Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part I

Chapter 101.2: 1995, Ruiz

Chapter 101.2: 1995, Ruiz

Standing outside of the brown brick building of Miss Cha Cha's dance studio hadn't seemed so bad thirty minutes earlier. Outside air, being in her car. Those had been fine, too. But passing by graffiti and familiar chain link fences...

I started to remember why I'd stopped coming to her studio. Too late.

I'd forgotten that no matter how many times I came back, I was never ready to return to the Bronx. There were small visions everywhere. I could see these things from my seven year old stature. How the grass between the chain link and the concrete had been closer than the sky was. Black gum on the sidewalks. Too tall people hanging around, making noise. I could feel my daddy's hand, leading me around briskly like it was a parade. He was smiling. Why was he smiling? How could he smile? 

Now inside, the sunlight streaked through the large windows. The refinished floors were smooth and of a honey wood color. There were ballet barres pushed against the back wall because this was a multi-purpose room. The floors were creaking with the weight of twelve kids in pairs, all of them seeming not to even be trying to pay attention to Miss Cha Cha who was at the front of the room before one of the big mirrors.

She was dressed in a simple sort of costume. Or was it a costume? It was a black leotard with a long wrap-around skirt on it of a floaty material, ending at her knees and a little longer in the back. She was wearing black heels with it, strap on. Her long, black, curly hair was in a high ponytail, held with several scrunchies. And she was clapping to the rhythm of the record playing beside her on a small table. Her legs were moving, but no kid in this class was paying attention it seemed.

With all of my emotions inside of me at this moment, I wanted to scream at them. Pay attention! Don't you know who that is? Don't you know how much she's trying? But no, I didn't do anything. I only knew a basic rumba myself, and I was in the corner, studying her feet. I couldn't remember the last time I was this angry at anything. All of my anger was boiling up somehow.

As I blinked a few times, I remembered her words from the kitchen. About anger.

It made me breathe in really hard.

"Okay, bueno! Keep doing that!" Miss Cha Cha beamed at them. "Ay, Safi! Why are you holding Giuliano like that? Your arm does not bob up and down, it is frozen! Frozen!"

I zeroed in on the kids. Which one was Safi? All of them had bobbing arms. In fact, they all looked kind of ridiculous.

Finally, I saw Miss Cha Cha get to a couple of boys in the middle, unevenly paired because there were too many boys. She put her hand gently on one boy's elbow, stopping it from jumping up and down. As she adjusted the other boy's arm, I noticed something that maybe she didn't.

Safi's eyes went into a roll, his lips pursed. My mouth opened as my eyes narrowed. But before I could say something about disrespect, Safi was at it with a big sucking noise of his teeth. My fist clenched.

"Why I gotta do this?" He said quietly, almost to himself but it wasn't to himself. "This is so fucking lame."

The F word. Oh my god, from the mouth of a six year old. I found myself suddenly frozen like his arm should have been in the first place. My feet were plastered to the floor. I couldn't believe it. Right there, with Miss Cha Cha only inches from him, his teacher who he should have been respecting.

This was not the kind of class I remembered. The last time I'd been here...the kids had been so happy. Smiling, dancing, everything. I was dumbfounded.