Page 10 of Just Like Home

Charlotte groaned. Even worse. “I didn’t want to start out with enemies. I mean, it’s my first hour in town. And he’s Julianna’s brother.”

“It’s fine,” Betsy said. “Tourists do crazy things around here all the time.”

“Right,” she said.

Betsy crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you going to do while you’re here?”

Charlotte took a sip of her coffee. “I was going to see if Connor needed any help, you know, with the dance studio.” She downplayed her plan because if the idea of buying Julianna’s studio was a crazy one, she wasn’t ready to hear it.

If Connor didn’t want to sell it to her, she had no idea what she’d do. But that was a problem for another day.

After the funeral, she’d gone back to the ballet, and every night, she put on a great show. She performed maybe better than she ever had—but loneliness carved something hollow out of her insides with every curtain call. She spent those moments off stage weighing her options, considering the pros and cons of this life she’d chosen. She made lists. She talked to herself. She was in a position that every dancer in the world envied—it would be ludicrous to give it up.

But she couldn’t shake the idea that there was something more for her.

She’d mentioned it to her mother about a week ago, after that night’s performance, and Marcia—in true Marcia fashion—said, “Only you could achieve this level of success and still want more, Charlotte.” Then she smiled. “I’ve taught you well.”

But her mother had misunderstood. She felt like there was somethingmore, but it had nothing to do with the kinds of goals Marcia would’ve praised. Maybe what Charlotte really wanted was something less.

So, she tendered her resignation, effective immediately, then quietly packed a bag, rented a car, and drove to the only place she could think of that might bring her some peace.

And now, here she was.

“Do you want me to call Connor for you?” Betsy reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out her phone.

“Actually, maybe you could call Lucy Fitzgerald instead?”

After all, it had been Lucy who had given Charlotte the idea to come here in the first place, and the guts to follow it through.

“Sure thing,” Betsy said.

She wasn’t ready to face Connor. Maybe she was afraid he’d tell her the truth—that she was a lousy friend.

And while she’d made it to Julianna’s funeral, she’d effectively hid herself in the back and done a poor job of paying her respects. She was pretty sure he had no idea she’d been there. And she wasn’t sure how to ever explain that his wife’s death had served as a cosmic wake-up call, let alone pitch her idea of buying the dance studio.

Facing Connor would have to wait. She didn’t have the courage yet. He could crush her grand plan in a heartbeat, simply by refusing to sell the studio to her.

For all she knew, he’d already sold it or shut it down. That’s what she was here to find out.

She owed it to Jules.

Betsy had excused herself to the kitchen to call Lucy, and as Charlotte sat there, alone at the counter with nothing but memories and a mug of hot black coffee, that whirlwind of doubt kicked up inside her.

She recognized the signs. A ball of dread wrapped in a coating of fear lodged in her stomach. Sweaty palms. The buzz of anxiety. Yes, she knew them well.

What she didn’t know was how to quell the insecurities that kept her frozen, knee-deep in a pile of indecision and uncertainty.

She hated this about herself—hated that all her choices had been made for her all these years, effectively rendering her own decision-making skills useless. She’d finally found her backbone, and now she sat here in a thick fog of doubt.

Was this crazy? Who did she think she was stepping into this precious town with a grand plan to buy the dance studio and . . . what? Become Julianna’s replacement?

If she was smart, she’d get back in the beat-up Jetta and drive straight back to Chicago, where she could beg for her job back and chalk this whole episode up to delusion brought on by exhaustion.

But no.

It wasn’t exhaustion that had brought her here. It was the innate feeling that something was missing. Julianna’s letters were so full of life, just like she had been. She wrote about things Charlotte knew nothing of—and while Charlotte had always brushed off Julianna’s small town musings, something inside her had shifted now that her best friend was gone.

What if bigger wasn’t best?

---