The night wind had picked up and the blue curtains fluttered out from the wide open window of Rosalie's ground floor bedroom.
She knelt on the floor in front of her dresser sobbing over her fight with Vera. They had fought lots before, but not like this. Rosalie was half listening for the phone to ring, but she knew it wouldn't. Vera never made up first. She was too stubborn, and Rosalie was still too angry to call Vera herself and say she was sorry. Anyway, she wasn't sorry. Vera had betrayed her. She had pretended all along she had believed in Rosalie's dream. Now it turned out she thought Rosalie's dreams were just that, dreams that disappeared the minute you woke up-or grew up. Rosalie wasn't sure she could forgive her for that.
Sniffing back her tears, she energetically began to sort out her tights and leotards into three different piles: too far gone to be mended, mendable, good enough to bring to San Francisco for the audition. The audition pile was woefully small. For a moment she envied the other girls she knew, working summer jobs at the nearby Mission Canyon Mall. She was too busy dancing to ever have the time to earn her own spending money. Asking her mother for unnecessary dance clothes right now seemed wrong.
If she ended up actually going to SFBA, her tuition was going to be high, and although her mother could probably afford to send her, Rosalie knew she'd quietly cut some corners to do so. Of course her mother didn't know about her audition yet.
Rosalie sat back on her heels and squinted out the window into the dark. She listened to the chirping of what sounded like thousands of crickets and smiled at the sound of Pavlova, the family dog, snuffling her way through some leaves in the front yard. Her mother's car was no where in sight.
Rosalie glanced at the big blue plastic clock on her wall: nine-fifteen. The message on the answering machine said her mother wouldn't be home from work until close to ten.
Rosalie curled her bare toes in the thick blue-and-purple shag rug and inhaled sharply. The dry scent of eucalyptus and oranges from the yard filled her lungs.
She closed her eyes and lifted her hair off the nape of her neck. She was wearing it down and it fell thick and wavy almost to her waist. A cool breeze floated over her shoulders.
A sudden pang of homesickness swept over her. What was wrong with her? She hadn't even left home yet, but she couldn't help thinking she was going to feel very alone without Vera, Miss Young, without her mom.
She'd been to San Francisco a couple of times on school trips and liked it. But it was always foggy, and the air there was damp and smelled of the sea, more like down by Carmel or Monterey. Here in the inland valley everything was clear and dry. You could see for miles, and summer nights, no matter how hot the days, the temperature dropped until it was almost cold.
The air was so pure the stars barely twinkled and they seemed so close Rosalie often felt like she could reach up and touch them. When shew as a little girl she'd lie in her bed and look out her window at the swirling stars and fall asleep dreaming they were dancers wearing sparkly tutus, and shew as dancing with them.
Pavlova suddenly let out an enormous woof. Rosalie sprang to her feet. A moment later headlights beamed down the long driveway and against her wall.
"Mom! You're home!" Rosalie cried, tearing down the hall and out the kitchen door barefoot onto the grass.
"Down Pavlova! Down girl!" she ordered as the huge pale mastiff made a beeline for her across the lawn.
The big dog ran excited circles around Rosalie, then raced back to the driveway jumping and whining for glee as Nicole Hale slammed the door to the Subaru and walked slowly toward the house, one arm full of groceries, the other holding the straw carryall that served as her briefcase.
Rosalie held open the door and her mother entered the kitchen. She turned around and faced her daughter. The warm welcoming smile on her face turned to a frown of concern.
"Rosalie, dear, you've been crying." She reached up to touch Rosalie's tearstained cheek. "What happened?"
Rosalie stepped back, confused. She had forgotten to wash off her face. "Nothing," she stated, suddenly feeling embarrassed about Vera. But her news was too big to think of Vera very long. Her mouth quickly widened into a huge smile.
"Oh, Mom! Everything! Everything's happened!" She gleefully bit her lip, took the groceries from her mother's arms, and set the brown bag on the counter.
She reached for her mother's hand and pulled her gently toward the family room that opened out from the brightly decorated kitchen.
"What's going on?" Mrs. Hale pretended to protest.
She started laughing and her laughter filled the quiet house like music. "Rosalie!" she cried as her daughter whisked a sleepy kitten off the sofa and pushed her mother down into the soft cushions.
"Misha! You're supposed to sleep in the basket, not on the sofa." Rosalie gently scolded the little striped orange cat and deposited him on the rug.
"Rosalie, you'd better tell me what this is all about." Mrs. Hale eyed her daughter suspiciously.
Rosalie ignored her mother's comment and headed for the kitchen. "Are you tired? Do you want some tea?"
"No." Nicole Hale folded her hands firmly in her lap and studied Rosalie carefully. She was as tan as Rosalie was fair. Rosalie had inherited her father's coloring, but her mother's small slender build, delicate features, and beautifully sculpted face.
"Are you going to let me in on your secret now?" Mrs. Hale asked before Rosalie could leave the room.
Rosalie turned around in the doorway and shifted from one foot to the other, trying to figure out how to begin.
"I-well, in class today-oh, Mom." she finally cried sinking to the floor at her mother's feet. She grabbed her mother's hands and looked up into her face with shining eyes.
"I'm going to San Francisco to audition for the San Francisco Ballet Academy. Miss Young's going to send me. She says I have a good chance of getting in." Rosalie kept her eyes on her mother's the time she spoke and strung her words together quickly.
When she paused, the expression on her mother's face made her heart stop.
"Mom?" Rosalie said in a frightened voice.
Still holding her hands, she got up and plopped down next to her on the sofa.
Nicole Hale sat still as a stone. The color had drained from her face and her eyes were closed.
Finally she patted Rosalie's hand and said in a quiet, tired voice. "I think I'll have that tea now."
Rosalie got up slowly, afraid to say a word. On the way to the kitchen she repeated over and over like a prayer in her head, "Please let her say yes. Please let her say I can go."
Only after she poured the tea did she realize she had used the lumpy brown glazed mug Vera had made and given her mom for Christmas.
And then she realized that she hadn't asked her mother a thing. She had just told her she was going to San Francisco.
When she carried the steamy mug of tea back into the family room, her mother looked normal again .She was holding Misha on her lap and was stroking him. Rosalie could hear the cat purring.
"Why don't we start at the beginning," Mrs. Hale said with a brave smile. "What is this about going up to San Francisco? How, where, when? You know, all those unimportant little details."
Rosalie relaxed a little. Her mother sounded more like her efficient business self. She pulled up the old rocking chair and curled her legs beneath her. She tugged her blue cotton nightgown over her toes and told her mother about her talk with Miss Young and what she had learned about the school.
She ended with, "And Miss Young told me that if I want to dance professionally, I have to go now, to someplace bigger than San Lorenzo. I guess this is my big chance.
Rosalie's voice dropped very low. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the creak of Rosalie's rocking chair. Misha gave a tiny mew and awkwardly leaped from her mother's lap to Rosalie's.
"She's right." Mrs. Hale said, her voice sounding more like a sigh.
She got up and carried her mug of tea to the window. Idly she picked the dead blossoms of a potted plant. She kept her back to Rosalie as she went on.
"I feel you do have to move on. San Lorenzo's a pretty small town and you're too talented to stay here. I've always known that someday you would have to leave" she turned around and faced Rosalie.
A sad smile worked its way across her lips. "I just hadn't thought it would be so soon. I guess I didn't realize how you've grown. That in some ways you're already all grown up." Tears shown in her eyes.
Rosalie sprang to her feet and hurried to her mother's side. "Oh, Mom, I really love you."
She threw her arms around her mother and hugged her tight. At that moment Rosalie only wished there were some way to make her dream come true without leaving her mother and San Lorenzo.
"I love you too, Rosalie. That's why this is so hard." Nicole stroked Rosalie's head and began to weep openly.
Rosalie started crying too. For a few minutes they just held each other and rocked back and forth in front of the wide picture window. They hadn't cried together like this since Rosalie's father had died, and the memory made her cry harder now.
Finally her tears subsided. She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up at her mother. "Can I go, then?"
Her mother smiled through her tears. "Of course, dear. It'll be lonely without you here, but I'll manage."
"I'm going to miss you, Mom."
"Yes, well, missing each other is the bad part of it, isn't it? But it can't be helped. I'm glad I don't have a daughter who's just dying to run away and leave home."
Mrs. Hale sat down in a chair and looked around the room. She reached for a tissue and blew her nose. Her eyes rested on the framed photograph of Rosalie's dad.
"Your father would have wanted you to go, Rosalie. He believed you were born to do something special with your life. I'm sure he'd send you off to San Francisco quite happily if that's what it takes for you to be a professional dancer." Her voice was surprisingly steady. "We talked about it once."
"But I was just a kid. I had just started dancing seriously when Dad—died." Rosalie still found the word hard to say.
"You were talented even then. Miss Young told us that if you worked hard, you could probably have a very promising future in dance. Your father was proud of you for that. Like I am." Mrs. Hale reached out and tousled Rosalie's tangled hair.
"But, Rosalie," a cautious note entered her mother's voice, "I hate to bring up unpleasant subjects."
"You mean the money," Rosalie jumped in. "there are scholarships. I read the brochure."
Mrs. Hale laughed. "That's good news, but I'm afraid my business has been doing a bit too well to put you in the needy-student category. The way things are going around here makes me wonder what all these farmers did before computers. I have more consulting than I can tackle these days. No, money isn't the unpleasant subject."
Rosalie frowned, unable to fathom what was to come next.
"What if you don't get in, Rosalie? Can you face that? Are you prepared to fail?
Rosalie's mouth fell open in surprise. "Mom, you don't think I'll fail, do you?" Suddenly all her newfound confidence vanished. Vera not believing in her was one thing, but her mom too?
Mrs. Hale let out another peal of laughter. "No, I don't think you are going to fail, but when you try out for something like this, it's like-" she searched for the right image. "It's like putting a bit of yourself out there for public inspection. And some of the public may not like what they see no matter how good it is."
Her mother's meaning began to dawn on Rosalie. "You mean, do I think I'm good enough no matter what anyone else thinks?" Rosalie asked. "And I will keep on dancing no matter what anyone says?"
Her mother nodded.
Rosalie sat very still and studied her hands. When she finally looked up at her mother, she admitted with a sigh, "I don't know, Mom. I guess I'll find out about that, but right now I don't think anything in the world can keep me from dancing. Nothing!" she concluded with a force that surprised her.
"I don't think so, either." her mother stated firmly. "And I'm glad you feel that way, because to pursue a career in dance you'll have to give up a lot: the fun of high school life, the dances, the parties, time with your friends."
"I never just hang out with my friends anyway," Rosalie remonstrated hotly. "And I hate doing nothing!" she continued, giving a distasteful little shiver.
Sitting still too long, reading or talking, had always driven her crazy. It was her passion for movement that had led her parents to start her at pre-dance at a community center when she was just four.
"If I can dance someday with a company, even in the corps," Rosalie declared passionately, "Then whatever I'm missing now will be worth it."
That night Rosalie crept into bed too exhausted to sleep. Her legs ached from class, she had a blister on her right toe. Her mind was racing and she had a strange hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. Somehow, alone in the dark, looking up at the stars as she lay in her bed, Rosalie didn't feel as sure and confident of her future as she had earlier in the day.
What if shed don't make it past the first cut in the audition? She would be so humiliated. She'd be letting other people down. Miss Young, of course, and her mother.
Rosalie choked up at the thought of her mother. As far back as Rosalie could remember, her mom had encouraged her to dance. But not in the same way that Jessica Stanley's mom had encouraged her, or like the mothers of other less talented kids who ended up at Emily Young's School of Dance and Theater Arts.
Rosalie's mom had never pushed her. In fact, she always urged Rosalie to slow down, not to work so hard, to go out with friends.
But Rosalie had always wanted only to dance, and her mother had helped her every step of the way. Now, with any luck at all, she'd be moving away to San Francisco and leaving her. She knew her mom would do just fine. She had lots of friends, and had even begun dating a bit recently.
But Rosalie's bond with her mother was strong, and Rosalie knew she was going to miss her mother's strong, reliable presence.
What would life be like without her mom? Without Vera's shoulder to cry on? Vera had been so sure Rosalie would have a whole new group of friends within a week. Rosalie doubted that. Besides, no one would be an old, true-blue friend like Vera.
She'd be heading into a brand-new life, full of new people, and the thought didn't excite her. It scared her. She'd never lived with other girls before. She had never even lived with a brother or sister.
Suddenly, except for the prospect of dancing morning, noon, and night, the future didn't look so bright at all.
Tears built behind Rosalie's eyes and she willed herself not to cry. Her mother would hear her and worry, and besides, she had cried enough today.
She stared out the window and told herself she was the luckiest girl in the world. She repeated it over and over until she almost believed it.
She pushed the curtain aside with her hand and picked out the biggest, brightest star she could find in the sky, then did something she hadn't done since she was ten and she and Vera and Sue Anne Crewdson had camped out in the Morelys' backyard.
She made a wish, praying with all her heart that her dream of being a real ballerina would someday come true, and make leaving home worth all this.
Just to be certain, she picked out a second star, and made another fervent wish for something smaller and more immediate.
"Please," she whispered into the dark, "let me get through that audition and just get the chance to study at SFBA."