// never fear those mountains in the distance //
//never settle for the path of least resistance //
I Hope You Dance -Lee Ann Womack
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1, 2, 3, 4.
An orb of spotlight sunshine and the impending tidal wave rush of opening curtains. The dizzying, suffocating, hand-around-your-throat kind of feeling floods my body as the audience's applause rings across the stage. The bottoms of my feet feel tingly and the tips of my fingers are numb. Just breathe, Phoebe. Just breathe.
"Phoebe – music starts in four bars. Be ready." Claudette's grating voice cuts through my preshow daze.
Four bars. I shake out my ankles and bounce back and forth between two feet. Three bars. Time to breathe. Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, exhale, 5, 6, 7, 8. Two bars. Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, exhale, 5, 6, 7, 8. One bar. I roll my shoulders back and tilt my chin to the highest balcony row. Showtime.
5, 6, 7, 8.
"Phoebe, you were late! Start the music over." Shaking out of my daydream, I catch Claudette snapping her fingers at her intern.
Claudette. Everything you would expect out of a crotchety old dance teacher. She probably hasn't danced in at least twenty years but acts as if she was some world-renowned champion. She wasn't.
I don't think I've ever seen the woman relax. Even her hair is stiff – always wrapped around and around and around like a coil, and cinched to her head with four meticulously placed bobby pins. I'm not really one to talk about relaxing, but at least I can let my damn hair down once in a while.
I'm not sure she knows how to be kind, either. I can count on one hand the times I've heard a genuine compliment leave her too-pink lips. Even her interns flee the nest as soon as they can. Since I've been here, I think she's gone through four poor girls. Not to mention, her voice sounds like a rake scraping leaves across concrete.
Cheese grater bitch.
I have been dancing for Claudette for six months now, ever since moving to San Francisco. In fact, she is the very reason I moved to San Francisco in the first place. Not Claudette, exactly, but her dance studio. Battu is the highest ranked ballet school on the entire west coast. However, if there was any chance of me making my break as a dancer, Battu was the place to be.
Unfortunately, that seems to require dancing for a cheese grater.
"I'm sorry, I was-"
"Phoebe, what have I said about apologies? Don't tell me; show me. From the top!"
I can't help but to roll my eyes as I turn back to the wall of mirrors.
Thankfully, she didn't cut my second run-through short. She did, however, have me repeat the choreography another three times before she was satisfied.
As she stalked out of the room, without a single word, I felt sweat bead across my forehead and slide down below my ear, underneath the neck of my lavender leotard. The nameless intern hurries after her like a lost puppy, and when I hear the door click shut, I seek out the cool dancefloor beneath me. My chest is heaving as I sink to the ground, and as my legs hit the cold floor, goosebumps erupt across my body like landmines. The floor is my solace in moments like these – like the single empty aisle in a crowded grocery store, or a parked car in the middle of a rainstorm. It's cool, and sturdy, and the muscles in my legs relish in the relief.
I untie my pointe shoes, releasing my feet from their pale pink prison. My hand mindlessly digs into my right ankle, while the other massages the arch of my left foot. I wasn't expecting Claudette's visit to result in me getting beaten up today. I thought she'd give me a break after the slight breakdown I had last week over this damn solo, but, just like her tightly cinched bun, apparently she always expects perfection.
It really wasn't my fault. The breakdown, that is. I had been running on only a handful of hours of sleep and no matter how many times I tried to relevé on pointe, I couldn't catch my balance. I was wobbling like a fucking top; it's a wonder I didn't fall on my ass.
I had just finished a series of pirouettes, making eye contact with myself in the mirrors each time, before dropping to flat feet. With each bouncing drum beat of the music that followed, I was supposed to relevé on pointe. The first two were sharp, legs fully extended, and feet curled in on themselves so hard the familiar burning cramps in my arches were starting. Like someone lit a match mere inches from my foot. The next relevé was a different story. As I raised onto the blocks in my pointe shoes, I hit the corner of the right block and fell out of position.
"PHOEBE!" I can only describe Claudette's voice as a screech. I glanced at her in the mirrors and she flicked her hand as a cue to do it again, "From the pirouettes."
I nodded once, spinning in five tight circles before dropping down. On the very first relevé, I overestimated myself and nearly fell onto my knee, my right foot sliding out from underneath. Without giving Claudette a chance to open her mouth, I started the pirouettes again. This cycle repeated what felt like one hundred times and, without fail, each time I would fall out of the relevés.
Eventually, I knew that the frustration was starting to drive the mistakes and there was no hope of me actually completing the sequence. That didn't stop me from at least trying, though. A heavy weight fell onto my chest and I had to take deep, gasping breaths in order to keep breathing. My throat felt like it was closing in on itself and I had to blink rapidly to keep my vision from blurring.
Not now.
The very last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of Claudette.
"Enough, Phoebe." I stopped instantly, scraping my fingernails through my scalp in frustration. "I was unaware that I hired a dancer who is unable to do a relevé on pointe. The babies are capable of something so simple. Maybe I should enroll you into their class; you could learn something from them."
I felt my chest deflate, exactly like taking a pin to a balloon, and my shoulders dropped at her words. I let out a shaking breath, willing the tears that threatened to spill, away. She was right – there is no reason I should be having a problem with a simple relevé.
"Maybe moving to San Francisco was not in your best interest." Claudette looked down the side of her pointy witch nose at me.
That was all it took. That was a low blow and the slight smirk on her face told me that she already knew that. I couldn't stop the tears from painting angry red rivers down my cheeks as I buried my head into my hands. I fucking hate crying. She knew I was working my ass off. She knew I had to pick up the job at Dino's just to afford rent. She knew I could do a series of relevés no problem on any other day. I couldn't figure out if my tears were out of anger or despair, but they raged on regardless.
Dropping my hands to my sides, I let my gaze lift up to meet her eyes. My mouth opened and closed like a fish, trying to get words out, but I couldn't speak through the crying. I couldn't get enough air into my lungs, and I knew I needed to calm down before I started having a full-blown panic attack.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
"I expect better from my dancers, Phoebe Mitchell. I hope those relevés are in better shape next time." Her parting words were like an ominous cliffhanger as she walked out of the studio room, leaving me to cry to myself like a fucking baby.
Despite Claudette, I love dancing. Without dance, I'm not sure how I could live; it's the reason my blood keeps pumping.
I never grew out of that "ballerina" phase that most little girls go through. I remember begging my grandfather to take me to the Nutcracker every single Christmas season and I never took no for an answer. Phoebe Mitchell always gets what she wants.
Everywhere I would go, I would count in series of eight; walking through the grocery store aisles, stepping across cracks in the sidewalk, even just walking to the fridge for a drink.
My fingers mindlessly trace across the base of my foot as I catch my breath, letting the feeling of the slightly raised skin calm me down. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. My parents would have had a cow if they knew I had gotten a tattoo, but I knew I could hide it easily so I decided to get an 8-count scripted across my body for eternity the moment I turned 18.
I've been dancing as long as I can remember, really. It's the one place where I truly feel I belong. I can put on a mask and pretend to be somebody else and just...dance. Nobody knows anything about me – they're not judging me based on my past, or present. The only thing they really know is how my body moves on stage in front of them. And I'll make damn sure it moves well. It always has been, and always will be, my safe space.
Claudette managed to rip me a new one in the past six months, though. Not really such a safe space when you have a witch insulting you every week. But you can't get to 23 years of age as a full-time dancer without developing something of a backbone. In one ear and out the other...for the most part. It's much easier said than done, but I try. If I take to heart what other people think of me and my dancing, I'd be ruined. Learned that the hard way.
Claudette leaving my rehearsal space silently meant that those four run-throughs concluded another exhausting day of dance rehearsals. I was beginning to learn that Claudette's silence meant that you didn't mess up too bad. It's her own fucked up way of complimenting her dancers. Never a "good job, you're done for the day." Just silence. Welcome to Battu, I guess.
Tuesdays are my day with the devil. Because Claudette is two steps away from turning into that old hag from Snow White, she'd only come to check on our progress once a week and I was the lucky one who had her attention for the last hour of the day, after she was tired and cranky from watching everyone else. The only upside is that if we finished early, I could leave early. Nevertheless, her one-day-a-week stint meant that, thank the heavens, every other day of the week I was free from her wrath and had an empty studio room all to myself to practice to my heart's content. As long as I was in the studio, I could do whatever the hell I wanted.
With a glance at the clock, I shove my pointe shoes into my bag and run out the door. 3:30 pm. Done half an hour early, which gives me just enough time to do laundry before I have to go to Dino's.
The sun is unusually bright for an afternoon in San Francisco as I bike to my apartment. I don't live in exactly the safest neighborhood, but it could be a lot worse. I have a roof over my head and neighbors who only yell at each other on the weekends. What more could a girl wish for? Besides, the peeling paint on the walls is fun to pick at during anxious spirals.
It's nearly 4 by the time I make it back to the apartment and manage to wiggle the front door open. I'm greeted by the methodical drip of the leaky ceiling overhead falling into a large bucket sitting in the middle of my living room. The air conditioning pipes run right through the middle of the room, so I've gotten used to having a nearly perpetual leak. Thankfully, though, I made it home before the bucket overflowed out onto the carpet – score.
With my arms full of clothing, I rummage through the tray of loose change on the kitchen counter.
"Shit!" I recount the coins at least three times before letting the mountain of laundry in my arms fall to the floor.
$1.85. 15 cents short. I glance around the living room, wracking my brain with how I could possibly come up with 15 cents. My eyes meet my tattered grandma-flowered couch and I groan.
I can't believe I'm about to do this.
Throwing my pride straight out the window, I drop to my knees in front of the couch and shove my hands between the cushions, digging like a little kid picking their nose.
Really, not my most shining moment.
"Please, please, please." I chant to the cushions as if my words would make change magically appear. My fingers meet with the cool ridge of metal and, as I retract my hand, I could kiss the couch. A quarter is smiling right back at me. With a silent cheer, I hurry to pick my clothes back off the floor and run down the hall to the laundry room.
When I get back to my apartment and glance at the clock, relief blooms in my chest. My shift at Dino's doesn't start until 6 pm, not for another hour and a half. That's more than enough time to make an actual dinner for myself before I have to head out.
Dino's is the main gas station in my part of town. For being located in such a sketchy area, the gas station is honestly pretty nice. We have a fairly large store, and we carry some basic groceries, as well as the typical gas station stuff. During the daytime, single parents and 20-somethings come and buy food for meals for the week, considering that the products are fairly good quality for how cheap they are. Kind of like a hidden gem in the dirt.
The typical Dino's crowd between the hours of 6 pm and 2 am, however, consists of old creeps and high school students, both of which are typically wasted, stoned, or both. Unfortunately, I've gotten to know this crowd very well. I usually don't have much trouble, but I learned to keep pepper spray or a tiny knife hooked onto my keys within a week of working there. Just in case.
By the time I finish folding my laundry, the clock reads 5:40 and I groan. Having the time to fold and put away my laundry felt like entering the goddamn gates of heaven, itself. And if heaven is having enough time to fold laundry, hell is realizing it's time to go to Dino's. I pull on a pair of black jeans and a Dino's t-shirt, pull my hair into a low ponytail, and throw on my Dino's baseball cap.
My trusty bike carries me down the three blocks to the gas station and when I get there, my senses are overwhelmed with the all-too-familiar smell of gasoline, cigarette smoke, and that weird damp, musty smell that all gas stations seem to share.
The kids in the shift before mine are all bright-eyed, bushy-tailed high schoolers who, quite frankly, piss me off. They very clearly don't really care whether or not they get fired, so they usually do the bare minimum to keep Dino's running while they work. Because of them, I don't really associate with anyone that I work with.
Between dancing and working my every waking moment, I really don't associate with much of anyone at all, actually. Even in the studio, Claudette has all of the solo dancers segregated off into individual studio spaces. Truth be told, I don't know a single person's name except for Claudette. The only human being I really ever talk to is Luna, but that only happens when we're both free, which, sadly, doesn't happen too often.
Luna still lives back at home, but she was the only person who was really rooting for me moving down to San Francisco. She's infuriatingly honest but she always pulls me back down to earth, so I like to keep her around. Luna is the one person I know will always have my back. I trust her with my life. If she's the moon, I'm the tide.
"Are you going to go across or not?" another fourth grader, a little taller than me, cocked her hip out and put her hand on it, looking me up and down with the biggest scowl across her face.
She had bright strawberry hair that stuck out of her ponytail in random wispy pieces. Her eyes were deep hazel, like the bark of a tree, and the scowl across her face made a tiny dimple divot into her cheek.
My hands were sweaty and shaky and when her eyes landed on them, the shaking only got worse. It was an abnormally cold day in the middle of fall, but we were still outside for recess. I had spent the entire week watching all of the other fourth graders cross the monkey bars with ease, one after the other after the other, trying desperately to learn their techniques. I was well and truly sick of making up excuses as to why I couldn't get across. I had decided that today was the day I was going to conquer the monkey bars once and for all.
"Um, yeah, I'm, uh, I'm going to cross them now." I tried my hardest to not sound terrified, but I'm sure the crack in my voice gave away my secret.
I turned back to face the monkey bars and wiped my hands on my grass-stained jeans. The bright green bar was taunting me, reflecting the sun so it burned into my eyes. Maybe I would go blind at the hands of children's playground equipment. Then I would never make it across the monkey bars. That thought was enough to send me across right away.
I reached an arm out, hand wrapping around the hot metal as I took a breath. All of my nerves were only amplified with my newfound audience.
The girl cleared her throat behind me pointedly, clearly having enough of my hesitation. I shut my eyes and let my feet fall off the ledge. I'm not sure what happened between point A and point B, but the next thing I knew, my ass was in the woodchips and the girl at the top of the platform huffed and stomped her foot above me.
"That didn't work!" she sounded angry. Why was she angry with me?
I couldn't help but shrink back into the woodchips despite the fact that they were tearing miniscule cuts into the skin of my arms. Wait...what didn't work?
"Wha-"
"You've been staring at the monkey bars every day and I thought being mean would make you go across. But it didn't work!" her little voice raised in both pitch and volume as she finished her little rampage, jumping easily off of the platform to land beside me.
Her hand, lined with tiny monkey bar callouses that I deeply envied, reached out to help me off of the ground and she immediately started brushing woodchips off of my pants, "My name's Luna. You're Fifi, right?"
"Uh, it's Phoebe."
"Yeah, that's what I said – Fifi."
The one thing that stuck since that day is the fact that she still calls me "Fifi." I never actually made it across the goddamn monkey bars, but Luna became my closest friend, so I can't complain too much. Unfortunately, Luna's stuck back in Tacoma, taking classes at the University of Washington and working at a daycare in her spare time, which leaves little time to devote to talking to little old me. But, all things considered, I know that she's always there if I need her. She is my moon, after all.
"Hey, sweetheart, are you going to check me out or what?" a scratchy voice cuts into my movie reel.
Some scruffy man, probably in his 50's, slams his stack of Reese's peanut butter cups against the front counter for dramatic effect. He gives me a dirty look through droopy eyelids as I reach out to scan his candy. Definitely stoned.
"I'm sorry, sir, I didn't realize you were ready to check out. Will that be all for you, today?"
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A lot of setting the scene and introducing Phoebe to kick us off. I promise chapters will become more interesting soon, we just had to get some of the technical stuff out of the way, first. And, of course, Harry will be joining us very shortly.
Big big love to Amber and Abby for pushing me to share my baby. I've been writing forever and this specific story has existed in my head for a good handful of months now, but I don't think I ever would've shared it without the push.
I can't wait to keep sharing this little universe, and I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride. Feel free to find me on twitter (_screamingcolor), if you feel so inclined :)
Stay Gold ♡
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.