rainbow connection | rini

four

"Find a place at the barre," Ms. Jenn called out in the main studio room. "Anne is going to instruct you guys on barre because I'm doing pairings today. When I call you, follow me."

Many girls in the class were excited, Nini was not. She'd never been paired before because she refused to work with anyone.

The lower-level girls were always paired together because it was common to see at competitions. Upper-level dancers, such as Nini, were paired with the guys. There were few guys in the room.

Nini tried to focus on straightening her legs and pointing her feet, but she stopped several times to pray that her pairing went well. A few of the boys eyed her during barre, hoping to be paired with her. Ricky, on the other hand, kept his eyes forward.

"Nini," Ms. Jenn called. Nini let out a whine and followed the woman into a separate room. "Stay here," She was told. Her teacher left the studio to get a male.

"Please don't be Ricky. Please don't be Ricky. Please don't be Ricky. Please don't- ugh." Ms. Jenn followed Ricky into the room.

"Can we try a fish dive?" Ms. Jenn asked. Neither Ricky nor Nini moved a muscle. "Now, preferably."

When Ricky lifted Nini, she heard him mumble, "Holy shit, you're light."

They did some short exercises together and Ms. Jenn smiled. "You guys are it. You're a match." Neither of them smiled back.

"Ms. Jenn, please!" Nini whined after class.

Ms. Jenn groaned, "No, Nini. Ricky compliments you extremely well. I'm not changing your pairing."

"You hate me!" Nini whined.

"I do not. I just want a pas de dieux that looks good," she smiled.

"It's- it's arbitrary!" Nini exclaimed.

"I assume that one day, you won't say that to me anymore and I'll miss it. It won't be soon, but it'll happen. Now, go away, class is over." Nini left as she was told and made her way to the library for lunch.

Nini was glad that the captain of the cheerleaders was appreciative of her ability to learn quickly. When she had them run it a final time without her, Nini was confident that she had the routine down.

"Gina, that was wrong!" The girl yelled out. "Do it again." Gina rolled her eyes and the team began the routine again.

Every time the girl complimented Nini's abilities, Nini could feel Gina's eyes burning a hole into her. There were a few times that Nini heard scoffs, but she chose to ignore them.

"Hey," EJ said when the cheerleaders took a break. "You have the look to be a cheerleader, I don't know why you're just now joining." He draped an arm over her shoulder and she ducked away.

"Please don't touch me," She told him.

He twirled her ponytail in with his hand and said, "You know, I'm fairly sure that if you didn't want me to talk to you, you'd walk away. You're a smart girl, Nini."

"You're absolutely right, I will walk away," she said before turning and walking away.

"Look at that ass go!" He called out. She raised her hand above her shoulder to give him the finger as he left.

"Such a bitch," he mumbled under his breath.

Nini pushed open the door of her stepfather's study. He looked up at her and smiled. "Happy Friday, kiddo?" He asked.

She hummed as if she were thinking about it and then nodded. "Say, could I use the car?"

"Where ya headed?"

Nini rocked back and forth a few times, "Downtown?"

"With who?" He asked. Nini laughed a little.

"Who would I go with?" She asked.

"Sorry, kiddo, but you're not going downtown by yourself on a Friday evening." Nini sighed and walked closer.

"Please, Dad?" She begged.

"Nini, you know I wanna give you the world. I can't, though, so I'm afraid you'll just have to hate me." Nini could tell he was joking, so she wasn't as upset about it.

"Fine," she groaned. She moved over toward him and kissed his cheek. "I'm gonna go do my homework."

Nini managed to finish all of her homework before dinner, so she decided to help her mom cook. That'll prove something, right?

"Who invented single-pan dinners, anyway?" Nini asked as she was spreading part of their dinner onto a baking sheet.

Her mother laughed, "Someone who really hated doing dishes." And then she added, "Most likely a teenager who abandoned her chores for dance and theatre and cheerleading and choir."

"I don't abandon my chores!" Nini exclaimed. "I just put them off a lot."

"And then someone else does them."

Nini felt extremely defensive. "Not every time!"

"I know, I know. I'm kidding," her mother laughed as she spoke and Nini began to laugh too.

Again, after dinner, she tried to enter the bathroom, but all the doors were locked. She didn't make a scene out of the situation, though, because she didn't want her mother to decide that she was right. She wasn't happy about it, though.

She tried to focus on a book, but she couldn't find one in the house she hadn't already read. Instead, she tried to scroll through social media, but that was boring too. Finally, she got up and made the decision to annoy her parents.

She shuffled noisily to their bedroom door and knocked on it. Immediately, she heard them call out for her to come in. She kicked off her elephant slippers and planted her body right between theirs.

"Most kids stop doing this 10 years ago," her mother laughed. "7 years ago, tops."

"Yeah, well, a certain someone ruined my plans tonight so I'm gonna ruin theirs." She smiled cheekily at her stepfather and he shook his head with a smile.

"You're a little annoying, you know that?" He asked.

She stuck her tongue out and then said, "I learned it from the best." He whacked her with a small pillow. "Anyway, what are we watching tonight?"

"I was thinking about watching that documentary about elephant poaching. You'd like that one, right?" He asked. She punched his arm playfully and pouted.

"Stop! You know that makes me sad," she whined. "The elephants deserve better."

"That seemed biased," her mother pointed out.

Nini turned to her mother. "No, they deserve better for more reasons than them being my favorite animal."

And her parents laughed because every time they saw her elephant slippers, they recalled the day Nini first saw an elephant face to face.

Up until she was seven years old, Nini preferred the aquarium to the zoo. She'd always thought the zoo was too stinky and far too loud, so she never asked to go. She'd been a few times, but they'd never walked through the whole place because she just didn't like it.

One day, a family friend invited them to the zoo with their children. Nini wasn't very excited about going, but she didn't have a choice. On their way to the food court in the zoo, they passed by the elephants.

She was captivated by an elephant spraying water through its trunk. Her parents recalled, that she'd actually screamed. She held up lunch that day and spent an hour in the gift shop looking for the right elephant to take home and sleep with every night until she was "35 and old."

"You still sleep with Mr. Flappy?" Her mom asked.

"Do I look 35 to you?"