Wordlessly, she reached inside and pulled out my old pair of ballet shoes. “I haven’t held a pair of these in forever.”
Seeing them sent a pang through me. I turned and sat on the bed. “Well, we’re about the same shoe size. Probably have roughly the same fit. You can have them if you want.”
“Don’t you want to keep them?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. You can borrow them. How about that?”
She glanced down at the satiny slippers and sighed a little. A wistful look crossed her face and my curiosity grew. “What don’t you dance anymore, Avery?”
Her gaze lifted and her cheeks reddened. “It’s just a long story that’s not really important right now. It doesn’t matter. I probably couldn’t even lift my leg now, let alone do a simple ballet move.”
“I bet you could,” I said instead of pushing her for more details.
She laughed it off, but her eyes lit up with something akin to excitement, like maybe she wanted to try. “I’d probably pull a muscle.”
“No you won’t.” My knee started to stiffen so I gingerly stretched it out. “Try it.”
The slippers dangled from her fingertips. “I’ll look like an idiot.”
“It’s only me here and I haven’t even showered today. Also, I can’t walk without a limp, so I’m pretty sure you don’t have to worry about impressing me.”
She hesitated and then crossed the room, placing the slippers on the bed beside me. “If you laugh, I might cry.”
“I won’t laugh!” But I did smile. “Come on. Just do it.”
Stepping back, Avery looked around the room, checking out the space as she toed off her shoes. She took a deep breath as she kicked a leg up. Closing her eyes, she planted her sock-clad foot on the inside of her thigh and twirled once and then twice, extending her leg out elegantly. Even on carpet, in jeans and out of commission for years, the girl had a natural-born talent that every studio-taught dancer envied.
When she completed the turn, I clapped loudly. “That was perfect!”
Her face was flushed as she straightened out her shirt. “It wasn’t. My leg—”
“Oh my God, you haven’t danced in years and you did the turn better than most of the people who haven’t stopped.” I picked up the ballet shoes. “You have to get on a stage. Even if it’s just with me at the Learning Arts Center. Just once.”
“I don’t know—”
“You have to!” I wiggled the shoes, and her gaze followed them like I was dangling something shiny in her face. I don’t know how I knew this, but I did know that getting her to dance again was important. “You need to. So I can live vicariously through you. Just once before spring semester. Please.”
Avery took a deep breath as she eyed me. “What’s in it for me?”
“What do you want?”
Her lips pursed. “I want two things. First being you help me find a gift for Cam for Christmas, because I suck at that kind of stuff.”
I chuckled. “All right, that’s totally doable. What’s the second thing?”
“You have to babysit Michelangelo and Raphael this weekend.”
“The turtles?”
She grinned as she nodded. “We’re getting this one large habitat, so, you know, they can . . . I don’t know, head bob at each other and Cam wanted to go to this movie, but I’m afraid they’re going to kill each other.”
“So you want me to be like a turtle bouncer? Break them up if one of them gets out of hand?”
Avery giggled. “Exactly.”
I laughed. “Okay. Deal.” I wiggled the shoes at her.
She snatched them up. “Oh, and I’m pretty sure Michelangelo is a girl, so try to stop them if they happen to look like they’re getting it on. Cam and I aren’t ready to be parents to a bunch of baby turtles.”
Groaning, I flopped on my back. “Oh God . . .”
Twenty-six
The sun was out, shining brightly, but it didn’t chase away the chill in the air the morning of Debbie’s funeral.
As Calla had promised, she’d dropped me at the start of the service, and once the graveside part was done, I’d text her. She’d taken me to class last week, but Cam started taking me to class this week and hadn’t taken no for an answer.
I really needed to get a car.
It helped as I stood back from the gravesite to focus on stupid, mundane things. I’d never been good at funerals. When my grandpappy passed away, I’d been too wigged out to get near the coffin. Not much had changed. The coffin hadn’t been opened, but I’d sat at the back of the packed church at the cemetery grounds.
My knee ached from the walk to the gravesite, but whatever pain was worth it. I felt like I needed to be here for Debbie, and if I hadn’t been, I would’ve regretted it.
Her parents looked like they were in a daze, huddled together along with a younger boy who looked like he’d just entered high school. I couldn’t imagine what they were going through or what they could be thinking.