stood in the doorway.

  And not just Logan, but Logan and a giant mum.

  It was the biggest and gaudiest mum I’d ever seen.

  Mums are one of the strangest parts of Texas culture that I’ve experienced.When I first moved here, there were a lot of things people did that I had to get used to, like worshipping Friday-night lights, slow-cooking your meat for hours, and displaying the Texas flag everywhere. More often than not, I felt as if I were living in a different country, not a different state. Texans had their own code for everything, and while some of it didn’t make complete sense, I accepted it as something that was part of the culture. But the one thing I couldn’t quite figure out was mums.

  Mom had spent the last week working on one for Tanner’s homecoming date. When she first began to talk about making the perfect mum, I was completely confused.

  “Can’t you order them from the florist? What’s so hard about that?” I had asked.

  “Mums are not flowers,” Mom said, as if that was helpful. Which, obviously, it wasn’t.

  “Mums are flowers. The ones you used to buy in the fall to put outside on the porch.”

  “We’re talking about homecoming mums,” Mom said. “They’re completely different.”

  I have no idea how Mom became the expert on these so-called mums, but she was right. When I Googled images of them, I couldn’t believe what I saw. They were a tradition that happened during homecoming in Texas, where the boys would make these giant things that the girls would then wear. They kind of looked like ribbons you’d win, with a round circle the size of a plate in the middle and decorations hanging off of it. Girls wore them around their necks because they were too big to pin onto their clothes. When it came to mums, the motto definitely seemed to be the bigger the better. There were pictures of ones that stretched all the way to the ground, and the fancier ones had stuffed animals, glitter, and lights on them.

  Mom was going all out with the one she was making, and by the look of things, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to disappoint. It had Tanner’s date’s name, Carley, across the front in a heart with strings of beads and probably about ten pounds of ribbons hanging off of it. Mom had sewn a ton of sequins all over so it flashed like a disco ball when it moved. I had told her that she might have gone a little bit over-the-top, but she’d said she wasn’t done with it. She needed to add more glitz. I don’t know what it was about these mums, but they seemed to make people go crazy. Crazy with a capital C.

  But what was crazier was the humongous one that Logan now held as he called my name.

  The entire class turned to stare at me.

  I raced to the door to get him to stop.

  “What are you doing?” I asked after I’d pulled him outside and down the hallway a little bit to make sure no one could see us from inside the classroom.

  “I made this for you,” he said, and to his credit, he looked pretty proud of that fact.

  “For me?”

  “Yep, this is your mum.”

  “Um, okay,” I said and studied it. The mum was bigger than any I’d ever seen before. He had to carry it with two hands, and it covered almost the entire front of his body. It was a giant circle, easily bigger than a basketball and surrounded in row after row of tulle. There were twinkle lights hanging down from it, along with enough satin ribbon to wrap Christmas gifts for every child in the world. I was pretty sure there had to be a shortage of ribbon now in the state of Texas. And in the middle, in giant glitter letters, were the letters TSOTA.

  “Shouldn’t it say LMS?” I asked.

  “This mum doesn’t represent Leighton Middle School, it’s for Texas School of the Arts. I figured you could wear it to celebrate when you get in.”

  “In case you forgot, I’m not going to get in. I lost not one, but two partners. Pretty sure I’m cursed. My chances of getting noticed at the Showcase are slim to none.” I gave Logan the meanest look I could, because, come on, this was ridiculous. What did he think he was doing? He’d already ditched me, why make things worse?

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You lost one of your partners. I might be stupid and think about myself in selfish ways, but I’ve come to my senses. And I’m asking if I can be your partner again.”

  Logan waved the mum around like it was dancing, and I about died from embarrassment. I couldn’t believe he’d made that awful, giant mum.

  “That thing is ridiculous—put it away,” I said.

  “Well, yeah, that’s the problem. This thing is pretty hard to hide.”

  “Why did you make one that big?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I want everyone to know that I’m dancing with you in the All-City Showcase.”

  “Even your football team?” I asked, my eyes narrowed.

  “Especially my football team,” he said. “Listen, I was awful. I let those guys get to me. But it won’t happen again. I made a promise to you. I like dancing, and we’re good. If the guys on the team can’t see that, it’s their loss.”

  “Pretty sure they’re going to see that,” I told Logan as I pointed at the mum.

  “That’s the idea. But I don’t care. I realized how stupid I’ve been and how important ballet really is for the both of us.”

  “Ballet is important to you?” I asked.

  “You’re not going to believe this, because I hardly can, but Coach Trentanelli
came to our practice the other day. The pressure was on big-time, but sometimes I work better under pressure, if that makes sense. Anyways, we ran a bunch of drills and guess who did a forty-yard dash in 5.4 seconds?”

  “Oh my gosh! Did you really?” I said, my excitement for Logan overtaking any anger I had for him at the moment.

  He grinned so big I could see his molars. “Yep! And not only that, Coach Trentanelli explained the postseason training and asked if I was interested. I’m going to get to practice with the high school team this winter!”

  “That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you,” I told him, because I knew there was nothing Logan wanted more than to be a part of the high school team.

  “I still have to show him more progress the rest of the season, but I figure if I stick with ballet, I can only get faster. And that’s all thanks to you.”

  “You earned it,” I told him. “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “You helped. Ballet helped, which is why I’m coming back to you right now to say sorry. The way I treated you was wrong. It was stupid of me. You’re an athlete too. You’re pretty much obsessed with ballet, but in a good way. Your dedication made me want to work just as hard at football.”

  It was nice to hear Logan say those things, but I was still hurt about his leaving me hanging. “The way you treated me wasn’t fair. It was awful.”

  “I was awful, I admit it,” Logan said sheepishly. “I let some of the other guys on the team make me feel a certain way, and that was dumb. They’re the stupid ones not being open to new things and giving ballet a shot. I’ll try anything now, because imagine what else I can improve on. I’m pretty sure the superhuman speed I have today is only the beginning.”

  “Superhuman speed?” I asked and held back a laugh.

  “Pretty much. I’m like a cheetah,” Logan said and grinned, but then his face turned serious. “I mean it, Brooklyn. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t let you down again. I’m in this until the end. If you decide to forgive me, there’s no getting rid of me, even if you want to. So what do you think? Will you accept this mum and let me dance in the Showcase with you?”