Page 6 of Forbidden Dance
Daisy beams that he knows her. “Yes,” she says. “Whose daddy are you?”
“Well, if you ask my lawyers, they’ll tell you I have defended fifteen paternity lawsuits,” Blitz says.
“Benjamin,” Danika says, a warning note in her tone.
“Right, right,” he says. “I am no one’s daddy. May I take your arm and show you something?”
Daisy holds out her arm.
Blitz encircles her wrist with his fingers and shakes her arm gently. “Wiggle your sillies out,” he says with more goofiness than any of us expected. “Turn your arm into a noodle, and then you will get a beautiful curve.” He lifts her arm into fourth position.
I wonder if he knows more ballet than he let on, or if he’s just picked up some form from his show. I’ll have to find a way to watch it. I’m desperately curious.
When Daisy makes her arm go straight, he grasps her wrist and jiggles it again. “Beautiful relaxed curve,” he reminds her.
His voice is like a drug. The girls are all rapt, just listening and watching, even though this is the sort of correction we’ve all done a thousand times to beginning ballerinas.
Daisy’s arm bends slightly, this time too angular. Blitz shakes her arm out one more time.
The curve falls more naturally.
“That’s it!” Blitz says. “Now drop your arm.”
Daisy lowers her hand to her lap.
“Now back,” Blitz says.
Her arm isn’t quite right, but after a quick shake, she’s in position again. They do this several times until her arm goes into a nice curve straightaway.
“Keep practicing,” he says. “Your arms are your superpower, so make them shine.”
He turns to Gabriella and my breath catches. “You next?” he asks her and she nods.
Behind me, Janel asks, “Is he in charge now?”
Danika says, “Only as much as you want him to be.”
Janel steps forward. “We’ll have individual ballerinas work with Blitz — Benjamin — while the rest of us continue practicing our timing with the music,” she says.
The other girls turn back to Janel. I come up behind Gabriella. “You want to move over near the barre?” I ask her. I can’t manage to frame a direct question to Blitz. I’m running hot and cold, torn between protecting her and my secret, and the memory of the charming boy he was yesterday.
It’s a lot to manage.
“Great idea,” Blitz says. He moves as if to push Gabriella by the handles, but she snatches her wheels and darts forward.
He straightens, surprised, and catches my eye.
“She’s a zoomer,” I say with a shrug.
We walk toward her, away from the group, as alone as you can get in a room full of girls. He quietly asks, “So none of these girls can walk?”
“That’s why they are in wheelchairs,” I say.
“But they can use their arms.”
“Each girl has a different level of movement and control,” I explain. “We choreograph around it, same as you’d play to the strengths and weaknesses of any dancer.”
He stops walking and waits for me to pause and turn back to him.
