Re: Studio: Wren & Ryan
The bright-kindled smile dimmed momentarily. Like someone was turning down the lights, set on nothing showing that wasn't meant to be seen, che? Ry, she still smiled but it was uncertain. Showed a little, in the eyes, around the mouth. She recognized the hips, right, and the hair. The face too, but Ry, she read bodies more than she read faces. Faces, they were a brief glance along the street but you could read a hip injury in the way someone paced, that they were high-pressure, high-stress, riding high on life or something, or real low just from how they moved. She'd read her friend in the sway of the woman. Wren had made her think of old books and pink silk ribbons on ballet shoes. Traditional, che? Even if she wasn't. She looked like Clara outta the Nutcracker and Ry wasn't gonna ever be Nutcracker-perfect. She didn't envy it or nothing she just admired.
But she'd read it wrong or something. She watched the woman - older, right? Older than Wren and Ry worked her lower lip between her teeth, the skin blooming red under pressure as she watched the stretch of leg, the curve of heel and ball of the foot. Wrong.
"I'm Ryan," she said, with some of the verve still in her voice, cheerful tamped down at the corners with doubt. She was la caradura, right. Her tia had told her so over and over but it hadn't stuck.
"Perdón, I'm sorry. You look like someone I know." And Ryan tilted her head toward the music and the smile glowed on her face because that wasn't nothing like the tinkle of piano strings that meant class starting most days, che. It was more her than company class let her be, or something.
"I haven't come in a while." It didn't come out like it was a confidence or nothing, just easy. Wasn't like she'd mistaken the woman in pink for some perra, wasn't accusing her of stealing her man or something.