That Summer

Martin Johnson wasn't exactly what one would call 'a good boy.'

He, like his friends, drank and partied and slept around.

The difference between Martin and everyone else was no one - and I mean no one - could ever compare to him.

Once, he even spent a year trying to hook up with his friend's younger sister.

To say Evangeline was uninterested is an understatement.

The point is that Martin actually had the audacity to do things like that. He hit on the girls that no one dared hit on, and he got them.

He failed to get Evangeline and from that point on he told everyone and anyone he could that she was secretly a lesbian.

Bryan would roll his eyes but after a while he would intervene. Sure, Evangeline wasn't Bryan's favorite person in the world; but she was his younger sister. His younger, virginal sister.

And, to be honest, it made him proud that she turned down his friend when so many other girls hadn't. Maybe it was the hidden overprotective brother in him.

Pretty much every guy in Boston, Massachusetts knew after a while, unless they were a member of some sports team and made perfect grades and were basically a model citizen then even trying to speak to Evangeline Donahue was a dumb move.

All except one very unfortunate boy by the name of Paul DiGiovanni.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And demi and stretch, demi and stretch. Port de bras forward, full port de bras back. Repeat in second, fourth and fifth positions and then rise at the end. Alright ladies?"

All the girls nodded curtly to their instructor Mme Lafarge, a tall, thin woman of about thirty-five. She spoke with a French accent, though anyone who knew her before 1991 was well aware that she was born in Nebraska and that her real name was May-Anne Delaney, and before she joined a famous dance troupe she had never even stepped foot outside the United States much less to France; even if she told people she was born in southern Bourgogne.

As the stretching exercises continued Mme Lafarge stalked around the studio, her heeled dance shoes clacking on the wood beneath her feet. Constantly she would be yelling out advice to the girls as she saw flaws in their dancing.

But never, ever were any of those corrections sent toward Evangeline.

The only time she was ever singled out in class, it was to be told she was doing perfect or to demonstrate something.

The dance floor was Evangeline Donahue's home.

Once a pair of toe shoes was on her feet she was where she belonged. It came easy to her, the movements executed as if she were underwater while performing them; everything was natural and everything flowed.

Evangeline thought that she had found her future and her calling in those wood floors, ceiling height mirrors, and spotlights. She thought that she knew what she was going to do for the rest of her life. She was going to dance, to be a great ballerina. She would travel the world and dance in the most famous of ballets with the most famous of partners.

"Lovely, ladies, lovely," Mme Lafarge called out and clapped her hands together.

The girls turned their eyes to her attentively, awaiting her next instructions.

"In a month's time, we will be performing La Bayadere. I'm announcing that the part of our lead, the seductive temple dancer, has been decided."

The room instantly fell silent. This was a part that all the girls had been working themselves to the bone to get. In a month, it would be June. While all their local peers were going to be graduating high school and preparing for college in the fall, these seventeen year olds were going to be dancing in the last production of the year for them. They would be dancing for scouts from all over America, from all over the world; prepared to sign them to a company if they were found adequate.

They would be dancing for their futures.

"Our bayadere, Nikiya, will be played by Evangeline. Congratulations, ma chere," Mme Lafarge smiled.
"Thank you," Evangeline smiled back and bowed her head gracefully.

She couldn't fight the smile on her face, even though she could feel the glares of every other girl in the room.

Evangeline didn't care what everyone else thought. A week before her high school graduation she would be dancing the lead in one of the most famous ballets in history.

If all went well, by autumn Evangeline would be joining a company as a professional.

But this isn't necessarily about the spring production or the following fall.

It's about that summer in-between.