Read Online The Thorndyke Trilogy 2: Dancing at Midnight by Lynne Connolly - Free Book Online Page B

influential friends.”
    She gave him a baleful look. “Aspiring.”
    “No, you dance. I’ve seen you. Just that you need the right break.”
    It was getting too late for that. Already she’d learned different forms of dance, looking for openings in contemporary dance studios and even musicals, although competition there was just as fierce. She was thinking of getting a job teaching, but this last break, the chance of an audition at a prestigious ballet house, had driven her right back to the beginning, hope burgeoning.
    She changed the subject. “Where do you work, Stu?”
    “In a bar. Weird place, gothic-themed. You know, vampires and bats and shit like that. I have to wear black to work, but other than that, blood’s not compulsory.”
    So Stu was a Goth? Somehow she doubted that. He wasn’t wearing black now but a checked shirt and jeans.
    At least one of them had landed on their feet.
    “If your audition doesn’t pan out, come around. The boss is looking for bar staff.”
    So another job in a bar. Great . The audition had better be good. Kristen set her mind and her heart to doing the best job possible tomorrow.

Chapter Four
    “Sorry, you’re not quite what we’re looking for.”
    The voice came out of the dark, but she recognized the man who’d greeted her brusquely on her arrival at the theater. She’d done everything she could, performed her steps crisply and with verve, but that hadn’t been enough.
    Too many applicants, too few jobs.
    Her heart plummeted, the familiar words iced her very soul. Kristen went to every audition with hope and a certainty that she would get this one, that this was the break she needed. But before she’d come, she’d known this was it. At her age, she wouldn’t get many more chances. If she’d gotten in to the corps de ballet, the job might have led to solos, and it would’ve been regular work. Something she could build on.
    With those few words, her career in ballet was effectively over. There were too many kids coming up through the ranks, too many talented dancers vying for the same jobs. She’d done her best, and it wasn’t good enough.
    She did as always, smiled, thanked the bastard, and left.
    Time for a rethink.
    She left the theater via the stage door. Probably the last time she’d ever use a stage door as a potential performer. If she came back, it would be as a dresser or wardrobe assistant. She couldn’t even think about it right now.
    Kristen needed her brother. Her family. She could tell Stu, cry on his shoulder, and he wouldn’t tell anybody. Ten years lay between them, and that had made them close when her brother’s many childhood illnesses had meant she had done a lot of reading and playing computer games with him. Thankfully he had mostly grown out of the illnesses, with just a touch of asthma left, but the friendship remained. They’d discovered what they needed in each other and continued to do so.
    Her failure would grieve her parents, who had always been excited by her choice of career. She wouldn’t tell them yet. She’d let them come to terms with it gradually. The jolt that had pierced her heart when she’d heard the inevitable words shouldn’t be transmitted to anyone else with that kind of brutality.
    A heavy dullness invaded her mind, spreading through her heart and numbing her senses. Perhaps she’d always known. But when she’d received the audition call, the usual exhilaration had filled her. This time she’d make it in the world she loved, the one she’d worked for all her life. She’d sacrificed school grades for it, gone to dance classes when she should have been studying. The only thing she’d done well at in school was music.
    There was an outside chance she’d find a job somewhere, but she couldn’t kid herself with dreams of stardom or even a steady job at a good dance theater. Times were tight all around, and people who had the jobs were hanging on to them. Companies were cutting down on staff, presenting