Performance

Camryn Costello

“Your hands are shaking.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Maresh snapped. 

I didn’t take it personally. He only snapped when he was nervous. He didn’t mean any harm by it. The temperamental demeanor that had taken over him as the night progressed only spoke to how increasingly anxious he was becoming, and though we had practiced our routine more times than either of us could count, I didn’t blame him.

The entire town was here at the Spring Festival, and all eyes were going to be on us. I didn’t have any family here, so I didn’t have anyone to impress, but Maresh’s family had lived here for generations, each striving to be even more of a perfect citizen than the last, and each having performed in the festival for just as long. He had at least four generations here to impress and a tradition to complete. In their classically trained eyes, any misstep in his performance was a failure, and a failure would ruin both their relationship and the festival.

“Hey,” I smiled, and put my hand on his arm, “we’re going to do fine. How many times have we done this routine?”

Maresh rolled his eyes. “A lot.”

“A hell of a lot.” I patted his arm firmly. “We’ve got this.”

He only nodded.

The obnoxious song of the performer before us was almost over, and I shoved my own nerves down by folding my arms over my chest. The red sequins prickled and scratched at my skin where they were stitched into my unitard. They stood out harshly against the black fabric, trailing downward in dynamic swaths that started at my throat. I hated the design—too on the nose for my liking—but the outfitter insisted that was the point.

The gaudy song ended. The audience cheered as the performer bowed deeply.

 Soon, this exact scenario would be playing out, but we would be the ones center stage, listening to praises and, if all went well, successfully ringing in the spring season without letting down Maresh’s family.

I did my best to give Maresh an encouraging smile. “Ready?”

He inhaled deeply, held that breath for several seconds, then let it go. As he exhaled, Maresh plastered his award-winning smile on his face. “Ready.”

Even if it was forced, I was still glad to see it.

“We’ve got this.” I was confident in that. I wasn’t about to let him down.

Our names assailed us over the loudspeaker. I stretched up onto my tip toes and shook the nerves from my hands, then took Maresh’s and, with one more confident grin, strutted out onto the stage alongside him.

The faces of the audience were invisible, scrubbed through by the blazing lights aimed at us. That was probably for the best. On the off chance we did mess something up, we wouldn’t be able to see the crowd’s disdainful smirks and grimaces.

We took our place, centered on our marks over a large, ruddy stain on the floorboards, perfectly poised together. Pressing past every other sensation, I felt the red sequins unforgivingly prodding into Maresh’s palm on my shoulder.

The speakers crackled tellingly, and Maresh’s nerves finally started to melt away as we launched into the familiar routine.

The song itself was a harsh piano number, with rapid, jarring crescendos quickly followed by slow decrescendos and discordant notes that sent the whole piece tumbling and reeling. That was the point, of course. The feeling we hoped to evoke went along with this year’s theme—that of the fleeting stages of life, the ups and downs and the single moments that change everything within them.

Maresh was perfect as we danced. His steps never faltered, and his hands were sure on their path, with their exact placement supporting me through my every move. I relied on his strength and consistency. Without the proper lift or support, I would fall. I would stumble. I would crash to the stage and disgrace us both. Disgrace Maresh.

That didn’t happen. We were a silken tangle, taut and fluid at the same time, moving as the music influenced us to.

We were perfect. Everything was perfect.

Except…

The smile, fake as it was, had dropped from Maresh’s face. I only got a glimpse of the sudden distance in his stare and the stoniness of his expression before I was turning into the final move of our routine.

His arms circled my waist, strong as always, and I arched into them as he tilted me back. With my legs pointed dramatically toward the ceiling and one arm extended toward the audience, the dip was complete. My throat was practically bared to the spectators in the first row. I couldn’t make them out—the lights were still too bright, and they would have been upside down anyway, but I could see just enough to realize we’d arrived perfectly back at center stage. Right above the darkened, ruddy planks. My fingers nearly brushed them.

We held the pose. One of Maresh’s arms left my waist—not part of the move, but he still held me firmly as ever. The final few notes of the song drifted off, like a drop of water echoing in a cave. I expected to hear the audience cheering when it faded. Instead, it was silent.

It wasn’t still, though. The crowd stood, everyone at once, without a single clap from their hands or cheer from their lips. I couldn’t see their faces, but I knew their eyes were fixed on us. I could feel it.

The silence was unbearable. We’d done everything perfectly. We hadn’t made a single mistake, yet…

My face flushed with embarrassment, a physical sting. Maresh still hadn’t lifted me from the dip. He must have been utterly humiliated, too. I reached for his shoulder to pull myself upright as my face burned and burned, but a glint in the harsh stage lights stopped me.

Maresh’s hand, raised high above me, fell in a swift arc, and that glint became a flash. There was a twinge in my throat. A new, dull sort of burning followed, and then warmth began to spread over me, soaking through the sequins down my front.

Metal clattered to the stage, and I followed it, collapsing into a stunned, graceless heap. As I landed roughly atop the floorboards, atop the ruddy stain, the audience began their applause.

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Camryn Costello was born and raised in Arizona. An avid reader and writer, she seeks to pursue those passions further by smushing together words that evolve, miraculously and curiously, into fiction and poetry, teaching middle school art and English, and rollicking with her cat down the road to becoming an editor.