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Main > Series > Chapters > Fame Annual 1984 > Dueling Dancers
“OK, you guys,” she said briskly, “Let's go.” But even as she led her class through their warming-up exercises, Lydia knew she was sickening for something. She was so rarely ill that she didn't know what it might be, but she knew she wasn't right. Of course she would fight it, ignore it, work twice as hard to try and shake it off, but it looked like it was going to be one of those mornings she'd be glad just to get through. Lydia walked along the line of students now exercising at the barre. “Mm - that's good, Julie . . . a little higher, Leroy - a little more reach . . .” Lydia cajoled, encourage, advised, until the exercise was over. She then drew the students round her in a circle, knelt on the floor and went through a serious of extremely taxing movements with her upper body, stretching, pulling slashing, dabbling, flicking, pressing and floating. “You see,” she said, getting to her feet, “these movements in a dance make a great contrast with the flying movements.” “You mean like this?” said Coco, breaking into a sudden fluid sequence of flashing, twisting jumps. “Not quite like that,” said Lydia, rather coldly. Perhaps the hardest thing she had to teach Coco was that she still had a lot to learn. “Like how, then?” asked Coco, hands on her hips. Lydia began a well-practised dance routine that was designed to show just how much more spectacular movements in leaps, skips and jumps can be made to look when set against the same movements performed sitting or lying on the floor. It was a difficult routine, but one she knew well, and it came as a shock to her when at the end of a particularly acrobatic leap and kick, her leg buckled on landing and she crashed to the floor in a heap. The first person to offer Lydia a helping hand was Coco. Lydia refused it, climbed to her feet and shook herself down. “One more time,” she said quietly. Coco took up a position slightly behind her. “Mind if I tag along for the ride?” Lydia did mind. She wasn't in the mood to have Coco showing off at her expense. She would rather have called time on the lesson and taken ten with a glass of warm milk. But the amused insolent glint in Coco's eye told her that if she backed off on this one her grip on Coco's attention - and therefore her one real hope of disciplining Coco's wonderful talent - might be weakened forever. Lydia led off, slowly at first, using her hands like letters of the alphabet, arranging her movements into words, statements, poems. Behind her Coco matched her every move. She was feeling good. She had the power. She had struck a magical vein of confidence and cohesion, and was mining it for all she was worth. She was Coco Hernandez She was going to live forever. When Lydia began speeding up in front of her she accepted the challenge with glee. The other students stood transfixed by the dueling dancers. Sometimes Coco would move alongside Lydia and give her a radiant, seamless smile. Lydia winked back, but she knew that Coco was hurting, that despite her aggressive, unthinking youthful competitiveness, Coco's lungs were burning, her legs were growing heavy, her heart was pounding. She was hurting all right - Lydia knew because so was she. “Want to call it a draw?” she hissed. For a brief second Coco felt a frighteningly powerful urge to go on dancing, to lose herself in the music, to lose Miss Grant, to leave her behind to go on ahead to the danger zone alone, but something in Lydia's eyes told her she would be making a mistake. “A draw,” she said, coming to a stop as the other pupils indulged in some exaggerated cheering. Later, after lunch, when Coco was alone, Lydia approached her in the corridor. “There's a Hungarian dance group at the Experimental Theatre on East Fourth Street,” she said. “It's not too expensive and I think you might learn something.” “Are you going?” asked Coco. “No,” answered Lydia. “You wouldn't learn anything if you went?” prodded Coco. “I've got a previous engagement,” Lydia explained. “Back in the class, I thought we called it a draw.” “We did, Coco. Do I have to beat you every time?” Coco Studied Lydia closely. She did not look her usual radiant self. She looked tired, sick. Maybe the dancing had finally taken its toll. Maybe she had been wrong not to force it. Maybe Lydia was on the slide. If she was, then maybe Coco would be holding back her own development by putting her faith in a teacher who could only teach by words, not example. “From now on,” said Coco quietly, looking Lydia straight in the eyes, “the answer is yes.” Outside the School of the Arts the following morning, Coco was swaying happily from side to side as she watched Leroy go through a routine he had worked out for one of the more reflective tracks from Funkadelic's latest live album on his ghetto blaster. She'd caught the beat, the mood, the feeling. So had Julie, who was improvising her own private dance behind her. Danny used a rolled up newspaper as a racket in a silent tennis sketch he was working on and Doris sat on the steps studying a tattered copy of The Misfits. An elegant black-haired woman in a tight skirt made her way through the happy, noisy crowd to Coco's side. “Excuse me,” she said, “are you Coco Hernandez?” “Who's asking?” The woman held out her hand. There was an envelope in it. “Marilyn Beamon. I'm from Costello's Casting. I've got a part you might be interested in. All the information is in here.” Coco had difficulty keeping her mouth closed. Marilyn smiled. “I've had good reports about you, and you look just right. The auditions are tonight. Be there.” “I'll be there,” said Coco. Marilyn turned and went as the other students came crowding round Coco. “Girl, you've struck lucky,” said Leroy, wistfully shaking his head. “You'd better not let any of the teachers find out,” said Julie. “They won't know,” said Coco, “unless I get the part - and by then I won't care.” “One audition and she's already a star,” said Danny. “You won't like Hollywood you know, Coco. Not one of the men is over four feet high. It saves on the sets. And there's the smog -” “Boy, I will eat smog for breakfast to get there. My time is long overdue. Heck, Brooke Shields had cracked it by the time she was ten years old!” “What's the part, anyway?” Asked Doris, looking at the envelope, but before Coco could open it, Professor Shorofsky appeared, with Lydia and Miss Sherwood. The crowd dispersed and the day began. As soon as she could, Coco studied the contents of the envelope. The show for which she would be auditioning was a seventy-five minute plot TV show about an ex-champion boxer turned sheriff in a small Mississippi town at the turn of the century. The part was small, but it was significant, and in it she was required to do an impromptu dance in a barn. “What's that you're reading Coco?” It was Lydia. “Nothing,” said Coco, folding the papers hurriedly into an exercise book and holding it tightly under her arm. “Have you thought any more about the Hungarian dancing troupe?” “I've thought about it.” “But you won't be going?” Coco studied Lydia for any sign that she knew about the audition. If she did know, she was hiding it very well. “I don't think so,” she said. “What do you want me to do?” “You've read the synopsis?” Coco nodded. “Then I want you do the barn number. I want you to try and express your interpretation of the character through the dance. The girl is alone, remember, so she is totally unselfconscious. The dance expresses her true feelings. OK?” Coco nodded and went to change. She was so excited she scarcely noticed the familiar figure of Lydia Grant pulling on her practice skirt. “Hello, Coco.” “So this was your previous appointment?” asked Coco. “You know you're not meant to be here, girl.” “I know that. But I am here, and I'm going to give it my best shot.” Coco imagined she saw a smile forming on Lydia's face, but before she could be sure Marilyn popped her head round the door and told her she was on. Once on stage, Coco's nervousness was transformed into a marvelous aggression as she attacked the part of Rita with sublime confidence. Rita was a rebel? She'd give them rebellion. She knew about rebellion. She knew how it felt watching the stars dining out in fur coats when she couldn't afford a hot dog. She knew how it felt to be caught in the poverty trap with no future except to grow old fast and hard faster, while the rest of the world went mad with its bombs and guns and underarm deodorants. Coco flung herself about the stage like a dervish. So she didn't have money. No shiny cars or swimming pools. She had nothing except her youth, her looks and her talent, and she paraded all three to the full in a virtuoso display. When she finally flopped down, in time with the music, at the end of her dance, she felt it was just about the best performance she had ever put on. “Thank you,” said a voice from the shadows. “Who's next?” “Janey Dean,” replied Marilyn. Coco passed a petite blonde on her way offstage. In the wings, Lydia was waiting to greet her. “That was pretty hot,” said Lydia. “Thanks,” said Coco. “Which part are you here for?” “The same as you.” “Aren't you a bit -” “Old?” smiled Lydia. “To tell you the truth, I'm feeling that way right now. But the director asked me to come along.” “Why?” “To help with the choreography.” “Can you put in a word for me?” asked Coco. Lydia smiled. “You really want this part don't you?” “So bad I can taste it.” “It would probably mean the end of your schooling.” “I'm right for this part. I know it. I can do it.” “And afterwards?” “I'm talking about now, not yesterday or tomorrow. I'm talking about this very minute.” “You'd better watch your step, girl. Fame ain't no bag of coloured sweets. If you get it before you're ready - and I mean ready, girl - you gonna end up in a nickel and dime grog shop sitting on some punk's knew singing You Made Me Love You into his filthy ears.” Do I look like I just gog off the boat? I can do it! I can -” Coco was interrupted by Marilyn calling Lydia onto the stage. Coco wiped her face with a towel and settled back to watch. She felt cool, calm. She felt Lydia would have to be at her best to turn in a performance to top the one she'd just given. She felt confident that her teacher couldn't match the pace or power of her own efforts. But Lydia didn't try to. She danced with the lightness of a child, but her version of Rita was totally different to Coco's. There was grace, there was hope, there was the occasional fire, but Lydia's Rita was no one-dimensional teenager rebelling against authority. Through her dance, Lydia brought to life Rita's fears and insecurities; her whole demeanour suggested a terrible legacy of generations of grinding poverty, dread and fear. Coco remembered Marilyn's advice and she knew at once that Lydia had understood the part of Rita better than she had. Her own performance seemed brash and shallow in comparison. She had only accentuated Rita's ambition and pride and anger. Lydia had suggested all this and more - despair, loneliness, sensitivity, the need to be loved. She had blown it. When Lydia came off, Coco was waiting with a towel. “You're some dancer,” she said. “You just beginning to find that out?” Lydia smiled. “But I'm too old for the part, remember?” “You sure didn't dance that way.” “But I am, Coco?” She put her arm on Coco's shoulder and her voice became soft. “Yes?” “You could do this part. I know you could make a great success of it . . . with a little coaching. But the next part that comes along might not fit you so well.” “You think I might get it?” asked Coco, brightening. “I know you won't, girl. Janey Dean will. Didn't I mention her real name is Nina Costello?” “What?” “The daughter of the head of the casting agency.” “You knew all the time? You put Marilyn up to it? Why?” “Why?” repeated Lydia as she and Coco began to change. “You're getting too darned close, and I need to keep on my toes.” “You sure do,” laughed Coco. “You surely do.”
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