Page 20 of Just One Bite

My head says to manage my expectations, but my heart is pumping in my ears at the thought of the opportunity.

I’d almost given up on that dream at ten years old when my mother died.

My father pulled me out of ballet for four years, till at fourteen I begged him to reconsider.

Even though I’d continued to train on my own during those years, I feared they held me back, and I’d given up on my father ever letting me go to Doxlothia and auditioning for the company.

The only way I’d ever be able to get in was as a legacy, and for that, I needed his blessing.

That’s what made it all the more shocking when he did come around.

The nagging why of it all lingers, but I wring it all out while warming up. His reasoning stopped mattering years ago. I can’t depend on that for any comfort or knowledge. The only thing I can depend on is my ability to execute what I’ve practiced my whole life for and what I know I can do.

After forty-five minutes, it’s time for auditions to start, and my time slot isn’t one of the firsts.

A woman in a long dress walks up with her arms crossed over her slender frame.

Her sleeves fluff and fall as she muses.

“Welcome all! My name is Charlotte Vix. If you have made it to this stage, you were selected for an audition spot. I don’t think I need to tell you what an accomplishment that is. ”

I recognize her along with the others who file into the room. The program and artistic directors are head of the IBCE. My stomach falls, and I have to remind myself to take a breath.

I’d had to submit photos and a video to be considered for the dance program in general. Those who aren’t selected for company are put in the student-run classes and are still able to learn. They can graduate from Doxlothia and get a job at another company, but I’m not interested in that option.

Unlike my other auditions and competitions, there isn’t a number attached to me.

“Olivia.” Mrs. Vix looks me up and down. “Your photos were beautiful. You looked like a spitting image of your mother.”

My throat dries, and I have to push out the words in a peppy tone that doesn’t sound like me. “You remember my mother?”

“I do. I remember talent.” The wrinkles by her eyes crease into her blue eye shadow with her smile. “Looking forward to your audition.”

As I await my time slot, I don’t focus on the other dancers.

My mind disappears to a time when my mother roamed these halls and touched these floors.

The sound of pointe shoes on the hard floor is the sound of her shoes.

The music playing and the variation is hers.

When I dance, it’s almost like she’s there.

In a way, my path seems like a continuation of her dream of being principal in the IBCE before she gave it all up for my father.

He never protected her dreams. She dropped out as a soloist, and though she became principal in another company, she’d told me she wished she’d stayed a few more years before deciding to settle down. Her dream was just out of reach.

When it’s time for me to take the floor, I’m so in the zone the entire thing is a blur. I disappear into the variation and the music. I don’t feel my feet hit the floor or the burn in my calves during my fouettés.

I don’t think about what happens after.

I don’t think about anything but ballet.

Fluid arms and light feet. Lines. Perfection .

Ballet is the definition of perfection. There’s always something to improve.

I can be better if I practice and push a little harder.

That’s why I love it no matter the outcome; I will still be doing the same thing the next day and the next.

Dancing. Perfecting. Pruning. Shaping myself into someone more graceful, more poised.

Something better.

Someone better.

I’m not fully lucid when I finish my variation and thank them, then receive my next-step instructions and exit the building. The sound of students passing and the echoing of laughter in the trees doesn’t hit my ears again till my cell phone buzzes.

My dad finds the worst times to call me. I’ve already ignored it twice. Once on the first night, and the other during the Noxx House party.

I sigh and bring the phone to my ear. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hey, honey, sorry to bother you again. I hadn’t heard from you. Your sisters told me you were auditioning today. I wanted to see how you were adjusting.”

“I just got finished. It was good.”

There’s a shuffling on the other end. “You … uh … felt good, then? Do you think you’ll get in?”

Annoyance creeps into my chest. “I don’t know. I hope so.”

He already knows how much I want it. Somehow having to speak those words out loud makes my chest tight. It feels like work.

“How are you settling in? Any new people?”

Parker is the only person who comes to mind, but I’m unwilling to take questions about him, so I say, “Yeah … I got into Noxx House.”

He pauses for a second, then clears his throat. “That’s great, kid.”

It’s not that my father is a terrible person. It’s that he’s decided to start being a good father out of the blue. And that’s great for him, for whatever hurdles he had to climb to get there. I’m happy for him, really.

But my mom died more than ten years ago, and all those years, he’d pulled away from us and ripped us away from everyone else.

Grief took over his life, and he gave up the career he loved.

He ran away from work and his children and retreated into vacant solitude.

There physically but not mentally. Absent for dinners and performances and only offering his input to say no it’s too dangerous or that we couldn’t go somewhere.

For years, I was alone. I had no support other than my sisters, and they needed me while I needed him, but he was always locked in his room.

That doesn’t just go away. Not even when he sat us down to tell us he was sorry and he’d put in our applications for Doxlothia. It was his bridge, but I’d already had the gasoline in one hand and the lighter flickering in the other.

“I’ve got to go, but … thanks for calling, Dad. It’s good to hear your voice.”

No one has disappointed me more than my father, yet inflicting pain on him only leaves me with a guilty pit in my stomach. I do for him what he couldn’t find the courage to do for me. Give empathy. And I don’t know when or if I can ever forgive him for that.