Wattys 2021 Bootcamp

Rachel Corsini - Sushi and Sea Lions

Showcase entry for RCorsini

Pitch:

From dancing on the Upper West side to partying in bars in Queens, a former ballerina discovers how to love herself after a career-ending injury cripples her dreams and her heart.

Blurb:

Daniela Verdi has accumulated a host of broken things; broken toes, broken heart, and broken dreams.

After a career ending injury, Dany fills her time with meaningless sex and Pinot Grigios. It isn't until she runs into Vincent LaBate at her brother's birthday party that she remembers who she was before the glittering stage lights and glitzy distractions of the Upper West Side. The remnants of an unfaithful ex-wife combined with a playboy ex-almost boyfriend dive into their relationship. Vinny and Dany discover love amidst the chaos, but sometimes history refuses to stay in the past.

Can Daniela and Vincent find soul-deep love, or will they succumb to the pain of old wounds?

First 1K words:

I glanced over at...Billy? I think his name was Billy. If it was, he'd be the third one since the walking boot came off. Like the three Billy Goats Gruff. Trip trap, trip trap right into my bed. Especially after one too many Pinot Grigios. Groping in a dark bar before stumbling to my Upper West Side apartment.

He filled up my time like he filled up my bed, a temporary band aid. Fucking third Billy didn't make me feel better, neither did fucking first or second Billy. It didn't matter who I gave myself to.

It seemed stupid that I'd held out for something special when none of it was special at all.

Standing at the edge of my bed, goosebumps on my skin from hitting the cool air, the click click of the radiator echoing in the nearly empty room. I was surrounded by my life scattered in cardboard boxes.

Billy murmured in his sleep and turned his head away from the light streaming in through the window.

I stretched, arms raised above my head before looking at my foot. Tiny incision scars marred skin balanced by a pitch-black pedicure. I grabbed a hairband from my nightstand and twisted my long brown hair into a bun.

Yawning, I pulled a sweatshirt over my head, covering me to my knees. I sat down on the window ledge and spied a stray quarter against the grainy wood floor. Ms. Nettie, my first ballet teacher, used to test her bunheads to see if we were ready for pointe work. She'd put a quarter in front of our bare toes and say, "pick it up." The first time I did it I was eleven and was in my first pair of pointe shoes the following week.

I slid my foot out toward it and curled my toes against the rippled edge of the quarter, pressed tight into the ball of my foot. Still got it. I brought my leg back toward me, without bending it, before retracting it toward my body, bending my knee inward; envelope. An entire vocabulary memorized over two and a half decades of training rendered useless.

I spread out my toes and released the quarter into my open hand. "Tada."

Billy number three cleared his throat. He'd caught me with my toes by my eyes. I could have kissed them if I wanted to. I dropped my leg to the floor like a hammer driving down a nail.

He needed to go. This wasn't some magical experience where two strangers met, shared a night together, and ended up happily ever after. I didn't want happily ever after. There was no point. I wasn't that kind of girl. I wanted to be left in my perfect little void. I'd have a few Billys and be done with it. I had to protect myself. Nobody else would.

"Breakfast?" Billy sounded hopeful. What an idiot.

"No."

This was my new cycle. Do something that made me feel alive in the moment and after feel like a piece of my soul was torn out. A hunter impulse to conquer and destroy, fill up and pour out, like a good glass of Pinot.

I felt the brush of fur against my hand and Regi my cat pushed her wet nose against my fingertips. I stroked her head before she hopped into my lap. I rubbed my fingers against her chin when she sat down and purred.

Billy climbed out of bed. Oh Jesus, I realized I'd fucked the Lucky Charms leprechaun, though it was magically delicious, I was mortified. "It was fun."

I avoided his eyes as he got dressed, fingers still careening through Regi's fur. I took a final look at the hustle and bustle passing on the sidewalk below. I missed my morning trek to the subway downtown to take company class before beginning rehearsals for the day, leaving Lincoln Center at night, ears ringing from the applause as I walked home. An ache followed me, mimicked by the pain in my foot which startled me back to reality.

When I heard the bedroom door shut behind him I sighed. I kissed the top of Regi's head. I scooped her into my arms and walked to my kitchen. She needed her medicine.

My phone buzzed and I answered, hitting speakerphone.

"Morning sunshine," It was my big brother and surprisingly it was still morning. I rarely heard from him unless he needed a babysitter, or wanted to steal my Disney Plus account.

"Everything okay?"

"Course it is. Why wouldn't it be?" Traffic roared in the background.

"'Cause you never call me," I rolled a piece of tuna into a ball and shoved the pink pill into it before setting it down on the counter for Regi to lap up. "Good girl."

"It's my 35th birthday and we're going old school. Brady's on Friday. Invite the girls." Brady's was the run of the mill local joint where the same guys got shitfaced every weekend and trolled for the same neighborhood girls. A mirror of my hometown in Queens, a revolving door of the local construction guys, school teachers, and MTA workers.

"The same Brady's you dragged me out of when I was sixteen because I was ruining your night with your friends? Now I'm welcome?"

"You're not allowed to say no," I heard the blaring of a car horn and he shouted, "Gas is on the right, asshole!"

The cars zipped by in the background of our call and I tapped my toe against the floor. I still had packing and soul searching and whatever else an unemployed heartbroken ballerina was supposed to do with herself.

"Also, ma's worried."

Since the event, aka my surgery and the breakup that wasn't a breakup, she'd been calling non-stop. I wanted solitary confinement. Nobody seemed to understand.

I grabbed a banana, peeled it, and shoved a piece into my mouth.

"I told her I was coming back home."

"That's not why -"

"I'm fine."

"Anyone who says they're fine ain't fine."

"I don't want to talk about this with you, or mom, or anyone. It's over. It happened. The end."

My thoughts drifted to my shattered foot, bones split like broken wings, clipping me, nailing me to the ground. The same way I'd been stripped naked, tearing away the glittering tutu and crystal tiara, left cold crying backstage.

I wanted to forget the nausea that rose up in my gut from the pain. I wanted to forget the moment I realized Nate didn't love me. Forget it all.

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