Page 162 of The Perfect Mistake

Isabel, one year later

I stand in the darkness, posed to strike. The silence is punctuated only by soft breathing and an occasional cough. The music starts to play. Beside me I can hear Diane’s indrawn breath, and to the right, I see Christa’s leg tremble.

The music starts.

The curtain parts.

We spin as one, erupting out on the makeshift stage in a flurry of motion. I catch sight of the audience, in that brief, quick way where their faces all blend together into one. But I know it’s the kids we teach and their parents, and some of my friends and family. Everyone who has an interest in seeing our showcase. But right now, they’re all one entity. It’s a relationship I’m used to. Audience and performer… and the magic created between us.

The kids performed first. They’d practiced all term for this showcase, and while this day has been filled with nerves, we’ve made sure they all had fun. Today is about joy and progress, and we won’t be keeping a list of who stumbled. That’s not the way we do it here at our academy.

It was the kids who asked for us teachers to perform as well. Please. Can you three dance together?

It had been a far-fetched dream, and then a fun idea, and in the past week, a passion project. Diane, Christa, and I had stayed late three nights in a row, perfecting and training and falling back into the kind of hard-core practices that had once been a part of all our lives.

And I loved it.

I love it now, dancing with the two women who have become incredible friends. First Diane, and a few months later, we’d recruited Christa too. We’d all bonded over the process of turning a profession into a hobby, and somehow, back into a profession. We’re teachers now, not performers, and that has its own special kind of magic. To see the girls and boys we mentor discover a sense of belonging, and joy, and self-confidence in a skill that I love like the very air I breathe.

The music shifts, and we line up again on pointe. Start twisting, and then we’re spinning, one fouetté, two fouettés, all holding the same tempo. It’s always been a crowd-pleaser, and I hear the indrawn breaths from the audience.

Many of our students are here today, and that includes Willa. But Sam and Alec, Connie and Gabriel, and even my parents and my siblings are here. They insisted when they heard I was performing.

It’s touching that they came.

Once, my performances had been nightly. They’re not anymore. The people in my life know that, too, what it means to me to be doing this again.

I lose myself in the choreography. Diane’s face flashes before mine, and Christa’s, and we take our final positions, and then the music ends.

The audience erupts in applause.

It’s not as loud as those I received most nights for years, but it’s far more warmer. Someone whistles, a kid shrieks in excitement, and I hear whooping.

Next to me Diane relaxes, and I follow suit, turning to the audience. Our students, their families, and our loved ones.

Willa comes running up to me with a giant bouquet of fragrant red and pink roses. She’s smiling wide. Her hair is in a tight bun, and she’s in ballet clothes, too, from her own performance.

“That was amazing!”

I hug her close. “Thank you. You were phenomenal as well up there.”

My family follows closely behind Willa. And Connie, and Gabriel, and they’re all telling me how wonderful it was, as if I’d just performed the prima role in Swan Lake at the opera house.

“Guys, guys,” I say through my laugh when Connie hands me a third bouquet, “it really wasn’t that special.”

“I don’t know, I don’t think I could have done that,” Gabriel says.

“You were beautiful,” Mom says. Her eyes are glistening, and I know it’s because of more than just the showcase. It’s for all of this. The ballet studio, the job, all the kids filling this very room right now.

The way my dream has turned into a life I love.

Alec hands me a single red rose and pulls me close. “That,” he says, “was extraordinary.”

“You’ve seen me dance at home a hundred times before,” I tell him. It’s overwhelming, this response. My cheeks feel heated from the joy in the air.

“Maybe, but it never gets old. I love you,” he murmurs against my temple. I lean into his side with a soft sigh. That never gets old, either, hearing that. The support he’s given me this past year, the steady, all-encompassing nature of him, feels like a part of me I can’t believe I ever lived without. He’s the person I want to talk everything through with, the man I want to sleep next to every night, and has the driest wit I’ve ever known.

“I love you too,” I tell him softly. “And I love my life.”

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