Page 3 of Grateful in Watch Hill
Still, I needed the help. Rather,weneeded the help—my father and I. That fact couldn’t be denied—over the last few months I’d woken up many days and wondered how we were going to make it. I pulled the car forward one length and regarded my dad, who sat in the passenger seat next to me. “Lots more people here than I expected.”
“Me too.”
He kept his eyes on the line in front of us. Several hundred feet ahead a large blue tent marked the place where we’d receive the handout. The volunteers scrambling in and out of the pick-up spot reminded me of cheerful ants, all of them working hard in bright orange T-shirts.
“This isn’t the man I wanted to be, Kendra,” he said after a few more minutes, and a few more creeping car lengths. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“This all feels so strange.”
“I know, Dad.” I sighed. “I know.”
“We’re only doing this once,” he said, a hint of forceful resolve in his voice. “One time. That’s it, okay?”
“Okay.”
I gave him the reply that he wanted, even though I couldn’t be sure I’d be able to hold us to that promise. The reality of our situation hit me in the face every morning when I woke hungry—stressed—a cold reminder that we had few options left.I need to find steady work. Soon. We can’t live like this much longer.
“I don’t think they’re taking names,” I added as I watched the volunteers handing out the food. “We don’t have to tell them who we are.”
“Good, because I wouldn’t.”
I inched the car closer to the distribution center. Three cars between us and the box the local newscast promised would be enough to get two people through two weeks. While I knew the money in Dad’s checking account could have covered that, it would still be nice to give his disability check and my meager earnings as a part-time delivery driver for FoodSwap a break. Any margin between us and abject poverty was a good thing.
“I posted my résumé on a couple of new message boards this morning while you were asleep,” I told him when there was one car left to the front of the line. “Fingers crossed someone is looking for a hip-hop teacher.”
“Someone is.”
“I hope.”
“That’s all we can do.”
I sighed again. It was hard to remain hopeful and getting harder each week. I might have invested more than twenty years into my dancing career, working on it every day since I was five, but the last year or so had done nothing but prove it was just a stupid dream for a life I would never lead. It didn’t matter I’d beenthis closeto landing a job as a featured dancer for American Dance Company’s modern dance troupe. It didn’t matter I had beenthis closeto finally getting the roles I wanted in one of the most prestigious companies in the world. It didn’t matter I had beenthis closeto living the life I wanted.
It didn’t matter.
The pandemic had forced American Dance Company to close indefinitely, throwing all their performers out of work. New York City’s rolling restaurant closures made my backup income dry up too, and Dad’s health had gotten worse in my absence.
All of that brewed together forced me to move back home. I thought I’d have better luck in Ohio, but that had proved a joke too. During hard times, there wasn’t much demand for a trained modern dancer. Who cared about the number of pirouettes I could complete in succession or the arch of my feet when I performed the buffalo tap step? Those skills didn’t make me employable.
Are they even skills, at all?
And I was getting older. Twenty-five. I was already pushing it, and soon enough I’d be too old to grace any stage. Dancers had a quick shelf life. Simple and undeniable.How I wish I’d known that before I’d thrown so much time and money into my profession.
“I’ll look around when we get home and see if there are a few more places where I can post my availably. Someone somewhere has to need me.”
“Maybe you could teach yoga or Pilates.” Dad coughed twice. I knew it was likely his chronic bronchitis, notthevirus itself. He’d been lucky to stay moderately healthy, and we both received our second dose of the vaccine a few weeks earlier. “Those are kind of similar, aren’t they?”
“They are.” I glanced over at him. “You feel okay? You sound kind of hoarse.”
“Just the usual.” He spread a weather-beaten hand, one calloused from years of working as a carpenter making custom kitchen and bathroom cabinets. “You know how it goes; I’ve been living with this forever.”
Dad was right, he had. In fact, his lungs were the reason he couldn’t work anymore and finally went on full disability a few years before. They didn’t work the way he wanted.
“Here we go.” He pointed at the line. “Our turn.”
I drove the car forward, then pulled my neck gaiter over my mouth and nose. Thanks to my dad’s health status and a few lucky breaks, both of us were now fully vaccinated against the virus. Even so, we were still following most of the CDC’s precautions, and a large sign at the entrance to the church parking lot had served as reminder that masks were required for box pickup. I rolled down the window. “Hi, I’m here to pick up our food box.”
