Toe to Toe

Ch. 1

"Are you saying I have no chance of getting in?"

Tia stared at the sour faced woman across the desk.  Her tightly wound bun and the swinging chain from her half glasses making her look more like an accountant than a guidance counselor. Before she spoke she squinted and sighed, the smell of old coffee making Tia shrink back in the chair.

"I'm saying that the institution you've chosen is looking for a well rounded individual, and while your dance skill and performance level are exceptional, you lack the 'human' experience your resume needs."

Tia pounced to a standing position causing the chair behind her to topple and thump loudly into the bare beige wall. She liked the sound of it, a bang to match the internal explosion happening in her mind. Words her instructors had spouted at her for years vibrated around her skull and the anger smoldering in her gut ignited into a ball of angry lava.

"You can't live a normal teenage life and be the best"  Isn't that what this school says?  Isn't it like, the motto! Put everything in and it just might be enough. That's what you tell us! Now you're saying that's what's keeping me out?"

She didn't care that she was now yelling and pointing.  She had believed those lies hook line and sinker. Every moment of her life was wrapped up in making her body perform and the school had encouraged it. The other girls hated her, and instructors used her as a poster child of success rocketing her to lead ballerina and taking every opportunity to use her for exposure and ticket sales.

It had been a game to all of them, A giant joke at her expense, she understood it now. Taking the lead in the last three major productions, giving up everything, just to be knocked down before the finish. She had paid a heavy price, only getting through it by telling herself it would all be worth it when she graced the stage in New York. It was all she had wanted since the moment she saw The Nutcracker there with her mother. The total wiping away of space and time --totally submerged in another world until the moment the curtain fell, it was modern day magic.

Tia felt her dream being ripped from her fingertips, ten years of dancing, training, restricting everything else that every American teenager did for fun to get to this point meant nothing?  How was this possible? 

Her body trembled as the prune faced Mrs. Taylor drummed her fingers on the desk waiting for her to finish. Her legs wobbled and she eased herself backwards straightening the askew chair and settling herself in it for stability. The room began spinning and Tia placed her head between her knees to stop it.

This had to be a joke, a horror movie, any moment someone was going to jump out from under the desk laughing and tell her this was a test of some kind. But not Mrs, Taylor. No, this woman was all business. Her casual look was that of someone sucking on a lemon. She wouldn't be breaking into the 'gotcha!' 

"Tia, you have four months, there's plenty of time to pad your application. Go join a club, teach a class of young girls, feed some homeless people. Just find something that makes you human and gives the impression that you care.  We can meet again in a month."

Her file on the desk was slapped shut. A thin vanilla folder that was all there was to represent her sweat blood and tears here. Mrs. Taylor turned her attention to a stack of papers on the corner of the desk and Tia was painfully aware the meeting was over. She grabbed her dance bag, draped it over her shoulder and sprinted for the door. The timing couldn't have been worse. The company was coming into it's biggest production of the year, rehearsals would be brutal and there would be no time for anything else.

Somehow it was already evening and her muscles twitched making her painfully aware she'd missed a vital class. It wasn't fair, this entire day turned out to be some kind of third dimensional nightmare.

Knowing there was no way she'd be able to eat or rest without a workout she let herself go to the only place that ever cleared her mind. The studio. She needed to think, and get rid of her panic. There was no backup plan. Going to the NYC ballet academy is all she had ever dreamed of.

Turning her key in studio lock and flipping on the lights immediately settled her nerves, this was where she belonged. Not spooning pulpy vegetable broth to toothless vagrants or watching tiny feet tromp through releve's.

She put on her pointe shoes and cued up the sound system letting her body's instinct lead her. As her muscles began to stretch and her bones felt the familiar ache her mind finally began to unwind. She could fix this, that's what dancers did, they danced with a smile despite broken toes and bleeding feet. She had danced Swan Lake with a dislocated shoulder and still managed to pull off the Port de Bras perfectly. She was a prima. They were made for toughness.

An hour later she finally felt like her body and mind were finally in sync. Sweaty, exhausted, and ahead of the game. There were no such things as problems, just situations to be handled. It wasn't optimal, but this was just another thing to make her stronger. She used the old towel from her bag and dried the stream of sweat dripping from her arms, face, and neck before changing her shoes and throwing her sweats on. Maybe tonight she'd actually sleep.

Walking across the quad she welcomed the cool air causing the leftover sweat to pull and crystallize on her skin. She wasn't the kind of girl who squealed at sweat, it was proof of hard work and that was a good thing. 

Reaching the dorm quads she didn't bother being quiet. Sneaking in was no longer necessary. By now, even the floor advisor knew she was completely trustworthy and respected her position enough to look the other way when she stayed late at the studio.

She got into her room and dropped all her stuff on the overstuffed chair not even bothering to turn on the light. Shower. She needed a shower. The hot water reddened her skin and as the bubbles went down the drain she imagined the horrible parts of the day swirling down with them. Climbing out of the shower she threw on a t-shirt and shorts, turned on her electric mattress pad, and carefully unwrapped her shoes from her bag and hung them on the hook over her bed.  With blurry eyes she tapped her phone to check her alarm one more time. She had five hours until pre class warm ups. Not ideal, but totally doable.

After class it was a ninety minute train ride home where she could come up with a plan. Or, as usual, fall asleep before leaving the station and at least get some rest before dealing with home for two long days.