One Who Flees - A Modern Cinderella Story

Chapter 6 - My Introduction to Technology

Chapter 6 – My Introduction to Technology

                It was a good few days before the nightmares ceased. “How was last night?” Karen asked me every morning over breakfast. The relief on her face, that morning when I told her I had slept through peacefully, was immense. The feeling was shared by everyone at the bakery when we arrived there later in the morning.

                “Thank god for that.” Madison smiled, “Now you’ll actually get some work done rather than spending the entire day napping.” I knew she was only playing but I elbowed her in the ribs anyway. “But seriously though I’m really glad you’re feeling better.”

                “Thanks.” I said, sitting down at the table, facing a tray of cupcakes and another tray loaded with creampuffs. The day went fairly smoothly, except for the fact that Ethan, kind wonderful person that he is, decided it would be fun to hide my dance bag just as I had to leave. It took me ages to find it, way in the back of the cleaning cupboard. None of us actually thought he knew where that was, given how little cleaning he did. After finding my bag I hurried out of the door, not without pausing to give Ethan a smack around the back of the head as I left.

                “You’re late.” Carla didn’t even look up as I hurried, slightly red-faced, through the door of the studio.

“I know, I’m sorry.” I groaned as I bent down to tie the laces of my jazz shoes which, in my hurry to change, I had neglected to do up. “A guy that I work with hid my bag and wouldn’t tell me where it was.”

“Fine but don’t let it happen again.” She wagged a finger at me teasingly.  “And if you are intent on being late then a text wouldn’t go amiss.” I rolled my eyes at her.

“I can’t make any promises.” I joked. “And I couldn’t text you even if I knew how. I don’t own a cell phone.” Carla looked somewhat shocked but I just shrugged and lifted my leg onto the ballet bar to stretch. I had been working hard on my ballet technique. Despite some protest from me, Carla had thrust me into four 2 hour ballet classes in the week since I’d started. In my privates we had decided do some more lyrical/contemporary pieces. They were a lot more my style than the ballet really but they weren’t half hard. After about an hour Carla had to go and take a phone call and left me alone to work on the routine we’d just been doing. I was just trying (and failing) to work out how to use her I-pod when the door opened behind me.

“No way!” I heard a loud voice exclaim. I turned around and saw Maia standing behind me. I don’t know which one of us was more shocked.

“What are you doing here?” I managed to say.

“I could ask you the same question.” Maia said looking me up and down.

“Sorry about that,” Carla said, walking back into the room. “Let’s see what you’ve done.” Looking around, she saw Maia and a smile broke across her face. “Maia, I didn’t know you were here.” She hugged her and looked over at me. “Brooke this is my daughter Maia.” Now that she said it, I could see the resemblance. I wondered how I had missed it before. “Brooke’s the dancer I’ve been telling you about.” I felt a hot blush rise to my cheeks when she said that.

“Wait so she’s the dancer that has virtually no training and is one of the most talented girls you’ve ever worked with?” Maia looked between her mom and me. I felt my cheeks going even redder and pulled my baggy shirt tighter around me. I couldn’t believe she’d said something like that about me.

“I don’t know if I used those exact words but yes she is who I was talking about.” Carla rolled her eyes and came over to me, laying a hand on my shoulder. I brought my hands up to my still burning cheeks. “No need to be embarrassed Brooke. I meant every word I said.”