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

couldn’t pretend anymore, so she divorced him and got a huge child support settlement, which pays for private school and ballet lessons. As many as Kate wants. So something good came of it.
    “Who is it tonight?” I ask carefully.
    She shrugs. “New one, never met him. But check this out: my dad wants to come to
The Nutcracker.
”
    “No way.”
    “With his
wife.
And the
boys.
”
    “Oh my God.”
    “I know! Like any of them gives a crap about seeing a ballet. Or seeing me. Or seeing me
in
a ballet.”
    “How old are they now?”
    “I don’t even know—ten? Twelve? And super eager to come sit through two hours of dancing, I’m sure. It’s been at least five years since he’s even called, and if I have to read one more Christmas letter about ‘The Boys’…‘The Boys are on the soccer team.’ ‘The Boys entered their goats in the 4-H fair.’ ‘The Boys are the greatest alternative to a daughter I ever could have asked for!’ Kill me now.”
    “Oh, Kitty-Kat,” I sigh, and lie beside her on my bed. “He’s a douche canoe. What does your mom say?”
    “That she’s not going to any performance
he
comes to, so I’d better let her know which show she needs to avoid because she’s got a lot of potential plans lined up for that weekend, including a Napa winery women’s retreat her hot-yoga teacher is leading, which I think is a thing where they ride in a van and drink a lot and shop at the outlet stores, and that if she misses it just because Satan and his spawn insist on showing up, she’s going to be
devastated.
”
    The fog is suddenly golden, and my room is hazily aglow.
    “We’re almost there,” I say. “We’re so close. January and we’ll be San Francisco Ballet company members, rehearsing for a living. We’ll be
apartment
hunting!”
    She nods. Turns her face away.
    “Are you crying?”
    “No.”
    “I blame my dad. He’s got everyone all weepy! Cripes! Do you need a tissue?”
    “No.”
    I hand her the box from my bedside table, and she takes it. Sits up.
    “You are the best friend anyone could ever have,” she says. “
Ever.
You know that, right?”
    “Well, obviously.”
    “No, Harp, seriously. You are the very best friend I could have ever hoped for.”
    “
You
are! Come on, what’s the matter?”
    She shakes her head. “I’m not. But you know I love you, don’t you? You’re my sister.”
    “You’re mine, too, sister from another mister…just like your brothers from their Seattle mother.”
    “Gross, don’t even talk about them!”
    “It’s not their fault, poor little suckers.”
    “Harp, I’d be so screwed without you.”
    She looks so tired—not just our usual exhausted-but-happy. Lately she looks completely wrung out.
    “Did you get a nap?”
    “I wish. I can’t sleep anymore. At all. But I know what would help,” she says hopefully.
    “Brownies coming up! You have to help me shave the chocolate.”
    “See, this is why no one else should ever bother baking.
Shaved chocolate
…will you eat one?”
    Her poor eyes have such deep shadows beneath them.
    “Sure,” I say.
“One.”
    “Good enough.”
    We also make popcorn, and we watch
The Turning Point
for the millionth time and laugh and laugh. Because how the hell, with eight hours of training and classes and then three more hours spent performing on any given day, do filmmakers think a professional ballerina would have time for the sexual hijinks and tumultuous interpersonal relationships and tantrums these women spend all their time indulging in? The real story (constant rehearsal, bleeding feet) would be excruciatingly dull, I guess.
    Exhibit A: Kate and I are in bed, asleep, by nine.

A week in Antarctica and I’ve figured out that shaving my legs in the sink beforehand gives me more of the allotted five minutes of shower time to just stand and let the hot water wash over me, warming me up for the day. Charlotte says five minutes is luxurious; in the summer, when there are twelve hundred