Is this your daughter?! You didn’t tell us she was dancing with Gabriele Riccitelli!
Accompanying the message was a screenshot of a piece in theMetro, announcingSlow Burnand mentioning my nameas well as Gabriele’s. It wasn’t even a review – and stupidly I hadn’t even considered that my name might be mentioned in the papers before press night. And I knew there wasn’t much crossover with the commercial dance world or the New York ballet scene, so I’d assumedSlow Burnwouldn’t be on my sisters’ radars, either. This was my fault for not telling them sooner; I’d had plenty of opportunities. I supposed this was what you got for avoiding difficult conversations. Now I’d found myself in a situation that was going to be far more confrontational than it would have been if I’d been straight with them from the beginning.
‘Looks like you’ve been lying to us for months,’ said Sedi, sulkily.
‘Lying?’ I said, looking up in her direction. ‘What have I been lying about, exactly?’
‘About being in a show!’ hissed Mum. ‘What, did you audition for it? When did you get cast? A long time ago, I presume. Why didn’t you tell us?’
I could hardly get a word in edgeways with everyone screeching at me, could I?
‘We’re very disappointed in you,’ said Dad. ‘We trusted you to run this business to the best of your ability, but instead you have been going off and leaving it in the hands of – well,who, exactly? Whoever it was, they could have done anything. Taken anything. Now I’m going to have to go through the accounts to make sure there’s no money missing.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been a good idea to look at the booksanyway? Before you go away?’ I suggested, rather unwisely and a tad more snippily than I’d intended.
Dad gave me a look – I rarely talked back to him, but I was feeling cornered and maybe theydidneed to hear a few home truths about themselves, while we were at it. He was a self-proclaimed financial director, but he hadn’t even noticed that there were three extra staff members on the payroll this month.
‘Anyway, I did try to tell you all at lunch the other day, but as usual, none of you would listen,’ I said, feeling anger swirl in my stomach, a sensation I usually tried my best to avoid. ‘And not one of you followed up with me about it afterwards.’
Mum tutted. ‘You’ve ruined our cruise. How can we go now, with the mess you’ve left us in?’
I groaned out loud.
‘Mum, you’re totally overreacting.’
‘Do not tell me I am overreacting! This is the business your father and I have slogged our guts out over for years. And you come in and you… you…’
‘Runit for you?’ I said, knowing this would tip her over the edge, but not letting that stop me. If Mum thought she’d been heading up this business single-handedly, she was seriously deluded.
‘How dare you?!’ said Mum.
‘You’ve got some cheek,’ said Sedi.
Sedi. I’d have thought she’d have my back no matter what. So much for sisters sticking together.
‘How comeyou’reso wound up about all of this, anyway?’ I asked, turning on her, not getting it. She’d be off around the world soon anyway – why did she care what happened to the studio as long as she didn’t have to do anything with it?
‘No reason,’ she said, giving me a shady look.
‘I told Sedi that if you are incapable of running the studio, she will have to step in and do it for you,’ declared Mum.
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.
‘Mum, there’s no way Sedi is going to do that. Sure, it would be nice for her to help out more. But run it? Never. Anyway, teaching cover is all sorted.’
‘So you don’t think me capable?’ Sedi demanded to know.
‘You’re perfectly capable – it’s just that I know it’s the last thing you’d want. And I’ve never known you to doanythingyou don’t want to do.’
‘Well, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?’ she shouted.
‘Do not yell at me!’ I replied, even louder than she had.
This was all gettingwayout of hand. My emotions were suddenly veering dangerously out of control and, although I willed myself to stay strong, to stand my ground, my throat tightened as I felt the tug of tears. I absolutely did not want to cry in front of this lot, because then they’d know how much they were getting to me, and I had a sort of desperate need to maintain my reputation as the together, reliablemember of the family. The fixer; the good girl. Except that nothing about the way I’d handled this felt good.
I’d said things to Sedi that I’d only ever thought in my own head, and I wasn’t surprised she was angry, because I should have just asked her to help instead of accusing her of being selfish now, years down the line. It wasn’t hers or Nolo’s fault that they’d had it their own way all this time – it was our parents’ place to say no to them on occasion. And, I supposed, mine.
‘Let’s talk about this sensibly,’ said Dad with a huge sigh.
