Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 9

If anything, the air conditioning is what keeps me from quitting.

The work is redundant, full of dusting and vacuuming, but the rooms I clean are cool. Between yesterday and today, the blasting air from the AC has become the sound I most often hear, when all the dancers and teachers are on the lower floors. After the day and a half I've worked, I haven't had any more run-ins with anybody of importance. Though Evangeline and her mother can hardly be considered that when I wouldn't be able to identify them in a crowd. Only by their voices.

This morning, unmotivated to leave the house before the crack of dawn, I decided that I would do my studio cleaning late at night, after all of the classes end. I hadn't yet decided what excuse I'd be telling my family to explain why I couldn't get home until midnight.

But when I got here, Ann told me that the dancers have Sundays off, and I can clean the studios whenever I'd like to. Though according to her, today's a special day: hundreds of Academy hopefuls will be downstairs in the theatre for auditions.

What sort of auditions, what for, I don't know. How I'd like to watch them, though. Classical pointe, tap, hip-hop, maybe even contemporary, just to laugh at it.

Even if I regret watching afterward.

But if I sneak away for just a moment, go find a secret place to watch the performances from . . . I'd get caught, no matter how sly I am.

I walk down the hall of one of the residential floors, tugging my maid's cart along with me. Today I've taken a tour of the rest of the building with Ann and gone through my assigned rooms up here, and now, noon approaching, I make my way towards the elevator.

Ann wasn't kidding when she said this place was big. I believed her at the time, but I had no idea . . . a dance academy could—or should—be so humongous. It doesn't look as big as it actually is from the outside. Eleven stories tall, not narrow in either direction, but this place . . . this place. Ann gave me a map, and I'm still unsure if she meant it as a joke or not. But the fact that they have maps at their disposal at all should indicate something.

It's a sort of labyrinthine structure, staircases and elevators at every turn. While the carpet isn't the prettiest up here, the most gorgeous of marble decorates the lower floors, a warm, orange color. In the studios, doors always cracked open to allow the cold air in, there's either wood or vinyl, surrounded by mirrors and glass. It was perhaps what struck at me, bothered me a bit this morning when Ann guided me through the wide and sprawling hallways of the Manhattan Dance Academy. The echoes of music, pounds of various shoes against the floor. Although dancers don't have classes on Sunday, apparently plenty came to practice for their auditions.

Ann told me if they weren't already downstairs to watch, I could kick them out to get my cleaning done since they don't actually have classes today. My jaw almost popped open at the thought.

A countless number of studios we walked past, a number that I quickly lost track of. Every time I thought we'd finished exploring a floor, another corner would come, another track of quiet music playing from an ajar door. Only that familiar sound of a teacher shouting was missing. I don't imagine the shouting and lecturing would be so different from the things I heard during my days in dance. Even as professionals, they continue to get criticized. No such thing as perfect.

I slap the button alongside the elevator, leaning against its wall to feel the air flow in my direction.

Then I come back around, looking at my reflection in the murky elevator doors. A hideous red shirt for a maid, basic black slacks, black shoes to blend in. Not so different from Mom. I've promised myself I wouldn't work here for more than a few months to help my family out, to get a glimpse, but after that, I'm done. A glimpse is a glimpse, and any more would be bad for me.