by Cara Malone
“I can’t-”
“You’d be the perfect person to get this young lady up to speed,” Mary Beth went on, completely ignoring the fact that Melody had even spoken. “I see a lot of potential in her, and from the feedback I heard from the mothers after yesterday’s class, I see potential in you, too.”
“Mary Beth, I don’t think-”
“Don’t say no right now,” Mary Beth cut her off. Her voice may have been froggy and hoarse, but she was persistent. “Take the afternoon to think it over before you give me an answer. Of course it would be in addition to your reception duties, and you’d get a stipend for teaching the class. Private lessons pay double.”
She said this last bit with a wink, as if money were the only driving factor in whether or not Melody could drag herself back into the studio.
“I have to get ready to teach the tap dancers now,” Mary Beth said, heading to the restroom to get dressed. She disappeared down the hall, but a second later she popped her head back into the reception area to say, “Oh, I forgot to mention the student is Ellie Cartwright.”
Then she was gone again, and Melody’s cheeks were turning red. It couldn’t have been a coincidence the way Mary Beth said that – she must have remembered seeing Melody and Jessie together at the recital, or noticed some look they exchanged over the reception desk. Could she really have known that the possibility of spending more time with Jessie would influence her decision to teach Ellie’s private lessons? Not that it should matter – Jessie was married and she’d made it clear that nothing could ever happen between them. It did change things, though… at least a little bit.
The front door chimed as it swung open and a couple of dancers arrived for the intermediate tap lesson.
Melody greeted them and got them signed in, and then she sat down behind the reception desk. Maybe she was reading too much into it and Mary Beth had only said what she did because Ellie was always so animated when she came into the studio and never failed to give Melody a hug. She was a sweet girl, but Melody didn’t think she was anyone special to her – Ellie gave everyone a hug.
She thought about what it would feel like to intentionally enter that dance studio again, and do it on a regular basis. It would probably just be one class a week and it had felt good to teach the beginner class. Besides, Mary Beth was right – Ellie had been in that class for all of four lessons before she’d memorized the choreography for last year’s recital. Even if it turned out that she wasn’t specially gifted, she was determined as hell, and anyone willing to put in that much effort deserved the extra encouragement private lessons could offer.
CHAPTER 17
Steve Cartwright was exhausted when he came home after working a double shift at the factory. It was past midnight and both Jessie and Ellie were already asleep. His coveralls were smeared with grease and all he wanted was a shower and his bed.
He kicked off his shoes just inside the door, then peeled off the coveralls, stripping down to his tee shirt and boxers. He always thought it was a cruel thing to do, leaving something this filthy on the coat rack for Jessie to deal with, but she said she’d rather he left his coveralls isolated on the coat rack than find them mixed in with the rest of the laundry.
He pulled the collar of his tee shirt up over his nose and sniffed. There was a faint body odor – fourteen hours in a hot factory would do that - but it wasn’t that bad all things considered. It would at least keep for twenty minutes while he had a beer to unwind before hopping in the shower. Or maybe he’d just take the beer into the shower with him – there were very few things as satisfying after a long shift at a grueling job than drinking a cold one while hot water washed away the stink of the day.
Steve went into the kitchen and got a can of Budweiser out of the refrigerator, then walked slowly down the hall, careful to avoid the creaky board about two thirds of the way to Ellie’s door. He stepped around it and then quietly opened the door.
Ellie was sound asleep with one leg flung over the edge of the mattress, just like she almost always was when Steve got home from work. In the past month, he probably hadn’t seen his daughter awake more than eight times. At least he got the weekends off – Jessie wasn’t usually so lucky, juggling shifts between two different jobs. Steve crept across the floor and tucked Ellie back in. She almost always managed to scrunch her sheets down to the foot of the bed in the process of falling asleep, and Steve couldn’t help finding it endearing.
He gently lifted her leg back into the bed, then pulled the sheets over her. Now that she was in a dead sleep, she’d stay this way til morning.
“Good night, bug,” Steve whispered to her, then tip-toed back out of the room.
He went into the bathroom, where he cracked the beer can open and let the steam from the shower fill the room as he slowly enjoyed his evening brewski, a few hours late tonight. He scrubbed as much grease off his hands as he could, then crumpled the beer can and tossed it into the trash before wrapping a towel around his waist and heading into the bedroom.
Jessie was sleeping heavily, a faint snore coming out of her as her chest rose and fell, and she had one leg draped over the edge of the mattress – like mother, like daughter. The only difference was that Steve had long ago given up on trying to put Jessie into a more comfortable position. No matter how many times he brought her leg back onto the mattress or straightened out her sheets, she always reverted right back to the way she was.
“Jess?” he whispered. Damn it all if he hadn’t forgotten what her schedule was tomorrow, and he couldn’t leave it til morning or else Ellie might not get to school on time. Jessie didn’t stir. Steve went over to his dresser and changed into a pair of pajama pants, then stepped a little closer to her side of the bed and said again, a little louder, “Jess!”
“Mmpfhh,” she moaned and rolled away from him.
“Shit,” he muttered, and then he saw her phone on the night table beside her.
She always kept her work schedule in her calendar – he could check it without waking her from the sleep that she clearly needed. It was like trying to wake the dead anyway. He pulled the phone off its charger and went over to a small bench in front of the window to try and figure out where the hell her calendar app was.
He unlocked the phone and the screen was filled with text. It looked like Jessie was in the middle of reading a book when she went to bed, and Steve almost closed the window. Then a phrase jumped out at him.
…touched her breasts…
“What have we got here?” He murmured, glancing over at his sleeping wife.
For all the times she failed to show even the slightest interest in him, Steve had no idea Jessie even had a sex drive, and here she was reading dirty books! Pushing aside a mild annoyance at the fact that Jessie apparently preferred romance novels to her husband, he read a few lines.
I unlaced the corset as quickly as my fingers could work their way through the laces, the Lady’s breath rising and falling rapidly as she waited. The moment the corset fell away, she turned and threw her arms around me, her fingers playing through the long curls of my hair.
“Touch me,” I begged, sliding her hand beneath my petticoat.
“Louisa, we can’t,” the Lady objected, but though her lips protested, her body met mine with a fervor.
“What the fuck?” Steve whispered into the darkened room. He flipped a few pages forward, to the meat of the sex scene, and then glanced again at Jessie. This was a lesbian book.
Confused and unsure what to do with this information, he just sat there. His wife, who most of the time he privately suspected was frigid, was reading about lesbian sex. But what could he do about it? Wake her up and confront her at one in the morning?
After a minute of contemplation, Steve closed the app and found Jessie’s calendar, memorizing her schedule for the next few days, and then he walked over to the night table and plugged Jessie’s phone back in. He set it down, then thought again and picked it up, opening the book and flipping back to the page he’d f
ound it on.
Then he went around to his side of the bed and spent the next hour staring at the ceiling and wondering what the right response is to something like this rather than getting the sleep he so desperately wanted.
CHAPTER 18
The sun had not yet risen in the sky when Jessie and Ellie climbed into her old rust bucket Sebring and drove over the dance school for Ellie’s first private lesson. The sky was streaked with pink and there weren’t even any other drivers on the road yet, but Ellie was practically bouncing in her seat.
“I can’t believe I get to do ballet twice a week now,” she was chattering, meanwhile Jessie reached for the coffee mug in the center console and tried not to yawn too much. She stayed up late the night before, sucked into one of the books she bought the previous week, and now she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open, let alone matching Ellie’s level of enthusiasm.
Of course, the early hour was not entirely to blame for this. Part of her hesitance came from the fact that Melody would be Ellie’s teacher. Jessie assumed it would be Mary Beth, and she hadn’t thought to clarify the matter until after she paid upfront for the first lesson.
“Mommy!”
“What?” Jessie said irritably, wincing at the pitch of her daughter’s voice so early in the morning. They were pulling into the parking lot and Jessie saw the white sedan that she recognized from Melody’s trunk-or-treat effort a few months before.
“Thank you. I love you,” Ellie said, shooting her a huge grin as she unlatched her seatbelt and bolted out of the car.
“Brat,” Jessie muttered after Ellie had vacated the vehicle.
Of course she didn’t mean it, but Ellie would have to say that after she’d gotten snappish with her. Jessie knew how excited she was about private lessons and the possibility of joining the girls she’d met last year in intermediate ballet, and she also knew that it didn’t matter who was teaching this class, she’d make the sacrifice for her daughter’s happiness.
Still, the idea of being alone in the studio with Melody – alone in the whole school, for that matter - made Jessie’s stomach a little jumpy. It seemed almost inevitable that at some point in the next hour, she’d find herself alone with Melody. It wasn’t like anything could happen between them if that was the case, but Jessie didn’t think she could stand the tension.
“Mommy, come on,” Ellie called from the door.
“Just a minute, bug,” Jessie said, turning around in her seat to find the little dog-eared notebook she used to take notes during the lessons. She’d figured out pretty early that you can’t be a dance mom without a little steno pad full of choreography, and she had to admit it was helpful whenever Ellie wanted to practice at home and Jessie was at a loss for the proper name for ‘that move where your back leg is straight out behind you’ or something like that. She didn’t have a mind for memorizing the ballet terms, but Ellie sure did.
“Arabesque,” she’d chided Jessie as she swept her back foot into the position. “It’s one of the first ones I learned.”
After that, Jessie started carrying around the notebook.
“Got it,” she muttered, snatching it up from beneath her grocery store vest on the back seat.
Jessie followed Ellie into the lobby, where they found Melody already warming up in the studio. She was wearing the same pink sweater she wore when she taught the beginner class despite the warmth of the studio, and Jessie watched for a moment as she moved through a series of fluid leg movements at the barre.
Then Ellie burst into the room, yelling excitedly for Melody and disrupting her flow.
“Hi, Ellie,” Melody said cheerfully, bending down to accept Ellie’s customary hug and then glancing over at Jessie as she straightened up. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Jessie said, trying to make her voice as business-like as possible. “I’m just going to sit out of the way over here and take notes for Ellie, if that’s okay.”
“Help yourself,” Melody said with a smile that felt a little bit more than friendly.
It made something stir in Jessie’s core, and she bit her lip self-consciously as she slid into one of the chairs lining the wall where the moms usually sat. She watched Melody walk over to the stereo on the wall, her pace graceful and deliberate. Jessie couldn’t tear her eyes off her, and neither could Ellie, although for very different reasons. Ellie was pacing back and forth across the floor, trying to mimic the ballet walk that Melody had just done, watching her carefully in case she did it again on her way back to the center of the room.
When Melody turned and saw her doing it, she smiled and said, “It’s a little more like this. Sweep your back foot behind you, toes down to the floor, as you step forward.”
Ellie and Jessie both watched entranced as Melody walked across the room, practically floating, and Jessie’s breath caught in her throat as she realized that Melody was making a line straight for her. She’d stop soon – she’d have to stop soon – but as the classical music built to a crescendo on the stereo, Melody just kept pacing closer and closer to Jessie.
The closer she came, the more the rest of the room faded away. Jessie even lost sight of Ellie for a moment as everything ceased to exist except Melody. She stopped no more than six inches from Jessie’s chair, looking down and giving her a smoldering look. Jessie suddenly felt hot all over, especially in her neck and cheeks, and she thought if she reached out and touched Melody, she would be able to see the static arcing between their bodies.
Then Melody smiled and turned, waltzing back to the center of the room and beginning the lesson. “It’s just like that. You try now, Ellie.”
Jessie had to struggle not to visibly slump in her chair, and she was breathing a little heavier than necessary. That moment brought her immediately back to the recital and the way their bodies had come together just before they were interrupted. Her heart ached for Melody. These private lessons would be the death of her, because no matter how many romance novels she read, none of them could hold a candle to her.
She’d known the contents of her heart since she was sixteen, and yet no one had ever made her mourn that part of her life before. It had been off-limits ever since she married Steve and Ellie was born. The longer she sat there and stared at Melody, completely absorbed in teaching Ellie how to perform an assemble, the more Jessie was certain that there was something major missing in her life, and that Melody could give it to her if only the fates allowed it.
***
The moment Jessie feared – being alone with Melody – came right after the lesson ended. Jessie handed Ellie a change of clothes and told her to go into the bathroom and get dressed for school. Ellie dashed out, and then Jessie and Melody were alone in the studio.
It would have been so much better if they had enough time to go home after the lesson and change there – it would eliminate this awkward moment of waiting with Melody. Jessie thought about helping Ellie with her clothes, but she was old enough to dress herself and also old enough to get irritable when she sensed Jessie was breathing down her neck too much. She should stay out here with Melody if for no other reason than to nurture her daughter’s independence.
So Jessie looked down at her notepad and saw that she hadn’t written down a single thing in the last hour. She’d missed every single ballet term Melody threw out because she’d been totally absorbed in watching the way Melody moved so gracefully and fluidly across the floor.
Melody came over to where Jessie was sitting and said, “What did you think?”
“Huh?”
“Was I worth the money or are you going to ask Mary Beth for a refund?” Melody asked with a smirk that attempted to disguise genuine self-doubt.
“No,” Jessie said, surprised. “You were fantastic. So good, in fact, that I forgot to take notes. What was that last thing you taught her? The jumping one?”
“Changement,” Melody said, never taking her wide chestnut eyes off Jessie as she demonstrated the move again for her.
Jessie jot
ted it down – truth be told, she didn’t give a damn about changements or any of the other moves right now. Suddenly, all she really wanted to do was shove Melody up against the nearest wall and find out if the kiss she’d been fantasizing about would feel as good as she always thought it would. She stood up and Melody didn’t step back. There were less than twelve inches separating them.
Jessie could feel the heat from Melody’s body. Her eyes lingered on Melody’s lips. She couldn’t quite convince herself to go for it, and instead she asked tentatively, “Umm, same time next week?”
“Yeah,” Melody said, and Jessie couldn’t be sure – the motion was so subtle – but she thought Melody was leaning in toward her again, just like she had at the recital last year.
“Okay,” Jessie said, dodging away from Melody in a blind panic and knocking her knees into the folding chairs against the wall in the process. It made a horrible racket as metal collided with metal. “Sounds good.”
She was halfway across the studio floor before Melody called, “Is that all?”
Jessie turned around. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
Jessie took a few steps toward Melody, then caught herself and stopped. She looked at her from a safe distance of about five feet and shrugged, saying quietly, “I have to think about my husband.”
“Why?” Melody asked, a hint of incredulity rising into her voice, but when Jessie shot her a shocked look, the mirth died down. Instead, she looked mildly annoyed.
Melody put her hands on her hips, looking about as frustrated as Jessie felt, and the sleeves of her sweater inched up her arms. Jessie saw something pink on Melody’s forearm – a large scar – and her mouth dropped open slightly. Melody noticed the direction of Jessie’s eyes, and her cheeks and neck went immediately pink as she looked away, shoving her sleeves back down.
“What’s that?” Jessie asked carefully.
