A Cinderella Story

Chapter Eight: Curtains Rise

Chapter Eight: Curtains Rise

Jessica couldn't be happier, she was getting paid to do the thing she had once paid others for the privilege. Now the show deadline waas approaching, and Jessica saw how each of her fellow co-workers handled it.

Anna remanied the same, confident, and focused, a smile always flashing on her face. While her spouse was the complete opposite. As the day drew nearer Gary got more, and more nervous, and stressed. He seemed to move faster, and even though he never actualy yelled, nothing ever seemed to go right. At the end of the day it often took all of Anna's concentration to get him to calm down and call it a day.

The other two that caught her attention were Derrick and Scarlet. Derrick took everything in strides, as things happened he changed his stance slightly and moved on, always seeming to get closer to his goal.

Now by this time Jessica had finally realized who Scarlet was, she was actually a retired dancer from Broadway. In fact Jessica had an old poster with her on it! That training experiance was what she brought to the studio, working with each dancer to perfect certain moves. She was tough, but at the same time, man she was good!

Since their rehersals for the last few weeks were running longer than usual Derrick had picked up the habit of taking Jessica out for dinner with him. Sometimes Anna and Gary would join them, but for the most part it was usually just them... Not that she was complaining, in fact she loved it, but it had been so long since she had been in a relationship that at first she was hesitent and would find all types of excuses.

But Derrick was persistent, and slowly those dinners became unspoken dates. For the most part he would just take her from the studio, or he would pick her up when she was at Mrs. Rice's house. What he didn't realize what she still hitched rides to the studio or got up extra early so she could walk to the very last bus stop to avoid higher fare charges. Hence he never saw her car, or how she got there.

There was only one day that really stuck out before the deadline came, they were about half a month away from the opening night, Jessica was in her apartment, she was supposed to meet up with Derrick at Mrs. Rice's house, as he was going to take her to the movies. At the moment she was running late and knew if she didn't hurry they'd miss the start time. Since her bike was still un-operable she'd have to walk, well maybe jog at this point to get there.

Meanwhile Derrick was already waiting on Mrs. Rice's porch, he didn't really mind that she was a little late, but he was worried that she met problems along the way. Finally his anxieties got the better of him, and he went inside to ask Mrs. Rice for Jessica's address.

She gave it to him readily, already guessing that the girl was delayed at home. So Derrick jumped in his car and drove out towards the inner area of town.

He found the building after a little bit of wandering, and his first reaction was to frown. The building was old to begin with, some of the corner bricks were crumbling, there was an outside fue box that was almost rusted through, with the cover hanging at an odd angle.

Hoping it looked better on the inside he opened the doors, there wasn't much on the first floor, just the set of rickity stairs and what looked like a door leading to an office, then on the other side what looked like an onld supply closet.  According to his instructions Jessica's apartment was on the second floor, he climbed the creajy stairs, somewhat afraid that certain steps would give way and his foot would go clean through. Despite all his worries he made it up in one piece, it was easy to tell which one was Jessica's first of all there was only three doors, and her's was the only one that had a faint glow of polish still on it.

Jessica whirled about as she heard the knock on the door. The sound excited Dasiy how let out a single bark, then stood near the door, her tail wagging.