Missing Paris

Audrey

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I love Paris. I don’t want to leave any time soon.” I paused, thinking back over my time there. “The Global Traveling Dance Academy of Performing Arts is so amazing, Annabelle. They’ve helped me so much with my dancing, and—what?”

Annabelle was cracking up, and I tried to think about what I’d said. “The Global Academy of Traveling Pants, or whatever it is,” she said, giggling. “Do they make you say that every time you talk about them?”

I bristled, unable to help it. “The Global Traveling Dance Academy of Performing Arts,” I corrected. She giggled some more. “It’s one of the most prestigious dance academies in the world.”

“Sure,” Annabelle said. “Well, we watched that DVD performance that you sent Mom. Hate to say it, but it all just looks like ballet to me. I mean, really good ballet. But just ballet.”

I shrugged, looking down at my hands. I didn’t know what to say to that. I knew that no one here in Aberdeen would ever understand anything about my life as a dancer. They would never understand just how much I had sacrificed or why I had made those sacrifices at all.

On the flip side, I was never going to be able to really understand someone like Annabelle. She might be my sister, and once I had thought that she and I were more like twins than anything else, despite the three-year age gap between us. But to stay here in North Carolina for her entire life, living in the same room that we grew up in? Nope, I was never going to understand that.

I wanted to see the world, but more than that, I wanted to move the world. You couldn’t do either of those things here in Aberdeen.

I was saved from having to think up a response by the front door banging open. “I’m home!” Mom called, and suddenly, it was like I was a teenager again. I shook my head. It was going to be weird being back here, weirder than I had ever thought it could be.

Annabelle jumped up, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out into the other room. “Look who’s here!” she announced when we were in the hall, and Mom quickly dropped her bags on the table by the door so that she could give me a big hug.

“You’re here!” she cried. “I mean, I hoped that you would be. We brought Chinese. I know that was always your favorite. Come on, let’s go into the kitchen. Oh, but before you do, this is Clayton. Clayton, this is my daughter, Audrey.”

She sounded so damned proud of me, even though I knew that she frequently wished that I had been a little less successful. That I, like Annabelle, had stayed right here at home with her. She had even gone so far as to once tell me that she regretted putting me into those dance lessons when I was a kid because it had taken me away from her. But then she’d followed that up with a laugh. She was happy to see how happy I was up on stage, she promised me. She just missed me.

Like Annabelle and everyone else in the town, she was yet another person who would never understand.

Anyway, right now, I was too busy sizing up the man holding out a hand to me to be thinking about that. He was tall and broad-shouldered. A former football player, probably. Hometown hero. The kind of guy who was still talking about his glory days at the local bar every weekend.

I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you,” I said, giving him a charming smile. Treat this like research, I reminded myself. That was what the director had told me to do.

The sooner I proved that I had learned something from this little break, the sooner I could go back to the academy. 

We went into the kitchen. I stared down at the plate that Mom served for me. On the one hand, I was touched that she remembered my love for Chinese food. My former love. The truth was, I hadn’t eaten Chinese food for years now. My diet as a professional dancer was very strict. I knew that my dietician would have a fit if I told her about this.

On the other hand, it smelled delicious, and Chinese food wasn’t a very frequent occurrence in the Buchanan household. Eating out cost way more than things like boring meatloaf leftovers, and Mom budgeted carefully.

So rather than make a big deal about it, I decided that I’d just eat a little bit. I’d make sure to mention my diet to Mom before the next meal and suggest that I be in charge of my own meals for the duration of my stay. Mom would understand that, I was sure.

I took a few bites, trying to diplomatically answer the questions that Mom and Clayton asked about my return. But after just a little while, I set my fork down. “May I be excused?” I asked, faking a yawn. “It was a long flight, and I’m pretty tired.”

Mom looked taken aback, but then, she smiled. “Of course!” she said. “I’m sure Annabelle already told you about the bed situation.”

“I’ll camp out on the floor, and she can take my bed for now,” Annabelle told Mom. “We already talked about it.”

I nodded, even though I still felt bad about taking my sister’s bed, but Mom nodded as well. “We’ll see you tomorrow morning when you’re feeling better,” she said.

“Sure,” I said, getting up and escaping to my childhood room. I shut the door carefully behind me, trying not to feel overwhelmed by it all. I laid down on the bed carefully, not sure that I’d be able to sleep but not knowing what else to do with myself.

For a long time, I stared up at the ceiling, listening to the three of them chattering away out in the kitchen. There was plenty of laughter, and I couldn’t help but feel the distance between me and my family, even more than I could when I was all the way in Paris.

I swallowed hard and wrapped my arms around one of Annabelle’s pillows for comfort, willing myself not to start crying. I couldn’t help thinking about Paris and how much more I wanted to be there. If only I hadn’t rolled my ankle. If only the director had cut me a little slack.

I didn’t want to be here, but I didn’t know what else to do.