I dressed carefully, applying two heaping palmfuls of gel to flatten down my hair. I decided to wear pants: they couldn’t possibly go over as poorly as the dress had. The pants were somewhat baggy but plain and black, and I paired them with a big, pink cotton shirt patterned with large roses to match the flower in my hair. I wore my one pair of heels, relieved to find that the bare patches I’d colored in were mostly hidden by the pants.
Adrienne had asked me to come to the dance studio at one p.m., a half hour before it opened, to have the chance to get settled before everything began. I was hoping to have some quiet time. When I arrived, the reception area was dark and empty as I’d expected, but lights shone from the ballroom. I tentatively poked my head inside the double glass doors.
“Hello?” When no one answered, I pushed through to the next set of doors and peered into the main ballroom.
It was a blur of lights and people. A couple on the floor was dancing as Adrienne circled around them, analyzing and stopping them at different points. Two young women sat by the tables, watching.
I recognized the receptionist from last week, Nina, dancing with a broad Latin man. She wore a burgundy spaghetti-strap leotard with gray sweatpants rolled down to her hips, and high heels. Her shoulders and arms were tight with muscle, and as I watched, she did a series of high-speed turns around her partner. She stopped in between one heartbeat and the next. So, not a receptionist after all. She must have been a professional dancer filling in at the desk until they could hire someone.
Adrienne now stepped in to talk to them both. A beautiful loose, wide-sleeved shirt draped gracefully over her rounded middle. Then she caught sight of me through the doors and gestured for me to come in. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” she called.
“I’m early anyway,” I answered, entering the room.
“Hallelujah, you came!” Nina said, her hands clasped together in mock prayer. “Please don’t leave or they’ll make us take shifts playing receptionist again. We’re just running over because we’re struggling with the turns. I’m Nina and this is Mateo.”
Mateo, medium height with dark skin, was dressed in a black T-shirt and sweatpants. He extended his hand to me. When our palms touched, he looked down at them quickly as if he’d been startled, but said nothing, only gave me a quick smile. He turned to Nina and put his hand on his hip. “You’re off balance, sweetheart. Don’t blame me.”
Adrienne shook her head. “Not true.” She used her finger to draw a line from Mateo’s belly button up through his head. “Your arm that is leading her is off the alignment of her center. That’s why she’s having trouble. Do it again and I’ll show you how it should be done.”
I was relieved the center was important here too, something Godmother always told me in tai chi. It made me feel a bit more comfortable in this unfamiliar world. They repeated the move with Mateo doing the lady’s part, Adrienne teaching. Then Adrienne took Nina into dance position so that Adrienne was doing the man’s part. “Nina, you’re spotting straight during the triple but I think you should spot him instead. It’ll give this segment a more intimate look.”
Nina nodded and did the step with Adrienne. She spun and spun, then said, “What a difference!”
Finally Adrienne allowed Nina and Mateo to try the move again together. They executed it perfectly.
“It was my fault, my dear,” Mateo said to Nina. “Forgive me?” And he bent and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
I looked down. Some women were so lucky. I had never seen anything like this place. I felt a flash of sadness for Ma, who would have amazed them all, I thought, if she’d only had the opportunity.
Adrienne came over to me. “Charlie, I’m all yours now.”
We walked toward the two young women who were sitting at one of the tables set against the wall of the ballroom. I recognized the tall blonde from last week. Now that I was closer, I could tell that although she made a stunning impression from a distance, she seemed to be wearing heavy foundation. She sat straight, her collarbones protruding under her open black cocktail dress, and lean legs crossed.
Her companion was petite and dark, with short black hair. Unlike my hair now, her cut accentuated her large dark eyes and crimson lips, pulled in a half smirk. They both looked me up and down but didn’t say a word.
Adrienne said, “Charlie, this is Simone and Estella, two of our dancers. Charlie is our new receptionist.” Adrienne gazed at us, clearly expecting us to shake. Simone, the blonde, extended a languid hand to me and I took it.
I felt the softness of her palm, then she jerked it away. “Do you have a skin disease or something?”
“Simone!” Adrienne sounded furious.
Everyone stared at my right hand. It was red and callused, the skin broken and bleeding in a few places where the chapped skin had cracked. I was so used to everyone else at the restaurant having a body shaped by manual labor that it hadn’t occurred to me that my hands were unusual.
Adrienne put her hand on my shoulder and said, “That’s just a holdover from her last job. Come on, Charlie, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”
As I walked past the two women, I didn’t miss the way they stared. Adrienne hissed, “Put some cream or whatever on that and get your skin back to normal as soon as possible, do you hear me?”
I nodded.
“I’m going out on a limb by hiring you. You have to look presentable and those hands are ridiculous. If necessary, slap some makeup on them.”
“I’ll fix them,” I promised, mortified.
Adrienne took me to my desk and showed me the phone system. “We have an accountant who comes in every week to settle the accounts, and Dominic and I handle most of the administration and billing, so your job is really to welcome the students, handle all of the bookings for the dancers and group classes, and take telephone calls. We’re on social media and have our own website but we still hire an old-fashioned telephone call center off-site that does the recruiting for our introductory classes. It’s so competitive in New York that we find we need every extra bit of help we can get.”
Adrienne brought out the appointment book and the sheets I needed to make for each dancer with their schedules. “We want every student to feel welcome from the moment they hear your voice on the phone. It’s very important to us to have everything run smoothly, from the first contact throughout all of the bookings for the lessons.”
The telephone caught my eye. It had many buttons. Adrienne saw my trepidation and said, “There’s an instruction sheet on how the phone system works.”
I swore to myself I’d study it every chance I had.
Adrienne took me on a tour of the studio. Behind the receptionist’s waiting room was another office, which Adrienne explained was used by the accountant, Dominic or her. The black leather couches in the reception area were for students or dancers on their breaks. Then there was the main ballroom, with her small office nestled inside it, and positioned at the end of the main ballroom was another door. We stepped through it into a smaller ballroom, with its own sound system and mirrored walls.
“We can use this room for wedding couples and group classes, also when students are rehearsing special numbers that require specific music,” Adrienne explained.
“How much are the private lessons here?” I wondered if I’d ever be able to take a few myself.
“A hundred and twenty dollars,” Adrienne said.
“For a package?”
“No. Per lesson.”
I almost choked. What kind of world was this? Godmother’s paid tai chi classes cost that much for several months of training.
Adrienne gave me a small smile. “Our dancers are some of the best in the world. We train our professionals with internationally renowned dancers like Julian Edwards, who will be coming in later. He’s not a part of our staff. He travels all over the world, giving coaching sessions to top professional dancers. We’re lucky he visits us regularly.” She had reached a door inside the small ballroom and she opened it. “The teachers’ room.”