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I have a hard time believing it. Mom had me when she was twenty-two. She’d been dancing professionally since she was sixteen, and she was already the prima ballerina of a world-renowned company.
My incredulity must have shown on my face, because she continues. “Most dancers retire in their mid-thirties, Dia. Forties, at the latest. I haven’t danced in almost twenty years and I’m forty-one. It’s not feasible.”
Something drops inside me. “I ruined your career.” I’ve known that for a long time, but I don’t think I’ve said it out loud before.
Mom drops the pair of shoes in her hand back in their box, and sits with me on a large velvet stool. “Listen to me, Nadia. I was born poor. Dirt poor, and in a bad neighborhood. Most days, I went to bed hungry. There was a rich old lady who felt bad for kids like me, so she opened a dance school. It was a charity, only a few hours a week. One day, she took me aside and told me I was good—really good. That if I worked hard, it could be my ticket out of there. I was eight, and hungry. In more than the physical sense. I needed more than what I had, you hear me?”
I nod, stunned and wondering how I didn’t know any of that about my mother.
“Turned out, the lady used to be a professional dancer in her old days. When my toes bled, I bandaged them and went back to my pointes. When I was twelve, she got some of her fancy friends to come see me. I got a scholarship and sponsorship to come here, to New York. I worked harder. I was stillhungry. And when the money started rolling in, I killed myself on my toes to earn more.” Silence falls and Mom shakes her head. “I needed dancing to survive, but now? I hate ballet, darling.”
I blink, completely astonished. “But you teach ballet. You do classes…”
“At the youth club,” she completes, looking at me expectantly.
Finally, the wheels turn and I understand. “You do it to help. Like the old lady helped you.”
She smiles at me like she’s proud. “Mind you, I’m nothing like that old crone. Mireille was a slave driver. She enjoyed the torture, I swear.”
I recognize the name. “Auntie Mireille? You call her every year, right?”
Mom smiles, squeezing my shoulders. “I don’t speak about my past often because it wasn’t pretty, Dia. But without Auntie Mireille, I wouldn’t be here.”
I don’t think she means in New York.
“So, no ballet. But don’t you get, like, bored?”
Mom laughs out loud. “Hardly. I put money away when I was working, and invested it well. I get to have fun with my friends when I want to, and I can enjoy my own company, too. My life’s very fulfilling, Dia, don’t you worry for me.” She kisses my forehead.
I notice she hasn’t mentioned my father.
“How about you? When you’ve sold millions of wonderful art pieces and your name is on everyone’s lips, what do you want? To find a job to avoid boredom?”
I wrinkle my nose, finding it hard to see that far down the road. “I don’t know. One dream at a time, Mom.”
She tilts her head. “Think about it, okay? As young people, we spend a lot of time working, and sometimes we miss the bigger picture.”
That’s unusually wise.
Before I can wallow in despair about finding the meaning of life, Mom squeals. “Oh my god! Youhaveto try those shoes!”
Before I see them, I know she’s wrong. Our tastes couldn’t be more different. I like heavy, mostly flat, edgy boots I can customize. Mom likes four-figure stilettos.
She runs and comes back with a pair of shiny red shoes. I’m stunned because she’s right. I have to try them on.
With a white rim and delicate yellow patent along the edge, the pumps have white heels with floral decorations. They’re incredibly cute, and different. My mother wouldn’t be caught dead in them, but they’re definitelyme.
“I don’t wear heels normally.”
“They’re blocks, they won’t hurt. You can always keep a pair of flats in your purse. Go on, try them.”
I do, because those shoes are adorable.
My mother bounces up and down and herds me to a mirror. My eyes widen. I’m just wearing jeans and a plain purple sweater tied at the waist. My hair’s in its usual messy bun. But somehow, with those shoes, I look different. Put together, as though I have an actual style.
“You need these shoes.”
I bite my lip. I don’t usually have a Saks budget.
