I guide her back to starting position, my hands gentle on her small shoulders. She’s all gangly limbs and fierce determination, and she reminds me painfully of myself at that age. Too serious. Too hard on herself. Too convinced that anything less than perfection meant failure.
I’m projecting,I tell myself.She’s just a kid who stepped wrong.
But I see the way her jaw sets and the way her eyes dart toward the observation chairs where her grandmother sits with an expression of mild disappointment. I know that look. I grew up under that look.
“Let’s count together,” I say. “One, two, three—one, two, three?—”
Maya moves through the steps, hesitant but correct. Her feet land where they should. Her weight shifts at the right moment.
“See? You’ve got it.”
“I didn’t mess up?”
“Not even a little.”
The smile that breaks across her face is worth every moment of patience. She bounces back to her partner—poor Charles, who’s been stoically enduring his role as human practice dummy—and they resume their wobbly waltz.
I straighten up, pressing a hand to the small of my back, and catch Bianca’s eye across the studio. She’s manning the front desk, ostensibly handling registration paperwork, but I know she’s been watching.
She mouths something at me.
I squint.What?
She mimes looking at her phone.
Oh.
Right. The text. The text I’ve been avoiding for the past two hours, the one that’s been burning a hole in my pocket like a radioactive coal.
My mother’s birthday party. One week away. Mandatory attendance required, naturally—Carmen Solis doesn’t make requests, she issues summons. This year’s celebration is being held at the Bellamy Cove Country Club, because of course it is, and the guest list apparently includes everyone my mother has ever met, charmed, or intimidated into social obligation.
The text itself was simple.
Mom: Confirming your attendance for the 15th. Plus one?
Plus one.
Two words. Such simple words. Words that have been rattling around my skull since 7:43 this morning, disrupting my focus, tangling my thoughts, making me snap at inanimate objects.
“Miss Izzie?” Amelia tugs at my practice skirt. “Are you okay? You look funny.”
“I’m fine, sweetheart. Just thinking.”
“About Mr. Mal?”
I choke on nothing. “What? No. Why would you—what makes you think?—”
“He makes you smile different.” Amelia delivers this observation with the devastating accuracy of a child who hasn’t yet learned tact. “Like this.” She demonstrates, pulling her mouth into an exaggerated dreamy expression.
“I do not look like that.”
“You kinda do,” Maya offers helpfully, abandoning her practice to join the conversation. “My mom says Mr. Mal is Miss Izzie’s boyfriend.”
“Mr. Mal is my dance partner.”
“But you kiss him.”
“I—”How do they know about that?“That’s not?—”
