The other dancers would have agents – they’d be doing this part for them, the logistics, the negotiation over pay. For now, I had no choice but to do it all myself, and it already felt difficult. How was I supposed to organize things so last minute?!
‘I will tell you everything on Wednesday. Come toPineapple at two o’clock like before and we will begin. The show opens in three weeks’ time.’
‘Three weeks?!’
‘I told you we were behind schedule. There will be a one-week run in London, followed by five weeks on tour. We will perform in Spain, Portugal and then Gabriele’s home country of Italy.’
‘But—’
‘It is okay, yes?’
This was Carlos Torres. This was a West End run and a European tour. I was the lead female. Of course it was going to have to be okay.
‘See you on Wednesday,’ I told him. ‘And thank you for giving me this opportunity, Carlos. You won’t regret it, I promise.’
‘I know I won’t,’ said Carlos, ending the call.
Forgetting I was standing in the street in broad daylight, I punched the air with delight. And then reality sunk in: now what?
On the way home, I’d run through everything in my mind and had come to absolutely no conclusion. What the hell was I going to do about the studio?! The business had started small, with just private lessons and a couple of kids classes on a Saturday. Now it had grown bigger and more profitable than we could ever have dreamed of, and I ran it all pretty much single-handedly. Both of my sisters were successful dancers and off doing their own thing – theyrarely, if ever, stepped foot inside James Jive, and when they did, it was like they couldn’t wait to leave again. And my parents only swept in on special nights, if we were doing a showcase for our members, perhaps, or if somebody important was hiring out the studio and they wanted to show their faces. Considering our family home was less than a ten-minute walk from the studio, it used to bother me that they didn’t come by more. But I’d got used it over the years and quite enjoyed having the freedom to do whatever I liked. Except that secretly I’d started wanting more from my life – and here it was being handed to me on a plate. The problem was, I hadn’t shared my dreams of getting back to dancing with anyone – I hadn’t even come to terms with it myself, to be honest. And if I just announced it now, they’d hit the roof, wouldn’t they? I had responsibilities – as the eldest daughter, I’d signed up for this, I could hardly leave them in the lurch now.
I put my key in the lock and let myself in. Mum was walking down the hallway holding a casserole dish of stew, heading from the kitchen to the dining room.
‘You’re late, Lerato,’ she said over her shoulder, calling me by my full name, a sure sign I was in trouble. ‘Your sister is here – I’m glad we can all have dinner together after all.’
‘Sedi’s here?’
‘She is. Now, come eat.’
I dumped my bag in the hall and walked through to the dining room. Our large-ish new-build house was decorated in a unique combination of Mum’s South African heritage,from the art on the walls to the colourful rugs dotted around the place, and Dad’s love of useless objects, stuff he’d picked up from his travels around the world. He’d been an entertainment director on a cruise ship for many years, it was how my parents had met, and apparently he’d bought something – be it a vase, a candle, or a random ornament – from every single port he’d ever docked at. Now every inch of shelf space in our home was filled with things that nobody knew what to do with, but that my dad liked to look at, perhaps reminding himself of the exciting life he once had.
Sedi jumped up the second I walked into the dining room, throwing herself at me and clutching me tightly to her. I laughed and hugged her back.
‘To what do we owe the pleasure? Not bored with Shoreditch already, are you?’ I asked, teasing her about choosing one of London’s trendiest – and most expensive – areas to live in.
‘Hardly!’ she said. ‘But can’t I come and visit my lovely parents and sister now and again?’
‘Of course you can,’ I said, taking a step back to admire her. ‘You look great, as always.’
At twenty-nine, Sedi was a super-successful commercial dancer and always looked like she’d come straight off the set of one of the big-budget music videos she regularly appeared in. She certainly wasn’t shy when it came to expressing herself through her clothes – today she was in trainers, designer tracksuit bottoms, a fluorescent yellow crop top and her trademark cap topped off with big goldhoops in her ears. Her hairstyles changed like the wind, but today she wore it in long braids hanging down her back. If I was theyingpart of the James family, Sedi – or Lesedi, as Mum would call her when she was annoyed withher– was theyang. When Sedi walked into a room, everybody noticed her. And if for some reason you didn’t see her immediately, you’d almost certainly hear her. Her voice wasloudand she had no qualms telling people exactly what she thought of them – or what she wanted them to do for her. I wished I had half of her confidence.
‘Have you lost weight?’ asked Sedi, peering at me.
I shook my head. ‘Not that I know of.’
‘That personal training is really paying off,’ said Sedi, giving me a long, slow whistle of appreciation.
Of course she had no idea what my personal training sessionsactuallyconsisted of, and I fully intended to keep it that way. My sisters were both lovely, but they could never keep anything to themselves, and this thing with Jack, whatever it was, didn’t feel like something I wanted to advertise to my entire family.
I walked around the table to give Dad a hug.
‘Good day?’ he asked.
‘It was, actually,’ I said, hoping he wouldn’t ask why I was in full dancewear.
I usually wore a variation of it to work at the studio, anyway, but there was no way I’d choose something this tight and revealing. I was painfully aware that I was going to have to come clean about where I’d been this afternoonat some point, but this wasn’t the right time to broach the subject. I still thought Carlos was going to realize he’d made a huge mistake in casting me, and if that happened, the less people who knew about it the better. I would be dancing at a whole other level, night after night, with one of the most famous Latin dancers in Italy. There was alotof scope for things to go wrong.
I took a seat at the table as Mum brought through an enormous bowl of rice to go with the stew, and Dad immediately began to help himself to a mound of it. I poured everyone a glass of water while Sedi told us about her latest adventures. She regularly travelled across the world working on concerts and shows – one week she’d be supporting a world-famous pop star at Madison Square Garden, and the next she’d be shooting a video for a new rap artist in Barbados. Her life was full of excitement and glamour, plus she got to do what she loved – dance! – almost every day. On which note, I desperately needed her to help me out the following afternoon.
