Forever.

“Mel, I can’t find the make-up bag!”

“My tights have a huge run in them!”

“The zipper on my skirt broke!”

“Mel, we just ran out of hairspray and bobby-pins!”

It was hell in the dressing room.

The dance competition was just starting, and we literally were due onstage in fifteen minutes. And just our luck, everything was going wrong.

Everyone backstage in our dressing room was running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to find this, that, and the other. I was probably the only calm one, fixing everything that was problematic. But even then, I was screaming on the inside.

I was running around, handing out extra tights, gelling girls’ hair, pinning back wisps of hair, passing out extra make-up. And even though I was doing all these things, and probably saving our butts from being whooped in the competetion, I was absolutely silent.

I hadn’t said a word all morning.

Even on the four hour bus ride to the venue, I hadn’t said anything. But thankfully, everyone knew not to bother me before a competetion. They always said that I was “in the zone”, which I guess was partially right. I was just silent to get my head cleared before the big pep-talk I always gave, and to make sure I was fully ready to go out in front of judges.

That, and I had been thing about Joe all morning. What a big shocker.

“Ten minutes!” I heard someone call.

All of the girls, even Stacy, sat down in a chair in front of a mirror, whether or not they were ready. They all faced me, waiting for my big speech.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

“We’ve been working for this for months. We’ve put ourselves through numerous amounts of stress, practicing for hours on end just to get a few seconds of the routine right. You’ve all worked extroidinarily hard to even make it to Advanced Dance, and all of you are responsible for getting us this far.

“Not many of you know this, but this is our first time ever making it to Regional Championships. We’ve made it to State a few times, and County and Districts too many times to count, but this is the Panthers’ first time to Regionals. These people have never seen us before, so lets make a good impression on them. We all know we can do it, so we have to show them we can do it, too. We’ve all worked too hard to come here and not win.

“I know we’ve had a lot of conflicts this season, but I want everyone in this room to close your eyes, and turn every ounce of negative energy into positive energy. I want you all to imagine yourself in the happiest place that you can think of, even if it doesn’t exsist or you havn’t experienced it yet. For some of you, it may be holding that first place trophy that we will get today. For some of you, it may be imagining yourself with someone special in your heart. It may even just being on stage and dancing your heart out. Whatever it is, I want it to make you smile.”

I paused, letting everyone stay in their own head, thinking in their own thoughts. I opened my eyes, and saw every single team member smiling their heads off.

I smiled to myself, just thinking about how well we would do if they could smile that wide, just thinking about their happy place. So I decided to find my own happy place as well.

But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find it.

Instead of making myself frustrated, I simply opened my eyes again and saw everyone else looking at me, waiting. I smiled for them, hoping I could reassure them as best as I could.

“So who’s ready to go out there and kick some butt?!”

Everyone immediately stood up, yelling and cheering. I knew I had pumped everyone up, and that great feeling mixed with adreniline made me want to scream and shout, too. But I kept my cool, and nodded towards Mrs. Clark to signal that we were ready.

She whistled once, and got everyone’s attention at once. “Alright girls,” she started, “we only have one shot at this. Give it your best, and know that no matter what happens out there, I’m proud that every single one of you got us here, where we are today. So go ahead and finish getting ready, and once you are, get into order single file like we practiced and line up behind Melodie. She’ll lead you to the warm up area, and from there, we’ll go to the performance. You have seven minutes!”

The craziness started again, but within two minutes, everyone was perfect and ready. They all filed up behind me, and I started walking them over to the ballet barres for warm ups.

“Alright, lets all do about four demi pliés and two grande pliés in each position, and then do some foot work with some frappés and tondus. And if you’re feeling really adventurous, go ahead and do a few ronde jambes on half-pointe, and maybe even some battements or developés. Just don’t kick anybody!”

All of the girls around me started on their warm ups, save a few cheerleaders who hadn’t been paying attention during rehearsals and had no idea what I just told them to do. But I ignored them, knowing it was their own fault, and started doing my own pliés and tondus.

After about four minutes, everyone was just about done, and we were supposed to be onstage in one minute. I lined them all back up again, and brought my arms up in a high-third position, waiting for everyone else behind to do so as well. And then I brushed my foot out and pointed my toe, now completely ready to walk onstage.

I was given a thumbs up from a techie across the wings and nodded my head once, signaling that we would be going onstage.

I kept my face expressionless until I reached my position, front and center stage. I was the last to my spot, and every girl behind me was in their starting position, all with the same face on.

The second I reached my spot, I pulled on the same face as everyone else, but put myself in a different position. The arm that was in fifth above my head made it’s way down my side, hitting a la seconde, and finally reaching un bas, as my legs dipped into a deep curtsy. After I pulled my self up, I went into the starting position, and counted 5-6-7-8 in my head.

The music started, and so did the dance.The first half was ballet, in a slow classical movement by Bach. But half way through, there was a climax, a holding note at it’s fullest volume, that signaled the begininng of the fast movement, which was definitly more jazz and hip hop.

Hopefully, it would give the judges that pop we needed to win.

Around a minute and a half in, I could hear the climax building. The tempo started to gain speed, and finally the climax hit. Around me, my team mates were pouring their souls into the ballet portion, just like ballet was supposed to tempt you to do.

Bam!

The jazz part started, and the intense expressions on our faces were replaced with smirks. Instead of putting all of our energy behind the emotion of the dance, we put the energy into every single movement we made. Even though I was looking into the audience and looking at the judges, I could see through my peripherals that my team was having the time of their lives.

But all of a sudden, all of my attention was set on a small group in the audience. Even though, truthfully, I would have rather seen the other three of the family, this three was fine, too.

There, right in the middle of the audience, right behind the judges, were Mr, Mrs, and Frankie Jonas.

And in Frankie’s hand was a small poster, that said Your boys say good luck! in big, bold, red letters.

If I had been tired from putting into all of my energy into my dancing, I sure wasn’t tired now.

Just seeing the poster made me smile like an idiot, knowing full well that they would do that kind of thing. I knew that my smile was probably ruining that I can do this and you can’t mood of the dance, but I didn’t really care. All that mattered right then was the fact that I knew my boys were looking out for me, even if it wasn’t in the most direct way possible.