1
The bright green sassafras leaves above Ridhi Kapadia’s head whirled in a sinuous dance with the brisk early-March breeze, whispering secrets to those willing to take the time to listen.
Me, thought Ridhi. She paused, the entrance to her woods a few tempting feet away. I’m willing to listen.
Any other day, she would have dashed through the slight gap in the trees to write in her journal, maybe embellish the words with purple and white crocuses she’d press between the silver-edged pages, with the hope of channeling those secrets.
Any other day, she’d sit nestled in the dip at the base of her favorite sycamore, the one overlooking the trickle of a stream, and fill her lungs with the fragrance of the forest. Daydreams of that scent would swirl through her, dyed in sun-lacquered grass and clover and textured by wonder tales and poetry, and later, at her desk, Ridhi would strive to reimagine it as a wearable perfume for her online shop.
Any other day. But that day, she had an audition to get to.
As she hurried on, twigs cracked under her shoes, and the spongy moss that carpeted many of the rocks and decaying wood did its best to lure her close. Ridhi could picture a thick clump of it pillowed beneath her head, soft and fluffy, perfect for a nap. She’d been too wound up to sleep the night before, her bharatanatyam routine looping in her mind.
A spot had recently opened up on the elite local team run by the lauded Varsha Reddy, and Mummy had wasted no time wrangling Ridhi an audition. Not only would that look good on her college scholarship applications in the fall, her parents had gushed, but Mummy, a former competitive dancer herself, couldn’t wait to see her daughter follow in her stylized footsteps and perform onstage as part of a troupe.
Ordinarily, Ridhi never would have agreed to try out. She had no desire to dance for other people. But one glimpse of Mummy’s hope, and all Ridhi’s defenses had crumbled. Mummy wanted nothing more than for her lonely daughter to find friends and belong, like she had. How could Ridhi let her down?
Her beloved trees must have sensed her frazzled nerves, reviving her, their presence as reassuring as a river of sunlight. If only she could sink into their comforting embrace.
This particular wild grove half a mile from her house had been Ridhi’s sanctuary for as long as she could remember, speaking to her through scattered magic: an acorn hollowed out just enough for a rolled-up clandestine message; a dew-beaded spiderweb shawl an apsara might sling about her shoulders to ward off a chill; even an iridescent blue morpho butterfly that had mysteriously appeared on a bush like a goblin queen’s emissary, nowhere near its native habitat. One day, she was certain, her woods, so reminiscent of the stories of the mythical yaksha kingdom and its marvelous capital city of Alakapuri, would lead her there—the sooner, the better.
Right then, the effect was spoiled by the half-crushed juice bottle someone had tossed into a beautyberry bush, directly below a faded “No Littering” sign. Never mind that the recycling bin was a handy two steps away.
With a sigh, she bent and took hold of the grimy bottle’s peeling label.
“No fair!” a guy’s voice slurred, spooking her. “My turn.”
Ahead, half hidden where the dirt path began, a college-aged couple was sloppily making out. The woman held a can of beer out of the guy’s reach.
“You can’t have it,” she taunted.
When he groped for it, the contents sloshed over his hand. The rest of the six-pack lay at their feet, and as Ridhi knew from experience, the cans would soon replace the bottle.
Ever since the convenience store had moved into the adjoining lot, its customers had taken to treating her woods like a dumpster. Not even her trash walks could keep up with the mess.
Ridhi had tried petitioning the city council to designate this copse as a nature preserve. They’d declined on the grounds that Atlanta already had ordinances in place to protect its famous canopy of trees.
It wasn’t like she disagreed. The local parks were clean and well cared for, and wandering the leafy streets where she’d spent a good chunk of her seventeen years felt like strolling through an arboretum, rich with crab apples and persimmons and loblolly pines that lent sparkle to the dreariest of gray days.
But these were her woods. They always would be.
“Hey!” the guy yelled. “Where’s my wallet? Someone stole my wallet!”
The woman shrugged. “Don’t look at me.”
Tuning them out, Ridhi dropped the discarded bottle into the nearby bin.
Behind her, the boughs rustled once more, shedding leaves as if in thanks.
Her phone beeped. It was Mummy. You’ ll be fantastic. Remember to ask after Varsha Auntie’s health. She’s very traditional.
I know, I know, Ridhi texted back, laughing. Mummy had given her that same advice that morning. And the day before. Mummy might actually be more anxious about the audition than she was.
Again the urge to stay put tugged at her, but after a last, wistful glance at the trees and the refuge they promised, Ridhi continued along the street.
Unlike her woods, the trees there were waking from their winter sleep. When the wind blew through their mostly bare branches, she shivered and burrowed deeper into her velvet coat. Hints of the numinous soughed in the lessening of its chill, in the tightly coiled buds that would soon unfurl into verdant leaves and chromatic flowers. She wished she could pluck those hints from the first stirring breaths of spring and dab them on her wrists like one of her natural perfumes.
Mummy and video tutorials hadn’t been Ridhi’s only dance teachers. So had the towering trees, with the graceful arch of their branches, the twist of their trunks, the ripple of leaves like waves of hair blowing back. She battled the impulse to throw down her bag and spin for them, there under the almost-spring sky.
Grasping her pendant of Aranyani Devi, she conjured the picture her mother had painted, of Ridhi astounding a packed auditorium with her skill and poise. It might be a borrowed dream, yet if she angled her outlook just right, she could conform to it, especially as the drive to move, to flow and sway, warmed her like a sample of the enchantment she’d always craved.
The optimism she’d learned long ago to suppress welled up, too, buoyant and so very appealing. Maybe Mummy was right. Maybe when they saw what she could do, Ridhi would find a place among the other dancers. They would take her in, and she would finally be part of something. She’d belong.
That was even worth her dancing for other people.
Reinvigorated, Ridhi sashayed onward.
A glut of cars crowded the curb outside Varsha Auntie’s house. Ridhi made her way through them and up the path to the gray brick rancher. Praying to get through the audition, she rang the doorbell.
A woman in her sixties answered. Her white hair was tied up in a bun as firm as her posture, and a vermilion mark at her hairline matched her practice sari. “Ridhi. Your mother didn’t come with you?”
“Namaste, Auntieji. No, but she sends her pranaam.” Though Ridhi joined her palms and bowed her head as directed, Varsha Auntie didn’t seem to register the formality, let alone be gratified by it.
“Hmm.” She ushered Ridhi into the entryway, which smelled of smoke mixed with ghee and cardamom, like a perfume gone horribly awry. Maybe Varsha Auntie had been cooking sweets but left them to burn on the stove. Ridhi stifled a snort.
She placed her ballet flats in the overflowing rack by the door, under a pair of sandals, and trailed Varsha Auntie through the house.
No, not a house, Ridhi amended, so much as a shrine to Varsha Auntie’s glory days. Dozens of portraits featuring her in thick makeup and gold jewelry, posing with Indian celebrities, covered the walls. Except for her outfits and the celebrities’ faces, they might have all been the same image.
There wasn’t a plant to be seen, no decorations, no hints of any other hobbies or interests. The furniture in the bland living room was a range of grays and beiges, as if Varsha Auntie’s belief in color began and ended with her dancewear. Every blind had been drawn, shutting out the world.
Not the ideal environment, but Ridhi could handle it for five and a half hours of class a week. She wouldn’t think about how actual rehearsals topped out at three or four times that number.
“This,” Varsha Auntie said, “is a place of dance. We see dance; we think dance; we breathe dance. All other concerns remain outside while you are here.”
A tad intense for Ridhi’s taste, but for Mummy’s sake and the sake of the possible scholarship, she nodded.
Varsha Auntie pointed to a bathroom. “In the future, you will arrive in proper attire and ready to begin.”
Ridhi debated mentioning that she’d come straight from school, then decided against it.
In the bathroom, also beige with brown accents, she changed from her purple lace top and rose-embroidered black velvet skirt into a T-shirt and leggings. She quickly wove her loose curls into a braid but balked at removing the rhinestone flower pins; it felt like stripping a tree of its bark.
At least she could keep her golden paayal, she consoled herself. Anklets with tinkling miniature bells were part of any bharatanatyam dancer’s repertoire.
Once done, Ridhi dabbed on the solid perfume she’d named Urvashi in Svargalok, letting the blend based on the apsara, one of the celestial dancers in Lord Indra’s court, boost her with its radiant, uplifting scents of yuzu, green mandarin, blood orange, fresh ginger, neroli, Indian jasmine, ylang-ylang, lemongrass, and green tea. “Be like Urvashi and her sisters,” she instructed her likeness. “You can do this.”
She’d scarcely exited the bathroom before Varsha Auntie herded her down the stairs.
Ridhi’s heart, already thrumming, did a nosedive at the chatter and laughter coming from the basement. No one else was supposed to be there.
But she didn’t have a chance to protest before she was in the studio. It matched the rest of the house, with the exception of the mirrored walls—and the girls in practice saris.
Varsha Auntie’s students from the mandir. Worse, their mothers hovered nearby, worrying their daughters’ clothes and fussing over their hair. Ridhi was the only one who’d shown up on her own, and the only one in leggings.
Her stomach curled in on itself like a doodlebug. The cars outside, the overstuffed shoe rack, and Varsha Auntie’s question. How hadn’t Ridhi realized?
The stern lines of Varsha Auntie’s mouth eased. “My girls are a team. The audition is for a new teammate, so they must be present.” A team. That made sense, and soon Ridhi would be part of it.
Sniffing her wrists again, she did her best to uncurl. She might be inappropriately dressed, she might be alone, but so what?
She’d make Mummy proud and secure a spot on the team.
Her gaze landed on Shreya Prasad.
The flight of fancy crashed. All these years later, it still hurt to remember that she had ever brought Shreya to her woods. That she had stupidly believed Shreya cared.
Sandwiched between two girls on the couch, her mother behind her, Shreya hadn’t yet seen Ridhi. But she would. And then she would be watching, threaded eyebrows high with skepticism. Waiting for Ridhi to fail so she could swan on in and take over.
Varsha Auntie clapped once, and the surge of conversation ceased. “As you all know, we are hosting auditions to fill out our team today. Please welcome Shreya Prasad and Ridhi Kapadia.”
Shreya’s head snapped up at that, alarm washing over her before a smirk obfuscated it. She fixed that smirk on Ridhi.
Ridhi scrambled to respond with indifference, but Shreya was already contemplating her fingernails. Like Ridhi was no competition at all.
Her former friend trying out shouldn’t have been an issue. Ridhi knew she was the better dancer. Unlike Shreya, she’d trained since she was tiny. She’d rehearsed the routine Varsha Auntie had e-mailed her until it had become as habitual as walking. For Shreya, this audition, this class, was at best a whim, another opportunity to hang out with her friends.
Yet Ridhi’s heart refused to still its frenetic drumbeat.
From her position at the front of the room, Varsha Auntie glanced at Shreya, then Ridhi. “Ridhi, why don’t you go first?” She played a melody on her phone, the accompaniment to her choreography.
Shreya leaned over and said something to her friend. Both girls giggled.
Ignore them. Ridhi proceeded to the center of the room and raised her arms over her head, stealing seconds to call up the routine on the screen of her mind. From there, she arranged her hips, craned her neck, and pressed her palms together again in anjali mudra, then splayed her fingers in alapadma, or blossomed lotus, mudra. Her bare feet coasted over the floor.
The sunlight from earlier guided her limbs as she melted into the dance.
“What’s she doing here?” someone stage-whispered, and Ridhi missed a step.
She fought to keep facing forward, but her head swiveled toward the couch anyway.
“I know, right?” Shreya was staring at her with barely veiled contempt, as if Ridhi was the one intruding. “Wasting everybody’s time?”
“Relax.” Shreya’s friend touched her shoulder. “She’ll never get it. You will.”
It didn’t matter how well Ridhi danced or how adept her technique was. They’d already written her off. And, of course, Shreya and her clique all pitched their cutting remarks low enough that Varsha Auntie couldn’t hear them over the music.
Ridhi resumed the sequence, but her movements felt stiff, not inspired and fluid. Too many apathetic eyes weighed her down. Too many oblivious voices waited to dismiss her.
The early-March sunbeams in her chest expanded into the scorching white heat of a July afternoon. This was how it would go. She’d be trapped in this claustrophobic basement three nights a week with girls who would never accept her. They’d talk around her, exclude her from their jokes and stories, never acknowledge her unless they had to. Even the nicer ones. She might have a spot on the team, but she would never be part of it.
The old epithet echoed in her mind. Ridhi the weirdo, who talks to plants and thinks they talk back.
Varsha Auntie frowned. “Is there a problem?”
Yes, Ridhi wanted to say. There is. She shouldn’t have come. Dance was a language, but she spoke the wrong dialect....
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