Page 2 of Last Dance, Second Chance

“Thanks,” Jessica said without thinking, focusing on the piece of paper pinned to the centre of the board with ‘Sleeping Beauty Cast Sheet’ typed in large, bold letters at the top. Superstition meant Jessica always began scanning the cast list from the bottom — the smallest roles — up. As her eye travelled further and further up the list without seeing her name, the excitement within her progressively built. Her gaze came to rest on the line right below the list’s title: ‘Princess Aurora — Jessica Stone’. A delighted smile broke out across her face.

“I knew you’d get it!” cried Bethany, giving her a hug. “And look, I’m your understudy!”

Bethany was the only real friend Jessica had ever made in the ballet world, and the secret to their friendship seemed to be that they were both at different stages of their careers. At only twenty-three, Bethany didn’t have the years of experience Jessica did and had only been a soloist for a year. The pair weren’t usually in direct competition with each other. Jessica was able to help and advise her friend, while being kept on her toes by seeing how supple her younger friend’s body was, even if her dancing wasn’t as precise as Jessica’s.

Jessica tried not to think about how Bethany’s potential huge chance rested solely on Jessica injuring herself and being unable to dance. After all, it was Jessica who’d been given the opportunity to finally move up to principal ballerina. And the part of Aurora was her absolute favourite in the whole of ballet. It was the role she’d longed to play more than any other since her mother had taken her to see a production of The Sleeping Beauty when she was five and Jessica’s talent for dancing had made itself apparent.

“I’m going to call my mum. She’ll be waiting by the phone — she gets so nervous for me,” Bethany said, skipping off.

A pang went through Jessica at the thought of how lovely it would be to have someone waiting by the phone to find out in what role she’d been cast. She hadn’t told her own family about the audition — hadn’t spoken to them for quite a while, actually, as she’d been busy working and the time difference made calls tricky to schedule. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t be interested to hear her news — she knew they would, and they’d be pleased for her— but they never seemed to understand how important ballet was to her. And they certainly wouldn’t understand how much landing this particular role meant. To them, dancing was just her job, but to her it was everything.

Jessica was too excited and relieved to return to any sort of practice. Of course, it hadn’t come as a complete surprise to her that she’d been given the role. She knew how good she was. She never would have continued with ballet, pushed herself so hard to be the best she could, if she hadn’t known she was capable of being at the very top of her profession. She couldn’t have been happy languishing in the corps. But Jessica had reached the point in her career when she was all too aware that she wouldn’t be at the top of her game for that much longer, and she only had a relatively short amount of time to be able to play the principal roles she’d prepared her whole career for. Aurora was a big one to tick off her ballet bucket list.

“I see you’re going to be my princess,” said a male voice from behind her.

Jessica turned round to face Gabriel, a handsome Portuguese dancer who was set to play her Prince Charming.

“Gabriel, congratulations,” she said, kissing him lightly on both his cheeks.

“And to you.” He smiled. “Not that anyone doubted your casting. Everyone knew that role would be yours. It’s past time for you to be promoted to principal.”

Jessica smiled in what she hoped was a suitably modest manner.

“So, I thought you might like to go out with me tonight to celebrate. We could get some dinner, maybe go to a club...” He ran his hands through his thick, dark hair.

“Thanks for the offer, Gabriel, but I think I’ll pass.”

“No problem, beautiful. I guess I’ll see you at rehearsals in a couple of weeks if not before.” He flashed her a confident grin.

“Yeah, see you then.”

She watched Gabriel head off down the corridor, calling out to another dancer ahead of him, and sighed. She’d heard that she’d get a lot more interest from the male dancers once she got her first principal role. She was glad he’d taken her rebuttal so well. Gabriel was a nice guy, and they needed to keep things friendly between them if they were to spend hours every day dancing together over the next few months. It was because of this that Jessica had a policy of never dating other dancers, no matter how sexy their accents might be. This policy, combined with a further rule of never dating non-dancers because they just didn’t understand how important her career was to her and how much of her life it took up, meant she didn’t date at all. A state she was usually completely happy with, even if it did sometimes leave her feeling lonely on a Saturday night.

* * *

Jessica walked back to her flat. She’d spend a couple of hours there quietly by herself. Tidy up a bit, and allow her heart rate to normalise before returning for more practice later. She’d appear to be that unfazed, polished ballerina she prided herself upon showing to the world.

She loved her little home. It was only a studio but it was cosy and, more importantly, in a rather run-down brownstone, which made her feel like Carrie Bradshaw every time she walked up the stone steps to its front door. Despite this, she didn’t spend all that much time in it. She was either at classes, rehearsals or performing, or out in the evening at one of the many events the company held to raise funds. She rarely had visitors and, as a result, her flat was usually a bit of a mess.

Jessica got some multi-purpose cleaner and a cloth from under the sink, and set to work on her kitchen. This was probably the cleanest room in the place as Jessica rarely cooked, being much more likely to pick up something ready-made from the local health food shop on her way home in the evenings. She put some music on, the ‘Black Swan’ pas de deux from Swan Lake, and moved around to the melody as she worked, muscle memory meaning she remembered the steps perfectly and had to make herself continue cleaning rather than surrender to the urge for her whole body to join in completely with the dance.

She recalled how pleased Bethany had been to be named her understudy. It wouldn’t be many years before her friend would be the one getting the principal roles over herself, and Jessica wondered whether their friendship would survive that. She hoped it would. It was good to have an ally in the dance world and she wouldn’t want to go back to being without one. The career she’d chosen could be surprisingly lonely.

Jessica’s phone beeped. She picked it up to see a WhatsApp message from her mum, Sarah, with a picture attached of Jessica’s youngest niece, Sophie, at a birthday party. She stood in front of a huge cake with a number four candle on top. Bum, Jessica thought. She’d forgotten another birthday. She wished she was the type of person who put reminders in her phone for this sort of thing, but the only reminders she had were for physiotherapy appointments and to record her protein consumption.

She quickly logged in to Amazon and sent a gift certificate for her niece to her brother’s email. An e-card would have to do as well.

She looked at the photo again and smiled at how happy Sophie looked. She was getting so big. How long had it been since she’d seen her? Christmas? No, she’d been in The Nutcracker over Christmas. It must have been the summer before.

All of a sudden, she had an urge to see her family. Her mum and dad both knew that it had been her dream to dance Aurora since she was tiny. The Sleeping Beauty was her favourite ballet, and she had performed in it before, as the Lilac Fairy and as a nymph when she was new to New York and in the corps. She wanted to be able to share her news with her family properly, not just over the phone. She had the next couple of weeks before rehearsals would start... Maybe she’d also be able to convince her mum and dad to at least visit her in New York and see her perform.

She quickly checked her bank balance on her banking app. Thanks to how hard she’d been working for the past few months, and the very good tips she received from waitressing, she could just about cover a flight. She could be at her parents’ house by tomorrow afternoon and tell them her news. And she could take her niece out for a post-birthday treat. Before she could think better of the amount of money she was spending, Jessica bought herself a return ticket to London Heathrow, departing that night.

Chapter Two

Jessica sighed with happiness as she stepped out of the airport terminal and into the British summer. It was one o’clock in the afternoon and twenty-two degrees Celsius. The perfect antidote to the New York heat.

She gave herself twenty minutes in the sun with a coffee, and then hopped on the Heathrow Express to Paddington before catching the train to Bowerbridge, the little town where her parents as well as her brother, Andrew, and his family lived.

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