I Will Love Myself Chapter 05
Dumbstruck, Mary couldn’t think straight for a while.
At the sight of the look on her face, Victoria sneered and remarked snidely, “Of course, you didn’t know.
“You and your husband were too busy taking care of your firstborn in New York to pay attention to Noelle.”
Shaking her head, she added, “Alas. Poor Noelle. What did she do to have such terrible parents like you two?”
Watching Victoria leave, Mary finally realized what good news Noelle was excited about the other day.
She took out her phone hurriedly and dialed my number again with trembling hands.
To her disappointment, it was the cold, mechanical female voice again that she heard.
Holding her phone, Mary turned around in dejection and sat on the sofa.
The folded, yellowed piece of paper on the coffee table caught her attention.
Her heart skipped a beat. With shaky fingers, she picked it up and unfolded it.
The first thing she saw was the words “Merchandise Credit Slip.”
Immediately, she flashed back to Noelle’s tenth birthday, when she cried, asking for a birthday present.
Noelle lost it the next day and received a good beating. Never again did she ask for anything at home.
After returning the gift, Mary stood at the counter with David and said, relieved, “Finally, it was returned. We can save some money. She’ll forget it over time, anyway.”
She thought Noelle had forgotten the incident. She thought everyone had put it behind them.
In fact, only they had forgotten it. Noelle had always remembered it.
Holding the note, she felt weak. With legs soft like jelly, she staggered to the door and had to hold on to the frame for support, her face as pale as death.
**
I sat side by side with the 42-year-old Noelle. “Do you remember your dream?” she asked.
I opened my mouth, but my throat was so dry I couldn’t speak.
My dream? How could I forget?
As a child, I had always wanted to learn how to dance. It was my dream to become a dancer.
I still remembered the first time when I mustered up the courage to tell Mom I wanted to have dance lessons.
Watching TV, Dad couldn’t even be bothered to raise his head, as if he didn’t hear me. Mom was washing the dishes. The tap water was running loudly.
“Dance?”
She shook the water off her hands and, as usual, looked at me with a frown. “What is it good for? It’s useless.”
I tried to persuade her and said in a low voice, “Rach has after-school math tutoring lessons every week. They cost 35 dollars each. Dance lessons are cheaper. They’re only 25 dollars each—”
Before I could finish speaking, Mom blurted out, “How can you compare yourself to Rach?”
Standing at the door to the kitchen, I stared at the dance lesson brochure I got from a classmate and felt as if the ballet kid on it were laughing at me.
Henceforth, I never mentioned it again.
However, every time I saw the girl from next door going to her dance class in a pretty dance uniform with her mom on the weekend, my repressed thought surfaced again.
The 42-year-old Noelle also recalled this matter. “Do you still want to dance?” she chuckled.
“Sure,” I nodded, feeling like crying.
“But I’m not a child anymore. Can I still learn?” I scratched the back of my head with embarrassment.
“Besides, the freshman year schedule is tight.”
She started the engine and said softly, “For a learner, any day is good. It’s never too late to start.”
After a nod, I looked at her and asked the question I’d been wanting to raise. “I learned to dance afterward, right?”
Pointing to the exquisite steering wheel and the limited-edition purse in the back seat, I continued, “This car and the purse were bought with the prize money won at contests, weren’t they?”
It was quiet for a few seconds in the car.
She held the steering wheel tighter and shook her head slowly after a while. “No.
“I never learned to dance.
Because…my legs were broken.”