"When You’re the Future Dance-a-thon Queen" by Candace Hartsuyker

When You’re the Future Dance-a-thon Queen

You drive to the dance-a-thon in a cherry-red car and a matching red dress. If you want to win, all you have to do is dance better than all the other girls. You’ve been eyeing your competition, deciding who could be a threat. You know you won’t have to worry about the girl with knock knees or the girl with a bunion on her toe. Before the dance-a-thon began, you picked a daisy from someone’s lawn and plucked the petals off one by one, whispering I will, I won’t, I will . . .
You imagine the flowers in one arm, the winning sash draped over you, one arm raised in victory. You try not think about your great-aunt’s potato latkes, how even with her recipe, yours don’t taste the same. Instead, you think about the car. You inherited the car from your great-aunt, who won The Touch a Car Contest. She pressed her hand on the hood and left it there. Hand sizzling red, a white-hot burn, the palm of her hand throbbing in the 100-degree heat. Everyone else was spritzing water on their necks with spray bottles and mopping their faces with towels. Others had quit hours ago. From shoulder to wrist, her arm felt numb, but she kept going. Her winning time: 17 hours, six minutes, and three seconds. After they declared her the champion, they had to peel her hand off the car. She left the ghost of a handprint behind.
Afterward, a man in the crowd wanted to meet the girl who won the car. They walked through the fairgrounds, her car in the parking lot, the new keys shiny and jangling, safe in her right pocket. When he learned she’d never tasted cherries before, he got her some, purple-red as a bruise and more delicious than anything she’d ever tasted. She untwisted the paper bag and ate at least five before he asked her what she’d been doing with the pits. She’d swallowed them like stones. He kissed her then, and her lips burned with sweetness.
You do not think about where your great-aunt is now and how you ended up with the car. You do not think about how she doesn’t even remember your name. Around you, high heels and sandaled feet shuffle and sway. You tap your foot toe to heel. As the music reverberates, you twirl like a dreidel, tell yourself you’ll never stop.

Candace Hartsuyker

Candace Hartsuyker has an MFA in Creative Writing from McNeese State University. She has been published in Fiction Southeast, Cheap Pop, Okay Donkey and elsewhere.

Photo Credit: Staff