Under the Light - By Laura Whitcomb Page 0,28

Absently he tilted the chair back on two legs. “What have you always wanted to do but couldn’t do without a friend?”

Jenny blinked, her shoulders shifted a little. That was all, but both Billy and I could see that she was thinking of something that she did not speak aloud.

“You thought of something,” he said. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she insisted.

“Come on,” he coaxed her. “What could be weirder than what we’ve already been through?”

“There’s things I could never do in ballet because you have to have a partner.”

“I could help,” said Billy.

I moved to the corner of the room and began to seep into the wall—I was invading their privacy.

“I don’t dance anymore,” said Jenny. “I quit taking ballet in March.”

“How come?”

“I needed more time to study.” Jenny thought for a moment. “My father thought so, anyway.”

“Bastard.”

Jenny couldn’t slap a hand over her mouth before the laugh got away from her.

“Sorry,” said Billy, but he looked pleased. “You were the one who had an indoor bonfire party when he left.”

“It’s okay.” Jenny folded her hands shyly.

“So let’s do it.” He let the chair drop to four legs. “You have a partner now.”

“Really? You dance ballet?”

“I’ve seen those guys on TV.” Billy stood up and put a foot on the seat of the chair, motioned dramatically to the right. “They just stand there and go Here she is!” He turned to the left as if displaying a piece of art. “And Look at her now, and”—he mimicked catching an invisible bag of flour—“Oops, I better catch her because she just threw herself at me.”

Jenny laughed and I blessed him for that. It was a sweet sound. “You do not want to dance with me,” said Jenny.

“Oh yeah?” The mischief in his eyes reminded me of James. He pushed the chair out of the way with his foot. “Go get your tutu.”

Jenny took her box of ballet things off the closet shelf and opened it slowly, drawing the toe shoes up by their ribbons.

He watched her sit on the side of the bed and lace them up her ankles, the wide satin ribbons faded and frayed in places, the toes of the shoes fuzzy and nearly worn to the wood. She stood up, hopped onto toe, paused to flex her calves and shake out her knees. Still he watched her. He seemed to have become hypnotized, but a moment later he stepped up to her side as Jenny approached the mirrored closet doors.

“This is silly,” she said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“You calling me a quitter?”

“No music in my room anymore,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Bastard,” he repeated in a whisper, and Jenny smiled, but I could see the truth in it made her a little uneasy. She shifted into position with her feet together and her posture lifted as she spread her arms. She elongated herself, through her spine and limbs—a remembered strength hidden there opened like a blossom. She began to quietly sing a simple melody, perhaps a favorite ballet theme.

“And she sings, too,” Billy muttered.

“Stop it,” she laughed, and looked into his eyes in the reflection. I would have been in the reflected scene, in the wall behind them, if I had been one of the living.

The energy wavered in Jenny’s arms and she stopped singing. Something in the reflection had startled her. She dropped from her toes to stand flat-footed. Something in the backwards picture of Billy’s face made her stare.

PART 3

CHAPTER 12

Jenny

HE CRACKED HIS KNUCKLES AND shook out his shoulders like a boxer ready for the first round. My feelings about Billy kept shifting. At first it seemed like a dream, how he broke down the bathroom door to rescue me. But every time I thought about that picture he’d showed me, with our naked shoulders in bed, and about how we’d made love and I didn’t even remember it, my stomach jumped like an electric eel. On the other hand, it was exciting that I had found his phone number and called him behind my mother’s back. Then I was nervous when he first showed up—I acted like an idiot. Finally I started to feel comfortable with him. I’d never liked a boy who liked me back.

But when I looked at him in the mirror, I had the feeling I was supposed to be somewhere else and with someone else. Maybe it was everything that had happened the day before, crashing in on me. Having lost my memory and going to the hospital. Finding out my father