GREAT READS → OUT OF STEP Issue 780 · October 2, 2019

Out of Step: Chapter 4

He turns around and gives me a look, the kind of look that says, “please don’t be a terribly selfish human being.”

Out of Step: Chapter 4

Atara walks dramatically toward me, on pointe, as I enter the studio. She’s already dressed for class, thick hair swept into a topknot, and I’m still in my Bais Yaakov uniform. Typical.

I watch her for a second; she looks so elegant, and while my pointe shoes feel like a second skin, sometimes, late at night, I stare in the full-length mirror behind my door and think I don’t look graceful enough to be a ballerina.

It’s crazy talk, I know. I’m a wonderful dancer, and ballet is about dancing with your heart, not about your hair or bone structure. But it’s just hard, when some people just look like typical ballerinas and others don’t.

I shake off my insecurities and grab the lavender-colored flyer Atara is now waving in my face.

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