Page 4 of Lucky Dance Date
While I’d mostly recovered financially, it wasn’t an experience I was keen to repeat.
I looked at my calendar and forced myself not to sigh. “I can do Sunday night, or Thursday night.”
“Let’s start the week off right,” Mama chirped. “I’ll let Margaret know we’ll meet her and Cameron for dinner on Sunday.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“I’ll text you what time to arrive later.”
“Ok.”
“Good to hear you being so agreeable,” she said. “Now your father and I have plans this evening. I’ll see you on Sunday.”
“Sunday,” I echoed as she hung up.
I sighed, walked into the living room, and flopped on the couch. “Damnit. Guess I don’t have a choice. I just have to hope he isn’t a complete asshole.”
∞∞∞
“Are ya decent?” a voice asked from outside the office door.
“Come in Louie,” I replied, surprised that the owner of the dance studio was visiting. “I was just preparing for my next class.”
He walked in and perched himself on the edge of the desk.
“What’s up?” I asked, dropping into one of the chairs.
He sighed. “I’m having to meet with everybody this week, and it doesn’t get any easier.”
“Huh?”
“I’m sorry Wes, but I’ll be closing the studio at the end of March.”
It was like a punch to the gut. First the phone call from my mother the night before, and now this?
“What?” I whispered.
He ran a hand through his graying hair. “The new landlord is raising the rent on me again. It’s barely legal, to be honest. He just skirted under the sixty-day notification window, and obviously didn’t want to give me the time to figure it out, which tells me he’s got another renter waiting in the wings.”
“Didn’t he just raise the rent last year?” I asked, remembering how my costs had increased.
Louie nodded. “Yeah, and I should have seen it coming when he didn’t sign a five-year lease. But I didn’t want to think he’d screw me like this, not after having been here so long when his papa owned the building.”
I groaned and scrubbed a hand down my face. “And he really couldn’t wait until the end of the school year to kick you out?”
“I know, and I asked for a month-to-month to give ya’ll the time to find new spaces to teach. But he wanted double rent for those months.”
“Damn.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not an expense I can afford to eat, and I know all of ya will need to save to get into new spaces, so I don’t want to pass it on either.”
“No, I get it. Does anybody else have a lead on a studio with open time yet?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of. As far as I know everybody is full, or has their own staff.”
“You don’t want to try to relocate?” I asked, hoping for the last-ditch option.
He shook his head. “That’s for younger men. I only teach one class for senior citizens, and I can do that at the senior center. It’s time for me to retire.”
