Read Online Up to This Pointe by Jennifer Longo - Free Book Online

“Americans.”
    Dad brings her a baker’s dozen of whatever she likes every Saturday on his way home, I think out of gratitude for letting me teach for tuition.
    She rolls her eyes. “All right,” she says. “Half dozen, a few plain croissant.”
    “Got it.”
    I turn back to the dressing room, and she calls, “Harper.”
    “Yep?”
    “It is a rare opportunity.”
    “I know.” I duck out to the dressing room to set Willa up with coloring books and her blanket, then back to the barre beside Kate.
    “She still at it?” Kate whispers.
    “Still at what?” Lindsay, two years younger, our Nutcracker for three years running because she’s so tall and we currently have no boys in the entire school, whispers—loud.
    “Lindsay,
God
!” Kate hisses. “You don’t have to shout!”
    Lindsay’s eyes widen.
    “Nothing,” I tell her. “It’s nothing.”
    “Simone’s on her to go to England,” Kate blabs. “She wants Harp to do the teacher training this summer.”
    “Royal Academy?”
    I nod.
    “Wow!”
    “No, not
wow.
It’s completely insulting.”
    “How is it insulting?”
    “Because it
is
! She’s essentially saying, ‘Hey, give up the one chance you have to audition for companies to be a dancer, ever, and spend a year in London learning how to teach other people to dance instead.’ I’m a dancer. I’m
not
a teacher.”
    “Okay,” Lindsay says. “But are you also a lover, not a fighter?”
    “Leave me alone.”
    “Why is it one or the other? You
do
teach—”
    “Babies! For tuition!”
    “They worship you! You don’t like it?”
    “Yes, I do. I love
them,
but that’s not—”
    “How much would it cost?”
    “Nothing,” Kate says, her spine curved over her legs, forehead touching her knees. “Simone’s sending her. A year in London, full-time training to be a Royal Academy teacher. For
free.
”
    “Harp.” Lindsay frowns. “Really?”
    I nod.
    Her mouth is agape. “Why
not
?”
    “I think she may even get a stipend, right?” Kate says. “Didn’t Simone say living expenses?”
    I take my leg off the barre. “What are you doing?”
    “What?”
    “What’s with pushing the Simone agenda?”
    “I’m not!”
    “Kate.”
    She looks down. Reties her shoes.
    “Kate.”
    “What?”
    “I would never do that. You know I would never ditch you….Come on! The Plan! I could give a crap about London; we are dancing for San Francisco in January. Got it?”
    “It’s just…I mean, an entire career, all that training, England—for
free
?”
    “Kate. I’m with
you.
I’m not leaving you. January third. You and me. Right?”
    She nods.
    “I wish Simone wanted
me
to teach,” Lindsay sighs.
    Simone sweeps into the room. “Left hands on the barre, port de bras!”
    “I’ve already said it to her a hundred times,” I whisper to Kate.
“I’m a dancer. No thanks.”
    Kate smiles.
    Sort of.
    - - -
    When class ends, I pull Kate back. “Once?”
    “Yeah.”
    I run to the crowded dressing room for my iPod and Willa, so she can watch. Lindsay sits on the floor and lets Willa lounge in her lap. I start the music.
    Our San Francisco audition solo pieces are brief, only two minutes to prove to the director and choreographers why they need us in the company. I choreographed Kate’s; she did mine. We dance them both consecutively, together, fourteen years condensed into this perfect one hundred twenty seconds.
    Lindsay and Willa applaud wildly. We give exaggerated reverence, wave to our fans.
    “I wish Simone would let you go to the Grand Prix,” Lindsay says. “They’ve moved it to November, last Saturday….”
    “Contests are stupid.” Kate sighs, sliding to the floor for a last long stretch.
    “You know you’d go if she let you.”
    Simone’s studio is a
ballet
studio. Hard-core Royal Academy of Dance ballet syllabus, not tap, not jazz, not hip-hop, no cheerleader-esque competitions. There are no tacky plastic trophies lining the walls.
    YAGP is the Youth America Grand