Pirouette [h.s.]

chapter 1

// never fear those mountains in the distance // 

//never settle for the path of least resistance //

I Hope You Dance  -Lee Ann Womack

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1, 2, 3, 4.

An orb of spotlight sunshine and the impending tidal wave rush of opening curtains. The dizzying, suffocating, hand-around-your-throat kind of feeling floods my body as the audience's applause rings across the stage. The bottoms of my feet feel tingly and the tips of my fingers are numb. Just breathe, Phoebe. Just breathe.

"Phoebe – music starts in four bars. Be ready." Claudette's grating voice cuts through my preshow daze.

Four bars. I shake out my ankles and bounce back and forth between two feet. Three bars. Time to breathe. Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, exhale, 5, 6, 7, 8. Two bars. Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, exhale, 5, 6, 7, 8. One bar. I roll my shoulders back and tilt my chin to the highest balcony row. Showtime.

5, 6, 7, 8.

"Phoebe, you were late! Start the music over." Shaking out of my daydream, I catch Claudette snapping her fingers at her intern.

Claudette. Everything you would expect out of a crotchety old dance teacher. She probably hasn't danced in at least twenty years but acts as if she was some world-renowned champion. She wasn't.

I don't think I've ever seen the woman relax. Even her hair is stiff – always wrapped around and around and around like a coil, and cinched to her head with four meticulously placed bobby pins. I'm not really one to talk about relaxing, but at least I can let my damn hair down once in a while.

I'm not sure she knows how to be kind, either. I can count on one hand the times I've heard a genuine compliment leave her too-pink lips. Even her interns flee the nest as soon as they can. Since I've been here, I think she's gone through four poor girls. Not to mention, her voice sounds like a rake scraping leaves across concrete.

Cheese grater bitch.

I have been dancing for Claudette for six months now, ever since moving to San Francisco. In fact, she is the very reason I moved to San Francisco in the first place. Not Claudette, exactly, but her dance studio. Battu is the highest ranked ballet school on the entire west coast. However, if there was any chance of me making my break as a dancer, Battu was the place to be.

Unfortunately, that seems to require dancing for a cheese grater.

"I'm sorry, I was-"

"Phoebe, what have I said about apologies? Don't tell me; show me. From the top!"

I can't help but to roll my eyes as I turn back to the wall of mirrors.

Thankfully, she didn't cut my second run-through short. She did, however, have me repeat the choreography another three times before she was satisfied.

As she stalked out of the room, without a single word, I felt sweat bead across my forehead and slide down below my ear, underneath the neck of my lavender leotard. The nameless intern hurries after her like a lost puppy, and when I hear the door click shut, I seek out the cool dancefloor beneath me. My chest is heaving as I sink to the ground, and as my legs hit the cold floor, goosebumps erupt across my body like landmines. The floor is my solace in moments like these – like the single empty aisle in a crowded grocery store, or a parked car in the middle of a rainstorm. It's cool, and sturdy, and the muscles in my legs relish in the relief.