I wasn’t the boss here. I was the artist in residence, though I still didn’t really know what that meant. I was aware that the campers looked up to me, or at least to my position—the other artists in residence were bigger deals in their respective fields than I was in mine. I wasn’t in charge, was the point. We were putting on this show together. Which, of course, was part of why I was so excited about it. It was a collaboration. The campers were the ones who’d inspired the idea for the theme of the show to be “girl” songs. We were still doingLittle Women—kind of—but after all our chat about the book’s themes, we’d decided to pick a few scenes and set them to iconic songs bywomen that referenced womanhood or girlhood in powerful ways. But we were also inspired by the title of the book in its regular adjective-noun format: little women. What is it like being a girl today? How does a girl assert her power in a world that doesn’t naturally tend to give her any?
It was going to be amazing.
After I got rid of the dead weight.
“Last week wasn’t the greatest, right? Not because of you all, but because of Tristan.” A murmur went through the group. They were surprised I was speaking so openly. “I’m not sure what his problem is, but clearly he has one. But I’ve been thinking, I’m not sure we need to let his problems be our problems, you know?”
“Are you going to kick him out of the show?” Addison asked.
“I think I should.” I had pretty much made up my mind but thought I ought to talk to the girls first. We were in this together, and I was the one who’d told the other artists to treat the kids like peers. “Do you all agree?”
“But what are we going to do without him? What about the ballroom scene?” asked Hong, who, in the role of Jo, was his partner for a large part of that scene.
“I have some thoughts about that, but first I really do want to apologize.” I’d meant to open with that, but we’d gotten sidetracked. “From the start, Laurie should have been one of you. There was no reason to bring a nondancer in, even one who was going to be decent about it. And beyond that, the show is supposed to be about girl power, right? So why have we been so stuck on this boy? Remember when we first decided to do the ballroom scene? We talked about how Laurie would be the eye of the hurricane, the center of the scene?” There were nods of agreement. “That was wrong from the get-go, Tristan aside. Andas we evolved the theme of the show to be more overtly about girlhood and the power of girls, it became even more wrong. I should have seen that sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“I don’t think there’s any need to be sorry,” Addison said. “I think this is what choreography is like sometimes—it’s probably what all art is like, or at least art you make with other people. It’s a process. Sometimes you have to stumble your way through to the right thing.”
Wow. I’d been correct in my early assessment of Addison as the smart one. And thatwaswhat was different about what I was doing here. At the studio, I unilaterally imposed recital choreography. I might consult Rory, but there was no “stumbling through” with the dancers themselves. There was no creating something together. Partly because most of them were so young. But partly because that just wasn’t how a dance studio like mine operated.
“So let’s stumble our way through this,” I said. “We have one week till the show. What do we do about Laurie?”
Some discussion followed, and it was decided that a girl named Harper should play Laurie, because she had the smallest role in this particular number, so pulling her out of it would cause the least amount of disruption.
“But will she fit into his costume?” asked one of the girls. “Or can we get it altered?”
“We can get it altered,” I said. “Or Jo could dance with a girl. Lori spelled L-O-R-I?” They laughed at that. “Remember that’s what Tristan first thought it was when he heard the name? Then the costume is irrelevant. We could just dispense with boys altogether.”
Hong raised her hand. “I actually like girls in real life. In, you know,thatway. Not boys.” She was blushing, and I keptmy face open and neutral. I had no idea if she was out generally, if everyone else knew this about her. At the very least she was coming out to me with that statement.
“That’s great.” I was trying to be positive but to play it low-key. “And since this is acting as well as dancing, it will probably read as more authentic.” I swung around to Harper. “Are you up for it?”
“I don’t want you to feel weird,” Hong rushed to say. “Or uncomfortable. Itwouldjust be acting.”
It was Harper’s turn to blush. “I won’t feel weird or uncomfortable.”
Then we ran the scene and damn, I was pretty sure both Harper and Hong did “feel weird,” but in a good way. A way that was creating chemistry and making the number crackle with energy. Hong hadnothad this with Tristan. We should have made this change a long time ago. But, I told myself, it was OK: we were stumbling through together. And now it was going so well that no one would be able to tell we’d only had “Lori” for a week.
After we got the number nailed down, I sought out Tristan and fired him. Hilariously, he did a version of what the Mediocre Men of Tinder so often did when faced with rejection. He told me my show sucked, that he’d never wanted to be part of it anyway, that dancing was lame in general, that ballroom dancing was especially lame. The funny part was that he was talking quietly, so quietly I had to strain to hear him. But then I thought,Why? Why am I doing this? Dude can’t even speak up with his toxic bullshit?
I laughed, and I didn’t even feel bad about it. Maybe I should have, on account of his being a kid and my being an adult and authority figure, but I didn’t.
That should have been it, but he followed me out of the studio, repeating his mumbled insults, except this time with less mumbling.
I was suddenly finding this encounter less hilarious and more of an affront.
I’d been headed to the dining hall, but I stopped and faced him. “You didn’t even want to be in the dance show anyway. As youjustsaid. And as you made abundantly clear every time you ‘practiced’ with us, so I don’t know why you’re so up in your feelings about this.”
Never tell a boy—of any age—that he’s getting emotional.
His insults turned personal. “Bitch.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was. I guess I assumed a kid at Wild Arts, no matter what he was thinking, would be smart enough not to vocalize something like that. So I was set back on my heels for a moment, blinking, unable to quite absorb the fact that yes, this was happening now.
“Fucking dance bitches. You think anyone will ever—”
“You will stop talking now.”
Teddy. Suddenly there.
