I stand and start moving chairs. “Let's do it.”
She grins and starts the music.
“Wait, so Elsbeth smuggled Gene Kelly movies into your house?”
Holly's been asking about the tap dance comment, and I've been deflecting. But we're trapped in this car together for twenty miles, and she's relentless.
“She didn't smuggle them. She just ... didn't mention them to my parents.”
“That's smuggling.” She shifts in her seat to face me more directly. “How many are we talking? Like, one or two?”
“All of them.”
“All of them?”
“Every Gene Kelly film. Every Fred Astaire film. If it had tap dancing in it, Elsbeth found it.”
I can still remember sitting in the library with her, the TV volume turned low so my father wouldn't hear from his study.
“She'd sit with me and point out the rhythms, the patterns,” Holly said.
“And then you'd perform them in your living room.”
“How did you?—”
“Because of course you did. Seven-year-old Evan definitely practiced the routines.” She's grinning now. “Please tell me there's video evidence somewhere.”
“God, no. But my parents did see some of the performances. I'd drag them in to watch. They'd sit on the couch looking ... politely bemused.”
“Politely bemused?”
“They thought I'd grow out of it. A phase. Like collecting rocks or being obsessed with dinosaurs.” I grip the steering wheel tighter. “I didn't grow out of it.”
“What happened?”
“Boarding school. I was twelve. Right before I left, my father sat me down and explained that certain interests weren't appropriate to bring with me. That the other boys wouldn't understand. That I needed to focus on things that mattered—academics, sports that would look good on applications.”
“He told you to stop dancing,” she said.
“He told me to leave it behind. Be practical.” I can still hear his voice, measured and reasonable. Like he was giving me good advice instead of taking something away. “So I did. Joined the lacrosse team instead.”
“And became the most graceful player on the field.”
“Even though it was never my thing,” I finish.
Holly considers this. When I glance at her, her expression is so kind I feel a lump in my throat.
“That's awful,” she says. “That they made you choose.”
“It was practical.”
“It was cruel.”
The word surprises me. Cruel. I've never thought of it that way. Hearing her take my side against the narrative I was fed feels like a small, necessary earthquake.
“Dance wasn't going to help me run the foundation someday,” I say.
“But it made you happy.”
