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She laughed. “Sounds good. See you later.”
Katy and I pulled into the studio parking lot around 1:45, and my stomach was rumbling. I was supposed to be there at 1:30, but getting her stage-ready took longer than I expected. She hated wearing mascara and was a pain in the you-know-what when I tried to do her hair. Apparently it “wasn’t tight enough,” so I had to redo it three times. Between my job this morning and getting Katy ready, I hadn’t even had a chance to eat a snack.
The girls were all in studio B getting dressed for the performance. I surveyed the sea of glittering costumes, pleased with the overall look. On closer examination, some of the rhinestones were about to fall off, but there was no time to fix that now. I’d have to work on that after the performance.
Sigh.
Just another thing to add to my list.
I checked in with each of my teams, and, thankfully, no one was sick or missing. Then Katy came running up to me. “Ivy! Where’s Ms. Blake?”
For the love . . .“You haven’t seen her?”
She shook her head. “None of the girls on my team have seen her, either.”
I blew out a frustrated breath and stomped over to Katy’s team. “Have any of you seen Ms. Blake?”
Eight little heads shook back and forth.
“Lisa!” I yelled, running across the room. Her eyes widened as she saw my mad approach. “Where on earth is Blake?”
Her eyes darted around the room, noticing the scene forming around us. Vicki, the mom who was Blake’s biggest supporter, watched our interaction carefully. “She called in this morning. Said she had a last-minute conflict and wouldn’t be able to come.”
My blood pounded in my ears. Furious didn’t even come close to describing the wave of emotion running through my veins. I closed my eyes and counted to five.I will not explode in front of these children and their parents. I will not.
“Before you say anything,” Lisa said, “I’m going to help manage her teams. You don’t have to do everything yourself.”
I nodded. I couldn’t trust myself to say anything, so I turned around and walked back to my team.
“So, where is she?” Katy appeared at my side.
“She’s not coming.”
“At least you’re here,” she said.
Story of my life. At least I was here.
