I am working on revisions of my latest novel at the moment, which means I haven't written any new short fiction. Instead, I offer you a excerpt from Variations on a Tango Girl, my work in progress. This story is set in a high school of the arts.
I am so nervous during mods that I fall out of pirouette, as if I haven’t done a million of them before, as if my feet don’t sometimes do them in my sleep. After two days of whispers, staring, and even one blatant pointer in the cafeteria, today is judgment day. Well, I’ve already been judged, I guess. Today is just my sentencing, the day I find out my fate.
Desiree has been in different mods over the last couple of days, so I haven’t been able to ask her if she’s heard anything, good, bad, or otherwise. I don’t know her well enough to park myself next to her at lunch, or find her between classes. I don’t know anyone well enough to ask. I would feel like I’m fishing for compliments.
When mods are done for the day, I know the list is up. I can almost feel it down there in the green room, a swarm of bodies crowded around it, eyes eagerly searching for the names of their owners.
I hide. I linger in the locker room. I take a ridiculously long shower. I blow dry my hair. I pluck my eyebrows. Eventually, I run out of procrasti-hygiene.
I leave my bag in the locker room, an excuse to retreat to the safety of a bathroom stall if my name isn’t on the list. An escape route if I have made a complete fool of myself.
There are roughly seven times as many bodies as I expect when I get to the green room. I thought everyone would have come and gone by now, leaving only a few lingerers. Instead, there are more than a dozen people left.
I’m not sure what to make of this space. It’s called the green room, but it’s not really a room. More of a lobby, an opening, an atrium, maybe. And it is definitely not green. The walls are a particularly boring shade of off-white. Dark gray carpet covers the floor. And the benches. They’re really just large blocks, maybe built out of plywood and then covered by an odd shade of blue carpet.
When I step into the not-really-green-room, silence falls. The guy from auditions with the spiky black hair and the wolf whistle is the only one brave enough to make eye contact. Everyone else is actively not looking directly at my face. Spiky guy smiles at me, then stands and walks away from the guy he had been talking to in the corner.
“Congratulations. You’re Mavis, right?”
The words are all in the wrong order. Congratulations before he even knows for sure I am who he thinks I am. But the congratulations mean I am on the list, I am part of the cast. I haven’t made a fool of myself, ruined my chances of having enough stuff to list on my application. I can list Chicago as another extracurricular activity.
I move my head in what might be a tiny nod. “Thanks? I haven’t seen the list yet.”
I step past him, headed for the single sheet of paper posted on the bulletin board. I feel his body trail behind mine, close enough that his body heat brushes my bare arm.
Before I am close enough to read the words on the page, I see the tall blond that took the lead in auditions. Trina? She is leaning on the wall across from the bulletin board, her eyes focused on me. She looks furious. Her eyes are red, as if she’s been crying. The door next to her swings open, and Dr. Rott sticks her head out.
“Come on in, Trina.”
Trina pushes off from the wall and pulls her eyes from me, letting them skate over spiky-haired guy as she follows Dr. Rott into her office and closes the door. I feel like a massive weight has been peeled off of my shoulders. Her gaze was heavy.
“Don’t worry, she’ll get over it.” Spiky guy is still hovering at my shoulder, still putting words together in ways that don’t quite make sense.
I turn toward him, about to ask what he means, but bail halfway and pivot my head back to the sheet of paper. I think it can explain what is happening here.
My name is at the top of the list. I read it three times, thinking there must be another Mavis. But there’s no way there’s another Mavis Ostreicher at this school. Me. At the top of the list. Next to the name Velma Kelly.
Dr. Rott put my name in the spot where Trina’s belongs. No wonder she looked angry.
I scan down the list, my eyes skimming over a list of names I don’t know. Desiree is down toward the bottom, just below Trina’s. Where mine belongs.
Maybe Dr. Rott made a mistake, switched our names. But if she had, she would have realized it already, fixed it. Or at least taken down the messed up list.
This must be what Dr. Rott meant. I don’t know why. This isn’t how this is supposed to be. I want to be a dancer. I want to be able to check another item off my list of things to include in my application.
This is more than an item to check off. This is more than I can do. I can’t sing. I can’t act. I’m just a dancer.
