Thick Love

There were bags under those eyes as he idly watched the traffic passing by, and his shoulders were tight, though he leaned on his elbows. In his hand he held a necklace, too small, too elegant to belong to him and I wondered if it was hers. That girl who was gone. Had he taken it? Had he made certain not everything of her vanished completely?

It was silver and held a charm that I couldn’t make out, even though it dangled from his fingers. The expression on his face reminded me of someone lost in thought, or maybe even praying. His whole attitude was aimless, like a tree branch drifting in a fast moving river, severed from the deep, earthy roots binding him to home.

That’s what Ransom had looked like to me that day, how he’d seemed to me ever since: drifting.

Present

Sometimes you can only escape, you can only feel completely free, when you are in solitude doing the thing that scorches your cells and makes you feel alive.

I found real, honest freedom in dance.

Tapping, twirling, pirouetting, pushing myself beyond my limits, breathing in the sweat-slick hardwood in front of mirrored walls, I discovered over and over again who I truly was. I fell apart, showed the world my soul, every hidden emotion, on the stage. Every day I let it tear me apart. Every night I put myself back together to do it all over again. I became everything and nothing I wanted to be all at once.

This freedom is real, part of all the good and bad I will ever be. And so I take this freedom and the lessons I’ve learned from every blister, every crooked toe, every aching muscle and show the world who I am through dance. We dancers tell a story with our bodies, moving through space, exuding all the emotions we otherwise keep hidden deep within ourselves; our struggles and our accomplishments on display with each movement.

It’s the freest I ever am.

But even that freedom and the effort I put into teaching dance was secondary to the fear I felt that Sunday. Fifteen pre-teens danced around me, their faces red with exertion, their budding bodies drenched with sweat as they worked through every step, each lunge and chasse I’d choreographed for the Christmas recital. I barely noticed the mess ups or the missed timed steps.

“Oke, cheris, one more time. From the five count please. And… senk, sis, sèt, uit…”

It was a distraction. Through the small window to my right, behind the eager parents watching how well their daughters performed, stood Ransom. Lea

When one o’clock hit, I’d have to step out the room and walk past him. Then I’d see if he had figured out that I was the woman who had danced for him. It was my body that he had touched.

“Ms. Aly, are you watching?”

I wasn’t, but I didn’t let that stop me from making a few suggestions to the girls before I let them go.

One o’clock.

Some of the students straggled, most immediately dug in their bags for their phones or shared gossip about whatever the hell it is that twelve year olds gossip about, until I shooed them out the door. One quick glance into the hallway and I spotted Lea

“Aly, hang on a second please.”

Lea

As I slipped into her office, she moved a file folder from the chair, offering me a seat. Then she theatrically slumped behind the white washed desk. “It’s only September and I’m already so over this recital.”

“Usually the way it goes.” I didn’t ask what she needed with me. Lea

Finally, she exhaled, stretched her shoulders and then smiled at me. “Okay, you know Beth is taking college classes this semester and her mom is spending a good bit of the month in California for some work thing.”

“Beth mentioned that, yeah.”

“So,” Lea

“I don’t know anything about taking measurements.”

I could keep myself washed, fed, and dressed, but I knew nothing about taking measurements or sewing or anything remotely artsy or craftsy. Lea

“We have that seamstress we used last year coming in to do the measurements. I just need you to call all the students and schedule their first fittings. I have a list somewhere…” Her desk was cluttered with an array of files, loose papers and costume magazines that always had my neat-freak tendencies twitching every time I walked past her office. “Here,” she said, pulling out a small stack of stapled papers. Immediately three folders fell off her desk, upturning loose pages and documents all over her beige carpet. “Shit.”

“I got it,” I said, going to the floor to gather the scattered paper. “Me zanmi, Lea

“Oh, honey, that’s pointless. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“It’s nothing.” I had the papers neatly stacked and into the folders before Lea

“No, but I do question your social life. You’re not even twenty yet, Aly. You shouldn’t be spending your weekends at that damn diner or, that other place.” I didn’t miss the frown Lea

“I like things neat. Some stuff you just can’t shake.”

I didn’t miss Lea