Page 91 of Barre Fight
“No,” he shook his head hard. “I mean, they wouldn’t want that.” Kieran threw a look over his shoulder down the street in the direction from which he’d come.
“Kieran,” Ivy said gently, keeping her voice low. “Why couldn’t you come to the performance?”
She knew, though. It was written on the kid’s face.
“My parents didn’t want me to,” he said, speaking to her knees again.
“Your parents, or just your dad?” Ivy asked.
Out of the corner of her eye, she felt Justin’s eyes fly to her face. Kavanaugh. She’d found it, buried in the pile of details and data she’d collected about Justin in the last few weeks as shedesperately tried to succeed in this job she was now ready to quit. Justin’s childhood tormenter, the ringleader Kyle Kavanaugh who liked to play “Boxer Versus Ballerina.” The bully who’d bloodied Justin’s nose more than once. Who, if Ivy had to guess, still lived here in Hillstone. And who now had a son who wanted to dance.
Through his shock, and over the roar of an old, long-buried panic that was suddenly rushing in his ears, Justin couldn’t help but be impressed. Ivy Page never forgot the details of a story, he thought, his admiration briefly outweighing all the other emotions that roiled his stomach as he looked down at Kieran Kavanaugh, who was the spitting image of his father Kyle. Had she written that name down in her notebook, too?
That day in New York, when he told her the truth about growing up here, he’d barely mentioned Kyle by name. But she’d remembered. And now, she was looking at Kieran as though she understood everything, as though she knew why he, Justin, was rooted to the singed ground and couldn’t seem to move his body. Even though he wanted to fidget and pace—no, he was past that. He wanted to run. He wanted to flee this place and never, ever return, no matter how badly it needed him.
Instead, he willed himself to stay where he was, to listen to Ivy’s conversation with the kid.
“Just my dad, I guess,” Kieran shrugged. “He says boys shouldn’t be interested in stuff like that.”
Justin felt the air between his body and Ivy’s go taut as she stood straighter, pulling herself up to her fullest height.
“Boys can be interested in all kinds of things, including ballet,” she said, and he could hear how much effort it was taking her to keep her fury out of her voice.
Kieran ducked his head. “Miss Mary said I couldn’t go without a signed form. She called him and asked him to sign it, but that just made him mad at me.”
Justin watched Ivy’s eyes flash, first with anger, and then with something rebellious. He remembered her telling him that some people deserved to get punched in the face, and wondered if she was going to let rebellion win now and tell Kieran that next time, he should try forgery.
“Well, we’re here now. What do you want to know about ballet?” he said, finally finding his words before Ivy could encourage a child to commit fraud.
Kieran shifted his weight back and forth from one foot to the other. “Do the boys wear those big skirts?”
“No, we wear shorts and T-shirts. Sometimes a singlet and tights. On stage we wear all kinds of stuff. Once, I got to dance with a sword.”
“That sounds cool.”
“It is cool, but I was also dressed as a giant rat,” Justin chuckled.
“A giant rat?”
“Yeah, a rat with eight extra rat heads, and a crown and a sword.”
Kieran frowned, looking confused.
“Ballet can be kind of weird sometimes. But it’s beautiful, too. And rewarding. You get to go up on the stage and show everyone how hard you worked and how strong and graceful you’ve become, and you know they’re wondering, ‘how does he do that?’”
Kieran nodded like he understood, and like he wanted Justin to keep talking, and Justin watched as his shoulders un-hunched. “Do you have any other questions?”
He did. Lots of them. How long did Justin take classes before he became a professional? Did boys ever dance in pointeshoes? What was the scariest thing that ever happened to him during a performance? Justin answered them all—11 years, not usually but that was changing, and watching his friend Marcus tear his Achilles tendon in the middle of a stage—and Kieran listened to each answer, rapt, before volleying back with another one.
It was only when Miss Mary returned with Rowaida and her cameraman that Kieran went quiet. “I should probably get home,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at his bike.
“It’s good to see you again, Kieran. Get home safe, won’t you?” Miss Mary said, and the boy nodded obediently. Even people who weren’t her students knew that she was someone whose words they should heed.
Except, of course, Kyle Kavanaugh. He’d always gotten away with whatever he wanted, protected by his own hubris and the town’s refusal to notice what he was doing to a boy who might have been gay or might simply have wanted a kind of boyhood that they’d never imagined before. Protected by the silence and fear he instilled in that boy.
But Justin wasn’t a boy anymore, and despite the bolt of old fear that had silenced him when he realized who Kieran was, he wasn’t afraid of Kyle Kavanaugh now. He wasn’t going to protect him anymore. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let him bully another boy away from ballet.
As Justin watched Kieran lope away and throw a leg over his bike, resolution and courage made his muscles feel warm and alive. Kieran turned the bike around and started down the street, and Justin recognized the feeling; it was the same one he felt when he stood in the wings right before dancing a new role. Like the steps hadn’t totally soaked into his muscle memory, but that he knew them well enough to step out on stage and perform them, trusting that his body would carry him through.
