Character Parts

 Ruby finally got to put on her Arabian costume last night at dress rehearsal.  Her part is double cast, so her counterpart had danced the night before.  Ruby looked beautiful in her costume!  The Arabians dance right before the Chinese, my group, so I'm usually backstage making sure my dancers are there at that time.  Last night, though, I talked myself into watching Ruby from the audience.  I thought, "Ruby doesn't need me.  The Chinese are fine," and I slipped into a seat on the first row to enjoy Ruby's performance.  As the other Arabians dance, the two Arabian men bring a big basket onstage and Ruby emerges from it with a flourish of her hands and a smooth lift onto the boys' thighs.  Her feet don't touch the ground;  the boys carry her in the splits as she acts aloof and mysterious.  After a lift where the boys whip and spin her around, the clasps on her top suddenly popped and there was nothing underneath.  Ruby quickly put her arms to her chest and looked for someone to help her.

And I wasn't there.  It seemed like an eternity as Ruby, Dallin and Landon stood awkwardly, unsure what to do.  The image that haunts me is my beautiful daughter clasping her costume to her chest, looking around for guidance.  And I wasn't there.  I should have been!  For that moment, Ruby was so alone.  One of the boys finally whispered, "Let's just walk off," so they did, and gracefully.  The world didn't stop.  The music didn't even stop.  I wasn't there for my daughter, and I found out what happens next when I don't rush to the rescue.  And it was beautiful.

Looking for Ruby, I ran into the other soloist.  Hailey said, "Where is she?  Is she OK?"  I followed Hailey as she rushed to the back hallway, grabbed Ruby, took her by the shoulders and said, "Come on, let's go to costuming."  I was left in the midst of a hundred whispered conversations:  "Did you see?  Did you hear?  I saw the whole thing!  I was there!"  Everyone wanted to know whether Ruby was OK.  I wasn't sure...but I should have had more faith.  By the time the curtain fell, a new crisis had taken center stage - a beautiful dancer fainting during the Waltz of the Flowers - and Ruby was out of the spotlight as everyone's concern turned toward the other dancer.  When asked how she was, Ruby said, "I'm fine.  It was just a costume.  But how is Katie?"  I was grateful for her sensitivity, not making a big drama out of her situation when another girl could be hurt.  Without my help, Ruby had acted graciously.  With Hailey's help, Ruby got securely sewn into her costume for finale.  With the help of Golda and Lexie, she had found humor in her situation by the time we got in the car.

The girls came up with a hilarious "could-have-been-worse" scenario where the costume top gets flung across the stage during the lift, lands in a tuba in the orchestra pit, gets blown out of the tuba into the audience, where Clytie catches it and runs it back to the stage where Ruby has done a nosedive into the basket and Golda is entertaining the crowd in her clown costume with the invisible box routine mimes do.  Yeah, it could have been worse.  It also might have been worse if Ruby's mom had been backstage to rescue her.  Mom running onto the stage, fixing the clasp and telling Ruby to finish the dance?  In my dreams, that is exactly what happens.  I'm right there to help, I solve the problem and my little girl never has to be embarrassed, never has to worry or suffer.  Except it never could have turned out that way because, first, there would probably be a video on YouTube this morning of Ruby's top popping open and a crazy pregnant lady tripping and falling into the orchestra pit in an attempt to remedy the situation.  And also because Ruby handled it all just fine.  She is capable, calm, dignified and gracious.  So are Dallin and Landon and the other dancers.  And Hailey, who rushed to help and comfort, Golda and Lexie who brought the laughs and Ari who wrote Ruby a heartfelt note.  When we got home, Scott asked Ruby, "Did you cry?"  She said no and Scott said, "Good.  I was afraid you were going to be a big boob about it."   When he got out of the shower with just a towel around his waist this morning, Scott asked Ruby, "Who does this remind you of?"  He's funny.

Like one of the moms said last night, not everyone has a story this memorable to tell about dress rehearsal.  True.  There will be ever so many more stories to tell where I, the mom, am offstage, in the audience, or just not there.  I brought this child into the world, and now I'm playing a character part.  I guess for now, that lesson is my story to tell. I just hope I tell it with as much character as Ruby has.  And stronger clasps on my costume.