A Lotus Grows in the Mud Read Online Free Page B

and laugh as the sentences become more and more ridiculous.
    The sun setting behind us, I announce, “I will always listen to the classics like you, Daddy, especially Bach.” Gee, he loves his Bach.
    “That’s my girl.”
    “And I’ll never, ever like rock and roll.”
    Giving me a sideways glance and a crooked smile, my father says, “We’ll see about that.”
    Our journey home is never the same. Snuggled to his side on that long front seat of our ’49 Lincoln, I see roads that look as if they lead nowhere.
    I cry out, “Look, Daddy! Look at that neat road! It’s like a roller-coaster ride. Let’s go down it! Can we? Can we?”
    “Okay, Kink, whatever you say!” Accustomed to our little game, and laughing his hee-haw laugh, he makes a sharp left-hand turn and steers the car down a bumpy track that throws up great billowing clouds of dust behind us.
    Bumping and grinding down the dirt road with no destination in mind, the two of us become the wandering gypsies we’ve always secretly been at heart. I love him for his spontaneity, for his eagerness to take an unusual turn in life, regardless of the outcome. I guess it has always been his way.
    Daddy’s philosophy is, “Take a left-hand turn, Kink. See where it leads you.” For him, the journey is always more exciting than the destination.
    Hitting a rock on our ride home from the Bay, his old Lincoln’s long-suffering suspension lifts me clear off the seat and brings me crashing back down to earth with a jolt.
    My hand on my head, rubbing where it hit the roof, I look across at my grinning, free spirit of a father, and we both roll with laughter as our car follows the yellow brick road.

 

    Toes pointed, chins up, all ready to enter the third-grade talent show, dancing to “Sleigh Ride.” (Author’s Collection)

first steps
    Life is a dance with the cosmos.

 
 
    T he bright lights of Washington, D.C., are reflected on my face as I press my cheek against the glass of the cab window. Butterflies dance in my stomach, and my skin feels clammy with fear.
    “Don’t be nervous, honey,” is all my mother says as the yellow taxi drives us toward the Carter Barron Amphitheatre. It is a balmy June evening in 1956, and I am a last-minute understudy for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
    “You’ll be just fine,” Mom adds with a confidence I don’t altogether share. “The other girl will probably turn up and you won’t even have to dance.”
    The Ballet Russe is performing Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. The star is the legendary Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso. I am understudying the role of Clara, the little girl who receives the nutcracker as a Christmas gift. I am scared to death that I might actually have to go on.
    “Here we are, now. Come along, Goldie, hurry up,” my mother says, pressing a wad of dollar bills into the hand of the driver. “Quick, quick, out of the car, and grab your dance bag.”
    Where’s the girl? Where’s the other girl? is all I can think as we rush the stage door. Gripping my mother’s hand so tight that my knuckles show white through the skin, we race inside.
    The backstage area is all abustle with dancers and choreographers, costumers and makeup artists, running this way and that, speaking alanguage I don’t understand. Everyone seems so strange to me, so exotic and extreme. I feel as if I have just walked into a play.
    “Out of the way! Coming through!” someone yells as we are flattened against a wall by someone carrying a great gown of crushed red silk that rustles and whispers as he hurries past. A group of dancers, who look to me like exquisite swans with their long necks and white tutus, are stretching their limbs in the most amazing extensions I have ever seen. I gasp. As I do so, one girl draws deeply on a cigarette and stares at me fiercely, her huge eyes framed by stage makeup.
    My mother pushes me forward and leads me down a winding staircase. “But where’s the other girl, Mommy?” I ask, looking