The Dance Read Online Free PDF

With my bag and my makeup and stuff. I don’t know how you put up with me.”
    “I was the one who ruined your sweater.”
    “You didn’t ruin it.”
    “Yeah, I did.”
    “No.” She reached out, brushed his arm. “Look at me, Michael.” He did so, seeing her large brown eyes first, as he usually did when he looked at her. She chuckled. “Don’t you see? I have it on.”
    He smiled. “That’s right. How did you get the stain out?” She touched her chest. “I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. It’s gone.”
    “It looks great on you.”
    “Thank you.” She paused, her face suddenly serious. “Did you ask for a new locker?”
    He couldn’t lie to her. “Yeah.”
    The word seemed to startle her. She recovered quickly, however, nodding. “That’s OK.”
    “Jessie—”
    “No, I understand. It’s fine, really, no offense taken. It’s just that I sort of, you know—I used to like talking to you between classes.” She smiled briefly. “That was fun.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    “It’s all right.”
    “No, I’m sorry about what I said to you.” He lowered his voice, his eyes. “When we were in Alice’s studio. I shouldn’t have said—what I did.”
    She sank back into her seat, taking a breath, putting her hands on the steering wheel, pulling them off again. Obviously, it was a topic she would have preferred to avoid. “You were upset,” she said quietly.
    “I was an asshole.”
    She started to shake her head, stopped. She could have been talking about the stain again. “I don’t remember what you said. It doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s past.”
    “Do you forgive me?”
    “I don’t have to forgive you for loving her.” She caught his eye. “That’s all I heard in that room, Michael—that you loved her. All right?”
    She did forgive him, and she was asking him to drop it. “All right,” he said, feeling much better. He should have come to her weeks ago. She picked up her papers and books from the passenger seat, glad to change the subject.
    “You can see I’m still studying for the SAT,” she said. “I have to take it, not this Saturday, but next.”
    “That’s when I’m taking it. At Sanders High?”
    She brightened. “Yeah. Maybe we’ll be in the same room.”
    “Maybe.”
    She nodded to her test book. “I’m not doing so hot on these trial tests. How do you score on them?”
    He had not given a thought to the SAT. “I haven’t taken any.”
    “Really? You’re just going to walk in there and do it? That’s amazing.” She glanced at her scratch papers, frowned. “I wish I could do that.”
    “You’ll do fine. Don’t worry about it.”
    “I’m not worried.” She laughed. “I’m terrified.”
    He smiled. “If worse comes to worst, I can always slip you my answers—if you’d want them.”
    She looked up at him. “Don’t tempt me, guy.”
    “Of course you’d have to pay me in advance.”
    “Oh! I do have to pay you. I mean, I still owe you a movie.” She paused. “Would you like to go to the movies with me?”
    He felt much much better. “When?”
    “How about tomorrow?”
    Tomorrow was Friday, and he had to work because he was already taking Saturday off to play in the final practice game of the season. He couldn’t do that to his bosses—disappear two days in a row during the busiest part of the week. They’d already given him a break by not firing him when he had stayed home for days on end after the funeral.
    On the other hand, this last preseason game was against a marshmallow of a school. And Coach Sellers was still trying to make up his mind about a couple of guards. If he did call in sick, the team would still win, and the two guys would get more playing time, and have more of an opportunity to prove themselves. By working Saturday, he could rationalize taking Friday off.
    “Tomorrow would be great,” he said.
    They worked out the details. He would pick her up at six at her house and they would take it from there. She