Page 71 of Just Not That Into Billionaires

It’s been ages since I’ve felt close with a man. It’s just that guys don’t ever seem to measure up, and somewhere along the line, I got too busy for the whole dating thing. Not hard when you’re in a professional ballet company.

Eventually Annie and I are up for grand pirouette combinations. I use my heel to guide my rotation as the ballet mistress counts to eight, over and over again.

Class wraps up and I go down to the pocket park at the end of the block, thankful to spot an empty bench. I grab it in between bites of banana and give Kelsey a quick call and tell her the news that Mac, butler-slash-household manager extraordinaire, has worked his magic and put in a class tonight.

“Oh, I know. He called me too,” she says.

“Oh,” I say. “Well... Wow.”

Kelsey is just laughing. “Not only that, but I told everybody at 341 that you’ve got a butler helping to manage our class now, and we all laughed at how easily you’re sliding into your hated billionaire lifestyle. Mia told me to tell you to pass her the Grey Poupon.”

“Boy, you really don’t want me to send that limo to pick you up now, do you?” I say.

“I don’t even know you right now,” she says.

Of course I do send Alverson to pick Kelsey up, because I might as well enjoy the perks of being Mrs. Benjamin Stearnes while I have them. Up in the penthouse, Kelsey and I help Mac set out waters and a cheese-and-vegetable platter for the guardians. I’m about to say he doesn’t really need to do any of it, but he seems to have worked hard on it. I also don’t say yet again how shocked I am that Benny would be okay with it.

The students and their parents and guardians arrive. Everybody is stunned by the new practice space. “It’s just temporary,” I explain. “I don’t really live here.”

“If you lived here, you probably wouldn’t be teaching dance classes,” one of the mothers says.

“Oh, I’d still do it,” I say, and it’s the truth. I’d teach the girls for free.

We get the girls all herded into the space and Kelsey and I start the gang on their warm-ups, going from fast walking to backwards walking to the dreaded bear walks.

Mac’s been busy. The heavy bag has been hoisted up and he pushed the weights to one side. A row of chairs at the far end creates a natural barrier to the boxes. I’m glad. Making sure the boxes and their contents remain private is important to me. Maybe it’s ridiculous that I have this sense of protectiveness over him and his weirdly private ways, but I do.

The fact that I have to stay in the doorway and not set foot into the room doesn’t stop the class from being awesome. The space is bright and full of light, and the girls feel like they’re on stage a little bit, and they glow with pleasure. The girls just never stop being fun.

What’s more, my being trapped in the doorway doesn’t stop Kelsey and me from doing our usual routine of acting like we’re having fun, power-lounging and inspecting our nails while we put the girls through the rigorous and punishing warm-ups. It’s our special ritual, and the girls love being screamy and complain-y while we act like we’re having fun watching them toil.

There’s one point where I’m just laughing, and the girls are dancing, and I’m looking at the scene from outside of myself, in a way, and I realize that working with this troupe is peak fun, peak creativity, and peak happiness—professionally, anyway.

I’m shocked.

Is it truly possible that I’m the most fulfilled when I’m teaching this class? I get tons of energy from it. I love it. I look forward to it. When did class start being more fun and fulfilling than my work on stage? I try to think back...a year? Two years?

I love performing, and I love company class with my colleagues, but it has felt like a dark cloud in my life because of my knee. All the worry, the pain, the anguish.

I always imagined myself hanging on as a performing dancer for as long as possible, but do I need to reassess that? It’s a shock even to ask myself the question.

“So,” Kelsey says, breaking me out of my reverie. “You’re settling into Chez Billionaire like a boss!”

“Stop!” I say. “Quite the opposite.”

“Gonna need more than that,” Kelsey says. “I need an update. And by update, I mean me and everybody else at home. You had definite strange chemistry the other night at Wilder. We all saw it. Don’t deny it.”

“Okay, it’s going intensely and vexatiously confusing. Will you accept that as my answer?”

Kelsey’s studying my face. “No.”

I clap and call out a direction change.

“Maybe you guys should be...at least dating maybe?” she tries.

“He’s making me play his wife. I think the tell-me-your-favorite-hobbies phase is moot at this point,” I say.

“Guys,” Kelsey grumbles. She goes out onto the floor and models a move, something I can’t do being banished from the hardwood flooring, but that just lets me hang back and enjoy the girls and think about my life.

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