Shantay You Stay

Part Five

Vanjie's POV:

The day was a drag, no pun intended. Lessons started at half ten but everyone was so focused on practising the manoeuvres. I watched Brock practise for a bit, helped and gave him pointers (as best I could) on his spin with which he was still finding it difficult not to go on his toes. Then I left and sat back in the computer room studying my designs and coming up with a more solid choreography and lines. A few of the girls had filtered in and out, giving me a slice of their opinion and then taking their lines away to learn. It was exhausting, but knowing that we'd have a practise run on Monday and be able to piece it all together before the performance on Wednesday, was a positive. Brock joined me when everyone had started leaving for lunch break. Unofficially we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. We were supposed to be hard at work practising and putting in all hours, but a lot of the of queens just left and went back to their dorms.

Me and Brock agreed to stay and practise for a bit but our muscles were aching and bones hurting from all the falls we'd had already. Ice skating is so hard and I'm a short bitch falling a few feet, I can't imagine the pain for Brock who was undoubtedly a foot or so taller. We managed to practise for a few hours before we felt the need to give up. We'd started to get the hang of quite a few moves, but it was hard to know if we were doing them right without a person who knows what they're doing watching us. Just endless YouTube tutorials on repeat and guidance from each other. We sat taking our skates off in the middle room. "So this gift card from Shuga..." I started, pulling my boot off my foot with a whimper. "You want to go tonight?" I asked suggesting we go for a fancy meal to wind down for the day. "Or should we save it for a special occasion?" Brock contributed making a very valid point. "I just don't think now's the right time to be going out for a meal." He added half heartedly. I twisted my lips in thought. "Take someone else if you want though, maybe Alexis is here." He finished putting on his trainers and placed his skates back on the shelf. "Mhmm girl she's here but that's not why Shuga gave us the ticket." I pouted pulling a face at Brock. "Its ok we'll save it." We slowly made our way back to the apartment, hobbling on blistered feet and bruised everywheres, this was not amazing.

I'd been sat at the workbench in my room for hours, the constant numbing sound of the sewing machine was driving me loco. I'd had to learn a lot but the motivation that I'd had way almost gone. I'd made one outfit and a second was almost done, but I couldn't bear the thought that I had four more to go. I heard a soft tap on my bedroom door. "Jose?" I looked over my shoulder and answered for him to come in. I heard my bedroom door open and his soft steps walking towards the workroom, he poked his head around the corner of the door then came in. "You look defeated." He sighed eyeing up the costume I'd already made and fitted on the mannequin. I nodded and rested my head on my hands with a huff. "I can help you with the rest of these tomorrow, but for now I think I have a plan." I tilted my head sleepily toward him. "You wanted to go out earlier and I'd say by now you need to?" I raised my head the edges of my lips curling into a small smile. "And we've somehow managed to host this party tomorrow..." I liked where this was going, he raised his envelope up "We have $400, what do you say we go shopping?" I could have hugged that man honestly. I shoved the costume off of my lap and placed it on the side and stood up. "Let's go."

We spent a few minutes sat in Brock's car just searching for the nearest gas station on the way to the nearest Walmart. It took us a moment but it turned out there was a town only half an hours drive from us with everything that we'd need. The whole way there we were chatted as we built up a five hour long Spotify playlist, much much harder than it sounds I promise you.  We got to the gas station and Brock filled up the tank and we made our way to Walmart. It was really weird seeing Brock driving. "So what do we need to get?" he asked casting a glance at his mirrors as we made the turn into the parking lot. I held my phone in front of me on notes. "Well, we should just see what alcohol they have when we get in there, we'll need some mixers. We should also probably get some food and props, I got a text off Alaska saying she's been able to get us lights and shit from the producers." A mischievous smile crept onto Brock's face, something was telling me he was looking forward to this. "Ok then, let's get this going." He said jumping out of the car, he came around to my side as I was just about to open the door and he opened it for me. "Ooh gurl, thank you" I laughed stepping out. We walked up to the doors and I grabbed a cart. We both had a vicious fire in our eyes. We made a beeline straight for the alcohol and spent amount of time there. "Vodka, Gin, yes. Should we get rum?" I asked holding the bottle. "I mean can you make cocktails?" Brock scoffed as if it was even a question. "I guess we could try?" I suggested feeling a little risky as I said. "Sure" he chuckled taking the white rum off me and putting it in the cart. We picked up a load of spirits and cider, kegs of basically whatever we could find. We had a load of pre-mixed cocktails, it was crazy. There must have been forty plus bottles in there. We moved onto mixers, picking up tonic water, cherryade, lemonade, coke and we hadn't even picked up snacks yet and the cart was lined with drinks. When we'd picked up food Brock put his hands on his hips and looked at me and the cart. "So we have all the drinks, the mixers, the food and what we need to make our own cocktails, but should we get anything else?" I glanced down at everything we'd picked up. "How much do we have left?" I asked frowning. "About a hundred dollars" he glanced down at the calculator on his phone. "Follow me." I said wheeling the cart around and heading to the party section. I fumbled through all the confetti, plastic cups and balloons. My face lit up when I found a rainbow balloon arch kit, it came with everything we needed for twenty dollars. We picked it up and I also grabbed a few more party pieces before we made our way to the checkout.

I think the woman at the kiosk had a heart attack when she saw us and all the things we had because she seriously broke face and abandoned professionalism which cracked me up. She must have only been about eighteen, her jaw dropped when we waltzed up with our cart full of alcoholism and death. "Hi Brock." she said in probably the smallest voice ever. "Hi Jose" she added. I smirked and started loading things onto the belt. "Hey cookie" I laughed as she turned her gaze from us to our shopping. She pressed her hand to her earpiece and called for a manager to approve her sale of alcohol. We waited patiently until the manager turned up. "What are you guys doing here? Throwing a party for sure" she chuckled quickly scanning our things, Brock was bagging it all up. "We are." he answered "We made it into Dragcademy." The girl beamed "That's amazing! But that means you won't be doing shows for the next 6 months at least?" she looked as though her heart sunk. "Well not unless we get eliminated, we hope not." I stated stepping forward and taking the cash off Brock as he handed it to me. "I'm actually here as an Au Pair." she said scanning the last few things. "I was really hoping to see you guys perform before I have to go back home." my face softened, she looked really disappointed. "Girl when you goin' home?" I asked putting my hand out to her, the manager giving us funny looks. "Four months." She replied, I tilted my head to the side. "Ok girl you're from England right?" the manager tapped her on the shoulder and encouraged her to carry on. "Um close, I'm from Wales, uh that's $389.75" I handed her the cash I had in my hand and she began putting it in the till. "Well I'msure we'll tour in the UK at some point, how about you give me your insta and I'll drop you a dm?" she almost dropped the change in shock as she handed it back. She nodded her head gratefully, seemingly unable to make words. "Ok girl, we'll sort that." she jotted down her name and user on the bottom of our receipt and we said our goodbyes.

When we got back to the car and packed everything tightly in, I punched her name into my cell. "You know that was really sweet of you." Brock said starting the car up. "She was nice, I don't even know when we'll tour next but maybe after this we'll get to go." he nodded and we began to pull away back out and eventually onto the highway to Dragcademy.