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“I mean, like, when I saw him, I was, like, he’s not cute, but then I saw him with you, and, like—“
“You make him cute,” another girl chimes in.
It’s another Monday, another pointe class. I listen to the other girls jabber about Paige’s new boyfriend.
“I wanted him to come to pointe class today, but he wasn’t in school,” Paige moans. She’s dark-haired, with dark brown eyes heavily rimmed with eyeliner. She pulls out her pink satin pointe shoes. “I hate these things. Maybe I should just skip.”
I don’t respond. Paige isn’t really one of my friends. In fact, none of the girls at the studio are really my friends.
I pull on my rubber toe pads after sprinkling them with baby powder. They will protect my toes; provide more layers between my toes and a block of wood.
After I slip the pointe shoes on my feet, I have to tie the ribbons. I sit down on the floor, put my foot parallel, and bend my knee forward. This keeps the ribbons from being too tight. I wrap each ribbon around my ankle, one at a time. After my pointe shoes are properly tied (it takes at least two tries to get the tightness right), I walk into the studio, my wooden foot extensions clunking even on carpeted floor.
Miss Diane runs my ballet studio. She’s about fifty, but still a beautiful dancer and still teaching every ballet class. She has long blond hair and a tough personality. She hates messy hair, extra shirts on top of leotards, and when people wander into her class late. I love her. Miss Diane is an incredible teacher.
I’m the first one in the dance room. I usually am. Everyone else prefers to gossip and text in the dressing room as long as they can before Miss Diane kicks them out. I move all the barres to the center of the room, the way we always have them for pointe class. I start to warm up, pliés to relevés on pointe. I can’t help watching my feet in the mirror. I love my pointe shoes. They’re beautiful, and I think they look gorgeous on my feet. I spring up to a fifth position on top of my pointes and bourré (patter quickly) across the room. The rest of the class slowly shuffles in, about half on pointe shoes. The rest are in flat shoes.
“Girls!” Miss Diane snaps, herding my classmates into the room. “It’s already 4 o’clock, you’ve wasted fifteen minutes! Now you’ll only have a half-hour lesson!”
“Good,” a friend of Paige’s mutters. I think it’s Sophie, an African-American Goth friend of mine, but it’s hard to tell. There are about eight regular people in my pointe class, all of whom attend our regular classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.