Page 29 of Until We Come Home

We hug for a long moment, and when he lets go he looks at me with that fond, familiar expression and presses a kiss to my lips, light and easy, a goodbye kiss. As I kiss him back, a sudden image of Mateo’s face flashes unbidden across my mind.

A small shiver goes down my back, though Derek doesn’t seem to spot it. He gives my hand a gentle squeeze, flashing one last warm look as he turns toward the threshold.

“Be sure to send photos of the lucky sweatshirt in its new Seattle home,” he says with a grin.

“Obviously,” I tell him, my voice coming out slightly breathless.

Then the door closes and his footsteps fade down the stairwell, and I stand there for a minute.

That was odd.

Which is absurd. It’s only because I’d just been discussing Mateo with Tasha earlier. Pushing the fleeting thought aside, I turn the playlist back up and return to packing my life into suitcases for the long season ahead.

Two days later I'm standing on the curb outside Meridian under a bright Pacific Northwest sky. The building looms over Capitol Hill, four stories of gray granite with tall arched windows and the company name carved right into the stone above the huge entrance door.

It’s easily one of the most iconic dance institutions on the West Coast, hosting exchange programs with major companies in New York and London, and kids audition from all over the country to get into the summer intensive. Their faculty is stacked with former principals and working choreographers, and the professional company sells out its season every year. It’s one of the true arts institutions in the city.

I take a long breath and let myself have the moment. I’ve passed through Seattle a few times over the years, but the timing never worked out for me to stop by. Packed schedule on my end, or a month-long renovation closure they had a couple summers back, or the two dancers I knew here being out of town. It just never lined up.

And now here I am, and I'm a little awestruck. Living out of a suitcase and chasing the next thing is what keeps my life interesting for me, but I'm a total sucker for old studios like this one. You can feel the decades in the floorboards, all the dancers who've sweated through the same hallways and leaned on the same barres, humming right up through the front steps.

"Mia!"

I turn to see Jada hurrying down the sidewalk toward me, dance bag bouncing on her hip. She throws her arms around me and pulls me into a tight hug, then steps back to look me over. Her black hair is pulled up into a slick bun, and she's in company sweats with the Meridian logo on the hip.

"I'm so glad you're here," I say, squeezing her arms. "I was just about to head in on my own, in case you were already inside."

"Without your personal tour guide?" She gives me a playful scoff. "Not a chance. Come on, let's go!"

Jada and I both grew up in California, crossing paths as teenagers while enduring classical ballet training under a few notoriously harsh instructors. Despite the cutthroat nature of the dance world, our bond stayed rock solid through every phase.

We go in through the huge double doors and into a lobby that stops me cold. Old wood paneling up the walls, ceilings two stories high with original plaster molding, and a wide staircase curving up to the second floor with a brass rail worn smooth by a century of hands.

There's a poster board by the front desk with the fall season on it, the company's new program in October, the holiday show in December, and a stack of flyers for the adult open classes, drop-in, all levels, every night of the week.

Jada guides me through the space, telling me some of the history along the way. The founder who bought the building in the fifties when it was a shuttered bank, the year they added the fourth-floor studios, the theater in the back where the company performs its season and where the school does its showcases. I soak it all in, trailing my fingers along the paneling and trying not to look like a tourist.

“And here,” she says, stopping at a door at the end of the second-floor hall and pushing it open with a little flourish. “This is where your class with the kids is going to be. Studio C. Best light in the building, in my opinion. They’ll be in here waiting for you at nine tomorrow, so get a good look now while it’s quiet.”

I step inside, and she follows me in and leans against the wall by the door while I look around.

The floor is old fir, wide planks, scuffed and sanded and refinished so many times it looks like it's been poured. The windows along the far wall are the arched ones I saw from the street, and the light coming through them lands on the floor in long gold bars.

There's a barre along one wall, a piano in the corner with a cardigan draped over the bench, and framed photographs running the length of the back wall, decades of dancers mid-air.

"It's perfect," I say. "I've taught master classes here and there, hotel ballrooms and rented studios, but never somewhere like this."

"It's a special place," she says.

I wander over to the photographs along the back wall and look them over, company dancers, kids from the youth groups, past performances Meridian has put on going back decades. Jada stays where she is, watching me with a smile.

Three mornings a week with the intensive kids from now until September, teaching contemporary dance and building the piece they’ll perform at the benefit. I’ve taught adults all over the place, but I’ve only had a handful of chances to work with kids, and I’ve loved every one of them.

I spent most of my childhood and teen years eating, sleeping, and breathing classical ballet, before pivoting to commercial work in my early twenties. The rigidity of ballet stopped working for me, and so did the near eating disorder it gave me, years of trying to fit a body standard that was never going to fit me.

Some instructors were wonderful, but I also had my share of old-school tyrants who took pleasure in breaking your spirit. And God knows ten hours a day in the studio and the kind of perfectionism it takes to make it in that world left some lasting damage on my body.

Switching to commercial work saved me. Whether backing up a major pop artist on tour or bringing something deeply expressive to life in a music video, I found my place in the industry, and I haven’t looked back since.