Page 89 of Until We Come Home

“Yeah, I’m so lucky to have them and you,” she says. “But Jack and I are heading back up soon, hopefully to start house hunting around Seattle for real. Which got me thinking about you. Have you given any more thought to staying put?”

I laugh. “Mateo and I were talking about that the other day, though we’ve both been so slammed with work we haven’t mapped it out. I don’t know. Maybe. I was thinking about putting out feelers here at Meridian about a full-time faculty position. Jada’s convinced they want me.”

“Are you really going to take the leap?” she asks, sounding thrilled. “Mia, that would be amazing!”

“You do remember how much we saw each other when I was in LA, right?” I tease. Lark spends half her life in LA recording, and we still managed to see each other about four times a year.

“You were always gone!” she says, and I laugh, because it’s true.

“Fair,” I say.

“But you’re good up there?” she asks, gentler now. “You and Mateo?”

A smile spreads across my face so fast it almost hurts. “I’m so happy it’s a little embarrassing.”

“Eeek,” she squeals, loud enough that I have to pull the phone away from my ear. “We’re all so happy for you, really. Took you two long enough.”

I roll my eyes, still smiling. We stay on the phone a while longer, catching up about everything, the beach house her family rented, the kids here, how the shoot is going.

After we hang up, I sit there on the studio floor with the phone in my lap, the rain running down the huge windows and the city lights blurring behind it.

My agent has two tours on hold for me. Good ones, the kind I’d have said yes to in a heartbeat a year ago. That’s the life I know how to live. A bus, a new city every night, a bag that never fully unpacks.

Staying somewhere is the thing I’ve never done, and I have no idea if Meridian even has a full-time spot available, or if I’m building this whole decision around a job that doesn’t exist.

I can at least find that out. Jada’s been hinting for weeks that Claudia would keep me. I’ll ask her tomorrow to feel it out, quietly, before I let myself want it any more than I already do.

It’s barely a step. It still scares me more than any stage I’ve ever walked onto.

“Camille got Dewdrop,” Lena says, tossing me a clementine.

“Oh my gosh, I hadn’t heard that yet!” I catch it against my chest. “She’s going to be amazing in that. She’s perfect for it.”

“I know,” Theresa says, splitting her own clementine in half. “About time, too.”

A few of the principal dancers and I are sitting on the edge of the stage in Meridian’s theater, eating clementines while they fill me in on the winter show. They’re putting on a reimagined Nutcracker set in 1920s Seattle, flapper dresses and a jazz band for the party scene, and I’m practically bouncing in place.

“How’s the snow scene coming?” I ask.

“Brutal,” Lena says. “Claudia keeps adding counts. We ran it six times yesterday and she still wasn’t happy with the spacing.”

“Okay, I need to see it. I love the holidays, and I will sit in the back and not make a sound if you let me sneak into a dress rehearsal.”

“You’ll make a sound,” Theresa says.

“One sound. Maybe two.”

Claudia appears at the door before they can answer, tablet tucked under her arm.

“Hey, Mia,” she calls, waving me over. “I was looking for you. Got a minute to walk with me? I’m heading to the costume shop.”

“Absolutely,” I say, grabbing my tote off the floor. “I needed to stretch my legs anyway.”

“Wonderful, let’s go,” she says, turning to lead the way.

I toss a wave to the dancers over my shoulder and follow her out, falling into step beside her in the wide corridor.

“Sorry, give me just one second to finish this text,” she adds, her thumb flying across her phone screen as we walk. “It’s for the board meeting later. But I really do want to talk with you.”