Hang It Up | ONC 2023

1. A Very Paris House Hunt

Paris in the summer is a dream. Unless you're in the subway. Then it's like a sewer.

I'm sorry to the great people of Paris, but I do not love the metro. It's hot and sticky and people shove you around if you don't know where you're going. Which in my case is good, because if they hadn't done that, I would be sandwiched between two doors right now.

"Okay, all the apartments we've tried so far are..." Rafael stands beside me on the train, list of potential apartments out in front of him, scratching them off one by one.

"Less than habitable or more than our yearly salary?" I supply.

"You noticed that, too?" He groans. "Why did I assume it would be easy to find a house?"

"Spoiled from all of our recent adventures in Edmonton?" I laugh.

"You are so funny. We have to be at rehearsals in three days, Piper. The company is only paying for two more nights of hotel and then we need a place to stay."

"You think I don't know that?" I've raised my voice a little too much and find a few unwanted eyes on me. "I do know that. I'm acutely aware that we have nowhere to live and no money to live with. You can just say it. I made a bad choice making you come to Paris with me."

"Are you kidding right now?" He pulls me to face him and pushes me back into the wall, holding me there with his strong arms gripped on my shoulders. Whoa. Where did that come from?

"Piper, you look at me and you listen," he says firmly. "This is the best ballet company in the world we're talking about here. And they magically offer both of us positions with the same start date? So we can travel the world together and share apartment costs? Who would have said no?"

"Someone with a brain in their head instead of a dream in their eyes," I mumble, still pressed into the cold plastic of the train's separators.

"Whatever you do, don't stop dreaming," he says low enough that no one else can hear. "It's what I love most about you."

And I am not going to wish that he meant that how it sounded. I've put that long behind me. He's had the pick of the company for twelve years and not once has he ever looked at me. I asked him out once, too, but he thought I meant we'd go as friends so he talked about football while we ate ice cream. I was in my nicest dress and he was in sweatpants. I don't think he even remembers that day, but I will never forget the way he looked at his watch at the end and said, "Well, I've got to go. Genevieve and I are seeing a movie tonight." Like I mattered nothing at all.

Like I was dirt on his shoe.

Like I'd been stabbed and the only person who could stop the bleeding left me sitting with a pile of napkins and walked out the door.

But that was behind us now. We were besties. We are besties. And we're ready to take on the world.

"We gotta go," Rafael urges, pulling my arm. "If we don't make this stop we won't make our appointment and there is no way we're getting it if we do. She's practically giving this apartment away."

I chase Rafael through the train and through the glass doors, grabbing my skirt out from behind me just in time for the doors to close with a whoosh. My skirt was still intact as the train rolled off, so I'd say I was successful.

"She is practically giving it away, isn't she?" I muse as I follow him up the stairs. "I wonder what's wrong with it."

"The pictures looked really good, but maybe they're old and it's a big huge mess?" he offers. "I guess we'll find out when we get there."

We make the three block trek to the apartment, passing a park and a few shops on the way to the address listed very last on our sheet. It's so far from rehearsals and performances that it's comical, but the street is quaint and cute and there's so many places to see. Plus, the metro isn't far away, and it's one train straight to work. It'll be okay. I think.