Eight Count ✔️

ONE

Hope doesn't exist.

There either is or isn't. You can't merely hope. You have to make things happen. Action.

A person can't simply hope for their grades to increase to a passing score or hope for a six-pack to appear overnight. One has to work and work hard. Goals are goals. Study. Exercise. Stop whining and do something. Simple.

Don't hope.

Adjusting my grip around my plastic tub, I take another ten steps forward. Green, the color of my gallon of detergent, steadies aboard the pinnacle of my folded clothes, balancing easily. A breath stutters from my chest. Relieved.

Midnight blue and silver lie slacked over, unanimated and still, unlike the wild exercise the costume performed with me last afternoon. The colors had been a blur between acrobatics and a modern dance routine. An attitude, a pose, had wiggled into the sequence mid-run, one leg bent back at one-hundred forty-five degrees. Like an arabesque, the movement felt fluid, a movent I was in control over, a movement I could and can perfect.

A breath escapes me, and I grit my teeth. My plastic tub feels like a bar slicked with a fresh coat of wax. The holes for handles nearly slip my grasp.

Ten or so people pass me in that second. One human, eyes glued to a rectangular device, stalks past as if not noticing our collision. There's no room to apologize or to shoot the human a glare. For, the fool already turns to a tall building on the right. Tall building, every building in Los Angeles is tall.

At least, compared to the rural town I grew up in. Nicholasville is just short of a ghost town. And with that fact, I'm thrilled to skip away. The audition with Marlin Breen had been the gateway to my move. I could get out of the less than adequate dance industry, for anything but ballet, in Houston. That was my thought. And with a successful audition with Marlin Breen under my belt and that performance to look forward to, I have no reason to move again. In fact, this freelancing gig is the kickstart to my new life in this new city with my new name and new apartment. I can have a successful career here.

Today is the day.

Tall buildings, ones like the laundromat ahead, South Laundry Center as the block red letters read, crush me under their serene gaze. Gray plastered mortar and beige tanned concrete greet me at the entrance, and the glass-swinging door pulls me through the threshold.

Scanning the metallic machines, my eyes drift to the signs overhead. A red and white arrow directs rightward, to the front desk, and another arrow points backward to the utilities. I pick up my pace, marching to the nearest washer, a twenty-quart. In a fluid motion, I pull the machine's jaws apart, skipping my gaze from the empty aisle I stand in, leftward, then rightward at the front desk. Miserable. The site is miserable. Gray and beige. The linoleum flooring doesn't add much life to the musty place either, only containing a speckle of what looks like orange. Even the windows lining the front of the facility only make the dreary corners look more depressing.

With a sigh, my fingers trail over the small laminated label posted beside the washer's settings. Instructions by the looks of it. Leaning closer, I note a slot for a card instead of quarters. Simple. I nod to myself, and I let my feet guide my body to the front desk, leaving my tub of clothes parked just opposite the machine.

I reach. The kid ahead of me attempts a smile. It's crooked. His friendly gesture is followed by a tug of his collar and the shift of his feet, back and forth.

Waiting a beat, I let my finger drum the waist-high countertop. "Hi, I need a card for the utilities."The kid nods in acknowledgment, drawing a plastic box from under the counter. Still fidgeting with his shirt, my brain flashes with a small conclusion. Make him comfortable, at ease. Is it his first day? I flash a grin. "That's a stylish chain by the way."