Page 126 of Dirty Ink

Rachel

I didn’t have a penny to my name, but my name was echoing in the theatre. I was about as homeless as one could get and yet I felt about as at home as one could ever hope for. My future was undecided, unclear, confused and complicated and, honestly, a fucked-up mess, but my next five minutes weren’t.

Because for the next five minutes, at least, I would be dancing.

My heart raced as I walked across the empty stage draped in darkness. But it wasn’t the racing heart of someone who wanted to escape, to flee, to get away. It was the racing heart of an athlete at the starting block. A racing heart ready, eager, willing to race.

My towering heels clicked against the well-worn wooden planks as I walked toward the centre. This was something I’d done a million times in Vegas, but it was like the first time all over again.

I wobbled like a colt. Sweat like I was having a heart attack. I ran through my choreography with a jittery panic like I hadn’t been running it over and over again for days. Nonstop. Because this was what I wanted to do. This was where I wanted to be.

I found my place in the centre of the stage. My place. My place. I’d found my place. I raised my trembling chest, because I was proud of the little sequined number clinging to my curves. My skin was mine and no one else’s. I breathed in deeply. Smelled all the old smells: the old wood, the luxurious velvet, the pillars of marble. It smelled like an old church I never got married in. It smelled like a warm home I never had. It smelled like a theatre I fell in love with, fell in love in, fell away from, fell to my knees in front of, fell for again and again and again. It smelled like where I was supposed to be.

The spotlight slipped over my body like a yellow silk dress. I wore it like it was fitted just for me. Tailored in to nip my waist. Sewn tight over my hips. Dripped over my thighs like honey from the comb. I bathed in that spotlight like it was scented with lavender, speckled with rose petals, drawn just for me. I lifted my chin and batted open my eyes like it was a lover to challenge, a lover to dare, a lover to push away as he wrapped his arms around me, to draw nearer, nearer still, as he tried to get away.

The music began and I danced the way I’d danced when I first came to Vegas. I’d run from home. Escaped that hellhole where there was nothing for me, no one for me. I’d stumbled into those bright lights like a deer on a highway. Blinded and shocked and scared. Back then I’d danced for my life. Danced to survive. Danced because it was the only thing I knew, the only thing I loved. I moved my body because if I didn’t, I would die. I moved my body because that was who I was. I moved my body because it was my way to life, my path to love, my only chance in this godforsaken world.

It was just five minutes, but it was the most important five minutes of my life. I’d asked forgiveness from Tim, but he’d been right: it was never him I needed forgiveness from. It was me, myself. I needed to forgive me.

When I ran away from Vegas, I left the city I loved, the career I lived for, the woman I’d become and grown, at long last, to be proud of.

I’d learned the wrong lesson from Mason leaving. I thought it meant that the me I was wasn’t enough. I thought I needed to change, to become someone different, to become a woman who could be loved, cared for, stuck around for. But it didn’t mean that at all.

So I danced for myself, for me, for my life, the way I’d first danced all those years ago. The way I always wanted to dance. Now and forever. The way I deserved to dance. The way the woman I left behind deserved to dance. The way the woman I was today deserved to dance.

The only kind of losing myself I wanted to do anymore was losing myself in the music, losing myself in the sensuous movement of my body, losing myself in self-expression and joy and love and happiness.

Five minutes to forgive myself. Five minutes to let it all go. Five minutes to free myself from the binds I’d wrapped around myself.

I won’t say it was easy. Forgiving Mason was easy. As easy as falling. But forgiving myself required sweat. Required hard work. Required pushing my muscles to their limit, straining all the tendons in my thighs, beating my heart harder and harder and harder. Forgiving myself meant putting it all on the line. Emptying myself completely. Exposing everything, all of myself, my body, my heart, my soul, there in the spotlight, there in the vast dark. Forgiving myself made me gasp. Every second of those five minutes I considered stopping.

How easy to shout, “Stop! I can’t!” How easy to run off without a word, to dart to the dusky eaves, to hide myself, all of myself. How easy to cut my performance short, to not show everything, to hold myself back, just a little piece of myself.

Forgiving myself meant fighting myself. My arms thrashing. My legs kicking high. My back arching as the light spilled over my chest. Forgiving myself meant remembering. I couldn’t curl in on myself as I was dragged back to my empty apartment that night. I had to stand tall. I couldn’t lie down on the floor as I felt the prick of that tattoo gun that covered up Mason’s feather. I had to leap, to spin. I couldn’t tear at my hair as I ran through all the times I sacrificed myself to become Tim’s sweet, innocent wife, his little orphan to save. I had to save myself. To dance for everything I wanted, everything I’d always wanted.

Forgiving myself meant crying as the music ended, as I stood with arms high over my head, as I lifted my head to the spotlight which snapped off, leaving me alone. Beautifully alone with myself.

I wiped at the tears hastily as the audience lights went up. They kept falling but I didn’t care. I smiled through my tears and stepped forward. I laughed a little as I tried to catch my breath. I’d done it. I’d actually done it.

Three people were seated in the fifth row back, bent over clipboards positioned on their knees. The first to look up at me was a middle-aged man. Black turtleneck. Circular spectacles. Everything you’d imagine a director would look like. He drummed his fingers along the top of the clipboard.

“Very nice, Rachel,” he said. “We’ll let you know soon.”

I thanked him. Thanked the other two. My heart was still racing as I left the stage. And I was still crying. I didn’t know if I’d landed the role or not.

It wasn’t exactly the most over-the-top positive reaction to my performance. But that wasn’t always what mattered. Sometimes you just never knew. That’s what made life so damned interesting, so worth living.

All that mattered was he’d said my name. A dancer. A performer. A failure or not, who gave a damn. A director had said my name.

And he said it in the most delightful Irish accent.

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