introduction

This is the opening to my book. It does not yet have a title, nor does it have good chapter divisions, so I am dividing it up as best I can. I hope you enjoy it. 

I am a ballerina. I am a ballerina.

            I kept repeating this to myself, but it didn’t make any difference. I was still stuck at the only pizza place in my small town folding box after box and getting paid minimum wage to be a cashier. Unfortunately, since we were located in a small town we weren’t usually that busy, unless it was a Friday or Saturday night, and this was a Tuesday. I hadn’t even been working there for very long, but I’d already picked up on the pattern of business. I didn’t really like the job, but I’d been given the choice of quitting ballet or paying for it myself, so I chose to get a job. I already worked part time at my ballet studio in the summer teaching the Tiny Tots class, but it didn’t pay enough. The pizza place wasn’t all bad though, despite the boring part, folding boxes was somewhat therapeutic, it gave me time to think, since I wasn’t really paying much attention to what was going on around me anyway. Aside from a few loudly clanging pans and shouted profanities, not much was happening on a Tuesday.

            Today my mind wandered to how I had started this job to begin with. It had all started back when my dad had started dating her. Then, less than a year later they had gotten married and I went from being the only child to the second of six children, all five of hers boys. I was suddenly surrounded by testosterone and by much less money to go around than when it was just me and my dad. Dance lessons were expensive, so I was asked to get a job. It made sense, as her oldest son got a job to pay for college, but I still didn’t like it. I loved dance though, and I wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.

            His marriage also caused me to lose my bedroom, but that was more my choice. It was between my bedroom and my basement dance studio, which had been converted when I was eight. When he got married I just moved my bed and dresser and desk to one side of the studio and left the rest of it for my dancing. It was an unusual set up for a bedroom, but once again, I didn’t want to give up dancing. The set up also gave me a good excuse to stay in my room all the time and stay away from the rest of the new “family”. They weren’t exactly bad people, but I was used to quiet and they were certainly not quiet people. So I spent a lot of time dancing and studying and now I spent a lot of time at work.

            Unfortunately, just as I was contemplating why I didn’t want to ever venture upstairs anymore, someone rang the carryout bell and I was jerked out of my thoughts. After a small rush on pizzas I was back to box folding, all in all not a complicated task, although the perfectionist inside of me made me fold each box very carefully and align them in even stacks on the oven. I’d only been working there for a few months, but already I knew that I could fold at least 100 boxes on a busy night, 200 on a slow night, and 250 on a slow night when I was frustrated from dance. For some reason, frustration always made me fold the boxes a little faster.

            There was another cashier who worked on the nights that I was off, Rachel, but she rarely folded more than 50 boxes. I’d only met her a few times though, and from what I could tell she wasn’t exactly the smartest. We’d been trained together, but she took a lot longer to catch on to the cash register. I don’t claim to be brilliant, I’m an average student but I’m pretty mature for my age, and I also have common sense, something that Rachel evidently lacked.

            Finally, 103 boxes later, bringing my evening total up to 175, it was closing time. I shut off the register, gave the cash and receipts to my manager and grabbed my jacket to leave. It was April, but the air was still cool outside, and it was already dark.

            “Maddie!” someone called after me, just as I got out the door. “Hey! Maddie!”

            “What?” I said, turning around and expecting to see my manager there, asking me to do one last thing while he took a smoke break. Instead, it was Jackson, a friend of my stepbrother’s who had helped me get the job.

            “Hey…” he said, holding his hands up in mock surrender, “I was just wondering if you wanted to go out with us tonight. Its Friday! We’re heading to a party not too far away, I could bring you back to your car afterwards.”

            “I don’t think so,” I said.

            It was not the first time that I’d been invited out and I assumed it would not be the last. I just wasn’t really the partying type, and I had other ways to occupy my evenings, mainly dancing with an occasional side of running. I wasn’t anti-social, I was just focused, or at least that’s what I always told myself. I had a few friends, but that was about it, and they were mostly dance friends. I’d never even really been to a party, and I wasn’t about to start with the people from work.

            “You sure?” Jackson asked.

            “Positive,” I replied, ducking into my car and sliding the key into the ignition. Jackson was nice, but I barely knew him. He was two years older than me, friends with Bobby and went to the local university. Aside from that, he was an empty book, one that I didn’t care to fill. So instead, I drove home and danced until midnight.