Saturday mornings ain’t my thing. Cicero usually takes Natalie to dance on the weekends, but work’s been taking up all his time lately. So today I’m stuck sitting next to this one mom—Lila—who reaches her long fingers into a floral, square canister and picks out hair pins one at a time to help assemble her twelve-year old daughter Carrington’s bun before she scurries off into the studio with the sprung Marley flooring. Lila’s sparkly wedding band is a little like bragging. She and her daughter have been coming to the dance studio for a few years ever since she and her husband moved back to Chicago after a stint in Poughkeepsie. Ask me how I know all this. Well, on the Saturdays Cicero can’t take Natalie, I find myself sitting between Lila and one of her saddity friends who proceed to vomit the details of their lives on one another. I don’t have no choice but to catch some of it right in my lap.
Most of what they talk about I forget—sales at Nordie’s, Jack and Jill shit, hoity toity galas—but other details stick with me. This one Saturday, Lila says, “My husband just adores the English Department at Harold Washington. He’s probably going to end up being chair next year.” This catches my ear because that’s where I got my Associate’s Degree back when Natalie was still a scaly-cheeked baby, back when I thought I might actually go back and get my Bachelor’s somewhere. Her friend leans in so close I can smell her mouthwash. Lila, I guess satisfied her friend is hanging on to her every word, goes on to say, “I mean Lisle was okay, but after all that pressure to publish, he’s so much happier to just teach and help build the department.” She flings her left hand around, the metal of her wedding bands clanging together.
Listen, I don’t know much, but I know a demotion when I hear it. Don’t nobody go from teaching at a fancy four-year college like Lisle to teaching at a two-year because they want to. I mean, Harold Washington might be known as the Harvard of the City Colleges, but it ain’t hardly Harvard. Still, every week, when Lila’s dainty hand reaches into the can of hair pins, her sparkly wedding band tells me I’m in no position to judge nothing. Shawn, Natalie’s daddy, didn’t live long enough to ask me to marry him. I never got a ring. And his kid brother Cicero is the closest thing to a father Natalie’s got.
Through the observation glass, I catch myself staring at Carrington. She stands next to Natalie at the barre, which I hate because it makes my baby look even chubbier than she really is. I mean, I’ve never seen two twelve-year-old girls look more different, like they’re not even the same species. For one, Carrington is slim. I’m talking slim slim. Shit, skinny. Even from this distance I can practically count every bone in the girl’s back when she moves her arms into fifth position. That ain’t natural. They must only be licking lettuce leaves for dinner at her house. Or maybe it’s genetic. I don’t know. Two, Carrington’s skin is evenly brown and silky whereas Natalie’s is still a little blotchy from the eczema I’ve been treating with a steady course of topical steroid creams since she was born. And three, Carrington’s hair is straight like she gets her hair silk pressed every week or something, and it’s long enough for all her hair to make it into a low bun. I got one question about that: who in the hell got money to be staying up in the salon like that? I worked at the bank full-time for three years before I could afford a standing hair appointment and even then I got to cancel sometimes if money gets tight. So I blow out Natalie’s hair myself to save a little coin, and, yeah, after she sweats, it might get a little fuzzy around the edges. We got to do what we got to do.
I keep trying to figure out what makes Carrington so sure she belongs. Like what makes her the kind of girl who never has to question her worth? A mom like Lila with the light skin and the small body and the long hair, somebody who had the opportunity to go to Howard must have always been wanted—and if she talks about going to Howard one more goddamned time I might pop her in that pretty mouth of hers. I’m like, I get it, bitch. Lila must have walked around the world her whole life owning it and passed that same kind of blinding shine on to her Dark and Lovely daughter. I don’t know much, seeing as I only have an Associate’s Degree, but I know you got to get in there early with little girls, right when you push them out your body, when their little fists still hold your index finger tight. You can’t wait. You got to wrap them up a million times with threads of confidence, like some kind of cocoon or something. I’ve been trying, but giving my baby that kind of certainty is hard to manufacture from crumbs. No matter how hard I want Natalie to believe that she can stand shoulder to shoulder with these kinds of girls, the girls who brag about going to summer dance intensives at the Bolshoi (I had to Google what the fuck that even was), the first look Natalie gives to somebody like Carrington with the straight back and the perfect little girl breasts and Yumiko leotards, and whatever thin slips of confidence I manage to infuse in her evaporates from between her shoulder blades. If Shawn was still here, he’d tell me to fuck these stuck up women, that I was good enough. He always thought so.
I had been hanging at Cole Park my entire life, but I didn’t meet Shawn till the summer before my junior year. Boys would hop from park to park to check out their competition on the court. They did that all the time. Shawn was a beast at jump shots—and he was beautiful. I stared at the way his body dripped sweat and clung to his tee shirts, and how those tee shirts stuck to his skin. When enough sweat dripped into his face he’d wipe it away with the bottom of his shirt, and I’d catch a glimpse of his peanut-colored skin which stretched taut across his stomach and chest. My eyes would trace all of him, the striated muscles in his legs, the vascularity in his arms, his sagging jersey shorts, the visible Hanes underwear band. I could not take my eyes off him.
One day, after a few weeks of me going on and on in my mind about his sweat, after Shawn scrubbed them simps from Ekersol Park real good, he low key invited me to take a walk with him with a head nod in the direction of the sandy track that encircled the run-down playground and small, half-working water park. Out of all the girls who sat on the benches by the basketball court at Cole Park and wore Mac “Oh Baby” Lipglass and whispered his name in one another’s ears, he chose me.
I could hardly believe it. I had to know. “Why me?”
“Why not you?” Shawn gave me a little smile. “I saw you peeping me. It ain’t like you was subtle.”
I felt caught. “I wasn’t the only one, you know.”
“I don’t know nothing about all that,” he said, carefully sliding off his du rag and taking a hand brush out his back pocket. “It’s just you and me right now, though.” He methodically pulled the soft bristles from the crown of his head toward his glistening forehead three times, his hair organized into tiny uniform rows of shiny waves.
We’d take walks around Cole Park every day after that. Shawn would remember the stuff I told him, like my favorite show or what made me afraid or how I wish things were different between Ma and me. He held my words like they were precious, like they belonged in some kind of a fancy, crystal bowl.
So yeah, if Shawn’s head wasn’t blown off that next year over some dumb street shit, if he and his so-called homie Keno didn’t drive identical cherry red Monte Carlos, if them dudes from Jeffrey Manor who threw up pitch forks with their fingers hadn’t got Shawn confused with Keno’s dumbass and unloaded a round into the driver’s seat when Shawn was outside his house waiting for Cicero to simply grab a pair of skates, he’d tell me I was enough. And if he was still here with me and Natalie the way he promised he would be, I would yeah, yeah, yeah him because even though he chose me, my mom didn’t, and if your own mom don’t choose you, you starting from a deficit, plain and simple.
#
Ma made it plain when I was twelve, a few years before I met Shawn. Kenzell started coming around the salon asking about her—smelling like a hundred unfiltered cigarettes, skin looking like ground meat—and Ma told me with her eyes, Monica, don’t mess this up for me, girl.
That one time, when Ma was still at work downtown, answering phones for Oracle, Kenzell turned up at the apartment earlier than usual. He slithered into the kitchen where I was and hovered over me while I whipped myself up some beef-flavored Ramen noodles. Before I realized what was happening, he reached his serpent arms around me, grabbed both my breasts, and kissed the curve of my neck, real wet, real fast. I gasped, dropped the goddamn spoon on the floor with a clank, and tried to get him off me. I could tell by the way his body jerked that my elbow caught him sharp in the ribs. This made him snatch me tighter, tight like steel bolts, and call me dirty names in my ear before he flicked my earlobe back and forth with his tongue. The ten-carat gold hoop earring (a Christmas gift I got from Grandma after I finally got my ears pierced, before I knew what the word “pussy” meant), made a clickety sound against his front teeth. I turned off the stove, managed to disentangle myself from him before he sank his fangs into me. To save my own life, I ran to my bedroom, locked the door behind me, panted and prayed. I ripped the spit-wet earring and its mate from my earlobes and threw them in the plastic trashcan nestled in the corner of my room, which, until then, only held the hot pink glitter remnants of a Valentine’s Day card project. I ignored the yelp in my stomach because even though I was starving, safe tasted better.
The next week, when I finally got the courage to tell Ma what happened that time while she was still at work, she just blinked hard and chewed the inside of her cheek. It took her a whole minute before she waved off my words like they weren’t nothing. Ma sprawled across the black, faux-leather sofa she rented and plead with me to just let it go, that it probably didn’t mean nothing. She propped one elbow on the back of the couch and side eyed me, the dark brown hair gel she used to lay her edges flaking up. She told my seventh-grade self to get out of her face, let her have a man to love. A man who halfway loved her back. She used her manicured nails to keep track of all the ways I ruined her life. How she couldn’t go to college on account of me, couldn’t go to the club because of me, couldn’t wear two-piece swimsuits because of me, couldn’t barely meet nobody because of me.
Every day after that, whenever I saw Kenzell and Ma sitting on that same pleather sectional, watching something on Starz, his arm tight around her shoulder, his meaty thumb moving back and forth, I understood the choice Ma made. That meant I had to make a decision of my own: hurry up and get grown because little girl bodies in that apartment were liable to get eaten up.
#
An hour later, after the class ends, a clot of twelve-year-old girl bodies spill out the dance studio smelling tangy like Bath and Body Works spritzes and perspiration. I’m grateful to be released from this pink-splotched observation room. No more of this haughty bitch who acts like I’m not sitting on the same pink bench as her. Natalie grabs her dance bag from me, her face drawn. Carrington and a few of the other silk-pressed girls giggle and talk about going over to Carrington’s after class for pizza and a movie. They aren’t mean to Natalie. They just don’t acknowledge her at all.
When we get in the car, Natalie is quiet and stares out the passenger window.
“What’s going on with my Natalie today?” I ask, but I kind of don’t want her to tell me. I don’t want to have to find answers.
At first, Natalie keeps her head pointed at the window like I’m not speaking to her, but after a few minutes she mumbles, “I want to quit dance. I’m not good enough.”
I smash my teeth together, remembering the early days when Natalie would spin around the living room until she was dizzy, giggling like carbonated bubbles, wearing a frothy tutu I found at Goodwill. “What are you talking about, babe? You’re a hard worker.”
“That’s not the same thing, Mom.”
Carrington and several of the other girls had been en pointe for a year already. At the beginning of this season, Cicero and I started taking turns recording the barre routines. I had set up one of the kitchen chairs in Natalie’s bedroom so she could practice in between classes and see if she could get in the pointe class next fall. “Well, your arabesque looks stronger.”
Natalie smacks her teeth. “It’s not even ninety degrees.”
“What does Miss Josephine say?”
She shrugs and pulls out her Airpods. Josephine and Cicero had been sleeping together for a little over two years, so Natalie knew she wasn’t the most impartial judge. Beyonce’s “Cuff It” comes blasting through the mini speakers, and I’m hoping it’s the radio version. After a second, I know for sure it’s not.
“I’m saying, we could get you some privates. Miss Josephine said she could work with you on Friday nights.”
Natalie wrinkles her nose. “You been talking to Miss Josephine about how I suck?”
“No, no, nothing like that, babe. I’m just saying if you want to work on your technique, she can help you. She’s always over the house anyway.”
Natalie seems to think it over. “Nah, it won’t matter. Everybody else catches the choreo faster than me. It takes me weeks to get it, and I’m always in the back at every recital.”
She isn’t wrong. I stopped speaking to Cicero for two weeks after he joked about how far in the wings Natalie was in all her numbers. “Well—,”
“—I don’t look good in the leotards anyway,” she continues. “I’m too big up here to wear the Yumikos like the other girls,” she says gesturing to her breasts. “And the black ones you buy me with the bra shelf are so basic and ugly.” Natalie spit out the last few words.
My fingers curl the steering wheel tight. For one, ain’t nothing wrong with shopping off the clearance rack. Two, I ain’t buying the Yumikos because they done lost their minds with them prices. And three, black is flattering to her figure.
Oh, and I guess Natalie’s weight is my fault, too. Dr. Parson’s been suggesting we keep better track of her food portions at meals, but I tend to not bother her when she gets a third helping of Kraft macaroni and cheese. It’s hard to tell if she’s still hungry or if she’s sad these days, and if she is sad, I can’t tell if she’s sad about something going on at school or dance or if she’s sad because she doesn’t have a for-real daddy when every other girl does.
How can I make sure this girl is happy?
I slap my hazard lights on, pull over, and turn to face her. This is my chance to do what Ma never could with me: wrap her up tight.
“You know, babe, it really doesn’t matter to me if you dance or not. If you want to quit, that’s alright. I’m always going to love you no matter what.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Natalie mumbles, re-plugging her ears with the Airpods.
But even I know my words are as thin as those ballerinas’ bodies.
Contributor Notes
Gail Upchurch is a writer of young adult and adult fiction. She is a 2025 Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, a 2022 Kimbilio Fellow, a finalist for the 2022 Pen Parentis Fellowship, and a 2021 Tin House YA Scholar. Besides this, her short story “The Cottage” was nominated for a 2024 O. Henry Prize. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University’s program for writers and an MFA in creative writing with an emphasis in fiction from Chicago State University. Gail has recent short stories published in The Missouri Review, Obsidian: Journal & Ideas in the African Diaspora, Tupelo Quarterly, Torch Literary Arts, and Sequestrum and is currently at work on a young adult novel and a linked short story collection. She is represented by Lucy Irvine of Peters Fraser & Dunlop
