Page 6 of Grace on the Rocks

Chapter 3

To Emma, dancing was her life.

Some people said that in a metaphorical sort of sense. Maybe they took dance classes at their gym or as a performing art class requirement. Maybe they went to the club on the weekend. Maybe they danced when they got ready for school in the morning or in their car on the way to work. Maybe they danced in an aisle of the supermarket or at frat parties. Some people danced to forget or to shake off all the stress they had accumulated over any given period of time.

Emma danced to live. She danced because she had to. She couldn’t control it. Her heart beat purely for the moment when her body was moving in a fluid motion, expressing feelings she couldn’t put into words. Her entire body was tense, focused. She was in complete control in that moment. And nothing phased her. It was also a place for her to escape, whether that was from life or love or school or friends. She lost herself in the music, in the motion of her body, and in that moment, her thoughts were nonexistent. In fact, Emma wouldn’t be able to consciously think when she was lost in the music. Her thoughts were fluid, like her movements, and everything else faded away.

When Emma said that dancing was her life, she meant it. She couldn’t be sure that it would be like this forever. If and when she got married and had children, things would change. But for right now, she focused her effort and energy into this activity she had been doing since she was young, since her mother left. Maybe psychologically, she wanted to hold onto something stable after being abandoned. Probably she also wanted to escape the feelings of being abandoned by one of the few people who were supposed to love her, to stay with her no matter what. It gave her something to direct her hurt and sorrow and anger into that was constructive and healthy.

She danced through elementary school and middle school, even missing her promotion dance in order to star in a recital. She took dance in high school and made the varsity team her freshman year. Junior year she was captain over forty students, including eight seniors. Her senior year, she began choreographing her team. She got a scholarship studying dance at multiple schools but she chose University of California, Irvine only because she wanted to stay close to home, close to her father.

Her father, Jeremy Winsor, was the only constant in her life outside of dancing, and the only person she looked up to. He managed to make every single one of her recitals, even if it meant he would have to miss a Gulls game. He completely supported her, offering to pay for whatever class she wanted to take, to pay for various uniforms and shoes. He volunteered to drive her and other classmates to different shows if buses weren’t available. And she reciprocated the favor by attending as many hockey games as she could.

Looking back on that period of her life, Emma wished she would have showed more enthusiasm for her father’s favorite sport, especially since he managed to learn different technical terms for dancing and always asked about it. But when you’re ten, twelve, watching grown men ice skate, trying to score and getting violent, wasn’t exactly something that interested her. She would bring books or go over dance moves in her head. Never any sort of MP3 player, though. She didn’t want to be rude. And one of the best things about her father was that he never scolded her or was embarrassed by the fact that his daughter didn’t appreciate something he valued as much as she valued dance.

Now, though. Now she was coming around. Better late than never.

As she had been doing the entire summer, Emma was up at five o’clock in the morning, dancing in the studio her father had created for her in the west wing of their house. It was sound proof, so she could turn the music up as loud as she wanted to and it wouldn’t wake up Jeremy, who liked to sleep until eight in the morning. Today was her first day of her last year at UCI, and she was nearly finished with the piece she had been asked to do for the quarter’s end recital in terms of choreography. Of course she had to clean it and then teach it to other people in her group – a group she wouldn’t know the members of until two weeks into the quarter – and then practice it over and over again on top of beginning the choreography for the winter quarter’s recital.

It sounded busy, but Emma liked that. She liked that her thoughts were always focused. She couldn’t imagine having a boyfriend at a time like this, when all she had been living for would finally get her a degree and then, afterwards, a career that she dreamed of. Especially considering she barely had time to make time for her friends, what with dance and family coming second and first respectively.

When Emma finished the last couple of loose ends she needed to tie up, she turned down the music to a low murmur and sat down on the wood floor. When she cooled down, stretched, she allowed her mind to reacquire thoughts, but instead of focusing on just one, she let them ramble. Her feet were pushed together, bending her knees so that her legs looked like butterfly wings, and as she leaned over her feet with ease, those thoughts that had been ignored for the past hour began to flow in. Like how she was afraid of the uncertainty that graduation brought. How she wished her father would start dating because she really did want him to find someone that would make him happy. Like how she knew she wouldn’t be taken seriously with this particular choice of song for the recital, but the beat was unheard of. Like how she was so glad she wasn’t dating that tool Dylan Tootoo. Like how Kyle played an amazing game last night and how she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed him before and he was pretty cute.

“Okay, Em,” she said to herself, rolling her body back upright. “Time to shower.” She stood up and quickly finished stretching, this time making it a point to block any and all thoughts about Number Sixteen.

Once she washed up and dried off, Emma changed into her usual school outfit. It was by no means fashionable, nor did it reflect her family’s wealth but it was comfortable and practical so if she needed to run to the floor at UCI’s dance studio – in case she came up with something else, needed to tweak something, or needed to teach somebody else – she could without worrying about changing or doing the routine in something uncomfortable or revealing. Sweatpants from Victoria’s Secret’s Pink line, varying the colors and style every day, and a t-shirt from the same company. Her shoes were either ballet flats or flip flops and her hair was either in a loose ponytail or a simple bun. Her face was void of makeup, save of Chapstick and mascara.

When she headed downstairs for breakfast, she found her father already dressed for work, sitting at the dining table reading the paper. He looked up when he noticed her come in and offered her a warm smile.

“Ready for your first day?” he asked her, folding the paper down so he could give her his complete attention.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said as she headed over to the cabinet, picking out her favorite cereal - one of the only foods she could probably live off of if she had to – and pouring herself a sizable bowl. “I only have dance classes today. It’s tomorrow I have to be worried about.”

“What’s tomorrow?” He took a sip of coffee.

“Ummm.” She waited until she swallowed her bite of cereal before answering, “History and psychology and economics. Yeesh.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” he said, hiding a smirk at her flair for the dramatic. “You’re a smart girl.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Emma took another bite of cereal, going over the steps she had added earlier this morning to the choreography in her head.

“What a shame.”

Emma glanced up at her father who had now unfolded the paper once again, his brown eyes heavily involved in the words that were presented to him.

“What’s up?” she asked, her mouth full.

Jeremy shook his head. “Yesterday was a pretty bad game, you know?” he asked. “What, with all the protesting, the booing, the whole ‘should they play Thorpe, should they not,’ Ken’s murder. People are just ripping into Seraphina Hanson. If you read this article, the same journalist criticizes her for both playing Thorpe and then pulling him during the second period and then putting him back in during the third. This poor girl can’t catch a break.”

“But that’s not fair,” Emma said. “What should she have done?”

Her father shrugged. “Everyone has their own opinion about what she should have done and what she should do,” he said. “Honestly, she sort of screwed herself over by flip flopping – playing him and then not playing him – but I have to admire her for sticking Thorpe back in the net despite the animosity the crowd gave her. My theory is that action right there shows that she doesn’t think Thorpe killed her grandfather.”

“Why?” Emma furrowed her brow, looking up at her father. She wasn’t quite sure where she stood when it came to whether she believed Thorpe actually killed Ken, but she didn’t think that Seraphina’s choice to play him meant that she believed he was completely innocent. How could she possibly know that? “Maybe she’s just playing him because he’s the best. She’s putting the team before her personal issues.”

“I don’t think so,” her father replied with a knowing smile. “Ken was close to both of his granddaughters. He lived for them and even though I didn’t interact with them personally, anybody could see that they felt the exact same way about him. Besides each other, the girls didn’t have anybody else besides Ken. Their uncles are notorious for being bums, though their personal issues have never come to light. I don’t care how good Thorpe is in goal; if Seraphina truly believed there was a possibility Thorpe killed her grandfather, she wouldn’t play him. Not someone who took the only real family she had left, aside from her sister, of course. But she did.”

“Why did she pull him out then?” Emma asked as her father continued to flip through the paper. “If Seraphina didn’t believe Thorpe did it and he’s the best, why did she pull him?”

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