The Man in Row Three

She pulled out a binder and a calculator. Tuition for the Saturday morning class that ran September through May was ninety-five dollars a month, nine months.

Two costumes, one for the winter showcase and one for the spring recital, fifty-five apiece. The recital fee was fifty-five.

She added it up twice. One thousand and twenty dollars. I wrote her the check standing at the desk, on the same checkbook I’d been using for Shayla’s checks, and on the memo line I wrote “Ava” the way I always had.

Then Miss Renee called Shayla’s number from the student file while I stood there. She was brisk about it. She said a family friend had paid for a full year of Saturday ballet and tap for Ava, nothing owed, and asked if Shayla would like to bring her in that Saturday at nine.

Miss Renee listened, then said, “I’m not able to say who paid, hon, but it’s paid through May, and the spot’s hers if she wants it.”

She looked at me and said, “Parents and families can watch from the chairs along the back wall. Whoever pays the bill is family as far as my chairs are concerned. But you mind yourself, Mr. Sorensen. That little girl comes first in my building.” I told her she did in mine too.

The first Saturday

There were four rows of metal folding chairs along the back of the studio, facing the mirrors, with a strip of masking tape on the floor in front of the first row that the parents weren’t supposed to cross.

I took a chair in the third row, by the window.

I’d gone in to the shop at six that morning to get ahead on a job, the way I do most Saturdays, and I came in my gray work shirt with my name stitched over the pocket.

Shayla came through the door at five till nine with Ava in a pink leotard and a pair of borrowed tights that were a little long in the ankles.

Ava was so excited she was practically vibrating. Then Shayla saw me in the third row and stopped dead.

Her face fell, then went hard. For a second I thought she was going to turn around and take Ava right back out to the car, and I would not have blamed her.

But Ava had already seen the other girls lining up at the barre, and she pulled her hand loose and ran.

Ava never looked back at the chairs. I don’t think she saw me at all that first day, and I didn’t do anything to make her.

I sat with my hands on my knees and watched my girl learn first position, second position, and how to curtsy without falling over.

Shayla sat in the first row for the whole hour without turning around. When class let out, she asked Ava to wait with Miss Renee and walked straight back to me, and she said, very low, “You can’t buy her, Jake.”

I said, “I’m not trying to buy anything. I paid for her to dance.” Shayla said she could pull her out.

I said, “You could. I hope you won’t. I’ll sit in the back row if you want me in the back row.”

She looked over at Ava, who was spinning in front of the mirror with two other girls and laughing so hard she had the hiccups.

Shayla’s jaw worked. Then she said, “Don’t talk to her. Don’t you go up to her. If you do, we’re done here.”

I said all right. I said I wouldn’t go to her unless she came to me first, and that I would never say one word to Ava about her mother or about Kyle, not ever.

I meant it, and I kept it, and that was the deal we made in the back of a dance studio on a Saturday in September.