The Cheat Sheet: A Novel
The Cheat Sheet: Chapter 4

“OH MY GOSH, I’m drooling. Imani, grab me a mop so I can clean up this puddle.”

“Shhhhh, she’s gonna hear us. Keep it down, you dodo!”

“I don’t care if she hears, she needs to know it’s unbelievable she’s not jumping that piece of—”

I clear my throat and fold my arms, tapping my foot like I remember my mom doing—although I refuse to think of myself as these girls’ mom because I’m absolutely not old enough. I’m more like their big sister. Yeah, their super cool big sister who they’d be lucky to hang out with!

“Hand it over,” I say, hand outstretched toward the group of sixteen-year-old ballet students hovering ominously around a phone. And yeah, now I feel like their mom.

“See, Hannah, you and your big mouth went and did it.” Imani rises from their little huddle in the corner of the studio where they were waiting for class to begin and pads gracefully across the hardwood floor to me.

The pink and blue bejeweled phone case lands in my palm, and I look down to replace a photo of Nathan in a sexy ad of some sort, wearing nothing but his uniform pants and a really awesome pair of black cleats. His abs are rippling under the studio lighting, and there’s more than a little sheen reflecting off his taut skin from all the oil that’s been rubbed on him. I’m not even sure what they are selling here, but I’m willing to spend all my savings on it.

I swipe out of the photo even though I want to copy and paste the URL and text it to myself. “First of all, you girls shouldn’t be looking at this. He’s almost twice your age!”

“So! Sexiness knows no age.” Sierra—also sixteen—is the one to shout that little gem.

“Believe me, it does. Just ask the law.” They all roll their eyes. Sixteen-year-olds are terrifying. “And second of all, this is 100% photoshopped. He doesn’t look like this in real life.” He looks better.

Hannah points aggressively at me. “Bite your tongue! He’s the hottest man in the world and everyone knows it. And we want to know how you can be best friends with that god among men and not hit it.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Ew, don’t say hit it. Where did you learn to talk like that?”

“You’re avoiding the question,” says Hannah. She’s the ringleader of sassiness in this class.

I cross the floor of the long slender studio to reach the sound system in the back corner. Remote in hand, I rise onto my toes and spin around to face the little fresh-faced jury now lined up by the floor-to-ceiling mirror, arms folded. These tiny babies mean business.

“I’m not avoiding the question. I’m just not dignifying it with an answer! Plus, it’s an inappropriate class conversation. My business with my friend is my own, not yours.” I want to boop each of them on the nose to drive the point home.

“But you love him, right?” asks Imani.

I put my hands on my hips. Ugh, more mom posing. “If I answer you, can we start class?”

“Yes,” the Spice Girls of ballet answer in unison.

“Then no, I do not love him, Sam I am. I do not love him in a car, I do not love him in a bar. I do not love him with a hat, I do not love him with a cat,” I chirp adorably while twirling and whimsically conveying this lie in a way I hope they’ll understand.

Their frowns are deep. They think I’m so uncool.

There is no way I’m giving these girls what they want: the truth. Telling them how I actually feel about Nathan would be like throwing thousands of Pixy Stix into a room of toddlers. They’d go nuts and I’d never have peace again. There’s also the very real possibility that they would replace a way to contact him and tell him everything I say. Better to lie and pretend I don’t care about Nathan in that way.

“That’s so boring!” one of the girls moans. “What’s the point of even having a hot best friend if you’re not going to bang him?”

“OKAY EVERYONE GET INTO POSITION!” I yell and clap my hands together like a Parisian instructor whose only goal in life is to drive her students to the brink of death. Which is sort of what I plan to do today.

Just because this is an inexpensive ballet class, doesn’t mean they get a cheap education. I instruct these girls with the same precision and expectations I received in my fancy-shmancy-pricey-dicey studio growing up. I cringe thinking back to how my parents and I had to work our butts off to afford that place. Yes, you heard me correctly, my parents AND I had to work for it. Neither of my parents ever had jobs that paid particularly well, and because they were also taking care of my grandmother who fought an aggressive form of cancer for most of my childhood, my dad worked two jobs to make ends meet. Money was tight at all times.

My sister and I both worked during high school in order to pay for our cars, insurance, fun stuff like movie tickets, and even part of my ballet tuition. I wish a studio like the one I own now had existed near me when I was younger for many reasons.

1) We operate on income-based tuition. That means if your parents make less, your tuition is less and we make sure you can afford to come to ballet. Because dance shouldn’t be available only to the wealthy. It should be something for everyone to enjoy. It shouldn’t be a burden.

2) My studio focuses not only on technique and practice, but on the whole person. I care about these girls. I care if they’re eating. I care if they have clothes for school in the fall. I care if they are fighting with a friend and need a hug or a ride to class that day. I care more about what their eyes are telling me than the turnout of their feet. Because as I have learned firsthand, ballet can slip from your grasp in a blink, but your soul is with you forever. I’m finally taking my mom’s advice and implementing it in my students’ dance education.

But don’t get me wrong, I also care about the turnout of their toes, and right now as we practice, I give them the kind of instruction they can be proud of. When they graduate from high school, I want them to feel like they received all the training they needed to go on to dance in a company or apply to Juilliard. During this one-hour class, I give these girls my all, and I expect the same in return from them.

However, some sacrifices have to be made in order to provide lower tuition. As far as ballet studios go, this one is miniscule. It’s a mouse hole—a mouse hole situated in the upstairs portion of a pizza parlor where it has thrived for ten years. I took it over from the old owner, Ms. Katie, four years ago, and I’ve never looked back. This is my slice of heaven. It smells like yeast and pepperonis and sounds like classical music and laughter.

After class is over, I take up my usual position in front of the exit in the four-foot-wide hallway that extends the length of the studio. It’s lined with dance bags, water bottles, and shoes, bookended by one single-stall bathroom on one side and my punctuation mark of an office on the opposite end.

The girls line up with their bags slung over their shoulders and go out the door one by one, pausing to listen to the inspirational message I tell them every time they leave. They want to pluck their ears off from having to hear it so often, but I will wax every hair from my body before I stop telling them, because I know they need to hear it. I hold out the basket of homemade oatmeal protein cookies I make each week for my classes.

“Imani, I’m proud of you. You’re beautiful and worthy just the way you are. Take a cookie.” She does and rolls her eyes with a grin. “Sierra, I’m proud of you. You’re beautiful and worthy just the way you are. Take a cookie.” She sticks her tongue out and wrinkles her nose. I stick mine out in return.

I go down the line of all eight dancers, looking in each of their eyes, noting if there’s anything that seems off, making sure they look not too skinny, like they’ve been sleeping, like they are not losing their soul to dance like I wish my teachers would have done for me. Because here’s the thing about dancers at this level: they will do anything to succeed, which usually translates to working themselves so hard their feet bleed, starving themselves so their bodies have leaner lines, constantly striving for perfection and spending more time dancing than living. That was me at one point, and I’m so thankful it’s not me anymore. Now, I eat when I’m hungry, and I live life outside of dance.

That car accident saved my life, because if I had gone on to Juilliard with the unhealthy mentality toward my body and workaholic lifestyle I had at the time, I’m not sure what would have happened to me. Now, I will make sure my dancers feel seen, and loved, and dammit, FED!

Hannah is the last student in the line, and as she gets ready to take a cookie, my overprotective-teacher radar starts blaring because her eyes are cast down. Usually she makes a face at me like the other girls on her way out the door. I pull the basket of cookies away at the last second before her young-adult hand can grab one.

“Ah-ah-ah,” I say like I’m reprimanding a puppy that’s too cute to actually scold. I hold the basket far away. “No cookie for you unless you tell me what’s up with the darty eyes.”

Oooo, I forgot I was dealing with the worst kind of teenager, though—a level-four teen, aka a driving teen who now thinks she’s a grown-ass adult.

She folds her arms. “Fine. I’m not hungry anyway.” Her eyeballs cut purposely away from me, but I can still see something lurking.

Well, unlucky for her, I never fully grew up.

With her gaze turned away from me, I’m able to easily pluck the same little bejeweled cell phone that had Nathan’s glorious picture on it from her hand. I hold it behind my back and convey with my eyes that she’s never getting it back if she doesn’t comply. She gasps indignantly, and I mimic it like an annoying parrot, widening my eyes mockingly.

“Oh, did you want this? Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll give it back.”

“You can’t take my phone! This isn’t school.”

“Uh—I think I just did.” I’m ruthless, but I don’t care if she’s mad, because now I’m convinced something is going on that she’s not telling me about, and I care too much about her to let it slide.

“Miss B!” She groans. “I need to go! My shift starts in forty-five minutes, and I need to go home to change. Please can I have my phone back?”

I make a thinking face. “Ummm…no. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Her slender shoulders slump as best as a perfectly refined ballerina’s body will allow. “You’re really not going to let me have it back?” I smile pleasantly and shake my head. She rolls her eyes. “Fine. My dad lost his job again. He said the company had to make budget cuts. I—I know my tuition is already low, but I still might have to quit coming. I can’t work any more hours and still keep up my grades.”

I extend the pink and blue jeweled phone back to her. “Thank you. Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She gives me a death glare. “It was an invasion of privacy.”

“Sure, sure, I see where you’re coming from, but…I don’t care.” I grin and hand her a cookie. She smiles weakly, and I know I’m forgiven. “Forget about tuition until your dad gets back on his feet.”

She looks stunned. “Are you serious? Miss B, I can’t—”

“Of course you can! Now, quit worrying—it’ll give you ulcers.” I turn around to flick off the studio lights and pick up my duffle bag. “I want to see you in class on Thursday.”

Once we’re out the door, I lock up, and we both walk down the extremely steep and narrow stairs that lead to the parking lot. The smell of pizza dough punches me in the stomach, and I want to chuck these healthy cookies across the building and devour a supreme stuffed-crust pizza instead. You’d think after six years of smelling this haunting yeasty aroma, I’d be used to it, maybe even sick of it. Nope.

Hannah turns to me after we make it to the bottom of the stairs. She opens her mouth, but no words come out. I do see tears clinging to her long lashes though. She slowly lets her breath out and then nods. “Thanks, Miss B. I’ll be here.”

And that’s all I want. Well, that and more money to rain down like manna from heaven somehow. I’m not sure how I’ll make it work without Hannah’s tuition and an already tight budget, but I refuse to turn away a girl who needs help.

The memory of an Instagram post I saw earlier this week suddenly pops into my mind. It was from The Good Factory saying that one of their incredible spaces is going to become available next month, and they are currently taking applications. I’ve dreamed of securing a place in The Good Factory ever since I learned about it a few years ago. It’s a giant old renovated—you guessed it—factory that was endowed in some rich benefactor’s will with the specific purpose of offering free rental spaces for non-profit organizations. The only overhead costs organizations are required to cover are for any adjustments they need to make to the space (which for me would be adding mirrors and a ballet barre). There are only fifteen gigantic spaces available for use in the factory and they are ALWAYS occupied, because, duh, who wouldn’t want to be in there?

Each space is lined with gorgeous windows, hardwood floors, and expansive exposed brick walls. I bet there’s not a hint of a yeast scent anywhere in that building. I want to apply, because with the free rent, I would officially be able to convert my studio to a non-profit and lower tuition prices to nearly free. But even as I think of applying, I roll my eyes. There’s no way I’d get selected among the hundreds of other applicants. I’ve learned by now not to count too much on something in the future that’s completely out of my hands. Best to make do with the resources I have available to me now.

I watch Hannah walk to her car and wait until she’s safely inside to go to my own. I toss my bag on the opposite seat that’s already piled high with sweaters and water bottles then check my phone. I’m not surprised to see a new voicemail from Nathan because we have become very good at a voicemail-and-text friendship. We tend to call and leave meaningless voicemails for no reason. Like cell phone pen pals.

“Hey, is it true that some caterpillars are poisonous? Somehow one made its way into my truck and then disappeared when I looked away. Now I’m wondering if I should buy a new vehicle and just give him this one? What do you think?”

I immediately call him back and leave a message when he doesn’t answer. “I haven’t had time to Google it yet, but better safe than sorry. Can you get a flashy sports car this time? Also, I’m really craving a cherry slushie. Does that mean I have a vitamin deficiency? That’s all. K, bye.”

After I hang up, I peruse the internet, trying to replace that photo the girls were staring at before class.