The class always seemed over too soon. Aurora drew the girls into a tight circle and kneeled with them, among their tiny feet and sparkling tutus. She placed her palm in the center of their squirming huddle.
The girls placed their pudgy warm hands on hers, small arms reaching to belong, to join in with the others.
“Ready?” Aurora asked. She lifted her palm with each count of “One, two, three,” and together they chorused her dance motto.
“Graceful, happy, and kind, a dancer all the time!”
With that, they were released. The girls dispersed, running with awkward gaits to their mothers. One hesitated, Cassandra, a wiggle in her step.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?” Aurora asked her.
The little girl nodded.
Aurora glanced up at the departing parents. The lone father of the crew, Samuel, sat waiting on the benches, a sketch pad balanced on his knees. He was busily packing colored pencils into a bag.
“Let your daddy know,” Aurora said. “There’s a bathroom in the corner.” She pointed at the far wall.
Cassandra dashed over to her father. Aurora watched her go, making sure the girl communicated her need. She was a shy one, unsure and sometimes lost. Aurora knew the mother had stopped bringing the girl a year ago, and the father came in her stead. The sorrowful demeanor of the child told Aurora that something tragic had happened, but she hadn’t pried.
Aurora was not accustomed to fathers entering her studio. Sometimes when she faced the mirror, she caught him watching her with a quiet awe.
The little girl tugged on her father’s hand, unwilling to go to the bathroom alone, as was normal for her tender age. He set his sketchbook and pencil bag on the bench and walked with her across the room.
His body was lean and strong, but his carriage was uncertain, as if he didn’t quite know why he was still standing.
Cassandra was a beautiful child, pale with raven hair and dark soulful eyes. After a year, Aurora was hard pressed to remember the mother well, although she seemed to recall she closely resembled her daughter.
The room emptied. Aurora headed to the wall to pick up the ribbon sticks they had used early in class. As she passed the benches, her eyes wandered to the sketchbook.
Her curiosity was strong. The way this father watched her dance with such intensity, his hand ever moving, filling his page.
What did he draw? His daughter? Or her?
Aurora paused by the sketchpad.
She shouldn’t look.
She picked up a ribbon stick and began to wind the curling fabric in a coil. She set the stick on the bench and bent for another. Still, the sketchbook called to her. She wanted to know. Had to know.
Aurora sat next to it, a stick in her lap. Just one small glance.
Her fingers grazed the corner and flipped back the cover.
She inhaled sharply.
It was her.
She wore her lemon yellow leotard. He had drawn her with the sun flowing from the high windows in the studio, lighting her ebony hair until it shone almost blue. She was en pointe, which she rarely did since her injury, but she remembered that day, showing the girls what a ballerina could work toward.
She was beautiful. More beautiful than in real life.
Aurora flipped the page, sucking in another breath. His work was sensuous, breathtaking. He honored every part of her and directed your gaze where he wanted you to look. This one focused on her hands, cupped elegantly near her face as she landed a petit jeté.
She turned the pages faster, wanting to take in everything he had done. Image after image of her, each leotard she owned, every step she taught the girls.
Then she paused on one that was unlike all the others. In this sketch, she was not in dance attire at all. Samuel had drawn her sitting on the wall of the Riverwalk downtown. Behind her, strings of light glowed softly. She looked out of the image, her eyes warm and welcoming. She extended a hand as if to say, “Please, take me with you.”
The handle of the bathroom door rattled, and Aurora leaped to her feet. The ribbon stick clattered to the floor. She slammed the sketchbook closed and left it on the bench.
Samuel and Cassandra came out as she bent to scoop up the errant stick, its pastel ribbon unrolling onto the floor.
“Can I help?” Cassandra called, hurrying across the room.
Aurora smiled at her, glancing anxiously up at Samuel. Cassandra seemed happy and relaxed now that the other girls were gone. Or perhaps the other mothers.
“Of course,” Aurora said and passed her the stick. “Just roll up the ribbons.”
Cassandra took the stick from her teacher and clumsily began to coil the fabric around the wood dowel.
Samuel looked anxiously at his sketchbook, and Aurora flushed with heat. Had he noticed it had moved?
But he did not speak, just bent down to pick up a handful of sticks. He rolled them up with dexterity and speed, and Aurora caught herself staring at his nimble fingers, shocked when she realized she pictured them on her body. She tore herself away and busied herself with one of the ribbons. He must know her intimately to have drawn her with such accuracy. Perhaps he knew her better than she knew herself.
When the sticks were all organized in a neat pile, Cassandra stepped awkwardly back against her father’s legs. “Goodbye, Miss Aury,” she said shyly.
“Thank you for your help,” Aurora said to the girl, bending to squeeze her shoulder.
When she straightened, Samuel was looking right at her, his somber eyes hot and penetrating. A lock of dark hair fell over his brow, softening the intensity of his expression.
“Thank you, Mr. Lee,” she said.
His gaze skittered away. “You’re welcome.” He gathered his sketchpad. “You ready, Cassandra?”
The pair left the studio. In their wake, it seemed empty and cold, as if all the heat had left the room with them.