First to Dance (16 page)

Ayita laughed a little. She wasn’t sure she wanted to make that promise. But she did.

Ayita
gave Dakarai his reminder about an hour after she and Ziyad finished their activities with the children. It was late in the afternoon, and though she was tired, she thought she was ready.

Dakarai
smiled, plugged his nose for show, then bounced into the water. Ayita waited for him to resurface, and he shortly popped up in the same spot he’d entered in. He unplugged his nose and breathed.

“Now you try.”

“What? I don’t think so.”

“Yes,” he said.

“No.”

“No?”

“Maybe.”

Dakarai
smiled.  “It’s not scary,” he said.

“To you.”

“Okay, then just hop in and hold onto the ledge for this first try,” he told her.  “You’ll have complete control of it.  You can come back up as soon as you need to, but you’re going to get your whole body underwater today.”

Ayita nodded.

“Try it,” he said.

Ayita was breathing deeper, now.  “I will,” she said. 
“In a sec.” She lowered her body into the water and kept both hands tightly gripping the rock. Her breaths were slow and steady.

Dakarai
smiled.  He watched her, patiently waiting.  He knew she would do it.

Ayita closed her eyes for a moment.  She imagined she was somewhere else.  Then she took a long breath and
plugged her nose with one hand as she quickly pushed herself downward with the other.  Suddenly the water seemed to close in on her. She felt really small in this giant body of water. It scared her, the same way it did every time. She quickly pulled herself back up to the surface.

“I don’t think I want to do this,” she said.

“Yes you do.”

Ayita nodded.  “Yes…I do….” and with her index finger and thumb she plugged her nose after brushing her hair behind her ears, and she
lowered herself again into the water.  It was the same feeling, but Dakarai was right: she could control it. There was nothing to fear. She had one hand safely on the ledge, no water was invading her lungs, and she could come back up whenever she wanted to. She stayed under for a few seconds before resurfacing.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“I guess not,” she said. She tried it a few more times before climbing up out of the water and sitting down in the grass. The sun was setting and there was a cool breeze in the air.  Summer was almost over, she knew.  It wouldn’t be long before they left this place.  Ayita looked forward to seeing their winter dwellings. She hoped she would find the space center there, but at the same time, she hoped she wouldn’t. Ayita shivered and she held her arms, though the air was still warmer than the water was.

“You’re cold?” he asked.  He pulled himself
out of the water, and sat down in the grass beside her.

“A little,” she said.

“Won’t be long before winter hits.”

Ayita nodded.

“Are you excited?” he asked.

“For winter?”

He smiled.  “No, the autumn events.”

“Autumn events?”

“Yeah,” he said.  “When summer ends there’s a huge celebration.”

“Oh?”

Dakarai
nodded.

“And you remember that this happens?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It always has.  I can feel it coming, like the cold. It’s like moving back and forth from here to the winter buildings. It just happens every year.”

“I see,” she said.  “What are you celebrating?”

Dakarai made a face, and thought.  “I don’t know, actually,” he said.

Ayita smiled.  “Does anyone?” she asked.

“Maybe we don’t need a reason.”

Ayita nodded.

The sun went down and they were still talking.  Finally, she yawned and told Dakarai good-night.  As Ayita walked out of the forest and back toward the table-top tree where she slept, she could hear the melodic playing of Dakarai and his small wooden instrument.  She closed her eyes and danced beneath the stars.

10

The celebration was
unlike anything she’d ever seen before.  There was music playing, by many people with many instruments, and the sounds all blended together so perfectly.  People were dancing: solo, with a partner, and some in groups.  Even the children were dancing.

Some of the
men and women were standing outside the dance area, like herself, all watching the dancers.  The pairs danced with such calculated perfection, and Ayita wondered how they knew when to spin and when to sway.  A man wrapped his arms around a woman and dipped her almost to the floor before bringing her upright, and their dance continued.  They moved together like water on earth.  He guided her directions and she followed so smoothly, so pure.  Ayita looked away and closed her eyes, blushing.  She tried to envision herself dancing with Dakarai that way.

The music changed periodically, from slow to fast and fast to slow, and the dancing that took place always matched the music.  Everything flowed together
with perfect harmony, and Ayita thought she could never fit in with that harmony.  All those days of dancing through the woods to Dakarai’s song, all those nights of dancing alone in her room, and none of them compared to what she saw now in the people of this community. They were connected to each other by a bond that was foreign to Ayita.

“I should be out there,” she quietly said to herself.

“Then why aren’t you?”

It was
Ziyad. She looked at him and smiled. “I can’t dance like that.”

“Sure you can.”

Suddenly the music went quiet and a slow tune started. There were only three musicians playing for this song, and they all played an instrument like the one Dakarai played.

Ziyad
spoke again. “It doesn’t matter how you dance,” he said. “What’s important is that you do.”

Ayita
nodded. “You’re right,” she said, and she walked out onto the dance floor, oblivious to Ziyad’s hand held out for her in invitation. He let his hand fall to his side and watched.

Ayit
a started with a simple twirl: the one she did in her bedroom. She closed her eyes and tried it again and again. She didn’t fall once. Then she opened her eyes and danced across the floor, but it was as if her eyes were closed. She didn’t see the people of Adonia here. She saw Zozeis. She was dancing in the street on Zozeis and everyone was watching, but they wouldn’t say a word. She turned the street into a dance floor and she was the first to dance. For a while the people didn’t know what to do, but then one by one, they joined her. Soon everyone she knew was dancing. Her father. Her mother. Kara and Kris, with Sophie in their arms. Aira. Acton. Even the three men who came to take her away. Everyone was dancing, and no one was afraid.

Ayita didn’t notice until the song was over that she had tears in her eyes.
She ran away from the area, toward the table-top tree where she slept.  Ayita didn’t go the entire distance, but half of it, and she stopped to kneel on the ground.  She closed her eyes and listened as her mind raced through a million thoughts.

When she opened her eyes, she saw
Dakarai walking toward her; he was just now coming in from the forest.  She watched briefly as he approached, then stood and walked to meet him.

“What are you doing
all the way out here?” he asked. 

“
Thinking,” she said.

He smiled.
“I thought for sure I would find you on the dance floor,” he said.  “I made this for you.”  Dakarai held out a small wooden turtle hanging from a string.  When she didn’t immediately take it, he placed it in her hand.

“A turtle,” she said. 

“Not just a turtle. It’s a box, too.”

Ayita ran her fingers over it until she felt the crease, and the top of the shell came off. Inside were two small seeds.

“One from your tree, and one from mine,” he explained. “In the spring, I thought, maybe we could plant them together, side by side, somewhere that we’d both like to live.”

“Thank you,” Ayita whispered. She didn’t know what else to say.
Then she realized that accepting this gift was like accepting a proposal. But he didn’t directly ask the question, and she didn’t directly give him an answer. She closed the box with the seeds inside.

“You remembered,” she said.

“What?”

“
The turtle.”

“Oh.” He looked ashamed. “No, I made this
a long time ago for you. I had it in my box with a note that I should give it to you today at the celebration. Apparently I made it after you drew a picture in the dirt.”

Ayita smiled. “That’s okay,” she said. “Maybe you didn’t remember, but you still cared.” Their eyes locked.

“Here,” he said. He took the two ends of the string and tied it around her neck.

A new song started, and to this one there was a woman singing. 
Her voice carried over the empty land and into their ears. Ayita had never heard anyone sing before.  It was beautiful.  She was singing about love. 

“Do you want to dance?”
Dakarai asked.  He held his hand out to her.

“I’ve never danced with
anyone else before,” she said.

“
Now’s your chance.”  Dakarai smiled

“How do
we….”

“Don’t ask. Do.”

They both laughed.

“
Okay, I’ll tell you. First, take my hand,” he told her.  “All right, now put your other hand on my shoulder, and my other hand goes around your waist, like this.  Now just follow my lead.”

They slowly moved around in a circle
, and for a while Ayita was staring into Dakarai’s eyes, but then she moved closer to him and rested her head against his shoulder.  She thought about the way his hand felt in the small of her back and listened to his rhythmic breathing.  His body swayed as they danced, and hers along with it.  Ayita closed her eyes, listening to him and the music, and she wondered why this never happened at home. 
It’s a wonder people connect at all,
she thought. 
They have nothing like this. 
She was unsure why, but she could feel tears coming to her eyes again.  She did not allow them to fall down her face, but she knew they were there.

The song ended, but for a number of seconds Ayita wouldn’t let go.  When she did, she stepped back and looked up again into his eyes.

“You are a very fine dancer, Dakarai.”

S
uddenly she felt scared. Scared because of his gift and what it meant. Scared because of how much he meant to her. And scared, most of all, that whether she told him yes or no to his proposal, he wouldn’t remember any of it in the morning.

She took
a step back, and turned to walk away.

“Ayita, wait.”  He loosely held onto her hand, but didn’t squeeze or pull.  “Where are you going?”

“I just…I…I…” 
Love you,
she thought. 
And that scares me.
She looked down, and away, then back up at him. 

Ayita reached up and placed her fingertips along the back of his neck
. She stood on her toes and leaned forward until her face was a hair’s width from his.  When she closed her eyes, their lips touched and she could feel him returning the kiss. 

“I love you,” she said. She
brought her hand to the turtle hanging from her neck. “And I would love to plant these two seeds with you next spring.”

They danced
again, several times that night, and then he walked her home to the only other table-top tree set apart from the rest. He kissed her goodnight and walked away. But when he was gone, Ayita cried, because she knew he wouldn’t remember any of it.

Ayita woke up the next morning, happy but sad. So much happened the night before, but only she would know. Only she would remember. He would see the wooden turtle around her neck each day, and it would hold no significance to him. No one got married on Adonia. They didn’t spend their lives together. They spent a night together and then everyone raised the child. Only a handful of people showed any interest at all in having a single lifetime partner, and even they were too forgetful to make it work.

But maybe it would be different with
Dakarai. Like Panya said, he didn’t remember with his mind, he remembered with his heart. On the surface, that made him look far more forgetful than anyone else, but deep down his heart remembered what was important.
Maybe he’s wrong
, Ayita thought.
Maybe he doesn’t have the worst memory here. He might actually have the best.

She held the turtle out in front of her and looked at it fondly, turning it over to absorb every facet. It meant something to him when he made it, and it meant something to him when he gave it to her. But would it still mean something to him today? Would it mean anything to him in the spring?
The only way to find out was to be there with him, and to keep her half of the promise.