Page 43 of At First Dance
“I saw you talking to that little girl. The one who asked if you were really a singer. You were kind.”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Kids don’t expect me to be anyone else.”
I frown. “You don’t either.”
She looks at me again. “Don’t what?”
“Pretend. Not when it counts.”
Her lips part slightly like she’s about to argue, but then she closes them again and looks away.
I should leave it there. But the words are already tumbling out. “The camp. That’s why I first thought about it. For kids like that.”
She straightens a little, twisting in her seat. “You mean… the girl tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“I figured. You light up a little around them.”
“I don’t light up.”
“You kind of do. Like an unplugged Christmas tree with one string of working lights.”
I bark out a laugh despite myself at the visual, finally letting my gaze flicker to her for a split second. Her smile is small but real.
“I meant it, you know,” she says. “What I said before. About helping you with it.”
I sober instantly. “You don’t know what you’re offering.”
“I know enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her eyebrows draw together. “Then tell me.”
“I don’t have the money, the time, or the right degree for any of it. It’s just an idea I get sentimental about when the house gets too quiet.”
“That doesn’t make it any less worthy.”
I tighten my grip on the wheel. “You don’t get it.”
“Try me.”
“I don’t have anything to offer, Ivy.” I shake my head. “Not to those kids. Not to you. Unfortunately, anything I can teach them is an art that’s falling to the wayside.”
The silence that follows is louder than anything she could say. And worse than any lecture.
But still, she replies, gently, “You have more than you realize.”
I don’t respond. Can’t. My throat’s too tight with the truth I don’t want to admit. When she looks at me like that—like I’m something—every wall I’ve ever built starts to crack.
We roll to a stop under the wash of starlight, both porch lights casting twin halos—one over the house, one over the cottage. I kill the engine. Neither of us moves. Then she reaches for the handle, and I follow.
We walk side by side until the path splits—gravel veering left toward my front steps, crushed seashells curving righttoward hers. The air is warm and quiet, a cricket choir tucked in the fence line. She toes a pebble with her sandal, and it skitters ahead, choosing the cottage for her.
“Thanks for… all of it,” she says, voice low. “The food. The… buffer.” Her mouth tilts. “The dance.”
“Anytime,” I answer, which is more honest than I mean it to be.
