Last Dance, Second Chance

Chapter One

Every muscle in Jessica’s 31-year-old body ached, as they did every morning. She groaned as she forced herself out of bed — she might be a proud member of the 5a.m. club, but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy the actual execution of it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get fully used to waking up when it was still dark outside.

Her apartment didn’t seem to have cooled down at all during the night, despite her keeping the windows wide open. The constant noise from the street below was slightly preferable to the stifling heat with them closed. New York in an August heatwave was no joke, especially when you’d grown up with British summers. Maybe one day she’d live somewhere with air con.

A cool shower helped to revive her somewhat, and she dressed in her leotard, adding a pair of shorts and a loose vest top. There was no point in make-up — she’d soon be sweating so much it would just slide off her face. She was lucky that her dark eyelashes and red lips meant she never needed to wear much make-up anyway. She pulled her long jet-black hair into a well-practised chignon and downed a protein shake while packing her bag with her water bottle and a variety of snacks — she didn’t usually have much time to eat during the day, so relied heavily on foods that could be consumed quickly and with minimal mess while giving her maximum nutrition.

She was walking down the three flights of stairs from her tiny attic apartment before six, and dawn was breaking.

* * *

The studios of the Greenwich Ballet Company were only a ten-minute walk from Jessica’s home, a commute she counted as an extra warm-up ahead of her day of dance practice. The smell of steaming rubbish made Jessica wrinkle her nose, but at least the streets were quieter than they would be later, which she liked. Jessica hummed along to Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty score. She’d rehearsed parts of it so much, it had been playing on a loop in her head for weeks.

The company was still on the annual lay-off period, which meant Jessica had been teaching at a dance summer school, and waiting tables before that, since the company had broken up at the end of May. She had another fortnight before the company would be back full-time, but Jessica and a number of the company’s other dancers had returned to training early. They’d had auditions for their next ballet and were now using these couple of weeks to get properly back into shape.

The doors to the ballet company opened at 6a.m., but the building was quiet, with no classes or rehearsals going on at the moment. Some summer schools would still be running for the rest of the week but didn’t start until much later in the day.

Jessica smiled as she stepped inside and the unique smell of dance shoes, wood polish and coffee hit her nostrils. She adored this old building and had ever since she first stepped into its shabby hallways as a nervous eighteen-year-old, thousands of miles away from her family home in England and desperate to prove herself among the polished-looking American girls with their designer leotards and bored-sounding accents. Thirteen years on, and Jessica had more than earned her place as a soloist for the company. A position which had allowed her to travel the world performing in some of the most amazing venues, in Paris, Sydney and London to name just a few. And it was every bit as wonderful as she’d imagined it would be.

She was living the life she’d dreamt about as a teenager in her little bedroom in her parents’ semi-detached home in Kent, exhausted and juggling homework with intensive ballet competition and practice. Back then, she’d been terrified she’d grow taller, fill out and not remain five foot four and slim with almost perfect measurements to become a professional ballerina.

Jessica stole a glance at the building’s noticeboard as she passed — nothing had been posted on the outcome of their auditions yet. It was hardly surprising because the office wouldn’t be open for hours — but announcements were due later that day.

Jessica found empty practice space with ease. There were some dancers in the company who liked to work in a room with others, but Jessica relished the quiet of being by herself in a studio first thing in the morning. She liked to take her time warming her muscles up and to spend as long as she needed working on anything she was struggling with, without having to worry about someone else wanting to move on or getting fed up with her playing the same few bars of music through her little speakers again and again.

Jessica set up her speakers in the corner and selected the music on her phone.

She took off her shorts and top and began working her way through the routines she’d done almost every day of her life since her first ballet class aged five, following every movement her body made in the mirror on the opposite side of the room. First position was so natural to her that it was her standard resting pose — even when waiting in line at the supermarket. She worked her way diligently through the exercises, only stopping to take a sip of water and wipe herself down with a towel — the building was too old for built-in air con, and its huge windows meant it heated up quickly. The large fans placed in each of the studios merely moved the hot air around.

But today Jessica couldn’t lose herself in the familiar routines as she usually did. Her gaze repeatedly flitted to the large clock on the wall. It seemed to be moving far slower than usual. She went over to her phone — the clock was right and time was indeed dragging.

Once she’d completed her hour’s practice she finished her water, packed up her stuff and went down the corridor and into the gym. She flinched at the change from the quiet and solitude of the studio to the busyness and noise of the people and machines. Dance music blasted out of speakers on the wall and she waved hello to the other dancers already there, working hard. Everyone was keen to show the casting decision-makers just how much effort they put in.

“Hey, Jess,” called a brunette running on the treadmill.

“Hiya, Bethany.” Jessica walked over to her friend. “Is there any news?” she asked quietly.

“Not that I’ve heard. The list might not be up until this evening I guess,” Bethany whispered back in her Boston accent.

Jessica exhaled. “I’m going to be a mess by then!”

“Let’s do our workout and have a quick shower, and then we can go and grab a coffee. I could do with the caffeine hit — and it’ll take up another half hour,” Bethany suggested.

“That sounds like a good idea.”

The friends focused on their gym session, their natural competitiveness leading them to push themselves harder than when they exercised alone — a trait that would ensure they had even sorer muscles than usual the next morning.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Jessica and Bethany returned through the large double doors of the dance company to find a crowd gathered around the noticeboard. They looked at each other, nerves written clearly on both their faces.

“Let’s play it cool,” Jessica said, trying to ignore the butterflies performing the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” in her stomach. Bethany nodded. They held back, seemingly checking their phones until the squealing had died down and most of the dancers had moved on.

Without speaking, Jessica and Bethany walked over to the board. “Congratulations!” called out a young dancer Jessica knew only by sight.

“Thanks,” Jessica said without thinking, focusing on the piece of paper pinned to the centre of the board with ‘ Sleeping Beauty Cast Sheet ’ typed in large, bold letters at the top. Superstition meant Jessica always began scanning the cast list from the bottom — the smallest roles — up. As her eye travelled further and further up the list without seeing her name, the excitement within her progressively built. Her gaze came to rest on the line right below the list’s title: ‘ Princess Aurora — Jessica Stone ’. A delighted smile broke out across her face.

“I knew you’d get it!” cried Bethany, giving her a hug. “And look, I’m your understudy!”

Bethany was the only real friend Jessica had ever made in the ballet world, and the secret to their friendship seemed to be that they were both at different stages of their careers. At only twenty-three, Bethany didn’t have the years of experience Jessica did and had only been a soloist for a year. The pair weren’t usually in direct competition with each other. Jessica was able to help and advise her friend, while being kept on her toes by seeing how supple her younger friend’s body was, even if her dancing wasn’t as precise as Jessica’s.

Jessica tried not to think about how Bethany’s potential huge chance rested solely on Jessica injuring herself and being unable to dance. After all, it was Jessica who’d been given the opportunity to finally move up to principal ballerina. And the part of Aurora was her absolute favourite in the whole of ballet. It was the role she’d longed to play more than any other since her mother had taken her to see a production of The Sleeping Beauty when she was five and Jessica’s talent for dancing had made itself apparent.

“I’m going to call my mum. She’ll be waiting by the phone — she gets so nervous for me,” Bethany said, skipping off.

A pang went through Jessica at the thought of how lovely it would be to have someone waiting by the phone to find out in what role she’d been cast. She hadn’t told her own family about the audition — hadn’t spoken to them for quite a while, actually, as she’d been busy working and the time difference made calls tricky to schedule. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t be interested to hear her news — she knew they would, and they’d be pleased for her— but they never seemed to understand how important ballet was to her. And they certainly wouldn’t understand how much landing this particular role meant. To them, dancing was just her job, but to her it was everything.

Jessica was too excited and relieved to return to any sort of practice. Of course, it hadn’t come as a complete surprise to her that she’d been given the role. She knew how good she was. She never would have continued with ballet, pushed herself so hard to be the best she could, if she hadn’t known she was capable of being at the very top of her profession. She couldn’t have been happy languishing in the corps. But Jessica had reached the point in her career when she was all too aware that she wouldn’t be at the top of her game for that much longer, and she only had a relatively short amount of time to be able to play the principal roles she’d prepared her whole career for. Aurora was a big one to tick off her ballet bucket list.

“I see you’re going to be my princess,” said a male voice from behind her.

Jessica turned round to face Gabriel, a handsome Portuguese dancer who was set to play her Prince Charming.

“Gabriel, congratulations,” she said, kissing him lightly on both his cheeks.

“And to you.” He smiled. “Not that anyone doubted your casting. Everyone knew that role would be yours. It’s past time for you to be promoted to principal.”

Jessica smiled in what she hoped was a suitably modest manner.

“So, I thought you might like to go out with me tonight to celebrate. We could get some dinner, maybe go to a club...” He ran his hands through his thick, dark hair.

“Thanks for the offer, Gabriel, but I think I’ll pass.”

“No problem, beautiful. I guess I’ll see you at rehearsals in a couple of weeks if not before.” He flashed her a confident grin.

“Yeah, see you then.”

She watched Gabriel head off down the corridor, calling out to another dancer ahead of him, and sighed. She’d heard that she’d get a lot more interest from the male dancers once she got her first principal role. She was glad he’d taken her rebuttal so well. Gabriel was a nice guy, and they needed to keep things friendly between them if they were to spend hours every day dancing together over the next few months. It was because of this that Jessica had a policy of never dating other dancers, no matter how sexy their accents might be. This policy, combined with a further rule of never dating non-dancers because they just didn’t understand how important her career was to her and how much of her life it took up, meant she didn’t date at all. A state she was usually completely happy with, even if it did sometimes leave her feeling lonely on a Saturday night.

* * *

Jessica walked back to her flat. She’d spend a couple of hours there quietly by herself. Tidy up a bit, and allow her heart rate to normalise before returning for more practice later. She’d appear to be that unfazed, polished ballerina she prided herself upon showing to the world.

She loved her little home. It was only a studio but it was cosy and, more importantly, in a rather run-down brownstone, which made her feel like Carrie Bradshaw every time she walked up the stone steps to its front door. Despite this, she didn’t spend all that much time in it. She was either at classes, rehearsals or performing, or out in the evening at one of the many events the company held to raise funds. She rarely had visitors and, as a result, her flat was usually a bit of a mess.

Jessica got some multi-purpose cleaner and a cloth from under the sink, and set to work on her kitchen. This was probably the cleanest room in the place as Jessica rarely cooked, being much more likely to pick up something ready-made from the local health food shop on her way home in the evenings. She put some music on, the ‘Black Swan’ pas de deux from Swan Lake, and moved around to the melody as she worked, muscle memory meaning she remembered the steps perfectly and had to make herself continue cleaning rather than surrender to the urge for her whole body to join in completely with the dance.

She recalled how pleased Bethany had been to be named her understudy. It wouldn’t be many years before her friend would be the one getting the principal roles over herself, and Jessica wondered whether their friendship would survive that. She hoped it would. It was good to have an ally in the dance world and she wouldn’t want to go back to being without one. The career she’d chosen could be surprisingly lonely.

Jessica’s phone beeped. She picked it up to see a WhatsApp message from her mum, Sarah, with a picture attached of Jessica’s youngest niece, Sophie, at a birthday party. She stood in front of a huge cake with a number four candle on top. Bum, Jessica thought. She’d forgotten another birthday. She wished she was the type of person who put reminders in her phone for this sort of thing, but the only reminders she had were for physiotherapy appointments and to record her protein consumption.

She quickly logged in to Amazon and sent a gift certificate for her niece to her brother’s email. An e-card would have to do as well.

She looked at the photo again and smiled at how happy Sophie looked. She was getting so big. How long had it been since she’d seen her? Christmas? No, she’d been in The Nutcracker over Christmas. It must have been the summer before.

All of a sudden, she had an urge to see her family. Her mum and dad both knew that it had been her dream to dance Aurora since she was tiny. The Sleeping Beauty was her favourite ballet, and she had performed in it before, as the Lilac Fairy and as a nymph when she was new to New York and in the corps. She wanted to be able to share her news with her family properly, not just over the phone. She had the next couple of weeks before rehearsals would start... Maybe she’d also be able to convince her mum and dad to at least visit her in New York and see her perform.

She quickly checked her bank balance on her banking app. Thanks to how hard she’d been working for the past few months, and the very good tips she received from waitressing, she could just about cover a flight. She could be at her parents’ house by tomorrow afternoon and tell them her news. And she could take her niece out for a post-birthday treat. Before she could think better of the amount of money she was spending, Jessica bought herself a return ticket to London Heathrow, departing that night.