Toe to Toe (On Pointe Book 1) by Penelope Freed (read with me TXT) 📕

the quiet chatter dies. The class is direct and to the point without a lot of fancy choreography. Julie King, the teacher, walks around the room during each exercise quietly giving corrections as she goes. The worst part is when she gives someone a correction, then goes and leans against the table, quietly talking to the other three.

“Did you see Olivia walk in?” Lisa whispers, when they give us a moment to stretch halfway through class.

“She came?” I ask, looking around. There she is, sitting right at the back, putting a bandaid on her pinkie toe. I feel my heart sink into my stomach, a hollow, empty feeling. I can barely stand to look at her right now. “I wasn’t paying attention,” I admit. Focus, Hannah, focus. Don’t let anything distract you today. Today is about your future, nothing else matters right now.

“Yeah, I saw her slip in when we started plies on the second side. I think she’s the last number.”

“Ladies, we’re going to line up in groups of six, in numerical order please. Number one you start over here,” Ms. King says, indicating where the front row should begin. “Let’s begin, starting with the right foot in front, facing croisé…” Ms. King sets the next exercise. I have a photograph of her in rehearsal hanging up in my room that I bought at a CBS performance when I was eight. I even got my mom to wait at the stage door with me and had her sign it. It’s been hanging over my door ever since. I look at it every time I walk out of my room, praying that one day that will be me.

Fifteen minutes before the class is supposed to end, Ms. King sets a batterié exercise—a series of small quick jumps where you switch legs multiple times in the air—that feels impossible. The doubt and anxiety I felt in Jean-Paul’s class starts to creep into my mind, making it hard to concentrate. I keep missing one of the beats and ending up on the wrong leg, which messes me up for the next part of the sequence. Ms. King has given us all a minute to work it out for ourselves, we’ve tried twice already and no one seems to be getting it right.

I do it slowly with my hands, willing myself to remember the sequence. I do it twice more with my hands, then mark the steps with my feet. I pull an unsteady breath in through my nose, pushing aside my frustration at not being able to get this exercise correct, and try it again.

“Mark it with the other leg,” a voice says near me. I look up, startled. Ms. King is standing just next to me, watching me and Lisa. “Mark the brisé with your other leg, and don’t get frustrated, no one ever gets this exercise right. Christopher likes to set it in class every few weeks. It took me ages to get it right,” she smiles. I look up and notice that Christopher MacKenzie, the school’s director, is smiling as he watches us struggle with the exercise.

It’s amazing how different this class feels compared to last weekend. Jean-Paul gave us exercises that were purposefully designed to trip us up, just like this one. But while his exercises left me feeling ready to give up, this one is just making me more determined to get it right. I guess the difference is in the teacher. Even though this is an audition, it feels like this is a challenge to see who can rise to the occasion, not an impossible feat intended to weed out the weak.

“I know this is a horrible exercise,” Ms. King is saying. “It’s famous at CBS and in the company for being a real pain to figure out. We’ll try once again and see if anyone here can get it.” We all prepare, standing in perfectly crossed fifth positions, arms rounded and low, ready for the music. The music begins and we start jumping, our feet a flurry of right and left, left and right, right, right, left and left. “Better!” Ms King calls above the music, “Keep going, you’re almost to the end! Left, right, changément, changément.”

We finish up the audition with a waltzing grand allegro, leaping and soaring from one corner of the room to the other. After the quick and detailed footwork of the last exercise, I revel in the push of the floor against my legs and dancing in big, broad strokes. I’m exhausted, but love the feeling of this one last push to the finish line. After we finish, Mr. MacKenzie has us line up again in numerical order to curtsy and thank Ms. King and the pianist for the class. After a smattering of respectful applause for the teacher, Mr. MacKenzie raises his hands to ask for silence. We all stand, waiting expectantly.

“Thank you very much for coming today ladies, if you’re accepted to the program, or waitlisted, you should receive a letter from us in the next week or so. If you do not receive anything from us, then we thank you for your time and encourage you to audition again next year. Now, if you would please clear the room quickly, we have the men’s audition starting in just a few moments.”

Another strained week leaves me exhausted and looking forward to my first weekend in almost a month with no events and no drama. All I want is a quiet night in my bed, watching a movie and relaxing. There’s nothing I can do now except wait to hear from CBS, then I have to start making decisions about my future. I thought getting through the auditions was going to be the hardest part, but it turns out mentally weighing my options while obsessively watching Olivia and Tyler at school is worse.

Trading memes with Trevor on Instagram has become my escape from reality.

(hannahbananaballerina): marvelousStanLey sent you a post by @YIGP

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