Free Step-Ball-Change by Jeanne Ray Page B

matter how many times I reminded them to take their things with them.
    “I danced some.”
    “When? You hated to dance when we were kids.”
    Taffy leaned back against the barre and stretched her arms out to either side. “No, I didn’t hate to dance, you loved to dance. There’s a difference.”
    “You refused to go to dance class. Mother used to beg you.”
    “My refusing had nothing to do with my not liking it. I didn’t go because dance was your thing.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “It was always a competition with us.”
    “How could it have been a competition if you didn’t even dance?”
    “We were so competitive that we wouldn’t even try to do the same things. I took some dance classes, but you were too far ahead of me. You were already too good at it and I couldn’t win, so I quit.”
    “At six? You figured all of that out when you were six? That’s not possible.”
    “It’s not only possible, it’s true.” Taffy was relaxed, conversational. For her this was the friendliest exchange we had had in years. “We divided everything right down the middle: I was popular,you were smart. I jumped horses, you danced. I got Mother, you got Dad. If I was good in something, you never even went near it. If you were good at something, I gave it up.”
    “You got Mother, I got Dad?”
    “It’s true, isn’t it?”
    It was, but for the life of me I’d never thought of it that way. Little Henrietta, so named to be the son my father wanted, never interested my father a whit. I was the one who went to basketball games, who sat beneath his desk and read books when he had to go into the office and work on Saturday. Somehow I managed to be both a ballerina and the son he’d always wanted. For my mother, however, I was a colossal disappointment and my sister was the bright and shining star. “How did I miss that?”
    “I have no idea.” Taffy stretched up her arms and tapped out a little combination—hop left, flap right, flap left, flap right, shuffle left, shuffle right. She threw in a couple of double/triple-time steps. Without anyone else in the room, without the music, her feet made a beautiful, startling noise.
    “So you took dance classes?”
    “For a while, when I was in my forties. My therapist told me to. She said it was the only way to take back what you had stolen from me. Those were her words, not mine. I didn’t actually think of it that way. But I liked the classes. I dropped them after a while—you know how it is. You get busy and then later on you pick up something else, water aerobics or something.”
    “How long did you take the classes?”
    She shrugged. “On and off, about ten years.”
    “You danced for ten years? Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Because I wasn’t dancing. Not like you were dancing. I guess the therapist didn’t solve the problem. I never thought she was verygood anyway. Whenever I took a class, I just felt like I was trying to imitate you, and that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Anyway, who cares? This is all ancient history. I only came today because I was sure I had forgotten it all.”
    “Your feet betrayed you.”
    Taffy laughed. “First Neddy, then my feet. It makes me wonder what’s coming next. Maybe Stamp will bite me.”
    “Never happen.”
    “Really, that would be the end.”
    “So you’ll come back for another class, an adult class.”
    “I like the little girls.”
    “So come to both. Come to all of them. You can dance your heart out.”
    Taffy walked across the empty studio, her shoes clicking loudly with every step. My taps were off. I never could walk around in tap shoes. “What difference does it make now? I’m a little old to take up dancing.”
    I could see it all as if it were in front of me, Mother and Taffy heading out to shop, their hair curled, their sweaters matching, and I never cared because that meant I would be with my father, whose company I in every way preferred. “Everybody with any sense