Page 26 of The Devil Wears Tartan

My parents always told us we could grow up to be anything, but in the moments, I was already everything I wanted to be.

Once, my dad walked in on us like that. In those early days, he’d work some extra hours on the weekend too, since it took a few years for the studio to turn a profit, but the five of us would always reunite at home for dinner. On special nights, like the one when he found us all dancing, he’d grab pizza or Chinese food and bring it for us to eat picnic-style at the school.

I’ll never forget the way he stared at us that evening. He looked close to tears—my big, barrel-chested dad, with his bushy red beard and tree trunk arms that to this day look as ready to win a caber toss as they did in the highland games of his youth. He looked so full, like there was nothing in the whole world that could add more to that moment than it already contained.

The sky outside the windows is almost dark now, the stained glass giving only a faint glimmer each time the traffic lights down on the street change colour. I take another big sip of my water, my throat dry from shouting instructions over bagpipe music for the past hour.

“Oh, and don’t forget!” I say after I’ve swallowed, addressing the remaining girls in the room. “It’s SDOO’s first Tartan Tea of the season tomorrow. I know some of you are dancing at it, but I’d love to see the rest of you there in the audience, and your parents too! There will be snacks!”

I shake my water bottle like it’s a maraca to illustrate how exciting snacks are, and a few of my students laugh.

I’m going to be much less excited about the snacks when I have to show up to the event at seven tomorrow morning to help make them.

I’ve been informed I’m on kitchen duty for my volunteer shift tomorrow, but I don’t know if the other scholarship applicants will have the same role. Despite needing to have our interview ready to go in a couple weeks, Kenzie and I haven’t communicated at all since I left her sulking on a park bench after she accused me of being likely to gossip away her secrets.

My blood starts to boil just thinking about it, and I feel heat creeping up my neck. I head over to tidy up the music station to distract myself, but it’s no use. In the empty studio, there’s way too much space and silence for my brain to fill with reruns of that night with Kenzie.

We still use CD players here, and I pop the disc drawer open with a little too much force. I take better care to be gentle as I place the disc in its case, pulling in long, deep breaths through my nose.

Almost three weeks have passed since that whole fiasco in the park. I shouldn’t still be reacting this way. I shouldn’t let her get to me. I’ve spent the better part of my life dealing with Kenzie’s shit. I should be able to brush it off and save all my fury for the next competition, just like I’d do when we were teenagers.

Instead, I kept replaying that video clip of us in the park over and over again until, in a moment of extreme self-control, I deleted it for the sake of my sanity.

I then spent the better part of a half hour looking for ways to retrieve the file, but it was gone, and with it went my only definitive proof I didn’t imagine all the stuff that happened before Kenzie started being her usual haughty, smug, accusatory self.

She held my hand, or at least I think she did. The memory of her fingers clutching mine with the strained intensity of someone who’d been waiting to touch me all night is so at odds with the reality of all that is Kenzie that I’m starting to think I must have made the moment up.

Tomorrow will likely solidify that belief, especially if we’re stuck slicing up finger sandwiches and plating trays of lemon bars in the same cramped kitchen. I can practically feel her glaring at me already, and maybe that’s just what I need: a whole day of Kenzie glowering her way through our every interaction to remind me how much I need to let whatever happened in the park that night go.

Still, after I’ve finished getting the music station in order, my eyes drift back up to the stained glass semi-circles topping the windows, and I can’t help comparing the memory of my mother’s laughter and my father’s pride with the way Kenzie talked about her own home. She completely shut down when I asked about her last name, and she completely broke down when she mentioned her mom.

If I’d grown up like that, with a mom I started caring for before I’d even learned to care for myself and a dad I couldn’t even mention without my whole body tensing up in revolt, who would I have become? Where would I have found comfort? How would I even know what it’s like to feel truly safe?

Maybe I would have turned out exactly like Kenzie.

Then again, maybe not, and regardless of alternate realities and hypothetical situations, I know what’s real now. I know how I feel, and I know we’re all responsible for our own choices.

Whatever Kenzie’s gone through does not give her the right to take it out on anyone else, including me, and including my chance at a scholarship that’s going to show the whole world Moira Murray can hold her own and do something interesting for once.

I face the wall of mirrors in front of me, puffing my chest out a little as I take in the sight of my reflection in black cropped leggings and a navy bodysuit with ghillies still tied around my feet. I hold the power pose for a couple seconds before I chuckle.

“Okay, maybe not the whole world,” I mutter, since it’s not like winning a scholarship from the Canadian capital’s highland dance organization is going to land me on the cover of Time magazine, but still.

It’s something, and after the way my life blew up in South Africa, I could really use something to hold up and show myself I at least sort of know what I’m doing.

I head for the door, reaching up to switch the lights off before I step out of the studio. I take the creaky stairs down to the first floor and duck into the tiny staff room, which consists of a bench and a white IKEA unit of cubbies.

I pull my bag out of its spot and find a text from Lydia waiting on my phone, asking if I’m still on for tonight. I reply to let her know I’m heading over to her place before swapping my coaching outfit for jeans, a hoodie, and my army jacket layered on top.

My mum pulls open the door to Studio A just as I’m walking past to reach the shoe racks in the school’s entryway, where everyone’s outdoor shoes are piled in a haphazard arrangement.

“Hey, sweetie!” she calls as the students in the adult class she just finished teaching start filing out of the room.

She’s wearing a similar coaching outfit to mine, her thick, grey-streaked brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail with a white headband framing her face. Her cheeks are glowing with that post-class bliss I know so well.

“Hey, mum!” I call back as I bend to pull my floral-patterned Doc Marten’s on. “I’m going to Lydia’s for a bit tonight.”

She takes a few steps down the hall so we don’t have to shout at each other.

---