To the Stars, Isabelle Read online

  Butterfly? Funny, that’s exactly how I had thought of Jackie when I saw her demonstrating Luisa’s solo a week ago.

  Jackie thought for a moment and then said, “Ballet still makes me feel like nothing else, like I’m wet and cold and shivering in the rain, and then”—she raised a hand in the air—“a ray of sunlight pokes through the clouds and pulls me up with it. I float upward on a breeze and leave everything else behind.”

  I finally worked up the nerve to ask the question that had been stewing inside me. “But if you love ballet so much, why did you turn down Odette?” I asked, glancing sideways at Jackie. “Why are you putting on these shows instead?”

  “Because someone lifted me into that sunshine, and now it’s time to give back,” Jackie said simply. “Dancing isn’t just about feeling joy, Isabelle. It’s about spreading it around. It’s a gift you are born with and a gift you can give to others.”

  Jackie suddenly reached for her bag. “Speaking of gifts,” she said, “I have something for you. The school asked me for a memento for its trophy case, but I think you deserve these more.”

  Opening her dance bag, she took out a pair of girl’s pointe shoes in a protective plastic bag. “This was my very first pair of pointe shoes,” said Jackie. “They’re too worn to use when you finally go en pointe, but maybe you’d like them as a souvenir?” She handed the shoes to me.

  The toes were scuffed and the soles dark with wear, but those shoes might as well have been pure gold to me. Even so, I tried to give them back. “I can’t take them,” I said softly. “They’re too special.”

  But Jackie insisted, pressing the shoes into my hands. “Take them, Isabelle, please,” she said, “as a gift from one born dancer to another.”

  I couldn’t speak over the lump in my throat, but as I held the shoes tenderly, I wondered what gift I could give to Jackie in return. Just my best, I thought. I’ll give her my best at rehearsals. And then I remembered something else I could give her: a cape. A cape with a very special design on the back—the wings of a graceful butterfly.

  When I got home, I heard clattering from the kitchen. I couldn’t wait to tell Mom my news.

  “I danced with Jackie!” I shouted happily. “Just her and me.”

  But it was Dad’s voice that answered me. “You’re kidding!” he said. “What was it like?” He was making hamburger patties, and Tutu was at his feet, waiting for something tasty to fall.

  My mind was bursting with so many images and feelings that I didn’t know where to begin. “Awesome” was all I could say. Then I remembered the shoes.

  Unzipping my dance bag, I carefully took out Jackie’s gift. “Look!” I announced, still in disbelief. “She even gave me her first pair of pointe shoes.”

  Dad dried his hands and studied the shoes from all angles, giving a low whistle of appreciation. “That’s incredible,” he said. “But they belong in something better than a bag.” He stowed the hamburger patties safely inside the refrigerator and then said, “Follow me.”

  As he led me down the hall, Dad glanced over his shoulder and said, “Did you know my hospital signed up to host one of your shows?”

  “That’s great!” I said. It meant we could count on at least one good audience. “We’re also going to perform at Thompson Hospital,” I added.

  Dad sniffed. “I guess Thompson is an all-right place, if you’re not too sick,” he joked. Thompson was one of his hospital’s friendly rivals.

  Music floated out from the living room along with the rhythmic thump of feet. We stopped in the doorway. The furniture had been pushed against the walls to create a dance floor. Jade was moving through an intricate set of steps and looking as light as Mom’s mobile whirling overhead. Her private lessons seemed to be worth every penny.

  When Jade finished, she turned off the music on her laptop. “Do you like the new routine?” she asked, panting.

  “It’s amazing,” I said.

  “Beautiful, Jade. And Isabelle has something beautiful here to share, too,” Dad said, stepping toward the fireplace mantel. I didn’t understand what he was doing until he took down the cube-shaped glass case that held his boyhood treasure.

  “That’s your signed Cal Ripken baseball glove,” I said.

  “It won’t turn to dust before I get another case,” Dad said, setting the case down on the coffee table and lifting off the glass top. “It’s just as important to protect Jackie Sanchez’s shoes.”

  Jade whirled around and looked down at the shoes in my hands. “Are they really her pointe shoes?” she asked.

  “Her first pair,” I said proudly.

  “Wow” was all Jade could say. Then she added, “You’re getting really close to her, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t want to brag, but I was feeling so proud that I had to share Jackie’s compliment. “Jackie said she was giving them to me as a gift—from one born dancer to another,” I said, feeling my cheeks burning.

  “She did?” said Jade, cocking her head. “Really?” Jade narrowed her eyes, as if she thought I was making all of this up.

  Jade’s tone took the wind right out of my sails. Why was it hard for her to believe that Jackie would pay a compliment like that to me? Then it struck me: Is Jade…jealous?

  Before I could respond, Dad asked, “Isabelle, do you want to do the honors?” He had removed his mitt from the display case, so it was ready for my treasure.

  While I placed the shoes in the case, I noticed some words written inside one shoe. They were blurry from sweat and wear, so they were hard to read. “Wait, somebody wrote something,” I said.

  Dad crouched to study the words. “Bue-na suer-te,” he read slowly. “That’s Spanish for ‘good luck.’”

  As Dad gently lowered the glass case over the shoes, I wondered who had written the words. Was it Jackie’s grandmother? If so, they were a doubly special gift. She was the one who had inspired Jackie’s dancing and had taken her to her first ballet.

  Then I wondered, Is Jackie’s grandmother her special person—the one she pictures in the audience to help lift her out of the rain and into the sunshine?

  At our last rehearsal before spring break, Luisa and I had polished our pirate routine, but we were still working on perfecting our stage entrance. Gabriel, Ryan, Jacob, and Hailey were the wave makers who rippled the blue cloth to create ocean waves. Jackie had added some surf sounds to the beginning of our music, and when Luisa heard the sound, she would dance out in front of the wave makers. Then I would creep beneath the layers of cloth and leap out, like a sea fairy springing from the frothy waves.

  Now that there were two bolts of cloth swirling around me, though, it was tougher to emerge gracefully from the waves. I wished we could have practiced our entrance for more than half an hour, but our castmates had their own rehearsing to do.

  Jackie spent the second half of the morning working with the Waltzing Flowers. When their rehearsal ended, I could hear Renata bragging from way down the hall about the attention she was finally getting from Jackie.

  I was tempted to tell Renata about the pointe shoes Jackie had given me, just to put her in her place. But Renata might not be the only person who would get jealous. My other castmates might, too, and that wouldn’t be good for the show. So I kept my mouth shut, even though it was hard.

  On the bus ride home, my stomach wouldn’t stop doing somersaults. Just two days from now, we would be dancing for an actual audience!

  As soon as I got home, I ran upstairs and started to lay my costume out on my bed—and then I realized I’d been so busy learning the pirate dance that I hadn’t even thought about my makeup. So I went back downstairs to the living room, where Jade was practicing.

  I knew enough not to interrupt her, so I just sat down in a corner out of the way. Her eyes drifted toward me, but she kept on dancing. When the song finally ended, she muted the sound on her laptop and turned toward me. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “We have our first show on Monday,” I explained. “Would you d
o my makeup before I go?”

  Usually my sister jumps right in to help, so I didn’t expect her to shrug off my request. But she did. “Maybe it’s time for you to start doing your own,” Jade said.

  What? She couldn’t be serious. “But you’re so good at it,” I coaxed.

  “You’ve seen me do it a lot of times, Isabelle,” Jade insisted. “You can do it yourself—I know you can.” She paused and then added, “Or Jackie can do it for you.”

  Jackie? “I can’t ask her,” I said, whining a little now. “She’s too busy.”

  “And I’m not?” Jade snapped suddenly. “I’ve got my own lessons to worry about, you know.” Wheeling around, she turned up the sound on her laptop, once again filling the room with music.

  As my sister began to dance, I saw how stiff and tense she was. What had I said wrong? Was Jade really too busy to do my makeup, or was she just jealous of how close I’d gotten to Jackie?

  I wish I knew how to make things okay between us, but I didn’t have a clue. So I just left the room, feeling more alone than ever.

  I was still feeling lonely and a little sad when I went to Anna Hart on Monday. Though school wasn’t in session, we were using it as our gathering spot. A school bus was parked in the loading zone, and I saw some of the chaperoning parents gathered on the sidewalk.

  Luisa and I changed into our costumes in the restroom. Luisa put on her pirate skirt with pink and orange flounces, and I put on my ivory leotard and tutu.

  As usual, Renata hogged the mirror while she put on her makeup. No way was I going to ask her for help with mine. Lucky for me, though, just as Renata was leaving, Saafi came in to touch up her makeup. And when she was done, she agreed to help Luisa and me with ours.

  Then, with Ms. Hawken and Jackie calling out instructions, we loaded up the bus and took our seats for the short drive out to Thompson Hospital.

  Thompson was a tall slab of gleaming white concrete. When we walked through the sliding doors, I saw that the hospital was a lot newer than Dad’s—with big windows that made it look lighter and airier inside.

  But Renata frowned when she saw the visitors and staff streaming down the hallways. “It’s as crowded as an airport in here,” she said with a scowl.

  “Yeah, hospitals are usually busy, Renata,” I said, annoyed that she always had to complain about something.

  We were all in costume, and each of us was carrying something. Luisa and I were lugging Dad’s fun box full of costumes and props, while Gabriel was carrying the bag of capes.

  Our chaperones and teachers doubled as pack mules, too. Ms. Hawken carried some sound equipment as we followed the hospital director down a wide corridor. The director was a small, round woman whose blouse had a bow at the neck the size of a sunflower. I wondered how she ate her lunch with that bow in the way.

  “The cafeteria is the largest space for a show,” she was explaining to Jackie. “It’s not too busy after lunchtime, so we can move some of the tables aside.”

  The cafeteria turned out to be a large, low-ceilinged room. Janitors in blue uniforms had already folded up most of the tables and were pushing them toward one wall, their wheels squealing loudly.

  Against the far wall gleamed the glass sneeze guards of the cafeteria line. Workers in white smocks and hairnets removed pans of food from steam tables. Other workers wheeled trolleys of trays and dirty dishes through swinging doors. From the kitchen came the clang and clatter of workers cleaning up.

  “As you can see, the hot food service is finished,” the director explained, “so you won’t be in the way of the lunch crowd.”

  Luisa and I exchanged a glance. Be in the way? This woman made it sound as if she were doing us a favor, rather than vice versa.

  Renata looked in disbelief at a large puddle of soup spilled on the floor tiles. “She’s got to be joking,” she muttered to Hailey. “How can anyone put on a show in here?”

  “Shh,” Hailey said. “She’ll hear you.”

  But the director was still talking. “The children are scheduled to come down in an hour,” she announced.

  “The show’s open to adults, too, though. Can you make a public announcement inviting anyone who is interested?” Jackie asked. She scribbled something on a slip of paper and handed it the director.

  “Yes, of course,” the woman assured her. “Now, I’ll leave you to your setup.” Turning on her heel, she hurried away.

  Jackie motioned for us to gather around her. One corner of her mouth curved up. “Well, I warned you that this wouldn’t feel like a theater,” she said. “But we don’t need a stage or fancy lights to entertain an audience. We just need ourselves and our talents.” She motioned to the kitchen, which was as noisy as ever. “Even with all that going on, we’re going to put on the best show we can, because what are we called?”

  “Ah, the Big Hart Party?” Olivia asked timidly.

  “That’s right!” Jackie said, punching the air. “Let’s hear it again.”

  This time we all said, “The Big Hart Party.” And when Jackie cupped her hand behind her ear, we all shouted, “THE BIG HART PARTY!”

  Satisfied, Jackie got down to business and marked off the area that would be our stage. We had no stage manager, so one of our chaperones, Olivia’s father, was drafted into the job. He would keep the space clear while the audience gathered. And in the meantime, he got some paper towels from the kitchen and cleaned up the soup.

  “Backstage” was marked off by folding screens that we’d brought from Anna Hart. They were solid wood planks with a gold-patterned satin covering. We dumped our props in the space behind the screens, which felt so empty compared with the crowded backstage areas at Anna Hart or the HDC’s theater.

  Next, Jackie got to work setting up the sound system. It was a pretty simple one: just two big speakers hooked up to an amplifier. A cable ran from that to an MP3 player, which Ms. Hawken would operate.

  The only lighting was the steady glare from the fluorescent lights overhead. And there was no curtain, of course—just Gabriel to mark when one act ended and the next began.

  We did a quick warm-up, and then Jackie asked Luisa and me to hand out the capes to the other dancers.

  “Did you really have to put a parrot on mine?” Gabriel complained.

  “If the cape fits, wear it,” Luisa laughed.

  When everyone had a cape, I cleared my throat loudly. “Excuse me, Jackie. We have a little something for you, too,” I said, my heart racing with nervousness. I reached into my dance bag and carefully pulled out a gold satin cape with a red butterfly on the back.

  “You made this for me?” Jackie said. “Oh, it’s beautiful, Isabelle!” As she reached for the cape, she kissed my cheek.

  Jackie knew how to do everything with style—even putting on a cape. With a sweep of her arms, she swirled the cloth outward and let it settle it around her shoulders. Then she pirouetted, the cloth billowing around her, and we all started to applaud.

  Jackie thanked us again, and then she put up her hands to silence us. “Okay, Big Hart Party—let’s get started! When Ms. Hawken turns on the music, we’ll come through that door”—she pointed to a door leading to a side corridor—“clapping our hands, like we practiced at rehearsal. We’ll keep clapping as we form a row onstage and do our cape thing, and then we’ll march behind the screen one by one—and all to thunderous applause,” Jackie assured us with a wink.

  We broke into small groups to run through our routines. Gabriel stood off to the side, fanning out cards and murmuring as he practiced his act.

  Suddenly, a man’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker. “Come one, come all,” he said in a stiff, flat tone, as if he was having trouble reading the announcement. “The, um…Pig-Hat Party is about to begin in the cafeteria.”

  Pig-Hat Party? I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

  Renata put her hands on her hips indignantly. “Who’s a pig?” she demanded.

  Jackie stifled a giggle. “Well, I never got good marks for
my handwriting,” she admitted. “Next time I’ll print out the announcement.”

  Then we all started to laugh, because that was the only thing we could do. So will Jade when I tell her, I thought, because this was just the sort of thing she and I crack up about. But I also wondered sadly, Will she even want to hear about the show?

  Normally Jade was the one who calmed me down before a performance, when the butterflies were whirling around inside me, and afterward, too, when I needed to tell her what went right—and what went wrong. But things had been so weird between us lately. For today’s performance, at least, I was all on my own.

  As we waited in the side corridor with Jackie, listening for our musical cue, we heard the cafeteria fill with the sounds of our audience—the excited voices of children, the sound of their footsteps, and…thumps and squeaks?

  I couldn’t help peeking through the door. Both grown-up patients and kids were thudding along on crutches to reach the folding chairs that had been set up for them. Others were in wheelchairs with squeaky wheels.

  Renata peeked through the doorway beside me, and as a teenager walked by in a hospital gown wheeling an IV bag on a stand behind him, I watched the color drain from Renata’s face. The boy took a seat in the front row.

  I’d visited the hospital with my dad lots of times, so I felt right at home here. But clearly Renata did not. “Are you okay, Renata?” I asked.

  She scowled at me. “I just don’t know why they have to sit so close to us,” she said. “How are we supposed to have any room to dance?”

  I bit my tongue and turned away without saying a word. It was time to put on a smile for our audience. Maybe Renata couldn’t, but I could.

  When everyone in the audience was settled, Jackie nodded to Gabriel. “Gabe, go in and introduce us,” she urged.

  “Okay,” Gabriel whispered. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, it was as if he’d put in new batteries. He charged through the door. “Hey, it’s party time!” he hollered. “Ready for some fun?”

  There were a few weak yeses.