Description: An invisble girl finds a spotlight that recognizes her.
*a/n: I only wrote this for fun. Judger no judgey!*
I'm shy. No one pays attention to me. I'd love to say I'm one of those pity cases that got teased all her life, but I didn't. I'm not even noticeable enough to be teased. I'm invisible.
At 16, I'm average weight, 5'6", with pale blonde hair, pale skin, and pale blue eyes. I'm nothing remarkable. I wear light wash jeans, pale, nondescript shirts, and pastel converse. I'm average academically; I get B's because I study, but I'm not at all smart. I have no friends to sit with in the cafeteria, so I break the rules and leave school at fifth period, wandering the streets as I eat my lunch. My protective brother scolds me for it, but he understands. He's my age, but he's got friends, a girlfriend, and a spot on the basketball team, so no one knows we're related. When Austin sees me around school and says hi, people ask him why he's saying hi to a random girl no one knows. So, I think he gets that I don't really love school.
On one of my solitary lunchtime walks, a sudden downpour drives me under the awnings of the city stores. The rain slaps against the pavement and I thank heaven that I have a rare free period after lunch on Thursdays, because I won't be getting back to school very quickly (or dryly). I see a sign in a window reading BAR/RESTAURANT in a simple font. Since I needed to buy lunch today anyway and hadn't felt like my usual sandwich, I head in.
Yes, there are tables and a bar. There is also a stage. A jazz band, preparing to play. A red curtain. It splits and reveals a beautiful woman covered in pearls. She's wearing a bra and underwear made of them, strands of them laced around her neck, dangling from her ears, and pinned in her hair, and they adorn her red-bottomed heels. She is stunning. I'm mesmerized as she begins to dance, sultry, but not slutty. She has a presence that is mesmerizing. An older woman, good looking, well made up and expensively dressed in black, breaks my trance.
"You seem to enjoy the performance," she says, looking at me with arched eyebrows and thin-set lips.
"I - just stopped in for some food, I didn't know... She's amazing. That must be so... so... um, well, fun." I'm not too great at talking, since I'm not too used to being seen. She seems to be judging me, my strange fascination with this dancer
"Do you dance, my dear?" I barely stutter out that I don't know, I've never tried. She continues, "You're young, still in school, but I can see you love this. You could try. Come with me." I'm disgruntled. I'm busy watching the dancer walk gracefully offstage and she leads me back behind the stage. "Rose!" She calls out. I see that she's calling to the dancer, who now has on a silk robe. The dancer hurries over, amazingly agile in her high shoes.
"Yes, Katharine?" Rose asks, while tying the bow on her robe. I hear the pearls clicking against each other underneath.
The woman, Katharine, replies, "Rose, take her into the studio. I see something in her, something in her eyes that makes me notice her. Give her instruction, have her dance. What is your name, dear?"
She does not know the unknown joy and confidence her words have given me. I'm glowing. My voice is steady, and louder than I've ever heard myself.
"Hayley. My name is Hayley."
Rose smiles and takes me backstage through a door labeled DRESSING ROOM on a gold plaque. Some other girls, as glamorous as she, greet Rose as they do their makeup in the lines of mirrors. Double doors in the back of this room open into what I recognize as a dance studio. Rose takes off her robe.
"So you watched me?" She inquires.
"Yes. You're wonderful. How do you dance like that?" I ask, all amazement.
"I suspect that was more of a rhetorical question, but that's exactly what Katharine wants me to teach you. She's the owner of this place. You must have a lot of potential." I doubt this, and remain silent, still bewildered. "Basically," Rose continues, "I'm gonna teach you not just how to dance, but how to perform. You ready?" She tosses me a short, ruffled skirt.
For the next hour I learn basic ballet - to warm up, Rose says - and all the most simple broadway/jazz steps. Technically, they are not difficult. I can see that I'm mastering the footwork, but Rose seems to be getting more and more frustrated. I'm too shy to ask what is wrong, but it seems I do not need to.
"Oh, god! Do you know what your problem is? You are shy. You are quiet. You are LIFELESS! You can, technically, dance, but you cannot perform!" She closes her eyes and calms herself. I am close to tears.
"Hayley, talk to me. I want to know how you feel. For a teenager, that begins and ends with school, so I want to know what your school life is like."
And I tell her. It is almost time for school to let out when I finish and look down. "So, basically, I'm invisible." I conclude meekly. Rose looks as if she's had an epiphany and gasps. "What?"
"I know what you need." She grabs my shoulders and turns me towards the mirrored wall. "You feel invisible. Close your eyes." I do as instructed. "Now imagine you're on the stage I was on. Imagine there are lights and an audience waiting expectantly. I'm going to sit here to watch, and you can imagine I'm someone at school, or Austin, or just a random audience member. Your eyelids are the curtains. When the curtains go up, the performance begins. You feel unseen, Hayley. Now make me see you."
I open my eyes and dance. I use the steps I've just learned, things I saw her do, and movements who knew I could come up with. My body acts reflexively to my long suppressed need to be something, be someone. I am demanding attention, screaming that I am not invisible, yelling out to be noticed, and my mouth doesn't have to open. At what feels like the moment, I end, arms wrapped around my torso and head up. I close my eyes and the curtain falls. The audience claps from the other side of the velvet. I know then, that this is one thing I can excel at. I can dance, not just dance, but perform.
Rose is speechless. She stares for a moment, then races to the door and yells for Katharine like it's a national emergency. She hurries in and looks at me. Insecure and self-conscious, with two sets of eyes on me, I look at myself in the mirrors. My usually slouchy posture had given way to a straight back and cocked hip, chin up. Rose exchanges a hushed conversation with Katharine as I catch my breath and try to ignore them.
"So," Katharine says at last, "I was right. When can you start?"
I grin. Hayley Jameson, burlesque dancer. "Tomorrow."
