Falling at the Barre (Love in Fairwick Falls #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

OLIVIA

Welcome to Fairwick Falls.

Olivia Maroo nearly cried. Relief wasn’t a strong enough word for what she felt as her ancient Honda puttered past the welcome sign for her hometown.

It was eight o’clock in the morning, and she’d driven all night to Fairwick Falls, Pennsylvania—her refuge for the next four months.

Hay bales and pumpkins sat in front of local businesses as she drove through town. It had been decades since she’d been home during fall, her favorite season. Every fall, like clockwork, she’d been trapped in endless rehearsals of The Nutcracker as a dancing rat or background snowflake.

She’d spent the last fifteen years as a professional ballet dancer around the country in small ballet companies.

She’d been a ballet corps member, a thankless job in the background ensemble.

They danced endless hours in nearly every number and their primary job was to not be noticed while not missing any steps.

Until her contract was quietly not renewed last spring after eight years with the Salt Lake City Ballet.

She sniffed. But I can still fouetté with the best of them.

Even though months had passed, she still found herself checking her email to see if they’d realized their mistake.

The shame roiling in her stomach made her nauseous.

She’d been an outstanding dancer as a kid, but as she became a professional, she went from star to perfectly adequate. She’d dreamed of being a soloist or even ballerina, dancing a principal role like the Sugar Plum Fairy or Odette in Swan Lake.

Now, I just dream of employment.

A hard pill to swallow even now.

Audition season started in January, which meant she needed a rent-free place to live for four months.

She decided to admire the golden, turning fall leaves in the morning sunshine rather than let the tears win again.

She slowed to a stop at the new (and only) stoplight in her tiny hometown and rested her head on the steering wheel.

The fifteen-hour overnight drive had made her loopy.

The hilariously tiny salary of a ballet corps member meant she’d counted every single dollar for the past fifteen years.

There hadn’t been enough dollars for a non-murdery hotel last night, so she’d hit the road after her last day of her off-season teaching job at a ballet intensive in Sarasota.

She’d openly sobbed through the state of Georgia. A concerned fellow traveler had mouthed Are you okay? as they drove down I-95. One couldn’t exactly yell back, I’ve wasted the potential everyone thought I had, and now it’s too late. I’m too old, and I have no other options.

So instead, she’d given them a tearful thumbs-up as she scream-sang to “Part of Your World.”

She dragged a heavy eyelid open to peek at the stoplight. In her feeling-sorry-for-herself monologue, she’d let the light go green.

Shit.

Just as she sat up, the light turned back to red.

“Fuck. My. Life.” She hit her forehead against the steering wheel of Baby, her ancient trusty car, with each word.

One stoplight later, she turned into the cute, historic neighborhood of her childhood.

Her breath hitched at the canopy of trees arching over the cobblestone street. Golden morning light broke through the dewy leaves tinged already with orange and yellow.

Small pumpkins lined the neighboring cottage steps. It might even be fun to be here during fall, she thought as she parked. The creak of her car door matched the one in her bones as she got out.

The front door flew open. Her tiny, seventy year old mother in a sparkly neon green robe and fuzzy, hot pink slippers shuffled quickly down the front steps.

“You’re here, I was so worried,” her mom called, practically dancing over to her for a hug. Martha Maroo-Canon was about a hundred pounds soaking wet, usually wearing neon or rhinestones, and Olivia’s favorite person on the planet.

A heavenly cinnamon scent wafted under her nose as her mom tugged her inside. It smelled like home—that cinnamon-sweet apple smell she remembered from her childhood.

The welcome sight of her stepdad at the stove greeted her. “Hey, kid. How’s my girl?” Pop said in his gravelly, low voice that always made her feel at home. He wiped his hands on a towel and gave her a rib-crushing hug that she returned right back.

Pop Canon had been a cornerstone of her childhood, despite only being her stepdad for about a year.

Every day after school, she, her brother Wells, and her mom would sit at the corner booth in Pop’s diner working on homework, eating fries and the occasional apple slice he’d make them eat.

The entire town had called him Pop, but Olivia felt a secret joy at knowing Pop was her family now.

He’d apparently been silently in love with her mother for thirty years and had finally done something about it. Olivia had been thrilled—not just because it kept her in apple-pie pancakes when she was home, but because her mother hadn’t beamed like this ever.

“I still can’t believe you wouldn’t let me pay for a hotel room,” her mother said, pouring a giant cup of coffee in Olivia’s favorite mug and handing it to her.

“Eh.” Olivia slung down her bags. “You know I don’t like staying alone in a strange place. I’m very tossable,” she grumbled.

“I still can’t believe that those bastards didn’t renew your contract.”

“Mom”—Olivia rolled her eyes—“it’s fine. It was time for me to go anyway. I was tired of Salt Lake City. Do you know how hard it is to find a good cocktail there?”

“Food’s ready,” Pop said, plating the syrupy, caramel-apple goodness.

Olivia made a conscious effort not to drool as she took the plate.

Normally she wouldn’t indulge in something so carb-heavy.

Being a professional dancer meant her body was her livelihood.

The macros of what she ate, how she moved, how she stretched, how she hydrated, everything was a precise science to make sure she was at her best at all times.

But now, fuck it—she was eating the whole plate. She had four months before her auditions, and with how hard she was going to work, one giant stack of cinnamon-dusted pancakes dripping with syrup and caramel would be easily burned off.

“I am starving. I need coffee, carbs, and then fifteen hours of sleep,” she said through a mouth of pancakes.

“How about we make that five?” her mom said with a twinkle in her eye.

“Five… cups of coffee?” Olivia said, sipping the weak, watered-down coffee her mother always made.

Her mother’s arched eyebrow meant business. “Georgia wants to see you.”

Olivia smiled. Georgia Papadopoulos, Olivia’s first dance teacher and owner of Fairwick Falls dance studio The Barre, was like an aunt to her.

The kind of aunt that yelled at you to sit up straight and had no problem punishing you while your parents weren’t there.

Still, she was full of mischief, and Olivia owed everything to her. She’d been the first to make Olivia’s parents take her talent seriously.

She caught up on the town gossip with her mom and Pop.

A new bookstore had opened since she’d last been here, including an allergen friendly pop-up bakery.

The Firefly Festival had gone off without a hitch thanks to her mother’s fearless leadership (so said her mother), and Pop talked about how odd it was to be retired.

He’d sold his family’s diner and given the keys over to a new company, wanting to maximize his time with her mother now that they were married.

Her belly finally full of pancakes, Olivia dragged heavy legs and heavier eyelids upstairs to her childhood bedroom.

She pushed open the door and was greeted by the ghost of her potential.

Every award, every ribbon, every picture from her childhood dance recitals still hung on the wall.

With one new addition that took up most of the room.

“Um, Mom?” she called down the stairs. “What is my barre doing in here?”

Her six-foot practice barre loomed large in the small room.

Her mother leaned on the banister. “We had to make room for Herbert’s things in the basement. I can have him move it to the dining room for you.”

“No, don’t worry about it.” Olivia waved the idea away. The last thing she wanted was her eighty-year-old stepfather manhandling equipment down a flight of stairs.

But where on earth am I going to practice?

She turned around in her old room, taking it in.

It was a shrine to her old potential, one she’d never fully reached. She’d plateaued once she’d hit twenty-one and felt like she’d just been… hanging on in the background ensemble ever since.

Her mom had added framed news clippings that had been featured in local papers from her past. “Eighteen Year Old Ballet Phenom Goes Big Time,” said the Elliotsville Gazette.

It hung next to the mirror, where Olivia looked at her own reflection.

She was thirty-three, young by modern standards, old by ballet standards.

Ancient according to this mirror, she thought, examining the duffel-sized bags under her eyes.

She flopped on her back, stretching out her hips, relieving some of the constant pain.

Could she keep going?

Once she left ballet, that would be it. There was no going back, professionally. Keeping her muscle tone and agility was a full-time job already. If she took a break, no one might want her again.

She laughed to herself, feeling empty. No one probably wants me now anyway.

But lieu of marketable skills for any other job, she’d just buckle down and try harder. Discipline got me this far, it can last me a few more years.

She’d prepare a new audition. Get even sharper, even stronger. When audition season opened in January, she’d be ready. This time she’d finally get what she’d always wanted: a soloist position before the final curtain dropped on her career.

I have one last shot, and I’m going to work my damndest on it.