First to Dance Read online

  One wall of the hidden room was bare, but three of the walls were covered in bookshelves from floor to ceiling, all containing books about the mysterious and distant planet Earth. Ayita frequently wondered where they came from and why they were here. They were books that Aira would tell her were books of lies. Anyone who saw them would say that, but Ayita wondered if perhaps these were the only books of truth. She doubted many of the facts she read in class. She memorized them, but she doubted them.

  Many of the books had brittle pages that were difficult to handle without them tearing, but some were still in good enough condition that she could read them with ease. Ayita wondered how old the books were, but the dates in them meant nothing to her. Years weren’t numbered on Zozeis, but were tracked instead by the alphabetical naming of children.

  Ayita reached for one of the larger books on the shelf, which so far she found to be the most intriguing. On the front cover it read, “Intro to Psychology.” She set it open on her lap and resumed reading where she’d left off the day before. This book challenged everything she was taught to believe about humanity, and for that she was captivated. Specifically, the chapters on learning cast doubts in her mind about what she learned in class. “Silence is the key to learning,” they said, but according to this book people could be auditory learners. She wondered briefly how many students had dropped out of class because reading in silence didn’t fit their natural learning style. Would they still be succeeding if the lessons were taught in a different manner?

  Ayita paged through the book awhile, looking most at the pictures and diagrams. There was a photograph of a classroom on Earth, and the students were looking forward at their instructor instead of down at their books. Two of the students had their hands raised high above their heads. A second picture showed a young student painting at an easel. She wondered why there weren’t pictures anymore, why there weren’t paintings, or drawings. She wondered why it was that no one here seemed to have any desire to do such things. Ayita briefly pondered her ability to create a picture, and then remembered that somewhere they had several paint cans which were originally used to paint their home.

  Ayita set the book down and shut off the light, leaving the crawlspace. After closing the doorway she started opening and moving the boxes on the basement floor, digging through them, looking for the old paint cans. She finally found them in a corner behind a box of old shoes. She studied them for a moment in silent admiration. These paint cans had been purchased for humble and lowly uses, but they were filled with a potential for greatness.

  The sea-foam green was once used to paint their bathroom. The light blue and dark blue were used in her parent’s bedroom: light blue for the walls and dark blue for the baseboards and door frame. A cheerful yellow was used to paint their living room and hallway walls. Red and black were used on the old storage shed outside. Lastly, there was the dull white paint used for Ayita’s bedroom and the kitchen.

  Alone, they made plain-looking walls of one color or another, but together, they could make portraits and murals of magnificent design. Ayita wondered what these paints might have been used for if they were in the hands of a great artist from Earth. She brought all of them into her secret room and started to experiment by finger-painting on the one wall that had no bookshelves. Soon she was laughing, and crying, smiling, and sighing. She felt immense pleasure and joy in painting an image with her fingertips, and yet, she had no one to share this joy with. She wished that Aira could be here, smiling and painting along beside her. Maybe someday she would be.

  When Ayita was finished, she studied her painting for a long time. It was plain to see that this was her first attempt at creating a picture, but to her it was an original masterpiece. She’d painted a large window, outlined in black, and through the window there were painted hills and a deep blue lake. The sun shone in the sky, and in the distance was a small green and blue sphere—the planet Earth. All that was missing was a woman to dance on the hills and swim in the sea—a woman to fly back and forth to Earth, leaving with questions and returning with answers. But Ayita didn’t think she could paint such a woman.

  Ayita rushed upstairs to wash her hands and change her clothes before her parents returned home. She smiled at the rainbow of colored water that flowed down the drain as she gently scrubbed her fingers clean, and looked lovingly at the dots of paint that speckled her cotton pants. She looked in the mirror and saw a happy face smiling back. She didn’t think she’d ever seen herself so happy. Ayita took a moment to memorize the way her face looked. She wanted to see that look again. With her hands clean, she put on a fresh pair of pants and walked briskly to the kitchen to set the table. Her parents walked through the door just at that moment, and she smiled at them.

  Her father returned her smile, then asked her, as always, “How many sections today?”

  “Only one,” she said.

  “Of course,” he responded. He nodded his head and his smile widened a bit. He was so proud of her. She never failed to be perfect. She was everything anyone would want in a daughter, he thought. He asked her this question every day, already knowing the answer, but still asking because it was the one piece of joy he could always count on. He wanted to give her a hug. He even wanted to cry a little bit, he was so happy, but he never did. He simply smiled at her and then silently helped prepare dinner.

  As Ayita stared at her painting the next day after class, she decided that she wanted to test the waters again. She deeply desired another chance to allow someone else a glimpse into her secret life. She would give a glimpse and then gauge the reaction before pushing forward, as she did with Aira. Aira’s reaction was so strong that Ayita knew she could not trust her. Perhaps she could trust her father. He loved her. Maybe even enough that he wouldn’t betray her.

  Ayita took the paint cans up to her bedroom and looked at the walls. They were so plain and empty, but not for long. Ayita dipped her finger into the yellow paint and dabbed yellow dots across the wall in a zigzagged pattern. She took her thumb and planted blue petals around each of the yellow dots, then painted stems of sea-foam green. It was a small and modest painting of a garden. Nothing too grand, nothing too strange, just a small and ordinary picture. There were blue flowers with yellow centers here on Zozeis, so no one had to know or suspect that the idea came from anywhere other than Ayita’s daily walk home from class.

  Ayita admired her painting for a while and contemplated when the best time might be to share it with her father. She knew he loved her, and, she thought, maybe he would be okay with this. Maybe her whole room could become a garden. She wanted to show it to him, soon, but she wanted to time it just right. She wanted to carefully plan the moment he saw it.

  Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by someone knocking at her bedroom door. Ayita jumped and panic set in. She wasn’t expecting her parents to be home so soon, and while she planned to share the painting, she wasn’t mentally prepared to do so.

  She ran to the door and opened it, small enough that her father couldn't see where the painting was on her wall, but wide enough that it wasn't obvious she was hiding anything.

  “Ayita,” he said. “I wanted to let you know that your aunt Kara and uncle Kris will be here soon; they are bringing their baby so we can finally meet her.”

  Her heart was still racing as she guarded the entrance to her bedroom. “Sounds great! I look forward to seeing them,” she said.

  Her father started to walk away, and Ayita breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't ready to share her artwork with him yet. She wanted to carefully plan the moment that he saw it, to invite him into her world at just the right time. But then, just as Ayita let her guard down, her father stopped and turned to face her again. “What's that smell?” he asked.

  “What smell?”

  “It smells like fresh paint,” he said. He smiled and took a deep breath. “I've always enjoyed the smell of fresh paint.”

  She almost told him she didn't smell any paint. It wouldn't have been a lie, necessar
ily—she had been around it all afternoon and had gotten so used to the smell that she truly didn't notice it anymore. However, it went too far against her conscience to deceive him that way. Don’t come in yet, she thought. Not now.

  “Are you re-painting your room?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said nervously. She hoped the painting wouldn't damage their relationship as much as lying about it would have. I’m not ready yet. Please go. Can I show you tomorrow?

  “I didn’t realize it needed to be painted.” He pushed the door open and stepped past her.

  Ayita's shoulders fell, and she looked at the wall in shame. He would hate it. Everyone would hate it. It was too different. They’d send her away. Why did I do this? I should have kept it to myself.

  Her father frowned. He didn’t say anything. Ayita looked down and hid her face to the side, waiting for the worst. She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. She expected stern words from him, any time now, and she couldn’t find any words with which to explain. When a minute passed with no response, she slowly turned to glance at his face, right in time to see a subtle smile come across his lips. “I like it, Ayita,” he said, and that was all he said. He didn’t ask her any questions or accuse her of insanity; he simply nodded and walked out of her room, closing the door behind him. Ayita smiled, and spun a short circle on her toes. This time, she didn’t fall.

  Kara sat with perfect posture and poise all through dinner. Her back was straight, her shoulders back, and her chin up. No part of her body ever touched the table. She spoke eloquently. Everything about her seemed ideal, except for the most part she ignored her child.

  Little Sophie sat quietly strapped to an infant's chair. Ayita smiled at her, and the child responded with a large gummy grin, but it didn't cover up her glassy, disappointed stare. This baby wanted to cry, but she knew it would accomplish nothing. How long did it take for that look of sadness to go away? Ayita looked around, first at Kris, then Kara, and finally her parents. It wasn't as obvious in their eyes, but they all kept the same look from their infancy. Everyone was still broken. The first year of class was a lesson in being ignored, and these as children all passed with flying colors.

  “So, little sister,” said Taya, “You're a mother! Congratulations!”

  Kara smiled a half-way smile and nodded. She didn't look very proud.

  “Can I hold her?” Ayita asked.

  Kara looked almost panicked, but she said, “Yes.”

  Ayita was glad. Sophie looked too lonely to be left alone. She tickled her and spoke kindly to her, and Sophie giggled. “Was I this pleasant as a baby?”

  “You were a bit more demanding,” Taya replied. “And you hated going to class. You would cry about it every day up until you were about five years old. It was difficult, to say the least. It’s a good thing you can’t drop out of class at that age.”

  “We were really concerned that you wouldn't make it very far,” her father added. “But you pleasantly surprised us all, after those first years were over.”

  Ayita gently bounced the baby on her leg. Sophie seemed to enjoy it. Kara looked over and watched them. She was either about to start laughing, or to burst into tears, and it took all the self-control she could manage to do neither. She stood from the table and walked over to Ayita, scooping up her daughter in her arms. For the first time all night, she smiled at Sophie. Then she stopped smiling, strapped Sophie back into her seat, and returned to her spot at the table to finish eating. Sophie looked up at her mother and cried. Kara continued eating and refused to look at her.

  Taya shrugged her shoulders. “It's okay, Kara. She'll learn eventually.” Everyone continued their meal as Sophie cried to be held again.

  Ayita felt sick. “May I be excused?” she said. Her father nodded his permission to her, and she went upstairs to her bedroom. She smiled at the flowers on her wall, and began to clean up all the paint cans. As she cleaned up her room, she wondered how many times her cries were ignored when she was new to the world. Too many. Suddenly her own parents seemed heartless to her. Was her own mother also as cold and uncaring as Kara?

  The sound of chairs being pushed back and dishes hitting the bottom of the sink alerted her that Kara, Kris and sweet little Sophie would soon be leaving. She finished tidying up and went back downstairs to say goodbye.

  Sophie was done crying by this time, but her eyes looked even sadder than before. Ayita found it difficult to make eye contact with her. It was as though she was pleading to be rescued. Ayita felt it would be insincere to look her in the eyes knowing she could do nothing to save her. She wanted to tell the child she was sorry, but she knew she couldn’t do that in front of everyone else. She closed her eyes and gave the baby a quick kiss on the forehead, then hugged her aunt and uncle on their way out the door.

  “Why don't they visit more often?” Ayita asked. She hoped to see Sophie again, soon.

  Her father shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe you can ask them about that the next time they come.”

  “Could we go visit them at their house, some time?”

  “Don't get your hopes up. You know they've never invited us, Ayita. They probably never will.”

  Ayita walked home from class, alone and very glad that Aira failed the first section. They’d agreed to spend some time together today, though Ayita didn't actually want to, and now Aira would be busy for at least another two and a half hours.

  On her way home, Ayita looked at the world around her. She wanted to paint another wall of her room, but she was unsure of what to paint. She wanted it to be something special. When she got home, she decided instead to go down to the basement and read some more. Perhaps something in the books would be inspiring. She moved the boxes away from the hidden door and crawled inside. She sat down and opened up the book on psychology again. Ayita turned to the section on child development and read about the needs of infants. A word appeared which she’d never seen before: neglect. When she read about what it meant, it reminded her of Sophie. Sophie had her physical needs taken care of, but her emotional needs were consistently ignored. The natural bond between a mother and child was described, and while it sounded beautiful, Ayita was sure she’d never seen it in real life the way it was described in the book.

  “How is it that I was born on the wrong planet?” Ayita asked. She turned the page, desperately wishing that one of these books could tell her. The more she read, the more she longed to visit Earth, where she was certain she would be and feel “normal.”

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening, and Ayita realized that more time had passed than she was aware. “Ayita?” Aira’s voice called. She could hear her friend moving around above her, eventually ascending the stairs to her room. Ayita quietly left the crawlspace and replaced the boxes in front of the door. She came up from the basement, silently closed the door behind her, and went upstairs to meet Aira. Her friend was standing in the doorway of her bedroom, staring. She was staring at the wall, the painting, the picture, the flowers.

  “I’m right here,” Ayita said.

  Aira jumped at the sound of her voice. Then she turned and looked at her, clearly distressed. “Ayita, what is this?” she asked, pointing to the wall.

  She hesitated. “I…I painted.” She never planned to show Aira the picture. It didn’t occur to her that she would look in uninvited.

  “Ayita…why did you do this?” Aira entered the room to look closer, and Ayita was now glad she hadn’t painted the other walls as well.

  “I thought it would look nice,” she said. “Doesn’t it? The walls aren’t so plain anymore.” She tried to cover up the fear in her voice. She tried to make it sound like it was not a big deal.

  Aira only stared at her. She shook her head, and left the room, running down the stairs. Ayita stood at the top of the stairs and watched as Aira ran outside, slamming the door behind her. She sighed, and sat down. She needed some time to think. She so desperately wanted to express her creativity and ideas, but she fear
ed the possible consequences. She didn’t know what was worse: pursuing her dreams and facing possible imprisonment, or living the same life everyone else lived, with no new ideas, no beauty, and no joy. After a few moments, she closed the door to her room. Then she went back down to the basement. She still had some time left to read before her parents would be home.

  Her family was starting dinner when there was a knock at the door. Her father answered the door, and when he saw Aira standing there, he invited her inside. “I’d like to stay for dinner if I may,” Aira asked politely. Ayita’s father smiled and nodded, not noticing the growing frown on his daughter’s face. They went to the table and Aira took a seat beside Ayita as her father went to prepare another plate. Aira didn’t waste any time before bringing up Ayita’s room.

  “Yes, I saw it,” her father said.

  “I haven’t,” was her mother’s reply. Her mother looked from Aira to Ayita. “You did something with your room?” Ayita squirmed in her chair, and bit her lip.

  “She painted it. It looks…nice.” He nodded and started to eat the salad on his plate.

  “She didn’t just paint it,” Aira said, “she painted flowers.” Aira turned to give a harsh look to Ayita.

  “I want to see it,” Taya said. She got up from her seat and walked to the stairs. She came down a minute later with a confused look on her face. “It’s interesting…” she said, looking at Ayita. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen flowers painted before.”

  Aira expected a more negative reaction, and she wouldn’t stop until she got it. “Because people don’t do that!” she said. “But Ayita, she had a book of lies!”

  Ayita sank in her chair as her mother gave Aira a questioning look. “A book of lies?” she asked. Her father stood and walked the stove again so that his back was to them as he listened.