Re: Studio: Wren & Ryan
Unaware of companies, of hairdo requirements, of expectations, Wren made her way into the cool room. Wood underfoot, a line of excited women, and Wren felt like a spark rekindled. A thing brought to life, and she felt certain she didn't exist when she wasn't being wife or maman. A thing that waited by windows, but here she was not that thing. Whether it was the music, or whether it was the promise of moving limbs and losing herself to a sounds wordless, something felt and not heard, she wasn't sure. But she felt certain, in a way she knew to be inane, that she came to life there, in that room with the barre against mirrors.
Women chattered, and Wren walked toward the barre, hand prepared to draw across it, memory in the anticipation of wood against her palm. When she was young, she'd often thought dance could be her way out. She was good at it, but she wasn't classical. Too much hip, too much thigh, even with lessons eked out on her knees. But she remembered a room similar to this place, and she remembered it as escape, as dream, as a space where she could close her eyes and pretend she was what she was not, and that she was not as she was.
To the side of the studio, the instructor played something a little untraditional, a little soulful and indicative of the tenor of the class. The song was accompanied by instructions that warming up should occur, and Wren's fingers had just reached for the pale wooden barre when she heard the voice calling her name.
Now, recent, not many people knew her name. She didn't work anymore, and she barely talked to people who didn't call her maman or wife. Her name, uttered loudly and across a room, was a thing not belonging to her, and it stilled her step and made Wren turn her head to find the source of the sound.
The girl with the voice, dark skin and long leg lifted against wood in something that proclaimed training, was slightly familiar, a dream not quite remembered upon waking. Wren walked forward again, slow, and she touched the barre to the left of the girl with the graceful extension of shin. "Do we know each other?"