Dance in the Rain

D.I.T.R. - 25

I rolled over in bed and groaned when I heard my phone ring loudly. I sighed and chucked the covers back and let my feet hit the soft, carpeted floor. I got up too quickly and felt my blood rush to my head, “Whoa,” I fell back onto my bed and waited for the slight headache to pass before trying again, this time being successful. I quickly grabbed my irritatingly loud phone and answered the blocked number, “Hello, this is Desiree speaking.” I greeted the unknown person politely.

“Hello, Dez, it’s me Shanae Rae,” Benny’s mum’s familiar cheery voice sung from the other end. I knew Shanae quite well. I always got a kick out of her name but she just happened to marry Benny’s dad, who had the last name Rae.

“Oh, hey Shanae. How can I help you?” I asked in an equally cheery voice. Shanae would always put you in a good mood.

“I just happened to receive some photographs from my son today,” Oh no, here it comes that I’m not actually that good and Benny was just playing around, “The ones from him were quite promising,” She started, “But then I saw the ones that you took and I couldn’t believe my eyes! Dez, where have you been all my life! I know how much you can draw and imagine how much you could achieve with that? You could be one of today’s most successful, not to mention one of the youngest, artist.” Shanae was almost shouting in excitement in the end. I smiled hugely even though I hadn’t had my morning coffee yet.

“You really think so, Shanae?” I asked in the same way I’d asked Benny last night.

“Do I think so?” She asked in disbelief, “I know so!” I could almost see Shanae jumping up and down in excitement. I laughed a little breathlessly, was this really happening? “Now, why I called was that I want you to come on a small holiday. Benny told me about your twins and I can’t wait to meet the little bundles of joy but if you come on this trip, I’m afraid you can’t bring them. So, I want you to come visit me in London. I want you to meet a couple of people and I have a small job for an aspiring band that is becoming quite popular with one of their songs. They have a photo shoot coming up in a couple of weeks and I want you to come to this shoot to see how they do it.

“Benny said that you’ve never had any experience at all and I want you to come and maybe even take a few pictures of them if you feel like you’re up to it.” Shanae said in an excited but business like voice, “I’m sort of leaning on you a lot at the moment, Desiree, so I hope you don’t let me down. I have to go but I’ll get back to you later today or early tomorrow, give you time to talk to your brother and friends, and time to decide. But just remember that I’m not pressuring you into anything and this is just a practice session, nothing major. Plus if you capture some of the good ones that are used, you get a pretty good amount of cash.”

She hung up on me and I just slowly hung up the phone, not quite sure if that was a dream or if it really just happened. I put the phone down where it was before on one of my huge set of draws containing underwear and socks and stuff like that. I pinched myself just to make sure I was awake. And sure enough, it hurt a lot because I pinched myself quite hard. I rubbed where I had just pinched myself and smiled, it had actually happened. I let out a short squeal of excitement and bounded downstairs to the kitchen where everyone was,

“OH EM EF GEE!!!” I squealed and jumped up and down slightly, “YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHO JUST CALLED ME AND WHAT THEY WANTED!” I squealed. I went over and made myself a coffee but was stopped half way by Chase,

“Don’t you think you’re high enough without caffeine?” He asked sternly. Jodie was sitting at the large dining table, holding Penny close to her chest, breast-feeding her,

“Who and what?” She asked with a small smile on her face from the excitement.

“Benny,” I said, turning to face where he was spreading butter onto his toast. He instantly froze, his knife hovering over the browned bread.