Dangerous Affection

Chapter Two

I open my eyes from my musing just as Maisie emerges from the dance school entrance.

I love moments like this, when she’s completely absorbed in her friends, her life, and doesn’t know I’m watching her.

Her face is ruddy from ballet class, her smile bright and alive as she skips down the steps clutching her new pink and silver dance bag Mum bought her last week. She spoils her.

Maisie is flanked by Sandeep and Zoe, her two best dance friends. She has a lot of categories of friends: school friends, dance friends and performance art friends. Several of them overlap.

Sandeep goes to Maisie’s school but Zoe goes to an independent school out of town. Her family lives in the big house with a corner plot at the end of our street.

I’m on friendly terms with lots of the mums, but because of my recent studies and working full-time, I rarely find time to meet for coffee or tea at one of the many café bars in the centre of West Bridgford, as lots of them do.

Zoe shows the other two something on her phone screen and they collapse into giggles.

Then they’re hugging and waving and going their separate ways. Sandeep’s mum crosses the road to meet her daughter and waves to me as Maisie flies towards the car, her dark curls bouncing as she runs. The passenger door is wrenched open and suddenly she is next to me, breathless and vibrant, filling the small space with her zinging energy.

I kiss her on the cheek and start the engine.

‘Good class?’ I ask, checking the mirror and pulling out onto the road, sounding the horn as we pass the girls and their mums, who are deep in conversation.

As usual, I can’t stay to chat, I have to get back home to work, but everyone looks up and waves as we drive past, including Miss Diane, who always steps outside to chat to the parents who collect on foot.

‘Yes, it was a great class, Mum. And guess what? Piper Dent did all her steps wrong and tripped up and hit her head.’ The delight in Maisie’s voice is obvious.

‘Maisie,’ I say, elongating her name with mild reproach. ‘It’s not nice to gloat. Anyone can stumble, including you.’

An impish smile plays on Maisie’s lips.

‘But she wasn’t using her eyes and ears, Mum. She told Miss Diane she already knew the steps and she didn’t want to wait for the rest of us.’

Use your eyes and earsis a phrase the young and impossibly slender Miss Diane tells her dance students repeatedly. It has struck a chord with Maisie and she often uses it in jest to reprimand me or her father if she feels we aren’t paying her full attention.

‘Did Piper hurt herself?’ I ask, thinking of Joanne’s intolerance of people’s mistakes at work and how that might translate into her role as a mother.

‘She said her ankle felt sore and her head hurt, so Miss Diane said she couldn’t join in with the barre exercises, which are her favourite. She had to sit on a chair and just watch for a while because of health and safety. The second we finished class, she ran out crying and her mum came back inside and said she wanted a word with Miss Diane.’

‘Oh dear,’ I say, feeling a pang of sympathy for the teacher.

I feel duty bound to mute my true reaction to Maisie’s tale and say all the right parental things, but privately, I know just what a spoilt little diva Piper Dent is.

Joanne is a powerful influence in the area. As well as being a partner at Walker, Dent and Scott, she owns a portfolio of commercial buildings across the city, including the one the dance school rents.