Page 128 of Promise Me Sunshine

Miles and I take our seats in the auditorium and I have a fun time watching him try to figure out what to do with his legs in child-sized seating. The lights dim and the theater teacher comes out to introduce the talent show.

Then the real fun begins.

We watch two successive kids rock from foot to foot while self-consciously lip-syncing the same Taylor Swift song. One girl does eight cartwheels in a row (pretty neat, if you ask me). Another kid bounces a tennis ball on a racket 468 times before the theater teacher comes back out and basically shepherd-hooks him off stage. That’s when I notice that one of Miles’s knees is doing a darn fine impression of a jackrabbit. And is he…is he biting his fingernails?

“Hey.” I poke him in the side and lean in to whisper, “What’s wrong?”

He immediately stills his knee and takes his fingernail out of his mouth. “Nothing.”

Apparently he’s riveted by the girl who’s guessing which card the principal is holding. I shrug and scan the audience for Ainsley, but I don’t spot her. Then that fingernail goesback into that mouth and his knee is really making a break for it.

“Are you really that nervous about the father/daughter dance?” I lean in and ask him.

He doesn’t even glance at me. His elbows hit his knees and he slowly rubs his palms together. I’m reminded of NBA players right before they play in the championship game.

“Miles.”

He ignores me.

“Miles.” I tug his shirt until he’s forced to look at me. “No one is even going to pay attention to you! You just have to sway back and forth while she stands on your sneakers. No big.”

His expression instantly becomes soCan it, Lennythat I recoil and hold up two hands.

A few more acts pass and then Miles stands all at once. “Excuse me,” he whispers to the person next to him.

I grab his arm. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll be back.”

I watch him go, wondering if I should chase after him. If he has to go publicly vomit over an eventual slow dance with his niece, then he hates dancing more than I even imagined. Maybe he grew up in some sort ofFootloosesituation where dancing was punishable by eternal burning in hell.

But then the theater teacher is back out and really jazz-handing that mic. “And now!” they say. “It’s time for a new tradition here at Attain Academy. It’s the family portion of the talent show. Where some of our ambitious students have worked with a family member to put together an act.”

All the hairs on my arms rise up in unison.

“Please put your hands together for our inaugural family act, Ainsley Hollis and her uncle Miles!”

I always thoughtKnock me over with a featherwas just a saying, but right now a light wind would literally face-plantme.

I’ve got two hands over everything but my eyes as the lights on the stage come up and Ainsley and Miles are dramatically lit. They’ve got their backs to us and they arebothwearing matching black pants and ruffled gray shirts. Which doesn’t make sense to me until music starts playing.

“Oh, my God.”

The opening strain of Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” is blaring from the auditorium’s speakers and Miles and Ainsley are wearing versions of what she wore in the music video.

“Oh, myGod.” I can’t say anything else. I’m frozen in a rictus of ecstasy, burning every last second of this into my brain.

They turn in unison and hit the choreohard.Hands are tick-tocking like a clock. There are hips. There are shoulder bounces. There are—and I can’t stress this enough—body rolls.

Ainsley is an utter rock star. Maybe she inherited some stage swag from her pop-pop or maybe it’s all her, but she is rocking it. Clearly singing her heart out even though we can’t hear her over the track.

Miles, on the other hand, God bless him, has not lost himself to the moment. He’s concentrating with all his heart. His careful, technically correct movements speak to exactly how much practice he’s put into this.

I’ve had this song stuck in my head a thousand times recently. I realize now it’s becausethey’vehad this song stuck intheirheads.

He must have practiced every day. For Ains.

“What am I seeing?” someone asks beside me as she plunks into Miles’s vacated seat.

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