Do you remember the first time you viewed the crevices on the moon’s surface thru a telescope? Or the presentation when served a decadent souffle with it’s concave indentation right smack in the middle–the one in which the waiter pours the sweet cream? Or the time you blew a perfect gum-bubble, and it imploded within itself? Those best describe her dimples. Eye-catching, mind boggling, forever memorable—
They were on her chubby knees.
* * *
The houselights softened in the Palace theater. The tape-recorded music of Chopin began and then, as the anxious crowd silenced itself, the brocade curtains parted, and twenty-four identically dressed little tots pranced onto the stage. Blue gauzy tutus, pink ballet slippers, tiaras with their fake jewels twinkling as luminous as the Milky Way. Forty-eight mascaraed eyes looked like frightened little fawns staring into the headlights of oncoming cars. Forty-eight tiny feet occasionally tripped over themselves with their plie’s and jete’s.
I’m fairly certain there were twenty-four dancers; however I only had eyes for the one who hadn’t shed her baby fat as yet. The one with the dimpled knees.
She had a quiet cheering section of six: Her proud papa, her harried mama, the tolerant older sister who had been through this before, the fidgety younger brother, her grandfather and I. I say ‘harried’, for her working mother stopped at the florist on her lunch hour, selected a bouquet to present to the wee one; hurried back to work, and at the end of the day, driving through heavy traffic, she arrived out of breath with the all important flowers, just as the houselights dimmed.
At the conclusion of the less than noteworthy, but highly amusing, evening’s entertainment, twenty-four eager mothers pushed their way down the aisles to the footlights to present their solitary prima ballerina with her bouquet. My daughter was no exception, and having been through this before, she knew the strategy. Bolting out of her seat as the four and five year olds were still taking their rehearsed bows, she was the first to present her cellophaned mixture of roses, daisies and baby’s breath to the future Maria Tallchief.
* * *
Making our way out of the theater on that sultry July evening, we paraded down the street two by two to the parking lot. The star of the night’s performance proffered her flowers to her mother and said, “Here, these are for you.”
“Oh, no, sweetheart—they’re for you.”
Looking up to her father, she asked, “Daddy, wouldn’t you like the flowers?”
“No kiddo, that bouquet is because you did such an outstanding job this evening. It’s your reward.”
Ignoring her brother and sister, she lingered a bit, and as her grandfather and I were bringing up the rear, she fell in step with the two of us. Again, she extended the mix of posies to her grandfather and pleaded, “Please,Grandpa Tom, I want you to have these.”
“No, honey, I wouln’t dream of it. Your mother picked these out especially. Just for you.” My husband winked at me, and our hearts overflowed with joy for this young child, who even at her tender age was filled with such an abundance of generosity.
She paused mid-step, turned to me, and clutched my sleeve. Letting out an exasperated sigh, she thrust the bouquet into my arms and in a low and plaintive voice whispered:
“They’re dead, you know!”
Jan Chapman
March, 2012
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