Studio: Wren & Ryan
Wren had started coming to classes more and more, and not just because she was using the studio locker as a place to tuck her cell and wedding ring, a way to get around Luke's GPS. Non, not just for that, but because she liked it, the classes. She'd always liked dancing, and she missed the days when she worked burlesque in that old timey door. Luke hadn't liked that, but Wren, she'd liked it a lot. She liked the music, and she liked how she felt under bright, bright lights. Mostly, she liked to move. It reminded her of being young, of etiquette classes, dance and piano, and anything she could find a way to pay for. Back then, when she believed she could be rich, and she'd always liked nice things too much. And she didn't mind it, giving up dreams of dressing tables and nights in pretty dresses, but she liked remembering.
And dance, this studio, it was New York. Before Gus, before things went bad, before darkness closed in and life became sickness and alleys and five years of anguish. This was early, after Seattle, when Wren thought Luke was safe with Thomas, safe in school, and she'd taken a few classes to keep busy. Before loneliness had become a thing living in marrow, and before hope fled with music and mirrors and long bars of pale wood.
That morning, she wasn't planning on sneaking out. No research to do, and she knew the next step was to actually find that other door, the one with demons and crossroads and deals to be made from little boxes left in offering. Non, that morning, this morning, it was just to dance, and she didn't really care what the class being offered was. It didn't matter, tap, ballet, jazz or swing, and it was all the same to the cinnamon-haired woman that walked into the studio. Sundress and cardigan, bag over her shoulder, and Lia was at the NYPD daycare for hours. Gus was in school, and Wren had nothing that needed her. For hours and hours, and every single day, it was like she didn't exist. Like she stopped, and so it was that she went into the locker room and changed into sweats rolled past ample hips and navel, a snug babydoll tee over a pink sports bra and matching bottoms.
The locker room was loud, and she liked that too. All colors, all languages, and Wren pulled her hair back into a bun and tucked her bag into her locker, ring and cellphone there, safe, as she made her way out and into the dance studio proper.