Laurelin stepped into the room, wearing her dancing shoes. They were vermillion and ever-so innocently shaped like Mary-Janes. She never took them off, these shoes. Laurelin’s humming mother craned over the kitchen skink. The only other sound in the apartment was the rhythmic splashing of the dripping faucet. Until, of course, Laurelin clacked in, with the usual request teetering on her lips.

Laurelin’s mother didn’t look up when her daughter entered because she already knew the girl’s request and she had already determined her answer. So Laurelin just stood there. The music---the guitars, the piano, the violin---ran through her head so violently that she almost forgot where she was. Inside, she was already moving. 

Her mother kept drying plates. One plate, a little black teacup saucer, squeaked as she rubbed her dishrag against it, like a scratched record.

Laurelin cleared her throat and asked her fatal question, “Can I have some money to go--?”

Not a beat later, the mother turned her head toward the daughter. “What?” The word hit the air like a wrong note. 

She threw the dishrag into the sink. “What, you need some money to swing dance?”

Laurelin swallowed.

“Samba? What is it today---fucking waltzing? Hip hop? Square dance?” Her voice crescendoed as she listed dance after dance after dance. “Ballet? Jitterbug? Bunny hop? Whatever the name of that shit they do in Bollywood movies?”

Mother moved toward Laurelin in a single stride and smashed the black plate just as she said, “Mambo?!” It shattered all over the hard wooden floor. Laurelin flinched but otherwise remained calm. She was used to noise, used to drama.

“I,” her mother paused, “don’t have any more money for dance clubs or dance lessons or dance competitions or dance shoes or anything! I don’t have any more money for anything! Ever since your goddamn father left us, all you want to do is dance!”

Another plate. Another fall. Another explosion of ceramic shards across the floor.

Laurelin opened her mouth to release a single word. “I…”

“That’s right,” her mother bellowed, “Always ‘I.’ Never ‘we’ or ‘us’ or ‘you.’ All you care about is yourself! You must feel so bad for yourself, not having a father!” Crash. The third plate. “But what do you think it’s like not having a husband? What do you think it’s like having the man you love just abandon you?” Crash. The fourth plate. “Sixteen years, okay? Sixteen years married, one year engaged, two years dating! Do you know what that adds up to?” Crash. The fifth plate. “Nineteen years! Your father and I were together for nineteen years and now he’s gone! This isn’t like the death of some fucking dance craze! The man I love is fucking gone!” Laurelin cringed, expecting her mother to throw another plate but she didn’t. Instead she gazed at her daughter.

When a ballerina trips on stage and fails to recover herself in the instant before her next step, the entire audience notices and tension seizes the air. That same kind of tension describes the moment exchanged between Laurelin and her mother, right then and there. It was like the clumsy ballerina locked eyes with her master teacher during her blunder and that split second lasted centuries. Laurelin’s mother regarded her daughter with contempt.

“You want to dance?” She wavered. “Then go ahead and dance.”

Almost a full minute passed before anyone said anything or reacted in any way. Finally, Laurelin’s head dropped as she scanned the floor matted in layers of broken plates.

“I told you to dance.”

Laurelin remained still. 

“Dance, damn it!” her mother yelled and threw her dishrag directly in Laurelin’s face. 

When the dishrag fell off the tip of her nose, Laurelin’s expression could only be described as eerily placid. She was familiar with her mother’s temper and had even come to accept it. But she would never allow it to control her. She was her own free spirit. And if she danced, it would only be because her heart longed for it.

And her heart did. 

The muscles in the girl’s fine calves flinched. Her shoulders relaxed and she seized the broom leaning against the kitchen wall closest to her. She closed her eyes and suddenly the kitchen transformed into Buenos Aires. 

Laurelin pressed the broom to her chest, slanting it slightly toward her right thigh and took the lead.  She executed elongated steps with elegance:

In two beats, she stepped back with her right foot.

In two beats, she stepped back with her left foot.

In one beat, she stepped back with her right foot.

In one beat, she stepped to the left with her left foot.

In two beats, she slid her right foot next to her left foot and touched her right foot next to her left foot with her right heel facing up.

Meanwhile the girl’s mother stomped in the background and clapped her hands out of sync. She snatched an oven mitt from the kitchen counter and started spinning it around and around above her head. “Come on, Laurelin! You call that dancing? Dance like your father taught you!” Stomp. Clap. Clap. Stomp. Clap. Clap. 

Laurelin ignored her mother’s savage stomps and concentrated on her own footwork. Her steps went back and forth, back and forth, until she interrupted them with a swift kick or a drop that sent her knees crunching onto and into the broken plates. Her tear-stained eyes were the only part of her face that flashed with pain. When she stood up and continued dancing, she was as poised as before but more passionate. Her broom was no longer a mere broom; her broom became her dance partner, her fellow lover of music and movement.

Stomp. Clap. Clap. Stomp. Clap. Clap. 

They shared a moment that even the vulgar creature stomping and clapping before them could not steal. Then Laurelin stroked her partner, flipped him to and fro, and kissed him tenderly before returning him to his wall. She started to stomp in graceful contrast to her mother. She stomped so long and so hard that no one in that kitchen or outside of it could have distinguished between the red of her shoes and blood smeared across her ankles and feet.

When Laurelin began to falter, her mother smashed a plate and egged her on but the girl collapsed. And like the sea of ceramic upon which she had danced, Laurelin shattered, falling face first onto the floor. Then her mother grabbed Laurelin’s dance partner and swept her up.