It was the evening of the autumn performance. The air was chilly for early October, and sixteen-year-old Laura could hear people moving through the parking lot outside, the mothers scolding about wearing sweaters and catching colds, the nervous participants chatting lightly to ease the tension of the show, their voices distant through the auditorium wall.

Backstage, Laura, who had organized this recital with help and borrowed student performers from her dance teacher of nine years, was almost ready. Her costume was on, her hair was dressed, her jewelry was set, and most of her makeup was done, except for the lipstick. There would be time for that later. Now she would need to help the participants’ mothers get everybody ready to go onstage.

She took one last look around the familiar yellowly lit dressing room, knowing she wouldn’t see it empty and quiet again until late that night when the show was over and everyone had gone home, but the place would be a mess then, full of spilled making and safety pins and hair pins. Then, already exhausted after doing the grand finale specially choreographed for her, she would have to clean it all up, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind being backstage. There were memories here, memories of trying and failing and succeeding, of laughing and crying, of growing and learning. Laura hoped she would never have to leave this old auditorium.

A quiet knock shook her out of her thoughts and brought her to her feet. At the door was eight-year-old Sarah Davis. Laura knew her only by sight, automatically classifying her as one of those girls with no particular talent or interest who participate in the shows only because their parents make them. Sarah spoke to the floor, slowly and falteringly.
“Um…Hi…Can I borrow some eyeliner from somebody? I mean, can my mom borrow…she couldn’t find hers…” She glanced up and quickly looked back down, as if hoping Laura wouldn’t notice.

“Sure, Sarah, that’s fine. Tell you what, why don’t you wait in here while I tell the others to come here, too?” The other participants probably didn’t know that the dance teacher had decided to have Laura try being “in charge” of this show, although she would be there as a back up in case something went wrong. “Oh, and you can sit over there,” Laura added, thinking Sarah would probably continue standing and staring at the floor if she wasn’t told what to do.

The dressing room then filled with excited people, and the volume quickly crescendoed into a deafening din, with hyper and nervous three to fourteen year olds fidgeting and squirming and causing their mothers to fuss and scold as they tried to do last minute makeup and costume adjustments, and with people calling out all over the place for more of this or more of that or for somebody to please get out of their way, because it was really crowded in there, and stifling hot, too. Laura was quickly lost in the activity, and she barely noticed who asked her for what makeup, not even the eyeliner.

And too soon, it was show time. Laura almost forgot about her lipstick, and she almost screamed with frustration when she couldn’t find it in her makeup bag in the last moment, but she borrowed some from her dance teacher, and everything happened according to schedule. The opening item of beginner four-year-olds was adorable and captivated the audience easily, and from then to the last piece before the finale everything went smoothly. Then it was all Laura, and she didn’t dance as well as she had meant to, but she danced well, and the audience was thrilled. Although it was a public performance and the audience was much more than just the parents of the performance, they recognized that the show was hers, and afterwards, Laura got lots of attention for dancing well and for organizing all the younger dancers. She replied politely and modestly to all the compliments like she was expected too, but she found herself backing away from the crowds of strangers and retreating away towards the dressing room. Her teacher could take care of the guests. The excitement before the show had tired Laura more than she had expected it to, and she needed a break to be by herself.

The dressing room was in even worse shape than Laura had expected. She was preparing herself to spend over an hour cleaning everything up when there was another knock on the door. It was Sarah again. In her hand she held Laura’s lost lipstick. She no longer spoke directly to the floor, but she spoke shyly.

“I think this is yours.”

Sarah was the last person Laura expected to do a random favor for her. “Thanks…why…where…?”

“I’ve seen that you like to be here and in the right wing and I saw that you couldn’t find your lipstick so I looked around and I think you dropped it and it rolled it under the corner of that mat in the right wing. You danced really good,” Sarah said, awkward and uncomfortable once again.

Laura was astonished. “Thanks…you were good too.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. When Laura had watched Sarah’s item from the right wing, she hadn’t even glanced at her. She only watched her friend’s sister and her partner, but she did notice that nobody in the group did particularly badly. “Yeah, you were good.”

“Thanks,” to the floor, but less shyly.

There was a very awkward pause in which neither Laura nor Sarah said anything. Then Sarah looked up a little with a slightly confused look on her face and said, “So you don’t want your lipstick?”

“Oh!” Laura had completely forgotten about that. “Yeah. Thanks a lot.” She extended her hand and finally took the lipstick.

“Umm…okay.” Sarah waited a little longer, and then turned to go.

She was almost gone when Laura called her back. “Why did you do that? Find my lipstick for me, I mean.”

Sarah shrugged. “You danced really good. And my mom said to be like you. She said you’re like my big sister, kind of.”

Laura was surprised again. “Your big sister? Who’s your big sister?”

Sarah shrugged again. “I don’t really know. I mean, I knew her but I can’t remember her now. She made herself be gone when I was four,” she explained. “She was a real good dancer. Like you. That’s why my mom wants me to dance. But I’m not as good as she was. My mom tells me that sometimes.”

“Oh. Um, okay.” Laura didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Why?” Sarah honestly had no idea.

“Uh, well, um, you’re really not a bad dancer. I mean, you’re actually kind of good,” Laura said lamely. I’m sure your sister wasn’t that much better than you.”

“Oh. Okay.”
Then Sarah said she could hear her mother calling her, and it was the truth because Laura could hear her too, and Sarah left, leaving Laura alone in the dressing room once again.

Laura quietly cleaned up the mess, packed up her things, and went home with her parents, who kept telling her how wonderful she was, and why did she disappear right after the show? But Laura was thinking about something completely different, and that night she vowed to herself that she would never, ever forget that nobody can know everything about a person or what happens in their private lives.