How Not To Fall by Emily Foster Read Free Book Online

right,” I tell them. “Get the heck outta here, and I’ll see you all next week—Paul and Amy, see me please!” The students applaud dutifully, if desultorily, and limp, groaning, out of the classroom. Paul and Amy approach me.
    Paul and Amy are twins. They’re in both my jazz class and my ballet class, and they’re helping me out with my solo in the recital. They’re going to sing live, their mom accompanying on the piano. Their mom (a professor in the IU School of Music, so, ya know, no slouch) is arranging “No One Is Alone” from Into the Woods as a duet for her two children, special for this performance. It’s a cheat on my part—I don’t love putting on a show, and I’d rather share the stage with my students, plus who doesn’t love a brother and sister singing together, right? And yesterday—two weeks after I chose the song—it was on that TV show Glee .
    We’ll be a hit.
    I’ve been choreographing to a click track and the sheet music since I chose the song, and Professor Paul and Amy’s Mom promised me a MIDI this week so I’d have something like music to rehearse with.
    â€œAmy and Paul,” I say to them very seriously. “Do you have the MIDI file from your mother?”
    â€œOh! I forgot!” says Amy. “It’s in my bag.”
    â€œRun and get it, and you can watch my dance. Want to do that?”
    They both nod ecstatically and run off together.
    And then I notice Charles hovering at the studio door, looking uncomfortable. “Hey,” he says.
    â€œHey,” I say, “be just a minute. The kids are bringing me a thing, and I told them I would—”
    Amy and Paul race back in, barging past Charles. “Here you go, Miss Annie,” Amy pants. She holds her Android up to mine and transfers the file onto my phone. Kids these days.
    â€œCool! Let’s see what we’ve got here.” I plug my phone into the speaker jack and hit play.
    The MIDI is not the most musical thing you’ve ever heard; it’s basically the worst karaoke track in the history of the universe, but it’s way better than a click track and my imagination. I start marking steps, and then I notice my students starting to gather at the door—Amy and Paul clearly told them I was going to run through my solo, and they all want to see.
    I pause the music. “Ladies, if you want to watch, come in and sit cross-legged in front of the mirror and be very quiet. Understood?”
    They nod silently and shuffle in.
    There are parents in the doorway now too. And Charles. Well, no pressure. “The whole thing isn’t even choreographed yet,” I announce to the room generally, “but let’s see what we’ve got so far. Call out when you see a step you recognize.”
    I run through what I’ve got, walking through the parts I haven’t figured out yet, while students call “Ballonné!” and “Pas de chat!” There are gasps and whispers of “Four!” when I get to the pirouette at the end, which I finish in arabesque—barely. I stick out my tongue and wrinkle my nose as I wobble on my left foot, trying to salvage the finish. I could also just make it a triple, or finish on both feet like any normal person would. But it’s a song about balance, so.
    When the song ends, I curtsey ironically, all the way to the floor, as the students give a polite smattering of applause, and then I shoo them out. “Amy and Paul, thank your mother for me!” I call after the twins. Finally I turn to Charles and say, “Welcome! This’ll just take a sec.” And I start putting my stuff away. It’s hot in here, with a little bit of sweaty tween stank.
    â€œHow long have you been dancing?” Charles asks.
    I pull on sweat pants and a T-shirt—this one has a cherry drawn into a grid of the value of pi to the twenty-five-hundredth decimal (another one