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“Doing a little remodeling, sweet pea?”
Her father leaned in the doorway, a beer in one big hand, his eyes taking in the scatter of things on the floor and the disarranged trophies on top of the dresser. Sophie shrugged one shoulder, not meeting her father’s eyes. “Just looking through some old stuff.” She scooped more of it
back into the box, a handful of award ribbons nearly every color of the rainbow.
“Here, let me help.”
“Oh no, Dad, that’s fine. I’ve got it.”
But he’d already crouched beside her and began straightening papers and untangling ribbons. He flipped over a photograph of Sophie in her tutu, arms over her head.
“You’d have slept in that thing, if your mother had let you.”
Sophie lips quirked a little. “Probably. I remember thinking other clothes were completely boring in comparison.”
Her dad tucked the picture back into the box and lifted a stack of papers. Order forms, Sophie saw, for tap shoes. “We could probably throw those out.”
“Your mother would kill me.” He folded them into the box.
“They’re likely fifteen years old. I doubt I could still get them for that price.”
“Seemed like a lot then. You were always needing new taps.”
Sophie ducked her head. “I would bring them over to friend’s houses and tap there too.”
“Knew it.” He snorted, lifting a handful of second place ribbons.
He pulled one out of the batch. It was slim and red. Or it had been. It was so faded it was now merely a washed out pink, and the ends were frayed and loose. Whatever words had been on it were almost completely worn away, except for a shimmery gold P near the top.
Participation ribbons were what they gave out to all the people who didn’t win at the competitions Sophie had gone to as a kid. Her dad chuckled, running his big, rough fingers over the worn ribbon. “I remember this one.”
Sophie blinked, surprised. It was hardly distinguishable from the others, except that it was slightly more faded than some of the rest. “You do?”
He nodded, grunting a little as his knees popped when he stood, and crossed to sit on her bed. He carried the ribbon on his palm, still stroking it with a gentle fingers.
“You don’t?”
She studied it again, cocking her head, trying to place some sort of significance on it. But she had a ton of ribbons. Sophie had danced in any and every competition in the tri-state area as a child. That particular ribbon held no special meaning for her. “No.”
“You couldn’t have been more than eight. You’d just started expressing an interest in dance a year or so before, and your mom signed you up for Miss Clara’s. You were doing the ballet, and some tap, I think.”
Sophie nodded, setting the box aside to sit on the bed beside her father. “I remember that part.” Her dad nodded, smiling fondly down at the little ribbon.
“There was a ballroom competition in Verona. It was the first time you participated doing tango. Your partner was that boy... the one with the stutter?”
“Frankie Blondell!” Sophie remembered the slim, bird-like boy whose mother had signed him up for dance lessons hoping to boost his confidence and help with the speech impediment. The first several years had been torture for him, teased not only about his stammer but also because he danced. But Frankie had stuck with it and become a really good dancer.
By the time he reached the age when girls became a thing of interest, Frankie had, in fact, grown comfortable and confident in his body. He’d also been sleekly muscular and knew how to dance. Girls responded to that. The other boys stopped laughing at him. Frankie had quit competing in dance competitions in high school, and gone on to become a software engineer and marry a model. The memory brought a smile to Sophie’s face.
Jim Becker sipped his beer. “Frankie Blondell, that’s right.”
“We lost,” Sophie said, plucking the ribbon from her father’s palm. She was beginning to recall the competition, vaguely. “We were the youngest competitors in that category and we were both still so new.” She chuckled a little ruefully. “I’m pretty sure we were awful. Is that why you remember it?”
“No, sweet pea.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “That’s not why I remember it. Goof.” He squeezed her a little. “I remember it because it was your first big loss. Your mother and I were both worried about how you were going to take it.”
Sophie frowned down at the ribbon, trying to remember. She would have thought it would be clearer. Her first big loss. But she barely recalled it at all, even now that she was trying hard to draw the memory out.
“Was I upset? I don’t remember.”
