Diary of a Danceaholic

Entry #9: Revenge

“Oh, hey, Sky!”

I froze in my tracks; my butt still pushing on the door to the dressing room, my duffle bag tipping precariously into the door frame.

What the actual eff words.

I turned slowly. I knew that voice, but it shouldn’t be here. There was no way she could have registered in time to compete. I barely made the deadline.

“Mackenna.” I plastered on the fakest smile I could muster but didn’t bother coming all the way into the dressing room. I wouldn’t be staying. “Competing today, too, I see,” I asked, even though it was obvious. She was already in an obnoxious pink costume with feathers and fringe practically dripping from every available surface.

We still had two hours before the senior solos were even set to begin and at least another hour before the contemporary category. My category.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, faking nonchalance. “My mom registered me ages ago.

That’s a bold lie to tell. She would have been bragging about it in tech classes if that were really the case.

“I’m doing my lyrical solo that Miss Hope choreographed just for me,” she said snottily. Miss Hope was another of Mountain Vista’s teachers, but she teaches exclusively ballet and lyrical classes.

“That’s quite the lyrical costume,” I said raising my eyebrows. I was genuinely curious to know how in the world that costume could possibly be defined as lyrical but to each her own.

“Oh, yeah.” She looked down at her costume. “My mom picked it out.” Maybe she realized she brought the wrong one? I had to stifle my laugh.

“It’s to the song, ‘Perfect.’ Do you know it? Hope found a beautiful cover of it. I’m a showgirl who is standing up for her rights. It’s a real statement piece.” She gave me a snotty smile like I was supposed to be really impressed. At least now the costume made sense.

“That’s cool,” I said and slowly started backing out of the dressing room.

“My whole family is here just to support me,” she said loudly.

That was the jab I had been waiting for. My dad has never come to any of my competitions. It was a struggle just to get him to come to the end-of-the-year recital for Mountain Vista. I didn’t hold it against him. I didn’t resent him for it. But people outside of our family couldn’t seem to understand that I really was okay with it.

“Have fun at Disney World,” I said, and pushed my bag back out the door. I had absolutely zero desire to be in the same dressing room as that particular brand of human and her evil mother.

“Code red,” I whispered loudly to my mom as she approached me with two water bottles dripping with condensation. She frowned at me like I was crazy. “We need a new dressing room. Pronto. Makena Landing is here. Here. In Florida. Competing.”

“Oh, my dear heavens. This is going to be interesting.”

“Did you get a program?” I asked as we unloaded our stuff in a new dressing room, free from Mackenna, her mother, and hopefully Reese as well.

My mom pulled a brand-new program out of her purse and started flipping to the senior solos section. “Mackenna…” her finger trailed down the page, “lyrical to ‘Perfect.’” She snorted loudly. “That’s rich.”

“Oh, I love you, Mom,” I said laughing so hard I was almost crying. “You’re lucky I don’t have any makeup on yet.”

“Hop to it, girly,” she chastised me.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I did my hair and makeup quickly so that I could be in the audience to watch Mackenna’s solo. I was in the contemporary category, so I had more than enough time to get backstage to run through my own solo after she was done.

Mackenna’s solo was an unremarkable solo. It was good, don’t get me wrong. There were some unnecessary tricks thrown in that I knew Hope would never have put in a lyrical solo by choice, but other than that it was pretty forgettable. Now that I thought about it, those tricks may have been thrown in there on stage as fillers because Mackenna couldn’t even remember her own solo. That wouldn’t surprise me at all considering she flat out lied about being signed up ages ago. She was a “point one,” which meant she was a last-minute add-in. There was no way to hide that when it was plain as day in everyone’s programs.

My mom and I applauded politely along with the audience but stayed in our seats. Here’s a little trick I’ve learned throughout the years: If you get up and leave immediately after your enemy has danced, you make it obvious to the whole world that you were only there to watch her, but if you wait a few numbers, you not only maintain your anonymity, but you also avoid running into the evil princess as she’s heading back to her dressing room. No need to plaster on your fake smile and congratulate her on a job well done. Win, win all around.

“When is Reece’s solo?” I asked my mom but grabbed the program out of her hand before she could answer.

“She’s four after you.” She didn’t even have to look. I should have known she already did her research.

“Great,” I muttered. She would be backstage at the same time as me, watching my routine from the wings, trying to psych me out no doubt.

My mom had been scanning the audience this whole time, looking for who knows what. But all of a sudden, she froze and stared, causing me to look up and try to see what caught her eye.

She stood abruptly, mid-routine - a huge no-no - effectively blocking my view of whatever it was that she was looking at.

“Mom!” I whispered fiercely, as I tugged on her shirt, trying to get her to sit her back down. We were at the side of the auditorium, so luckily no one had noticed my mom’s competition faux-pas, but it had to be something major to cause her to be so lax on her standards.

“Let’s go, hon,” she said quickly, practically yanking me out of my seat.

“Mom, what’s going on?” I scrambled after her, trying not to trip over my own feet as she pulled me out the side doors of the auditorium.

“In a minute, honey,” she said hastily, still pulling me quickly toward the dressing room.

I yanked my arm out of her death grip when we reached our blessedly deserted dressing room. “Will you please tell me what that was all about?”

She hesitated, looking around the room, hoping for a distraction that would keep her from having to tell me what she saw in there.

“Mom.”

She sighed audibly. “I just want you to do your best today.”

“I know, Mom,” I told her. And I would. No matter what she told me next, I would do my best.

“I saw Reece’s mom sitting with Antonio in the audience.” She said it quickly, as though spitting it out would ease the sting of what she had just been forced to say.

I stared at her for a full minute before my brain fully processed what she just said. Antonio doesn’t come to regional competitions. He was an LA-based choreographer, so I cannot believe that he came all the way to Florida for this little rivalry between me and Reece. We were just high school kids.

I snorted in disbelief. “Why?” I asked, drawing out the word, not even bothering to hide my suspicion.

My mom simply shrugged, her eyes widening dramatically.

“This is going to be fun.”

I slowly opened the stage door, fearful of who I would meet. I had already dawdled in the hallway for as long as I dared. Thank goodness, Reece was on the other side of the stage. Antonio threw me a bone without even knowing it. I was tempted to look across the stage but decided it was best not to push my luck.

I turned my back on the stage and started walking through my routine. I nailed the whole dance both times I ran through it. This competition had no monitor to tell me which routine was on stage, so I listened for the MC to announce the beginning of the next routine.

“Number eighty-six, ‘Listen.’ This is Maddie Young.”

I was number ninety, so I had a little more time. Reece was number ninety-four. I had time to get to the audience to watch her if I wanted to, but I needed to put her out of my mind for now and focus on my own dance.

I ran through it two more times and I was feeling pretty confident.

Number eighty-nine went on stage.

I picked my wedgie, jumped in place a few times, took a deep breath, and I was ready to go.

“Number ninety, ‘Escape.’ This is Skyler Thomas.”

I walked out on stage and the world disappeared.

Battement. Slow down. Reach. Breathe. Turns. One, two, three, four, double, coupe. Chaine. Roll. Homestretch.

I acknowledged the judges with a nod of my head and walked off gracefully because they don’t stop judging until I’ve completely disappeared into the wings.

I purposefully walked off the same side I entered, even though I was closer to the other side, but her highness was over there, and avoidance was just easier right now. I could try to psych her out, but now that I was finally done doing my part in this stupid rivalry, I was just tired. I wanted to go take a nap. Unfortunately, the nightmare had just begun. There would be interviews, photographs, and meet and greets galore. At least Reece would be forced to be nice to me in front of all the cameras. It was just a friendly rivalry after all. Insert eye-roll here.

Once I reached the safety of the wings, I allowed myself a second to breathe, muttering “thank yous” to all the “good jobs” I got from the dancers waiting backstage for their own turn. After picking my wedgie, I left the dark wings and headed to my dressing room. My mom would find me when she was ready. I wanted to see Reece’s solo from the audience, so I changed quickly into gawd-awful, uncomfortable warm-ups provided by some sponsor or another.

“Oh, good! You’re ready,” my mom said breathlessly. She waited for me to catch up to her and we headed back into the auditorium together. “You danced beautifully. Antonio is probably fuming over all those changes you and Jodie made, though.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said flippantly. He got to see it all in person, too, what a treat that must have been for him.

Reece’s solo was annoyingly beautiful. She performed it just about flawlessly, too. Her face didn’t quite match the lyrics of the song and that was something that the judges would notice. She looked too pleased with herself the whole time. Of course, that could have just been my own judgmentally skewed perspective, but she made it impossible for me to remain objective where she was concerned.

“That was nice,” my mom said absently, thumbing through the program.

“Uh, huh.”

*****

“Skyler,” Antonio nodded to me, plastering on a very fake smile.

My return smile was just as fake. I struggled to meet his eyes. It was taking a profound amount of effort to keep from rolling my eyes.

“Beautiful solo,” he said. “Interesting.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly and smiled for the camera. The flash blinded me for a second and I pulled away from him as quickly as I dared.

I stood aside as Reece and Antonio posed for a picture together as well, then the photographer asked me to join them for a group shot. Me on one side of Antonio and Reece on the other. It was t*****e.

This fake smile was only going to last for so long. There was a limit to my patience and I was getting dangerously close to reaching it. I had been asked the same series of questions about ten times now, and there was still over an hour until our awards ceremony.

“What was it like to compete against Reece?”

It was a friggin party.

“It must have been such a delight to see Antonio come to support you today. What was it like performing for him?”

I didn’t do it for him, you i***t. He’s got nothing to do with what I did on that stage. I did that for myself. Next question.

“The awards ceremony is coming up, who do you think will get first overall?”

Don’t really care. It’ll be hell one way or the other. There will be no winning for me, today.

My real answers were much more polite and I definitely lied through my teeth. I told them all about how much of a privilege it was to dance for Antonio and how much I loved competing with Reece. It didn’t matter what happened at the awards ceremony. We are all friends here.