The memory of that fateful night a little over a year ago brought tears to her eyes and made her throat burn. She didn’t try to subdue her emotions but let them lead her. The music started.
She had been dancing since she was a little girl. She’d worked harder than any in her class and always gave one hundred percent. It had earned her the lead in a Broadway production. Her dream had come true. To celebrate, her parents and brother had taken her out to dinner. She remembered how proud they were of her. Her father even bought an expensive bottle of wine so they could toast her. He’d had one glass.
One glass.
For the first few seconds, she kept her steps simple, but she soon grew lost in the dance, a blend of ballet and lyrical dance. She’d trained in jazz and three different forms of ballet, lyrical and contemporary.
They crashed trying to avoid another car that ran a red light.
Her push and pull were clearly defined as she pumped her chest toward the lights on the ceiling—or in her mind, the starry night she had opened her eyes to, trapped upside down in her parents’ car.
While she danced, she kept her breath steady as she spun her head, fanning her tresses outward. She bent into a penché then straightened with the perfect grace of a cat stretching under the sun. She didn’t jump or leap. She never would again. She spun on the heels of her feet, knees bent, head thrown back spilling her hair to the floor.
Why would she care what Michael thought was fair? Was it fair that her father had worked hard all his life, only to get charged with a DUI, lose his pension, and gain a head injury that left him unresponsive but clinging to life, and a prognosis that left his family devastated. Or her brother, whose dream it was to be a police officer, now confined for life to a wheelchair or prosthetic legs. Everyone’s dream had ended on a night of celebration. The world wasn’t fair. A lesson Michael hadn’t yet learned.
She changed the dynamic of the dance to something more emotionally charged, complete with running her palm over the side of her face and temple, tears streaming down her cheeks as she gazed in the mirror, bringing more interest to her most miniscule gestures. One didn’t need perfect pirouettes and grand jetés to compete. Her form down to her fingertips was more fluid than Michael’s, while at the same time her moves were more powerful, more expressive, and conveyed a more passionate love of what she was doing.
At some point, Michael gave up and stopped dancing to watch her. When she finished, she heard some sniffling. She may have made them cry but she was being careful, afraid to break again.
Her students clapped, including Michael. He hadn’t been able to keep up. “Class is over.”
“Miss Darling—” Michael began.
“Jake, I’ll see you tomorrow at the audition.”
“Seriously?” Michael snorted and shook his head at her.
“You’re making my decision easier,” she warned him. “You know as well as I do that you’re not ready for a full length production. Practice until you’re at your best.”
He looked as if he could punch her in the jaw. He murmured something Aria was sure she wouldn’t like if she bothered to listen and stormed out.
After Jake thanked her profusely, he left with Brenda. It wasn’t because he was better than Michael that she chose him. He wasn’t her ideal to play the role of Romeo, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But then, she’d never met a Romeo she actually liked. It wasn’t what they lacked in dancing, but rather what they lacked in emotion. It was as if they were all afraid of being too vulnerable, of going deep and letting true passion take over. Shame, it was part of what made a good dancer great.
She was about to shut the lights and leave the studio when the door opened, and Mrs. Blagden of Blagden’s School of Contemporary Dance stepped into the studio.
“Oh, I’m so glad I caught you before you left, Aria,” the older woman said, coming to her. She wore a long cream-colored dress made of thin linen fabric with tiny brown leaves sewn down the side. Low brown heels clicked on the floor as she approached. Her gray hair was drawn back in a loose bun low on her nape. Pearl stud earrings added to her ethereal appearance.
Aria had known the older, eccentric woman since she was seven. Mrs. Blagden had invited Aria’s mother to bring her daughter to the dance school she’d just opened. For free. Of course, her mother had agreed, since Aria had already shown interest in becoming a ballerina. Over the years, Aria discovered that Mrs. Blagden had money coming out of her ears and she showered Aria with a lot of it for some reason Aria never questioned. Even paying the hospital bills after the accident. She would have opened an art school if Aria had wanted to paint, a photography school if Aria had shown interest in taking pictures. But Aria had wanted to dance.
She gave Aria every opportunity she needed to be a professional dancer if Aria put the work in, and of course, Aria had. After the accident, she even offered to pay for a nurse to care for her father and brother. Aria’s mother had refused.
“I got a call from my daughter in England,” Mrs. Blagden told her now. “There was an offer on some property I own over there. I must meet with the buyer the day after next.”
“I didn’t know you had property across the pond,” Aria said, surprised. There was so much she didn’t know about her benefactor. “Is it a castle or something?” she asked with a playful smile.
“No, no,” Mrs. Blagden laughed. “It’s nothing so grand.”
Aria narrowed her gray-blue eyes on the attractive old woman. Aria often imagined Mrs. Hester Blagden had been a pretty woman in her day. “I have a feeling it has at least twenty rooms.”
“It’s missing more than half the roof.”
Aria laughed and pulled off her dancing shoes. “When are you leaving?”
“Tonight,” Mrs. B. informed her while Aria slipped into leather flats and straightened.
“Take this.” She handed Aria a key.
It was an old-fashioned looking thing. A skeleton key if Aria remembered correctly. It had a pretty, filigree-shaped bow with a long stem and a folded bit that shined under light.