Who: Wren H & Ryan R What: Ballet studios! When: Recently. In the last week or so.
Ry didn’t remember nothing of five years and pain. Nah, she didn’t remember none of that, not the years spent being lifted on stage or the pregnancy test in a motel bathroom. Least of all, she didn’t remember nothing about Vegas and what came after, right. She was young, just-in-the-company young, and she wore it as brashly as she wore painted-tight denim over her back-side, and a satin jacket in hot red, diamonted with somebody else’s name but it was five bucks somewhere cheap and red, red was her color.
New York didn’t look exactly the same as home but Ry pinned that down on the city being the city. Shit changed, se movía. City didn’t stay the same one second to the next and Ry breathed deep, dry-cleaner fluid and hot-dog stands and the curl of diesel fumes and grinned. She turned her head the first wolf-whistle, a clatter of gold jangling at her ears and she blew the man a kiss, exaggerated pucker and a swing of her hips as she hitched the bag up her shoulder.
Found it in the closet, right. Jammed under a buncha blankets, but she knew it was there. Pointe-shoes, tangled up in pink tights and a black leo, because el cabrón who taught class, el que había mierda para los cerebros, he didn’t like no color other than black. Or maybe white, because Ry stuck out real far in that class, about as brown as could be.
Not company class now, nah. Company Ry could stick, she was going back to her old studio, the one where people danced for the love of it, ‘stead of a pay-check. Wild curls, and a grin for every man who looked at her, Ry headed for the streets she remembered that had stuck around for her.