​Girls Just Want to Have Fun

“That looks right,” my mother said as she adjusted the flower crown on my head. My pink ballet shoes had the faintest grass stains from when I dragged my toes through the wet grass and a few bark stains from our maple tree, but overall they were only moderately dirty.
Ballet was my mom’s idea. I think she saw some redeeming quality in the way I twirled around in our yard before crashing into the lawn chairs and falling on my bum. Miss Rogers, my teacher, had patiently guided me through the first positions at the barre but I kept staring at myself in the mirror and totally missed the point. Besides that, my leotard was too small and was always inching up, causing me to readjust it over and over to find a comfortable crotch position. And my tights were too big, causing me to dance around the dressing room in a very un-ballet way readjusting. 
 
My mother was undaunted with my fidgeting. My flower crown kept slipping to one side, so by the time the pageant began I looked more like a drunken sailor than a ballerina. I wanted to be home, climbing a tree, sitting in the yard counting ants in the cracks of the sidewalk or digging in the garden for worms. I suspect this was why she put me in ballet class, hoping to put a shine on me. Some things are preordained. Me in a leotard with a crown of flowers on my head was not one of them.
After my turn on the stage, which all things considered, wasn’t that bad. I mean Maryjane shouldn’t have stepped on my foot so hard and I knew she did it on purpose so the sock in the arm I gave her couldn’t possibly have hurt as hard as she let on.
The ride home from the pageant was quiet. I was still wearing my leotard, tights and ballet slippers. I was sitting on the seat next to mom, looking at my feet in the pink slippers and happily exercising my ankles up and down, left and right to the beat of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun coming from the radio. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my mom smiling.
When we got home my mom broke the silence. You want to go outside and play while I get dinner? “Do I!” I said adjusting my flower crown back onto my head from off my right shoulder. I ran out into the yard and resumed twirling until I fell over onto the trash can, totally scuffing my ballet shoes and tearing a hole in my tights. Looking out from the kitchen window, mom said, “That looks about right.”
 

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