Rhythms of Grace Read Free

they followed in four lines of three. The motions came to me quickly, like the verses in my notebook. Like wings. I wanted to soar over their singing feet, preaching arms, fingers reaching for the right movement, the right body-word. On the sideline, I mimicked every movement, flinging my arms and almost knocking Daddy down. He didn’t say a word.
    A boy in the corner beat the drum that made the wild, strong music. The beat shook through my chest, went through my heart. I turned back to the dancers, to the teacher whose eyes were on me, as she moved past me. The dancers looked straight ahead, trying to follow each new part of the dance, trying to find what they lacked. When the last dance came, none of them could find the punctuation to end it, the amen to finish their prayer. I alone held that, but not for long.
    “Come.” With a slight lift in her wrist and that one word, the teacher called me forward as they lined up to put the whole dance together.
    She didn’t have to tell me twice. My ballet shoes hit the wall behind me as I flung them off and ran to squeeze in next to Zeely, who looked straight ahead, but giggled under her breath at the sight of me. The teacher shook her head at my place in the lineup, motioning to the empty space beside her. When I hesitated, looking at the other dancers instead, the teacher turned and stared at me, talking with her eyes. This is your place . I have the water, but you have the seed. The wild seed. Come and fertilize us.
    The skin on my arms itched as I heeded her eyes and her movements, sowing myself among them, planting the white-hot something that always got me in trouble. In the cradle of their arms, on the boughs of the beat, a new me was born, harvested for the first time in a dance.
    The dance.
    I went for it like it was my last dance too, knowing that it probably was. This moment might have to last me for the rest of my life. Everything that I’d been biting back in ballet class, choking down behind my bedroom door, I let it go all at once, let it birth, bloody and wonderful in a room full of strangers. It came out strong, this secret self, previously bared only in basements and backyards, scribbled in journals and scraps of paper. Strong and beautiful.
    My feet slapped first, then slid and kissed the floor before I leapt, flying like the girl on the billboard, only higher. Wider. I left the spot I’d been given, weaving between the other dancers’ pumping arms, open hands, and swaying hips. I twirled on, until I came face-to-face with the drummer, a boy with the crazy brown afro. I was close enough to see him now, to know who he was. Maybe even too close. His eyes were closed, but I knew what they looked like when they were open—gold-green.
    Like Daddy’s.
    I dropped to the floor from mid-air, leaves shriveling, withering away. When I hit the ground, it was over. I was nothing. Nowhere. Just a pink pig in Charles C with a big butt and buck teeth. A fool who’d just danced in front of that boy from Mount Olive who could skate backwards. He could even break-dance. What had I been thinking?
    Thank God he wasn’t looking .
    The other dancers struggled to keep what we’d had alive, trying to coax me with their halfhearted lunges. I looked up to find the teacher standing over me. I tipped my head down, wondering if I’d misread those eyes, wondering if there would be more angry words today for a girl such as me, one “unsuited” for the dance.
    There wasn’t. “Welcome to Ngozi, I’m Joyce Rogers, your new dance teacher,” the woman said in a voice as clear as the sky. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
    We locked eyes again and I knew it must be true. The woman in my dreams. My Glinda on the road to Oz. This was her. She got it. She got me. Finally, somebody understood.
    Our eyes met and I knew it must be true. “I’m Diana. Diana Dixon. I’ve been waiting for you too.”

2
    Daddy wasn’t home. I tried not to panic. Today was dress rehearsal for our first