Bayani peels up the edge of the cake pan slowly, a thin film of brown crumble clinging to the metal. The pan unsticks itself and she sets it aside on the stovetop. Behind her, the clap of slippers down the stairs makes her flinch as her lolo shuffles into the kitchen, the stiff pads of his shoes scuffing the tiles. Bayani straightens as he peeks closer at her (thankfully uncracked) cake.
“Where’m I going to make breakfast?”
Look at her, she berates herself. As if Lolo wasn’t family. Her back unwinds, like ribbon laces unravelling down the shin. Don’t be a kissass, her father says in her mind.
“Magandang umaga po, Lolo,” Bayani turns. “I’m almost done. And look!”
She reaches down and pulls out the Biko. Through the crease of the oven door, the scent of warm coconut and melted sugar slinks into the kitchen. But Lolo’s not looking. He pokes at the microwave.
“What’s this?” he says. “Icing?”
“Yes,” Bayani smacks in the microwave’s button and the door pops open. “What do you think?”
Looking down, she’d spoken too soon. Her butter traces the edge of the bowl. She’d left it too long.
Lolo sniffs. “Do it right or don’t bother.”
Bayani presses her lips together. “Right, right.” She pours icing sugar into a new bowl. “Do you want me to pick you up for the dance? Trust me, Lolo, the bus’ll be too hard on your knee.” Her sister darts into the kitchen and Lolo eyes her.
“Either. And what’re you doing?” His eyebrows cluster heavily together. “Up early! For your job.”
“Uh,” says Jasmine.
Lolo claps her on the back. “Get one. Bayani, tell your sister.”
“Jasmine works so hard at home, I’m sure she’ll excel at whatever she decides to spend her time on,” Bayani mutters. To her sister, “Has Mom left yet?”
“Still in bed.”
The icing goes cleanly onto the cake, the flat of her butter knife gliding over the crust. The icing is thick as overcast and just as fluffy. Bayani draws a few daisies, then stops. Are flowers too childish, she wonders.
Bayani quickly draws a few more leaves. Ivy too. It’s very mature. Much less ‘I made this for your baby girl’ and a lot more ‘corporate minimalism phone screen,’ which is very in-vogue these days. Bayani’s not sure why everyone thirty and under wants their homes and menus and desktop backgrounds to look like the most generic combination of temperate rainforest and padded cell, but she has to cater to her target audience. And ballerinas are snobs about their diets—Bayani had to take down three different dietary restrictions for gluten-free flour when she’d mentioned baking a cake in celebration of their last matinee. Not even specifications on regular flour. On gluten-free.
“The Biko will be ready in another ten minutes,” She says.
“Lazy,” he shoots at Jasmine on his way out and Bayani frowns.
“He doesn’t mean it,” She whispers to Jasmine. “You know how he is in the mornings.”
For once, Jasmine doesn’t seem to mind. Her fingers peck at the underside of the counter. Bayani squints at her, though she’s half thinking about how long it takes icing to set and if the cake won’t be ready faster if she puts it in the freezer.
“I know,” Jasmine nods. “Um. Can I get your bag for you? So you don’t have to rush?”
Bayani raises an eyebrow. “Sure?”
“Cool. Where do you keep your extra slippers, again?”
“No, I have to grab some new ones from the store. But mine should last until the end of the performance. Why?”
Jasmine pales.
“Jasmine,” Bayani says and the pulse at her wrists throbs. “Why?”
“They’re still okay,” Jasmine starts and Bayani whips out of the kitchen and dives for her bag.
Her pointe shoes are in there, Jasmine had been considerate enough to put them back where she found them at the very least. But the flat of the shoe, the shank slumps limply forward, folded in the middle like the waist of a ballerina toe-stretching. Considerate enough to put them back where she found them so she wouldn’t get caught. Just not enough to leave them alone.
What it means is Sunita gets the solo. And Bayani sits out the last performance, which isn’t too different from being in the supporting cast anyway. Mom would be disappointed, though. And it’s terrible for Lolo’s heart when he gets worked up like that.
Her phone buzzes and Bayani fishes it out without thinking. Jasmine clings to the doorframe of the kitchen, sunken in and small again like the child she used to be.
Like the child she still is, Bayani reminds herself firmly. And how do you treat children? You forgive them. So she forgives Jasmine. And that has to be all there is to it. That is all there is to it.
“I’m going to be late,” the voice on the phone says.
“What?” Bayani says and blinks.
That’s right. She’s supposed to meet Evelyn later. She’d carved a little chunk out of her day to help Bayani practice and see her perform as Prima.
“I wanted to check in first,” Evelyn says. “Will you be okay if you don’t show me as much of your solo?”
“Oh,” Bayani says. “That’s alright. How’re—” She stutters, “how are you doing?”
A silence.
“Me? I’m good,” Evelyn says slowly. “Are you?”
“I made a cake,” says Bayani. “And I’ll see you, alright? I’ll see you later.”
“Do I get some?” Evelyn asks and Bayani freezes. “Kidding,” Evelyn says. “Hey, how about I pick you up? Get you out of your headspace before the big day.” Her voice lowers. “And you won’t have to drive your grandpa and sister. Mom gets to do it for you, no takebacks.” Bayani can practically hear her eyebrow wiggle through the phone.
Evelyn used to be a dancer. Not much of one, which is something Bayani could never tell her now that she’s quit. Quitting is always, what a mistake, and, you should come back, while never meaning a word of it. But Evelyn might know someone with spare shoes.
Bayani eyes her sister, the slight depression of her mouth and the sweat on her light-grabbing cheeks.
“I have it all down,” Bayani says. “I’ll be there, once you’re done.”
“Okay. You sure?”
“Sure,” she echoes. “I’ve got it.”
Jasmine’s shoulders huddle in as Bayani lowers her phone. “Are we okay, then? I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to.”
“It must’ve been scary telling me,” Bayani tucks a hair straggling out from Jasmine’s bun behind her ear. “Did you think I’d be mad?” The roar of panic in the back of her head fades as a grin peeks out Jasmine’s mouth, seeing Bayani’s not angry.
“No,” Jasmine laughs. “I knew you’d be okay.”
And she’s right.
So, Bayani grabs out the Biko, puts the cake in shotgun in a cardboard box (just in case she doesn’t have time to run back), grabs a baking sheet to keep it flat during the drive and smears a line of rubber down the main drag to get to the dance shop. Only, when she gets there, the sign’s made of pencil lead. A dull gray worm squirms into an unlit word. She’d forgotten it was Saturday.
Bayani’s neck hurts with her pulse. The rain will be bad for Lolo’s knees, she thinks. And slippery – there’s no way he should be taking the bus like this.
And, weirdly enough, she’s scared. Bayani’s not sure why, but she knows she is. Her throat aches and her stomach is cold and these things together are fear. There’s no reason for her to be, but she is. She is.
Her skin tightens on her knuckles, then she steps out of her car. The rain dimly smacks her coat and draws her outline on the shop window like a smeared shadow: the expectation of landing, like the spot of dark before the end of jeté.
Her cake needs another few hours before the icing sets properly, she thinks. It’ll be a few hours until the end of the performance. She’ll still need to go. To give them their cake, Bayani reminds herself.
She drives to the baseball field at the edge of the town, where the cracks in the sidewalks shuffle further apart and the rain picks the dirt apart until it turns into mud.
“Hey,” Bayani gasps to Evelyn, who’s cheerfully set out an umbrella for them. “Hey, sorry I’m late.”
“Late, but so fashionable,” Evelyn says. “I like the drowned puppy look.”
“Oh, yeah? It’s just for you.” Bayani drops her bag beneath the covered grass, which is marginally more dry beneath Evelyn’s umbrella. Her arms are shivering, though she’d blasted the heat all the way here.
“Alright then, what’s first? Quad axis?” Evelyn smacks her wet hands together.
“That’s skating.”
Evelyn’s already laid the board out. Bayani catches its edge with the tip of her shoe and the frame wobbles as though on a hinge. Water seeps through the wood and crowds the edges, little rivers squiggling off the sides and gathering puddles of loose dirt where it ends. It’s slick, yes, but easier to dance on than the rough dirt of the field. Really, they could meet together anywhere, so long as they had a blanket and a hard surface. But Evelyn likes the quiet, the distance from the road and the low rumble of vehicles. Maybe Bayani does too, a little.
“Hope you have the music memorized,” Evelyn says and frowns at her phone. “We’re not gonna get my phone louder than the rain.”
“I don’t have my shoes,” Bayani says and blinks the rainwater away. Her eyelashes cling together. “They’re broken, so, uh,” she shrugs. “Guess Sunita gets the role.”
“What?”
“She’s worked so hard for it.” Bayani pushes the strands of hair escaping her braid behind her ears. “It’s alright. Makes more sense for her to do the last show. Lolo won’t have to go out in this weather. And you! You don’t have to sit in the rain anymore.”
“Girl,” Evelyn says and Bayani puts a hand to her face before pulling it away, just as fast.
“I have extra cake,” Bayani lies. “I can drop it off at your place later. Got it at home.”
“Bayani.”
“It’ll be my apology for dragging you all the way out here.” Her stomach hurts. “Really. I want to.”
“I don’t want your cake,” Evelyn says. “I want you to go onstage and dance your weirdly-obsessive, neurotic little heart out. You should’ve said something to me,” Evelyn grimaces. “I just sold my old pair to this woman visiting for the show.”
Bayani holds her hands so still. “Get a good price?”
She hopes Evelyn says, yes. Yes, she got a killer price for those shoes and while Bayani isn’t pirouetting on stage, it’s fine. Someone missed the bloodstains, talcum powder, torn fabric at the box of the slipper and Evelyn made bank.
Evelyn cocks her mouth up. “I said ‘these shoes danced on the same stage as Bayani Mendoza, world-class Prima Ballerina.’”
“And she bought that?”
“Then I said ‘sounds like a low-budget show, right? They’re half-off,’” Evelyn grins and Bayani laughs, the soles of her feet aching. “Sit down. I have to go to the bathroom.”
Evelyn tells her not to go anywhere, but fueled by a gathering desire to make amends, Bayani treks to her car and curls her shoulders around the box of cake in her arms the whole way back.
Bayani sits with it in her lap, at once limp and swollen in the rain. Posture is very important onstage, but she’s always had a ramrod back anyway. When she was little, her dad would grin when she remembered to come back to the house, heron-tall, from school. So Bayani started doing it outside more. It’s a careful thing, responsibility. Too straight a back every time you want someone to like you and then it’s, don’t be a kissass, Bayani.
Evelyn’s gone more than thirty, forty, fifty minutes. Bayani’s not sure where. If Evelyn’s left, Bayani figures, good for her. Why would she stay? Bayani’s fingers turn clawlike around the corners of the cake box. When Evelyn comes back, Bayani doesn’t even stand up to meet her. She doesn’t know what she looks like, but she suspects it must be similar to the worms on the asphalt. Glistening and halfway fetal. Trying to be, at least. Don’t be –
“You didn’t go anywhere,” Evelyn puffs with a smile.
Was she supposed to? Where?
Evelyn holds out a pair of pointe shoes.
They’re blue. The wrong colour, but worn. Broken in already, and when Bayani takes their soft heel into her palms, there are dark sunspots at the toe and ball of the foot.
“I will drive you to the theatre, and pick up your lolo and Jasmine on the way,” Evelyn says. “There’s a bin in the back for the cake, and when your dance finishes, I am going to scream so loud, it’ll alarm you. You’ll know it’s me because I’ll be the only one who hasn’t read it off the program, so I’ll pronounce it right.”
Bayani grips the shoes.
“I don’t–” she says, unreasonably. She knows she’s being unreasonable. “I don’t want that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not pathetic,” Bayani says.
“You’re pathetic if I help you?”
“Yes,” Bayani says and Evelyn’s head jolts back.
She’d surprised her. Bayani had surprised herself.
Evelyn sits beside her, ungracefully, the collapse of limbs and gravity into a ball beside her. Her butt hits the grass hard. She unfolds her legs and props her head on her hand.
“I dunno, girl,” she says. “Do less. That’s what I think.”
“How?”
Evelyn shrugs. “Wear those things to Seven-Eleven. Dance on the moon with them. I don’t care. But you should have the option.”
Bayani subtly flips up the tag of the shoes in her hands. Capezio.
Probably more expensive than five tickets to the show, even secondhand. With the crumple of her jeans stained with dirt, head cocked back so the runoff of umbrella water trickles into her dark hair, Evelyn looks like she couldn’t care less if Bayani dropped the shoes into the mud beside them.
“What do you want to do?” Evelyn says.
She doesn’t know. There must be a fine line between good girl and kissass, but no one ever told Bayani where it is.
“I want to be disappointing,” Bayani says. “And a horrible person.”
Evelyn grins with all her teeth.
Bayani cracks open the waxy, thin lid. Her flowers, the rind of their petals are smudged, tacky with the sides of the box. Like this, it’s obvious it would never have made it to everyone else whole. She digs her fingernails in first and grabs a fistful of icing, burrowing her fingers into the cake until it’s ground into dark crumbles between her knuckles.
When she pulls her hands up, the sculpted layers of ganache and chocolate cake could be dirt painted in the creases of her hands. Like Bayani’s been digging up the ground, or else burying something deep into it.
Maya Somogyi (she/her) is a mixed Chinese writer from the Sunshine Coast, B.C.. Her poems can be found in The /t3mz/ Review. Currently, she’s working toward a BA for Writing and English Honours at the University of Victoria.