Free Leap by Jodi Lundgren Page A

stretched out on the chaise longue, a hardcover book propped open on her stomach, a glass of orange juice in one hand. “Mom! While you’re back here reading yourself senseless, your ten-year-old daughter is out front playing with a creepy old man!”
    Paige protested. “He wasn’t creepy!”
    I left Paige and Mom to sort things out and shut the sliding glass door behind me. I grabbed a box of bran flakes and shook it into a bowl. A strainer filled with rinsed raspberries sat next to the sink. I dropped a few berries onto my cereal and stirred in some milk. Boring. When Dad lived with us, he made pancakes on Sunday. I stared past my bowl at the phone.
    Dear Dad,
    All you are to me is a voice, tinny and two dimensional. We can’t do stuff together. I never see you. I don’t even think of you as flesh and blood anymore.
    And it’s all your fault. You chose to move 3,000 miles away. Nobody made you.
    Damn it. Don’t you miss me?
    Don’t answer that. You don’t deserve to see me. You don’t deserve a daughter, let alone two.
    I couldn’t finish my cereal. My stomach cramped up. I stormed back out to the porch, where Mom was just settling back into her book.
    â€œI hope this makes you realize how dangerous it is when a little girl grows up without a father. She’s a sitting duck for any man who pays attention to her.”
    Mom held her place in her book with an index finger and pushed her sunglasses into her hair. We looked each other in the eye. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting? We know who the Ainslies are.”
    â€œThat’s not the point. He could have been anyone! And you, did you even know he was out there? Why don’t you wake up and do your job as a mom?”
    At that, Mom carefully placed her bookmark between the pages, shut her novel, and stood up. I didn’t know what she was doing.
    She bent over the wooden side of the balcony. She was wearing shorts, for a change, made of sage green cotton. When she rose on tiptoe, her calf muscles rippled. Apart from a few varicose veins, her legs are still in decent shape. It annoys me that they’re thinner than mine. “Paige?”
    Paige responded from down below. “What?”
    â€œDo you want to play catch?”
    â€œWith who?”
    Mom winced, as if Paige’s response confirmed her guilt. “With me.”
    Paige didn’t say anything for a second. “You mean you want me to teach you? Okay!” She ran to the foot of the stairs. “I can show you everything I’ve learned at softball camp!” Holding the banister, Mom glanced back at me and raised her eyebrows.
    She was admitting I was right. I’d won.
    So why did I feel so bad?
    Monday, July 19th
    Ms. Kelly kicked me out of the studio today. Every jazz class, she has harassed me, and today she finally said, “Natalie, we only have four rehearsals left before the showing. I’ve been waiting for you to get over your slump, but it’s just not happening. You’re putting the other dancers in jeopardy. I’ll have to take you out of the piece if you can’t turn your attitude around—and I mean all the way around.”
    I couldn’t believe she was interrupting rehearsal to chew me out in front of the other girls. I had actually semi-enjoyed the warm-up, and we had only run the dance once. “What did I do?”
    â€œIt’s what you’re not doing, Natalie. You’re half the dancer you used to be. You’re one of the most advanced dancers in the school and people used to look up to you. But now you act bored and …” She paused, her hands on her hips. She was wearing gold spandex pants, a white blouse open over a leotard and knotted at the waist, and white jazz shoes. A pair of high-heeled sandals lay on the floor beside the stereo—she would slip into those after class, as if she had Barbie-doll feet. She always wears full