This studio is too warm. The woman in front of me keeps fanning herself with her program and sending her aggressive acutely floral perfume my way, and it’s giving me a headache. Mrs. Montgomery was kind to invite me to Olivia’s recital, but I really should be studying for my World History exam. Of course I want to be here to support the Tiny Dancer, but I doubt that she needs or wants my support. Monty keeps elbowing me every time a pretty girl steps out onto the floor in front of us in a leotard, but these girls are twelve. We’re sixteen. It isn’t right.

Olivia walks out from the back room, with five other girls, in a white leotard that makes me shift in my chair. Monty notices and glances over at me. I look down at the program that I will keep in my lap, just in case. What the fuck. She’s twelve. She shouldn’t be wearing an all-white leotard in broad daylight. She’s getting curves. Little mounds on her chest. Where the fuck did those come from? Shit.

The lady at the piano starts playing a song. It’s not classical. What is it? It’s Can’t Help Falling In Love, the Elvis song. I like this song. I have a memory of driving to my grandparents’ house a few years ago for their big anniversary dinner, one of the few family events my parents actually took time off from work to go to, and when this song came on the radio, my parents held hands in the front seats, and the way my dad looked at my mom…I understood why they were together. I’ve never once heard them say the words “I love you,” but I heard it when I saw the look on his face. I like that memory. It’s one of the few good memories that I have that doesn’t involve anyone in the Montgomery family. Although, I guess now it does.

It’s lovely, this dance. I never would have imagined ballerinas dancing to this song, but it’s dreamy and magical. Olivia is surprisingly pretty when she’s not scowling or laughing maniacally at me. She’s graceful. She’s always been prancing around the house and twirling around and doing the splits, but this is different. She’s actually dancing to music. She is so much more than the sassy brat who teases me just as much as I tease her—she teases me more than I’ve ever teased her, now that I think of it.

Monty looks over at me again, and I realize I’ve just sighed out loud. I pretend to cough, but I don’t want to take my eyes off of Olivia. She’s so at ease up there, but it’s like she’s not really here. She seems distant. She’s probably fantasizing about dancing with a boy. I guess she’s not too young for that.

I’m glad the song’s only about three minutes long. When it’s over, I clap politely and look down at the program that sits in my lap, willing it to stay in place.

When the whole thing’s over, a boy that I recognize from our neighborhood approaches Olivia with roses and gives her an awkward hug. It seems innocent enough, except that the guy keeps whispering in her ear. I see her brother’s hands clench into fists. As soon as the boy walks away from Olivia, towards the exit, with a huge grin on his face, Monty storms over to him and I follow behind. I need to be there in case this kid steps to him.

“Hey. You!” Monty says.

The guy looks back at him.

“You know who I am? I’m Olivia’s brother.”

The boy looks a little worried now. Monty is only a couple of inches taller than him, and skinny, but right now he looks expansive. “What do you think you’re doing, giving my sister red roses? You think I don’t know what that means? You think she’s going to go out with you? She’s twelve years old. You stay away from her, you hear me? You don’t touch her you don’t talk to her you don’t look at her—if I find out you’re even thinking about her I will ruin your life! You understand me?”

The boy nods his head and runs out the door. Monty doesn’t chase after him, he just looks really, really pumped.

I’ve never seen Monty talk to anyone like that before. This may be because I’ve never seen his sister talk to a boy other than me and Monty or their cousins. I could actually see a vein in his neck. He might actually try to physically harm that boy if he sees her with Olivia again.

“Well, that was weird.” Olivia is standing behind me. It sounds like she’s smiling.

“Not as weird as his face will get after I punch it.”

“Jake’s been to all of my recitals since I started dancing, it was cute that he brought flowers. You didn’t bring me anything.”

“I don’t have to bring you anything, I’m your brother.”

“Well Jake was just being nice.”

“That’s not going to stop me from punching him in the face if he tries anything with you.”

I step away. I’ve learned not to get in the middle of their arguments.

“You do realize that if you punch him in the face it will hurt your hand plus also he might punch you back.”

“Of course I realize it. You think I don’t understand the Impulse-Momentum relationship? I got a 4.0 in physics. I read an article about Bruce Lee—I know that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I will hold my fist one inch from his pointy face without bending my wrist and I will explain to him exactly what will happen when the forward motion of my fist meets his face from a physics and physiology standpoint first and if he doesn’t run away, then he deserves what’s coming to him and I will be able to tell everyone that I punched someone in the face for the rest of my life. Win-win. Right, Johnny?”

“Ahem. Right, Rocky. I’d be happy to explain kinetic energy to him too.” I need to read that article.

“Sounds like you’ll both bore him to death before punching him to death.”

“Either way, we’ve defended your honor.”

“Lucky me.”

I have a whole new level of respect for Monty, and a whole new level of awareness that I will never tug on that Tiny Dancer’s pig tails again, never touch her even to ask her to pass the maple syrup at breakfast when I sleep over, never look at her when Monty’s around.

She looks down at the roses and says, “I don’t even like red roses anyway. Such a cliché. Here,” she holds them out to me, grinning slyly. “You want them? You can give one to each of your imaginary girlfriends.”

“I’d need a lot more than a dozen,” I say, because it seems clever and witty. Apparently I was right, because she laughs so hard she drops the bouquet.

I walk over and pick up the roses, hand them to her. “Here. You shouldn’t be so ungrateful.”

She suddenly goes from laughing to glaring at me as she swipes the flowers from me. “I wasn’t being ungrateful—I dropped them on accident!”

“By accident. How you get such good grades in school is beyond me.”

“Everything about me is beyond you, Nerdballs.”

She may be right.

“You were good,” I say. Monty is busy talking to a thirteen year-old girl with braces and boobs, so it seems safe to talk to Olivia now.

She seems surprised that I’ve offered her a compliment. Have I never done that before? No, I suppose I haven’t.

She shrugs. “Thanks. This was just an informal recital, you know, the big annual event is on stage at the community college next month. You should come.”

“Okay. If Monty wants me to.”

She steps closer to me and lowers her voice, confiding in me. I am careful not to lean in too close, so her brother doesn’t kick me in the head. “It’ll get more interesting when I turn fourteen and I can start the teen/adult level classes. I’m just biding my time at this school.”

“Doesn’t Cleveland have a ballet company? Why don’t you study with them? They’d have better facilities.”

“They do, but they train for their own corps, and I’m not going to stay in Cleveland when I go professional.”

I laugh.

She scowls at me.

“You seriously want to be a dancer for a living?”

“Yeah I’ve only been talking about it since I was six.”

“Yeah, but that’s just a little girl dream.”

“Well, it’s going to be a reality for me.”

“But it’s not a real job.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Olivia!” Mr. Montgomery scolds her from twenty feet away.

“Don’t bother coming to the next recital, Nerd.”

Monty comes over, smiling. “Now what’d you say?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Can we go home and study World History now?” Nineteenth Century political reform in Western Europe is so much easier to comprehend than twelve-year-old girls.